Ave Nox

Charles Ferguson-Avery
Self Published
System  Neutral? It's D&D
Level ... 3?

“By the grace of Solis, all shall be welcome” “By the will of Solis, all shall be equal” “By the hand of Solis, all shall be safe” “And so the night shall not consume us Promises made and promises broken, words that spelled the death of an entire civilization. Abducted from the surface and trapped below, a world bent to the maniacal will of the Sun-King For half a millennia, this world remained sealed until now What slithers and lurks in the dark after such a time?

This 208 page adventure presents a dungeon in a dying underground city with about six levels and, oh, I don’t know, 200ish rooms? Not quite a megadungeon, but much more the five room crap fests that dominate D&D. It manages to capture the grandeur and decadence of a city just past it’s decline but not quite dead yet. It manages to fulfill, I think, the promise offered by B4/Lost City.

A lot of people really love Lost City, but it never really captured the lost city vibe for me. Bryce the heretic, I guess. Anyway, I think this adventure DOES capture that lost city vibe and is a better lost city than Lost City was … albeit with a longer page count. I like this one a lot. We’re not talking Thracia here, but, also, I’m gonna start by trashing it a bit. Know ye, though, that it’s getting The Best and I mention Thracia because sometimes it’s worth clawing through the flaws to get at what’s underneath.

We’ve got this civilization with a sun god and they all figure out that there’s going to be catastrophe so they make a city underground and move in. Well, the commoners who built the city get locked out and die screaming at the entrance gates, but, hey, Musk and Bezos get in. So we’ve got this upper class thing going on and then an undercity in the undercity, full of the laborers. I think there was a Star Trek:ToS about that? The inevitable happens, riots, revolts, etc, and one of the four religious cults goes nutso and gains power and everything is in decline now, 450 years later. Sun god sends you in to Egyptian territory, but instead I want you to go in to a Bioshock/Rapture vibe, with some Brazil (the movie) thrown in. Maybe not as “NYE tuxedo!” as Bioshock, but think of the decaying grandeur of Rapture mashed up with the behind-the-scenes infrastructure of Brazil. The place has gas lines. We’re not talking techno vibes here, just, the place has gas lines and that kind of towering socialist realism art from the commies. 

I’m going to comment negatively in two specific areas. First is the lack of contextual specificity. We’ve got a 208 page adventure. Sixish levels of dungeon. A kings court, with a renegade king. Four religious cults. Various other groups. This place comes across as a place with a history that has influenced the way the people act today. Which is fucking fantastic! But, while we get kind of the grand scheme of things we’re also lacking the kind of local specificity to help us understand how the place works, on a day to day basis. How do the factions interact. Grand themes. We might draw some comparisons to how I usually reference vista overlooks and order-of-battle in adventures. We need some SPECIFIC context in how the place works. Something more specific than “Winter cult is the underclass.” What’s the impact here, in summary? Those summaries are generally missing. The grand scheme, yes, but not the specifics of what’s going on, summarized, so it can guide the DM during play in riffing on things. You can put this together, during prep of the book, but it means highlighting and note taking. And while I’m generally not cool with that, sometimes I think it’s worth it. And I think it’s worth it here. 

There’s also a tonal imbalance in places, but I don’t think on purpose? The civilization upstairs rebuilt. It’s now a happy go lucky collectivist anarchy. Everyone is happy and productive member of society with non ill will towards anyone. They are all so very earnest. We’re not really pushing the collectivity anarchy shit, but, also, it seems unrealistic to me, especially in D&Dlandia. Even the hirelings are all so very earnest. Not the mudcore I usually run. But then you get to the underground city and things can get grim. The difference here is quite stark. Not quite harvesting kids to eat their organs in mud pits, but its certainly closer to grimdark than your usual adventure. I found this tonal imbalance striking. But, also, it doesn’t seem like its been done on purpose. I didn’t see the juxtaposition between the two really called out or emphasized in a way that would make me think it was meant to be a part of the game. This tonal imbalance is found in some other areas as well. There’s this dude that crawls through the pipes in the underground city, a kind of traveling merchant. Bang on the pipes and he pops out of a pipe or vent an hour later with a bag of shit to buy and sell. It’s presented in a cartoon-like manner. I was REALLY struggling with the adventure up to this point. I then, however, made the jump to Brazil and the first few rooms of the dungeon proper lent that Rapture vibe, with cultists wearing stylized masks and/or leather faces … eek! The dungeon clicked then, for me, but the village above … ? I can’t tell whats supposed to be going on there. Or, rather, nothing is going on there since everyone is so content. Poopy, I say sir! Poopy!

Otherwise, this thing is pretty decent. One of the things I think it does quite well is to capture that sense of ruined grandeur. This is that thing that the endless parade of dwarf city adventures fails to do. It does a great job of communicating impressions, while still giving enough specifics that it feels like a real description. A Vast Hall: “Dozens of patterned columns hold up a vast and partially collapsed vaulted ceiling. Noise echoes easily, and scurrying can be heard in the dark…” or “Creation Mosaic: Light catches a wall of glittering glass tiles. Covering the wall and stretching dozens of paces wide is a mosaic of beatific images of a sun-headed figure overseeing a city.” Glittering tiles. Vast hall. beatific figures. Scurrying. Very specific descriptive words that lend a vibe to the setting. And it does a great job of presenting these early on in the adventure, setting that tone, framing everything else, every other description, that the party is about to come across, putting it in the context of those first rooms that they laid down so well. It’s quite a good job. (And, I must say, it’s complemented wonderfully by the art. Great job of communicating a vibe and really delivering on the art complimenting the adventure text and helping the DM frame the text and bringing it to life. I’m looking, right now, at that Creation Mosaic art, but, the cultists and so on have these stylized masks and robes that really come across well also.) “A soot-caked hovel that billows smoke every hour of the day.” Well there you go! I can run with that! 

And, thank fucking god (sun god?) tha the monsters get actual descriptions. Not all that ecology shit, but a description that you can use during a game. “A vaguely humanoid wall of sinuous muscle the size of a draft horse. Its face is a horrid mess of teeth and its arms nearly drag on the floor.” That’s a kind of hulk cultist. I’m not in love with it, but, also, it’s better than most descriptions, giving me shit I can actually use when the characters encounter it. I want a monster description, or an attack description, looping, howling, pouncing, etc. And this gets pretty close to that.

But, also, the adventure is more than evocative descriptions. And this adventure is a lot more than “enter room, kill dude, repeat.” The very first room is a ruined marketplace and we get some mole/weasel things stalking through the place. Not just a room with a monster in it, but a kind of confused chaotic market mess with stalls, and stalking things. That’s a decent encounter for a location like that. In another area we’ve got a kind of sculpture, a bronze one, resting upon a plinth, a lot of interconnected blocks. Geometric, abstracted almost. Except it’s a sculpture of the underground city, it’s levels and such. And, thus, the clever player can learn some things. Perfect! In another are we have “A fissure in the walls of a cell gives way to a tight passage filled with statues piled upon each other. They appear to be climbing over each other, their faces filled with fear and shock.” What’s that you say? The DM text tells us that “the cave cockatrices used it as an ambush point until it was filled with their petrified victims.” Ouchies! Noice! and, even better … “A room can be spotted through the passage, behind the pile of statues.” Fuck! Yeah! I. Can. See. You. Let’s do it man! Tantalus. Goals. These things drive D&D. 

We’ve got a great little ghost mini-game also. Lots of bodies. Lots of ghosts. Loots the bodies and pissoff the ghosts. Bury bodies, etc and make them happy. Each ghost has an unhappy and happy effect, and will react that way if the party pushes the happy bar up high or the unhappy bar down low. Do they set off the leaking gas line or do they put out your flames while pointing to the broken line? But, also, looting bodies brings treasure, and it’s XP … and levels! It’s a great little mini-game to have going on while they fuck with everything else in the dungeon.

This is $20 at DriveThru. There is no preview. Bad designer! Bad!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/481818/ave-nox?1892600