The Caves of Cold Death

By Scott Myers, Daymon Mills
Shadow Drifter Games
OSR
Levels 1-2

Being hired to accompany a noble on a bear hunt was supposed to be an easy way to make some gold during winter. But when a frost dragon chases the group into a mysterious cavern, survival and escape become the goal. Not to mention keeping the nobles alive to prevent them from becoming wanted men.

This 31 page adventure uses about thirteen pages t present thirteen rooms in a little cave/dungeon complex. Mostly linear maps, and an escort mission, with a whiny aristo, what more could you dream of? You stab things in underdescribed but over-explained situations. Is this the Tree of Woe?

I’m not the biggest fan of these “inciting event” adventures, but I know they have their place. As a First Adventure, this is how the arty gets together, and you bond over all becoming outlaws because you let someone die or you bond over your hero status because you saved him, and thus the rest of the campaign is launched and you all know each other. This is general handwavery stuff for me in my games, but I know some people want a little pretext, hence a starter adventure like one.

You’re hired by a dipshit heir for a bear hunting expedition. He’s a whiney shit, has a loyal bodyguard, a tracker, and four or so men at arms besides the party. On day two you find a bear, and then a dragon swoops down, kills the bear, and corners your little group in a cave. Oops. But, hey, bodyguard dude thinks he saw a door in the rear of the cave, it must lead out, right? So you snake through a small, mostly linear, dungeon until you pop out the other side. Whiny aristo heir will be dead, in which you get a bounty on your head by dad, or not dead, in which case maybe you get some cash or maybe you get some hero status from a grateful dad. The escort mission, with the whiny brat, is just the campaign kickoff. If the campaign is on a deserted island then you gotta wreck on the island first, so we can allow a little more leeway. Besides, there’s no real moral judgement here, just dad doing what dad does, using his power, if the party are shits. IE: there’s a balance to tormenting the PLAYERS, and this handles it fine.

The actual adventure, though, is painful. We can place this squarely in the “just another linear hack” category. And, straight. I might have gone a little farcical with it “oh, whats this big red button do?” and so on. But that’s not to be found here. Just a room with some skeletons to kill. Or some goblins to kill. Or some giant spiders to kill. Excitement abounds. Stabbing is a means to an end, not an end unto itself. 

There is a trap. An arrow trap specifically. It takes a page to describe. Classic trap and door porn where there’s a fixation on it. An unwarranted fixation on activation, reset, deactivation and so on. With diagrams. At least its not the kitchen room that “appears” to be the kitchen. *sigh*

Let us look at the first real chamber you encounter: “This large, cold room has only one prominent feature, an intricately carved fountain. The stonework fountain is covered in carvings of manta rays, sharks, and other powerful sea creatures. Filled with fresh but frozen water, the fountain has a mechanism beneath it that used to cause it to flow; it stopped working long ago. This room is filled with skeletons waiting for the door to open after hearing the group in Area 3 moving stones. These skeletons have only the barest tatters of clothing and armor left on them (both styles are a few generations old)” The mechanism stopped working long ago. Great. The fountain does nothing, its window dressing. Nothing here really does anything. It’s just a long description of nothing important. Just like: “The ring is a ring of invisibility. Studying the skeletal remains with a successful and appropriate INT Check would determine that the skeleton is of a male elf, and the bones in the area of the sternum and ribs have several deep cut marks, most likely caused by bladed weapons. Anyone rolling an 18 or higher on the roll would determine the skeleton has been dead for less than twenty years, and minor gnaw marks indicate the flesh was eaten by small creatures (rats).” Nothing here, beyond the ring, is important. The dead body, the slashes, the aging, the gnawing. None of it matters. It’s just padded out detail for the sake of being padded out. 

So, suffer through some long and meaningless descriptions that lead to nothing but hack after hack. Bumbling aristo, overprotective bodyguard, terrified men at arms, solo guide … none of it really comes in to play in the various rooms. The men at arms don’t even get names or personalities.Dude needed to be 3 days and a wake or something, with another one Hicks and so on, They were there, use them, don’t just hand wave them. 

This is Pay What you Want at DriveThru with a suggested price of $2. The View of the Pre is three pages and shows you absolutely nothing but the credits and the chapter page. The purpose of the preview is to give a potential buyer a chance to check out what you’ve written, say, by showing an encounter page or something. SHowing the title page and chapter page doesn’t do that. At All.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/548491/the-caves-of-cold-death?1892600