Reviewed By Gordon Feiner

The Upside:

Rescue At Karadonna is an adventure designed to work with the Alien Wars Campaign Setting. Either as a one off adventure for some gaming fun, or to be inserted into a standing campaign. It is set in the latter part of the Setting, when the Humans are driving the Xenovores back into their own space.

Before we get into the adventure, one aspect I have to point out is the advice on The Number Of Bad Guys from the introduction. Unlike many modules that go through the scenario and present a fixed (or nearly fixed) number for The Big Fight at the end, this one doesn't. Instead it takes one of the early encounters as a gauge of the PCs effectiveness and provides suggestions on how many bad guys to include in The Big Fight, an excellent touch that keeps the module dynamic and allows the challenge to be adjusted to the group.

Half the fun of an adventure is finding out what happens next, and of course things change because no Module Survives Contact With The PCs. I won't be going into too much detail so I don't ruin the complications, twists and turns.

Scene Zero - Briefing. The setup, the PCs are to be dropped in ahead of the main invasion force to liberate one of the Xenovore Camps that contains the human prisoners from the planet Karadonna. The premise sounds easy enough, but this is a game - when is it ever easy?

Scene One - Thanks For Flying Air Shrapnel, Welcome To Ambush Interstellar Spaceport. The title alone says it - things never go as planned. The PCs are dropped about ten miles from the planned point and have to make in on foot.

Scene Two - A Village. En Route to the Xenovore camp the Players will encounter a village with a few surviving Humans in it - the Xenovores enjoy the occasional hunt. Now the Players have a mission, and civilians to safeguard. Did we mention things are never easy?

Scene Three - The Big Battle. This is the main assault on the Xenovore Camp. And if done right should be a tough, possibly even slightly drawn out, battle.

Scene Four - Extract The Prisoners. You know how things are never easy? And plans never go as planned? Remember the full assault that's supposed to follow the Players after they secure the compound? The Players have to get the prisoners back to safety, that's another ten mile trek back to their landing spot, this time with civilians in tow. How easy or hard this is depends on how nice the GM is feeling that session.

From a brief glance it appears to be short and strait forward adventure. And for the most part it is, or can be. It could easily be run in a standard Four Hour Convention Slot, or it could be stretched into several sessions. If this is part of a larger campaign this could be the first part of an entire arc focusing on retaking the planet from the Xenovores; hunting down hidden facilities, full on assaults, whatever the GM can think of.

If you don't have Characters ready to go the module provides twelve ready to go. Each one has a wildly different personality that make for interesting group dynamics.

The adventure also provides color maps to print out and use, as well as a short equipment list.

The Downside:

The adventure is designed for 8-12 Players, which is generally more than the average gaming group in my experience. This means that either Players will be running two Characters at once or the GM with have to run several of them as NPCS.

The Otherside:

This is a good solid adventure that captures the Alien Wars Setting excellently. Even if you're not running an Alien Wars Setting you can easily adapt this adventure into a Rescue Mission for any kind of war campaign you're in. Just substitute the Xenovores for your enemy of choice.