The Barrow of the Unbroken King

By Travis Fauber
Self Published
Dragonslayer/OSR
Levels 1-3

A wicked corruption has befallen the Mounds of the Fairy Kings and has tainted the Barrow of the Unbroken King. The once grand halls of his tomb are now imbued with dark, sinister energy, and the honored dead who lie within have been twisted and defiled by this insidious force.

 The source of this foul magic remains shrouded in mystery. Whispers abound that a dark curse was placed upon the Mounds of the Fairy Kings by an ancient enemy seeking to dishonor the memories of those buried. Whatever the truth, it remains elusive, adding to the chilling weather that envelops these sacred barrows. The Mounds of the Fairy Kings, once a place of reverence and honor, now stands as a haunting reminder of the past, in a forest where the boundary between the mortal and the twilight realm blurs in the face of unknown danger.

This 26 page adventure uses about three pages to describe about twelve rooms. The writing is bland. The interactive elements are bland. The evocative nature of it is bland. It’s bland. 

I’m bored to death just writing this summary and would rather, well, I’ve edited out what I would rather do than write more. But write more I am. Twenty six pages for twelve rooms described in three pages. I think I’ve seen this film before and I didn’t like the ending. The usual suspects are at play. An extensive hook and background with lore. A lengthy section on how to play D&D and what a stat block means. Appendices for monsters, pre-gens, torchbearers, and summary of the XP and treasure in the adventure. Again and again and again the broken repeats: the main thing is the actual adventure. Support for the adventure is great, but not at the expense of the main adventure. When the main adventure is substandard and there is a lot of support information it forces the question to ask: what would the adventure have been like if the effort spent on the support information had instead been spent on the keys? There is no solution here. I sometimes run across travel videos on my feed that are something like “Do not trust this man in Kashmir!” Of course, none of us will run across that man. Just as no designer getting a bad review will be aware of this guideline. A mighty conundrum. The firehose of poor adventures will continue until all hope is lost. Tomorrow is a new day, until another designer brings their vision to light and flings themselves forward chaotically with little awareness. The same old same old, poor official adventures, mimicking what you’ve seen before which is almost always poor also. There is no respite from the endless line of people making the same mistakes. 

“Random monsters are an essential part of classic fantasy role-playing games, and The Barrow of the Unbroken King is no different. In normal situations, the Referee should roll for random monsters every other turn or whenever the players declare they are “searching” for something (with a roll of 1 on a d6 indicating an encounter)” What?! No rules for how to roll dice and read the THACO chart? 

“The exterior of the barrow mound has a diameter of 60 feet. At each compass point, four menhirs stand 30 feet away from the barrow. These stones are marked with petroglyphs that detail the life of The Unbroken King.” And thus a column of backstory was born. Contributing little to nothing to the adventure. 

What is the purpose of a monster entry? Following our major guidelines, everything in an adventure should tie back to running the adventure at the table. What do you need from a monster entry to do that? Some stats, surly, HP, AC, attacks. And, I would assert a description. You you need an ecology of the monster to run it at the table? No, almost certainly not. SO, what should be prioritized? The ecology or the description? I’m not arguing for inline stat blocks, I have no opinion on those. I am, though, asserting that “an ogre attacks you” is less assistance to the DM, less evocative, than a terse and evocative description of the lumbering brute with great yellowed tusks. Guess how the monster entries are arranged in this?

These keys, the main part of the adventure. There’s nothing here. Yes, sure, niches to loot and a few monsters. But there’s not really anything here for a DM to hang their hat on. No evocative writing. Really not much more than, say, Palace of the Vampire Queens monster listing and treasure. B2 may have more interesting encounters.

Are you not entertained? What type of gem? No altar description. Nothing about an evocative curse detail. It’s not that any one of those things would make this stand out, but it’s all the bare minimum. This is what you are paying your money for. And there’s not much more here than a random number generation on a table would provide.

I am aware that for the vast majority of designers there is no malice. This is not a money grab. They had a vision and they just were not able to translate that vision on to the paper. It’s just so frustrating. This can’t be the vision the designer set off to put down and I don’t know how you make it pass a proof read not knowing that.

This is Pay What You Want at DriveThru with a suggested price of $5. No preview. You gotta put in a preview so we can make an informed purchasing decision.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/544497/the-barrow-of-the-unbroken-king-kickstarter-preview?1892600