Review: The Old God's Return

The Old God's Returned is a little booklet that manages to pack a rather surprising amount of adventure into its 19 pages.

From the back cover:
A shivering plague.
Knives glinting in the moonlight.
A frigid mountain drifting in the sky.
These ominous events attend the return of an evil long forgotten by Man. On the night of the winter solstice, when the world is balanced on a knife’s edge in the battle between fire and ice, a slumbering deity awakes. Now, only those heroes chosen as the champions of the Lord of Flickering Flames can end this growing threat before it reclaims its former malevolence and reminds the world why the old forests are places to be feared…

The basic premise is the awakening of an old forgotten god has caused a plague to strike a village's children. The PCs are tasked to find out the cause of the plague and stop it. While not exactly an original premise, Michael Curtis makes it work by giving it the usual DCC-style twist by placing the adventure in a non-standard setting. I mean, how often do you come across frozen ziggurat encased in a flying iceberg?

Actually, given my readership, it's probably not all that rare...

Getting to the ziggurat isn't without challenge, but the real fun is within. And the final confrontation with the old god? A wonderful take on Krampus! And that isn't the end of the adventure either...

Aside from a flying iceberg, the adventure boasts 4 new monsters, an limited fire-based ability to help combat the blistering cold, and a nice tie-in to another DCC adventure. Also, while unlikely, there is the possibility that more chaotically inclined PC's might decide to turn the adventure on it's head. While not covered in the adventure, it wouldn't be too hard to see how that might go.

Overall I really like the adventure. I wish it wasn't priced the same as the standard DCC adventures, given that it's shorter in length (19 pages), and physically half the size of the usual 8.5 x 11. On the other hand, they really went for a higher quality paper for this adventure, though I'm not sure why. Personally I'd rather have seen the usual interior paper and a price closer to $6 or $7.