Mudbones

By Scott Craig
Cutter Mountain Simulations
OSE/Shadowdark
Levels 1-4

Amid the blood and flame at the end of empire, the god of this temple was slain. An ancient enemy summoned a flood of soil and stone, and the temple and its holy fount and sacred valley were buried in hardened mud and ooze. Yet with the passing of centuries a forest has sprung up, and wheat has taken seed, and a new people have made a home in the rich floodplain that was once a valley. Ever have the thoughts of men and near-men animated gods both new and old, and thus a fragment of the dead god stirs with the desires of these new people. But the curse lingers still, and a curdled malevolence skulks within the depths of the buried temple…

This six page adventure uses two pages to describe two dungeon levels with about 36 rooms. It covers a lot in the few pages it allows itself, and turns out a better product than the vast majority of adventures. Wisely using some recurring themes, it lacks only that last little joi divie needed to really hit high marks. A great filler for your map.

Hmmm, something sounds familiar here. Six page adventure. Two pages of maps keys. A page for the mp. A page for monster reference and other important dungeon tips. An overview page … all of this sounds familiar. So, clearly, the designer is a genius! But, also, it looks like this is coming from a patreon in which these come out every month, a couple of months in arears to allow for the patreons to get them. 

This is a solid little adventure. You’ve got an old temple, buried under mud and grime, and an entrance to it that has opened up right smack dab in the middle of a ransacked bandit encampment. Inside we have terrified bandits, crazed bandits, some mud monsters, a few undead, and a couple of golems, inactive, just yearning to be active again and restore the temple. (in a good way. Hmmm, can you be agnostic in D&D? Or an atheist? I mean, there’s a fucking god right next to you and miracles everywhere. It’s probably normalized. ‘Pffft. Zeus? One aspect? Just some dude with a lighting bolt implant. I’d believe if I were shown some REAL power …’)

The adventure is pretty tight with a decent amount going on for such a smallish dungeon. It does fit in two levels of about eighteen rooms each. And it does so on a moderately interesting map, attributed to the designer. It’s got a large central dome like area with a circular area/arc around it and then a set of passages hanging off of one side, with the second level being of the same general shape of a square attached to a circle. A decent number of stairs ,secret doors, curtains, and elevation-without-changing-levels makes it on to the map. I mean, dude is putting two map levels on one page, there’s only so large you can go and still remain legible. And, speaking of that, it kind of reminds me of those tower/fortress maps from MERP, but legible. Well, except, some of the secret door icons (and a few others) are a bit rough to make out. Not impossible, but not quite as glanceable as I would prefer. A little work on the icon set would be in order. 

The reference page has a monster stat list as well as the “always on” dungeon descriptions. It also has a small section on activating the golems, cleansing the temple, consequences after the adventure and other general adventure reference works. They are ok, but, things like the consequences are a little rough. Mostly just “how much does a restored temple reappear to be worshipped” its all pretty obvious stuff and without color. The general thrust of this page is good, an overview of how things work in the dungeon. But when it tries to wander in to the territory of “color” then it falls down. 

But, the good first. The various locales are solid. “The bandit camp is easy to find, a cluster of rough shacks ringed by a thorny enclosure. The camp is deserted, and has been thoroughly ransacked. No one is here, living or dead. A gaping hole lies in a clearing between two huts; dirt and cracked stone blocks are heaped beside it. Steps have been crudely hacked into the clay tunnel, descending into the darkness…” And, there’s no more of the bandit camp. That’s what you get. And, I think, its nearly enough. No need to drone on about the entrance. Crudely hacked steps, gaping hole, thorny enclosures. It using its word budget to maximum effect. It’s not quite where I would prefer to see it, its still not giving off mythic underworld entrance vibes. But, its also clearly a description that has been worked and I think it shows and pays off in the way it springs to the mind, which is what a decent description should do.

Inside is the domain of the tersely written description. “2. Scriptorium. 2 CRAZED BANDITS looting. Smashed desks, trampled lead tablets, CHEST w/ 2 TORCHES. Bandit corpse leans against a mound of rubble against the north wall.” A nice little vignette, eh? There’s some action going on. The room has a name to frame the description that follows. The use of ALLCAPS and bolding is used to highlight. Lead tablets. Smashed desks. We’re hitting all of the adjective and adverb marks. Looking a “empty” room, we get something like “5. Hall. Cracked plastered walls; a mural of storm-tossed seas.” Cracked player. Storm-tossed seas. Look, I’m not saying these are rock star level descriptions, but  I am saying that they are way Way WAY better than the VAST majority of adventures that get published. Someone thought the fuck about this thing and tried to both fulfill their vision (of six pages) while maximizing what they could do in that budget. And as a result they hit a good number of design principals hard. Situations. Things to explore. Scan ability. Evocativeness. “Ragged hole has been punched through south wall.” Fuck yeah it’s ragged man!

However … I appreciate the devotion to six pages. But, like all gimmicks, it limits the ability to deliver. The best one page dungeon ever written, or to be written, will never be the best adventure in the world. It can accomplish other goals than being the best adventure ever, but the artificial constraints imposed limit what it can do.

The bandits, crazed and terrified, get short shrift. They could use a few names and descriptions, a couple of words each. This would really bring them alive. Likewise, “A GHAST lurks in the shadows. He wears a MODIUS HEADDRESS of ebon and gold” is not wonderful. I appreciate the headdress, but a description of what lurks in the shadows is better telling me. What’s that? Show don’t Tell? Hmmm … This is a pretty consistent problem throughout. It needs just a few more words for each of the creatures. And for other things. I’m thinking specifically about magic items. ” BALANCE SCALE OF CONVINCING VERACITY”. Come on. This has got to be the result of a name generator. I’m all for generators to help inspire creativity. To get things kicked off. But you gotta work the thing and massage it in to something better. 

Two more points. Sound/light/monsters on the map. That doesn’t happen. It should. Just put one of your icons on it to help us figure out who’s making noise or who reacts from the next room. It helps me immensely when running a game to know who’s nearby and/or what the party can see/hear in terms of light/sound bleed. And, then there’s the mud. Or lack thereof. This place is supposed to have been swamped in mud and ooze. But it doesn’t really come off that way at all. In fact, the “always on” descriptions on the monster reference page tells us that “Walls are of white marble panels, and floors are of glazed blue and sea-green tiles in all Temple Level areas” That’s pretty much the opposite of “ended in mud and ooze.” And then there’s mud monsters. That don’t smear walls and leave tracks evidentially. If this theme were carried out consistently throughout then I think the adventure would have been stronger.

I mentioned, earlier, the constraints of a six page adventure and its content with just a few more words to really bring a few more things to life. But there was a word budget available. The first page is fluff. A short section on OSR vs Shadowdark stats. And the rest a “how to parse this adventure” and “join my patreon” section and so on. Almost nothing on that first page is worth spending the word budget on. Reclaiming it gives you more room. But, wait, thats then five pages of adventure text! The designer wants four, to fit on a DM screen. Moving some of the reference material to the first text page, like adventure consequences, is not going to be the end of the world. It’s less “i need this right now at the table” than the rets of the adventure. Further, the first page of dungeon keys has some bullshit hook shit that is … a fifth of a page?  No need for that nonsense. Just pick one of the three and put it on the first page or leave it out altogether. And, the wanderer table … that sounds like reference material to me! Page four you go! “Catacomb Level, Areas 19-26” isn’t really needed, as a page header, since the numbers are on the page. 

The adventure is focused, but, the reliance on the six pages gimmick means it has to be HYPER focused. My critiques aside, this is a decent adventure. The fuckwits on the internet will say its because its terse and easy to scan. That certainly helps. And those ARE easy things to do for any beginner to improve their adventure. But, the interactivity of an adventure is what is going to make it a fun place to adventure in. The situations and possibilities enabled by the designer. And that’s certainly evident here. Rock star? No. but if you used this as a random place the party stumbles across, or a hex locale, or something like that then you’re going to be more than satisfied with it. It is a great journeyman effort. 

This is $5 at DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/526870/mudbones-compatible-with-shadowdark?1892600