Oh, so it's Time Bandits, but they're rats...so it's Time Bandits. But. They're. RATS! Fantastic setup, great idea to have the players manage their housekeeping crew. Love the low-lethality, high-hijinks of the adventure. The rat names and art is phenomenal. It's hard to read without smiling. Excellent work.

Do I want to learn this system, teach my group and run an Astral Sea campaign just to make this happen? Yes, I do, thankyouverymuch.

Clearly explained, greatly illustrated, neat, diverse crew of rats. I love it.

I absolutely love this! Like a ton. I want to play as these rats so very much. You got a gift for naming freaky rats, never abandon that gift. 

I almost didn't click on this one for review. It seems visually and conceptually like a somewhat silly concept. Not as in a bad idea, but more like it intended to be very tongue-in-cheek. I don't run a lot of games like that outside of Paranoia once or twice, so I'm not always the best judge for such things. That being said, I am seeing things I like as soon as I opened it and started the review.

First thing is always scaling it to the intended print size and congratulations on text someone can read. You'd be amazed how rare that is. Next, I am almost immediately confronted with something very rare indeed and I wish there were more of. An adventure tied to the main story, but not involving the main characters. One of the big problems as I have gotten older is that all of my gaming crew has had more and more adult responsibilities. Playing nightly went away almost 3 decades ago. Playing weekly disappeared around ten years ago. At this point, it is biweekly for the regular game with a side game for off weeks on the ones with more free time.

That means when someone has something come up in the main crew, we get a canceled game and no one doing the primary game gets to do anything for a full month until the biweekly time hits again. Having little side-adventures with secondary characters and locations tied to the main party is nice. It allows for a one-shot weekend with no one losing out on core play or being stuck with some meaningless side-play. This lets everyone play some otherwise nameless NPC(s) in their base for a night. It could create a much richer history for the players to fall back onto and ensures that just because one player can't be present, the group isn't stuck deciding between excluding them for a week of progress or not playing. More of this please!

I've not dealt with Aetherdark, so an overview of the unique elements to that aspect are much appreciated here. A simple enough timeline with enough details to figure out how to handle elements. Those names for the interdimensional rats are … interesting. Kind of getting Redwall vibes. On the list of crew you might have though, I notice no quartermaster role despite it being mentioned earlier. Sad. No one armed quartermaster for me.

Page two and yep. Absolutely goofy. The idea of a giant rat insta-painting itself to go invisible while another one is stabbing people in the legs is ridiculous. Fun, but absolutely bonkers. Their 'traps' make sense, though trap is kind of relative here. Like a pair of goofy thieves creating distractions (which they are honestly) more than true traps.

The stats are reasonable. The behavior is reasonable. The fact Ham! is the only one who can't squeeze through is cute. Every rat has a personality and concept, even if they all share basically the same stats. Color coding is very smart, since it prevents any confusion on which abilities go to which rat. In fact, the use of font and color both in this are very well thought out. Looking at dander, I wish there was a notation on crew members section. Something like 1:4 Dander Allergy. Just to randomly give that a specific issue when it comes up on who is and isn't affected.

It's small in scope, but easy to follow. Stats I would want are all easily found. Everything is distinguished by both color and font. All of the visuals are wild, but make sense and seem to lend a lot of personality. The names suit the owners as well. Was I right about it being silly? Yeah, but it's also kind of brilliant. I think I might load the simplified version of this to print out and add to my 2-year folder. That's where I stuff a bunch of one shots for handling random things I need on down weeks or for times when I want something quick to do with a game rather than researching a bunch of extra ideas for that week. 2 years from now when it comes up that I need something for a down week, I think ten minutes of reading and I will have everything ready to go. Congratulations. Top notch.

Super fun characters, and I absolutely adore their names! Couldn’t stop reading “Ham!” in the voice of Tracy’s wife from 30 Rock lol

Great colors & art. I hope these make it into the final draft of Aetherdark, or at least this kind of activity. I know I’ll definitely be running this silly diversion in a future campaign or three!

Who gave the rats spice? 

This is wacky in the best way, easy to  adapt and slot into a game, clear presentation and a fun layout, short but memorable, definitely the sort of thing players would chat about for a long time!

I love how zany the characters are! Makes me want more than a single encounter with them, so their abilities/personalities get to shine a bit more. (though I guess there’s a chance for them to be a recurring villain/pest if they survive)

What a fun and interesting concept! Love the rats, almost want them to succeed in their devilish plans!

The rats made me laugh out loud. Great personalities!

Would have been nice to have some quirks/traits for each of the crew members.

This is so great. Such a fun concept and easy to slot into a game!