Categories: Reviews

Ahidl’s Keep

By Jeremy Farkas
Troll Lord Games
Castles & Crusades
Level ... 3?

Dare you cross the vast desert and seek out the great red mesa where the near-mythical mine is rumored to lie? Dare you plunge the darksome depths of the labyrinth and wrest fortune and glory from its yawning chasm? Dare you seek out the legendary hammer Earthrender, which bestows lordship upon any dwarf who holds it aloft? Dare you discover the fate of the great wyrm Morglax the Bold, who brought her great host of bandits and monsters up from the south to snuff out Lord Ahidl-Mor and his kin?

This eighteen page adventure uses about fourteen pages to describe a thee levels dwarf “orcs in a hole” with about 35 rooms. Stuffed with humanoids, it uses a conversational style to present a lot of things to stab.

I’m not sure what to say here. You know all of those adventures that have a bunch of humanoids in a dungeon with some kind of backstory? This is one of those. In this case the humanoids are kobolds, goblins, orcs and bugmeans. Along with the required vermin, an abomination or two, and a young dragon at the end. And in this case the dungeon is a three level Lonely Mountain, with thew dwarves pushed out by orcs and a dragon and the old dwarf king leaving a clue where the entrance was, up to and including a secret entrance on a ledge. The required “broken dwarf elevator” is present.

Look, I don’t have anything positive to say. I guess I’ve got some negative things to point out. But, overall, there’s just not a lot here. This was a tourney module and then they added some content to try and expand it. I’m going to ignore the expanded content, a village and preamble adventure. I don’t think they really add anything interesting and are just padded out. If you just want to, I don’t know, enter a few rooms and kill a few things then I’ve got some great news for you about this adventure. It even has a few environmental things and light puzzels to solve! You gotta find the yellow control crystal to make the elevator work again! Uh. That didn’t come across well. If you want to stab things then you can, and there a few things to break up the stabbin.

Look, I know people like to stab. It is not lost on me that Chainmail exists. Chainmail, 3e, 3.5, 4e, the whole range, devoted to stabbin.I like to stab also. I like to stab as a means to an end. B/X is my favorite edition because of the balance there between stabbin as a means to an end rather than a tactical minis simulation. Ultimately I’m looking for something with a decent exploratory vibe, some roleplaying, and other interactivity in addition to the stabbin. And it has to be something a little more interesting than “find the gold key to open the gold lock.” And the adventure here is not altogether great in areas other than things to stab.

I’m also more than a little irked by many aspects of the C&C house style. Is any one thing terrible? No. Does it all annoy me? Yes. Like, no level range anywhere. I guess you just rush out and dump money at the new C&C adventure rather than looking for a specific adventure for a specific level range? Man, stick a fucking level range on it somewhere.

And the read-aloud here. You know the drill, fancy fonts with long italics make things hard t read. But, further, the read-aloud is all mixed up. We’ve got the famous second person stuff, with lots of “As you draw nearer, you clearly see …” writing, which should never be used. But, then, the bold/italics shifts. While read-aloud is in bolded italics so it DM text! Or, maybe its also read-aloud? It will just suddenly have what is obviously DM only information in the same bolded/italics. Huh? What’s the point then?

And then it’s padded ALL the fuck out. The house style loves to pad, but then the adventure does also. Creature stat blocks are long with phrasing like “Their primary attributes are physical. Their special abilities are dark vision and light sensitivity. In battle they use military forks that deal 1d8 damage, or short swords that deal 1d6 damage” As I get older the sublime majesty of the ready ref sheets becomes more and more apparent. No? You don’t agree? How about a very conversational tone in the writing, which forces you to wade through mountains of padding when locating information? “If for some reason the PCs feel compelled to loot Ahidl’s grave, “ Oh come on. What’s the point there?

And then in other places the information is absurdly out of order. AFTER a room description we get this little note “When the PCs get within 10 feet of the chamber prior, they must cross a steel tripwire just 6 inches off the ground.” That should, I think we can all agree, come BEFORE the room so the DM notices it before the party gets to the room. “Knock has no effect” ah, jesus man. It’s a low level adventure. Let the wizard use his fucking knock spell. It’s one less sleep he’ll have memorized, which is the entire point of utility spells. I can bypass this ther kind of challenge if I give up nuking a room of monsters. What’s wrong with that? Sounds like the D&D circle of life to me.

I’m looking at room 33 right now, titled Dragon Bones. There’s a paragraph of bolded italics read-aloud. Then there are five paragraphs of DM text that follow. There is nothing in those those five paragraphs related to the room, in play. The past sentence is “Searching the room will yield no secrets or great treasures.” It’s all backstory. A quarter page, or more? For one room?

I can excuse a lot of things as I’m Not In To That Style Of Play. But I can recognize how someone else might be. But, all of that text, for nothing? Wasted effort? Aimed at readers? Distracting from the purpose of the designer AND the purpose of a DM? Nope.

This is $7 at DriveThru. The preview is about a dozen pages, which includes a sizable number of rooms as well as some preamble text. More than enough to see what you’re getting yourself in to.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/579756/castles-crusades-ahidl-s-keep?1892600

Bryce Lynch

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Reason says:

September 16, 2026 at 8:23 am

C&C is an interesting system if you want a slightly "modernised" and slightly lower magic AD&D system/setting (rangers and paladins no spells, which I like)...But the adventures were so bad I abandoned it.

They are all a confusing mess- even the couple Bryce liked I bought and hated trying to prep to run (no effing map for the wilderness portion?) and they were not well received at the table.

I don't undertand why decades later they can't find an editor or learn to convey information.