Aethelberd’s Tomb

By Scott_M
First Era Adventures
OSRIC
Levels 1-3

Few now recall King Aethelberd’s name, but in his time, he was rightly feared. His ruthless crusade against criminals and sinners took thousands of lives… many by the king’s own hand. The ancient lord’s body now rests somewhere below his ruined keep, his legacy all but forgotten. Rumors, however, tell of a trove of kingly treasure buried within Aethelberd’s tomb, along with his legendary weapon: Angbolt – The Mallet of Justice.

This thirteen page adventure presents a dungeon/tomb with about twenty locations. A ‘standard dungeon’ with a few different situations going on, it is relatively wordy for the degree of content present, coming out to about four keys per page or so for a mix of vermin, undead, and bandits. 

I’m rather fond of the setup of this one, or, perhaps, the framing. There are some ruins on a hill in a wood. And I mean ruins; almost nothing left but a few walls. Once the tomb of majestic figure,eons past and nothing is left of Ozymandius (by Shelley you cetin! God how I love Frisky Dingo.) but two legs. And, now on the road through the wood you come upon a dying man and a ransacked cart. “Tracks in the dirt indicate that three humans in boots led a woman and child off into the woods, along with a heavily-laden mule or pony.” Low bandits, now hold up in the topside walls of the tomb of a lord known for justice, too scared to venture down the stairs.  I find this framing rather poetic. No highborn rebels or a bandit-king with airs and plans, just the meanest and most low of ruffians, picking on a man and his woman/child brutally. Too common to even venture in to the hole in the ground in search of gold, camped in a place of utter ruin, of former majesty that they have no knowledge of. This is all handled rather briefly.

The rest of the adventure is not bad, but it doesn’t come close to that poetry. It is a relatively standard dungeon crawl, perhaps a bit above the usual average, with not a lot to distinguish itself and a few things that could be done better. This is not an Orcs in a Hole problem, but perhaps a sign of a hobby in which every adventure ever written is available immediately to you. How does one stand out in a crowded marketplace? [By each adventure having the unrealistic expectations of being a masterpiece, duh! If the premise of the blog is that common mistakes are repeated time and again then the secret hope is that those eventually get resolved and concentration can be done on more in-depth stuff.]

The bandits are huddled in the upper ruins, little more than a few crumbling walls. They’ve set a slack guard during the day and wall themselves in at night by moving boards. There’s a nice earthiness to this. They see the stairs, and have stuffed the women and child in a cellar room, where they whimper, but are too scared to venture any further. I might emphasize their condition, of both the captives and … beastiality? of the bandits a bit more, but the quick mentions of their fear and how they wall themselves in to the ruins is good. 

The map supporting this is fine for it’s size. The hill, ruins and wood around it are covered fine, and the dungeon proper has a variety of features, caves, water, worked areas, streams, statues, same level stairs. It is clear and has creature notations on it, which I always find very useful when running an adventure to keep the surrounding dungeon context front and center when running an encounter/noise in a room. Good job, and something I wish more adventures did to help me out at the table.

The dungeon entries, proper, are where my hang ups mostly lie. And I have no idea how to describe what I think is wrong about them. They do tend to be a bit long, four paragraphs is not uncommon. There’s an occasional bolded words or ALL CAPS monster reference, which shows some awareness of trying to call the DMs attention to things. But, for all the world, I can’t figure out why the entries are long. Typical problems in other adventures might be backstory embedded in them, or victorian laundry lists of contents, overly describing, trap & door porn or explaining WHY. None of that really seems to be present here, and yet the entries tend to the long side, particularly for what they are. 

I’m looking at an entry for room eight, The False Tomb, which I think is fair representation of the other rooms as well. There’s three paragraphs of general description. The first is the overall room, then one touching on some alcoves and frescoes, then one about the body in the room under a shroud, and its treasure, and the skeletons it triggers, and then one about a bronze chest and its loot. I can’t really fault any one of them for being there. The first paragraph reads “The shrouded body of a long-dead warrior is laid out upon a stone bier. The floor surrounding it is covered with various burial offerings: Ratgnawed baskets, sealed crockeries of seed oil and spoiled wine, moldering furniture and tapestries, graven idols of old gods, etc. (no value). Among the funeral goods stands a squat bronze chest” This is not the most evocative thing ever, but it’s trying and I recognize that. It’s also, I think, not lingering too much on the mundane. I can’t particularly fault the description of the body and chest and their treasures either. 

So the descriptions are not in and of themselves problems. And the formatting is not terrible. It’s certainly not wall of text and there is an occasional bolded word to direct the DM to more information. The closest I think I can come is that there seems to be a disconnect between the length and the … mundanity of the interactivity. There are some traps here that are more than just a pit. (Flaming oil jet!) Rats, centipedes, skeletons, wraiths, shadow, zombie dog. The more special undead have a note or two to bring them to life. And there’s an otyugh in a well, ala Moria. 

I don’t know why, but maybe the absence of more exploratory interactivity, but it feels plain to me. I’m not excited by this. It’s not bad. I just don’t look at it and and can’t wait to run it. Specificity? I’m going to assume this is a me thing.

This is $3 at DriveThru. The preview is six pages, which shows you the setup, the maps, and a few dungeon rooms. Good preview. Take a look and see if you can nail the descriptions thing.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/561573/aethelberd-s-tomb?1892600