Riven Catacombs

By Bart Wynants
Bolwerk Publishing
Generic/Universal/OSR
Levels 1-3

Centuries ago, the Red Death cast its shadow across the realm. A demonic plague of gargantuan proportions, it felled nearly one-third of the population. Desperate survivors nailed the crimson corpses into hastily constructed caskets and sealed them inside a hidden catacomb within the Complex. Some accused the plague doctors of being overzealous, burying the living along with the dead…

This fourteen-ish page adventure presents an ossuary dungeon area with ten rooms. It presents interesting environments, well described, with pretty good interactivity. One of the better generic/universal adventures, it suffers from a lack of focus in its room presentations and, perhaps, some issues with its central conceit.

This is an interesting little thing in the history of adventures. It looks like it has evolved from a geomorph project. Someone likes geomorphs and has created some to stick together for your campaign. Then, they went ahead and started to populate the geomorphs, as a separate project. Or at least that’s the story I’ve made up in my head. These ARE geomorphs, with the connecting sides and ability to rearrange them as you will. This particular adventure is one map section with, at this time, six being available in total. What is interesting about these, though, far far more interesting than the geomorph concept (which always seemed attractive to me but I think, in practice, always sucks) is that the adventure is not bad, at all. Oh, it’s not great, but, also, you can see some hints of something/one really talented in the ways it counts. 

The premise here is that plague victims (“The Red Mist”, a nice touch) were buried on this “level”, sometimes alive. You’re being sent in by Lemnis, who wants you to find the “‘Thurian Heresy’—a blasphemous text containing apocryphal myths about the god of magic. The only known remaining copy was held by Dûdael, the “Prophet of Ruin” who lies entombed somewhere in the Riven Catacombs.” I’m not the biggest fan of being hired to do something, but, also, we’ve got some proper names, the book/prophecy has a name, and we’ve got a Prophet of Ruin. That’s exactly th e kind of specificity that adventure descriptions should have. Fuck your eye colour; I want a Prophet of Ruin.

The map looks nice. A little small, because it’s a square geomorph instead os a larger rectangle. A little symmetrical, but good detail on the map that helps contribute to an evocative environment. There is, however, a rather childish looking “clawl mark” of caverns running through the map. I don’t know, The Great RIft or some such. It’s an afterthought int he adventure, not really being representing in it, and, looks like one of the map as well. IN addition, the map page, the unused portion, is taken up by a summary of each room, but they are kind of useless summaries. “Pauper’s Columbarium. Hatred from beyond the grave infests this area.” Sure. Do monsters react to the the next room? It’s just wasted space. I’d have put the “always on” dungeon features, like light and sounds, in that area, so the DM is always looking at them. Speaking of, one of the always on features is sounds. “Eerie silence reigns in these halls, occasionally rent asunder by deep, ominous rumblings originating far beneath the surface.” That’s just window dressing, and I like my window dressing to actually being something, so the sounds should have something to do with the level, or, maybe, a neighboring one … which can’t be done because of the geomorph nature.

Formatting is pretty good. The room summary (which could also be ready aloud) will have some important features in them that then get bolded in the DM text so you can find them easily. There’s not so much text that you need to wade through it. There are a decent number of handouts for something this small. But, also, there are one pagers also included for OSR, 5E, Pathfinder, and Shadowdark, that localizes the adventure to those systems. The monster status, saves, etc. It’s a little cumbersome. The adventure is also a two column format but only uses one column for the adventure text. The second is full of designers notes and extra information. This is a great idea, but, also, not the best use of density. I guess page count is free in a PDF, so I should not worry about it. Id still have rather had the system information there, or a separate version for each system. 

The descriptions here, as well as the interactivity, are both very much a cut above the usual and quite interesting. As I noted earlier, there’s a specificity that helps bring things to life and makes life less generic. “Thick layers of melted candle-wax cover the surface of this votive altar dedicated to forgotten saints. An assortment of coins, holy symbols, and votive gifts sits embedded in the wax. Liberating these objects takes 20 minutes (10 if heat is applied) and yields 3d6 x10 gold pieces worth of coins and trinkets”  THICK layers. VOTIVE alter. EMBEDDED in the wax. All very nice. Ripples of darkness UNDULATE. “ A human torso protrudes from the north wall, arms outstretched hopelessly towards some absent saviour” That’s a great description and a great thing to investigate, for both the alter and the wall figure. Andthe adventure is full of this shit. “A careful search of the east wall reveals an alcove with a skull carved from stone. If a character presses their fingers into the skull’s eye sockets, the jaw clicks open a …” Fuck yeah! Stick those fingers in an eye socket! 

I think, also, you get a iint of a problem with the descriptions, particularly the read-aloud.summary stuff. It’s a little dramatic and purple. “Dire runes blaze angry and read in the primeval darkness of this dismal crypt.” Uh huh. That’s very much try-hard. But, hey, there’s a spiral staircase with a trickle of blood running down it. Pretty sweet thing to freak the fucking party out!

I really dig the interactivity here. It feels imagined first and then stated. Not “let me look through the book and find something to put in this room.” There’s a little too much for the DM to do “create some people to have buried here” and little bit of useless advice “you can replace the gods mentioned with your own gods!” Thanks man. Appreciate it. But, the rooms proper is pretty great and the descriptions pretty close to great … even if there are some italics sections that are too long.

I get that the designer is probably interested in geomorphs. We are all victims of our own conceits. Designing an actual dungeon, with multiple levels, with this degree of focus on formatting, interactivity, and good writing would be something really interesting to see. 

This is $3.32 at DriveThru. The preview will show you the adventure, but not the system localization, but, great preview to check out. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/464502/Dungeon-Domains-Riven-Catacombs?1892600