Cube World 41 -The Forest of 500 Shadows in the Lands of the Southern Daimyos, Play Report /Review

The Forest of 500 Shadows (2nd adventure in the Lands of the Southern Daimyos)

· 3 page adventure including Hex map,  Encounter key, Monster art and full bestiary, and D1000 Treasure table
· Written for LOFP but can be used with most old school game systems.
· Played about one-half of the forest in a single, 3 hour session

At the end of the last adventure session, in one of the highest rooms of Sleeping Crane Castle in the chambers of Lady White Crane, herself,  one of the party members found a treasure of immense value. The coolness of said treasure was that it:

1. Came from a D-1000 (yes, one thousand!) table. 

2. It was awesome to see the excitement of new players get something slightly beyond their levels and for lack of better words just effin sick!! Kudos to the author for creativity on this table, and;

3. The treasure provides a link (via its name) to another, yet unknown area in the Cube World which granted me the flexibility to come up with some gruesome details for a future adventure hook.

In the Lady White Plain’s chamber locked in a cloisonne box the players found written whispers to  another potentially grand treasure.  But the next piece of the puzzle is somewhere in the Forest of 500 Shadows, which is known to be the former home of clan that mysteriously vanished long ago. (This player also availed herself to a number of Lady White Plain’s finest kimonos; not in the printed adventure, but I thought, what the hell, why not??  let her roll a d4 as to amount and I may come up with some special properties for the kimonos before next session…or not, lol, haven’t decided, but I digress….)

So with new formal kimonos, Lord White Plain’s captured black panther, Kasha; and two ex-samurai, the party set off. (I allowed the players that died last session to roll back into the game as disgraced, surrendered samurai from the  battle…. Since they surrendered they can no longer be considered samurai, but they get to live, and as such can choose a new character class, or try to regain their honor, if they want to remain of “fighter/samurai” class.) 

The Forest of 500 Shadows is the second adventure in this edition of Cube World and is a hex crawl,  which is cool because it’s a completely different format than the first adventure which was a political game of evil options (with enough drama to make Telemundo novella producers shed a tear) And, the third (yet unplayed) adventure appears to be completely different as well... a dungeon/temple crawl with battles, traps, puzzles and the like, but more about that later. As a fledgling DM, I really appreciate the change of pace offered by the differing formats, yet still having these varied adventures all contained within a single Cube World installment.   The 500 shadows adventure comes with a color, hand drawn map linked to a full page, easy-to-read encounter key and artwork for some of the more formidable foes.  

I wont bore you with a blow by blow of our session progression through each hex, but the map includes all sorts of scenic and haunted terrain which comprise the forest of 500 shadows from bamboo thickets, eerie Japanese gazebos ruined and in disrepair, silent graveyards, lakes; streams of varied widths and depths which the characters must figure-out how to cross to continue on "the path"; ancient haunted battlefields, Japanese arch-bridges, waterfalls and an Japanese-style keep, centuries abandoned.

I used the encounters to slowly drop hints to the characters’ ultimate destination within the wood, a decrepit stone keep rumored to be haunted by the shadow warrior, Kagemusha.  But the party has to get there first, and to do that they will have to beat the Dry Widows!  (one of my fav monsters ever in my short DM career!)    Spoiler Alert!!! Skip the next section if you want to keep the suspense blinders on…..   

The dry widow is deceptively two monsters in one; they approach and engage as undead zombies ----a little concerning but no need for party panic-- until …..they are defeated and unleash whats inside their hollow forms, a swarm of needle spiders that have consumed the viscous, wet previous lives of their victims and left them as dry, eaten-out zombies roaming the forest of 500 shadows! (My new players tend to ask why?  How come? a lot ….in any event, I created a little history that the dry widows in these woods were originally the wives and girlfriends of long-since forgotten samurai that came to the forest to find their lost lovers who never returned from battle… but you can embellish your own narrative) So with the release of a spider swarm by all foes the enemy count is very effectively and immediately doubled before your players eyes, and without revealing too much... the needle spider swarm packs a stronger punch than the zombie cadaver on an already weakened party.... the worst case scenario being that any character overcome by a spider swarm becomes a dry widow themself! 

The party lost nearly half their number to these wicked widows and they aren’t even half way through the adventure!  The best part and the rub is, if a character becomes a dry widow it behaves and attacks the remaining party like a zombie, so the living party members at a minimum are forced to defend themselves and their dwindling hit points, or run.  Should they mistakenly slay the new dry widows and release the swarm, the situation becomes that much more dire for their own prospects for living, let alone the possibility of returning their recently slain friends to life. (they don’t even know how to do a resurrection, but they are pretty sure they need an intact dead body)   What to do!? What to fucking do!??   

Due to schedules, we had to call the session at this point, half the party defending itself from the undead needle spider swarming other half of the party!    Despite the living characters not having a plan of attack for this newly-developed dilemma;  and the players that are now dry widows pleading  out -of -game for the living characters not to destroy their former character's carcasses ………all  are clamoring for another session……. Mission accomplished!  

 I love this Cube World!!!! full stop. Highly Recommended.   Its just pure, off-kilter, feudal Japan bad-assery!!!  And my players are invested hook, line and sinker….. asking questions, wanting more and more details and backstory, having little meetings amongst themselves for strategy, coming up with their own ideas (the kimonos), etc.  Cant really ask for more as a DM! 

PS In honor of E.T.’s 40th anniversary, Japanese television played the movie in primetime over the weekend and I completely forgot there was a D&D scene in that movie until one of the couples in our group excitedly called me up to say that "our game" (D&D) was on tv! Had to remind myself that many new players (especially in Japan) don’t know the history or how far back the game goes…..but just another example of the excitement level these adventures are generating!

The obligatory pre-game, ramen stand planning session and Japanese E.T.