My love of Gooey Cube’s works started when my other half came back from Gencon with some free material courtesy of a mad and brilliant wizard called Alphinius Goo. This idea of being young travelers thrown into an adventure really inspired us to find
out more, and so we delved deeply into the lore of the world, and he into chapter one of Red Star Rising, as he is the GM for our group. We genuinely could not get enough of it, as the setting is so different from anything we’ve played in before using the 5e system, or perhaps any system.
Zyathé is a vibrant world full of intriguing mystery, wondrous landscapes, and experiences that will lift your heart or chill you to the very core. It has a rich history with no need to search through mountains of lore to find a specific thing as it is all fresh and laid out cohesively with no contradictions. Through the community around Gooey Cube (and I urge you to find the Gooey Den on Facebook and their Discord) I have found many GM’s and players who have been deeply inspired by Zyathé. So inspired in fact, that they have contributed to the world through Gooey Cube’s contributor’s program, which is something wonderful and unique that lets the consumer be a part of the product’s future.
Now, if there are any two points that are important to know off the bat about Red Star Rising, it is that levelling is slow and in real-time. The first chapter takes place over the course of one day and a party may take five or six sessions to complete it. The immediate realization here might be the fact that a party will not get a long rest in this whole time. You may also only get one or two short rests. This may seem daunting, however, Gooey Cube’s philosophy provides additional resources to cope with this. Level one characters are a little tougher than normal and have extra HP and some extra spells or items to help them. In fact, they are quite close to being on the power level of a level two character. This makes the experience of being level one easier to cope with, as these first few levels can be a little slow or boring to many. This definitely caused a shift in thinking on the part of our party, and I suspect many parties, as those used to 5e will often skip the first two levels and start at the ‘fun’ level three. However, I will tell you that at the point of writing this review our party has gone through perhaps a week of in-game time, eight months of real-time (playing once a week), and are still level two, on the cusp of level three, and are in the third chapter. And we are having a lot of fun with it, despite our initial skepticism.
The Philosophy of Gooey Cube definitely emphasizes the story over leveling. It’s not simply about bashing the monster of the week and racking up EXP. The adventure is almost like being the characters inside an epic novel, complete with dramatic script, incredible art, and immersive maps. There is so much packed into the box of each chapter to help the GM run the game and to help the players really buy into the tale being told. I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything like it, as a usual adventure provides more of a skeleton framework and relies on the GM to fill in the gaps. Red Star Rising gives you everything needed and more besides. There is a handout for everything, from NPCs, to location artwork, monsters, and items both magical and mundane. It does everything possible to really show off the world and the adventure so that the party becomes immersed in the tale.
Now, the story is certainly on-rails, however, it is done in such a fashion that the party has a lot of choice in the direction that the story goes. Each chapter has massive areas full of options for the party. For example, chapter one has the Carnivalle, with many stalls and tents to explore in whatever order the party desires, with events thrown in along the way that the GM can use as they please. Each one of these has associated NPC’s who are brilliantly written so that the GM knows exactly how to play them. The area around Carnivalle also comes into play, with the party being able to explore locations that include a couple of dungeons or even a nearby town. There’s even a quest board of sorts outside a nearby inn with all sorts of intriguing notices that can provide interesting diversions. There is a massive amount of choice given to the players so that the rails are barely seen, and yet at the end of the day, or rather the next morning, the Carnivalle will begin to pack up and the party will hit the road on to another chapter.
The story itself is very rich, and so well done that it really draws the players into the mindset of their characters. From the outset, it is important to understand that the Hanataz (the travelers) are considered family to the characters, with each of them having two or three closer NPC’s as parental or sibling figures. The characters accept and do ‘quests’ not for money or fame, but because they want to help their family and keep them safe. This helps with the buy-in to the adventure and sets the theme for the entire adventure. The characters, and players, feel a real sense of urgency when the troupe, or a troupe member, is in danger, and feel a real need to resolve the situation at hand. Now, the story can get quite dark at times, as the horror builds up and puts emotional stress upon the characters, and indeed the players. There have been scenes in the story that the players cannot help but really feel the emotions of their characters, and that’s an amazing thing to accomplish at a table. There were certainly a few tears shed at ours!
In all, the adventure is challenging, fun, immersive, and unlike anything I’ve ever done before. I would highly recommend it, even if you feel a bit skeptical about certain aspects like the slow leveling. I honestly think you’d be missing out if you didn’t give it a try because it’s such an amazing experience that I consider myself lucky to be a part of!
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