20 Things #6: Ancient Necropolis (system neutral)

This installment of Raging Swan Press’ system-neutral #20-series clocks in at 12 pages, 1 page front cover, 2 pages of advertisement, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 6 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

This installment of the system-neutral iteration of small 20 Things-pdfs starts with a nice 10-entry strong little table of things you can loot from the body of a tomb raider who met his match within the confines of the necropolis. But how did the unfortunates perish? Well, perhaps they ran afoul of one of the 20 curses featured within the pdf – and these deserve special mention, for they, though system-neutral, work rather well and are tied to nice objects, many of which have a gold value. 8 strange effects that may or may not be tied to these are also cool and supplement this well.

Speaking of which – the 20 minor hauntings featured herein are amazing: Ghostly priests dragging screaming servants away, spectral people blinking in and out of existence…yep, this does sport some seriously cool visuals and 12 strange sounds help supplement a general, rising sense of creepy tension.

The table for the things to be found in a Dusty Crypt and in a Sarcophagus (including the lid-subtable) will be familiar to veterans of Raging Swan Press-supplements, both having previously featured in GM’s Miscellany: 20 Things before.

The pdf does conclude with a really good array of dressing, though – 20 things to be found in an ancient necropolis are evocative indeed: Thousands of tiny spider zombies, odd runes promising death, inexplicable breezes…and 10 pieces of burial niche dressing complement the pdf rather well.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I noticed no significant glitches. Layout adheres to Raging Swan Press’ elegant two-column b/w-standard and the pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience. Additionally, the pdf comes in two versions, one optimized for the printer and one for screen-use – kudos for going the extra mile there!

John Bennett and Creighton Broadhurst know how to do creepy and decrepit VERY well – this dressing pdf is an inspired little companion and, in spite of the partial reprint of two pages, the remaining dressing options are inspired enough to make this pdf a rather fun read and appropriately creepy option for GMs looking for a cool file to add to their arsenal. While owners of the big book gain a bit less out of this installment, what remains is still worth the low asking price. My final verdict will hence clock in at 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 due to in dubio pro reo.

You can get this nice dressing file here on OBS!

You can directly support Raging Swan Press here on patreon!
Endzeitgeist out.

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