A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement The Face of Evil

The Face of Evil 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 20 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 sectors beyond the Sonora sector – the adventure is set in the Frontiers of Space – are being explored, especially by mining companies. The characters are hired to conduct a mining survey in a neighbouring sector.

Patron covers the employer.

Complications are things that aren’t known or which can go wrong.

Mineral Surveys gives some brief details on these.

Five Mineral Survey Results has the results for five planets in the target system.

Visits to the Planets explains some may need visiting.

The Five Planets explains some have alien signatures.

Alien Markers covers the alien markers used to claim a planet.

The Chuzah briefly covers the aliens leaving the markers.

A Chance Encounter has a 2d6 table of random encounters on the planets.

Wreckage covers wreckage that can be found.

Hostile Reactions explains how the Chuzah will react to strangers.

The Chuzah Ship has its stats.

The final five pages of content have maps of the worlds.

The Face of Evil in Review

The PDF lacks bookmarks and is long enough with enough different sections that these would have been useful. Navigation is okay. The text maintains a single column format and some minor errors were noticed. Bar the maps and covers, there are no illustrations. Presentation is okay.

The adventure doesn’t have any specific victory conditions; basically, the minimum the characters need to do is explore the system and do the mineral surveys. Anything beyond getting the required data is up to them. This may result in them getting into conflict with the aliens if they hang around. The Face of Evil can be found by clicking here.