Written by Kristóf Morandini Swords and Wizardry, Level 5 1 sorcerer’s tower, lightly catapulted. The sorcerer’s tower is a lonely building in the wilderness, surrounded by a forest of dead trees. The owner is an evil sorcerer, feared by many and referred only as The Sorcerer. The building itself is a round building, with two floor and inner courtyard. The forest around it is made of dead trees, which died because of the poisons and experiments of the sorcerer. The soil is black and dead, except the meadow around the tower. There are no animals in the forest, except one monster, escaped from the tower in the last days. Wizardly towers, man, who can ever have enough? Well, us, probably, we probably as a hobby have enough wizard towers. But that doesn’t mean that a well-done wizard’s tower can’t come in handy. Kristóf Morandini, of the redoubtable Hungarian OD&D Scene, brings something a little fresh in The Red Tower, a wizard tower that’s just undergone some recent besieging; half the upper level is smashed by catapult, and the bulk of his defenses are all expended, leaving just a simpering valet and a cleric-powered steward as the owner’s servants. Into this fairly time-sensitive situation enter the PCs. Formatting is a touch wonky, going from single-column to double-column at a random intervals. A couple charming illustrations do add something to the text, while the map is hand-drawn with some post-production for the catapult damage. I’m not going to critique the occasional ESL spelling or grammar issues, but the information could have been organized in a more conventional, and thus more understandable, way…the tower isn’t keyed, just room-labeled with those rooms described sometimes…a basement level isn’t even shown, which is a pity because one of the alternate means of ingress is a well that leads there. Strict room-by-room numbered key is a format that has issues being followed slavishly at times, but there’s a good reason for it being the convention. Besides the frustrating omission of the basement level and the format-level choice regarding keys, the tower map is quite good. A simple circular structure built around an open inner courtyard, the main gate is protected by a forcefield puzzle and so there are alternate entryways both upper-level (a thorny rose bush to climb) and beneath (aforementioned well secret passage), every level thus has multiple ways of access both inside and out. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, towers are typically known structures, so you don’t expect careful exploratory/discovery play for most of the map, but the geometry is excellent for set-piece battles or careful skulks. Sadly by default there’s not a lot of pressure to conduct either of those operations; this location is remarkably sparse. One of the two dragon-newts owned by the sorcerer has fled to the forest, we’re informed, as did the sorcerer himself…either or both could be used, as could the initially set-up hostile army of besiegers. Alas, only a wounded dragon newt and the two scared servants are even available to fight as it is. A standard S&W dungeon random encounter roll could work I suppose, but that’s not mentioned anywhere in the text. There’s nice interaction outside of the sparse fight-dangers. Traps and obstacles like the aforementioned gate forcefield are naturalistic, meaning nothing is an overt puzzle but they still require a little problem-solving. Risk-reward calculations are all pretty obvious, which is where the meat of the game really sits. The rewards are pretty sparse, though. Lot of silver pieces, a few very tiny hoards, the cash value of flipping over this magician’s wrecked house is pretty low. Magic is usually the counterbalance in wizard towers and there’s some, but outside of a well-hidden ring of human control (in the ashes of a fireplace, classic) it’s all in one room as potions. I don’t know how much magic item XP are worth in S&W, but I think a level 5 group is going to feel a little underpaid for this one. Placing this one is a little tricky…not that it’s hard to plop down a wizard’s tower just about anywhere, but while this site is very easy to place in space, it’s very hard to place in time. The place isn’t active, healthy, and normal, nor is it a crumbling ruin. Instead, players are expected to interact with this site a couple days to a couple weeks after a siege, which makes things awkward. Thing is, the recent incatapultationization is pretty important in making this entry interesting and unique. Certainly if you have a need for a recently overthrown wizard’s tower, this is custom-made to fit the bill.
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Written by John Nash
B/X, Level 3 Ruined temple in a swamp, being used as a DRAGON’S LAIR. No atmospheric blurb here at the start or explanation, we’re here for the DRAGON LAIR. The name of the game that we all play is Dungeons & DRAGONS, but for most of us, most of the time, the game is Dungeon. And Dungeon. And maybe & Wilderness. At most, & City. There’s a tragic lack of DRAGONS in all of our D&D, in part because of how powerful they are and the low-level tendency that schedules and flaking often impose on most campaigns. John Nash is the first submitting author to this contest to address this concern with a good ol-fashioned dragon’s lair. Measuring in at two pages even with the scanned pencil map, Death Talon Lair doesn’t give a crap about your hooks, your rumors, or your settings. Screw you, there’s a swamp, it’s a young black dragon (named Death Talon), you’re all level three, here’s your random encounter table and now let’s get to this. Miffed as I am about the lack of context, the adventure site’s immediately presented content is well-formatted, monsters bolded and treasure listed at the ends of entries, the two-column text uses its space efficiently; there are twenty-three rooms here with some reasonably complex traps at times. Keys are terse, with direct language in the present tense e.g., “6. Bloody tomb: Collapsed wall opposite the stairs. Crushed bone and blood stains on the floor.” For all that, adjective usage is strategic and evocative, giving the reader all the sights, smells, sounds, and sensations experienced by the players entering the environment. The map is good for what it is, with a whopping three entrances/exits, some up/down action, naturalistic flow between “zones”, and good secret passage action, plus lots of caved in tunnels (which are in turn cleared in 8 hours, or 4 for blessed worshippers of the earthworm god (Lumbricus) honored in the temple. Underwater passages are a wonderful addition to any dungeon, too. From left-to-right, there’s the undead section, the natural caves/ooze/crab section, and the gnoll section. Keys imply each section is fairly static but the random encounters roll seems to think that a ghoul pack might be hanging out with the mushroom cave, the gnolls might be looking in the skele-tombs for bullying targets, or a grey ooze might be just be chilling in the gnoll’s kitchen. It’s a pity for the author that we aren’t grading maps on artistic quality because I really do like the quality of the line work here. Presumably the dragon Death Talon is a known quantity to delvers delving here in the eponymous Death Talon Lair, but unfortunately our young black dragon host doesn’t have a strong presence throughout the site. The earthworm god bit is a fun idea too, but it’s mostly just a single altar you can mess with for a blessing or curse. The whole lack of hooks isn’t just being fussy about motivation, the site lacks coherence in its parts in part I think because it lacks context, if the author did have a story to this whole place, then it’s not something that comes out in the keys… …which is a real shame, because darned it, I really like the details of the keys. Traps are interesting and dynamic, secret doors are meaningful and indicated by good mapping, the descriptions of the rooms are very focused on getting the bare minimum to the players needed to run the game. Even the rare weird stuff, like the King Crab being a giant crab who can talk a tries to sell junk, understands that this is a game where meaningful choices have to be made for benefits and detriments. I love the babbling fountain that literally babbles…and drinking from it lets the character understand every language but common. Great stuff. The dragon does a neat thing too, living with grey oozes it’ll spend its first turn alerted rolling in them to coat its scales with anti-weapon goop. Difficulty seems on the high side for level 3 B/X, so I hope your players understand how to use all those tools to their utmost if they expect to overcome the dragon and get out with the loot. The loot is also pretty good. Not sure if it’s objectively enough for the danger but a little south of 14k is a fine haul for a day as a level 3 Basicman. There’s not a lot hidden, but the wonderful “loot glittering over there in the middle of clear deadly danger” is used often, which is always a fun risk/reward. The one bit of magic, a +1 shield of arrow attraction, is on the other side of an obvious sandpit with a non-obvious acid component. Good stuff. Putting Death Talon[’s] Lair in an existing map should be very easy in the broadest sense, just find a swamp that needs a black dragon and boom, need filled. I’d complain about the gonzo flourishes of dancing skeletons, talking giant crab-salesmen, or earthworm gods, but frankly more of that stuff wouldn’t go amiss…if we had context. As it is, you’ll have to do a little work to go from swamp to room-by-room night of adventure. Even so, when they get there they’ll have good time if they survive. Crapshoot Monday: This Free Thing I Found on Itch.io… Unseen Vaults of the Optic Experiment2/12/2024 A dungeon by Johan Nohr, level 3. Written for “Mörk Börg” I was really prepared to hate this thing. Ugly trade dress, twenty pages for just eleven rooms, and of course Mörk Börg itself, which is usually a sign of poor-quality cash-grabs. But I was deceived, because Mr. Nohr here didn’t actually write a Mörk Börg adventure…he wrote a B/X adventure and playtested it at a con, which automatically puts this into the top 1% of all itch.io products. Much of the page space is dedicated to full-page illustrations of the various monsters, and when the keys actually show up everything is organized cleanly, clear and succinct with all the classic bullets and bolding you’d hope for. Nice. There are two maps, one the author’s original map with all kinds of illustrations and goofy stuff while the other (placed first in the module) is just a clean map for usability. The story of the dungeon is that outside-of-reality critters have captured and blinded an “observer” (it’s a Beholder but obviously the author doesn’t want to get Pinkertons), which made Magic Stuff Happen in this rando noble family’s tomb. It’s not a very tombish map but there’s a secret section, loops, and a mild vertical element…story of the session will be poking around in the dark with blurry vision (author says to emphasize the magic effects messing with sight but recommends against it having a mechanical effect), trying to get to the beholder, then maybe poking the aliens. What I liked was that this guy clearly knew he was writing for something that gets played at the table; he does things like describe how the secret doors are opened (but not detected, hope you have an elf), what sights and smells assault the senses open entry to a room, and how monsters react. I have no gut judgement on how level 3 Bork Murgs play but the encounters are challenging but not insanely lethal for level 3 Basics. The few interactive beings in the tomb are all acknowledged as being possibly helpful, although in all cases unreliable/dangerous allies. I’ve gone back-and-forth on it but I think the beholder-crap cesspit is a good idea, there’s treasure in the acidic poop which for Morgleblurk is probably a requirement. Of course, none of that means that the “what can be improved” section should be blank. First of all, despite what is technically a living environment, there’s the Tomb Problem here, with the environment as essentially static. And no, a casual suggestion at the end that “maybe a rival adventuring party would be cool” does not a time pressure make. The oft-seen problem of rooms containing “1dX [monster]” also rears its ugly head once again, including at the final room(!). Will the final encounter with the psionic alien beings from outside of time and space be against an overwhelming six, or a single solitary one? I dunno, YOU NEED TO TELL ME. It’s also a bit of a slugfest, expecting quite a few knock-down drag-out fights for such tiny little rooms, more work on challenges that *aren’t* combat wouldn’t go amiss…because as well-crafted as this is, the ultimate gameplay of it can be a little dull. Those quibbles aside, the best use case for this module is doubtlessly to play it as a one-shot for Mörk Börg at a con. Being an average B/X adventure makes this easily the single best Mörk Börg adventure ever created. Unfortunately I don’t know what I’d have to steal from it, content-wise, it’s pretty self-contained. Final rating? **/***** making it literally twice as good as any other Mörk Börg I’ve ever seen. Written by Ranger Lemure B/X, Levels 1-3 Dwarf hall overrun by orcs. Once a dwarven outpost, the lair of the Grim Gashers is hidden in the foothills of a temperate mountain range. The orcs launch regular raids against local villages and are known to harass any who travel the nearby roads. As well as looting and slaying, the Gashers are known to take captives as food or slaves. They once captured a wealthy merchant and attempted a ransom negotiation; the whole event ended in a confusing bloodbath and has not been attempted since. Orcs in a hole time, woo hoo. I don’t mean that dismissively, unlike some people in the hobby…low-level adventurers need orcs to bonk, and orcs need lairs. Similarly, some reviewers will react with crushing ennui for “levels 1-3”, but every campaign’s got to start somewhere. What we need, then, are orc-holes written with creativity, something better than what everyone comes up with when you say “tribe (4d20) of orcs in a captured fortress, with 6,105gp in captured loot.” Yes, the specificity of my number there should make the reader nervous. Verisimilitude is important, but sometimes a location can be too logical, too straightforward…to the point where it shuts down the adventure. After the above-quoted promising introduction, the adventure starts with a little bestiary, the orcs’ habits, then tactics/order of battle, before going into detail on its keys. Direct prose with occasional bolding, formatted in the two-column standard, the site is described fine. Locations have some Lynchian adjectives at times, sour, stinking, sweat, etc…the keys feel a little over-written, for all that eleven locations over two pages isn’t a terrible ratio. The map is verisimilitudinous, if you’ll allow the term, but definitely on the simple side. I believe it as a former dwarven outpost, although it is simple. Not a lot of secret/discoverable stuff, besides a pair of chimney grates allowing access to the two fireplaces for cleaner or unarmored thieves…which is a good idea, but the descripting makes it unclear if the chimneys are accessed from above the lair as well, plus the description notes a fireplace in the kitchen but doesn’t show it. Give halflings a courageous way to die of smoke inhalation, don’t be shy. Frontal assault is set up to be very nasty with the wide-open linking great hall, another example of layout realism that might actually hurt the play experience. The rear passage to “somewhere underground for further adventures” is…noted. Having a vertical two-level setup is nice, but going into a flow analysis unfortunately shows it to be almost tower-linear. I don’t want to be overly harsh, the author has clearly given some thought to “entry via shenanigans”, the slipshod and often drunken orcs are remarkably susceptible to orcish disguises or a Chewbacca Gambit. There’s a human kid, spunky, works for the orcs and has a 50/50 shot of siding with them should push come to shove, that’s a fun encounter. And then realism rears its ugly head again when we encounter the prison, “prisoners are too wounded or malnourished to be of any aid to the characters”…what? Come on, that’s not fun, how about a 1-hp berserker to be freed, or someone who knows about the orc’s routines? There’s a single wacky scenario that was devised here in lieu of a frontal assault, which is good, but it’s just the one. That initial writeup, about the orcs capturing a merchant and screwing up the ransom in a welter of gore, had so much promise, but no follow-up in the tribe’s characterization in the main text. There’s a couple rooms that show that spark, but every one of them could have had something like that. Treasure is the most unfortunate part here, over 90% of the loot is located in the Final Boss Room. This once again is completely realistic for the lair, but it’s kind of a bummer when compared with the less-realistic but more-gameable scenario of loots scattered around, trapped in places, difficult to retrieve in others. Nothing magical besides a potion of growth, which is reasonable given the level range and the setup…so once again, realistic. The adventure site can be confidently placed in any D&D world imaginable. Orcs squatting in an old dwarven hall? Yeah, that’ll work just about anywhere. I can see myself using it in extremis, but a little bit more work in spicing would go a long way here. Written by Trent Smith AD&D, Levels 1-6 (approach-dependent) Orphanage set somewhere it won’t get burned down. A fortified homestead established and operated by the church of St. Durham in Warnell for the purpose of sheltering and rehabilitating non-combatant (female and young) humanoids: to raise and nurture and steer them away from the path of Evil so they may become productive members of society? Ah, the old classic conundrum. “We slaughtered all the warrior orcs of the Black Tooth Grin Clan, hooray! Now what do we do with the abundance of orc babies we find ourselves with?” Well, Trent offers at least one solid answer: “We send them to St. Durham’s Home for Wayward Youths, of course!” Ostensibly set a little outside of a rural village, the orphanage can be anywhere in a setting with nonhuman noncombatants, which I realize might be a somewhat divisive proviso. The site is described first in terms of its mission, then in terms of the personalities within, then the daily and weekly routines are described, and only at the end is the room-by-room key given (28 keyed locations). Nary a bullet point nor a table to be seen, the prose is brisk, clear, and workmanlike. It’s appreciated in the bulk of the keys and descriptors, it is tolerable in the hooks and rumors, but there’s a missing piece in terms of Order of Battle, or more likely Order of Those Darned PCs Are Heisting Again Let’s Get ‘Em. Muscular, simple, direct…the author expects the adventure site to stand on its own merits, needing no false rouge of linguistic frippery. The map is in pencil on gridded paper, so clearly not in an art contest, but as stated we don’t care about that. What we have here is, in the most common use case, is a Heist Target. Heist Targets different from dungeons in how their exploration takes place in phases; first you scope out the location, either through scouting or subterfuge or some combination, then you plan, then you “conquer” the space by looting either That One Thing or everything not nailed down. Typically, there’s also a third phase, which is discovery/alarm/panic/fleeing/murder (the fourth phase, justifying atrocities, will be notably intense on this one but the map doesn’t affect that phase). Anyway, a heist site still needs secrets to be uncovered and explored during the “delve”, but there should also be multiple entrances and exits clearly visible, with multiple benefits/costs associated with the given ingress/egress. Realism and verisimilitude matter a lot for the site’s layout to aid players’ planning, and this one has those criteria in droves. The secret passages that do exist all have reasonable locations and means of opening. Lest I leave the reader with the impressive that things are too dry, the site has a ton of potential energy here. The orphanage headmaster is a harsh disciplinarian (to the extent of having a hanging tree) who nonetheless believes in the orphanage’s reform mission while his assistant is lax and friendly and sweet and secretly sells the inhabitants into slavery. A goblin shaman engages in shenanigans in a secret tunnel down in the basement while the guards and the inmates all also have goals, desires, and vices just ripe for clever exploitation. Despite the nominally lawful purpose of the reformatory there’s plenty of justifications if the PCs decide the place needs to interacted with violence, larceny, or violent larceny. Social PC groups will have a field day figuring out the factions and exploiting those divisions. Treasure is a nice combination of “stuff getting worn”, big heavy/awkward stuff, and the occasional secret stash. Magic items are all book stuff, that makes sense, and the gear of the clerics in charge makes up the lion’s share. The secret double-booking ledger in the assistant’s room showing both slave sales records and a letter of credit for a nearby bank is nice touch. Knocking the orphanage over for everything and stripping it to the studs should be nicely profitable, but targeted raids are worthwhile too, and there’s even a little cash available in saving the orphanage if you have a shining pillar of morality among the player characters. There’s a slightly…I don’t know what to call it…Greyhawkian? There’s set of assumptions at play here leading to the concept of a reformatory/orphanage/prison for goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs that won’t fit into all settings or worlds. Obviously, every game of D&D needs an orphanage to rob, and it can be adapted more generally, but I do feel like it would do some violence to the initial concept. But I really am not kidding about how often “orphanage as adventure site” can come up in almost every game. Written by J. Blasso-Giesseke (21st Century Games) OSE, Levels 6-8 Tower in Zamora or off-brand Sword and Sorcery city equivalent. All in Zamora know of the Tower of the Elephant and its evil priest Yara and the magical gem that is the source of his power, the Elephant’s Heart. All in Zamora know how King Amlek fears Yara and keeps himself drunk to forget his fear. And, like their king, all in Zamora, even its thieves, fear Yara and his Tower. Well by Crom, if it isn’t J. Blasso, winner of the Wavestone Keep Adventure Contest and of No-Artpunk II. He has sent in a submission that’s less an homage to the Conan story Tower of the Elephant, more a direct scenarioization* of the story. Hopefully, you’ve read the story already, if not, it’s free here, take a few minutes and enjoy. This thing is that. This thing is well-written, formatted carefully with bolding, italics, and bulleting but never crossing over to full OSE tech-manual. A point against; this thing leans hard on contest criteria, adding a fourth page of content with the bestiary and treasure total in the back. Mr. Blasso emailed adding that if the page extra was disqualifying, to feel free to omit it…but then the guards being 3HD, the evil cleric being 14th level, etc, are details lost. Nothing fatal but an official frowny-face from me. The writing has lovely details that really pop, nobody is just a name but you have an obese thief Taurus of Nemedia, the dim-witted prince Elam, and so on, just enough to give the DM a hint on how to play them. Hooks are solid, and change the objectives for the tower heist. Rumors are also excellent, evocative and helpful. Map is fine. There’s the usual tower complaint of linearity, meaning the party is either going up, or going down from the top. Outer walls and tower itself are described as slick and glassy, but given most D&D players are like toddlers in their drive to climb any available surface I’d expect that leads to shenanigans. Features, loot, guards, lions, and shrub/tree coverage are all called out on the map, which is appreciated. When the key tells you the order of battle responses to alarm, you can quickly see all relevant players and track movements of the whole mob. A+ for presentation, C- for geometry. The real story of the adventure, helpfully outlined as “Actual Story”, is that an elephantine malphyr is using a cursed gem to control and evil priest guy and feeds on dude’s acts of wickedness. This is a good twist for parties with at least one player who’s read the Conan story, where the titular elephant was actually a benign entity. Individual bits interact nicely with hooks…one hook is that Elam the prince has disappeared, poor idiot has been polymorphed into a giant spider. He’s friendly but forgets that when he's rushing to give a hug that he’s a terrifying giant spider, a curveball that’ll lead to a dead prince 9 murderhobo parties out of 10. Most of the gameplay, of course, is going to be tackling the tower in practical, level-headed D&D problem solving mode. I am going to have to express skepticism on the level 6 portion of the stated range, encounters can be steeply challenging on this one, the level 14 cleric and the deceptive malphyr are both TPKs waiting to happen even when approached cleverly. Although any group of level 6’s that does tackle this thing, the survivors sure won’t be level 6 any longer. Treasure is…astounding for the size. Consulting the Forbidden Cheat Page yields a grand total of 453,500gp, or 203,500gp if parties don’t manage to uncurse the Big Honkin’ Elephant Gem. Flavor dripping here, with jeweled carpets, goblets filled with acid, grinning golden faces, a marble couch, the whole works. Magic items are surprisingly absent (assuming we ignore the Staff of Locusts in the Extra Page of Ignoring), but there are a couple of nifty magic incenses, yellow that enhances clerical magic’s range or purple that transforms wicked ugly things into appearing beautiful. Both very good. Will it fit in most worlds? Well, given that this is a direct expy of perhaps the most Appendix N story that exists, yes, this should be easy to fit in any city. Just place anywhere debouched and degenerate, and you’re golden. *new word, patent pending. Other reviews: Shocktohp Grutzi Owen Edwards Written by Kevin Conyers (Flooded Realms Adventure Press) OSE, Levels 7-9 Fishing lake set in a remote badlands hex. [This adventure] describes the private fishing lake of a Cloud Giant, Ogg, and his eccentric mage companion, Oglias. The lake itself is arcane in nature and can be switched to various bodies of liquid in which to fish […] These locations are all held, with their stock of fish, in various demi-planes until used. The giant himself, Oggy mistakenly touched his pet Cockatrice while fishing. Oglias has not been seen since. This adventure describes a number of magical fishing poles. These poles are all made of young trees, between 13’ - 21’ long and weigh 80 coins, and are magically reinforced for hauling in giant catches. They can support up to 10,000 coins without breaking. This effect is extended to any line or rope connected to them. What a guy, Kevin Conyers. The most popular OSR adventure review blog on the entire internet read his well-intentioned freshman adventure and dedicated months and $100 to a huge contest inviting people to one-up poor little Wavestone Keep. Yet here dude is, releasing more adventures, learning from criticisms, and even judging this contest. With Oglias’s Folley here he tenders his own submission at the relatively high levels of 7 through 9, where the veteran PCs stumble upon a cloud giant’s fishing hole. As expected by this point, the adventure is written in a clean two-column format, tastefully bolded and well cross-referenced. The slightly dry prose paints us clear pictures and at times smells (good), and the charming fishing tables for the different planar lakes made me smile. Some small details, like a one teleporter lever being made of green-glowing driftwood while the other orange-glowing ivory, are quite welcome and enhance the storybook qualities of the site. As for map…we have our first, but probably not our last, Dyson Logos map. It’s one of his fairly linear affairs, but not fatally so, basically a ramp descending down a crater lake with caves attached, saved from mundanity by a secret passage, water feature, and the verticality of the environment as a whole. +1 point for having a bridge…although then -50 DKP for no scale being provided. I’m going to go with 20ft squares as making the most sense, this is after all a cloud giant’s place. There’s a story to the site that can be sussed out in play, which is good. The massive petrified cloud giant atop the bridge is good, and telegraphs the cockatrice that’s on the random encounter table. One of the custom monsters is Ol’ Bluefin, a giant tuna that ate Oglias, the wizard who built this whole complex. As written this just means you get his giant fishing pole (which is awesome, made out of scrimshaw, grants both giant strength and ogre power, and can of course be wielded as a magical club)…personally I’d have Oglias’ remains not fully digested yet for the level 7+ party to at least Speak With Dead to the corpse, could even resurrect. This isn’t in the adventure but that it occurs to me as a possibility means we’ve conveyed the narrative at least adequate...important for running a site particularly at this high a level. The night of D&D promised by this site is pretty standard, which means good. Only three of the rooms have fights in them by default, with a nasty troglodyte ambush, a pair of reskinned crystal living statues, and a full up chimera being our battles of the week (all at least have a chance to be avoided). Traps are telegraphed sensibly, good. The main “thing” here, the fishing lake, can be turned into different liquids (magma and void needing specialized fishing poles to use). There’s not a fishing minigame procedure here but I’m going to guess since this is OSE there are approximately one billion splats available for our enterprising angler, with nice loot possible (as well as a few nasty surprises, like the octopus who’s arms are made of octopuses and who inflicts sanity damage just to look at). Definitely a good spot for high-level risk/reward playing. Treasure isn’t terrible, could be bigger, the chimera’s hoard is a slightly miserly <35lk but fishing the void can more than triple that take (and also risk said octopus). Given the encounter rate it’ll be a bit of a slog to take everything but this is fishing after all…you’re here for the process. Magic items, like above’s scrimshaw fishing pole club, are solid if a little gonzo. That gonzo tinge is going to be the real determinant for how easily inserted this site will be into your own campaign. If cloud giants with floating sky castles fit into the world, then this magical fishing spot just makes sense. If this all damages your carefully cultivated sense of verisimilitude, well…maybe level 9 D&D isn’t exactly for you. It’s a novel notion but also plausible as soon as you hear about the idea, which is a praiseworthy sign of actual creativity. As it is, players will definitely find this a dangerous and interesting adventure site even as they near name level. Just watch out for when the magic-user hits 11, because you know he’s going to unpetrify the giant… See also the following reviews: Grutzi Owen Edwards EOTB A “dungeon” by Rugose Kohn, no level listed. Written for Mörk Börg Roughly 2.931 seconds after hearing the premise of Mörk Börg, an infinite number of monkeys began hammering away on an infinite number of yellow-painted typewriters with a single solitarily mission statement: “Make a messy splattergore adventure set in a totally metal sanitorium.” The one of those monkeys? Rugose Kohn, who spends fourteen pages describing elevenish rooms (some abstracted) in a big city’s horrible corrupted sanitorium. It’s formatted in a deliberately ugly manner, randomly splayed out in twisted bullet-point lists that are as incomprehensible as they are dull. Map is highly abstract. Let’s see if the RMG (random-monkey-generator) made anything new… The plot, which I think you already know instinctively, is that your Borgs are going into this sanatorium (full of the insane and also the king’s “rivals, family members, and rival family members”) because of (d4) waking up there committed/visiting a friend/hired to rescue a child/going to grab an artifact in the basement. The inmates are running the asylum and one guy is using said child to open up a portal to the (a?) plane of death, which will turn everyone into zombies. Room contents in the main floor of the sanitorium are randomly rolled. Also there’s an evil washing machine. Right, what I liked was that one joke about the family rivals. The “washingmachinemouth” monster/portal to the Plane of Infinite Sewer was needlessly convoluted but the fact that it can be used in the classic “bag-of-holding/portable hole” scenario to disrupt the aforementioned portal to the plane of death. Not bad. It’s easy to miss, but there is a random encounter chance. Otherwise…not much. As you’d expect, what can be improved is…most of it. There’s nothing incredibly wrong with the scenario on its face, but the first thing is to playtest your adventure. This is clearly an art project being sold, but pity the poor Murk Burgling that tries to actually use this to play a game. Rather than having random tables, a product of this scale should just give exact numbers on the fixed encounters. Likewise, rather than having a random timer until Bad Guy Summons the Thing, have a fixed timer, ideally with some effects telegraphing it. Obviously, the map (DRINK) could use less abstraction, a building in a city should have multiple places to enter and exit, but there’s no thought given to that on the “map”. Which once again shows the complete lack of playtesting, because even the most drunk/high pack of metalhead Borglings will still ask about climbing the bricks. Thus, a best use case for this cannot really be found. It’s unusable as an adventure and it’s offensive aside, not offensive in terms of gore descriptions or insane patients dancing naked but just offensive in how little it wants to be actually used to run a session. Parts aren’t really harvestable, either. Just sad. Final Rating? */***** of course. Only because I’m saving zero stars for something that gives me an active headache. Written by Jeff Simpson Seven Voyages of Zylarthen (OD&D), Levels 2-3 Tomb set in a desert (or as a pyramid subsection). In the steppe-studded badlands is a small oasis commanded by the enigmatic nomad known only as the Blue Dove. It is not large nor opulent, lacking the dancing girls frolicking in its pool, but it is nonetheless necessary to pass through if travel through the desert wastes is to be successful. As you sleep in your communal tent, a dread wind howls and travel outside the tent is prevented by a raging sandstorm. The next morning, your host is found mostly-buried under the sand, the tatters of his turban blowing lazily. As he is uncovered, it is seen that only his skeleton remains, his skin flayed by sand and his left hand outstretched, pointing with a bony finger. If this heading is followed, it will lead to a cliff face where aeons ago, Rassnotep the Mogul, a minor noble of a long-dead line, was interred. The world-renowned artist and author YeOldeJeffe herein blesses us with the lushly illustrated Tomb of Rassanotep, an Egyptian-themed 10-room site charmingly introduced by the blurb above. As universal an archetype as Fantasy Egypt one can never have too many tombs and the dusty little site here has the clever suggestion that it can be independent or inserted into a large !Egyptian pyramid location. The two-pages are single-column, with neat, clean language and strategic use of bolding. The flavor of the stick-figure art and the dryly humorous introduction is about all we have to go on for spice, but the content is clear. Map is…a little bit linear, with the ten keyed locations that are less loops, more branches on a tree and not loaded with exploratory geometry. The main sarcophagus of the titular Rassanotep is surprisingly early but this is OD&D, the true goal of any tomb crawl is the treasure hoard, which is nicely set up with a false wall. The first room gives a solid taste of what’s to come, with an obvious door leading to a pit trap, while the secret door to the rest of the tomb is behind a message in hieroglyphics, specifically opened by pressing the word “Opening”. Hope you make the roll to translate or I guess we’re not playing D&D tonight, though. The linear map is not complimented by the notable lack of random encounter table or order of battle, which of course is completely rational given the static nature of a tomb, but it is a trifle bit sad on the interaction/exploration front. The story of this adventure site is going to be one of “poke the passive thing”, not anything dynamic goes on here. There will be some fun encounters when the players in all their gormless glory do poke things, fortunately…nice nasty traps abound, scary monsters are present, and secrets are typically telegraphed. Horrific fights like one where you get dumped into a pool of water filled with level-draining giant leeches, and the regenerating thoblin(?) Rassanotep will definitely risk life and limb of the hapless PCs. My favorite “trap” is actually room #4, which is occupied by the living statue of a cat, painted to look like it is solid gold. Just close the door and you lose nothing at all, but it sure looks like a king’s ransom is represented by that dangerous little bugger. Bonus points for the treasure room with the false wall, too. Treasure is reasonable, given what I believe is 7VoZ’s silver standard, at 8,600sp plus a “bejeweled scepter” (no value given) and a +1 sword (plus “DM’s discretion extra trait”). There are also some nifty things like a brick of solid naphtha, which is used as 10x lantern oil…I can dig it. That treasure room having thousands of copper is hilarious, better have paid attention to the dead architect’s draft plans that noted the tomb complex was supposed to have nine, not eight, chambers. As noted in the introduction above this is designed for slot-in-ability, and it’ll function very well in any game with a faux Egyptian (or other desert civilization) ruin motif. Pass on the pluggability quotient, then, with flying colors. Stick in in a desert and critiques aside you can definitely have a fun night of D&D with this thing. Further reviews: Shocktop Grützi Owen Edwards EOTB Written by DangerIsReal Swords & Wizardry, Levels 2-3 Dungeon set in a snowy, icy mountain area. At the top of the CursedPeaks, a hell of snow and ice, is a cave complex infested with Morlocks. Somewhere deep in this maze is the burial place of the former mistress of these degenerate beings: Ircana the Spider Sorceress. No one has returned alive from these dark caves, but groups of grave robbers have been pouring into the valley since the discovery of a lost entrance. What else do you need before delving in the dark? Delivered mere hours upon opening the contest, DangerIsReal serves us up our first entry, a classic 12-room tomb/shrine with a spider theme, dedicated to a long-dead spider sorceress (a Drider with the serial numbers filed off) worshipped by morlocks. A modest list of rumors gives bits of backstory, and then the viewer is dumped on the chilly spiral staircase to loot the place silly. Very aware of the Tomb Problem, the author gives us a random encounter set consisting of morlocks, headless zombies, and spiders, pretty nasty threats for level 2-3’s and definitely good incentives to move fast. A brief note on formatting/writing…it’s fine, good even. Takes a little work to parse the technical writing at first but it does the job. Lots of bullet points and bolding, clean two-column format, and decent adjectives to evoke imagery. Our map is tight, with a central entrance immediately allowing multiple directions to explore. As a loot ‘n scoot site, having no obvious flow direction works fine, although the lack of hints in the initial landing means that there’s ironically not much choice to be made. It’s the maze situation; you’re not testing the gameplay skills here, but rather their mapping skills (you DO use a mapper, right?) The tightness of the map also means the lack of order-of-battle hurts a little bit, but noises are nodded at from time to time provoking extra encounter rolls. Secret doors and traps are peppered throughout and clearly marked, so well done there. Empty rooms are at a nice ratio, but they cluster to the north so it’ll be a little unrelenting on the southern half of the map. What the first room does do well is provide a couple hints to the nature of the environment, with a secret door (hint) that conceals two similar-looking potions, one of healing and one of poison (hint). The story of the site, such as it is, will be one of shivering players going up and down chilly rooms, encountering poisons and nasty monsters, as well as possibly encountering a teleporter leading to the “black mark”-giving room that buffs characters who receive it at the price of turning their alignment chaotic. There are a few involved set-pieces, most memorably at the tomb of the main drider-lady, her ghost trying to possess PCs while zombies attack. Her mummy being burnt will end the ghost-attacks, so that’s a fun encounter. An ice block holding an elf fighting morlocks is also a lot of fun, chipping open the ice grants a scroll and a key to the main loot chest of the site, but hammering away at the ice provokes extra random encounters. A note on loot…there’s a lot of gold here to be looted, 18,000gp by my count (assuming “po” is a typo for “gp” in a couple cases). Magic armor and a couple consumables are probably about right for this level, and I was tickled by things like a ring of weakness. It’s a lot of cash for a single night’s adventuring at this level, but the risks are commensurately high…I’m impressed with the group who can find/grab it all without losses in four hours of D&D. The final thing I look for in these things is how to use this in a campaign, and I think it gets a pass. The icy cold flavor is good for any mountain, and spiders are common. My own world doesn’t have drow/driders, but a spider-worshipping sorceress is easy enough to have in any sensible D&D space, and you don’t have to make morlocks into morlocks. Distinct flavor without being overwhelming, exactly what you want in an adventure site. Good start. Edit: And we have more judges' reviews... ShockTop Grutzi Owen Edwards |
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