Carrion Crows – Campaign for Zweihander RPG by Tristan Jusola-Sanders is a role playing game supplement published by Grim & Perilous Studios and Tomb of Nyarlathotep Games through the Grim & Perilous Library Community Content Programme for use with Zweihänder.
The supplement is available from DriveThruRPG as a 21-page PDF for $0.99. One page is the front cover and one the Credits.
The Introduction explains that an ancient horror, the Contagion, has returned. The empire of Albion is protected by the Holy Empire Knights, armed with the best that can be found. The characters are not these knights; they are Carrion Crows who pick through the dead. A sidebar explains that fluff, plot and narrative is provided in-character; crunch, meta and mechanical information through sidebars or neutrally.
Campaign Seed: Shadows Over Albion is said in-character material, laid out in the manner of campaign seeds as described in the Zweihänder rulebook, with The Enemy Within, internal troubles within Albion, The Enemy Without, other nations, and The Enemy Beyond, the Contagion.
Adventure Ideas has three different adventure seeds.
Nests of Ill Repute: Carrion Crow Factions has five different organisations of Carrion Crows. Each has some in-character narration then mechanical details on it.
Contamination is the risk from exposure to a living or dead Contagion entity. There is a table for the risk factor and results in taints of Chaos.
Themes in Carrion Crows: World’s Grimmest, World’s Greatest explains the inspiration behind the setting, and what happens in a high fantasy setting for those who are not powerful characters. That an epic-level adventuring party may be a blessing to Londinium but a curse for a small hamlet, and the characters in the setting fill the gap.
Magic: The High Cost of High Fantasy has magic items for Zweihänder, below the artefacts and relics from the core rulebook. There’s an optional rule for pain for using the items, and each is laid out in a similar manner to spells. There is also a bit on using utility magic, given the widespread knowledge of magic in Albion.
Carrion Crows – Campaign for Zweihander RPG in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks, or a table of contents, and it is long enough with enough different sections that such would have been useful. Navigation is poor. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be almost free of error. There are a number of black and white illustrations; most are stock but one full page illustration is said to be a preliminary sketch for a Carrion Crow. Presentation is decent.
It should be noted that this is not an adventure; it is a campaign seed. Campaign seeds in Zweihänder are essentially brief campaign settings, although this one is substantially larger than those in the Core Rulebook. GMs will need to develop the campaign seed further; the adventure seeds provided are a starting point and there is a reasonable amount of information on the setting. The addition of magic items is interesting. The campaign seed is also extremely cheap, given the amount of content. Using Carrion Crows will take effort on the GM’s part; it isn’t a simple adventure presented for use. Carrion Crows – Campaign for Zweihander RPG is a nice, cheap supplement that demonstrates how Zweihänder campaigns can work and it can be found by clicking here.
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