Saviors Of Hogtown is a bit of an odd beast. It's a pack of three funnel adventures, but for Dungeon World.
Historically, funnels are crunchy and murder-y, and Dungeon World naturally wants to be a bit more narrative-y, but Saviors walks the tightrope between these two elements really well. So if you like OSR *or* PbtA, there's something for you here---and you can either swap out the engine or tone down the lethality if either of those elements is a deal-breaker.
Content-wise, Saviors is 42 pages, black and white, with clean layout and fun, largely whimsical illustrations. It also includes an overview for how to get the most out of a funnel in Dungeon World, as well as solid rules for starting 0 level Dungeon World characters, and some really excellent rules for managing mind control that I wish were featured in more systems.
The first adventure, the eponymous Saviors of Hogtown, starts as a fairly standard villagers-go-off-to-fight-invaders number, but by the end gets subverted into a pretty potent existential twist. The PCs' squishiness feels like it might undermine their chance to discover the twist, but this adventure is also runnable for more stalwart level 1 adventurers as well.
The second adventure, The King Beneath The Castle, you play as inhabitants of a besieged castle looking for an ancient source of power that might be able to reverse their miseries. King Beneath has much less of a twist, but leans on its extremely solid atmosphere and sense of curiosity and dread to pull the players along.
The third adventure, Shark God's Chunder, is a delightfully dungeonpunk number where a coastal town has accidentally toxified their shark god is and reaping the direct consequences of that. In this case, the adventure concept carries it for leagues---although its atmosphere and structure are super solid too.
Overall, Saviors is an excellent pack of adventures for Dungeon World, and worth converting to other systems as well. It's well-built, easy to use, and most importantly fun. If you like pulpy fantasy adventure games I would strongly recommend grabbing a copy.
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Saviors Of Hogtown is a bit of an odd beast. It's a pack of three funnel adventures, but for Dungeon World.
Historically, funnels are crunchy and murder-y, and Dungeon World naturally wants to be a bit more narrative-y, but Saviors walks the tightrope between these two elements really well. So if you like OSR *or* PbtA, there's something for you here---and you can either swap out the engine or tone down the lethality if either of those elements is a deal-breaker.
Content-wise, Saviors is 42 pages, black and white, with clean layout and fun, largely whimsical illustrations. It also includes an overview for how to get the most out of a funnel in Dungeon World, as well as solid rules for starting 0 level Dungeon World characters, and some really excellent rules for managing mind control that I wish were featured in more systems.
The first adventure, the eponymous Saviors of Hogtown, starts as a fairly standard villagers-go-off-to-fight-invaders number, but by the end gets subverted into a pretty potent existential twist. The PCs' squishiness feels like it might undermine their chance to discover the twist, but this adventure is also runnable for more stalwart level 1 adventurers as well.
The second adventure, The King Beneath The Castle, you play as inhabitants of a besieged castle looking for an ancient source of power that might be able to reverse their miseries. King Beneath has much less of a twist, but leans on its extremely solid atmosphere and sense of curiosity and dread to pull the players along.
The third adventure, Shark God's Chunder, is a delightfully dungeonpunk number where a coastal town has accidentally toxified their shark god is and reaping the direct consequences of that. In this case, the adventure concept carries it for leagues---although its atmosphere and structure are super solid too.
Overall, Saviors is an excellent pack of adventures for Dungeon World, and worth converting to other systems as well. It's well-built, easy to use, and most importantly fun. If you like pulpy fantasy adventure games I would strongly recommend grabbing a copy.
Minor Issues:
-Page 17, last para left side, "Hogtowns secret"
I love the art so much, I really enjoy the style
Right!? You can find more art by the artist at https://www.lukehartstudio.com/