The Haunted Mansion of Baron Astrophel by Jospeh Mohr is a role playing game supplement published by Old School Role Playing for use with OSRIC. 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 49 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.
Background explains that a group of adventurers, who are neither friends nor even acquainted, meet on the doorstep of a mansion that was once owned by Baron Astrophel, and no-one even knows if he’s still alive.
Dungeon Master Notes explains that this adventure has five very different pre-generated characters with ties to the baron but none to each other. Players should read their descriptions and backstories before starting and this adventure is intended to be a Halloween one-shot. The characters provided are so different some of the normal rules don’t apply to them.
The Mansion of Baron Astrophel starts with the stats and details of the other NPCs apart from the baron in the mansion. It then details the mansion itself, which has two floors, an attic and a dungeon, filled with a variety of tricks, traps and puzzles. If the characters don’t immediately start rampaging through the mansion, they will meet the baron at dinner.
New Magical Items has some new items.
The five pre-generated characters are described, with their details, stats, possessions and weaknesses. Each also has the same note to the player, advising them not to reveal their true nature to others who cannot necessarily be trusted.
The final four pages of content have maps to the manor.
The Haunted Mansion of Baron Astrophel in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and is long enough with enough different sections that these would have been useful. Navigation could be better. The text maintains a two-column format and some minor errors were noticed. There are a variety of colour and black and white illustrations. Presentation is okay.
This is, as stated, designed to be run as a one-shot, and with the pre-generated characters, so it isn’t aimed at any specific levels. It should, with some work, be possible to work out what level characters it would work for, probably with some changes too; as-is, it cannot be fitted into a campaign thanks to the necessity of using the pre-gens, which does limit the adventure in some ways. The various puzzles aren’t needed to complete the adventure, only to get extra items, which only have a use if they are used in the adventure, thanks to it not fitting into a normal campaign. The Haunted Mansion of Baron Astrophel can be found by clicking here.
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