The Horror Out of Hagsjaw

The Horror Out of Hagsjaw is an adventure from the newly resurrected Necromancer Games (an imprint of Frog God Games) that funded via Indiegogo. It is written by Levi Combs of Planet X Games, author of two of my favorite adventures: Jungle Tomb of the Mummy Bride and An Occurrence At Howling Crater. I’m going to put a disclaimer here. Levi is my homie. I was a fan of his work before I got to know him and he didn’t ask me to do this review. Homie-ness aside, I think he’s a great writer and love letting other folks know that. As you can see in the pic, I have the 5e version, though it was also released for Swords & Wizardry and Pathfinder 1e.

The adventure sees the party arriving at the run down border village of Hagsjaw. The community was once thriving, but because of the curse of a trio of hags it’s been on a steep decline. The hags have returned (in a fashion) and now threaten to spread the madness of their patron, the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young... Shub-Niggurath. There are definitely mythos elements and threads throughout this adventure. Hagsjaw (formerly known as Hogsjaw Hollow) has a Dunwich-vibe to it. It has no silver mines, but it was once a thriving community. There are several colorful characters in town, which are included in a d8 resident chart. Each entry gives enough information to help the DM bring them to life. There’s not much to do in town: talk to Ol Jeb, shop at Webley’s Dry Goods, get a watered down ale at The Craven Crow, or investigate the crumbling church.

While the adventure has three major encounters that can be tackled in any order, the obvious place to start is the church. Incidentally, it is most beneficial to go here first. While the church is run down on the outside, the contents are truly horrid. The scene is gore and blood soaked. A massive dark piece of vegetation with disgusting polyps hanging from bursts through the floor. A gibberish mouther rests beneath the floor seeking to devour those that enter. The descriptions of this area are visceral and muck covered. Levi’s love of Lovecraft’s work really comes through as the scene he presents is unnerving and putrid.

The next area described is an altar of Shub-Niggurath that can be found in the cursed woods. A small band of malicious satyrs are torturing a gnome, trying to learn the location of a lost hag’s skull. This encounter gives the party a reason to fight evil fey, which is always fun. Again, Levi does an excellent job describing the unholy scene.

The final area described is a cave that pits the party against two hag possessed townsfolk Barnabas and Keziah Tatterly and their charmed minions. Lovecraft fans will recognize the names. Barnabas is named after Barnabas (Old Man) Marsh and Keziah Mason (the antagonist of The Dreams in the Witch House).

While the adventure doesn’t have a traditional happy ending, the town is too far gone and will eventually be reclaimed by the forest, if the party succeeds in destroying the hags they have saved some good folks and stopped the spread of a vile cult.

At the conclusion of the adventure we’re given six statblocks and three magic items. All of these could easily be used in other wilderness adventures and one of the stat blocks is for a prehistoric beaver... I’ll let you make your own juvenile jokes.

The cover art is amazing. That hag is striking. The rest of the art and maps are standard Frog God Games/Necromancer game fair, really good and fitting, but not super memorable.

I think Necromancer Games did a great job with this adventure. Of the Indiegogo adventures released by them and their parent company, this is definitely my favorite. I do wish the adventure would have been more like a Planet X Games adventure though. I really love the grindhouse style and over the top nature of Levi’s other adventures. While there is still horror with this one, it seems really tame and toned down. I understand why, it was made for a wider audience, but I am a little sad to think about what could have been.

Don’t let my whining dissuade you though. I loved this adventure and if you want to add a bit of cosmic horror to a dark corner of your game, this is a great way to do so.