Harper's Tale is named for lead developer Matt Corley's daughter (and co-lead developer) Harper. The adventures mix the inspiration and youthful-fun outlook of a child with the sensibilities of an experienced game author to contribute something truly new and unique to the current RPG scene.
The creative team behind Harper's Tale reads like an all-star team of freelance writers and artists currently working in the RPG industry, and it's not just a list of names on the credits page of a book, the quality and experience this team brings really shines through. Harper's Tale is gorgeously illustrated throughout but I want to call special attention to the fantastic character illustrations by Gwendy Bee, these illustrations are bright and appealing while still conveying a sense of mystery and the fantastic. In addition to the amazing art I found all of the cartography to be easy to read and use and clearly laid out where I needed it.
The ten adventures themselves are all written by separate writers or writing teams and one of their nicest features is they are structured so that in addition to making up one ten adventure long campaign they are also all framed so they can be run as individual one-shots. The central story mixes investigation and adventure as the characters start off by investigating a mysterious illness and follow various leads and clues looking for both the source and a cure. The adventure path is set in the wilderness but uses many different settings for individual adventures (forests, small villages, dungeons, multi-room buildings) to give the ten adventures a great deal of variety.
In addition to a number of different settings the adventure path is full to the brim with interesting NPCs that not only work well within the narrative but could also be used to seed other adventures, for my part I GUARANTEE my players will meet Professor Piewright at some point prior to actually playing Harper's Tale.
And I couldn't resist the urge to convert and paint my own Sir Cheddar!
Overall I highly recommend Harper's Tale. There is an absolutely amazing amount of the highest quality content here and the mix of art and writing style really evokes the sense of fantastic mystery, fun, and discovery that I think the best fantasy RPG adventures are capable of.
Harper's Tale is currently available from DrivethruRPG at https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/311843/Harpers-Tale-A-Forest-Adventure-Path-for-5e?term=Harper
-Jay
No comments:
Post a Comment