Review - Accursed: Strained Allegiance

Accursed: Strained Allegiance

Want to wipe away everything I contributed to Accursed: World of Morden? Pick up Strained Allegiance, the latest adventure by Melior Via head honcho John Dunn!





I jest, but it’s true. Strained Allegiance gives players the chance to remove one of the Witches – the goddess-like entities who are the main antagonists of the setting – completely from the board, freeing all Shades (including player characters) from the taint of her influence and destroying all of the Banes in her Witchline.





Which includes all three of the monsters I created for my contribution to World of Morden…





…And upends the political structure of the Outlands that I developed for that book.





Huh.





All kidding aside, it’s a brave move by John, a radical twist in the ongoing metaplot of Accursed that could provide a template going forward for any ongoing campaigns in that setting. It’s pretty much standard operating procedure in Pinnacle’s original settings (50 Fathoms, Slipstream, etc.) that the Plot Point Campaign ends with the setting upended, the primary threat defeated, but it’s rare to see that in the much more loosely-plotted third-party settings. 





The Witch in question – Hecate , the Dark Queen – is, strategically, the perfect choice. As the go-between uniting the other Witches, removing her fatally disrupts their fragile alliance. Her domain, the Outlands, stands between the rest of Morden and the Darkwall, the mountain range over which the Witches first traveled to invade the setting; destroying her keep and the lackeys who run rampant across the Outlands gives the heroes a chance to open a second front in the war. It’s really a cool move, plot-wise.





*Sigh* Maybe I can write some of my fan-creation Witches and Witchbreeds into the setting if Melior Via expands the setting again. One can only hope…

Echidna

Accursed: Strained Allegiance is available for the low price of $2.50 at DriveThruRPG. It only requires the original Accursed; all necessary material and monsters from World of Morden is contained in the adventure (though using World of Morden to flesh out the heroes' journeys through the Outlands and including final encounters with the banes I created would certainly ramp up the epic). The adventure also introduces a new Bane of the Gorgon – echidnas – who my Monster Musume-loving self can’t help think make up for the loss of the yuki-onna. 





Purchasing Strained Allegiance through the link above helps support Wine and Savages through affiliate sales credits. My review copy of Accursed: Strained Allegiance was provided for free by Melior Via.