Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely. I’m doing them to critique a wide range of modules from the perspective of my own table and to learn for my own module design. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath.
Saving Saxham is a 20 page module for Cairn, written and illustrated by Joseph R Lewis. This is classic module design, with a small town, a dungeon and a wilderness, set in a dismal forest filled with fairy and undead, pitching itself against such old school classics as Against the Cult of the Reptile God and popular modern fare like Beast of Borgenwold. This was a comp copy provided by the author, of the remastered version, but you get that for free with the older version, which it turns out I’d already purchased at some point. C’est la vie.
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As ever, Lewis’ writing is succinct and evocative, although rarely beautiful. While don’t adore the bullet pointed style, which is akin to the one used in Tomb of the Primate Priest, expanding it out to a larger scale means packing a huge amount of bang for your page for page buck, which nobody can argue is a bad thing. And, while it’s rarely beautiful, I can’t say in honestly, whatever my preferences for prose, that a more florid version of “A wolf-sized mutant rat, covered in normal rats” would be any better a description than it already is. for the balance Lewis is aiming for between function and aesthetics, here he walks the tightrope, I think, even if I personally prefer the tension to favour aesthetics.
The same writing choices mean that the simplistic layout choices, which to me feel inspired by early TSR modules, are far more effective than it appears they should be. Honestly, the layout and writing work together in a hell of a feat: Only once in the module does a location not fill either a page or a column. This is very, very easy to read, and very easy to run. The only criticism of such densely packed pages is navigational, but smart uses of headings, highlighting and decoration make navigation a breeze, and the general aesthetic choices here suit Lewis’ crisp art style far better than in Tomb. Nothing flashy is going on here in terms of layout, but it’s functional.
The first page and a half are timeline and set up. There’s an interesting preference that I’m seeing, that everything in a module must be interdependent and related to the core story, in recent releases. I don’t hate that inclination — I can understand why seems a stretch to some that there could be ten different unrelated things going on in a small town. But Saving Saxham’s approach, at the end of the timeline, runs contrary to that, in a way I like: “Also, there are several goblin thieves in the area. And two elves hunting the goblins. And some angry pixies, too. Not to mention all the rats.” These small additions make the world feel more real, and less like a clockwork, Christopher Nolan movie. I like the loose ends. I also like the simplicity of the timeline, and how it folds regular events in seamlessly. Clever stuff.
The second interesting thing about Saving Saxham in this introductory section is the Catch (Spoilers): That is, that actually the “curse” is a blessing. If the heroes do nothing, the ghost is released from this realm, the villagers are returned to life, the forest recovers, and everyone lives happily ever after. I’ve mixed feelings on this: There’s a decent chance, on one hand, that it could be a downer if the heroes don’t figure this out before they make a decision that causes things to be worse. But on the other, I love the subversion here, and it makes me smile. I’d consider the makeup of your table, though, before running it.
I don’t subscribe to Gearing’s “You have been lied to” manifesto against hooks, but I can’t say I feel these hooks are strong for me. I prefer hooks with juicier worms that provide solid basis for interaction, and preferable give the players a bias coming in that means you can nudge the module in different directions. Here, some better hooks would be for the child to directly ask them for help with missing family, for a local vicar to ask them for aid ending the curse mentioned in the introduction, or for them to be hired as rat catchers or goblin hunters, specifically for those subplots. That way, you’re linking the players into certain threads for them to pull if they wish, giving them a clear direction if they arrive and don’t know where to go. These hooks feature a bunch of dialogue (an approach I love), which means I think space for hooks with juicier worms were available.
The rumours here are interesting, and well placed. As you arrive in town, there’s a meeting taking place, and this conversation is the source of the rumours. I like the confused villagers being the source of the rumours, but why aren’t they suspicious of the strangers? It makes for an easy introduction, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense. And it definitely doesn’t make sense they’d suspect the ghost in the cemetery, among other rumours they provide, at this point. I feel a little bit like the rumours here are forced in. This is the negative consequence of the intriguing setup, for me: An astute player might begin to question what’s going on, based on these rumours and the open arms, rather than the actual mystery. An even cleverer thing to do if you’d anticipated this, would be to make the fact that they are so open to you, or the strangeness of the rumours, and make them a part of the curse or story.
The woods are interesting, though, more interesting to be honest, than the curse of Saxham. Here we have 5 factions, each petitioning the player characters for aid against the others. It gets complicated, but in interesting ways (spoilers again): The elves will kill the goblins or humans, the pixies want to end the blight and blame the goblins and elves, the goblins want to steal treasure, the skeleton want to kill both goblins and elves, and the ghost wants to save the humans but is causing the blight to do so. It’s complicated enough that I think it would have been worth explicating it in the introduction, so that the referee doesn’t have to piece it together themselves; it took me a while to figure it out. But it leaves the players in a hell of a conundrum: Effectively, there are two factions at odds with one another for doing the right thing, and three interfering with them, and potentially at odds with those two. It’s a very neat set-up. Except, it’s not clear how much of that is explicit, particularly around the ancillary factions. If you just take the pixies and ghost, we get what’s going on. But that the elves will kill the humans in their grove if aided against the goblins? They’re unlikely to tell the human player characters that. And while the goblins are presented as “unlovely”, and are thieves, they don’t appear to be intrinsically bad at all, and I could imagine a lot of players siding with them as underdogs, putting them at odds with the pixies and the elves if they encountered them first. If I was winging these conversations, there’s a decent chance I’d make a mess of them; I think a little more guidance would be useful for the referee, but also a little more opportunity for the players to figure out how to find out their intentions. But it’s a very fun melting pot.
The random encounters, though, I find a little perplexing. A few of them tie in pleasingly — the pixie and the ichor, the naked villagers. Most are connected to the blight, but I think the players would need a more direct connection to understand that. Given the cemetery is associated with green light and ichor, I’d add these aspects to these blighted encounters, to make it a little clearer what they referenced. I don’t feel like subtlety is your friend in such a short module. In a larger module you’d build up the clues over time and so the subtlety won’t cause things to be missed. These encounters should be hitting you over the head with a hammer, I think, but it’s easily fixed.
This module is so tightly tuned to fit its’ space, that I suspect that it’s been edited to the bone already, but one thing I’d like a little more is that some of the odd characters be given a little more meat. This is personal preference: Definitely all the factions are given leaders with short descriptions, agendas and things they can provide the party: That’s enough to run on. But I’d love to know a little more about the villagers (we only get two detailed, and neither of them is the one we’re given a hook for), so that it’s less effort to make the player characters care about the village. I feel like not giving the rat king a personality and an agenda in all this is a missed opportunity, especially given it’s very reasonable for the rats to be occupying this village, and personifying them introduces a hard choice once you realise that the villagers are actually the invaders here. That could make for a more interesting faction interaction in my opinion than the goblins or elves. The elves could have slightly different personalities, just as the goblins do, as in general, I feel it’s a little easier to be attached to any faction if you’re given two characters with a relationship to care about, rather than one in isolation. Saving Saxham gives you just enough to run, but not enough to luxuriate in the characters and factions.
I think Saving Saxham is my favourite of Lewis’ modules I’ve read to date. I shouldn’t be surprised: It takes the strengths of Tomb of the Primate Priests, and expands them out to a larger scale. The faction interactions here are super juicy, and unlike Raiding the Obsidian Keep, which felt designed for 5th edition rather than OSE, Saving Saxham feels designed for Cairn. It’s interesting, because I’m quite an advocate for generic modules in general, as I feel modules are really what elf gamers are here for, but Saving Saxham is an argument for specificity I think. It feels like it would suit every Cairn table I’ve played at.
While I think Saving Saxham would benefit from even more expansion, it is something I’d very happily bring to my table, and we’d get 2 or 3 very enjoyable sessions, the players would get to make some very tough decisions, interact with some undead and some fairies, and possibly save some lives. If your table enjoys faction play more than combat focused or puzzle play, they like tough decisions, and you’re confident enough to wing polishing up those characters (or doing a little prep to the end), Saving Saxham is a great choice to add to your campaign.
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