Crapshoot Monday: This Free Thing I Found on Itch.io… The Brigands of Bristleback Burrow

​A dungeon adventure by Brynjar Már Pálsson, levels 1-3
For Shadowdark RPG.
  Now we’re talking. Brigands of Bristleback Burrow is a tight 8-page document that uses six pages to convey a twelve-room “goblins in a hole” dungeon, including a nice single-page bestiary. It’s not ambitious or groundbreaking, but within the tight limitations of its scope, it’s just about as good as you can get. This is my first Shadowdark adventure and judging by this one the system has a solid OSR spirit.
  So stop me if you’ve heart this one, there’s some goblins, you see…they live in this hole. They have divided leadership, this fat wannabe warlord chief and his mutinous shaman. There’s also human bandits they work with. And an ogre cook. And part of their home hole is an old flooded mine, infested by skeletons. Oh and the goblins also have pet hyenas. It’s all pretty standard fare, but what sets it apart is that Bryniar has jolly well played some D&D. It shows.
  There’s so much to say about what I liked here. First of all, there’s nary a hint of “they attack!” Goblins (all of them given one-word personalities) default to assuming the party are here to be mercenaries, and indeed both leaders will try to use the party against the other one. Hyenas are chained up, giving environmental interest automatically. The ogre is sweet and kindly. Even the skeletons are being controlled by a sentient undead wight who will do her best to negotiate with the party for a favor. Marvelous. Next, treasure is all interesting and flavorful, and makes sense for its location (sometimes hidden). Magic items are cool too, feel like a lot but I don’t have a Shadowdark baseline. Also there’s an active timer in the random encounter table that’ll eventually lead to a chaotic mass mutiny, goblin vs. goblin. The map is multi-leveled, with loops that actually matter, multiple entrances and exits, and an impressive amount of terrain variations that matter…I don’t know how tactical Shadowdark combat gets, but Bryniar clearly likes a fight with interesting areas.
  Honestly, what can be improved mostly boils down to “a bit too much muchness”. A slightly less fanatical adherence to bullet points would make some rooms make a little more sense, while things like the “bandit/goblin generator table” are cute but hard to imagine using extemporaneously at the table. I’m not certain about Shadowdark balance, but I think some of the danger levels might be a little too gnarly for a party of level 1s. I could do the standard reviewer thing and complain about the lack of special wacky weirdness, but honestly that wouldn’t be an improvement, it would just make it a different kind of project.
  The best use case for this thing is to download it, maybe pitching the author a buck or two while you do so, and immediately put it in your folder for when you need a goblin hole; it’s the best darned goblin hole available. There’s sadly not a ton of unique content to mine, but things like a magical demon pact item could definitely be ported elsewhere. The adventure’s very genericness means that if you’re playing Shadowdark, OSE, 5E, Pathfinder, AD&D, or whatever you can use it. High utility little adventure.
  Final Rating? ****/*****, only really prevented from reaching the fifth star by its scope. The author should be very proud of this one, some of the finest vanilla I’ve ever seen.
  A final note, as a crime, this adventure just had a single one-star rating on the website when I came upon it, next to all the unreadable dreck pumped up with dozens of five-star ratings. Criminal.

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