Sepulcher of the Sorceress-Queen

By Michael Stone & Alexander Macris
Autarch
ACKS
Levels 7-9

Over a thousand years ago, the Zaharan Sorcerer-Queen Semiramis reigned over a court notorious for its decadent arts and lavish opulence. The hidebound nobles of Zahar were troubled by the ascendance of the kingdom’s first female monarch. Semiramis was beset by over one hundred suitors, each one demanding that she marry him so that the kingdom might have a king. Many of these suitors were powerful spellcasters who wove enchantments upon her, but to no avail: The Sorceress-Queen wore the Ring of the Queen’s Heart, a legendary magic item gifted to her by the goddess Nasga that made her immune to her suitor’s charms. As beautiful and cruel as her goddess, Semiramis instead seduced her perfidious suitors into swearing eternal love to her – then had them slain. The Sorceress-Queen mummified and interred all one hundred suitors in her own majestic sepulcher, where they would serve her as loyally in death as they ought to have in life. Since then, the sepulcher of the sorceress-queen has lain hidden and undisturbed, its undead inhabitants slumbering in torpor until the prophesied time of the Awakening. But now a reckless warband of lizardmen has broken open the ancient tomb and disturbed evils not seen in centuries…

This 58 page adventure uses 34 pages to present a tomb, in the process of waking up, with about 67 rooms. This is, I think, the poster child for Decently-interesting-but-never-gonna-use-it cause-its-a-pain-in-the-ass. I am genuinely interested in knowing if anyone has run it COMPLETELY and how you handled it, both generally and specifically in terms or prep and game-play delays. As far as level 7-9 dungeon crawls, though, nice!

So, I’m paging through this for the first time. Title page padding, backer padding, blah blah blah, intro padding, long backstory padding, some rumor stuff, some pretext travel to the site stuff, blah blah blah, padding and nonsense. Then BLAMO! The map page hits you in the face. Lots of features on it. A note for dark alters, braziers, monoliths, sarcophaguses, walls that you can kool-aid-man through. And, a notation of “water/blood.” Heh. Nice. We’ve got some red bubbles noting undead monsters that can react to sound, lots of room features, lots of features. Sweet little map the likes of which you don’t usually see … and wish you did. 

The environment is nontrivial. There are, I think, nearly five pages of subsystems for the dungeon before we get to the room keys. Dark Alters – Destroy them and reduce the queens regen/magic resistance. But, also, summon a shadow each time. Weak walls to bust through. The impact of the sounds the party makes, including busting down doors and destroy alters and casting spells, and how that could awaken and/or summon monsters from nearby (up tp 150’ feet away … which is then suggested to be The Nearest Occupied Room within range, for simplicity purposes) And, then, how to put those creatures on the wanderers table. There are lizardmen in the tomb also, making an incursion, and they get reinforcements. And, also, they make attempts to clear dungeon rooms each day, with their own rolls and impacts on the dungeon. There are Doors, secret doors, sealed doors and blocked doors, all with different rules. And more. That’s a lot to keep track of. Enabling a rich and deep play experience, to be sure. 

The rooms are … deep. We get a read-aloud section to start with, generally. I’m not thrilled about them. Not quite the evocative writing style I prefer. More fact based.And this includes over-revealing in the read-aloud “the doors, which carry a relief depicting a stormy night on the sea,” and so on in the read-aloud. I think an over-reveal in the read-aloud is detrimental to the game. It sets expectations around what the DM will reveal to you and how and when you ask questions of the DM, beyond simply the Q/A cycle being the core loop of the game. And, sometimes they feel random. A room smelling of moldy paper, in the read-aloud?! Let’s investigate! There’s no reason for it, or any hint of paper in the room. 

I suspect the read-aloud is this way because there is no traditional DM text, or, at least, not generalized DM text. Each entry will have a section(s), if appropriate, called [Monster] or [Lore] or [Trap] or [Loot] or [Noise] or [Trick]. And in that section the treasure, or trap, or effect will be described. At length. You’re not getting away with less than a paragraph for each, sometimes more. It is not infrequent for a room to be a page long. Now, this is levels 7-9. There should be some shit going down in some of these rooms, involved shit. I’m not sure though that the selected format is really paying off for rooms this complex. There is very little formatting beyond these section headings; it turns back to paragraph form with a monster named bolded. It’s fucking DENSE man. And frankly the monsters are not done very well. “5 wights.” Well fuck me, that’s great. All undead look the same unless we personalize them … and, one section of those five pages of intro to the dungeon rules was about interacting with intelligent undead. GENERIC intelligent undead, it would seem. 

We’ve talked about some interactivity already. The doors. The sound situation. The alter thing, and other general dungeon features. As well as the lizardmen and them being potential allies. And maybe saying hello to some confused undead. And then there is specific room interactivity, IE: the keys stuff. Beyond looking at frescoes and traps we get … well, not much. Fighting dudes and looting and avoiding traps. It’s all pretty straightforward. There ARE some traps that may be a little more interactive than usual. Let’s say a pool  and if you add a drop of your blood then the monster doesn’t attack you. Or, wearing some holy garb form the tomb will give you bonuses on rolls or help avoid traps. Beyond that, man, there’s really not a whole lot. A stalactite next to a bridge being a roper? Ok. I guess.

So, great map, good concept, lots of always on things to do. But the creatures turn generic, and I think the room descriptions are uninspiring. I really want there to be more to this than there is. But, also, it’s a fucking tomb. As a tomb it’s great, because tomb adventures generally suck ass. And it does pull off a 7-9 adventure. It’s just a little … I don’t know, uninteresting? Both in the descriptions and the encounters? I need a little more in my life. 

This is $7.50 at DriveThru. The preview is ten pages. You can see the map and a few of the always on features, but none of the rooms. I would have preferred a room page be shown also.

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/317788/sepulcher-of-the-sorceress-queen?1892600