by R. Lawrence Blake
Prime Requisite Games
Labyrinth Lord
Levels 1-3
The legend of the Salstine Pirate tells of a sea captain who turned pirate, killing off most of his crew and taking his treasure to land. Salstine found an abandoned tomb within the Dwarven Mountains to hide his stolen goods, and meant to stay there to avoid getting caught by the military he betrayed. However, what he found in the tomb was a horror that would keep Salstine trapped within forever.
Do Dungeon Crawl Classics adventures feel bloated to you? Do you want the same crappy content by in a far shorter form? Then Kill The Monsters Take Their Treasure! That’s the tag line for this adventure. Did I pay for this? OMG! I did! I paid $2 from Lulu for it! It’s small, it’s bland and it’s boring. It has nothing interesting at all and almost seems like someone used the worlds most boring random dungeon generator to create this. At least there are no giant rats.
I actually paid $1 a page for this piece of shit. The name of this one sounds like it came from one of those Random Dungeon Adventure Title generators. It promises much. It doesn’t deliver. It doesn’t come CLOSE to delivering. I see a lot of bad adventures. This one is bad in a WHOLE new way. It’s boring. It’s the most boring dungeon I’ve ever seen. I’ve reviewed first-attempt adventures done by 15 year-olds more interesting than this. I’ve reviewed boring ass ‘single room fight converted from 3e’ adventures more interesting than this. I’ve reviewed every type of bad module type known to man, at at least I thought I had. It turns out I’ve never reviewed a 2-page module that I was bored reading. Until now.
The dungeon has 13 rooms in a kind of branching/linear design. It’s really just a straight shot from entrance to final room with a couple of hallways hanging off of it. And it’s thrown together like it’s random. The door is stuck, but inside is a room with 4 orcs. There’s no reason for the orcs to be there. None. Just 4 orcs in a room. Everything else is undead. And they are behind the stuck entrance door to the tomb. And they have like $5,000gp in treasure! Holy crap! In fact, this place is STUFFED with loot for only having 13 rooms. Treasure Crypt indeed! The 2 shadows have 8000gp and a crap ton of potions. The six skeletons have a ring of protection. The mold has a _1 sword, wand, and potion. The actual treasure room only has a couple thousand gp, a +1 shield and a +2 mace. This place is loaded! It’s all generic bland and boring book treasure, but still, what the F are the rules about gaining two levels in a single adventure?
Anyway, here’s the adventure: Stuck door.Spear trap. 4 orcs. Dead orc. Empty room. 6 Skeletons. Yellow mold. Arrow trap. Shadow room. Pit trap. 2 Ghouls. Flaming pit. Arrow trap. Wight. “To the south are 6 rotting coffins laying on the dirt floor.” That’s what passes for interesting in this adventure. Most adventures usually have SOMETHING interesting in them. They have some thing that caused the designer to actually think “hey, that’s cool” and build an adventure around them. Not so with this one. As far as I can tell it’s just a collection of rooms you have seen a hundred times before. A stone coffin in a room with a heavy lid. Oh boy. Two ghouls guarding the exits to a room. That’s actually the description for one of the rooms. “Two ghouls (stats) guard the room exits (door to the east and stairs to the west.)” Oh, and let’s not forget the elf body caught in the spider webs! NOTHING In this adventure will give the DM anything new to work with. The language is drab and the encounters bog-standard.
Why does this exist? Follow-up: why does it cost money? Further follow-up: and $2 at that!