By Joseph R Lewis
Dungeon Age Adventures
OSE, etc
Levels 3-5
In the Garden of Amuul, the fey raised a palace for their human guests. But the humans betrayed them, so the fey swiftly slayed them. Now Amuul is a Wasteland, where the dead cannot rest. Twin necromancers, a sister and brother, found the jade palace, and then turned on each other. They raised undead armies and decadent courts, and turned the palace into two warring forts And in the Fey Realm, the Twilight Empress watches and rages, sending her goblins and elves to pay the intruders bloody wages. But all the while, the palace groans with cruel weapons and bright treasures, mythical creatures, and strange magics beyond measure. So will it be wealth, justice, glory, or bliss that entices you to enter the Lovely Jade Necropolis…?
This 81 page adventure uses about sixty page to describe one hundred locations in and around a complex full of undead and fey. Lewis always does at least a fine job, and that’s present here also. It does seem to lack a bit in the joy category though, as in a sly wink and wry grin. It is better than the vast vast majority of the dreck produced today and easy to run.
Lewis is a good designer and a good writer. There’s some balance between specificity and abstractions that needs to be obtained in order to provide effective encounter text. In the very best you can kind of detect a bit of glee in the designer as they were writing it. I’m not entirely certain that this Dungeon Age is quite up to the standards of most of the others.
The set up here is a cave/camor thing that was built by the fey queen for her prince lover, then they betray her and the fey, there’s a big slaughter. Now, long later, two necromancers move in and start animating bodies, and then turn on each other. So we’ve got a fey queen section, and a section for a necromancer interested in having a good time and a necromancer interested in killing just about everyone. This is mostly backstory though. It explains the “please go kill my sister/the other necromancer” deal one of them is willing to make, and the bored/jaded/disgusted elves wandering around who just want to go back to the fairy realm instead of carrying out the gruesome work of their mistress. Otherwise … meh, it’s a framing for some conversations and a different way of saying Die Petty Human Scum/Adventurer.
Our zombie friends bring a bit of joy to the environs, retaining a bit of their old selves and acting, perhaps, more like a charmed undead person than a mindless undead ravenous thing “Under rare circumstances, a zombie may be able to bend the meaning of their commands to act more freely: “I’m looking for supplies! Just not very quickly…””
I am not exactly thrilled about the treasure here. The magic contains that Lewis charm of effects over mechanics, but the mundane loot is handled by a loot table. I love it in The World of Gamma, but here “ivory flute” or Glass lens” have no monetary values mentioned. Nor does “Walls, floors, and ceilings are solid green jade covered in elegant carvings of forest plants and animals.” What was that adventure I just reviewed that had the villagers stealing the old abbeys walls for their own uses? I guess I’m supposed to not be a murder-hobo and just IGNORE walls and doors made of solid jade. What do you think that does to the local jade economy? Don’t I recall some system or article about inflation and devaluation beaue of the party when they flood a town? Anyway, Gold=XP and that’s all abstracted away here with no treasure values. Boo, Hiss. And “silver chalice” and “ivory flute” are not exactly winning me over either in the description department.
Writing of the encounter descriptions remains relatively solid “Two massive dead trees flank the broken road, their fragile branches interlaced overhead. Tiny white slivers dot the trunks, and tiny black nodules pepper the ground” Thats a decent rooms one, Elsewhere “Giant dragonfly wings glitter in the ceiling, high above a long table laden with sumptuous dishes. A well-dressed couple and a dozen soldiers linger by the buffet.” Glitterring, sumptuous, well-dressed, linger. All great word choices that communicate a lot without being purple. I’m not sure, though, that I ever got the complete picture, room after room. I’m not sure why. The descriptions are there, in each room, but it never clicked in to a unified whole for me.
And, at times, that balance between specificity and abstraction seems off to me. Those two well-dressed people lingering at the banquet table? “COUPLE. “Master Dulcim” and “Mistress Vina” (spice sellers from Kalahar). Silken robes, sparkling veils. Lured here by dreams of opulence. Want to escape. Fear the undead. Unaware of the fey. Suspect “poison (so no one is eating). Also, the soldiers are undead zombies. Pretty much everyone you meet who was lured in are “Lured here by dreams of opulence. Want to escape. Fear the undead.” This just seems off, there’s little personality here, none I would say. The grounding, the think to hang your hat on, is missing. And that’s a little too common here.
I do like the general set up here. Some fey loathe their existence and just want to go home. Some are still greatly embittered by their experiences with the humans. One old goblins living in a hut that is precariously balanced on a silt is slowly dying from a col iron splinter in gut form a hundred years ago. Embittered, he will try to collapse his beloved house down on the party if need be. Elves tasked by their still-enraged queen to torment and torture the undead with salt knives, not to their noble callings of grace. Pixies as thumb sized mindless eaters of bones. The bored, jaded, disgusted undead zombies. The totality here is great, “ZOMBIES in gray tunics drag an old corpse toward #19 for Lord Marfest to animate” but that wandering example could use one more word. Chatty zombies. Jaded zombies. Upbeat zombies. The final bit of framing for the encounter is often missing, as with the two spice-merchants agave. And maybe that’s the theme running throughout; there’s one more bit that seems to be missing to add life to it. The NP’s, the ire between the the parties and their machinations, even the room … themes/layouts/interactivity? There just seems to be one bit more missing that would really send it. Maybe it seems, passive? In an expansive sense of that word?
It’s not bad. It’s certainly better than the vast majority of stuff I review. But I think you can see what this almost is and really WANT it to be that.
This is $12 at DriveThru. Lewis comes through on the preview. Forty pages; more than enough to get a sense of the work and see a great many parts of it. Great preview!
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/540137/lovely-jade-necropolis?1892600
“When a PC spends a turn chanting this word, there is a 2/6 chance that each nearby fey will be stunned for one turn.” OMG! You have to chant a word for ten minutes and then there’s a 33% chance the fey will be stunned for ten minutes?! Oh Dungeon Turn, you are the gift that keeps on giving long after the thrill of living is gone.