Wall-Top Lair

By Nickolas Zachary Brown
Five Cataclysms
Five Cataclysms
Level ... 5? 8?

The carcass of a dead city is to many, a ruin. But to others, it is an opportunity. Where tens of thousands of still bodies lay, necromancers and their ilk shall flock.  This is the way of things. The perimeter of this city, like many of the great cities of old, has a wall. Atop this wall are two towers. Day and night, an ominous green glow emanates from the larger tower, where an undead animator toils away, creating horrors for its master.

This fourteen page adventure is a twenty five room hack in a two-tower gatehouse full of undead. A little wit, a straightforward style, some interesting things to stab … for what it is it’s doing a decent job.

I do complain about hacks, don’t I? I think this falls in to the same category as how I treat tropes. And, I suppose, a hack is a trope in D&D-landia. A throw-away isn’t going to land with me, but if you put your heart in to it and really make it your own then I’m probably down. For all of the “Bryce doesn’t like X” shit, I think I’m really quite generous. Just make it not terrible, and I don’t really care how you go about doing that. 

So, “A local cleric was able to interrogate the fallen undead [abducting people from their beds], who revealed to him thus: A lich named ‘Father’ has made the southern gate-fort its lair, and is collecting bodies for its evil work”  I could bitch a lot about this. The skeleton knows he’s a lich? The cleric does? “Evil work”? Is that what old skelly said? I’m much more amenable to Widow Agnes, dead a year now, telling the tale, and so on. You want some specificity, some color. That’s what being a designer is, adding those boots that bring the thing to life. Sure, the DM has to run with it, but you need to give the DM something to run with, something to get the ol brain juices going. And in a generic vs specific battle it’s hard to see how the generic could win.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the town militia and local soldiery is always busy in one of these adventures. And the local pretext here for this adventure is a great example of a couple of principals.  “The local militia has their hands full with stirge mating season in full-swing, thus the Mayor has implored the adventuring population to …“ There’s some absurdity here, at just the right time. It’s the pretext to get the party moving, and we all know it, so let’s hype it up a bit. It more than grounds the DM in some things to introduce as vignettes in the parties village journey, imagine the possibilities or stirge suits and stirge nets and giant DDT vats and so on! We’re playing D&D tonight and the DM has introduced a pretext and ir running with it, acting like its serious. I’m down! A little silly at the start can help to do this. Yes, the villagers are idiots. Of course they are. That’s why you’re here. 

The map here is, well … It’s a set of gates with a tower on each side and a couple of bridges across to each other. You go up a flight in one tower and then over to the other side and then up to the other side and so on. This gives a linear progression to things, as you journey from the ground to the top of the tower and the big green crystal sphere on top. There’s a side room or three hanging off of each level as well, but it’s mostly linear.

I don’t know where to go from here. Descriptions are kept terse but in an interesting way. “A blackened blood smear runs across the stone floor and up the stairs. A lever is attached to the eastern wall. The opposite north gate has also been smashed open, long ago.” or “Human corpses, stacked like logs, the stack reaching chest height. Stripped of all gear & equipment, there must be at least 40 corpses here. The most common cause of death is a slashed throat” I can quibble with an over-reveal or aside in these, but they are not terrible descriptions. And, to the adventures credit, it generally understands that the most important thing should come first. If the door to the room is trapped then thats the first thing in the room description. Major features comes before minor ones, and so on. And then, when needed, a cross-reference comes in to play, noting, for example, at the entrance, that the skels in room sixteen fire down on the characters if they draw attention to themselves … instead of putting that information in room sixteen. 

And our creatures. Oh my. For a hack … Well, there’s a decent assortment of 1HD and 2HD skeletons. No problem. One group chucks a barrel down the stairs at you. And what does a necromancer do with their extra blood? “BLOOD OOZE – Ah, what to do with this extra blood? Put it in a barrel and animate it, of course.” Again, that sly little wit. Or, the Weakened Wight “Scrawny. He’s got a goblet,for reasons unknown” Well, yes, he should have one, obviously. That makes him more wightlike. Did I mention the hair monster? “Attacks by shoving itself down the target’s throat, suffocating them. It becomes more and more difficult to get it out.” There are also an assortment of non-traditional skeletons, including a giant spider with a max full of sharks teeth, the hand of a true giant and what feels like an endless variety. Even the wight (above) and a shadow gets little bit of a special treatment beyond the mere ordinary book thing. And then, sometimes, it goes and does this “12 x UNDEAD MONKEY – A barrel full of monkeys! Sort of. They’re vicious” A bridge too far! 

I’m not mad at this. If I wanted an assault mission I’d be happy with this. It’s got enough going on with its hack to elevate it beyond the normal ones. The descriptions are interesting, the treasure tries a little bit, the monsters are horrific. It’s not bad. 

This is $5 at DriveThru. The preview is six pages. You get to see the first three rooms on the last page. SO, it’s an ok preview. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/258178/wall-top-lair?1892600