Before I start, I’ve had this in my head since I picked this up and can’t tell if it was implanted, but humour me: Neogi Neogi Neogi! Oi! Oi! Oi! – ah that’s better.
This a freaking awesome 6-9 hour tier 2 adventure from The Gallant Goblin (@GallantGoblin), written by Theo Thourlson, with art from Victor Tan (https://www.instagram.com/victortandesign) and Hung Pham, with cartography from Thourlson and Grady Wang, is a tale of aberrations abductions and nefarious Mind Flayer machinations that have layers and layers of unreality and crises of identities. It’s truly quite unlike any other adventure that I’ve come across and I’ve really fallen in love with it while reviewing it.
Please enjoy my in depth review below.
The first thing you see is the truly singular and spectacular cover depicting an Illithid ‘scientist’ holding an alchemical bottle aloft, while their adorable Neogi pet looks on and humanoids float in amniotic tanks, all looking down on a planet. I’m absolutely blown away by the quality and details of Tan’s work! It truly is a masterpiece that I want up on my wall at home! Also, there is nowhere near enough art of the adorable and beautifully terrifying Neogi! The recent addition of the Electrum medal chain and glasses to the Neogi are an absolute delight!
Inside the cover are a full set of credits, including editors: Cassie Rose, Wang and Mikaela Sims (@Mikaela_V_Sims), playtesters, among the contributions I listed above, and special thank to Ashley Warren (@ashleynhwarren) and Michael Nasson.
Author’s Note
This is a truly heartfelt note about the difficulties and the numerous folx in loved in brining this adventure to life, from Wang’s “love, support, and endless assistance behind the scenes”, Satine Phoenix support (@satinephoenix) “for her guidance and wisdom”, Warren for the RPG Writer Workshop, to Rose’s “+9 perception ability to meticulously improve almost every sentence in this adventure”. With Special Thanks to their playtesters and artists, “Victor Tan and Hung Pham, for bringing my imagination to life.”
About The Author
“Theo Thourson is one half of the team behind The Gallant Goblin, a YouTube channel devoted to helping players and game masters find the right tools to improve their Dungeons & Dragons games and spark their story-telling imagination. He lives in Bakersfield, CA with his partner, Grady Wang, and works as a school psychologist.”
Gallant Goblin: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCcNWC5fZJ3xwKoqJoT7XAqg
Introduction
The sadistic narcissist perceives himself as Godlike, ruthless and devoid of scruples, capricious and unfathomable, emotion-less and non-sexual, omniscient, omnipotent and omni-present, a plague, a devastation, an inescapable verdict.—Sam Vaknin, Writer
I love an adventure that grounds and encapsulates itself so well with an opening quote. We know exactly where we are and that it’s about to get megalomaniacal up in here!
The introduction includes a brief synopsis of the adventure, waking at an unfamiliar campsite and having to fight through a false reality to reclaim true memories, and because of this and the elements of the adventure, a Critical Content Warning that addresses Gaslighting, refers to further resources in the appendices, including handout cards, and has a wonderful text box to address the players with before playing, which makes reference to Safety Tools that are much needed in an adventure with the themes of this one.
The Adventure Background speaks further on the emotional abuse of Gaslighting in greater detail. I am glad to see this very serious and prevalent form of abuse of addressed with such care and concern. It is important for us all to remember that, while some themes and story elements may not be triggering or uncomfortable for us, they can be very difficult and even bring back past trauma in others. I know this from experience with my own Complex PTSD, greatly appreciate the way this subject has been handled.
This sections goes explain some of the unique aspects of this adventure, such as the characters starting without their class benefits and operating under a falsely implanted identity, which can be found on the appendices or created by yourself. There is advice on either letting your players know from the outset that they will be beginning without their class features or having an NPC make them aware that these can be regained later, roughly 2/3 through the adventure. This is a delicate matter than most groups and players will happily accept for the unique opportunity for experiencing the game in this manner, though being upfront can help to temper some frustrations certain players may have, after obsessing over and meticulously crafting their character. This and the power balance are things to consider depending on the different personalities at the table and the identities they are assigned, though advice for balancing encounters and the possible allowing of useful uncommon magic items can go a long way to allay all of the above.
Story Background
It’s a classic buddy cop movie where one cop is an alien that looks like a “spider with an eel’s neck and head” the size of a large dog and the other is a humiliated and outcast aberration with a octopus face who was too obsessed with the Arcane...except they don’t fight crime, they abduct people and put them in strange situations to harvest their emotions, you know to weaponize them and make potions...like coffee and the octopus head gets to eat the brains when they’ve been used up...like donuts. They probably bond over their bizarre aquatic features and pathological disregard for the lives of humanoids. Can you work out who you really are and be the real identity you made along the way, while escaping from hairy-spider-eel cop octopus-head-brain-doughnut cop in a sustained metaphor internal critics are calling, stretched to the point of absurdity, and you know their actually aren’t any cops in this adventure that’s actually great, but you’re now making sound like a fever dream?
Adventure Overview
Chapter 1 – Terror Around the Campfire
The party wake in a literal and existential nightmare.
Chapter 2 – The Village
Explore a strange village and discover the machinations of the mysterious mayor
Chapter 3 – Malinthalid’s Lair
Gain allies by giving them their minds back and escape a horrific laboratory of terrifying guardians, before working out just how the heck to get the f-word out of Dodge.
There’s really only one adventure hook, but it can be pretty much applied to anytime you go to sleep or rest. Perhaps your watch got bored and fell asleep so blame them! When you know who they are and why you should blame them.
Chapter 1 – Terror Around the Campfire
Right off the bat the first piece of box text is beautifully written and conveys the confusion and disorientation in the penumbra before awakening. Truly capturing the surreal, elusive and illusory nature of the adventure from the offset.
The characters awake in a forest, which unbeknownst to them is actually a super hi-tech shed full of illusory magic the most believable AstroTurf ever created.
Players are informed that they no longer have their memories or class abilities and are handed role cards from the appendix or the DM’s own creation to start the adventure.
The titles for each of the main scenes in this chapter are gloriously evocative on their own with, A Whisper in the Dark and A Seeming Savour. The party receive a strange message, shortly before being attacked by tiny fiends (with statblock included at the point of the encounter, rather than in the appendices, which is my own and many others preference for ease of referencing), before a strange saviour appears, allays at least one character’s fears and will leave everyone at the table excited, confused and almost certainly very, very afraid.
Chapter 2 – The Village
“Stepping from one false reality into another, the characters find themselves in a vaguely familiar village.”
From bizarre, almost real feeling setting to one even stranger, but somehow more familiar for the characters, with more illusory and synthetic details. This is where the Mr. M’s experiments, psychodramas and emotional manipulations/ take place. Think of the Campfire as the bag fish are kept in as they come up to the temperature of their tank and the village as aquarium where illithid conducts its illicit, cruel and immoral experiments in eliciting and extracting emotions.
The features of the village are written out in bullet points. These details, as with the entire adventure, are written in a manner that is fluid and enjoyable to read, with the bullet points conveying a wealth of detail at a glance. It’s quite incredible just how far Mr. M and Thourlson have gone to address the senses and minutiae that bring the village to such a vivid facsimile of life.
There are extensive sections on roleplaying the villagers, both their current frazzled state and how their original personalities bleed through as important clues for Chapter 3, and the Mr. M, the inhuman/e ‘scientist’ and ‘mayor’, including their confusing and manipulative strategies to keep anyone from getting a clear answer or know what’s going on, and advanced roleplaying tips on the various stages of the cycle of this Gaslighting/ emotional abuse.
Areas of the Village
There is a an adorably cheerful map of the small village with a full description of each building, an detailed accounting of the NPCs, their current and original identities, the weird and frustrating elements of their homes, and the Emotion Monitors ready to alert Mr. M when it’s time for him to come harvest, with varying amounts of subtlety, unwavering lies and Gaslighting. Highlights include a fact about chalk that genuinely blew my mind, a general store that has everything that looks the part, but nothing works (the longer this takes to work out the better. Be sure to keep a note if a PC has a rope, axe or bolt that’s nothing but a strange alien polymer for fun later), a devastatingly sad backstory and current sad state of affairs of a child that ties into their lore and this adventure so wonderfully, various melodramas Mr. M can have the villagers play out, a security Umberhulk who I envision in a big coat and shades, and Mr. M’s place having one of the most bizarre, amusing and wasteful applications of Wish level magic in the form of an Animated Oven!
The simplicity of this small town also has something to teach us about creating better, more believable settlements. By which I mean, we can take inspiration from the details missed out and those fabricated to keep in mind when writing. In many ways we are own Mr. Ms, but we want everyone to feel real, fulfilled and the world around them tangible and believable. Also, we don’t want to gaslight and we only want to extract some emotions... On the other hand, we can learn a great deal about the backstory and personality of NPCs that truly bring any in game settlement to life, as they do here.
Chapter 3 – Malinthalid’s Lair
This laboratory-lair abruptly ends the facade of the village in favour of alien alloy, complicated words for complicated domes and bright lights, with some big dumb guards and clever leggy brain security measures, as well as an adorable anxious possible new friend hiding in a wardrobe! There are little touches and details that put my in a glass Vial of Emotion, such as the likely hood of the PCs bullying a terrified Neogi (I know they’re the baddies in this story, but they’re all alone and all furry and adorable) although the adventure emphasises convincing them they will be spared, elements from the previous chapter influencing items in the present (which is always a nice touch) and one seriously, devilishly genius use of a disguising ability!
The final confrontation comes with the reveal from the beautiful cover that this is taking place in spaaace above Faerun! This is guaranteed to be a moment remembered forever by everyone at the table; the players for discovering they are in spaaaace, somewhere so beyond their normal setting, and the DM for revelling in everyone’s agape mouths and bulging eyes. You can’t always guarantee a moment, but I truly feel you can take this one to the bank! Oh and then they have to fight a Mind Flayer, which is always kinda memorable too. Tactics and scaling suggestions are included with Mr. M’s unique statblock in the appendices.
There are still some pretty nasty traps in the normally tranquil setting of a meditation chamber, but this adventure is all about subverting expectations in all the best ways. There is a full body of Mr. M’s Necromantic research to have fun with describing as much or as little as you like, which could make for some fun props. There’s obviously some goodies too and I quite enjoy the fact that a couple of different times in this adventure it calls for the rolling for magic items, which can be a lot of fun at the table, but there’s nothing to stop you rolling or choosing before too to make things easier.
Finally there is the chance to put all right, a tearful reunion and the chance to go to wherever home is. Sadly, but honestly understandably the rest of the ship is “beyond the scope of this adventure”, though if you were feeling bold this is something you could work on, as are the possible future run-ins with Mr. M, if he is able to escape. I’m so torn between the pathos and epicness of the moment that potentially thwarts his escape, but imagine completing a mega-dungeon years from now when the party come face to face with a familiar looking Illithid Lich...
Appendices
The appendices contain full unique statblocks for Mr. M, Zashmed (9th level spellcaster) and Shanathea (13th level spellcaster and the PCs’ friend on the inside), and the named magic items, including the two unique pieces of equipment found in Mr. M’s Lair, as well as the five unique emotion potions...empotions? All with their unique and flavourful effects. The maps for the Village and Mr. M’s Lair are also included in full, as well as the nine identities for the players with empty ones to add your own, with pretty, creepy and pretty creepy backs, and double-sided information cards about Gaslighting. The identity cards all have a name, title, brief backstory, skills and abilities, which are more than enough to get your players started with their new personal. The Defeat Real Life Mind Flayers! Gaslighting information cards are packed with information and resources for those interested, concerned or in need. It’s truly wonderful to see this taken so seriously, yet so accessibly, while making it something that, if your table are comfortable with it, can be played out and shown for the evil it is.
I Am Your World is truly rich story with more depth and layers than a schichttorte (German layer cake of many layers [20 in fact, thanks GBBO]) that truly gives the DM so much to work with through the layers of reality, unreality and the detailed true and false personas. The thought, craft and care. That has gone into the world and NPCs within it is exactly what I’m wishing for when I pick up an adventure and I kept stopping reading, closing my eyes and just imagining running aspects in my head because I loved the premise and elements so much! Also, more adventures should contains Neogi! Yes, there is a serious topic in here that won’t make this the perfect fit for every table, and as DMs we have to accept that, but through the descriptions, insights and handouts I don’t think it couldn’t be handled any better. There is pathos and a true chance for right and compassion to win over a heinous cruelty, which is awesome on its own, but it just happens to come with one of the most original and...out of this world stories I’ve ever come across on DMs Guild. I absolutely cannot wait to see what Thourlson and/ or any of the Gallant Goblins do next!
Gallant Goblin: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCcNWC5fZJ3xwKoqJoT7XAqg
I reached out to the Thourlson and include my brief interview with them here:
What inspired your adventure?
As a Patreon backer of Satine Phoenix, I worked with her to brainstorm story ideas for the project. She recommended thinking back to some of my favourite movies or books to get inspiration, and I remembered one of my old favourites, Dark City, which itself was inspired by Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. In the allegory, prisoners in a cave experienced reality as shadows cast on a wall from a fire behind them. They knew nothing else of the world. If they were somehow freed from their current existence and learned about what else existed in the world, they would likely resist this challenge to their conception of reality, clinging to that which was untrue. I thought this was an interesting avenue to explore. I also really wanted to tie my adventure to something about the current human condition so that the adventure might be more than just a fun little excursion to a spaceship, but which might also help people learn something that could help them in their own lives. I realized that these ideas of altered reality and clinging to a perceived truth manufactured maliciously by someone else was basically the definition of Gaslighting.
Are there any interesting tidbits or lore that didn’t make the final version you would like to share?
I don’t think there was any lore that got cut. Nothing comes to mind anyway. I have given thought to what becomes of Mr. M, the villain, at the end of the adventure. I imagine he is able to escape using Plane Shift for many parties. Other parties may leave his body behind. Being a necromancer, he may very well find a way back to life. I have the very basics of a follow-up adventure planned which will share a similar structure of providing a hopefully fun adventure, while also attempting to educate on a modern topic. I probably won’t attempt to craft the story in a month again. The only reason I was able to do that before was because I was on summer break, but it nearly killed me nonetheless. I’ll take my time on the next one. So it’ll probably be independent of the workshop. But who knows. I may try to do something less ambitious with the workshop again one day.
Talk to me about your interest with aliens and aberrations (I’m a huge fan too!)
Oh wow. Well, I’ve just always been a fan of sci-fi. Watched ST:TNG with my dad growing up. Loved Star Wars, Star Trek, Red Dwarf, Silverhawks, Babylon 5, and almost any sci-fi I could get my hands on. I devoured books by Douglas Adams, Robert Heinlein, Frederick Pohl, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, and Robert J. Sawyer. Currently super eager to dive into the Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin.
I thought that the neogi and a mind flayer would make interesting allies. In the lore, it seemed like the neogi were constantly getting outplayed by creatures who experienced humanoid emotions, and being incapable of them themselves, I could see them wanting to find a way to acquire and weaponize them. Mind Flayers with their unique ability to manipulate people (and devour brains) seemed to be the ideal ally to enlist if the neogi wanted to pursue such a strategy, since neogi don’t really have emotions. And a mind flayer on the run after being exiled due to his incredible ego and pursuit of lichdom would likely welcome the assistance and protection a Neogi spaceship could provide him.
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