The adventure itself is a fifty-six (56) page full color book and PDF released as one of the OSE Kickstarter adventures along with Halls of the Blood King, Isle of the Plangent Mage and Incandescent Grottos. In addition to Rejec’s work as writer, cartographer, and artist, Anna Urbanek provided layout with Gavin Norman, Fiona Maeve Geist and Jarrett Crader forming the editing team. Unlike the other OSE Kickstarter adventures, Holy Mountain Shaker appears to depart from the OSE house keying and design style, partially because it is not a traditionally keyed location based adventure, but also presumably because of the author’s larger influence.
The premise of Holy Mountain Shaker is that the earthquakes plaguing a minings town indicate that a cosmic fish has risen up with the local massif and is uneasily thrashing due to a dead adventurer lodged in its gills. The party has six days before the fish causes a catastrophic earthquake, calms down and returns to a vast subterranean ocean. To get to this Godfish, the adventurers will climb up and into the mountain, itself transformed by the fish's presence, to reveal layers of strange history from the ruins of reptilian fish temples to golem or automaton maintained automatic meat factories.
Spoiler warning: In discussing Holy Mountain Shaker we will reveal much of the content of Holy Mountain Shaker. You Are Warned!
* A very faithful modernization of the 1981 Moldvay/Cook Basic/Expert Dungeons & Dragons system.
FORMALITIES AND DISCLAIMERS
Gus: I’ve known Luka as a fellow hobbyist for years, since the G+ days, and would consider him an RPG friend. I adore his art and the aesthetic he brings to his works, having watched the UVG and its rainbow lands evolve over the years. My own “Yellow Lands” mentioned in Pretender’s Dread Machine were an early inspiration for Luka who was running the adventure when UVG first started to take shape. I’ve played in one of his games years ago (a dungeon crawl strangely - he writes a fine one), but mostly we just share sensibilities about setting design, and I generally enjoy his work.
I haven’t played Holy Mountain Shaker and am very unlikely to, as I tend to use my limited time to play my own adventures, but I’ve read the PDF thoroughly. Following my design interests and role as Bones of Contention’s resident grognard, I will largely be questioning Holy Mountain Shaker’s functionality and playability.
WFS: Just as Gus’ adventurers served as the initial spark that would grow until the raging bonfire that is Luka’s UVG, the UVG was not only what inspired me to start writing the Prismatic Wasteland (both the blog and the game), it was also my introduction to the OSR/Post-OSR scene. In my limited interactions with him, Luka has never been anything but incredibly kind and supportive. Like Gus, I am a fan of Luka’s work. To the extent my affection for Luka impacts my review, it might be best to take it with a small grain of salt because I admit I am approaching it as a fan.
I have not played Holy Mountain Shaker, but I would never say never. Now that I’ve read it so thoroughly, it probably means I’ll need to run it rather than play in it.
