FIST: HELL & HIGH WATER
A downloadable mission pamphlet
(MIC FUMBLING)- Is it on? Okay. Uh, hello FIST. I represent the township of Haugar, and well, one of our own- Elma, -has been abducted. A lot of people have- first it was livestock, then it was whole villages. There was a joint investigation... (SIGHS) The trail led them to currently disputed waters, and now nobody wants to touch the place. The island's got a history of wrecks, and nobody who's ever gone near it has come back- er, (COUGHS) we can offer hazard pay, of course-
HELL AND HIGH WATER is a mission pamphlet for FIST about rescuing a fishmonger from a forbidden island off the coast of the USSR-Norway border. The island in question is home to Castle Erlandborg: home to an ancient vampire, and for the past 30 years, his thralls. FIST must contend with ragtag seafaring cultists and the rising tide alike if they wish to snatch Elma Angstrom from the clutches of Captain Aalto.
During this dramatic & dangerous mission, players will encounter:
- ESCALATING DANGER - As the players investigate the island, keep track of the rising tides on a simple table to ratchet up the tension and guide the flow- or keep it open ended and give the players time to explore.
- NEW FOES - Details on a new minor enemy outfit- the Sanguine legion. The Sanguine forces have 4 unique npc statblocks, plus a pesky swarm of bats to fill out your secret caves with.
- A BLOODY FINALE - Face off against the Thrall-Captain of the Sanguine legion and his master in a cinematic three way standoff inside of a crumbling castle.
This mission was created over ~7 days for FIST JAM OPS V, because I thought "an island is a forbidden zone, right?". Mal Peters drew the cover art, & the Castle Erlandborg artwork was made with public domain/creative commons images.
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Ran this on Friday for some brand new FIST recruits. A lot of fun. I supplemented the pamphlet with a mix of WWII/Cold War location / equipment photos and some interiors from some Hammer films. The endgame turned out to be a bit less challenging than the rest of the adventure due to a randomly generated PC's specific ability, but we had a PC death along the way and easily could have had more had the dice come up differently, which kept things enjoyably tense. PC reinsertion was fun and flavorful. 5/5 Great job.
Hell and High Water is a pulpy WW2-remnant vampire tower-climb with evocative themes, dangerous foes and rising waters.
Style:
Content:
Storm a flooding castle Island infested with mercenaries, bats, and something worse. This review is after reading the pamphlet.
It is a very nice, concise and clear adventure. It was very easy to read and digest , seeming like a very fun stand alone mission with possible future hooks. I like the small stat blocks for the enemies so they easily fit in the pamphlet.
2 less than ideal points. The black text on red blocks is difficult for me to read, especially the small text (on computer). However, there is a printer friendly version which is good and I read that instead. The second point is the SANGUINE TROOPER's weapons. The SMG does XD6KH DAMAGE and they get grenade 3D6KL . I don't know what that means.
A fun mission that left me no questions on how to run it (except the weapon thing mentioned) that I could easily keep in a one-shot folder to bring out and play on the spot if needed.
FIST GAME JAM V SCORES:
STYLE: 4/5, Cool art and presentation but mercenaries in thrall of a vampire in an old castle is serviceable but not super exciting.
SUBSTANCE: 5/5, Perfect amount of content for a pamphlet adventure and super clear on how to run
Figured I should have kept notation for the dice, it was something I was waffling on. KH is keep highest, KL is keep lowest. The SMG rolls damage dice equal to uses spent & keeps the highest rolled result. Thank you for the kind words though!
This clarification was helpful!
Great job with this.