tenfootpole.org

By Jasper Polane
Weird Opera Blog
OSR
Levels 1-2

This is a little mini-region with a village, three main adventure sites, a number of wilderness opportunities, and some follow-up suggestions. The intent appears to be an adventure that could be used with all age groups. It largely succeeds with only a couple of exceptions, mainly around the village proper. The entire thing has a nice OD& vibe, with unique spells, OD&D idiosyncratic wizards, and different treasure.

In the local village teahouse three sad wizards commiserate. All of them are having troubles at home. The village is only briefly described as is one location: the teahouse. Both descriptions do the sites justice, from sleeping in barns to eating what’s prepared to the local hobby production of tea. In both cases the descriptions are just on the edge of what’s required, which is almost certainly the correct amount of detail. The village could use a few more personalities, especially since its mean be a kind of home-base sandbox location. The village section is the weakest part of the adventure and is the one portion where the “all ages” agenda is the most apparent. Things are a bit … polite? Serene? Vanilla? In the village. I’m not sure if its the teahouse, or the lack of other personalities, or what, but this section feels aimed at younger players more than any other. It’s only briefly mentioned, but the wizards appear to be in competition to get the party to look in to their problem first. The three wizards each get a brief write up. The descriptions are not very strong, but there is enough to build something from, especially if you’ve sen Radagast lately. Whats really missing here is the hook. Three wizards commiserating the the teahouse is not exactly the strongest of hooks. Yes, the PC’s will take the bait, but just because it apparent that is what they are supposed to do. It’s all a bit weak. I suspect it’s the all ages thing. While it’s easy for kids to play up’ it’s a lot harder for adults to ‘play down’ and that may be what’s going on here.

The three wizards each have a problem at their home and the three main adventure sites are their three homes. They specialize in plants, bugs, and birds, so the towers/homes are based around those themes. The three towers all feel like a bit different and have different things going on while still having the same general fairy-tale vibe. I suspect the adventure is written that way for the younger players, but the building of an adventure site and encounters without game mechanics in mind is also the kind of D&D I enjoy. It tends to be weirder and somehow more evocative of wonder and the fantastic. One tower is having trouble with the plants coming alive. One tower has an apprentice (9 years old) running wild, and one has an intelligent spider running the show now. In all three cases you get a decent little magical tower full of strange things and then the encounters. In two cases you may be able to resolve the situation with the core opponent without killing them. That’s a nice touch. The baseline adventure is not ‘kill everything’ but rather ‘resolve the situation’, and while there are a couple of suggestions given there is more than enough room for the party to improvise and do their own thing. That sort of open-ended nature is how EVERY adventure should resolve. The encounters are things like a gem glued to the bottom of a stool, or a pear tree with fruit that turns you pear shaped, or a scroll in a water tank. In other words, enough little details to make the adventure interesting and feel like a wizards tower without it being a full on gonzo experience.

The forest and road wandering monsters are not quite what I am looking for. There’s a little bit of charm present, from a pack of stray dogs to brat kids to an old peddler, but they tend to be missing that certain something that turns it from ‘just another encounter’ in to something interesting. The peddler needs a personality. The bandits need something other than the very simple ‘they could ambush/camp/robbery’ note. The surrounding wilderness has a number of places to follow up with, from giant anthills to ogre caves to boatmen camps to lost tombs. These are very briefly described and generally also lack that little something extra. The ogres have a locket with a picture of a little girl in it, but that’s about the extent of the personalization of the encounters. “The leader fights with a +1 sword” is not the height of adventure design. There is a great variety of new spells and several new/interesting magic items, from a new wand of wonder to a badger cloak. Several of the monsters felt new also, even if they did share the names of several well-worn ones.

This isn’t a bad little adventure packet. I’ll probably keep it, and may get a Lulu hardcopy when I order again. The encounters need additional evocative detail, but there’s enough here for it to just scrape by. This is almost certainly because of the simple fairy-tale like charm of the wizards towers proper, and the strength of at least two of them.

by H. John Martin
Rended Press
OSRIC
Levels 1-2

Something has been pillaging farms and leaving no living thing behind. Merchants have disappeared on the roads and the Tinker now refuses to make his circuit. All of this trouble started when a party of adventurers went to investigate the old temple on the hill. Five adventurers went up the hill to Lilanora’s temple and never returned. Who will follow those foolhardy five and discover what danger lies beneath the temple ruins?

This is a small ruined temple with about twenty encounters. It has a bright spot or two, but is generally an unimaginative and generic adventure. Unfortunately, it reinforces the “boring/generic” feel that I associate with 1E. It needs more wonder and imagination.

People have started disappearing ever since a group or murder hobos visited a local ruined temple … and didn’t come back out. The adventure takes two pages to set the scene and cover the backstory. You remember Sir Not-appearing-in-this-movie? He shows up in at least two different forms in the adventure backstory. It’s crazy. All of that space wasted by being devoted to things that have absolutely no relevancy in the adventure. I don’t understand all of this backstory. Is it just sloppy editing, or designers with delusions of authorhood, or do people actually like this shit? There are NPC’s referenced, more than once, that are at least three degrees removed from the adventure. What’s so puzzling is that this is mixed in with some modern day data that’s not bad. A one-legged sheriff, the importance of a traveling tinker, and the sheriff escorting him. People disappearing and in fear. There’s some decent stuff there. Not great, but enough to get started with at least.

The interior of the temple is so frustrating. It’s full of generic drapings that is then punctuated with a bit of the ultra-violence. Or at least some scene-setting straight out of the ultra violence. The very first room has the usual ‘once rich frescoes not defaced”, along with the usual “blood and fecal smeared pillars.” Ho humm, nothing new or interesting there. But then … “A dead dog lies in the doorway, its entrails draped over the stairs.” Wo! Thats nice! That brings the scene to life. In another room an alter to good is draped with dead animals and people, and an overpowering smell. That’s good stuff. There’s a crude drawing of an evil holy symbol on the floor … which would be MUCH better if it were instead laid out in teeth and small twig figures. Again, the core problem with the adventure. We get a generic scene that is then punctuated with something great. I understand juxtaposition. (I mock it all the time in my art reviews) and you would be forgiven in thinking that the normal is there in order to hi-light the bizarre. But that’s not it. The normal isn’t normal enough and it’s not evocative or jarring enough. It’s just the standard boring dungeon trappings. The rooms need to be more relatable and the evidence of violence needs to be more consistent, as in the holy symbol example. The monsters are just generic book monsters and the treasure just boring old book magic items. +1 shield. Ring of Protection. And a lot of coin. A LOT of coin and loot. WAYYYYYY too much.

The most disappointing part may be the main villain, the titular ghoul. It’s just a ghoul. “The ghoul will be here and will attack as soon as the PC’s enter the room.” That’s the ghoul description. After the dead dog entrails, and the weird ass alter, all we get is “ghoul.” I reviewed an adventure recently, maybe from Dungeon, that had a ghoul in it. In that one it was a gaunt and emaciated hunched over african man, with red eyes and yellow filed teeth. Absolutely no sense at all for the party to figure out what it was. Perfect description for a DM to build an encounter off of and help them run it evocatively. Compare to this one. “Ghoul.” Or, go check out “Where the Fallen Jarls Sleep” and the rest of the modules in that series, where undead get GREAT descriptions. This? This is not trying. Yeah, the alter and dog are nice, but there’s not much else in this to salvage.

The second adventure in this review is the reason I went out and bought all of the issues of AFS Magazine. You should own AFS #3. Go order it right now. If you don’t you will miss one of the finest visions of D&D published.
Into the Black Kingdoms
by Scott Moberly
AS&SH
Levels 2-5

This is an exploration of a ruined temple in an African/jungle setting. It starts in a rather literary sense: a little backstory in which a friend and sometimes companion of your dead Uncle lies dying in a shabby tent by a greasy campfire. Gripping your shoulder, he tells you a tale. That’s some 20’s lit opening there, instantly recognizable by anyone who has ready Lovecraft, Smith or Howard. He tells a tale, two north of Kulalo, off the Black Coast … ivory trading ships and a jade crocodile with emerald eyes as big as a mans head. All of this is handled in a short DM soliloquy, ending with the parties guide saying, as the soliloquy ends: “This should be the Village Gazabomwe.” More of a con game intro, but, it illustrates at least two great techniques that I find add a LOT to adventures: adjectives & proper names. Which is to say, the party does not approach the Village _OF_ Gazabomwe. It’s Village Gazabomwe. I know, it seems simple, but the archaic use of the proper name summons that ancestral memory deep down in side of you. The ones that hide all of that ancient jungle temple lore. The tyranny of the modern is thrown aside and replaced by the romantic mystery of the dark interior. Second, note the use of adjectives. It’s a GREASY campfire. It’s a SHABBY tent. Tongues are loosened with FORTIFIED wine. Finch does this. Stroh does this. Scott does this. Their adventures are able to much better invoke strong imagery because of their liberal use of the adjective. This allows them to get away with a minimum of words to invoke a particular feel, to implant a seed in the mind much more effectively. And that seed is the critical element for a DM. If they can help me imagine it then I can communicate it to the players.

Enough! There is a small paragraph or so that details the village and the groups interactions with them. Don’t be a dick, bring gifts, and enjoy the party. The ruined temple exterior is described in just a couple of sentences. SCANT ruins of an ANCIENT temple to a NAMELESS god. Heaps of MOLDERING stone BLEACHED white. Searching fins a stone that can be pulled up, resulting in a MUSTY smell of OLD bones and decay. Below, a PITTED grey stone stairway leads to UTTER darkness … Below are eight rooms to the ancient temple ruins. Eight pretty good rooms. African devil fave masks with magic mouths “You have entered sacred grounds” “leave now or die one thousand deaths!” That’s good stuff. There’s a room with an “evil merman” statue and a lever on the wall. Pulling it causes the room to flood with water. Water activate the merman statue. You can push the lever back up. Again, nice combo, nice imagery. The lever, stuck as it is when the room floods, CAN be pushed back up to stop the water, but there’s a hostile merman statue in the room. The treasure is good, a rhino hide bracelet studded with jewels, and the like. The monsters are at least not generic, if not unique. The wight, the former chief of the cult, a ravenous african man with yellow filed teeth, red-rimmed eyes, and dreads, and filthy green cape. That’s a fucking monster right there! Describe him to the party and they’ll be pissing themselves trying to figure out what he is. How much better is that then just saying “a wight lives in this room”. The designer must have a strong vision and must be able to communicate that imagery to the DM. Scott does that.
Hyperborean Laboratories and Cave System
by Benoist Poiré
AS&SH

This is a 40-ish room ancient hyperborean lab complex, part cave and part dungeon. It’s also the reason I bought all of the AFS magazines. More specifically, I saw the map. I’m familiar with Poiré from therpgsite and more specifically his thread where he laid out a megadungeon and detailed one level. The map was wonderful. A full fledged megadungeon level. Not the simple shit that Rappan Athul passes for, or the “fill the graph paper” stuff that Lich Dungeon did. Poiré’s levels ALMOST fill the graph paper, but not with endless repetition and symmetrical designs,. Instead everything seems much more organic and there are significantly more interesting features in the levels, He also uses color to great effect, adds lots of features to the rooms and hallways, and frequently uses passages running above or below others to give a hint of a third dimension. This isn’t Thracia level visibility, but more “a really awesome and complex one level map.” The map alone is worth the price.

One of the seven wonders of the modern world is surely the Internet. With it we are able to communicate with people from all over the world and share our ideas. Because of it we get to see what D&D means to other cultures and the games of people like Melan and Poiré. The aesthetic they bring to the game is new and fresh when compared to the cultural underpinnings that drive the American market we are all familiar with. The hobby needs more of this cross-culturel influence.

What Poiré has done here is create a wonderful OD&D-like dungeon full of the weird and wonderful, but with the underpinnings that somehow … foreign. Everything is just a bit off … in a good way. Imagine a terribly creative person, who has never played D&D before, creating a dungeon. That’s what we have here. The traditional influences are almost not to be found, or at least are not readily apparent. That’s quite remarkable and results in a fabulous experience. Further, each room has two sections “In my Campaign” and “In Your Campaign.” The first describes the room, as a GOOD traditional adventure module would. The second is almost a designers notes section for the room. Ostensibly it gives tips and advice on how you can integrate the room in to your own game. In reality it amounts to a designers notes on the rooms. How to use the room, what its intended to do, and so on. And yet the rooms don’t feel like an academic exercise. They feel organic and work together to provide a unified experience … and that’s what the designers notes communicate, how to achieve that effect. I’m going to give just one example, from early on. A clay pillar stands in the room. It’s slick with moisture. Approaching it and touching it will cause it to animate. Faces appear in the pillar, as if they were just under a thin layer of wet clay. Arms reach out and try to slowly embrace people nearby. They pull the grabbed people and consume them. … It’s a teleporter room. You come out of a similar pillar in another room. Room after room after room is like this.

It seems like all of the rooms describe effects, not rules. I may be mistaken, but I don’t think there’s a single rule anywhere in the adventure. The closest he gets is “I made the monster 5HD in my game.” But there are effects. LOTS of effects. It’s up to you, the DM, to adjudicate these. I think this is absolutely magnificent. I can make a ruling at the table. I can do monster stats on the fly. But the imagination … THAT’S what I’m paying for and that’s what this thing delivers. I can’t emphasize enough how refreshing I find this style. A triumph of the romantic over the mechanical.

I may make three criticisms of the adventure. First, it is sometimes hard to pull out specific parts of rooms. This is typically referred to as a “wall of text” problem but I’m not sure that description is accurate here. Or perhaps it is, but in a very non-traditional way. It is sometimes hard to pick out key portions of the rooms that will need to be referred back to later. One needs to orient oneself to a room when running it. You need to be able to look at a room and instantly tell what is going on in it to run it at the table. The room descriptions here are excellent, they do a great job of conveying a lot of great information but it can be difficult to orient oneself to the room. Traditionally, a highlighter and the margin notes are used to solve this kind of problem at the table. Second, while the rooms tend to have a great deal of interactivity they do not tend to have a lot of loot. I would be hard pressed to recall any loot, magic or mundane, being present. The third criticism is related to the second, although tangentially. Some of the creatures could use a little more in the way of effects. While Poiré generally does a great deal just describing effects and not rules, he sometimes neglects to add effects, to both monsters and the environment. To a certain extent I believe this, as well as the loot, is related to the specific axe he has to grind. He’s used a very non-traditional format and I suspect the lack of description is a part of that. While that generally works fine, and in fact I’ve praised it in the immediately preceding paragraph, it zooms out too far with respect to the creatures, at a minimum. “that shoot poison bumblebees from its mouth”, or something similar, tacked on to the creatures would have added more functionality without destroying the mechanic-less vision.

I don’t usually plug work by people, but Poiré and Ernie Gygax are working on the Hobby Shop Dungeon, appearing in the pages of Gygax magazine, I believe. Considering the quality of this dungeon and his megadungeon thread of therpgsite, I’d recommend checking out the Gygax magazine work with Ernie. I know that his work appearing there is what pushed me in to ordering Gygax magazine.

A universal translator: infects other cultures with american-standard D&D or enables other cultures to invest american-standard D&D with their own D&D culture?

Cliff Warrens of the Covid Birdmen
by Scott Moberly
OD&D
Levels 2-4

Oh OD&D, is there any version finer? Even when mundane you bring a level of originality that tends to not be present in other versions. I love your weirdness that brings a more fantastic and fairy-tae vibe. I love your unique monsters that no players has ever heard of and causes their characters to feel in terror of the unknown. I love your magic items, unique, mysterious, and with idiosyncratic rules around them. What if the D&D books came with no monster descriptions? What if it came with no list of magic items, or just the 1E DMG artifacts? What if the sample adventures had the party armed with pocket knives, blankets, crowbars, a chicken, and lots and lots of sacks? Imagine playing a game where everything is new and unique and you never know what any creature encountered will do. Where the glorious and fantastic items you find are mysterious and awe-inspiring … treasured by your characters and by the player also. Imagine bravely entering the underworld to wrest the loot from it, knowing full well that everything you meet could kill you in an instant. That’s what OD&D means to me. That’s the world of the awesome and the fantastic and the unknown that I want. That’s my Dungeons & Dragons.

This is a little 9-room cave system. It’s packed full of OD&D weirdness and charm, even if it doesn’t make any sense at times. New monsters, weird stuff, terse descriptions … I’d rather read and review a hundred of these little things, even though it’s not the best example of OD&D greatness, than any other versions opus.

A group of crow-like evil bird-men are terrorizing a town. With a fondness for human flesh and shiny things, they swoop down at night and abduct the good people, who are never seen of again. The major hires the group to go take care of them. A local ships lookout saw some bird-like creatures carrying something large, a body? to some cliffs nearby. I’m not a big fan of “the party gets hired to …” adventures. I find that hook very tiresome and generally the result of someone not trying very hard. Freehold knights, a need to find something, or almost any other hook (EXCEPT CARAVAN GUARDS!) is almost always better. The best kind of hooks motivate the players, not the characters. The buy in from “lets go find that fucker and slit his throat!” is much better than “you get paid 10go for the mission.” I suspect that a lot of designers have a strong central idea (evil bird people!) that they then expand in to an adventure, and that the hook is often the last thing to be done. The adventure’s not done till a good hook is attached.

There’s no personality attached to the town, the mayor, the ship, or anything else in the set up. That’s disappointing as well, although there IS a rumor table. In fact, I think the rumor table is a good example of how personality adds to an adventure. The table has a lot of the usual rumors “some is tricking us” , “its the mayor to get power”,”a demon is loose”, and so on. Where it really shines though is when it adds personality “i hear they have a taste for plump women. I best keep my sister indoors.” That’s good. That’s got style. More rumors should be like that. Local nonsense with fluff. Can you imagine a group of murder hobos soliciting plump hookers for a day or so to use as bait, based on that rumor? THAT’S going to be a fun night of D&D!

The cave system is just a little hand-drawn map with none rooms. Some generic scribblings on a page with no elevation, features, or wandering monsters. There’s a way to hook in a larger dungeon, but otherwise it’s not memorable. The nine encounters, over two pages (Yes! Three pages total! Take that Dungeon Magazine!) One of the first rooms has the flickering torchlight reveal, just at its edge, the figure of a woman with black hair in a grey cloak. It’s an insane sea hag. And the room has a confusion effect on it from a previous wizard occupant. And there’s mad scrawling on the wall form the old wizard, when this place was use by him. It is delivered much better in the adventure. The very next room has four of the evil bird men guard a huge repulsive mass of filthy feathers, the immobile bird-man queen mother. Slop pails of intestines, filthy straw nests, and a fear effect that causes people to run to the cave mouth and throw themselves off the cliff, hoping to end it all. Great Stuff! Nothing at all generic about that. It’s this sort of thing that I love in an adventure. Embrace the idea fully and go with it. No second chances, no falterings. “Yeah, I did it. So what?”

The monsters here are a weird mix. One the one hand you’ve the evil crow-like bird men and their bulbous queen. GREAT imagery on them and their queen, some harpy-lite powers, and a style to them “fondness for human flesh” that is delivered without a great number of words. But there’s also the hag, and a troll … and you can talk to the troll! I LOVE it when the monsters talk to the players. Yeah yeah, I could make any monster talk to the party, but I could also write my own adventure. Far too often designers turn to “they attack”, as if the adventure is an us vs. them of the DM against the players. Instead the monsters in OD&D tend to take on a more realistic tone, which combined with more their fantastic nature delivers a different kind of play experience. And you can always shiv them in the kidneys and take their loot if you decide you have to have that jewel they are carrying around … 😉

The treasure disappoints. Generic treasure and generic jewels to be found in the evil bird man lair. There’s no excuse for that, especially since last issue AND this issue have articles/lists of better treasure. Mundane treasures much better described and interesting than those in the adventure, and minor magical items that deliver much more flavor and originality than a carpet of flying ever will.

Again, a special call-out to those treasure articles. The descriptions could be more interesting but they are certainly going in the right direction.

Captain Zhudo and the Last Crown of Atlantis
by Fingolwyn & Scott Moberly
AS&SH
Levels 5-8

This is a small ten room dungeon set in an ancient hyperborian base. It’s shot, at about five pages, and the designer tries to bring some interesting content. Ultimately though the simple design and lack of interesting features unravels the attempts.

Oh caravan guard hooks, how I loathe thee. You can try and pretty it up with mastodon pelts and costume jewelry but ultimately it remains a crappy hook idea for low levels through high levels. The idea is that while traveling the party is attacked by a group of weird stag-men and, in tracking them back, discover their atlantean lair. There must be about 80 bajizillion ways for that to happen … but this adventure chose “7th level caravan guards.” It’s a complete throw-away except for the two little bits that are MAJORLY interesting: the mastodon pelts and the costume jewelry. That’s some good detail right there! With that I can build on something! My mind whirls! The nature of the expedition immediately becomes clear: diseased pelts and beads for the peoples of the region. And the fine cloth? That’s for a local ‘king’ … who’s not gonna come after the trader after he gets such a nice gift. Even a few small interesting details can rocket a DM to great heights. So while the caravan guard hook is a lame one it has JUST enough to build something around it. I need more though. more More MORE! Alas, more of this is what the adventure delivers; the boringly mundane surrounded by JUST enough interesting tidbits to elevate just a little.

The Ziege-men, the chief villains, walk about erect on hoofed goat legs with devil horns and dark grey fur patches. That’s pretty sweet! Sure, they are just re-skinned humanoids, but that’s all humanoids are. Smashed in doubledoor lead in to a hillside, rubble strewn everywhere. Inside is … boring room after boring room. Well, no. But not exactly great rooms either. You have to really work at it. There’s just enough description in the rooms to add a little detail but not really enough for it to take hold in my mind. A sea-green frayed rug, large and oval, covering most of the floor. Vaulted ceiling with missing chandelier, Arched doorway and verdigris stained double doors., a trapdoor with brass rungs leading down … almost there. Individually the descriptions seem to be good the entire thing just doesn’t gel together for some reason. Maybe there’s a central focus that is missing? I don’t know, but it seems to happen a lot in many of the rooms. The rooms somehow don’t seem real, or alive.

The monsters here are unique, which I love. From the ziege-men to a crystal ape construct, the there’s nothing boring about the monsters. Or the treasure for that matter. Loot painting, coins with weird designs, platinum thimbles, the treasure all delivers that extra little bit of description that I crave in an adventure. Far too often designers just rely on boring old shit, like “jewelry worth 5,000 gp.” That always pisses me off; I’m paying the designer to provide the imagination that I can riff off of and a generic description just doesn’t cut it. The noteworthy magic item, the Crown of Atlantis, also delivers in the magic item arena. Nothing generic about that item! There is a trident and magic helm that tend to the mundane but even they get a little of description. There’s a decent trap room with an Eye of Death, a kind of metallic orb that zaps people, which is pretty good as well. The adventure is missing a better order-of-battle for the creatures. Intelligent monsters should react intelligently.

A special call out to the map. It tries to be three-dimensional, or at least tries to add a few degrees of dimension. The rooms all have elevation markings on them and several rooms have elevation features or are below other rooms. That’s a nice touch, even if I don’t understand the elevation markings enough to determine what they mean. Or maybe that +05 (bar overhead) is a typo? Anyway, rooms under other rooms and elevation markings a great first touch. Slope markings and other elevation changes (Rappan Athuk “Down the Well (3b?)) comes to mind.

I don’t normally review non-adventures, and this the rest of the issue is mostly off limits for me. Let me call out for special mention though the list of 100 mundane treasures. All treasure should have this much description. Just go to a random generator and generate some lists to print out for reference. Awesome Is as Awesome Does.