When I heard people say online that Quelong by Kenneth Hite was a great module, I was interested. 48 pages of A5 is my kind of size.
=> Quelong | Kenneth Hite
Until now I kept saying that Rob Conley’s Points of Light (4 settings, 42 letter-sized pages, reviewed on Dragonsfoot) and Points of Light 2 (4 settings, 59 letter-sized pages, also reviewed on Dragonsfoot) were the perfect hexcrawl products. The size was right. That’s about 25 A5 pages per setting. Thus, Qelong is about twice the size of a Rob Conley setting. If you want to get a feel for the Rob Conley settings, take a look at the Southland PDF. It’s available for free.
=> Points of Light | reviewed on Dragonsfoot | Points of Light 2 | reviewed on Dragonsfoot | Southland
How does Qelong compare to the top hexcrawl? Here’s what I think.
Both provide a handful of pages of background, history, the major factions, how to integrate it into your campaign. The usual stuff, but short. I like short. I also like to know what the author intended to convey with the setting so that I can read the rest with the right mind set. I like to know whether it’s “hellish southeast Asia” (/Qelong/) or “embattled forces struggling to establish a home” (/The Golden Shore/, in Points of Light 2).
One thing I noticed was that the Qelong introduction referred to more faction details: “Myrmidons deranged and misdirected chew through the land, laying eggs in the river dwellers to hatch out more warriors. (See p.28 or [sic] details on the myrmidons.)” The effect was that while I was reading the introduction, I already eagerly leafed through the book, looking up details. It introduced me to the factions and made me curious for more. Well done.
The Qelong introduction also has a table of 50 rumors and lets each character start with a random rumor; spending a handful of coins will let players roll again. I like it.
The Qelong introduction also features elaborate disease and magic poisoning rules that require purify food and drink, cure disease and remove curse spells. I think it’s very atmospheric but I’m not sure how well these poisoning rules work in play. We don’t keep track of rations, how will we keep track of poison levels?
Both Points of Light and Qelong describe geographic features. These are entire areas instead of single hexes with a specific description. In Points of Light most of these areas have one paragraph each, which is short. Qelong has more. It starts with a bold paragraph that could be read aloud or just provide the “in game” view. This is followed by another paragraph of background information that you don’t need at the table but which helps the referee understand what’s going on. And then there’s what I love: each geographic feature comes with a bullet list of suggested encounters.
Last year I posted an example from my Caverns of Slime module (free PDF) which used the same format. Here are some examples of varying size from Qelong:
=> an example from my Caverns of Slime module | free PDF
In addition to that, Qelong has a different random encounter table for each hex type. This is excellent.
Is there anything Qelong doesn’t come with?
Both Points of Light and Qelong come with a list of locations. In Points of Light, these are sorted by hex coordinates: “1604 Unicorn Pool”. There are a fair number of them. Southland, for example, comes with 38 hex descriptions. Each one consists of one to five paragraphs, many settlements come with a little overview map (to be copied and handed out to your players, perhaps?). Characters only have class and level indicated: “Lord Mayor Thomes White (Ftr3)”, monsters just have their hit dice noted: “Clak and Frull, hill giant (9HD) brothers”, and in Points of Light 2 they have some D&D 4E descriptors as well: “rust monsters (level 5 controller)”.
In Qelong, which is about twice the size of a single Points of Light setting, there are only ten encounter areas. Each has two to five paragraphs, some come with extra information about important non-player characters or unique monsters. If characters or monsters are described in more detail, any treasure they have is also listed. I like the detailed Qelong encounter areas and even if there are only ten of them, I think it works out because Qelong, unlike the Points of Light settings, has an optional end to it.
Wow! I really must recommend Qelong. I agree with Zak’s review: “So yeah, Qelong is fucking good and stuff.”
=> Zak’s review
The only thing I would have liked is no watermark on each page. Points of Light also has it, but it’s lighter. The Qelong watermark is dense in the bottom quarter of the page and slows me down when reading it. That’s the sum total of all non-badass points I have. 👌
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
I have yet to add it to my running campaigns and I have no idea of how to do it. It would seem like a major break from current events.
=> review by Save vs. Total Party Kill | review by Dungeon of Signs | Qelong in Play
#RPG #Review #Sandbox #Qelong
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Same problem here - I have no idea, how to set Qelong into my campaign without giving up too much of it’s feel and spirit 😄
– Tarin 2013-08-23 14:56 UTC
=> Tarin
I think I will need to use planar travel.
– Alex Schroeder 2013-08-23 20:52 UTC
You can always put it into a dormant volcano, where it has been isolated from the rest of the world for centuries.
– Belchion 2013-09-29 12:29 UTC
=> Belchion
Starting coming Tuesday, my players will be looking for a passage to Qelong... 😄
– Alex Schroeder 2013-09-30 06:40 UTC
=> Alex Schroeder This content has been proxied by September (3851b).Proxy Information
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