The Lions of Tell Arn Part 2 – The City & The City

By Nikoline
Self Published
OSR
Levels 3-8

As above, so below. Above, Tell Arn is abandoned, the Hyrkossi kings ashamed of what is buried there. Below, stranger kings hold greater shames, and greater terrors are locked away. The mistakes of lost civilisations repeat on one another in the dark, holding a delicate, unruly balance. Tip the scales, break the seal, and let the Lions drink deep.

This 81 page adventure presents two more levels of Tell Arn with about a hundred numbered major rooms and probably as many sub-a/sub-b rooms. Complex maps. Great writing. Interesting environments to adventure in. An adventure that can stand toe to toe with Dark Tower/Thracia/Hyqueous/Xyntillian/The Bowman Levels. Buy the hard copy now.

I think, perhaps, I’d like to examine this adventure through one small portion of a zone, in the northeast of the map. The map, alone, should be enough to get you excited. Water, tunnels, above and below, weird shapes, and a complexity that naturally lends itself to exploration. It FEELS like a ruined city, yes? Looking at the small area in the upper right, a kind of cavern. IN the middle is a pit. There’s this long corridor off to 39a, and a broken set of stairs clinging to a wall leading up to 28a. Rough caves to 29, with secrets in that room, multiple secret doors! Pools in 31, with more secrets, but the entrance to the 31 hallway from 28 is a ledge up on the wall. Rooms. Caverns. Pits. Ledges. Stairs. Exits. Secrets. An almost bewildering number and type of environments. Fucking great map! A place for an adventure!

The rooms start with a kind of vibe overview. Room 28 is “Lower Hydra Nest”. How much more classic can you get than a hydra in a ruined city? It makes my mouth water just thinking about the deliciousness of the encounter! Then the entry reads “Sickly stench; grease and putrescence. A ledge (40’ up) to the south (to 31). Water and blood drips from above” It’s kind of orienting the DM to the room. Room 29, the Putrescent Larder reads “The detritus thickens; half-rotted carcasses in great mounds. Sweet stench of death. Lit by guttering blue corpse-fires, burning at random. Sucking steps.” Got it. Ewww! Or, maybe room 21, the Upper Gallery “Reprieve from the miasma. Crashing water. Blue light through fine mist. Hollow on the north wall leads to 29. “ Crashing water, sweeter air, a blue light in a fine mist. GUTTERING. Or SUCKING STEPS. These descriptions feel imagined. They feel like someone called up a mental image in their head, lived the room, and then were able to get that down on paper, and down on paper in such a way that you, the DM reading it, can pick it up and run with it just as the designer imagined in their head. That IS the goal of good writing. A sucking step. Anyone in the mud, bog, fen, swampy environments knows what that is like. It’s a perfect description for that kind of thing. You KNOW what it is. The descriptions here range from good to excellent, across the board.

But wait, there’s more! This is not the end of things.We expand, when entering from room 17, the trail narrows, the stone crumbling, there’s a 30’ ledge to the floor below, with pitted walls. Pitted. The room? A ruined amphitheatre, buried in filth. Corroded pillars break the surface. They are gnawed and scored with deep claw marks. Detritus is 10 deep, bone, plasma, cave-slime, guano. I fucking love that amphitheater description. 

Heyt man, how about that pit? Let’s look at that bullet “In the centre of the amphitheatre, a sunken pit (40’ across, 20’ deep). The floor is thick with golden slime. Inspection reveals twisting movement below. A colossal gold-faced bust (3000c/300lb) rests against the west edge. Bringing fire nearby alerts the hydra: 4d6 HYDRA SPAWN surge into 28 to defend it. “ Golden slime. Twisting below. Jesus fucking christ! I’m not going near that thing! I see your colossal gold-faced bust, but the hand AND eye had better be clearly visible to get me to go there! Great fucking environment. And remember, we’ve still got “A broken set of stairs winding 20’ up the wall. At the top, a dark hollow “ and other things in here. Depth. Multiple things going on. Multiple things to look at, explore, interact with. 

Expanding this hydra room even more, there are mechanics to help the DM out. That 10’ deep filth? “The filth halves all movement in 28/29 “ Wanna dig through it? There’s a short table for that. Oh, hey, remember that pit with the golden slime and twisting movement? How about this as fucking follow up to that description: “If the slime-floor is broken (like the skin of a water-bed), it reveals a knotted, fused mass of hydra-flesh. A thousand blind eyes swivel into life. 1d10x10 HYDRA SPAWN burst out after 1 turn. “ Like the skin of a water bed. A thr\ousand blind eyes SWIVEL into life. A knotted and fused mass of hydra flesh. Fucking a man, this is a fucking adventure right here! 

We saw that colossal gold-faced bust, as treasure. Digging about in the filth could get you “Seventh Binding. (300c). A scabbard faced with moulded silver plates depicting the slaughter of seven giants. Inside, it is choked with black blood. “Nice little description. CHoked with black blood is a good touch also. No blade kept within will dull or rust. That’s a decent effect without relying on mechanics. And, then also “7 charges. The bearer can negate a mundane attack dealing ?8hp. The wound scars over, one of the seven giants rots to bones, and the scabbard fills with the blood that would have been spilled. “ Ewwww! Noice! Love it!  Magic item that FEELS like a magic item. 

Hey, how about another room? How about that upper gallery, with the blue mist? “Softly phosphorescent lichen coats the walls. It is thicker to the south, growing elaborate tendrils, swaying. On close inspection, see the form of a halfling, splayed out and subsumed by the algae. Its skull is stripped bare; a jewelled holy symbol (200c) of a sapphire rose embedded in the socket. “ Uh. Ok. And also “A stream of water cascades from above into a shallow pool. The pool is white with foam. It breaks off into a stream running down to 30. The water is bright blue and bitter. Small blind fish swim within. “ And then each of those two things, which are major bullets, have a minor bullet like “If bathed in, the water (highly alkaline) causes 1hp damage, drinking it 1d6hp. It cleans anything washed in it to a mirror sheen.”

Formatting wise, we’re seeing a vibe overview that’s highly evocative. Then a few major bullets with details on things from the overview. Then a sub-bullet or two with mechanical-like impacts from those bullets. Bolding and italics are used to effect to draw the eye to certain words, but not overused. Evocative treasure with good descriptions, terse but much more interesting than a Sword, +1. 

These rooms hit, over and over again. There are zones in this places, “themed” areas, if you will. There are a couple of major factions running around with wants and needs and goals, as well as theming around hunger, in particular, with a ravenous hydra and ghouls. The amount of repetition of rooms is close to zero, nothing really feels like it’s just thrown in, or padding out the adventure. Room after room and description after description feels intentional, as if absolutely everything in the is adding to the adventure, building it up with intention. 

Dense. Complex. Thrilling. Full of awe and wonder and horror the way an exploration adventure should be. You are a FOOL if you don’t check this out. For all the crap being published, today and every year, there is always someone out there with a singular vision who drives it to completion. This is the OSR.

This is Pay What You Want at DriveThru with a suggested price of $5. That’s absurd. This thing is great and you need a physical copy. The preview is twenty pages. You get to see a great map and lots of dungeon entries. Great preview.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/530112/the-lions-of-tell-arn-part-ii?1892600