Review - Harvest Festival by Sahh (Free, Short, Systemless, Levelless, Misc) - 8/10 - ********
The Village of Vald
My first review! If you would like something reviewed, please have a look at my review process post.
Sahh, who runs The Colours of Pentagrams And Their Meanings blogspot, asked me to review her Harvest Festival e-zine which can be found here on itch. The e-zine is 19 pages long with 16 of those pages being content.
I was not expecting to like this when I read through the page’s blurb. I have found some of the witchcraft or pagan orientated adventures and modules to be frustrating in either their childishness or their absolute wanton cruelty.
This is not one of those.
I think this is mostly because Sahh is not moralistic in writing this festival. This is something I appreciate, as presenting events neutrally can help a lot in adapting them to any given setting and I am not interested in paying for an author tract to put into my elf games.
Sahh manage to tread a very fine line in presenting an event or festival that has:
Taken from real life history and folklore - there is a goat feeding ceremony that is not too dissimilar to something that is done yearly near me
Chosen an appropriate level of darkness - the villagers are cruel to those they don’t like but not ridiculously so
Introduced fantastic and mythical elements - it is not overly weird but there are elements here that would induce wonder and horror in players
One of my favourite bits is the link between the 1st event (Shadowplay) and the final event (Ritual Sacrifice). It gave a consistent thread across the whole piece, and I think it would go down very well at a table.
The biggest criticism I have is regarding two separate events:
6th Event (Night Market): Three (4, 8, 12) of the items are too fantastical and players that receive these items will likely turn the festival into being about them. The other items are very good and are definitely going to be used in my future campaigns.
7th Event (Vegetables): I do not feel like this event fits the overall theme of decay, worms and snakes that runs through the rest of the festival. If the vegetables made anyone who saw them view all vegetables as crawling with black worms or something similar, that would have fit a lot better.
Overall, I could see this festival being used in a setting like Dolmenwood or even as the basis of a Call of Cthulhu scenario, or some pieces could be taken out and put into a campaign as random events.
Rating: 8/10 - ********
Thoughts: This is a free product with some very good inspiration for a dark, rural festival.