The Devil’s Handmaiden is a role playing game supplement written and published by M.C. Planck. This is an adventure for 1st level characters and is set in the author’s World of Prime novels and is intended for use with Heroes of Prime but is also suitable for Dungeons & Dragons 3.5. 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 14-page PDF for free from DriveThruRPG. One page is the front cover, one the Open Game License, one the Contents and one an ad.
The Devil’s Handmaiden explains that this is a short adventure related to a devil cult. Devils make deals with mortals to gain access to the plane of Prime. A minor noble is leading such a cult with the aim of summoning a more powerful devil. There are details on the squad template, which groups five soldiers together, and some general rules related to this adventure, namely the addition of a DC (any), where any roll succeeds so that the story isn’t halted and enemy numbers being defined by the number of characters.
The adventure starts with the characters encountering a female beggar attempting to fight a raven. If they intervene, she explains that ravens killed her husband. If they don’t, she is killed by the raven and the characters have to prove that they are not responsible. The aim here is to get the characters to go and investigate the hamlet the woman came from one way or another. Once at the hamlet, the characters can find out what is happening and attempt to stop it.
The Devil’s Handmaiden in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and has enough different sections that these would have been useful. The Contents covers the major and minor sections and is also hyperlinked. Navigation could be better. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be free of errors. There are no illustrations. Presentation could be better.
The adventure is nominally set in the Kingdom of Edersarr, in Scorpus – The Stinging Sea, but there is very little connection to the setting. The initial encounter can easily be dropped into any decent sized urban area and the hamlet is tiny enough that dropping it into a map in the vicinity of the urban area is not hard.
This adventure could be dangerous for characters if they are not careful, especially as many of the enemy numbers are affected by how many characters there are, though there should be no truly dangerous individual enemies. Ensuring that characters go to the hamlet whatever they do does seem a little forced. Then there are the essentially meaningless checks, that succeed no matter what. These seem a little off. They could be changed, though. The Devil’s Handmaiden can be downloaded for free by clicking here.
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