The Mystery of the Moon-Haunted Spire

By Scott Craig
Cutter Mountain Simulations
B/X - Shadowdark
Levels 1-6 (?)

For hundreds of years, the Lunamancer conducted his magical research in the pinnacle of his tower, hidden by potent illusions. Whenever he needed rare components for his research, he relied on the Greater Crypt Thing in his tower’s lower labyrinth. This labyrinth was well known by adventurers far and wide, and they regularly entered its dark halls for loot. The best and brightest of these adventurers the Crypt Thing would set a geas upon to procure whatever the Lunamancer required. And so the years passed… Until one fateful night when the moon waxed full, and the Lunamancer made one small error in his calculations. Then something filtered down from the night sky to terrorize him in his very chambers, and his illusions suddenly faded…

This six page adventure uses two pages to describe six levels of an illusionist tower. Yes, six. Its heart is in the right place, if only it stopped stopping drinking a bottle of rumplemintz immediately upon entering surgery for its organ donation and then immediately passing out on the floor and vomiting all over itself. 

I’m a big fan of hubris here at Ten Foot. You go Icarus! Fuck the rest of those asshats! Try new things. Iconclast those safety regulations on the reactor! Build your truck campers bed frame out of aluminum and then put your 300 amp battery ¼” from the frame! And, of course, get criticized harshly for the foolish decision you’ve made! This is the way designers of singular vision advance the art. Or die trying.

 The six pages here reflect a title page, a fluff page full of “WHAT BOLD MEANS” and other dumbass boilerplate, a monster reference sheet (Huzzah!) with some general notes as well, A page of four maps for the six levels (one maze map being reused three times) and the two pages of keys. For six levels. I think that means something like 46 keys. Plus a decent number of portcullis, curtains, statues and other features. The maps here are at least interesting. If Scott is a mapmaker then he does a decent job with room descriptions and if he’s a designer then he does a decent job with his maps. Even a dumb-as repeating maze level gets a decent amount of interest on the map. We’re not talking talking rock-star, there’s a lot of symmetry here which is a cop out, but they are more than just a throw away basic effort.

This means we get descriptions like “ Strangely clean…” for a room. Or, perhaps “Entrance – Scattered Leaves and twigs, muddy footprints leading all directions.” Or, straight out of The Borderlands caves “2 ORCS laze about on a pile of smashed furniture and soiled rugs. One wears a GOLD TORQ (65gp).” There are a couple of longer rooms, “. Moon-Lens Turntable Machinery Room. 2 SERVANTS OF APOC’L’TH examine a forest of arcane tubes, gears, and pistons that actuate the forcefield projectors holding the MOONLENS atop the spire. The spiral staircase ascends to area 24.” But, I’d argue that, other than a couple of riddle rooms, these are actually just further examples of the ORC LOUNGING room. CREATURE verbs OBJECT. Room interactivity might be something like “Central Hall. A stone FOUNTAIN gushes clear, refreshing water. A marble STATUE of a robed philosopher stands with hand extended in friendship. If statue’s hand is touched, statue speaks loudly (once per adventure): “Harken! Behold, a river!” Secret door is opened by pushing statue’s arm downward.” At its heart that’s not bad. A little magical wonder, a classic pull the arm down.  But, also, marble statue of robed philosopher is not exactly the most evocative. But, also, to be fair, that strangely clean room is foreshadowing a Cube, so, fuck me and my criticisms. 

It’s an ok adventure. “The LUNAMANCER appears as friendly, ELDERLY WIZARD in moonlight. Otherwise appears as the lich he truly is.” That’s the kind of shit you want in your adventures. If every adventure I reviewed were at least as good as this one then I’d be bemoaning the blandness of the environment and lack of complexity. Most adventures are fucking train wrecks and this one isn’t though. But it IS a bit bland with some lack of complexity and depth. The core concepts are good but the dungeon size (six levels … of like eight rooms each) and the artificial constraint shows through. Dude has his thing and his thing is a six page adventure. Got it. But the artificial constraints imposed by that decision will mean that the chances of a Spawning Grounds, Hyquatious, or other classic adventure coming from a one-page dungeon, Stonehell (half marks for building depth over depth), or a six page dungeon are rather low. It is serviceable, but it’s hard to see it rising to greatness. Especially when squeezing in six levels, as this adventure does. I’m not going to say move to a longer format. Sure, I’d love to see something from this designer that had a map with room to breathe and descriptions and interactivity that had that room also. But he’s doing a six pager. Which means creating an adventure that can truly excel in those six pages. No, not a fucking lair dungeon. I’m gonna puke if I have to see another one of those five room shit holes. How do you create a six page adventure that can be magnificent? That, good gom-jabbars, I leave as an exercise for the designer. For I am The Watcher.

This is $5 at DriveThru. The preview is interesting. It’s one image/photo, but it shows the map, the two keys pages and the general info/summary page. You can get a sense of the formatting, but zooming in makes it too blurry to read. I appreciate the attempt, but I suspect shoing a portion of the keys would have been better. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/528166/the-mystery-of-the-moon-haunted-spire-compatible-with-shadowdark?1892600