Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Finally, a review!

Today, we are taking a look at Obscene Serpent Religion 2 By Jeff Rients for Lamentations of the Flame Princess.
I rate products in these categories:
Writing quality and content.
Usability at the table.
Interior art and layout.
Overall presentation.
This is one the GenCon exclusive modules printed for 2019. The convention exclusive booklets are quick supplements and scenarios meant to add to your game. This little book introduces a village hub for players to get attached to, then it rips that away by having a snake demon corrupt the town and ruin everything they love. The snake demon in question is a quasi-deity capable of rewriting character's genetic history and is a tough customer to deal with. 

The first half describes the village of Nonesbeck. It's a sleepy little Hamlet with the basic needs for entry level characters. The NPCs are all described well as are their connections to one another.
This section alone is quite indispensable. The referee can never have enough villages laid out, described, and fleshed out. There are some quest hooks for the PC's to discover and for the referee to prep. The art here is pleasant and does a good job setting up the pastoral village.
The second part describes how to pull off the con on the players, and how each NPC has been affected by the cult. It's actually kind of heart-rending. How players react to the corruption can set off a new campaign arc. Maybe the eradicate the cultists and chase them out? Or maybe the players choose to cut their losses and flee. This option only leads to more cultists, though! The art in this section perverts the art style of the first. There are more shadows and the tone is more bleak, more menacing.
The third section details the serpent demon and her powers. The art in this final section is what we have come to expect from the publisher. Detailed, well done, visceral and completely NSFW.
Everything is laid out very well and the referee is able to find whatever they require from the book with ease. It's very useful as a premade location, but not everyone's table will let the 2nd part fly. So a good half the book may go unused. The creature is neat and wholly unique, but again, she is a unique flavor that will probably only sit well at a few tables as she can literally unmake and ruin a character on a whim, no saves allowed. The serpent demon would however, make an excellent end of campaign fight.
Overall, I rate this product 4/5 stars. Product quality overall is high. The small A5 booklet fits neatly on a shelf and doesn't add much weight or space to your game bag.
The art is fitting and I like the dual atmosphere it creates.
The only issue really is that the entirety may not be up for everyone's table. 
I give it 4.25/5 stars, it's worth checking out! The PDF can be had at drive-thru rpg and physical copies are still available in the US lotfp store, Amazon, and the usual second hand market book stores for between 10-20 bucks.

Saturday, July 18, 2020

let's talk Lamentations of the Flame Princess

Lamentations of the Flame Princess, or LotFP for short was one of the early retro clones that broke away from being a straight B/X clone. 
It takes the Moldvay Basic/Expert rules and makes them accessable for a modern audience. It further sets itself apart from the pack by having it's default setting be Europe in the 17th century sprinkled in with weird horror ala Lovecraft, his circle and modern influences like Clive Barker.
It has a reputation as being the "fuck with your players game". Only some of the modules are like that. It helps if the referee is very upfront about the game and contents of the scenario being played. Because of this, I think of lotfp as being a horror system rather than fantasy.
A lot of the early modules like Death Frost Doom, Death Love Doom and Fuck For Satan are really like dungeon and sandbox crawls with a little (or large) morality test in there some where.
The published modules are excellent in printing quality. Sturdy hardcovers with ribbons and embellishments, bookmarks and top notch art that is not for the faint of heart. Each purchase also comes with a very well laid out pdf. Nobody in the business quite puts out product like this!
 I will be putting out some product reviews shortly and will make a spoiler free tldr as well as an in depth version.
I have ran: better than any man, Blood in the Chocolate, Lamentations of the Gingerbread Princess, and Fish Fuckers so far.
In 2018, accusers came out to testify about Zak Smith about cases of Abuse. You can Google that whole episode and make your own informed decision. I refuse to cover that can of worms here and will not respond to comments pertaining to it.
Because of that and a series of unfortunate circumstances the company is very deep underwater need your help!
You can read more about here: http://lotfp.blogspot.com/2020/07/new-releases-tomorrow-monday-july-13.html?m=1

In short, please pick up some stuff from either of the stores if you able to and want to see this company continue putting out excellent, unique material.
If you are short on change, you can pick up PDFs from drive-thru, but the profit margin isn't that high for the publisher.