The Usurper Baron’s Tomb

By Oghan N'Thanda
Maria das Letra Publishing House
OSE
Levels 1-2

The Order of Archivists needs your help. Beneath the suffocating mist of the Grey Swamp lies the Mausoleum of Perpetual Fog, the supposed final resting place of Baron Aldric, “the Just.” Your mission: retrieve the sacred Book of Condolences and the Diadem of Sorrow to restore the family’s honor. The reward is high, and the danger, according to your employer, is merely the wear of time. But the truth is rotten. Baron Aldric was a murderer, and the tomb is a prison for his victim’s vengeful spirit. The Book is a grimoire of blood pacts, and the Diadem is the key to a permanent cover-up. Will you return with the gold, becoming an accomplice to a powerful lie? Or will you risk the Order’s wrath to free the true Baron, igniting a potential civil war in Old Pit?

This seven page adventure uses three pages to describe about seven (or eight?) rooms in a … hedge maze? Mausoleum? Minimalistic to an extreme yet still taking up seven pages, it’s barely an RPG, even in 1968. This isn’t worth even the minimal effort I’m going to make to write about it.

There’s a byline. That’s useless. There’s “Quick Information for the DM”. That’s useless. There’s a Focus. That’s useless. There’s a required rules. That’s useless. There’s a Quick Hook. That’s useless. This section is then followed by the real hook, which doesn’t say anything more than the Quick Hook does and is, maybe, three sentences in total as well as a rewards table? In fact, there are a suspicious number of tables in the adventure.

“PART 1: THE COURTYARD OF DECEIT (E) (A)
The mausoleum is a dark, damp structure. The wrought iron gate is rusty. The fog is thick, limiting vision to 10 feet (3 meters)” What do you think that description means? It’s kind of a preamble to room one. DO you think we’re outside? Inside? It mentions a mausoleum. That could be a block structure in the middle of a graveyard or it could be used more loosely as a dungeon-like environment above or below ground. There’s no indication. Courtyard is indicative. Oh, also, somewhere someplace this thing mentions a swamp. There’s nothing about that. It launches straight form the hook section in to that little bit I bolded above.

Directly following those words that bolded above, DIRECTLY, is the screencap above. That’s room one. There’s nothing more. No table, no extra words before or after it. That’s it. You like that? This is usually where I scream “ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!” or something like that.

That there, above, is room two. It follows directly that room one information. I know. You think I’m cherry picking.

So, no, I’m not cherry picking. That’s the real page. Room three would be one of the highlights of the adventure, from an “evocative writing” standpoint. Meaning that there is any writing at all that describes something or sets a scene.

There’s a map in this that does little to help. It makes little sense, with room one leading directly to room six. Rom eight is not shown on the map but exists in the adventure.

Going back to those room keys. Note that the Key “1” is called “The Illusory Fog”, which appears as a room title in a different room. Hmmmm ….

Slop.

But, a new slop to be wary of.

This is $3 at DriveThru. There is no preview. Otherwise you wouldn’t be suckered in to losing your $3 now would you?

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/540720/broken-adventures-the-usurper-baron-s-tomb?1892600