You Should Never Have Come Here

By Thom Wilson
ThrowiGames
OSE
Levels 3-5

After being spurned by a handsome noble, the warlock Zor Zaynne placed an infertility curse upon a region of the land. Although she accepted numerous payments from noble families to reverse the affliction, she never intended to allow any family to reproduce. After years had passed, rumors of the warlock’s death became popular. Recently, an acolyte of a local order uncovered a potential reversal ritual. All it requires is the warlock’s organs, but they are hidden deep within her treacherous tomb. Nobles have offered the reward of any treasure found in the lair if the organs can be retrieved. Many have already tried, and all have failed.

This 42 page single-column digest adventure explores the question “What if the Tomb of Horrors was for levels 3-5.” There’s nothing evocative here, just room after room of traps and summoned/undead monsters. 

Didn’t Grinding Gear, or some other early LotFP adventure do the same thing already, better? Much better? Anyway, this is a tomb of horrors adventure. I hate tomb of horrors adventures. I hate trap dungeons. I think they suck and are not fun. They drain the life out of a game while the players search for how they are going to get screwed eight different ways in THIS room. And to do it in a level 3-5, without the massive resources/divination available? Pffft. Anyway, I have now disclosed my prejudices, so, make what you will of the rest of this review.

So, some wizard curses all the nobles in a region to be infertile. Then, a long time later, maybe dies and is buried  by “his loyal followers” in some tomb full of traps and guardians. They send you in to get his internal organs to break the curse. The infertility thing never comes up again, anywhere so it’s pure pretext. 

Let’s see here … the first real encounter area, room two, is a sixty foot hallway. Yes. It takes a page and a half to describe. Uh huh. And it has … seven traps in it. There are barely visible glowing runes on the floor and ceiling. And there is a “swing over” pit trap with an ochre jelly in it that is right out of Grimtooth. Seriously. What was it called … the Johnny Weissmuller memorial, or something like that?

Let’s see … save vs poison or die … 50% chance every minute of ceiling collapsing for 4d6 damage, save vs death or die, save vs poison or get a fatal disease. You get the idea. It’s just room after room of screw you traps. 

The room descriptions are utilitarian. After all, you’re here to get fucked. “Narrow hallway with four half walls staggered throughout. Wall murals of gory executions of nobles. Portcullis gates opened by control panels in area 21 or 29, or with a successful Strength (Open Doors) check. Air tingles with electricity. Humming noise within each half wall. Floors covered in white powder.” (BTW: Those half walls have instantly resetting blade traps and the rest is mini explosions that do 1 point of damage for each individual footstep you take. ) There’s nothing really to that. The gore thing and humming is getting close, but, also, its all very utilitarian and just not very interesting from a holistic standpoint.

But, ah, the magic items. Book items. +1 shield. +1 dagger. You enjoy that.

So, a lot of save or die, a lot of high damage traps, or continual damage traps. A lack of magic item resources or spells at level  3-5. A designer who says “the adventure continues until all of the characters are dead or the mummy-lich is.” Tomb of Horrors is one of the worst things to ever happen to D&D. And then whatever the fuck started character-driven super-heoric shit. 

This is $5 at DriveThru. No preview … SUCKER!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/462196/You-Should-Never-Have-Come-Here?1892600