Categories: Reviews

Tomb of the Necromancers

By Pail Mitchener
D101 Games
Crypts & Things/OSR
Levels 6-8

The ruins of the Unknown City stand at the edge of the Death Wind Steppe, surrounded by the foothills of the Wolf Head Mountains. They are a monument to a once mighty city. Few now know the city‘s history, and how it fell. The city‘s old name, Tetronis, now belongs to a village of simple fisherfolk standing amongst the ruins. The force behind both the old city‘s greatness and its destruction was the god Orlusz.

This 21 page adventureo details a small overland journeyo and a dungeon with about twenty roomso. Mucho Texto Bloato that all endso with stabbing thingso.

I don’t know. I just went with it.

Ok, ice witch chick, legacy and heir to an empire blah blah blah, who lives in a hovel in a fishing village, hires your level eights to go raid an old temple for her. It’s full of undead. When you get to hoveltown (population … 40?) you find it’s been raided and is occupied by berserkers from the northlands. Ok, they’ve hung half the villagers from the giant oak in the middle of town (noice!) and taken the other half as slaves, marching them north. Ice witch chick is not among them. You track her down, by following tracks I hope, and she gives you a ley to get in to the dungeon. In you go. You then suffer through twenty overly long rooms full of backstory while you kill undead. You can talk to three of them, but, they probably attack also. Adventure over.

We’ve got two sins here: backstory and hacking. The NPC that negotiates with you, to hire you is ice chicks retainer, a full 6HD in his own right. He gets a full treasure list. “Treasure: Scroll containing the spell Charm Person (Navi knows how to use this, though he is not a magician), Bright Red Silk Jacket (worth 30 gp), Silver Rings on each finger and thumb worth 5 gp each, Leather Armour, Shortsword, Dagger, Light Crossbow and ammunition, Riding Horse, 15 gp.” Because he’s the dude that hired you? This reminds me of the 3e adventures where the local fry cooks all got full page stat blocks … just in case! In the fish village we get this description “In the village, the hall of the headman was once the focus of the community, and provided space for everyone to feast on special occasions, as well as the headman‘s private quarters. Further, guests were put up in the hall, either in private rooms, or in the feasting area itself if space and numbers did not permit.” Yup, that is a headmans hut. DO you know how I know this? The entry is labeled “Headmans hut.” Defining what something is only a way to pad shit out. Why put in the word Elan is your just going to put next in parens (vigorous spirit or enthusiasm.) Yup, that’s what it means all right. Outside of ice chicks hut is an ice statue of a barbarian. Obviously, ice witch turned him to ice. The adventure tells us that if it’s summer then it has started melting. Then it tells us that the ice witch turned a barbarian to ice with her flesh to ice spell. Did she now? I would have never guessed. “In the old worship of Orlusz, entrances to temples were deliberately shaped this way, in order to invoke the underworld aspects of the god” I can’t say enough how that sentence just improves my D&D life. I would have run a boring and prosaic D&D adventure, but, then, that sentence, telling me backstory on the architectural details of the ancient worshipful architects just really sold the thing for my players. This shit drives me fucking crazy. I can handle an aside or so, but, when MOST of the text is padding I just wonder what the fuck was going on. Drop in a Cormac McCarthy story while you’re fucking at it. It has as much relevance to the adventure at hand. When encountering a dragon “It is a male, though this will not be obvious to anyone not expert on dragons.” I guess we hang out in different groups online. …

And then there’s the combat. Basically each room is just combat. With undead. Got a cleric? Maybe there won’t be combat then. Let’s see … level eights auto turn up to … 5HD? With 8HD being a 50/50 chance (I’m looking at S&W.) Seems like a chill thing to me. I can’t really think of a more boring adventure for level eights than a bunch of undead, most of which are sixes or less with the big bads being seven and eight HD. *YAWN* ALso, I love that monster stats are elsewhere in the text sometimes … if this is the second time you’ve encountered the monster in the text then you’ll need to page flip to find the stats.

It’s just reams and reams of backstory and explanations and little more than that … with that little more being hacking. And no real treasure to boot.

This is $11.34 at DriveThru. The preview is just the cover. Sucker.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/119970/tomb-of-the-necromancers?1892600

Bryce Lynch

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View Comments

HuckSawyer says:

January 15, 2025 at 8:17 am

Bloated is being diplomatic here. My preview was maybe six pages. I challenge anyone to get beyond the Crypt Keeper's Notes.

This looks like another composition that should be a short/long/serial story rather than an adventure. It has pretty good bones for a story. For an adventure . . . aboleth at the Pizza Hut buffet.

I don't like the font, but that's a Cup of Tea thing, just me.

What to do? Revisit the concept as a story, change the pacing of the presentation and drop a $4.99 price tag on it. Or, revisit the concept as an adventure, and butcherboilbutcherboilbutcherboil down to half the count, and have two or three people who don't like you go over it. Pick a road, and follow that path.

All the people who speak of playability and distinct concept in modules are absolutely right here.

The hanging tree illustration is pretty cool.