Review - The King of Bones
I Don't Know What's Happening, But I Think I Like It
The King of Bones is a 14-page adventure for The Fire Burns Low by Spencer with art by Magdalena Zwierzchowska and Theodor Kittelsen. Players, part of a seaborne raiding crew, will find their crew plagued by the consequences of a magical cup they picked up on a recent adventure.
What's It About?
The raiding ship players are on crashes in the night as the captain, under the sway of a magical cup he took on a raid and then drank from, fell asleep at the steering oar. Now on an island, they will find first the captain, and then others of the crew, sleepwalk toward a magical black obelisk. They have been drawn here by the King of Bones, the herald of evil Lord Evroul, who is seeking to add to his army of the undead and rise again from his tomb to wage destruction on the world. Despite warning from a hermit living here on this island, they will inevitably be drawn to enter the obelisk, through which they may eventually find and defeat the King of Bones.
What About The Ideas?
I love so much of what's going on here.
The cursed cup is really cool in that it gives you benefits, such as seeing in the dark or being able to touch incorporeal beings, while also putting you on the path to being influenced by the King of Bones. It's dangerous, but does have some draw to make players want to drink from it.
The setup on the island that seemingly has only this strange obelisk and this hermit guarding it is properly creepy in the best way. It's ominous and seems like it is primed for good roleplay, but also everything you encounter before the obelisk is setting you up with information that will help you out in the final act.
The obelisk is sick. You can only go inside while under the sway of the King of Bones or by smearing wine on it. Once inside, the passages of the obelisk fold over on themselves inside the geometry of the structure in a clever reworking of a Dyson Logos map.
On top of that, passages between rooms are only visible by firelight or in reflections in a mirror. The rooms have solid walls with no breaks otherwise. Ultimately, players need to discover that they have to bring a mirror back to the entrance room, from which they can then exit into the chamber where the King of Bones is resting and keeping his victims. There's some riddles, as well as environmental clues to help them figure this out. Over time shadowy monsters may appear and attack as they are exploring, raising the danger steadily the longer it takes for them to figure out the puzzle.
How About the Execution?
I'm going to be honest that I think I don't understand the mechanics of The Fire Burns Low well enough to make an intelligent critique here. This adventure is setup in a fairly linear fashion with a focus on scenes and progressions in the narrative rather than locations--there's no maps of the island, and the dungeon map itself isn't keyed. Most of the structure seems to primarily hinge on the "Progress Clock" by which the stakes are raised, information is provided, or the narrative progresses each time players fulfill particular conditions, such as rolling a particular kind of check. But, I haven't played the system to know how well it achieves its goals with this structure.
In my OSR-pilled brain, I want more concrete details of the world, more maps, more location descriptions, more random encounters, all that good stuff. But, as I called out in a previous post not every adventure needs to have that structure, and some would hurt by trying to fit into a mold they weren't designed for.
Trying to look at this one on its own terms, I think it holds up well. There's a lot of good information in here for the GM, and none of it feels too overwhelming. Despite having an intended linear path between key events, it doesn't feel railroady; there's a lot of possibilities for how things would progress between the different key points that I think would still allow for fun unpredictability for both the players and GM.
I also appreciate how it handles giving information to players. Nothing feels gated behind checks or like its a "gotcha" trap of some kind. Information is presented clearly and there's good guidance for how and when players can obtain and use it. No matter what type of game you're playing, I think it's more interesting to see what players do with information rather than how they get it, and I think this fulfills that well.
I also appreciate the adventure synopsis you get at the end of the adventure that streamlines a lot of the information as a reference at the table.
Art?
There's only two pieces, but they're both good. You can see the cover piece above. There's also this image of the King of Bones that I really like, although I wish it got more room to breath for itself instead of being covered up by a statblock.
Summary
I don't know that I'll play this one. It seems very tied into its system--being an introductory one-shot for Fire Burns Low--and I can tell from skimming through the rules that it's not my kind of game. But, I think it's doing interesting things, and it would be a great time for folks who are into the kind of play its offering. As I hope is clear from above, I do also think the ideas in this are really good. It would take some work, but this could absolutely be converted into a more OSR game as well, and I think the dungeon puzzle mechanics in particular could be really interesting there.