Beneath the Comet by Ben Ball is a role playing game supplement published by North Wind Adventures for use with Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result. This is an adventure for 4-6 characters of 6th-9th level.
The supplement is available as a 48-page PDF from DriveThruRPG for $10 but was purchased at a reduced price as part of a special bundle. Two pages are the front and rear covers, two pages are the front matter, half a page is the Table of Contents and half a page is the Open Game License.
Part I: The Adventure Begins starts with the Introduction. The Comet has blazed for weeks above the Hyperborean sky and the characters have come to the village of Bogrest following a magical treasure map. It explains where this village is, if using the Hyperborea setting.
Information for the Referee explains the abbreviations for monsters and NPCs.
A Legend of Hyperborea explains how an ancient king made a bargain with Xathoqqua for powers and a long life, in exchange for promoting the worship of Xathoqqua, but the king decided to try and wriggle out of the bargain, which would eventually claim his soul. He retreated to his hold with servants and his thirteenth wife. Over the years, they all died and the king became a lich. Following this are details on the Comet and the magical treasure map the characters have found, which initially appears blank. There are notes on using it in a campaign.
The Rivals are another adventuring party who are also following a map. There is an extensive list and the Referee is advised to choose a number equal to the number of characters and their henchmen.
The Village of Bogrest has a map of the village, a brief overview of it, details on getting provisions and a d10 table of rumours. There are also several tables for randomly creating villagers.
Part II: The Lonely Heath is essentially a hex crawl. There are two d10 tables of random encounters, one of which is standard, the other being Comet-specific. The Comet encounters are often unique encounters. There are also five encounters with fixed locations, four of them covered in this section, the fifth in the next.
Part III: The Mound of Silver Flame is the major encounter of the adventure. This is where the lich king makes his home in a small underground complex.
Epilogue: The Comet Passes wraps things up, with different endings depending on whether or not the characters were victorious in defeating the king.
The Appendix has a single new monster.
Finally, there is a full-page handout, the players’ map, and maps of the hex crawl, the king’s complex and the other mapped encounter.
Beneath the Comet in Review
The PDF is bookmarked, with major sections and tables linked. The Table of Contents is to a similar level of depth. Navigation is okay. The text maintains a two-column black and white format and appeared to be mostly free of error. There are a variety of black and white illustrations, up to full page in size, all of which may be custom. Presentation is very good.
This adventure is like several different adventures in some ways, and the Author’s Note does state that different sections were designed to seem like the works of different authors; Poe, Lovecraft, Howard and Smith. As it is, this is a decent little adventure, but it could also be expanded a bit; the hex map is rather spartan-looking. It’s an OSR adventure as well, and therefore quite lethal in places; there are a number of save or die rolls in places, if players are not cautious enough. The Epilogue does assume that the characters emerge, victorious or not; it is entirely possible they may not emerge at all.
It’s stated in the Introduction that the adventure could be used with other traditional fantasy games, and indeed that looks to be the case. There are a few places where different terminology is used, but they look to be easy enough to adapt. It’s more suited to certain types of campaign than others. Beneath the Comet is a decent little adventure and it can be found by clicking here.
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