Crapshoot Monday: This Free Thing I Found on Itch.io…Heron Watch

An adventure by Clark Nichols, level irrelevant
Written for Cairn 2E
   Oh boy. Pray me, my friends, as I dive into this one. “Cairn” is a dangerous sign enough as it is, thirty-two pages is scary, but then we come to this:

   A veritable witches’ brew of inspiration. Nightmarish. It’s being illustrated by the writer, which is also often a sign of someone a lot more interested in sketching than writing. Tone is breezy and informal, organization is…whimsical. The background is kind of a watercolor effect that makes it just a little bit annoying to try and read. 
   Let me begin by attempting to describe the thing...
   On second thought, that is too complicated, let me summarize. There's a concrete bunker that was used by giant heron riders in a long-ago war against a petroleum-lich (I dunno), now used by wannabe knights who want to become special super-powered Heron Knights but there's an underground group of apes who want to kidnap and sacrifice everyone to a blood-powered nuclear reactor. If the party doesn't interfere, 90% of the NPCs all die and the reactor goes nuclear. Yes this is supposed to be a fantasy game scenario, despite the fact that its post-apoc. 
   I'm going to put my aesthetic/tonal objections aside and say what I liked was first of all the map, despite the scribbly style there's a decent size here, with interesting flow and a nice vertical element. Color-coding the two different levels is the sole concession to readability here but it's a much appreciated one. Some of the sketches are helpful for scene-setting. The Room of Too Many Levers is a fun little spot with, as it says on the tin, too many levers that mess around with that all make changes throughout the facility. Information is generally well-conveyed, with NPCs given enough personality to run easily. Having "if nothing is done, here's what happens" should be a must for these plot-heavy dungeons, nice to see it. 

​   All that being said, what can be improved is probably most broadly assume that the PCs are the most interesting people in the zone. Agency is a nebulous thing, often enough, but one subtle problem is that if you've designed a dozen NPCs to be active and motived, then the GM is actually role-playing 75% of the active agents within the scene. That's not exactly of railroad, but it is a tendency to seize the steering wheel from the players. Having this random remote bunker focused on by Lich-Hitler in stasis is weird (and not much supported in the module). Despite being a thematic focus, the last surviving Great Heron, looking to bond with a noble party member and recreate the Heron Watch...just kind of is there, it's not a major focus.
   I waffled on the best use case here. I'm always hungry for good, or even functional, sci-fi adventures, a rarity in this hobby. I really wanted to see if I could mod this to use in my Stars Without Number campaign...nope. Couldn't do it. Even the map is just too wonky. So, I guess your best use case is actually using it for this one extremely bespoke campaign frame. Gamma world too maybe? Actually, this is perfect for Vaults of Vaarn. So, VoV fans, rejoice.
   Final Rating? */***** despite the tremendous and genuinely admirable production quality shown here. It's just...not compelling me to run it as a very fun adventure at the table.