Cult of the Cave Crickets

Cult of the Cave Crickets is a 2nd level adventure by Jeff Demers. Art is by Casey Lynch (including cover) and Marc Moureau (cartography only). The publisher is Dark Star Adventures.

Disclosure: I was given a pdf copy to review, and previously interviewed the author and artist on Raven Crowking's Nest. You can find that interview here.

This is a Lovecraft-inspired adventure which pits your PCs against forces seeking to gain a foothold in the Lands We Know. The author deserves kudos for including notes on what happens if the PCs fail and those forces succeed. Interestingly, the module uses the Lovecraftian idea of a doomed expedition, and gives the judge more than one potential start for the adventure. 

While the idea of a university expedition might seem a bit too modern for some DCC games, universities have existed since the Middle Ages, and there is no reason that a similar group could not exist in just about any setting, Of course, this also means that the adventure should be easily adapted to Crawl-thulhu, Ghostlike Crimes, Weird Frontiers, or the like. Actually, running this with Weird Frontiers would rock, and that is now my recommendation!

I generally prefer monster statistics to appear in the text where needed, but the use of sidebars/callouts is well done here, allowing you to get a clear understanding of what you need where you need it. Layout is very nice.

This adventure has yet to drop, so I want to avoid spoilers, Overall, it is a very nice piece of work, and I am looking forward to running it for my own players. There were a couple of things which might have been caught with another editing pass - a dropped word, a hamlet a day's ride to the south when the PCs have seen no one in days - but there is nothing that isn't easily fixed in play. The adventure does deal with madness, but doesn't provide game mechanics for the effects. I can't decide if that is a strength or a weakness, but it is something you should be aware of. Using the dice chain situationally as needed is probably all that is required. 

As a side note, because of the Lovecraft connection, this adventure uses several family names which have appeared in other Lovecraftian adventures, such as The Arwich Grinder and The Portsmouth Mermaid. This is to be expected, as authors riff off of the names provided by H.P. Lovecraft in his many stories. It is also an opportunity to link things together in an ongoing campaign, which is always a good thing.

Overall, the adventure achieves its goals of invoking Lovecraftian horror imagery in ways both expected and unexpected. This is going to be someone's favorite adventure.

In the hollow depths beneath the earth, where light is forgotten and sanity wavers, lies a terror beyond mortal comprehension!

Cult of the Cave Crickets invites you to descent into a labyrinth of darkness, where mutated insects skitter and fungal abominations writhe. Unravel the mystery of a fallen star and a missing research expedition over two to three sessions of intense gameplay. this is not a mere adventure - it is journey into madness, a confrontation with the unknowable, a test of your very sanity.

Dare you enter the subterranean abyss and confront the Cult of the Cave Crickets?

As of the time of this writing, the Kickstarter for this adventure is still ongoing, and can be found here.