A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement The Hideous Mister Finias

The Hideous Mister Finias by Robert J. Schwalb is a role playing game supplement published by Schwalb Entertainment for use with Shadow of the Demon Lord. This is an adventure for Novice characters.

The supplement is available as a two-page PDF from DriveThruRPG for $0.69, as a print on demand card for $1.29 or as both PDF and card for $1.29. The PDF is the version reviewed, although it was purchased at a reduced price during a sale.

This is intended as a one-shot adventure and, bar a small Credits box, everything is content. The supplement is also laid out in a landscape format, not the more typical portrait.

The adventure can be set in any urban area with a sewer system. Eyeless corpses have been turning up and people are being terrorised by urchins. The characters will encounter such an attack and, after defeating the urchins – who are no longer simply children – they will discover they are working on behalf of Mister Finias, a harvester.

Mister Finias lairs in the sewers; these are not mapped. Instead, there is a d20 table of encounters to have in the sewers, and every time a new zone is entered, a roll is made to see if it’s the lair. This is the final encounter.

The Hideous Mister Finias in Review

The PDF lacks bookmarks and, with only two pages, does not need them at all. Navigation is fine. The text maintains a three-column landscape format and appeared to be free of errors. There are no illustrations but, for an adventure of this size, illustrations would have eaten into the content. Presentation is good.

This is intended to be a one-shot adventure, suitable for convention play or other situations when time is limited. To make it easier and quicker in such a case, the GM should probably create some pregenerated characters as well. No stats are given in the adventure, with monsters in bold coming from the Core Rulebook, which is all that is needed to play. The Hideous Mister Finias is a decent little adventure that could also be worked into a regular campaign and it can be found by clicking here.