Grimvember 2017 is here! It's hard to live in "A Dog Eat Dog World"

Grimvember is in full swing, as I review yet another, fantastic scenario - "A Dog Eat Dog World" by the talented Samuel Kisko.

I've originally ran this piece between the latter chapters of "The Thousand Thrones" campaign. My players were already pretty buffed up and so I thought that this scenario should not present too much of a problem for them. Oh how wrong I was...

That front cover kicks all sorts of ass!

This adventure, set just after the Storm of Chaos, starts somewhere on the road in Middenland, but in reality can be set anywhere within the Empire. The PC's encounter a jolly Halfling by the name of Don Don. He's having trouble with pulling his food cart and, of course, asks our heroes for help, offering them free meals in return. Soon the poor shorty gets kidnapped by a huge dog and nearly killed by it. The adventurers (hopefully) save him just in time and notice that the felled beast is in fact a Middenland Wolfhound, a famous breed of attack/hunting dogs. Soon they arrive at an eerie village of Dunkelbild, whose occupants have a serious problems with a rather large dogs...

That's the general gist of "A Dog Eat Dog World" but, of course, there is much, much more. Without too much spoilers, it's a typical "lift the ancient curse" type of adventure. Said curse is connected with the ever illusive Strigany folk, callous nobility and, of course, lycanthropy, which plays a huge part in this scenario.

The plethora of supporting characters is one of "A Dog Eats Dog World's" strongest points. From the jovial Don Don to the Dunkelbild's Reeve, one Stephen Shaw, and finally Klid D'Mur, a albino Witch Hunter with an elven name - Samuel Kisko truly made a fantastic job with his ensemble cast of characters. Just like with the case of "The Lord of Lost Heart", the NPC's are not only interestingly written and developed, but they also feel alive and important. Something like that is often too rare, when it comes to role-playing games.

The conspiracy behind the curse, as well as Stephen's quest for the PC's, are also the highlights of this scenario. You can almost feel the tension, building in Dunkebild. The dogs hold sway here and people, more often than not, prefer to stay indoors, for the village belongs to the beasts. The old Baron Vornamen Otterbaugh, who was one of the Hound Masters to Karl Franz himself, gave his beloved pooches special rights and privileges. In fact the Wolfhounds became more important than the people of Dunkelbild and that made them feral and unruly. Fortunately the Baron was summoned to Middenheim, to fight at the side of his Emperor and left the village in the care of Stephen Shaw, who decided that enough is enough. The dogs need to be put in check and who better to this, than a bunch of expendable and disposable fellows, known commonly in the Old World as "Adventurers"?

Awww, they're so adorable... and deadly

"A Dog Eat Dog World" makes huge use of 2nd edition WFRP's investigation mechanics, but there is also a lot of combat. Mind you, fellow gamemasters who are reading this, that the combat encounters in this scenario, can be really tricky and incredibly hard for the players. Samuel Kisko suggests that the party should be comprised of second-career PC's, but during our run, the party of four, tough-as-nails characters, was getting regularly mauled by the pooches. I honestly feel that the difficulty level should be tweaked by each GM, as to avoid a Total Party Kill kind of situation. Unless your players like that sort of thing, in which case go for it. The author himself seemed to understand the difficulty of this module and he even states himself, that the difficulty spike should always be adjusted to the PC's power and experience levels.

I thoroughly recommend "A Dog Eat Dog World". It's a fun little scenario, perfect as a break between the chapters of a larger campaign. It deals with the dangers of lycanthropy, which is always an interesting thing in my book and presents some really interesting characters, as well as plot hooks, to the players. Samuel Kisko did an outstanding job with this adventure and it would be a crying shame to not check it out.

You can get if from my WFRP Fan Material collection, which you can find here, or just send me an email. I'll be more than glad to supply you with that little gem of an adventure.

Until next time, when there'll be more Grimvember goodness. Stay tuned.

Xathrodox86