I've been running Mongoose's Deepnight Legacy, first segment of the
Deepnight Revelation campaign. And it needed some help.
The organisation is terrible, even by the standards of Mongoose.
For a start, while there's a decent map of the base where most of the
action happens, it has no scale and says nothing about the size of the
resupply ships (which are, in practice, about the size of the base's
footprint, since they're cargo haulers and the base is quite small);
what's worse, there is no map of the wider area. Here's a non-spoilery
version of that, which I had to make for myself! (SVG behind the
link.)
(Here is the generator I used
for the terrain, based in fact on the valley where I live; then I had
to try to work out just how far the observatory is from everything
else, because no distance is given… the other location which I won't
name for spoilery reasons is due north from the camp and a bit east,
where the ground starts to rise.)
The ship deck plan is usable, and shows the lower deck as a divided
cargo hold (the aft section can be used as a fuel tank) with an access
passage running port to starboard between the parts, with a personnel
airlock on each side. That makes sense and it's what I used. The
illustration of the ship, however, clearly shows the airlocks on the
upper level.
The other extra bit I did, which I can't fairly blame Mongoose for not
including, was to get a friend to record an audio log (provided as a
handout) and play that during the session. This was most effective.
Thanks!
But organisation in general is quite poor. let's say the characters
have gone to the observatory and I want to run the scene there. For
this I might refer to:
- NPC illustrations and personalities (pp. 9-10)
- Text description of the observatory (no map) (pp. 17-18)
- Stats for the NPCs (p. 32, with more personality notes)
and my inclination would have been to put them all in one place, or at
the very least combine the two NPC sections into one and give some
cross-references between places and people. (Mongoose is teaching me a
lot about how to organise my own materials. Yes, I realise that this
is designed for print as well as PDF, but you can put in page
cross-references automatically…)
Who knows what about the story of Eleanor Braam? What do the survivors
think about the carvings camp? Why don't we have names for all the
dead people? Are they just scenery to make the players feel sad? Yes,
of course they are, but they shouldn't feel like it. (Here's my list;
I've used Vilaani names since we're at the far end of the Imperium
fron Solomani space. Italicised names are canonical.)
Rift Hauler 5A7 crew
- CO/Eng Erich Vaalan
- Nav Niimu Ugaman
- Pilot Emla Khuumuli
- Engineer Akashlag Giraa
- Engineer Ansir Iimdanu
- Engineer Tass Engren
Candling, Navy crew
- SubLt Khu Gagis
- PO2 Amelia Zurich
- Able Spacehand Nikhii Carey
- Able Spacehand K V Micaalu
Candling, scientists
- David Mil
- Simnon Kiin
- Khigage Salder
- Kadubi Kishumashaka
Candling, assistants
- Surusha Danaanu (ATV wreck)
- Akusi Rinugmekii
- Suri Kiidgish
- Zegashu Iidmigi
- Uushgu Khaguuki
There is a decent adventure here, but my goodness it takes work to
prise it out of the book.