Scarborough Shire
Author: Nick Roman
System: AD&D
Party Size: ?
Level Range: 5-7
Green hills roll to the horizon; nature’s bounty springs forth from the soft, black earth; stamping music and the scent of hearty food fill the air. In the very center of bucolic halfling country, Scarborough Shire springs up along a little-traveled hill-country road, with hospitality aplenty for travelers.
The "shire" in this case is more of a single halfling settlement at an intersection of several roads leading to exotic locales. The party arrives here en route to one of these obviously important destinations, and the little-folk who live here are warm and welcoming. That's to be expected from halflings, whose love of good food and drink is enough to entice any weary traveler. This game is often about subverting expectations, though, so the players would be wise to keep their guard up.
Turns out, the halflings who live here are more of the evil, backhanded sort, who have made a living as cutthroat thieves and assassins (!). I'll get to that last bit a little later. The family running the place are the eponymous Scarborough clan: Their elderly patron, "Pappy;" his pampered daughter, Philippia; his adopted son, Gulliver; the wizened fighter, Bertold (relation to Pappy unknown; brother, maybe son? The text doesn't say); and Rozin, the Fredo-like halfling assassin (!) who hides down in the latrine waiting for that perfect kill (squeamish DMs be warned). Rozin's familial position in the clan is also not revealed.
These halflings are all part of an infamous band of vicious criminals called the Black Horse Squad. It's unclear exactly how many other halflings live in the settlement, or how involved they are in the family biz, but the party may encounter numerous children, a dozen or so "regular" halflings, and a dozen generic halfling thugs down in the dungeon (so maybe 30-50 adults plus ? kids).
Numerous other NPCs populate this hamlet, including the innkeeper, Tilly Herman, a human thief hiding out from a failed job; Barlon the bouncer, a dwarf veteran struggling with old war wounds; The Red Wolves, a band of adventurers who search the area for wanted hobgoblin raiders; Ignacio the merchant, who is making a pest of himself; Mrocz, the hobgoblin boss and his raiders who occupy the tunnels below the settlement as a safehouse, with Pappy's blessing; and Wishtwister, the gnome illusionist, though one of an impossibly 8th level (there are other such conflicts with race, class, and level throughout this writeup, which I'll discuss further below). Some of these NPCs know what's going on here (and in a few cases, participate), while others do not.
Unbeknownst to anyone (I think), Pappy has trafficked with a devilish spirit trapped in an Iron Flask, exchanging bits of his soul for prolonged life. Finally at death's door, Pappy has opened the flask in an attempt to control the devil, but has become possessed by it instead.
We're provided several hooks for the party to become involved. One hook deals with Pappy's imminent demise and the question of inheritance. Another involves a decent reward for capturing or killing the hobgoblin war-band. A third provides the party with an ancient treasure map, with Scarborough Shire marking the spot. Presumably, the party can also simply arrive and discover the situation through some sort of NPC interaction or other inciting incident.
Then we get a handful of random encounters for whenever the party goes outdoors. Most are with a member of the Scarborough family who are trying to learn more about the party (which makes sense), a group of halfling urchins that shadow the party (but do nothing else), the bartender contemplating her situation over a bowl of pipeweed (?), or the dwarf bouncer practicing his fighting moves (?). The encounters are situational and semi-staged "scenes," but don't really advance any sort of motivation for the party to get involved with the scenario or explore the area further.
The key starts with the outdoor areas: The Tall Hall, a three-story inn owned by the Scarboroughs but run by Tilly Herman. The inn's outhouse with a secret entrance into the gangs' underground headquarters. The barley fields outside town where the bones of nosy visitors lie half-buried in the soil. A standing stone that marks an old rutted cart track through an overgrown briar thicket (camouflaged barriers hide another entrance into the gangs' lair, watched by hobgoblin sentries). And a small mound (~30 x 50') improbably riddled with eight "warren-like mazes of halfling living quarters." The hill is occupied by the regular halflings, who fool outsiders with a facsimile of halfling domesticity and keep a "fake" (lightly-guarded) treasure hoard to distract thieves looking for an easy mark. These warrens are not mapped.
The chambers and caves below the Tall Hall house the gang's main members and serve as the hobgoblin's hideout. The main storehouse is a long chamber where an unspecified "group of halflings" sort through piles of various purloined trade goods. The hobgoblin warlord, Mrocz, and his band of 15 hobgob raiders and 7 ogres hunker down in a nearby 40' diameter cave and hide from the authorities. Mrocz is armed with a +2 Mace of Crushing (whatever that is; it does "1d12 + 5 + crushing blow" damage, so make of that what you will). There's a connection to the "Underdark" region mapped in D3 Vault of the Drow. A harmless detail, I suppose, but it has no bearing on the adventure whatsoever.
Another attached storeroom has a second batch of stolen trade goods guarded by a dozen halfling "thugs." From there, a rope bridge enters a mirror maze where, for some reason, a gnome illusionist has set up shop. He dwells at the maze's center, but no details of his motivations, objectives, or living circumstances are provided. He just hangs out in this trapped maze for some reason, waiting for an intruder to come along so he can mess with them. He has a couple of decent, low-level magic items and a Wand of Ilusion (with no specified number of charges).
The Scarborough family dwells down here in un-halfling-like, rough-hewn caves where some more treasure can be found. The gang members carry some decent magic items, including a flame-tongue broadsword which probably looks comical in the hands of a little person. Pappy Scarborough sits in his bone-chillingly cold chamber along with the now-open Iron Flask. He has been possessed by an unspecified devil (can they do that?) and he now has devil-like abilities in a decrepit halfling form.
The text doesn't say what he does in response to the party's entry or indicates what happens next, nor does the author provide any sort of order-of-battle for Pappy-devil or any of the other Scarborough halflings, so... Roll initiative, I guess.
The End.
Treasure is found mostly in trade goods or small hoards. The NPCs do not carry any sort of loot (even though one group of hobgobs may be "gambling gems" but no value is given). Total gpv comes to around 60,000, but again, much of it comes from piles of stolen trade goods that will need to be transported out. If you're using the hobgoblin reward hook, there's another 7,000 gp or so to be earned from that.
Magic items are fairly meh for a group of 5th to 7th level PCs, though a few standout items include the wand and flaming sword, along with an Alchemy Jug and the Iron Flask.
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1) THEME
(How strong/consistent is the adventure's premise, flavor, and setting?)
The premise of the adventure is straightforward: A band of evil halflings has set up a base of operations and now hides some local renegades from the Law. Any thematic elements here surround the bucolic lives of typical halflings, and some of that is played up in the text, but you could replace the halflings with any other race and the text would not change substantially (that's not good). The scale of the site is also a little screwy (I have piles of compost in my yard bigger than the halflings' hill).
The NPCs are flavorful and each has some little details that are nicely written. It's not a bad location for what it's trying to do, and the subversion of expectations is always welcome, but how the party goes from accepting the adventure hook to suspecting the halflings of something nefarious is left to random chance for the most part.
Throughout the adventure, there are little clues that this site may have once had some sort of human religious significance (mysterious carvings, defaced statues and friezes of angelic beings, a statue of a man holding a water jug, etc.) I love little mystery elements like that, but these details never pay off in any way so they're pointless and waste the PCs' session time trying to draw connections to the adventure from the clues.
SCORE (THEME) = 2 / 5
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2) MAP AND ART
(How complex/useful is the map and/or art? How easy is it to grok the layout?)
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The hand-drawn map is either a cellphone image or a bad scan because the grid has gone wonky. It takes a moment to get one's bearings as the exterior locations are at the bottom, while the interior maps are above it. There are also two map scales at work here, though the map indicates which to use.
Some of the textual details are unclear from the map (e.g., the west end of one storeroom is actually a ledge overlooking a lower chamber, but it's hard to sort out. A tunnel also appears to pass underneath this storeroom, but maybe not).
It is, otherwise, a serviceable map.
SCORE (MAP/ART) = 3 / 5
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3) CLARITY
(How easy is the writeup to read/parse quickly? How well does the information flow?)
The text is in two-column format, aligned to the left. The margins and gutter are wide, and line spacing between sections is ample. There is a strange habit throughout the manuscript of bolding certain "important" words and then not mentioning them again in the follow-up text. The addition of some line spacing within each section to separate paragraphs and bullets would improve it. Despite the need for some extra formatting, the manuscript is easy to read and scan quickly.
The interactions and relationships of the various Scarborough halflings is a little ambiguous, with details revealed in separate areas. A quick, who's-who overview of this information at the beginning would clear up the ambiguities. Information flow is handled pretty well, though.
SCORE (CLARITY) = 4 / 5
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4) INTERACTIVITY/INNOVATION
(How well does the adventure use the rules to create interesting play?)
Probably the adventure's biggest flaw is in failing to stick to AD&D rules regarding race, class, and level limits. This one takes huge liberties with what halflings are allowed to be and how high they may advance. Two are active assassins (and Pappy was said to be a third), which halflings can't be at all. One is a fighter/thief, but she is a 7th-level fighter, one higher than the level cap. Gnomes can be illusionists but are limited to 7th level max, and this one is 8th.
The hobgoblin raiders are also wildly off-brand. An average hobgob is 1+1 HD. These are all 3+3 HD (!) and their leader is 6 HD (greater than a standard hobgob chief which are 4-5 HD). Standard ogres are 4+1 HD, but these are 5+5. Oof!
Other than a few secret doors, there's not a lot of dungeoneering tasks to perform or things to fiddle with. The mirror maze is the most dungeon-like element, but it's more of an intended kill-box than it is a puzzle the players are meant to figure out and overcome.
SCORE (INTERACTIVITY) = 1 / 5
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5) MODULARITY
(How easy would it be to drop/integrate the adventure into an existing campaign?)
This would be pretty easy to drop into any civilized area where halflings are common. It could even be expanded into an interesting stop along a frequently traveled road where the party could regularly interact with these criminals while being unaware of their true nature.
Whether your campaign will support some of the race/class/level issues is another story. The references to an unidentified human religion may also clash with your campaign setting, though I think that material (superfluous as it is) could be easily modified to fit (or done away with altogether).
SCORE (MODULARITY) = 3 / 5
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6) USABILITY
(How much work will the referee have to do to run this adventure at the table tonight?)
You'll have to nudge the party in the right direction to get them to suspect that something about the halflings is amiss, but once that veil is lifted, the adventure should run fairly smoothly. The hobgoblin fight may be tough due to the higher HD numbers, but most of this dungeon should be a cakewalk using the recommended party strength.
For some reason, the various goods are valued using cp, sp, or ep standards. (e.g., "6,000 ep in coffee, pepper, and ivory"), so you'll have to do the conversion work. It's not hard to determine the numbers pretty quickly, but why the author chose to do this is puzzling to say the least. Why not just convert them to gp values? The enemies are all statted out which is good, including their XP values (which is great).
Fixing the rules incongruities will not be difficult or dramatically alter the premise, though you'll probably want to dial down the party levels a skooch.
SCORE (USABILITY) = 3 / 5
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7) OVERALL THOUGHTS
This site is going for an interesting scenario in which players will be put off-guard by the halfling antagonists. I love that. The execution of that idea in this writeup is a bit rocky, however—and that's even overlooking the glaring contradictions with the rules.
Halflings as rapacious thieves was well-covered in the old Finieous Fingers comic strip in Dragon Magazine, and it was the first thing I though of when I read the synopsis. This adventure could use some of that comic's creative energy to tap into the halflings' superiority in the thief class and make this a real challenge for PCs once they figure out what the little-folk are up to.
An underground warren full of halfling thieves should be nothing to trifle with, even without the super-charged hobgoblins and devil.
FINAL SCORE = 2.7 / 5
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