REVIEW: Crypt of the Mellified Mage

I've been playing in a weekly Forbidden Lands campaign for a year and a half now and enjoying it immensely. Forbidden Lands, for those unfamiliar with it, is a fantasy RPG published by Free League. Set in the eponymous Forbidden Lands, a region until recently covered by the noxious Blood Mist, game play centers around exploration and survival. Forbidden Lands is often described as a "hexcrawl" or "sandbox" game and I think those are fair descriptions that comport with my own experiences playing the game. Each Forbidden Lands campaign is unique, since the setting's hex map includes only a few established landmarks, with the bulk of its "adventure sites" created by the referee, in whole or in part, through the use of extensive random generation tables. 

In principle, the set-up of Forbidden Lands is relatively low prep, since the random tables provide the referee with plenty of inspiration in the creation of all the settlements, fortresses, and dungeons scattered across the Forbidden Lands. In practice, though, the game can't always be run on the fly, which opens up a space for published adventure sites that the referee can use directly or in part. Crypt of the Mellified Mage is a 80-page hardcover book that offers up four different adventure sites, each one written by a different author. 

The first of the four sites, and my personal favorite, is the titular "Crypt of the Mellified Mage." Written by Fiona Maeve Geist, the site is the burial place of the sorcerer Pagoag, who sought eternal life by steeping his dead body in specially prepared honey. The crypt is filled with bees and other insects, weird undead, and the sickly sweetness of honey, which gives the whole site a creepy, sticky feel that I found oddly compelling. At the very least, it's quite unlike your run of the mill evil wizard's tomb and its contents, including Pagoag himself, have the potential to have longlasting effects on the campaign, which I applaud.

The second site is the "Firing Pit of Llao-Yutuy," written by David McGrogan. The pits are a collection of caves that supposedly house a mysterious pottery maker – Llao-Yutuy – and his servants. The pottery he makes is magical, some of which have remarkable qualities. It's a diverting adventure site but smaller and less far-reaching in its consequences. "Temple of the Six-Limbed Lord" is written by Zedeck Siew. The Temple is an invader from another reality, filled with mischievous, sometimes malevolent monkeys, as well as the monstrous Six-Limbed Lord and his priestly minions. Like "Crypt of the Mellified Mage," the Temple has great potential to affect a campaign, not least because the chief priest of the Six-Limbed Lord wants nothing more than his master to be the only god worshiped in the Forbidden Lands and is prepared to do what must be done to achieve that goal.

The fourth and final site is "The Dream-Cloud of E'lok Thir," written by Adam Koebel. The Dream-Cloud is a dungeon created from the memories, regrets, and pains of the wizard E'lok Thir. For that reason, there is no map or key to the place. Instead, the referee generates the site through the use of tables, some of whose entries are keyed to locations that represent important moments in the wizard's life. It's an unusual approach to presenting an adventuring site and, without having used it in play, I can't say whether it works as well as intended, but I hope it does, because I love the idea of it – a memory palace indeed!

Taken as a whole, Crypt of the Mellified Mage is a solid collection of unusual adventure sites for use with Forbidden Lands, though I think one could, with a little work, use them with other fantasy RPGs. The unusual nature of the four sites is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, variety is to be welcomed, particularly in a hexcrawl campaign; avoiding sameness is important to maintaining its vitality. On the other hand, the peculiar nature of these sites might be off-putting to some players and referees, which could limit their utility. Likewise, both the Firing Pit of Llao-Yutuy and the Temple of the Six-Limbed Lord contain cultural and esthetic elements that jar a bit with the implied, vaguely northern European setting of Forbidden Lands, which might also limit their utility. "Temple of the Six-Limbed Lord" directly addresses this to its credit, but I nevertheless feel that its southeast Asian flavor might prove an impediment in some campaigns. Regardless, Crypt of the Mellified Mage is a an imaginative, useful addition to Forbidden Lands that many referees will find worthwhile.