Dungeon Fantasy: The Devil's Workshop

[Kromm]

In the nearby wood
Hounds bay most unnatural
Sooty smoke rises

— Old man at the tavern

Mysterious towers in the forest are a dime a dozen. How else is a villain supposed to get some peace? This one isn't like the others, though. From afar, the constant howling and pall of black smoke betray any effort to stay really, truly hidden. Up close . . . well, you'll have to discover that for yourself.

An adventure for the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game, The Devil's Workshop presents a dungeon that isn't a dungeon, full of treasures that aren't so easy to sell. There are certainly monsters, but the "traps" depend less on concealment and surprise than on the delvers' approach to the problems within. The Devil, as the saying goes, is in the details.

Not every adventure can be about rats, after all.

—

Store Link: https://warehouse23.com/collections/...vil-s-workshop

[Michael Thayne]

Picked this up yesterday and it's a fun little supplement. I especially like the demon watchmen, DFRPG / GURPS DF have been a bit lacking in terms of "mid-range" demons.

[b-dog]

This was really good! I like the exotic materials like diabolite. Hopefully there will be more supernatural materials in the future. Maybe some supernatural materials for alchemy could be useful as well. As far as treasure goes, it would be cool to have some more useful treasures. Maybe the demon-shaper could have some supplies of magic items that he will use to warp into a demonic artifact in the future? But for now is untainted? Or holy items that are to be destroyed in the future? Or warped into evil artifacts later on? And maybe a store of gems that are useful as future offerings? I don’t know but the evil items are fine for this short adventure but for other evil temples having lots of good or magic items in the mix helps make the adventure more satisfying.

[johndallman]

Purchased, but not reading, in the hope that it will be run for our DF party.

[namada]

No, until a physical version is available...sorry Kromm

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

I especially like the demon watchmen, DFRPG / GURPS DF have been a bit lacking in terms of "mid-range" demons.

Thanks. I'm hardly the king of adventure-writing, but I always try to include at least one monster and one trap in anything like this.

Originally Posted by b-dog

I like the exotic materials like diabolite.

I also continue to develop the implicit Dungeon Fantasy "world" through indirect exposition of this type.

Originally Posted by namada

No, until a physical version is available...sorry Kromm

No worries. If that's your limitation, that's your limitation. I have no clue if or when anything in PDF will become available in print . . . that's handled in a different silo from mine.

[b-dog]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I also continue to develop the implicit Dungeon Fantasy "world" through indirect exposition of this type.

Great. I enjoy these short scenario/adventures because they can be inserted into a campaign or mined for useful ideas. This adventure really has the AD&D Lawful Evil Devil feel. It would be cool to have more evil temples with an AD&D Chaotic Evil Demon feel to contrast this. The demons would be more wildly fantastic with altars of exotic brightly colored stone and strange magic items and so on. In any case make more demonic temple adventures to use as the final boss monster room to be defeated. Maybe Elder Thing evil temples would also be useful too.

[ravenfish]

One thing that struck me is the "daemonet" cannon using the Summon Demon spell for attack rolls. I find this odd, given that even spells designed for attack never use spell level for a "to-hit" roll. I've decided to rationalize it as the cannoneer summoning a tiny demon on the target which guides the projectile to itself, but I'd appreciate designer insight.

[Rhino]

Originally Posted by ravenfish

One thing that struck me is the "daemonet" cannon using the Summon Demon spell for attack rolls. I find this odd, given that even spells designed for attack never use spell level for a "to-hit" roll. I've decided to rationalize it as the cannoneer summoning a tiny demon on the target which guides the projectile to itself, but I'd appreciate designer insight.

I can’t speak for the designer, but I believe it is some variation of The Rule of Cool.

[namada]

Originally Posted by Kromm

No worries. If that's your limitation, that's your limitation. I have no clue if or when anything in PDF will become available in print . . . that's handled in a different silo from mine.

For DFRPG, at least at this point, since I think I have more DFRPG material on hand than I'll ever actually use, this is my artificial cut-off point. I'm sure there's some cool stuff in there, but would I ever actually use it? At this point it seems unlikely to me.

This thing is incredibly short though, so I doubt we'll ever see it in print...Oh well.