Kavlov’s Sanctuary

By Jean Luc Lariviere-Lacombe, Todd Terwilliger
The Dungeon's Key
OSE
Levels ... ? 1-5?

A millennium has passed since Kavlov imprisoned the demon Balthazar deep beneath the earth, binding themselves within the Halls of Dread to guarantee their success. However, as Kavlov’s power fades, so does the demon’s prison. Do you have what it takes to stop the ritual circles from being activated and prevent Balthazar’s escape? Or will you take on the role of the villain, seeking to unleash untold destruction on the world by freeing the demon from its bonds? Explore the dread-filled halls of Kavlov’s Sanctuary and uncover the ancient secrets and betrayals that could determine the fate of the world. But be warned, your actions have consequences, and the ultimate battle between good and evil is closer than ever before!

This 107 page digest adventure is a Caves of Chaos thing, done for Mork Borg and then respun in to OSE. It’s not the worst thing ever written, but tends to to the Shock Jock side of the spectrum, and combines minimal descriptions with an ability to expand the text in to paragraphs while still not providing value beyond the minimal descriptions. 

This is a Mork Borg thing. Sure, it’s been respun a bit in to OSE, but at its heart it’s Mork Borg. What’s unusual is that they’ve managed to write something longer. A full on dungeon with supporting wilderness and town. And, yes, it’s inspired by the Caves of Chaos. The wilderness map is evocative of it, as is the BX version of the main map: a valley with a lot of caves in the walls. You’ve got about ten dungeons here, in the same environment as the Caves of Chaos. Dwarflings, Cannibals, Barbarians, a Cyclops, Orcs, Lepers, Hobgoblins running an arena, a Gorgon, a Lab, a giant boar, a basilisk, a “wight crypt” full of vampires, and the Halls of Dread … a little temple area with a dude continually back the chaos void devil he imprisoned long ago. 

I guess I’ll describe the supporting problems before I get to the dungeon proper. The town is a few pages long. It’s mostly boring description of boring shops. There’s a throw off line here and there about someone in the main temple (thats runs the town) actually being an evil cultists, with a few entries elsewhere in the town about how they are in cahoots with the evil faction. There’s not really all that much to go on here, for the DM. It’s like I described a town of, oh, eighteen sites? In about five pages and then said something like “The second in charge at the temple is actually working against it, and has a few followers in town.” This is about what you’re going to get out of the town here. It is the old wound, my lord. If you’re going to say something then say something interesting. That’s what the content of the town should be concentrating on. Something for the DM to hang their hat on, otherwise, don’t bother describing it much, or at all. I’m not paying $15 to read about how the general store has general store items for sale. There is, I think, a significant missed opportunity in town. The walls of the temple bleed evil blood that the temple sometimes uses in their ceremonies. That’s interesting. It smacks vaguely of reality and could have been expanded upon more. Also, the town has a fuck ton of laws, almost their only laws, realted to the dead and burel thereof. And five, I think, of the buildings,, are guild halls for the dead. Morticians, gravediggers, coffin makers, etc. And that’s not really expanded upon at all. Something seems missing here. These are the areas that could have been expanded upon, that and the subplot. 

The wilderness is where things get a tad more interesting. And Mork Borgian. There’s a fey encounter. Except they wear the skin of the people they’ve enchanted. WoW! That’s new. And fits well for fey, I think. It even has a little section on them skinning the party alive and how the party can keep playing. More on this in a minute. There’s also a “Carnivorous Keep” that has no context or details except that it has stomach acid, a treasure in the basement, its only entrance is 40’ up, and it can thrown stones up to 200’ away for 2d6 damage. I truly can’t describe the confusing nature of this. It’s like someone had a cool idea and had four people jot down notes about it ad just threw all of thor notes in. None of it really works together or has context. And then there’s The Forest, which has five encounters in it. Not mapped out. Just things for the DM to throw at the party. All of this is supported by a wandering monster table that is both long and provides nothing for the wanderers to do to help the DM out. 

But that Fey thing, what about it? It’s the perfect example of what I think is wrong with this entire adventure. It presents this idea: the fey wear the skin of people they’ve captured and skinned alive. That’s pretty freaky! Very old world of them, I guess. But it does nothing with this. It’s a minor encounter. There’s no context. There’s no lead in. We simply take that description, that they are waring the skin of people, and do nothing more with it or the environment in which you encounter them. And, I’m down for some randomness in an adventure (and in, weird shit just happens, like meeting fey wearing skins) but its nothing more than combat here. This could have been so much more, but nothing more is done with it, ever. This lack of a greater context, a greater environmental “Feel” is a major problem with the caves, once you reach them.

“The walls appear to be caked in mud.” This is in the first sentence in the caves descriptions. An auspicious beginning, using the word appears to pad things out. What we’re ging to find in the caves is much the same as in B2. It’s a lot of hacking with an occasional fetch quest here and there to bring something back. The interactivity is limited to little more than that and, even  then, is a little disjointed. A secret door in one room leads to a cobweb covered arch in the next. “A minecart and boulders obscure a secret passage.” vs “thick cobwebs cover two small passages leading to the Mining tunnels …” So … a secret door? Or not? It’s this confusion which abounds.

There are weird misses, like a pixie in a lantern with its wings torn off, being used as a light. What if you free it? No notes for the DM, even though thi happens in multiple places, including a room with dudes actively tearing the wings off of them. These sorts of missed opportunities are all over the place. It’s focusing on the shock factor and not the interactivity that the situation could bring. Or, I should say, potential situation, since they are just all combats.

And this lack of depth and focus on the shock extends to most of the adventure in the caves. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a dude strapped down to a table with leprosy and have his eyes rotting out! Or, the barbarians have a rabid dog with them … which I guess is not rabid with them? Also, no rules for rabies? Fucking sticking some rabis in should send the party in to a terror fit. The cyclops cave is full of feral children as kind of servants … who he eats the fingers and toes off of when he gets too hungry and they are too slow to cook. But they don’t escape? And, again, there’s no larger context. The cannibal caves don’t feel like cannibal caves. It just feels like the designer wanted to put ina room with someone getting butchered in it. Even the dude feigning death and rushing out with a knife, which could be a great little scene, is not handled particularly effectively. 

“Upon closer inspection, the merchant’s eyelids and lips have been removed, exposing their weeping eyeballs and gums” This is shock value for no other purpose. The caves don’t really FEEL like the environments they are trying to present. The descriptions are minimal, although they are expanded upon at length to no effect. This is the major sin with this adventure.

The BX map, and town map, in the adventure booklet are so fuzzy as to be unreadable. Fortunately there is a separate map pack that makes them readable. But the individual cave maps in that are a monstrosity of some background image overlaid, no doubt from the Mork Borg heritage. Which makes them impossible to use. But the mini maps in the actual booklet are fine. The net effect here is that the excesses of the usual mork borg presentation values are generally avoided. 

The Mork Borgians managed to write a longer adventure. That’s good. The focus on shock value descriptions might have been ok if the actual locations FELT like what the individual descriptions were trying for. Interactivity beyond pure combat (which, I allow for, B2 had little of) and focusing on situations rather than encounters would have gone a long way here.

And stick in a fucking level range and some order of fucking battle. Jesus. Still, one of the best things to come out of that genre. I look forward to seeing the next one from this group.

This is $15 at DriveThru. The preview is 31 pages. The end will show you the caves and the two page spread. It’s a nice emulation of the OSE format, although I think kits missed the mark with its minimal descriptions and using that format.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/453667/Kavlovs-Sanctuary–An-Old-School-Essentials-compatible-campaign-module?1892600