We've been off a couple weeks, but we're back with four new foundry quest reviews for your adventuring enjoyment.
Darkly Dreaming {Chapter 1} by @Fallensbane
A child has fallen into a sleep from which he cannot awaken. Followed soon by a guard and a farmer. Lord Neverember has kept this quiet, but if this keeps up, all Neverwinter may descend into panic. There’s a solution, perhaps, that can only be survived by the bravest of adventurers. Well, the bravest ones passed. But for some reason, you showed up.
Unfortunately, to defeat this threat, you will have to enter a young boy’s dream… and confront an evil which is far greater than anyone could ever have imagined.
This is the first chapter of a longer story, that it sets up well. The enchantress who sends you into the dream and checks up on your progress there is a great character, as is her monstrous companion. The next chapters will let you catch up on decisions you took in previous chapters by taking certain items from a shelf in the first map — this shelf was empty for this first chapter. Kasul thought the author could do the same thing by having a conversation with an NPC who would go over what came before, but I’m not sure there’s enough play in the dialog system to give the player things based on dialog prompts.
The encounters were all placed with a purpose, which is truly rare in foundries. Both Kasul and I liked it a lot, and plan to continue with the campaign next week. Four stars from both of us.
Pros: Great characters, story and map design
Cons: Is a hidden object map
Part 1: Idol Hands by @Kithlis
There’s been a robbery… two thirds of an idol were on display at a museum, stolen now by a light-fingered halfling who was supposed to be responsible for security! The idol may be powerless… or it may hold ultimate power. Who knows? You have to find it.
A Scottish bartender gives you a sidequest to gather some ingredients for a brew later. And by Scottish, I mean dwarven, because of course dwarfs are all Scottish. But why? When did they all become Scottish? They weren’t in Grimm’s fairy tales, or in Tolkien, who ripped off his dwarfs from Germanic myths. They were all Germanic back then.
Whoa, sorry, lost some time there in TV Tropes. Anyway, dwarves are all mysteriously Scottish and nobody knows why.
In pursuit of the halfling thief, you enter a puzzle dungeon which, puzzlingly, the thief didn’t apparently have to solve. You also have to fight a common housecat. Kasul and I are both cat lovers, so I kept aggro on the cat while he dropped aggro and completed the story up until the next map, so we could leave without fighting the little kitty. I redid the first part of the quest tonight to see what I missed, and to find that defeating the cat doesn’t actually kill the cat all the way.
The quest ends with one mystery solved, maybe, while another begins. The maps and characters were memorable. Four stars from both of us, and the next chapter is on our list.
Pros: Fun puzzles, decent battles, good maps and characters
Cons: Hidden object sidequest. One fight was a little glitched.
The Treasure of Lost Cove by @huajia2(3/3)
One thing about being an adventurer; everyone wants to give you treasure. They can’t help it! Hold a shovel, and you get to shovel centaur poo all your days. Drop the shovel and pick up a sword and BAM! Serving girls interrupt your quiet evening of reflection and revelry to tell you where lieth the gold.
Such was the turn that brought Kasul and I to Lost Cove, which has now been renamed to “The Cove That Those Adventurers Found”.
At the formerly Lost Cove, some cyclops siblings were all too happy to point us toward the treasure, which was sure to be right there, in that cave, near the back, honestly, no monsters or anything…
Well, maybe a few.
Treasure of Lost Cove was a fairly standard dungeon romp with a few puzzles. The maps were somewhat customized, the characters were okay, the author tried to make it funny and sometimes succeeded… It was an average adventure, and we both gave it three stars.
Pros: Some decent work was put into this.
Cons: Nothing really stands out.
Lost and Found by @sarlacc1979(4/4)
A new quest by the winner of the Cult of the Dragon foundry contest is definitely something to put on the “must play” list! “Lost and Found” is the latest chapter in Sarlacc’s “Olivia’s Trials” campaign, and the followup to his contest-winning quest, “Relative Security”.
I could have sworn we’d played one of the other quests in this series… but to recap: Olivia is a wastrel roaming the streets of Neverwinter, looking for quests to give to you. And this latest one is a doozy. Because Olivia has been kidnapped. The city guard is putting together a team to find and return her, but the only way they have any chance of success is if you offer your help. Of course you do!
Olivia has apparently gotten herself somehow involved in the machinations of an evil drow, Dakkar, who wants her for reasons you can only imagine. Well, not for THOSE reasons, you see. Olivia has a special destiny…
“Lost and Found” is a quest that keeps building until it reaches one of the most epic boss fights I think I’ve seen. And also a Stargate to who knows where. I think I liked this more than “Relative Security”. It did have an annoying, long stretch of static mobs, which were, unfortunately, too tough to kill all at once. We tried and died, and we had to go through and take them on one group at a time, like putzes.
The quest was a delight, and we can’t wait for the next chapter. Four stars from both of us.
Pros: Pretty darn epic.
Cons: Rows of static encounters!
