The Menace of the Serpent God by Jason Vey is a role playing game supplement published for use with Amazing Adventures. Amazing Adventures is a pulp system based on Castles & Crusades Siege Engine and, as such, is covered by the Open Game License with some parts considered to be Open Game Content as a result.
The supplement is available as a 21-page PDF for free from DriveThruRPG. Two pages are the front and rear covers, one page the front matter and one the Open Game License.
The Introduction explains that this is an Open and Play adventure for Amazing Adventures designed for 5-6 characters of 6th level. Open and Play means that the module contains everything needed to play it; the core rulebook isn’t needed. There are explanations as to what a role playing game is and an overview of the rules used in this, which are a streamlined set of the main rules.
The Adventure Background explains that it’s 1939 and the characters are members of the Brotherhood of William St. John. They are up against Doctor Serpent who is attempting to raise Yig – this adventure has a pulp Lovecraftian feel to it – and is mostly set in New Orleans.
The adventure itself is in four acts. The characters head to New Orleans and meet a contact, discover more about Doctor Serpent, come into conflict with his minions and finally have to stop a sacrifice to raise Yig.
Finally, there are six pre-generated characters to use.
The Menace of the Serpent God in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks, which would have been useful, and there is no table of contents. Navigation is poor. The text maintains a two-column format and the main error seen was in the module’s name; though it’s referred to as The Menace of the Serpent God throughout, the cover lacks the word “The” from the title. There are a number of black and white illustrations, which may be custom. Navigation is decent.
This is a very pulp adventure as might be expected from the setting period. If pulp doesn’t appeal, this adventure will not. In the Introduction, it warns about forcing players along a pre-destined path, or railroading them. It’s rather a shame that the adventure doesn’t obey its own warning. This is especially true in Act Three, as the characters are going to have a car crash. No matter what, their car is going to crash, and they will not be able to stop it. Even if they appear to be successful, something will happen to make them crash. This is pretty much a definition of a railroaded encounter. Now, this is an adventure intended for newbies, rather than experienced players, but it doesn’t help to start off on the wrong path. It is useful having an adventure that contains everything needed to play as an introduction – essentially, a form of quickstart – but this could have been a better one. The Menace of the Serpent God can be downloaded for free by clicking here.
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