Tabletop Review: Accursed: Long Dead and Twice Slain (Savage Worlds)

Accursed: Long Dead and Twice Slain (Savage Worlds)
Publisher: Melior Via
Cost: $2.50
Page Count: 10
Release Date: 03/27/2014
Get it Here: DriveThruRPG.com

Long Dead and Twice Slain is another short adventure for the Accursed campaign setting, which uses the Savage Worlds rules system. Unlike Half-Light which was more a story seed than an adventure and which was very systemless by design, Long Dead and Twice Slain is a fully fleshed out (albeit short) adventure and has Savage Worlds mechanics interspersed throughout the piece. While these are mainly stat blocks for NPCs and antagonists, it’s nice to see that this adventure leans more towards The Banshee of Loch Finnere in quality, giving Accursed a second quality published adventure for GMs to pick up instead of having to homebrew their own.

Long Dead and Twice Slain is eight pages of content (the other two pages are the cover and credits/table of contents); there is a ton of adventuring packed into this short little PDF. While the adventure can be played in a single session (and is designed for such) an enterprising Gm can probably pad things out for a second session if he or she wants to put forth the effort.

The adventure begins with the characters already knee deep in action. For some time cauldron-born undead have been besieging the land and rounding up new victims for some unknown experiment or torture. Accursed and humans alike have been fighting back and striking back against the witches and their unholy armies whenever they can. At some point the PCs come into contact with a band of nine human warriors – all that remains of an original fighting force that stood their ground against the witches. The two groups, PC and NPC parlay just long enough to see one of the NPCs die horribly by some mystical means. Together the two bands team up to figure out what is plaguing the humans. Could it be a curse, a ghost, or something else? The only way to find out is by playing the adventure!

The adventure is a branching one, giving players a choice of two beings to question. Neither is right nor wrong, but each provides you with a very different playthrough experience. The beginning and the end of the adventure is a constant, regardless which path you choose, but the fact the middle is quite different gives this adventure some nice replay value if you’re looking for that sort of thing. I prefer the Witch path to the Clock Maker one personally, but only because it’s more atmospheric and Ravenloft-y. Your mileage may vary.

The final battle in this piece is a pretty tough one and some PCs probably won’t make it out alive. Once the battle is dead the adventure wraps up quite nicely and without any loose ends. The end result is a tight little piece that gives more advanced Accursed characters their first published adventure to play through. I suppose the only problem is that the game hasn’t been out long enough for characters to naturally progress to this piece. No one says you can make “Seasoned” characters and just play this though. You’re also getting a pretty good deal here cost wise. Another Accursed adventure, The Banshee of Loch Finnere costs six dollars for twenty-one pages, so Long Dead and Twice Slain gives you a better content to cost ratio, and definitely a better one than Half-Light which is $1.25 for four pages – only two of which are content. Remember though, you’ll need three or four books to play this $2.50 adventure – the core rulebook for Accursed, the Savage Worlds core rulebook, the Savage Worlds Horror Companion and maybe the Accursed Player’s Guide as well. Suddenly, you’re spending a lot more than $2.50, aren’t you? Still, if you’re already invested in Savage Worlds, and/or Accursed, Long Dead and Twice Slain is a great adventure to pick up. It’s well designed, won’t hurt your wallet and most of all – it’s a lot of fun.


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