Review and Commentary On The Gnomes of Levnec Adventure From Zzarchov Kowolski For Your Old School Campaigns

If your looking for an adventure with gnomes, high weirdness, a great sense of humor, and plenty of room for customization. The Gnomes of Levnec might just be for your party of warriors, wizards, and adventurers. 

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I went to Zzarchov Kowolski with one thing on my mind, gnomes. This adventure incorporates gnomes but not in the traditional sense but in the weird humor of old school gaming. The Gnomes of Levnec is one part outdoor adventure, two part dungeon crawl, and a whole little mini sand box of gaming adventuring with a twisted humor slant to it. I don't mean that this is a jokey unplayable adventure, rather its a twisted romp with a wry and twistedly strange sense of humor about itself. Levnec is actually a very interesting little setting, with the slightly familiar and the oddly twisted existing side by side. Your adventurers are thrust right into the deep end of the adventure. And the adventure is well worth the money, this adventure would make an excellent and more then slightly twisted adventure to run with OD&D, Swords & Wizardry, or Lamentations of The Flame Princess. In point of fact I love to run this adventure as a low level introduction to the world of Lamentations of the Flame Princess. In only sixteen pages the author establishes the setting, adds in a number of interesting NPC's within the adventure locations, adds a real plot with some minor hooks for adventure continuation, and ties it together with a witty yet interesting device or two.
There are some nifty random tables in this adventure that add to weirdness factor of piece without taking your PC's out of what's going on. This adventure knocks the traditional out door adventure on its ass and does it with style. A style that has a unique view point on gnomes, spells, magick, and a ton of weirdness at its heart. And uses these elements with a sense of the morbid and strange. But it does it in a completely awesome way. Repeatedly!
If your expecting hack and slash dungeon crawl fest, this adventure isn't for you. If you want an adventure with plenty of DYI old school OD&D adventure with plenty of Twin Peaks style high weirdness this might be the adventure for you.
This adventure has some nice maps, great diagrams, and I love, love, the art in the adventure piece because it suits the adventure rather nicely and set's the tone for this darkly whimsical adventure.
 The Gnomes of Levnec provides the DM with a handful of locations in the village, and there's plenty of room to add more in except for the gnomes are waiting to screw with adventurers. And yet they're still more going on then is hinted in the general outlay of this adventure. In fact the plot will have your adventurers crawling around the woods in no time flat and getting lost. In fact their's a rather nifty random table for that. The adventure is going to take PC's into the woods, twist their perceptions around, and then leave them feeling more then slightly disturbed. This is a perfect adventure for a short set campaign adventure that can be dropped right into the background of an existing campaign and yet leave the PC's feeling rather particular about the gnomes that are featured. Which in my book is a good thing. Five out of five because this adventure ticks so many boxes. Dark and more then slightly twisted, great maps, easy set up, deployment ,and a great weekend adventure to keep the PC's weirded out and more then slightly disturbed.  This adventure is a five out of five in my book.

Using The Gnomes Of Levnec 

With Your Old School Campaigns 

This isn't my first romp with Zzarchov Kowolski and I've read through his Pale Lady adventure which is a killer effort for the Lamentations of The Flame Princess rpg system. The Gnomes of Levnec isn't even in the same ball park as the latter adventure but the element of the mythological weird is none the less right there in this adventure. A sense that the 'unreal' of the fairy tales of old is right in your face screaming at you. 

Levenec might be used with the Pale Lady in a neighboring valley or other isolated spot along some of the trails. The idea that the truth behind the myths and legends is even weirder then we're expecting or want to know about. 

The Convent Of Saint Leona - Tonight's Lamentations Of The Flame Princess Actual Play Event

So tonight I had an entire adventure worked up for the Lamentations Of The Flame Princess rpg to go run over a friend's house to take a break from writing up stuff for the Fantastic Heroes and Witchery game campaign of mine. My buddy picks me up tonight but I got in the car without the majority of my books except my LoFP rule book. While I was panicking I resigned myself to my fate an thought about seeing a video that James Raggi did at a some point last year. F#$k You episode number #3 on You tube earlier in the day. One of the things in the video is Jame's opinion on the book 'Stealing Cthulhu' and how there isn't a single mention of Lovecraftian ghouls. So that was my rift and I went with it. 

  The PC's in tonight's game were veterans of Napoleon's campaign in Egypt,and this adventure concerns the French army being pushed out of Egypt by the British .The PC's were a mix of Fighters of fourth level and better with a wizard in their as well. The adventure consists of a hostel owned and operated by a group of nuns and the PC's figuring out that all is not well with the nuns. There is a plague sweeping the city and the PC's are caught within city limits and the nuns are offering kindness and a bed but not all is as it seems. People are going missing in the night. And the PC's are down and out veterans who have very little in the world. The adventure was humancentric as well. So there was very little set up time.

During the night one  of the PC's awakens in the inn/hostel to see a pair of yellow dangerous eyes flashing in the darkness. The PC followed the trail left in the dust by two strong and very dangerous creatures who dragged a man into a pit in the ground in the courtyard of the place.
There was very little light and the moon rolled over head as the clouds broke once in a while illuminated the courtyard.



The PC a fighter named Henry L'Court spotted a group of strange half starved beings and failing a wisdom  he assumed were beggars speaking with one of the nuns. There was something very inhuman about the nun. Something about her in the moonlight that made Henry pause shutter with horror. And then he saw the faces of the beggars. They passed the nun a bloody haunch of a package and he saw the tell tail signs of a person's arm and shoulder. He backed away very slowly and kept to the darkness going back to his room and to awaken the others. At this point the players faced a  dilemma of not having any weapons or equipment. The came up with a plan to check the room of the missing man having traced down the poor victim's whereabouts. The abode was well paid for and appointed. They found some spoils of war hidden within. Shot and pistol, a few swords, and a knife or two. They took the weapons and something more. The British officer had taken some other spoils as well. A preserved human head in a jar and the thing was 'alive'. This stopped the game in its tracks for a moment. ( The head was the preserved head of a wizard and had they taken to long things would have gone from bad to worse). The party put the thing back in its hidden panel within the trunk where they found it. They also found a pile of  strange coppery gold coins which they took.  And they left almost running into a trio of weird half ghoul bandits!



Then they heard voices in the hallway of the hostel. And they got their first glimpse of the inhuman things stalking through the hallways going from room to room. As they were checking on room the party bolted and hidden in the shadows. While hiding behind a tapestry the party discovered a hidden door. And a hidden stairwell leading down into the depths of the ancient stone pile. 

We had to end the game there because it is a work and school night for the players as well. To be continued this weekend!