Review #2: Terror in the Streets by Kelvin Green
I recently decided I would go ahead and review all eight of the new Lamentations of the Flame Princess books in order from my most favorite to my least. This is the second review in the series. I hope you enjoy!
Brief Summary (WARNING--Spoilers Ahead):
Terror in the Streets is a murder mystery investigation set in 17th century Paris. I’m serious about those spoilers, so please please skip past this if there’s any chance you might play this one.
Cardinal Richlieu has a secret brother who works as a tailor. The tailor believes that he has been receiving messages from god that he needs to construct a suit out of human skin in order to avoid an earthquake that will level Paris. After the murders get noticed, the party is brought in to investigate and the adventure starts. The adventure is really a series of locations that the party can visit in any order, the last known locations of the victims, a taxi-cab company, a thieves' guild, etc. There are a few charming little side-jaunts including an investigation into werewolf sightings in a small village outside of Paris and a wizard’s tower.
Once the true murderer is discovered, the straight-forward murder investigation has the potential to become an adventure of political intrigue, as the powerful Cardinal Richlieu would rather not become implicated in the sordid affair.
The boxed set also includes a supplementary book of bonus adventures including:
A brief jaunt on the moon and an escape from the insane aliens that live there (You could say that they’re… lunatics?)
an encounter with time-travelling Satanists
the tomb of ancient druids (who liked puzzles apparently)
A gourmand ghost… OF DOOM
An adventure that answers the question: what if the three musketeers' heads were replaced by dog heads?
"Adult Content" Spice Level: Mild–if this one were a hot sauce, it would be a tasty Pico de Gallo. Get it? Gallo? Gaul? France? I assure you, this pun is hilarious.
Art and Design:
I splurged a bit to get the box set of this game. The boxed set comes with some nice goodies–the previously mentioned book of supplemental adventures, a large yellow die (used to indicate citizen unrest), a nice large map, some handouts, a little build-it-yourself building, and a few sheets of paper cut-out minis. The box itself is really nice and sturdy. If you’re a wargamer, the box is very similar to the ones used by GMT games (they’re so similar in fact that I have to wonder if they come from the same factory). The large yellow unrest die is both large and yellow. So, so yellow. I love it! The paper used for the cut-out minis is okay, but I wish it was a bit sturdier cardstock and/or printed a little larger. As it is, I don’t know if the minis would survive much playtime. It probably would have been too expensive, but I kind of wish the minis had been printed on perforated cardboard like a boardgame piece. Despite my moaning, I am really happy with the set and I think it’s worth the extra cost if you feel like treating yo’ self. I realize the logistics of putting the thing together was probably a nightmare, but I love my boxed set so much and I hope LotFP does more like this in the future!
The art (with the exception of the cover by Yannick Bouchard) is all done by Kelvin Green. Kelvin has an evocative, clean line art style with bright, pure colors that feels like it could be panels from a professionally produced graphic novel—there’s an economy of lines, but so much character, personality, and humor gets infused in each one. If the module was taken at face value, the mood of the module would be quite dark just based on the subject matter, but the module doesn’t really feel dark because the art communicates the tone so well.
For the most part, the book is organized by individual “themes,” for lack of a better word. For example, all the information about the wizard tower, including tables, author sidenotes, NPCs statblocks, etc. is all grouped together. This means that each page has to contain a lot of different types of information, all of which is laid out quite well on the page so that it’s easy to tell at a glance where to find the information you’re looking for. In some cases, I do wish that each individual section could be separated a bit better. For example, the individual adventures in the supplementary Huguenauts and Other Distractions book are not really separated at all, flowing one after the other with little to help your brain distinguish them. Please keep in mind, though that I have no idea what I’m talking about. Overall, it’s a very well done layout again by Alex Mayo (who’s name is gonna come up a lot in these reviews).
Review:
The inside back cover of this book features an illustration of a square in Paris done in a busy, Where’s Waldo-esque type of style. You’ve got a three people openly brawling in the square, some kids throw tomatoes at a guy in the stocks, a woman is in the process of emptying out the chamber pot, a woman sells bread, a cat crawls around on the rooftops ignoring the yapping dog in the street below, the peg-legged flame princess stares at something off-screen… and amongst the swirling hum and drum of every life, off in a corner so tiny you don’t notice it at first glance, the murderer stalks in an alley wearing a blue cloak and his suit of human leather. And that’s what it feels like to read Terror in the Streets.
Both the adventure in this book and the adventure in The Book of Antitheses are investigative, mysterious adventures—a challenging type of adventure to write because the temptation to lead the players down a railroad is difficult to avoid. Both of these books solve the problem of running a mystery in different ways. Antitheses sidesteps the issue entirely by giving the GM tools to improvise the thing themselves. Terror in the Streets has a more traditional approach, giving the GM a serious of interconnected locations, events, and side-quests from which the adventure emerges. Then, like a wheel spun by the push of a hand, the whole thing is set into motion by a timeline to give the adventure a sense of urgency.
Each of the locations is given a lot of life by Kelvin’s excellent NPCs. These NPCs are, in my opinion where Kelvin really shines as a writer. A wizard’s tower is one thing, but a wizard’s tower populated by an Alan Moore look-alike, his dejected manservant, and the (very small) possibility of an annoyed vampire is much more interesting! Each location has something going on and someone to talk to.
As anyone who reads this blog knows, I am a bad artist, but I try my best. Cut me some slack, it’s hard to learn a new skill as an adult! Something I’ve learned in my journey in trying to be an artist is that when you’re trying to draw a complex subject, say, a tree, there’s a temptation to get way too bogged down in the detail of individual leaves and branches—a path that only leads to frustration. All you really need is the illusion of depth and complexity. A tree doesn’t look like a tree, it looks like a stick with a series of shaggy spheres on top. The artist tricks the eye into thinking there’s a lot of depth and detail where there isn’t any. It’s not a shortcut; it’s not a trick; it’s how art is made. What I’m trying to say here is that city adventures are notoriously tricky—like drawing a tree, it’s tempting to get bogged down in alleyways and streets, districts and building. Details that don’t matter. Kelvin gives the city the illusion of depth by stuffing it full of weird little encounters. Help this guy find his prized chicken? Sure! Some rich guy wants to get a ring back from his friend Geoff in prison? Bring it on! These things aren’t necessarily related to the main adventure, but they give the city depth and complexity. It feels like the party could go down any alley-way and find something there. Of course, that’s not really true and no party is going to start systematically opening all doors in Paris—but the adventure gives the illusion that they could. Yes, it’s an illusion, but all art is illusory.
The sidebook that comes with the boxed set is proof of what a great setting Kelvin has created. The little side adventures having nothing to do with the rest of adventure, but they live in the Terror in the Streets universe and couldn’t really live anywhere else. My favorite of these adventures is the one on the moon (since it reminds me a bit of the film The Adventures of Baron Von Munchausen which was one of my childhood favorites) and the time-traveling Satanists. A big part of the reason why I put this one as my second favorite of the release set is because of what a great setting this is. I would be ECSTATIC if Lamentations of the Flame Princess released more in the Terror in the Streets setting. There is so much potential for fun and shenanigans in the crooked streets of Paris. If I was going to run one adventure amongst all of these products, this would be the one I would run.
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