Reckoning by Joseph Mohr is a role playing game supplement published by Old School Role Playing for use with Cepheus Engine. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result.
The supplement is available as a 31 page Pay What You Want PDF from DriveThruRPG. Two pages are the front and rear covers, three the front matter and three the Open Game License.
The opening paragraphs explain that the characters are approached by a noble from a planet in the Sonora sector; though not stated, the adventure is set in the Frontiers of Space. The noble’s daughter was kidnapped by pirates, part of an organisation of different pirates currently working together. The baron wants his daughter back alive and punitive action taken against the pirates.
Patron gives details on the baron.
Complications are problems that can arise. One of the notable ones is that the punitive action the baron wants taking uses dirty bombs, something that is more than a little frowned on. Not only could the characters end up killing a lot of non-pirates, including other captives, if it’s found out what they did, they will not be popular.
Munitions Supplied by the Patron gives details on the weapons.
Random Encounters in Space While Approaching the Planet has a 2d6 table for determining ship encounters.
Random Encounters in the Town is a 2d6 table for people to meet.
Random Encounters in the Bay is a 2d6 table of boats to encounter.
Random Encounters on the Island Where Sasha is Located is a 2d6 table of people to encounter.
The Pirate Ships has details on the pirate ships and any issues with them.
Other Ships that Might be in the Landing Area has details on other, non-pirate, vessels to encounter.
Pirate Ships on Patrol has details on the patrolling craft.
Key to Murphy’s Refuge details the pirate town.
Pirate Roster has pirate stats.
Other Residents of Murphy’s Cove are other people to encounter.
Off World Visitors has stats for more people.
Collecting Bounties is how to go about getting rewards for killing any pirates.
Sasha details the person who needs rescuing.
Incendiaries and Dirty Bombs essentially explain that these will kill everyone.
Pirate Reactions are what the pirates do when they realise they are under attack.
Mission Completion Objectives are what’s needed to succeed.
The final page of content has a map of the pirate town.
Reckoning in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and is long enough with enough different sections that these would have been useful. Navigation is poor. The text maintains a single column format and some minor errors were noticed. Bar the map and covers, there are no illustrations. Presentation is adequate.
To complete this mission in the safest way for the characters is to blow up most of the town and avoid confrontation. And that way has the biggest potential problems in the future, if it’s discovered that the characters were indiscriminately killing people, pirates or not, with dirty bombs and incendiaries. The characters will need to decide what to do, and the GM will need to decide if the patron will be satisfied with anything other than total annihilation of the pirate town. As is common in these supplements, some of the NPCs are covered in too much detail, with individual stat blocks where one would have sufficed to broadly cover a range of people. Reckoning is a potentially deadly adventure with potentially bad fallout and can be found by clicking here.
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