Product Review - Jungles of K'Naanothoa by Geoffrey McKinney

The Jungles of K'Naanothoa (Carcosa Module 7) by Geoffrey McKinney

The Jungles of K'Naanothoa is a Carcosa sandbox module, one in a series of eight (so far) that detail the realm of of Carcosa and provide some great locations and story hooks so you can set your campaign in that world.  It is written to be compatible with AD&D first edition, and it assumes that you own the three core hardcovers from that rule set - but you don't have to own them to benefit from the module.  There is no suggested party size or level range.  A lot of the challenges are thinkers rather than dice-rolling exercises, but you are out in the middle of a vast jungle or inhospitable sea so it makes sense to have some meat on you.  I would recommend no fewer than 20 total levels among the principle PCs.

You can print on demand and buy The Jungles of K'Naanothoa from Lulu for 9.99 USD here, where you can find the whole line of wonderful Carcosa modules.

Presentation: The module itself is twenty pages of high quality white paper saddle stitched with a glossy cardstock color cover. The great area map is on the back which includes five-mile numbered hexes that correspond to the keyed encounter areas.

Adventure Hooks: There are 39 keyed hex locations detailed in about 2,800 square miles of land and another 6,500square miles of ocean in a beautifully rendered color hex map. One of the great joys of this setting is that each of eight modules has a hex map that borders another's, to create a huge continental map suitable for hundreds of sessions of play.

The Carcosa setting is colorful, both literally and culturally. The primitive tribes of men, just now throwing off the yolk of millennia of domination by the extinct Snake-Men, have reached the technology level we presume in vanilla D&D. But there are several "races" of Men, denoted by skin colors spanning the Crayola box, who trade, war, and struggle for survival. Although there is no mechanical difference between these men types, their stark visual differences make for an easy touchstone for players to see they are dealing with different tribes and factions.

The pantheon, which figures prominently both in the lore and the monster selection, is the Cthulu mythos, with all the mind-bending weirdness which that tradition is known for. 

The particular setting for the Jungles of K'naanothoa (Can Ann Oh Though Ahh I guess?) is quite obviously reminiscent of the Isle of Dread, even though it is technically a sub-continent connected to the mainland by an isthmus with a few attendant outlying islands - some uninhabited and one in particular inhabited by a deity-level entity.

Usefulness: This is not a plug-and-play adventure module.  In fact, it's not really an adventure module at all. It's more of a sourcebook with keyed hex map so you can make Carcosa your own. The locations provided are above average and the only quibble I really have is that I want MORE of what McKinney provides!

Things I don't love:

• No page numbers.
• No interior art.
• Frankly, the realm is sparse. Far too big for its contents. Way too much "Another hex of jungles. Nothing here." Yes, the Ref is supposed to fill in the blanks, but there are a LOT of blanks.
• No dungeon is detailed or mapped for you. I'd like to see at least one centerpiece adventure site fleshed out. (There are conceivably 12 more pages to write to make this a full-length adventure.)
• The names of the names NPCs are colorful but most of them I can't pronounce. This is probably a "me" thing and not a fault of the module/world, but it still bugged me.

Things I love:

• Good quality production. Good art. Well proofread and laid out adequately.
• The hex map is great in itself but even better because it fits together with seven other maps
• Each of the 39 keyed encounter areas is richly detailed enough for a referee to run a game session or more out of it.
• The factions are obvious and plentiful (but it's up to the Ref in most cases to determine their relative dispositions.)
• The product suggests far more than meets the eyes.

Don't Use This If: You need something quick; you need something generic; you don't like doing prep work; you are a new referee; your players are tourist types who do not relish self-directed play.

DO Use this If: You want a unique campaign far flung from standard fantasy-medieval fare; you have lots of ideas about cool hex locations; you are good at taking a location and turning it into an adventure hook.