The Ruins of Ordane

By Ancient Sage
Self Published
OSR
Levels 6-10

And to the undoomed living shall be revealed but a small portion of the horrid secrets the dead have hitherto so well guarded…and they shall quail… […] Now, ages later, Ordane has long lain in ruins. Recently discovered by explorers from the colonial duchy of New Herod, it has gained the attention of powerful interests. The PCs are tasked with exploring the ruins and eliminating any threats. Rumors of goblins and bugbears in the area as well as a palpable miasma – an apathetic pall within the grounds of Ordane itself – are nothing compared to the whispers that…something…lurks deep within the bowels of the undercity…

This thirty page adventure uses six pages to describe ten rooms in some ruins, half above ground and half below. It’s a Cthulhu cross-ver, with shoggoths and elder things. Because of that its a little more freaky than the usual fare, but, still, there’s nothing much here in the way of interesting encounters.

Ohs nos! The fort has been raided! Here’s a pittance for your level six through tens, please go stop the goblins/hobgoblins! The problem here, I think, should be obvious to anyone who actually plays OSR D&D. And the problem is almost certainly not relatable at all to those who do not run ongoing OSR games. This level range should have the party being pretty much badasses, or close to it. And they should have their own lands, or close to it. And whatever reward offered to them just isn’t going to cut it in terms of motivating them to do something. The pretext here is essentially out of touch with what the actual game vibe is. There are a couple of alternate hooks, class specific, that show some life to them. You owe a debt, from a failed theft, to the thieves guild. Or you got caught with a hooker and now need to prove your piety by ferreting out some heretic shit. I’m not the biggest fan of off-screen pressure on the party, but they at least have a little life to them. 

You get a few above ground encounters in some ruins that consist of goblins, hobs and bugbears. There’s a vague “ancient techno” thing going on, with them having a flame gun, before you take an elevator down to the few linear encounters underground. This isn’t really gonzo though. You’ve got to think of the underground as more of a ancient eldritch empire, in to Cthulhu stuff, with a few vaguely techno items. Maybe more like something weird shit that an Elder THing might use. The final boss is a shoggoth, there’s an elder thing trapped, and nyarlathotep is wandering around as an extra. In spite of this, we’ve also got a horde of skeletons, a generic wraith and a some generic shadows running around, as well as a few golems. 

While there is an artpiece that is quite evocative, of an elder thing on a throne, the vast majority of the adventure is quite generic in its descriptions. I’m disappointed in the generic shadows and generic wraith. I want some life here, a good description that brings the horror of the undead to life! And the shoggoth and eldritch creatures are not handled as much more than something to stab, though you could talk to the Elder Thing. This accompanies the rather generic and bland room descriptions that don’t really bring that kind of pseudo-cthulhu environment to life much at all. 

The interactivity here is quite simplistic. It mostly consist of, beyond the stabbing and the few opportunities to talk, reading some words written on something and then “solving the riddle” so to speak. “Etched upon the backrest in Ordanian script is, ‘If thou seekest knowledge, first prove thyself worthy. ” Well, great. 

And this is all conveyed through the usual WOTC template of long text paragraphs with just monster words bolded … and not even consistently at that. I fucking hate wading through these text blocks in order to run a room. Overly long and mechanistic, they hide the information you need to see to run the game. It’s not that there’s not a place for text blocks, but poorly written ones are just a pain to dig through. 

And that’s all really too bad. The concept here could have been great, with the eldritch things in a ruined city. And there are little add ons to follow up on that are quite nice. In the wilderness “As well, a trio of lusty mermaids is known to sunbathe on the nearmost sandbars, crooning lasciviously to exceptionally attractive passersby (CHA 16+), who then must successfully …” That’s a nice mermaid, a classic. And you can find a dead ghost dude inside the ruins that can point you to another wilderness location with his body. 

Those sorts of things are pretty decent. But they are not really put together in a cohesive way that makes sense and flows well. Just like the gobbos above and undead below, it’s seems also perfunctory. Their promise is lost by a combination of formatting, lack of evocative descriptions, and overall flow of the adventure. It seems like they are there just because, even though some of them have those little things to follow up on. And $120k in loot aint gonna go very far at some of the level ranges. 

A rumor tells us “A covey of vane harpies has recently made their home in the ruins. Don’t tell nobody this, but…I seen ‘em, and well, I kind of like what I see. Is that crazy?” See, that’s some good shit right there! But the promise, the wonder, is not delivered on. Instead we get all of that extra padding, all of the extra text and appendices and background and so on. The effort should have gone in to the adventure, proper, instead.

This is $6 at DriveThru. The preview is nineteen pages, enough to see every room, so, good preview.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/490059/osr-adventure-the-ruins-of-ordane?1892600