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The Dark of Hot Springs Island
Hot Springs Island is a high fantasy sandbox adventure setting that can be used with any table top role playing game. It's comprised of two books: One for players and one for the game master.
The Dark of Hot Springs Island is the game master's book. It is a fully illustrated 192 page book. Hot Springs Island is a hexcrawl, and the Dark contains all the details needed to run a sandbox game there. There are 75 locations on the island, and 26 maps ranging from ogre villages to a ruined elven city to the volcanic lair of a vain efreet. Seven factions, 87 interconnected non-player characters and 300 problematic treasures are sure to generate plenty of lingering repercussions each time your players make a decision. Finally, 448 random events and encounter motivations help ensure that every play-through of Hot Springs Island can explode into wildly different outcomes from the same basic parameters.
The setting is system neutral, so there are no stats for monsters or prepackaged treasure parcels. No levels are assumed, and there is no path of advancement through this tropical wilderness. The monsters will likely be tough, and the intelligent factions even tougher, but the motivations for (and thus potential leverage against) everything with a modicum of intelligence has been detailed. Combat is expected to be approached like war, and not a perfectly balanced arena skirmish. Crack the mountains. Flood the dungeons, and burn everything to survive.
In the event that stats are an absolute must, most all monsters found on the island can already be found in the monster books you own for your system (e.g., efreet, salamanders, ogres, nereids, imps, elementals, etc). If they are not found there, the size and diet has been provided so you can sub in the stats of a "medium sized carnivore" or "large herbivore" as necessary. Finally, there are a few creatures of such size, age, and power that they'd likely be considered demi-gods. For these individuals it will be necessary to spend some time prepping their particulars, but there should be plenty of ramp up time before they make an appearance on the island.
A Field Guide to Hot Springs Island is the player oriented companion book to The Dark. It is written "in-character" and can be used by characters in the game world to help identify plants and monsters, translate ancient languages, and as a resource of advice and rumors.
The Dark of Hot Springs Island is the game master's book. It is a fully illustrated 192 page book. Hot Springs Island is a hexcrawl, and the Dark contains all the details needed to run a sandbox game there. There are 75 locations on the island, and 26 maps ranging from ogre villages to a ruined elven city to the volcanic lair of a vain efreet. Seven factions, 87 interconnected non-player characters and 300 problematic treasures are sure to generate plenty of lingering repercussions each time your players make a decision. Finally, 448 random events and encounter motivations help ensure that every play-through of Hot Springs Island can explode into wildly different outcomes from the same basic parameters.
The setting is system neutral, so there are no stats for monsters or prepackaged treasure parcels. No levels are assumed, and there is no path of advancement through this tropical wilderness. The monsters will likely be tough, and the intelligent factions even tougher, but the motivations for (and thus potential leverage against) everything with a modicum of intelligence has been detailed. Combat is expected to be approached like war, and not a perfectly balanced arena skirmish. Crack the mountains. Flood the dungeons, and burn everything to survive.
In the event that stats are an absolute must, most all monsters found on the island can already be found in the monster books you own for your system (e.g., efreet, salamanders, ogres, nereids, imps, elementals, etc). If they are not found there, the size and diet has been provided so you can sub in the stats of a "medium sized carnivore" or "large herbivore" as necessary. Finally, there are a few creatures of such size, age, and power that they'd likely be considered demi-gods. For these individuals it will be necessary to spend some time prepping their particulars, but there should be plenty of ramp up time before they make an appearance on the island.
A Field Guide to Hot Springs Island is the player oriented companion book to The Dark. It is written "in-character" and can be used by characters in the game world to help identify plants and monsters, translate ancient languages, and as a resource of advice and rumors.
192 pages, Hardcover
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 24, 2021
This supplement begins with the assumption that the campaign area is a powder keg of characters, situations, politics, and what have you, and then the arriving player characters are the spark. This is exactly the right way to think about adventures, and the rest of the book does not disappoint one bit.
You have a secret tropical island, in the vein of Isle of Dread, packed up with weird plants and creatures, volcanic eruptions, elemental spirits and lords, elven ruins, former slaves, lizardmen, nereid freedom fighters, salamanders, obsidian giants, a moronic efreeti drug kingpin, a couple demons and minor gods running the show from behind the scenes, and a bunch of birds about to be buried in lava and going extinct, among many other things and complications. We get a short biography of each, along with things they want and don't want, which is all it takes to give them plenty to do with each other, with players, and a boatload of personality and flavor. It gets everything out of the number of pages that it has.
The book opens with an overview of each of the island's hexes, all of them with some three interesting things - ruins, villages, dungeon entrances, etc. - to look at and explore more closely. They all get more detail later, as do the factions and the characters and the setting history. It's all put down very well and it's easy to grab all the important things at a glance, then the rest if the player characters decide to go that way next.
The only thing missing is stats. I suspect it tries to be system-neutral, but lacking in even any guidelines hurts the document somewhat. I could have used something. But it's a small quibble - nothing an experienced DM can't handle on his own - so I'd still highly recommend this to everyone as one of the best hexcrawls out there.
You have a secret tropical island, in the vein of Isle of Dread, packed up with weird plants and creatures, volcanic eruptions, elemental spirits and lords, elven ruins, former slaves, lizardmen, nereid freedom fighters, salamanders, obsidian giants, a moronic efreeti drug kingpin, a couple demons and minor gods running the show from behind the scenes, and a bunch of birds about to be buried in lava and going extinct, among many other things and complications. We get a short biography of each, along with things they want and don't want, which is all it takes to give them plenty to do with each other, with players, and a boatload of personality and flavor. It gets everything out of the number of pages that it has.
The book opens with an overview of each of the island's hexes, all of them with some three interesting things - ruins, villages, dungeon entrances, etc. - to look at and explore more closely. They all get more detail later, as do the factions and the characters and the setting history. It's all put down very well and it's easy to grab all the important things at a glance, then the rest if the player characters decide to go that way next.
The only thing missing is stats. I suspect it tries to be system-neutral, but lacking in even any guidelines hurts the document somewhat. I could have used something. But it's a small quibble - nothing an experienced DM can't handle on his own - so I'd still highly recommend this to everyone as one of the best hexcrawls out there.
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July 26, 2026How? I don't recall -- perhaps because this is from a San Antonio company that came to an Austin event so I heard their name?
What? Hot Springs Island is a weird place, with a weird history (magical elves that captured nereids and eventually died out / turned to goo) and weird planar and labor relations: this one efreet has a mining operation, but also there's other elemental forces, and the efreet was in business with some planar traders who gave him a slave labor force, who then largely rebelled -- oh, and every once in a while lizardmen from 3 different tribes might show up.
There's a lot going on.
So much that there's two books: one a GM's guide, full of random tables and maps, the other a player-facing book (I suppose) which recounts some exploration of the island.
Or put another way: This is a big hexcrawl on a jungle island full of peril, very reminiscent of the old TSR adventure Isle of Dread. Or maybe: there's less relation here on the level of things and more a relation on "how it made you feel as a kid, exploring the island and filling in the hexes."
Yeah, so? I'm torn about this, so let's pro/con it. (It's also been over a month since I looked at it, so.)
Pro:
-There's something very funny to me about the general level of scumminess going on here. The big evil efreet who is scary on the cover is also (a) running for his life because of a bad decision after a bad night of gaming and (b) very into parties and drugs. He's maybe the most extreme, but there's a lot of NPCs here who are ... not going to make it into an epic poem. That's fun.
-Some of the elements here are very fun sounding -- like the degenerate elves who became goo that leaves a slime trail in the dark. That seems like a fun thing to spring on players.
-Some of the random encounter tables seem fun too, giving what you meet and what it's doing.
Con:
-The text is too small, it's too long, there's too much stuff -- like, do I really need 3 different lizardman tribes? -- and some of the stuff seems a little overly complicated (the slave labor force is called ogres, but the text always has to remind you that these are actually planar-derived creatures that aren't actually ogres -- and while I could see that as a fun revelation, it's also... possibly just a waste of words?).
-Random tables where you don't need them. Like: random encounters --good! Random things going on in the dungeon -- not good! I mean: they set up the (small) dungeons with some tension or relation to the factions on the island: the salamanders who follow the efreet, the ogres who rebelled, the lizardmen, the nereids, the elves, etc. And then they ask you to roll to see what's been going on in that tension. Why not just focus on a single source of tension and then devote some time to figuring out what happens from there depending on the PCs actions. Like: the PCs are only going to be entering the dungeon for the first time once -- every time after that should be an outgrowth of what happened before (or is happening elsewhere on the island).
None of this is objective (well, I think the random table complaint verges on objectivity), and there's something exciting about this project too. But for me, this doesn't make me want to bring this to a table.
What? Hot Springs Island is a weird place, with a weird history (magical elves that captured nereids and eventually died out / turned to goo) and weird planar and labor relations: this one efreet has a mining operation, but also there's other elemental forces, and the efreet was in business with some planar traders who gave him a slave labor force, who then largely rebelled -- oh, and every once in a while lizardmen from 3 different tribes might show up.
There's a lot going on.
So much that there's two books: one a GM's guide, full of random tables and maps, the other a player-facing book (I suppose) which recounts some exploration of the island.
Or put another way: This is a big hexcrawl on a jungle island full of peril, very reminiscent of the old TSR adventure Isle of Dread. Or maybe: there's less relation here on the level of things and more a relation on "how it made you feel as a kid, exploring the island and filling in the hexes."
Yeah, so? I'm torn about this, so let's pro/con it. (It's also been over a month since I looked at it, so.)
Pro:
-There's something very funny to me about the general level of scumminess going on here. The big evil efreet who is scary on the cover is also (a) running for his life because of a bad decision after a bad night of gaming and (b) very into parties and drugs. He's maybe the most extreme, but there's a lot of NPCs here who are ... not going to make it into an epic poem. That's fun.
-Some of the elements here are very fun sounding -- like the degenerate elves who became goo that leaves a slime trail in the dark. That seems like a fun thing to spring on players.
-Some of the random encounter tables seem fun too, giving what you meet and what it's doing.
Con:
-The text is too small, it's too long, there's too much stuff -- like, do I really need 3 different lizardman tribes? -- and some of the stuff seems a little overly complicated (the slave labor force is called ogres, but the text always has to remind you that these are actually planar-derived creatures that aren't actually ogres -- and while I could see that as a fun revelation, it's also... possibly just a waste of words?).
-Random tables where you don't need them. Like: random encounters --good! Random things going on in the dungeon -- not good! I mean: they set up the (small) dungeons with some tension or relation to the factions on the island: the salamanders who follow the efreet, the ogres who rebelled, the lizardmen, the nereids, the elves, etc. And then they ask you to roll to see what's been going on in that tension. Why not just focus on a single source of tension and then devote some time to figuring out what happens from there depending on the PCs actions. Like: the PCs are only going to be entering the dungeon for the first time once -- every time after that should be an outgrowth of what happened before (or is happening elsewhere on the island).
None of this is objective (well, I think the random table complaint verges on objectivity), and there's something exciting about this project too. But for me, this doesn't make me want to bring this to a table.
April 4, 2024
4.2☆, only for its legibility as a straight-thru read. Of note, it's likely not meant to be read that way. Maybe some of the most fluid game-creatulion dynamics I've read. The encounter-building mechanics are unmatchable. The NPC list in the appendix is fifty hours of game content and its practically a sidebar to the setting-proper. Non trivially an amazing piece of collaborative creativity. As a reading experience, I began to tire of jungle. Maybe my own fault. I wish I'd read ten pages and tried to use it, rather than read it comprehensively. I think my second time, when I get to play the game it makes possible, I will say 'flawless', but I must admit the experience I had, not the one I wish I had.
October 12, 2024
The book is incredibly thorough. This has everything you could need to run a dynamic hex crawl, except the system (of your choice). It's unnecessarily sexual at times though, which would make me hesitate to run it for people I don't know. But the book was marked as 'mature' and I can always edit those aspects out. At least the mature aspects fit with the mythos the authors came up with.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews