From Awfully Queer Heroes comes Rescue Rainbow City [here], a level 3-12 adventure for Dungeons & Dragons 5E and Pathfinder 2E. With over 40 unique city locations, 25 NPCs, and 50 monsters your party is in for quite the treat as they try to take back the utopic Rainbow City. Invaded by a corruptive, evil and insidious force which grew beneath the streets over a long period of years, cultists, monsters and various horrors now stand between the adventurers and the city’s freedom.
This is the second release I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing from AQH, the first being Saphyx Spectacular Spell Compendium back in January. If you’re looking for a delightful array of spells to introduce to your campaign you can read more about them [here]!
I received a preview copy of Rescue Rainbow City for review purposes and will always be transparent about times where this happens!
Overview
Rescue Rainbow City opens with the party joining forces with the Allied Advance, a militia determined to take their city back. So far, all attempts to do so have failed, the physical and magical protections installed by the cultist successfully keeping interlopers out. Hope yet remains however and with the adventurer’s arrival maybe one day the city will be freed and restored to its former glory as beacon of queer pride.
Players will need to make their way through each section of the city taking down powerful foes to dismantle the barriers erected by Khathicalk’s cult. Each district presents its own unique challenges and encounters with choices made by the party to disrupt the overarching efforts of the cult having an impact on the final boss fight! I do love when choices made earlier in an adventure come together to help at the end, it’s rewarding!
My Thoughts
Having seen the contents of the White and Silver districts of the city, I can say with confidence that each district will have enough differences in tone, NPCs, buildings, and encounters to make them feel truly unique. Ultimately, this adventure sees you progressing through each district of the city and freeing it so the Allied Advance can set up in the district behind you and hold the position. To get to the next zone, players need to take down the district’s mini-boss and acquire an item that disables the shield protecting Khathicalk’s limb in that region. Once the shield is disabled and limb destroyed, they advance to the next district.
I was worried it might get repetitive! I no longer have that concern, and think players will have plenty of options for how to approach each district, and explore the unique offerings of each. I was really taken with the Silver district. Before the fall of Rainbow City, it was home to stoic scholars and those with an interest in esoteric faiths – monks and priests were common, as were those looking for a place of quiet and respite from the sometimes-overbearing noise and brightness of the rest of the city.
Which sounds great to me, I think I’d want to live in the Silver district. Quiet, peace, and a home to oddities? I’ll move in after the cultists have been kicked out ! We are introduced to a Silver district filled with angry spirits, and an oppressive fog of dark death magic. Places of interest in the district include the Bank, Chapel, Alter, Crypt, and Graveyard. The graveyard gates are stiff, creaking ominously when pushed open. Bran, the Goblin Groundskeeper (transgender man, aromantic) remains in the district and tends to the greenery and upkeep of the various graves and crypts. Other NPCs, including the Tiefling Triplets Ty, Triss, and Tam (all non-binary and panromantic), return once the district is freed to jovially chat with you over your everyday transactions at the bank.
The Siver district also includes the Grave Lurker, an undead creature twisted by Khathicalk’s dark magics. It moves with surprising speed to protect the cultists in the district and doesn’t take kindly to strangers. It is one of several enemies included in this section of the adventure, working beautifully to uphold this eerie atmosphere this zone evokes. The zone’s mini-boss, Reven Wraithtouch, was the head priest of the burial grounds and will take on adventurers with actions like Withering Blade (melee attack dealing necrotic damage), and Call of the Grave which has the possibility to invoke fear in all non-Undead within 60ft. Reven’s also a decently powerful spellcaster, and I thought they were a cool enemy whose abilities and spell list all meld the aesthetic of the Silver district together very well. (Note: this isn’t unique to the Silver district. Each of the city’s districts are conceived of in a similar way with the Red district, for example, focusing on fire based creatures as this section of the city housed the Forge Master.)
I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect from Rescue Rainbow City – the introductory scene setting tells of this utopic place that has fallen to corruption that players are now trying to reclaim. Straightforward enough, and even with districts having different ‘flavours’ to them I’m not sure that would have been enough if only the “set dressing” is what differed. But it isn’t! Awfully Queer Heroes, from what I’ve seen, have created completely unique districts each with their own distinct feeling and aesthetic. Locations, NPCs, enemies (and their abilities) all serve to build up the feeling of each zone in a way that I find personally satisfying.
If I was running this, I would appreciate the flexibility offered in each district as well as clear instructions about how players advance to the next zone. I’d also appreciate that enemies for each district are included in that district’s ‘chapter’ and not in a later chapter of the book. As a player, I’m excited about the opportunity to explore these different zones of the city and see how each district changes once we’ve freed it – I think having some NPCs return to a district after you’ve freed it is a simple and effective way to show the positive effect you’ve had. While I can’t speak to the other districts, I can say that I am quite excited about the Silver one (I like the spooky, undead, death magic area, what a surprise) and there’s an above zero chance it might appear (on its own) in a future one-shot I run.
To Conclude
Rescue Rainbow City is a queer adventure module offering a wide array of locations, NPCs, and enemies all set within a city in need of reclaiming from insidious forces of evil. It’s wonderful to see this level of representation in a release and feels completely organic to the setting – this isn’t the adventure for you if you’re looking for token queer representation. But if you want a vibrant city and engaging adventure filled with members of the LGBTQIA+ community, I would definitely recommend picking this up.
I like that this is available for both Pathfinder 2E and Dungeons & Dragons 5e, so that even if your group only plays in one of these systems you still have the option to enjoy it (without having to convert it yourself). Rainbow City feels alive and being able to reclaim it district by district for it to hopefully, one day, be restored to its former glory as a utopic queer paradise, is a premise I can definitely get behind.
You can grab a copy of Rescue Rainbow City on Kickstarter for about $20 USD [here], the campaign runs until July 1, 2023 and there’s some stretch goals that would be very cool to meet!
Want to keep up with everything Awfully Queer Heroes are doing? Find them across the internet [here].
Stay cozy!
The Cozy Cauldron 