Through Ultan’s Door #2

By Ben Laurence
Through Ultan's Door
OSR/1e
Levels 2-3

in the porcelain abattoirs of Zyan Above, the sacred butchers, supernal exsanguinators, and exalted flayers of the Fleischguild labor tirelessly at their exacting arts, offering sacrifices to appease the insatiable hunger of the Unrelenting Archons. Their holiest guild sites in the undercity are marked by ornate chum spouts that stream effluvia from their gristly rites. On the Great Sewer River, these spouts adorn the entrance to the catacombs interring Master Carvers along with their child prodigies. All praise be to Malprion, aspect of Vulgatis, Archon of unseemly and fecund growth!

This 41 digest page adventure details the catacombs of the guild of butchers, under a decadent city. It has about 31 rooms, pretty tightly packed, with a rich and evocative descriptive style in rooms that each contain a variety of interactivity, without it feeling like set pieces. Delightfully baroque and pushes the edges of what a pure text format can deliver. 

Like all reviews I do of good adventures, I don’t know where to start. I guess the descriptions, since that’s the first thing I noticed. Very near the beginning of the adventure there’s a section on factions. In it there are some descriptions of the people that make up those factions, the cultists and/or guild members. “They wear serene copper masks and purple robes. They come reluctant and skittish” Seren copper masks. Reluctant and skittish. Not just “guild members” or “religious cult”, but, rather, a decent description for the DM to riff on and that easily communicates the vibe. It’s not a lot of words, but it does SO much to bring these people to life. Not just generic people on the wanderers table, but those serene masks and purple robes. That’s a good fucking monster description. Or, there’s also this group “the tanned skin of their face is spread like a hideous mask before their flayed skull, stretched on fish hooks across the frame of a headdress, hanging taut and expressionless before the exposed flesh of their head.” Well now, there’s something you don’t see every day. These are fucking terrifying. Or, our undead/spirits who congregate in huddles mass groups and “Each clutches their pitiful remains assembled from the chum spout: an ear, a rotten liver, a scalp. In muttered and distracted whispers, they jealously plead for proper burial.” That’s a fucking monster, man. Not “2d4 zombies” or some shit like that. No, these things have character! I wish a lot more adventures did this to their creatures, at least in some small way. Opponents should be terrifying. The PLAYERS should shit themselves. Those descriptions would give me pause, as a player. 

And the room descriptions continue this trend. A very basic description would be “Two raised basins flank the passageway to the north. The south end of this room is taken up with eight small sarcophagi flanking a dais with the statue of a woman” This is quite the tersely worded description, and pretty good for an initial first impression of the room by the players. What follows then is about a page and half of additional description. The basins. The statue. The sarcophagi. All of the things noticed in the initial room description. The initial one doesn’t overdescribe, it just lays things out, for the players to investigate further, the way an exploration adventure should proceed. And, before ALL of those extra descriptions is a little note that states you could meet a monster here. The most important thing, the initial description, is first. Then the monster note, since it could appear after the party arrive. THEN we get the individual descriptions of the things. “The marble statue of a middle-aged woman sits facing the sarcophagi with her face in her hands, shoulders heavy with grief, robes painted with rich designs, bar and skin and hair unpainted alabaster.” It’s a good description. And then, of course, we get some DM notes as well. And, again, in the descriptions for the treasures we get things like “A bronze thimble carved with vines bearing tiny amethyst grapes (50gp), and a silver sewing egg with needles and a spool of purple thread nestled within (75gp).” The entire thing, monsters, rooms, treasures, they are all rich and lusciously described.  It’s a good job. It pushes the bare text, with occasional bullets, formatting to its absolute limits, but a clear vision and understanding of the sectioning of the room description wins the day. They can tend long but are manageable. 

And those descriptions tend to be long because of the interactivity in the various rooms. They are not one trick ponies, with just one thing going on, but are rich and full of things to do. That room I described has a creature that might appear. The two basins that can be interacted with. The statue (just a statue) and then eight sarcophagi to explore and fuck with. And loot. And, on top of all of that, fucking with shit in here might bring other creatures down on you. Both in the near term, for those flayed dudes, and in the longer term with the guild posting guards and such. For a tomb, this place feels alive and lived in. (And, to be fair, I guess it is, since the guild still actively kind of uses it/maintains it) The entire thing has this vibe of effortless design. At a glance, this just looks like a zine, like any of the other hundreds that come out. But it’s not like those, it really does have some design behind it. From the minor game mechanic changes that spur gameplay, like the wandering monster warning signs, to the design of the map, both evocative and putting an interesting part of the complex in a , shall we say, less frequented area. And, also, we all know, that the lair is where the loot is, right? Everything else is just winnowing the parties resources. The deep play of the rooms … and it all comes in pretty much seamlessly. It’s not bragging, or calling out the design choices, they are all integrated in. 

I’m down with this. For any complex under a jaded and teeming city full of miscreants, the undercity of Old London, teeming with life above and a hundred thousand delights and torments there and below. Thus thing successfully communicates that vibe. Rich language, great traps, encounters, roleplaying possabilities. Problems with no immediately visible solutions but what the party devises. 

GREAT adventure. And shame on me for taking so long to get to it. Sometimes things drop off my radar.

This is $5 at DriveThru. The ten page preview is MORE than enough to get an idea of what is going on. Great preview.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/279520/through-ultan-s-door-issue-2?1892600