Snarl of the Pale Swine can be found on Kobold Press for $7.99.
~ 2000 words. 10 minutes to read.

At $7.99 for 22-pages, the price is steep, especially, in the current cost-of-living environment. But unlike most independent publishers who only have 1-5 people, Kobold Press does have to consider paying more people so I understand the price-point from a business perspective. With the numerous people working on the project, I expect more from it and that may make or break this.

What is it?

This is a 5th-level Shadowdark adventure from Kobold Press. Normally, when someone says an adventure is for a certain level, they mean the average player character level (at least that’s the way Kelsey sets up the Arcane Library adventures), but here, I sort of think this is more inline with the total party level is 5th level. Part of that stems from the fact that the strongest monster is 6th-level making this about on par with Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur. That said, monster level is a pure metric, since ghosts and some snakes are quite deadly despite their respective levels.

Unique Features?

Beware the blighted white, rot fungus.

What’s the story?

Pigs gorged themselves on white rotted crops while the farmers fled from it. The rot mutated the pigs into clever bastions of devastation. Now, they seek the Palestone – the source of the blight, within the snarl of the pale swine (he did the thing).

Admittedly, this reminded me of the quests through the briars with the razorback boars in World of Warcraft. What sweet memories.

So… Adventure?

Setup

After a short background, this jumps straight into factions which also explains what the Palestone is. It amused me that it’s considered a faction, but there’s not really a better section for it either. Except maybe the background. Each faction has a leader/main NPC which is a nice touch and more than a lot of adventures (mine included) offer at times.

There’s a section called Helden’s Fold, which is supposed to give background to flesh out the village, but it’s more of a mechanics section. The rumors are also here. They are a little odd though. It’s the writing style more than anything, but the phrase “further toward” threw me for a loop when I first saw it. Also, they aren’t marked true or false, which normally I would presume it’s all true, but one says pigs can fly, and we know how the saying goes.

Next are the monster stat blocks, which I don’t know why they are here and not in the room key or at the end where the map is. I would prefer these switch places. I just like to see the map before I read the rooms because I like to have a visual reference point and it’s missing here. I’m especially fond of the Bright Butcher. It has a clever ability. All of the monsters appear to be level 4 or lower (with the named one at level 6). As it is, right now, I’m not sure this is really a 5th-level adventure. I’m leaning closer to 2nd-level despite the volume of creatures that are in the snarl. To me, volume merely means players need to be creative.

There’s several features unique to the environment including the boars glowing. I’m not sure how this will play out given there are over 60 swine in the snarl. That seems like a lot of light. In Foundry, while setting it up, I used 5′ glow to represent it, not radius. Any larger an area felt too bright.

Room Keys

Random Encounters start the room keys off and there’s a lot of variety here. Some say they happen in certain areas, so keep that in mind. I also noticed the first of the non-standard DCs. It’s genuinely such a simple thing to just use the standard DCs that are the default of the system. All DC 10s should be DC 9, DC 11 & 13 should be DC 12. I simply don’t understand the reason for using non-standard DCs. Does the 5% extra difficulty (or leniency) provide any advantages or increase the fun factor in any form? The standard DCs just make the math at the table easier to intuit for all players. It makes making rulings easier and simpler. The one thing everyone enjoys about Shadowdark is how strong the framework is and how it gets out of the way to let you play. That includes making rulings quickly. Why would you get back in the way by adding unnecessary mental load and bandwidth to every single person at the table?

Does it break the game or adventure? No. Am I the only person who feels like this? Likely no. Am I playing it up a little here? Yes and no. Normally, I wouldn’t buy something that I see uses non-standard DCs so it wouldn’t bother me. But sometimes I buy things because people ask if someone has read it or has thoughts and I haven’t even gotten into the room keys or adventure and I want to say, no, because I’m frustrated that such a simple element of the game is ignored in favor of what I presume is whim only because I feel so strongly about this. It’s my hill, I’m dying on it. (Also, no one should use Ch to mean Charisma and should use Z if they are going to use a one letter abbreviation. I will die on that hill too.)

The first several rooms are well written (even if I was reminded of the 3 Little Pigs). They each feature an evocative descriptive text that you can read to the players and have a few pieces of interaction within them. I like the rule of 3 here where there are 3 things in each room. Something obvious, something hidden, or something secret. You don’t have to have all 3, but the assortment should add up to at least 3. That way, when you have a party of 4, there’s a good chance everyone will interact with something unique. Traps & hazards are clearly identified as well. It’s here that I wish I saw the map already and went looking for it. I like having the visual anchor the details for me.

The map is highly detailed and includes a key, but the black and white nature makes the markings difficult to read because they are small and don’t really stand out without the contrast necessary to make them pop.

See how hard it is to see the BB next to the 12 marker? That occurs in multiple places throughout. It also makes some of the naming conventions odd. For instance, area 1 is called the Sunken Cathedral. It describes windows poking out of the ground & plants buried in the mud. I don’t really get that from the map. I’m also not sure how we get into this section. I just said they had to climb down into it, because I couldn’t figure out how else the players should enter the area to address this issue.

This is an issue because in the Helden’s Fold section, it describes the Snarl as spreading out from Helden’s Fold like a rabbit warren and that it’s the staging area above the Snarl. Which is somewhat contradictory, but we’ll ignore that. That to get into it, you have to access it via the collapsed cathedral sinking into area 5. But the sunken cathedral is in area 1. The sinkhole (area 5) is not described as having a cathedral blocking it and the map doesn’t reflect anything said in this section. And if the sinkhole is the entrance, why is it not labeled as Area 1? It makes things confusing.

For me, when so many things are well-done and professional, these little omissions and oversights are perplexing. Maybe I’m not familiar enough with what a snarl looks like, but I imagine the boars have to get in and out. I should see that on the map. On it, it looks like 12 and 13 are better sites for an entrance and they are storage areas for Bright Butchers.

I’ll give you another example of weirdness you’ll see on the map. Area 5 is a Sinkhole. There is a hole on the map so it looks like it goes down. The description reads “[a] massive muddy hole stretches up 20′ up (sic) to the surface.” So we’re at the bottom of the sinkhole, not the top?, but the map shows that it goes down. It’s so odd. The map also says “To Helden” there, but there’s no mention of how this leads to Helden in the area description.

So much is so well-written, but there are these odd little elements that creep in and make me scratch my head, because I’m a first-time reviewer. I’m a GM customer buying your product and hoping it makes sense and I’m struggling to understand the product so I can run it for my players. That’s what the team of editors and producers and playtesters should prevent. For smaller indie publishers, I’m more forgiving, because the teams are so much smaller, but this is a larger indie publisher who wants $8 for a 22 page adventure and I feel like I’m editing this to run it. And this isn’t editing in the prep sense, but editing to read it.

And the thing that hurts is there are a lot of fun and great ideas in this. Gianna is a particularly nasty NPC and such a delight to play at the table, but the very next area, I’m trying to figure out how this sinkhole actually works.

I think the issue is this is presented as a quest adventure, but is set up as a dungeon crawl for loot. Because of it, numerous elements are muddled within themselves. Are we killing all the boars? Securing the Palestone? Destroying it? Looting the bodies? This is important, because depending on the answer, you can literally get to the palestone by passing through 3 areas. You can completely ignore the Bright Butchers to some extent, even if you take a circuitous route.

I don’t know. Maybe I just don’t understand it, but I’m struggling with this adventure & the way it is structured.

The art in this is fantastic. The descriptions are solid and with some fixing, you can make a really enjoyable adventure because the story has solid bits to it. The little elements and clever bits are fun. But, at this price-point, I don’t expect to fix what is ostensibly a 16-page adventure.

So who is this for?

The problem-solver GM who likes fixing broken adventures and has cash to spare. I never wanted to be the person who completed a review and said buy something else, but there are a lot of creators who would benefit from you taking the chance on them instead.

If you made it this far, thank you. Now, I’m going to nitpick & nerd out on design. You have been warned.

Kobold Press is a big company with resources. I understand that they prefer to hew closer to the source material since that was their MO with 5e, but they also deviated slightly to introduce a little variety and personality. Their layout should not look like it came from the template or is stealing the Shadowdark trade dress. Please, give it that little bit of personality that 5e-compatible projects received.

Also, embrace color. I’m sorry, SD’s brand isn’t black & white. Even if it’s just the cover like the Warlock collection books. That would be more preferable.

There’s nothing explicitly offensive in this layout aside from the map location and use of Ch instead of Z. Mostly, it’s boring and insipid. And perhaps that’s the more offensive part.