Low Tidings - A Fort Defense One Shot

   

Low Tidings is a defensive one shot for Old School Essentials. Chiefly inspired by Fritz Lieber's legendary, picaresque Fafhrd and Gray Mouser series of stories, tales whose weird, fantastic, sword-swinging and roguish charm in turn inspired Dungeons and Dragons and feature in AD&D's famous Appendix N. Low Tidings is a something of mini-module, condensed to 4 sides of A5 but very playable.

On a bleak and savage coast a pair of sorcerous sisters vie for the patronage of a pelagic god-wizard. Now, promised magical favours, gems and more by a talking gull, your party find themselves fighting through the night - besieged in a crumbling sea-fort, defending an eldritch ritual against a crazed witch-queen's army of blood-thirsty pirates and worse!

The Sea Witch by Frank Frazetta (anyone who speaks of a bootleg edition of this adventure is a liar)

In this adventure you will find:

• A hand drawn fortress map, ready for your players to repair, barricade and rig with tricks and traps.
• A 12 hour timeline detailing the events of the siege - assaults, infiltration, ruses, magical attacks and the things and places revealed by the receding tide.
• An IRL scavenger hunt mini-game!

While written with the world of Nehwon in mind, Low Tidings be easily adapted to any fantasy campaign setting. It can be quite challenging and is not recommended for new DMs. Low Tidings was written with OSE stats in mind and was submitted to the Appx. N Jam who provided me with the title. Illustrations by William Stout, Map by me. (Special thanks to the DCC module 'Acting Up in Lankhmar' by Michael Curtis, my favourite one shot, for inspiring me to write Low Tidings). While not perfect, this was a long and tricky write so I hope you enjoy it.