Pyramid Review
The Spear of the Lohgin (for d20)
Published by Paradigm Concepts
Written by Jarad Fennell
Illustrated by Manuel Aguiera, Paul Carrick, Veronica Jones, Jim Pavelec and Derek Stevens
32 pages; $9.99
The Spear of the Lohgin is the first release from Paradigm Concepts, one of the latest publisher to take advantage of the Open Gaming License and do scenarios for d20. This is the first part of a trilogy that Paradigm Concepts calls the Canceri Chronicles, and is designed for four to six characters of levels four through six.
Written by Jarad Fennell, this is done in the standard thirty-two-page format behind a cover by Brom. It may not be the most impressive of Brom paintings, but at least marks a sense of professional quality, and sets a nice tone for the adventure without giving anything away. Inside the layout is clear and competent, with only the occasional inconsistency. Unfortunately, the appearance of The Spear of the Lohgin has two main teething problems. First, the art is inconsistent. Seconf, the maps are terrible. These have been designed using ProFantasy Software's Campaign Cartographer 2, but not to the polished standard we have seen in other recent d20 adventures. Here the maps suffer from being bitmapped, or have items that are arranged in fashion that is too regular a pattern upon the eye, or indeed suffer from both problems.
Nor is the writing entirely immune from problems. Some of the boxed flavor text designed to be read out to the players is . . . well, lacking . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: June 22, 2001
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