Into the Many-Towered Twilight

By Nikoline
Self Published
OSR
Levels 2-6

Kurhan has three hills: Tell Os and Tell Hyr and Tell Kur. Of these, it is Tell Kur who is oldest and most feared. She is mother to the rest; it is on her windswept summit, girt with castles of black stone, that the dead are left for excarnation. Many are her towers, product of pre-human hands; and many are her pits, where in silence the dead of former days await dissolution. Of all these tombs, greatest is the New Necropolis. The veil is thin here; things watch hungrily as it wanes. Even a careless breath could tear it down. And then all would be washed away, into the many-towered twilight . .

Hey, go check out the preview and get excited by it.

This 75 page adventure presents a mound/barrow/graveyard/necropolis complex with, oh, 150 or so areas. It’s dong a pretty decent job of the whole “melting of the afterlife in to this one” thing, and dumps in some other factions, in camps, to spruce up the living element. The situation is complex, the factions complex, the environment complex … there’s a lot going on.  Needs more focus, but absolutely something worth checking out.

“Oh, Bruce would give Thracia threshing!” Yes, I would. And I would also say that you should check it out. And I’m gonna do the same here. I suspect this is everything that we all hoped in our hearts that Bree and The Narrow Downs would be. It’s also wrapped in a degree of obscure that does little to help the DM out, in spite of an obvious attempt having been made to do so.

The map here is quite interesting. Let’s imagine a barren hilltop. Arrayed on and around it are a variety of barrows, monoliths, towers, and earthworks and mounds. There’s a kind of three-tiered works here, with the earthworks having some gates in them. This results in some large open-air areas surrounded by towers and doors/entryways in to mounds. Maybe three dozen mounds and towers in all. This results in an interesting way to approach, fro an adventuring standpoint, with many of the areas almost being stand-alone little endeavors. Once, that is, you can negotiate the various factions who have made camp and are running around. Each little section is almost like a stand-along tomb, with a few chambers to explore. Shades of that tower adventure by Gillspie. And then there’s the underground section where things get weird, maybe half the size, in locations, but made up of (among other things) massive corridors and areas. 

The individual environments are interesting. A tower, with no entrance, gaining the top shows yo stairs choked with rubble and urns. A collapsed dome you can enter through. Do some drugs and have the world twist and leer at you a little and see new doorways to explore. A combination of mundane entrances excavations and climbing, and hidden paths opened through mystical means. You’re not handicapped here, at all, by a designer imposing their will. It’s just an environment you can explore, and sus out how to get where you want to go. Including shovels and sledgehammers. You are, literally, tomb robbers, and will be well-rewarded with things like skulls whos eye sockets have been filled with molten lead. A lance, in a corpse, pulled out you can dig out the spearhead from the cavity, and the still gooey intestines. That then crumble to crust. Hmmm, wonder what is going on there? And, of course, noise has consequences in many places. There’s a lot of hidden depth here, from the easy nd obvious to the obscure. All waiting to be exploited by a smart party. IN room 3, “If the gleaming spear-point ( 0c ) is driven into the crack in the east door, …” well … that’s a stretch?

The rooms are dense. Treasure, noise, environmental things, barriers, creatures. It’s extensively cross-referenced, thank god, given the interconnections. And it’s also pushing the line of what is and isn’t easy to dig through. The writing doesn’t help much, with padding words. Not the usual over-description, but rather A LOT of if statements, like the “if the gleaming spearpoint” and so on. That could all be reworked to be more direct and to the point and ease the cognitive load. It’s also leaning a bit purple in places, with phrases like “A ring of standing stones made crooked by time, A round tower, black against the sky..”  or, for our clauses “If one of the flagstones is removed (STR 40 total), underneath is a skeleton bedecked in finery of soapstone , jade , and gold ( 600c ). In its ribcage is a live, warm liver. It crumbles to ash if removed.” Not the most evocative writing but there has clearly been an effort at trying to bring some life to the environment. 

There’s a timeline for the factions, they want things and will pursue them and are not generally hostile, at least in the beginning, to the party. And then also there’s a major point of the various gates in the complex being opened. As you do so the description of some rooms change, based on how many gates have been opened. “I The e?gies sway and creak; bones weft through them rattle. The branches above block the light. ? If shone with torchlight, they cast back lifelike shapes on the far walls. After 1 turn, these begin to move as 1d6 shadows , seeking blood.” (Imagine an offset bullet point there) That’s the effect after one gate is opened. You get little vignettes in some places, and  real effects in others, hidden passages and so on. Delving too deep may require sealing the gates again, temporarily with blood and wax seals or through human sacrifice for a permanent deal. Ouch. Nice consequences for those shamelessly plundering tombs. 

I’m a big fan of this. It’s relatively rare to see something with both this breadth and depth to it. You can come back to places for more. The factions add even more. There are shades of here of classic adventures, and the exploration element is front and center while still containing those moments of terror from the monsters … and people. Every time you go to buy something large THIS is what you are hoping to find and which you seldom see. The faction elements could be a little stronger with perhaps reinforcements to keep them fresher, and the writing is a little too dense to be immediately scannable. But it absolutely rewards play. This is a good adventure. And to think, it keeps a tomb-filled adventure from getting stale! Thisis 100% going in to my Dungeonland game tomorrow.

This is Pay What You Want at DriveThru with a suggested price of $2.50. The preview is eighteen pages. It shows you the aboveground map and several encounters. Great preview! And, worth more than the $2.50 of PWYW. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/557063/into-the-many-towered-twilight?1892600