The Gaming Outpost

Maiden Voyage, from Atlas Games, is a 32-page generic adventure module designed to be dropped into any d20-based fantasy system for a group of 4-6 low-level characters. It takes place aboard the ship Albers, pitting the players against the curse of a nearly forgotten sea god.



The players begin in a sea port. A sea captain offers them positions as hired swords to guard his ship on its voyage to deliver a prisoner to justice at another port. Along the way, the PCs are afforded the chance to buddy up to the crew, gather information, and get involved in some good-natured gambling and maybe a friendly prizefight. On the third day, the Albers, adrift in fog for lack of wind, comes across an old derelict ship. The PCs are allowed to explore the sip and check things out, finding the bodies of numerous crewmen down in the hold. The ships drift apart and that seems to be that. However, that night the Albers reencounters the ship, only in a much more dangerous situation! Assuming the crew of the Albers lives, everyone is safe until the next night, at which time the final confrontation occurs. Obviously, if the PCs are successful, they get to divvy up the rewards of a job well done.



The adventure is well-written. The pacing, spread out over 4 days, will likely leave the PCs with a bit of down time over days 1 and 2, but if it were compressed it wouldn’t quite work right. The split of the action between days 3 and 4 gives a good chance for the players to get worked up wondering what’s going to happen next. There’s a new deity and a new card game in Maiden Voyage, so there are a couple things that you can use outside the adventure. If the events end up turning cabin boy Dert off to his chosen avocation the party may get a new sidekick (your call entirely— nothing’s written in for such a possibility)!



One complaint I have, though, is a big one. The sidebars all have a background consisting of a water texture. This wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the fact that the blue is so damn dark! Now, normally background textures tend to obscure whatever’s put over them, but generally they’re kept to a light grayscale rather than a dark color. As a result, the black text is extremely difficult to read. Unfortunately, this includes quite a good amount of important information (including a lot of notes in the normal flow of the main text), such as the information on the deity, the card game, and the Sea Maiden, including its… inhabitants.



The other issue I have is that this is a sea-based adventure. If you can fit it into your game that’s good, but I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve played in a session where our party was at sea and probably still have enough fingers left to do it again. Of course, if you want to get nautical, this is a good way to do it.



Readability issues aside, this is a good adventure for a low-level party to tackle. It shouldn’t be too difficult so long as most of the party is at least competent in battle. There are good GM aides in back (though the captain’s diary pages are a bit dark around the outer areas), including profiles of the major NPCs. If you’re stuck for ideas for your party and think a good sea voyage might be fun, Maiden Voyage should be worth the $10.