The Lair of the Rot Priest

By Devin MacKay
THorium 90 Prductions
OSR/Shadowdark
Level 1

People in the poorer, more crowded neighbourhoods of the City of Copven are getting sick. Disease is spreading and swarms of biting and stinging insects have been reported frequently in the homes of the most afflicted. Sightings of these creatures emerging from the sewer grates and drains below have prompted the city to send workers down below to investigate. When these workers did not return, a group of city guards followed. As a last ditch effort to get to the bottom of this, the Commander of the City Watch and scraped the bottom of his jails and come up with you, all of who are here convicted of a criminal offense. The deal is simple, learn the truth stop the problem, and you leave the sewers free, if not, then you don’t leave at all. Can you win your freedom and survive the Lair of the Rot King?

This ten page adventure uses three pages to describe nine rooms in the sewers. It’s exactly what you think it is. Hubris got to me. Mea Culpa. 

Hey man, the name of the publisher is Thorium 90. I’m not made of stone. I’ve been on a good run, and some of the Shadowdark stuff has been decent even as a crossover to OSE. What do you want from me, a studied and insightful knowledge of history that I learn from?

The town has a plague. Oh no! The party are prisoners. Oh no! You get your freedom is you Do The Thing. Yeah! There’s a little table to support this, giving reasons why you are a prisoner. You spit in a lord’s food. You dug up a grave to steal the silver fillings. You riffled the pockets of a passed out drunk. You forged the name of a guild leader to get access to a fancy party. This is some great petty crimes and I’m fully supportive of hyperrealism of the crimes and punishments. Mind your betters, eh?

The plague thing is interesting also. I love a good plague. Turns out there have been swarms of insects and vermin in the rooms with the people dying. Tracked back to … duh DUh DUH: THE SEWERS! Well, this isn’t exactly true. The party will not be involved in any of that. The plague, the suffering and misery of man. An investigation and tracking back of the issue to the sewers. Nah, you’re just shoved down the sewer hole so you can start hacking at shit. I know it’s a little hackneyed to have an investigation and then a lair crawl, but, man, it’s that way for a reason. If you are building an exploration dungeon with fifty rooms, several levels and so on then, sure, the dungeon is the adventure. But when your dungeon is nine rooms then it feels a little off to have that be the totality of the adventure, hence the investigation. 

Yeah, ok, so, an essentially linear dungeon in a sewer. Kill some centipedes. Kill some swarms. You know the deal. Don’t worry, you can’t escape because there are grates in the main sewer pipe that you can’t get through because of [REASONS.] Just hack. In fact, come to think of it, there are a number of grates in the floor and a well and grates in the sewer line. None of which you can explore. It’s like putting in a waterfall with nothing behind it. Why? Why put in a well IN A SEWER if you’re not going to do something with it? They are MADE to go down. Grates are MADE to be pulled up. It’s almost like no one cared …

Did I mention that treasure is not placed? “Roll on the minor treasure table three times.” Fucking put in a god damn treasure. It’s your fucking job as designer. Put in the treasure, make it make some sense to the area its in and describe it in a few words. Fuck me man. What exactly is the point of a designer if its not that?

The adventure ends with Lareth. In the final room Lareth hides. He monologues and then attacks. How many times must Lareth appear in an adventure? Your baddie needs to be foreshadowed. There is no impact from the bing bad if he’s just another thing to hack down in the dungeon. Yes, I understand, you’ve got a monologue in there. That doesn’t help. By the time the party meets the evil high priest they should already know what the monogie is likely to be, so that the baddie need not give it. Did I mention that Rot Priest Angren Murrian has a whole backstory and history? Only to be cut down immediately and without hesitation …

I can be an ass. Surprise! I know, right. One day I’m going to be in a particularly petulant mood and not really give a shit that I’m ruining everyone else’s time at the table. I’m going to take one of these throw-away villains and really dive deep in to them. Explore, during the game as a player, their entire history. Track down people who knew them, their life experiences. Every place they went and everything that made them up. The full Rosebud treatment. I’ll never stop, always thinking that here must be MORE. There could be MORE! What conspiracies hide here?! I mean, there must be, give that named person appeared, with a monologue, and a half page of backstory. There MUST be more, right?!

Yeah, so, I’m an idiot. It’s just a throw-away adventure. 

This is $3 at DriveThru. There is no preview. You need a preview so potential buyers can make an informed decision prior to an actual purchase.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/574339/the-lair-of-the-rot-priest?1892600