Level 13 - The Caverns of Slime
By Alex Schroeder, Lior Wehrli, Chris Roberts
Level 8+
The waterfall from the mushroom forest above passes through this area of powerful myconial
magic. The fungi undulate to a silent music, while phosphorous lights and dancing glow-bugs illuminate dancing shrooms and glistening towers of fungal growth on the steep walls.
This 23 page adventure details level thirteen of The Darkness Beneath and it’s … eleven major areas? It is a magnificent framework in which to die, and is perhaps most similar in play style to D3. A glorious jumble that is all I ever want in my life to be happy.
There’s an overview of the level up front which thankfully details what a typical jaunt in to the Caverns of Slime might look like. Briefly, you descent the Fungal Fall and travel through the Shroom Lords lands to the Spider City. From their you gain river travel on the River Styx, visiting the Bone Crusher and its roaming ghouls and two Panzerships. Perhaps diverting to the Prison of Dis and past the Shark Den (having orcs riding flying sharks …) you can hit up the wizard Gar at his titular Vats of Gar, who can maybe get you out of this place. But you’ll need to get past the Bubbling Stench to the Damn of Ix to disable its blocking power. Past the Eternal Swamp is the passage to the Ooze Lord (feature a 99 foot tall statue …) and, therein, the black door to the last level. You follow all of that? Essentially we have the party stuck on the level and eventually learning what they need to do to get off of it. They travel around to various areas learning things and making friends and enemies until the epic assault, via Ajax, on Mongo.
Essentially, each of those places I mentioned is a little … encounter area? A little place to have an adventure? A little town with shit going down in it? I’m not sure how to describe it. You end up at place X. You poke around, find some shit out, pick up some things or people. Get in to a greater situation going on there and somehow navigate it to end up getting what you want. I’m not sure I would characterize this as a fetch quest or gathering the six parts to the Key of Time. It’s a great big place that you can wander around in a non-linear fashion (although linearly makes sense) and do shit, eventually with the goal of escaping. I don’t know. Nothing I’m describing here is helping, is it?
The Spider City opens wilth a little red-aloud, and then covers some themes for this area for the DM to work with: Darkness, spiders, silver lights, ropes, webs, living on the ceiling. Some bullet points on more theme-like things, like occasional ropes reaching down to the cave floor or the floor being covered with broken bones and husks. Then some typical spider names, a little overview of the area, and a longer section covering events that can happen in the city. This takes up a page and is weird as all fuck. And this is a friendly area.
Everything here is familiar yet bizarre. Like that first level of Darkness Beneath but amped up. Crocodiles, Spiders, Orcs, but amped up and twisted. You could, i suspect, run an entire campaign on this level, or something close to it? That’s no doubt hyperbole, but it feels like it. The bandersnatch fits in well here, and the rolling ceiling fireball maybe just a little too mundane.
An open ended adventuring area with greater goals than looting the dungeon? If each of these was a separate kingdom, above ground, and the party needed to achieve some goal, using them as resources, that might cover this place? But it’s far far weirder. Without, I think, going in to gonzo territory. Whatever that is. I’m gonna sleep with this one under my pillow, even though you’re gonna have to bring every ounce of DMing chops to it. It could, not doubt, be organized and described better. And I don’t give a fuck. It’s magnificent.
The Catacombs under Old Samora
By Phillip H.
Levels 1-3
Generations ago, they were home to a small circle of acolytes that worshipped the powers
of the underworld, Hades foremost among them. Affluent citizens had their dead interred here and the priests performed burial rites and tended graves. With the decline of the city, the place was eventually abandoned and largely forgotten
This ten page adventure details about 45 rooms in some old catacombs/funerary complex. A solid contender and something I’d be happy to run as a drop in.
Ah, Ye Olde Levels 1-3. That’s a rough market. Everyone and their brother has dumped an adventure out for that level. Your adventure competes with past classics, current classics, and things released that the fuckwits don’t yet recognize as classics. This is a tight adventure/dungeon. And I’m reviewing it right after an issue of Ultan …
Catacombs under a slum section of a city, an old mausoleum entrance. Not exactly a secret but not well known either. Inside are graves, prep rooms, some places for the (now gone) priests to maintain the place. And, of course, an evil priest who likes to stretch his legs and visit the place when he needs a short break from his studying about sacrificing babies. Oh, and the drug addicts. That is one of my favorite parts of this. I mean lots of it are pretty good, but that drug-addicts are rock star. It’s a slum/tunnel/sewer hole/mausoleum. OF COURSE there are drug addicts hanging out in it. Or, as they are called, the sewer-folk “These squalid, drug-addicted humans live in a near-animalistic state in the sewers below the city” I love this kind of shit. There’s something so real about it. It grounds you. It gets you out of that bullshit fantasy orc stabbing mindset. What’s real, what’s a threat, what’s not a threat? If you went wandering around If you’re out doing some urban exploring, entering those holes in Pogues Run, what find you run across? Some kids. A large group of them? Are they dangerous? How about some homeless? Just homeless? Drug addicts? Desperate and looking for an easy score? Are you an easy score? Wanna posture some? Does that make things worse? WHat else is down there? This is great.
And, it does that thing that certain adventures do where you get fucked up coming OUT of the dungeon. Maybe some thugs out to score something easy. Hope one of those sewer-people didn’t tip them off. Or, the law, looking for a cut and kickback tax. This is all so great!
Oh, and did we mention that the sewer people are afraid? Some of them go missing … yup, it’s ghouls! Yeah ghouls! As serial killers/conpiracy/urban folktales! And the place has HORDES in it. There are some places where there are A LOT of ghouls, or a ALOT of jerlamaine/rat type people in their lair. And, of course, we all know that the lair is where the loot is. As is the tomb of the elf dude that is dangerously trapped. No pain no magic armor you murder hobo wannabes!
Writing is a little on the mundane side. Not bad, just not good. “Enormous empty washing basin cut from grey marble. Bas-reliefs on the basin walls depict a paradisiacal afterlife. A cracked painting of the night sky on the domed ceiling.” There’s nothing particularly wrong with that. It doesn’t overstay and it doesn’t pad shit out. It a decent solid workmanlike description, which makes it better than 90% of the shit being published. I’m just always hoping for a little more. The designer does, though, do a pretty good job of noting specific details. And, of course, specificity is the soul of narrative. In a room with a well “Claw marks in the hard earthen shaft were made by creatures climbing up and down” GREAT detail! SHould scare the fuck out of the party. Provides a hint. That’s all good D&D. In another place there’s a door with a raven carved in it. Fuck around and the raven comes to life to attack you. And when/if it dies it leaves a jewel. The overloaded context here is WONDERFUL.
The map is good. Decent detail, same level stairs, statues and so on. The locked/secret/concealed doors do get quite a bit hard to read, but, otherwise, the map is a good one. Hand drawn, which has its own charm and I kind of prefer. Except you do have to take care that things are legible. Like those fucking door codes, which are NOT.
Overall, a good little dungeon. Solid. It’s not winning an award, but it’s a good example of what you do. Platonic, even. It’s only ten pages long. And it does much much more with those ten pages than adventures four or five times its length.
Fight On! #15 is $5 at DriveThru.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/489776/fight-on-15-spring-2024-pdf-version?1892600