20 Things: Lich’s Lair (system neutral)

20 Things: Lich’s Lair (system neutral)

This installment of the #20 Things-series clocks in at 11 pages, 1 page front cover, 2 pages of advertisement, 1 page editorial/ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 5 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

 

All righty, we begin this installment with the locale outside of the lair, with 8 different, flavorful entries establishing the influx of evil magic on the surrounding area; this is further supplemented by 6 whispers and rumors: As the tales of vanquished would-be lich-slayers ring in your ears, the floors approaching the lair as smooth, destroyed equipment littering the area, telling tales of all the failures that came before you and your friends…

 

But the true horror begins within, where10 trinkets and 20 horrible spell components are provided: These include brightly polished shields, boiled and shrunken heads, ruined diamonds suffused with cracks…some truly amazing ones here. These are further enhanced with 20 entries of lair dressing, where remnants of disintegrate spells left trails of dust and persistent shadows cling to the masonry, refusing to be dispelled by encroaching light…

 

12 strange sounds and smells make the saturation of unearthly magics very clear, with sighs redolent with despair and ear-splitting gongs just a few of the examples; oh, and there are also 12 strange events and effects to be found: From spontaneously coalescing blood-runes on the walls to iron masks twisting into grimaces of unspeakable pain. If you use these, the players will have no reason to claim that you did not foreshadow your deadly undead arcanist…

 

Of course, an important aspect of any lich’s lair would be the thing that holds the undead archmage’s lifeforce; as such, no less than 10 sample phylacteries are included in the deal – and these include the bones of the lich’s erstwhile first animal companion. Hidden inter-dimensional recesses, a rusted comb…there are narrative implications here, and the choices are creative and interesting…what about the lich, for example, who used a paladin’s holy sword to house his life? Yeah, that one’s nasty…

 

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I noticed no glitches. Layout adheres to an elegant, minimalist 2-column b/w-standard, and the pdf sports a couple of really nice b/w-artworks. The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience, and the pdf comes in two different versions, one of which is optimized for screen-use, and one is optimized for printing it out.

 

Creighton Broadhurst ups his already super-impressive dressing game in this supplement. The dressing-files for the lich lairs within this humble pdf ooze flavor galore and made me grin from ear to ear. This is easily one of the best installments in the whole series, worthy of a 5 stars + seal of approval verdict.

 

You can get this great dressing file here on OBS!

 

You can directly support raging Swan Press here on patreon!

 

Endzeitgeist out.

 

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