tenfootpole.org

by John
Freely distributed via Scribe/Tenkar’s Tavern
AD&D
Levels 5-8

Malazar the Mage, like all great wizards, was a noted eccentric. His particular obsession was the collection of certain rare and bizarre antiquities, unearthed at great time and personal expense from long-forgotten buried cities where saner men feared to tread.
It was on his final such expedition that Malazar reputedly uncovered a jewel of great value and magical power, the so-called Egg of Desire. In an area of remote hills, he constructed a high tower in which to house his prize – a tower with neither windows nor doors.
As the years drew on, Malazar began to disdain city life. He withdrew more and more to his strange, windowless tower, conducting his business by emissary. It is now more than a decade since there has been any word from either Malazar or his agents, and persistent rumour among the more knowledgeable circles of thieves and treasure- hunters has it that the mage is dead, and within the tower his jewel lies free for the taking – if only there were some way to get inside…

A 45-ish room adventure in the complex under a wizards tower. It brings forth images of a mash-up between The Purple Worm Graveyard, Death Frost Doom (the singing part) and Tower of the Stargazer, except it’s got more going on than those three adventures and feels less slow than the LotFP product and more involved then tPWG. This is a solid one-level dungeon. It was the winner of a Tenkar’s Tavern contest.

Ye olde Mad Wizard; where would D&D be without them? The only thing better than a mad wizard is one known to have a giant jewel. Better than that? When said mad Wizard hasn’t been seen in awhile. Time to go grab some !!PHAT L00T!! The catch this time is that there are no doors or windows to the wizards tower. A search nearby reveals a weird humming son that leads to a ravine , and then to a cave mouth … And we’re off!

The dungeon map is an Logos one, one of his larger and more complex ones. It’s got a cavern section and a worked rooms section, tunnels that go up and under other areas, same-level stairs, and a small vertical section near the end. I should like this map but I don’t for some reason. There is some “chain of rooms” syndrome going on and maybe that’s it. Not so much hallways as rooms that open on to each other. I don’t know why I don’t like that, but the map certainty has a decent amount going on with a decent variety. I don’t know. The wanderers are just a selection of things found in the dungeon and a few environmental effects. They do have some neat-o notes though; generally how they react after the party grabs the Big Honking Jewel. Oh, and the Slicer Beetles … they like to grab sliced off limbs and run away towards their lair room. Cute. 🙂

The encounters are a pretty decent mix of freaky stuff, obstacles, and monsters. You’ve got purple worms running around in the cave sections. They get really pissed off once the jewel stops singing. There’s wandering purple worms, purple rooms % chance rooms and purple worm hatchery rooms. Purple worm tunnels to crawl through, collapsed purple worm tunnels … uh … a lot of purple worm stuff. Then there’s a decent amount of Hook Horrors running about who also get pissed then the jewel goes offline (because it’s sitting in someone backpack, most likely) and some freaky deaky stuff, like a bribable Xorn (has there even been a Xorn encounter in which they DIDNT want a bribe?) puffball fungus spores, crazy beetles out of Gamma World and weird mirror pools. Sounds like a pretty cool set of caves to me! Did I mention the chasm?! I LUV chasms!

And THEN you get to the wizards dungeon portion of the map with a COMPLETELY different set of freaky stuff. Weird magical contraptions, deactivated statues, levers and techno-magic, people in stasis, and a hyperintelligent mold colony. This part has fewer creatures and more ‘traps’, thought the traps all pretty much all of the ‘things you shouldn’t be screwing with anyway’ variety. There are cool teleporter arches to be repaired, giant mimc traps, body changing gizmos, an ‘etherealiser’ machine … and a room full of thought eaters for those who use it! One device is appropriately named ‘the Weirdo Machine.’ This is a great pseudo-gonzo section of the dungeon. I particularly like the monsters here. They fit in almost as well as the ones in Many Gates of Gann. The party should have to leave their comfort zone and be faced with real wizard magic. This section does that without seeming arbitrary.

There are some Vancian-type spellbooks to pick up and the mundane treasure is varied and interesting, as is the magical stuff. I love the fact that the potion of strength smells of sweat, or the potion of insect control had little insect legs in it. There’s a whole series of these and I LOVE it. It’s not a magic heavy treasure haul and a Figurine of Wondrous Power might be the most normal item in it. The mundane treasure is pretty good also: lots of gilded swords and engraved armor and juicy jewels, silk bags and crystal goblets. Treasure the way it should be, and a bit of coin to go along with it. Oh, oh, there also a little imp in a bottle that acts like a spellbook! Be nice to him and he teaches you spells! How’s THAT for Vancian?!?

50-ish rooms in 9 pages with a more OD&D feel than an AD&D feel. This one is worth having.

by John Keane
Freely Distributed by Dragonsfoot
AD&D
Levels 2-5

The Hag Queen has ruled for centuries and her baleful garden blights the landscape. Can you survive it’s inhabitants?

This is a wonderful little evil fortress set in an evil garden near the edge of an evil empire. It’s got a bit of a fairy tale feel to it at times, kind of like Mortality of Green. The bulk of the inhabitants of the fortress & garden each have a personality that could make this almost like a town adventure. It is certainly one of the best Evil Fortress adventures I’ve seen. It’s what all of those Castles & Crusades adventures should have been.

Lately I’ve come upon a couple of adventures that more resemble good towns than a traditional adventure module. That’s a compliment. A good town is full of interesting people each of whom have their own little thing going on. They hate some of their neighbors and in love with others and jealous of others and want to expand their business or find their lost aunt and so on. They interact with the other townspeople. This makes the place seem alive. It seems much more like it’s a real place with its own thing going on that the characters just happen to have stumbled in to. There are very very few good towns described in RPGlandia. This adventure has one … but it’s not a town. It’s an evil fortress/outpost. What results is one of the best evil outposts I’ve ever seen described. That allows for some pretty sophisticated uses to be developed for it. It’s like it’s a real place and you, as the DM, can attach some pretext or reason for the party to be there. Visitors or an embassy. Buying goodies. Captured and prisoner. This place can support many many different hooks. “Go kill shit” is most boring. Factions within factions within factions.

There’s this hag queen and she’s got her evil kingdom. As a part of that she’s got this garden outpost she planted long ago and her peeps harvest stuff from it and send it out. A touch of the fairy tale and a touch of the 2e magical economy. I’m gonna let the magical economy crap slide since the rest of the thing is good. Inside the garden are the plants and “plant-like D&D things” that the outpost inhabitants harvest for parts. Also inside is a small island fortress, the evil outpost proper, with several buildings in it and a small “undergarden” and a couple of simple basement/dungeon levels. Outside the forest is a wood and then the more civilized lands. That’s the basic set up. Kind of like you took Garden of Plantmaster and mashed it up with one of those fortress MERP supplements and then combined it with one of the good towns with factions in it, etc. What you would have there is a sweet ass place to have adventures. And that is, mostly, what this is.

Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way: the maps suck. They are small, they are boring, and not complex. The whole ‘fantastic garden’ thing is not conveyed at all via the maps. Both the aboveground portion and the below ground portion, “the undergarden” have this problem. The buildings that make up the outpost come across as little more than a couple of 2-story buildings. Lame. No fantastic gardens. No size, scope, or scale conveyed. lame Lame LAME. As for wanderers, well, this is where the special nature of this adventure starts to show up. There’s a section for encounters near the garden. Essentially this is a couple of werewolves in the forest, a trade caravan heading to/from the garden, a Lizard Man embassy heading to the garden and wood imps patrols that ride giant spiders. Cool! [As an aside, a creature riding anything other than a horse seems to elicit a ‘cool’ comment from me.] And these are not really wandering monsters, just some guys that could be heading to the garden or are nearby. ALL sorts of possibilities there. Join the caravan or lizard men, hijack one of them, make friends, make enemies, capture and interrogate … and the whole infinite possibilities that the batshit players will inevitably come up with. Opportunities. And unlike some products, these don’t seem forced at all. The garden proper DOES have wandering monsters and they fit in pretty well. Pests for the most part, all a part of the Potential Energy Drama which the characters are about to take part in.

The upper garden has 21 locations. The undergarden tunnels eleven more. Not a huge expanse. The locations don’t feel like traditional adventure. It’s mostly a small collection of pest locations or some plant/thing to be harvested. Again, more of a setting. “Let’s watch the slaves harvest the sundew” or “hey slave/pc, go harvest some grab grass”, etc. The notes all have some comment about how the plant/creature is used/harvested or why they are a pest and what the outpost guards do about it, etc. In other words, it’s building a little world up that the part can interact with. It DOESN’T have the feel of a series of hack encounters. It’s like the encounters are more integrated with the purpose of the location and the everyday life in the garden/outpost. Get it? It’s a place, a setting, a sandbox, a locale. All of those words are used to describe crappy linear hackfests but in this adventure they tend much much towards their more positive open play connotations. This makes most of the encounters none too special. These are not massive set pieces or diabolical traps or the like. But as whole they work together to create this mini-world just waiting for non-linear interaction.

The meat of the matter tends to be in the outpost at the center of the island. This is where the factions and personalities are generally described. You’ve got the mages and their internal struggles. You’ve got the clerics and their internal struggles. You’ve got the fighters/guards and their internal struggles. You’ve got the slaves and what’s going on with them. You’ve got a few ‘staff’ hangers on and their own thing. You’ve got the gardener and her own plots. Yuo’ve got the undead and their internal struggles (!) and how they interact. And they ALL of those groups interact with each other. You’ve got stoolie slaves. You’ve got slaves with escape plans. You’ve got suck up slaves. You’ve got work gangs. Old vets, slackers, new scum, rising stars, a good posting for n00bs and a bad posting for commanders, except not for everyone. Not everyone, by far, is described but it still feels jam packed with tension just under the surface. This is what makes for a cool place to interact with. THIS THIS THIS. Fuck, I bet you could even come up with a good murder mystery to run here, this place is so good. It would probably even not suck. With a good group you could even run a game as evil guards or a longer running campaign as prisoners. Again: OPPORTUNITY. The potential energy in this place is electric. The undead are even good, with names even! And sometimes goals of their own! And minions! Who hate them!

The criticism here is two-fold. First, it doesn’t take the garden concept far enough. It doesn’t feel like a garden. It feels like a fake D&D garden. That’s probably good enough for play … it’s just nothing like the Plantmaster garden or the Barrier Peaks garden, or even a good fungus forest. That bleeds over a bit in to the items. It would have been nice to see a few more plant or animal based fantastic or magical items. There’s still an underlying tone of vanilla running through the place. Vanilla is the wrong word … It lacks a certain FLUFF nature. The items that are in the adventure are pretty good, some new dust, some nicely described magic items and mundane treasure. These are almost textbook examples of how to do mundane and magic treasure right. It falls down a little when it comes to the items equipped by the outpost defenders, but are otherwise good examples of how to do decent magic items. We’re nto talking Sword of kas here, but still good items/descriptions.

The second criticism is the organization. The personalities are described in the in individual rooms. This thing could have used a one-page tear out of all of the people, some personality, and their usual schedules. The best parts of this are the potential for interactions and that needs a different format then just listing the people in their bedrooms. Similarly, a little more attention could have been given to slave work schedules, guard schedules, routines, etc. While the personalities are great, and the garden tasks are great, the routine that goes along with them could use some beefing up. This can be solved by spending a few hours with a notepad and highlighter, or the designer could have done it for me. 🙂

by Gus L
Freely distributed by Dungeon of Signs
Labyrinth Lord
Levels 1-3

Warning! This is gonzo/ASE and I LUV gonzo & ASE!

This is an exploration though a graveyard complex full of factions, ASE1 style. Coming in at 53 pages it is also deceptively small with only about 20 pages devoted to the keying and the rest being background and play aids, random tables, new monsters, new items, etc. The settings doesn’t quite seem large enough to support what’s going on. It’s a kind of smaller ASE1-style Bonegarden. That’s a compliment. Gus needs to learn how to use two columns and a smaller font, but that’s a minor complaint. It’s probably closer in theme to adventuring in a town full of rivals then it is a dungeon adventure.

Ine ASE1-land there’s a old war memorial that once broadcast the names of some honored dead up in to space. It’s been turned in to a general funerary complex and is the home to three gods of the dead who share it. God of the Dead #4 invaded and drove out the other three gods followers. Two of them cared enough, for different reasons, to strike back and be a pain in the ass to #4. #4’s plans for the complex are now slowed down as the forces of the three remaining gods conduct a kind of hit & run guerrilla war on each other. All while trying to gather new bodies to bolster their forces. This being ASE1-land, no one is really good or evil. Oh wait, I forgot, the complex was also the home to one of those bat-shit crazy ASE wizards in between its war memorial and Gods of Dead phases.

You know what this place needs? Some player characters wandering through and stirring up their own style of mischief! What follows is some pretty classic faction play. Three groups at war, a fourth party (the closest thing to stereotypically ‘good’) not really giving a shit, and the PC’s being confronted with the … lifestyle choices, of their chosen side(s). Except this time all of the factions are death cults, and not the watered down undead from Bonegarden. This is the full on gonzo gross guys that fit in well with the whole Korgoth/ASE1 vibe. You want to be moral? Fine, but the high road is a harder one to follow. I don’t know how much more classic you can get than that.

The hook is a mostly unrelated fetch quest, made a little more interesting by the giver and her place in an ongoing campaign world. It’s explicitly mentioned how she might be used in the future. This is, of course, always an option in every module but I still appreciate seeing it explicitly mentioned as a nudge toward doing the right thing with campaign continuity. The map of the funerary complex seems small to me. Essentially its a standard piece of graph paper with seven locations on it containing three faction bases and some other places. I don’t think that’s large enough to support the background conflict that’s going on here. It would be pretty simple to create a new larger map and drop the seven locations in to it. The interior maps are either simple mausoleum buildings, akin to a modern mausoleum layout, or a linear underground tomb. Many of the designers PDF’s deal with small lair type dungeons and the locations here are similar in their small-ish design and layout. Which is FINE for a lair. Not everything needs to be a megadungeon. (Ooooo, but what if EVERYPLACE was an entrance to a megadungeon? That would be cool!) There’s a daytime and nighttime wandering table with some decent variety/ghost encounters in addition to the faction and vermin encounters.

I’m not sure what to say about the various encounters. They are bizarre? I mean, it’s an ASE1 graveyard with a lot of history. Parasitic aliens in desiccated children’s corpses? Check. Uh, undead meglomanicial wizard wanting to rise again? Check. ASE1-style Ossuary? Check. Giant Tesla Coils? Check. I think you get the idea. Beyond the faction play there is a lot of other stuff to play with also. Random grave robbing tables, memorial tables, special tomb tables and more. It’s a pretty bitching place with a variety of things to mess with, interesting encounters and rooms, and a variety of nice (and mostly simple) traps. ‘Log to the face when opening the door’ is a favorite of mine. The rooms take up a decent amount of each page. I’m not sure if that’s the font/1-column layout or some verbosity. Maybe some of both. It’s a non-standard environment that is richly detailed but doesn’t feel like excess. Except that also makes it a little harder to run during play as you hunt for the room contents/core description. But there’s a lot in the rooms to spice things up. Tarps on the floor to be pulled, braziers to kicked over, weird ASE1 shit … how can you ditch that stuff?

The monsters are pretty decent. There’s only three in the appendix but they are all featured in the adventure, appear repeatedly, and have good special attacks/defenses. I generally like new monsters and especially in something in a world like ASE1. Most of the other creatures have at least a hint of the non-standard. Riding frogs. Ghost Drummers, the Beast of Bezonaught. I think a Wraith might be the most standard thing encountered. The new magic items are varied, interesting, described well, and have nice effects. There’s no mistaking you are in ASE1.

So, a little cramped on the surface map and some throw-away mapping but otherwise a great module … which is actually probably closer to a town adventure than a dungeon.

by Gus L

Freely distributed by Dungeon of Signs
Labyrinth Lord
Levels 0-1

Fuck it. I belatedly declare this to be DUNGEON OF SIGNS week.

This is a small ten room lair dungeon set inside a giant statue head. It feels like a slow burn and a build-up. A good, non-standard one that’s a little wordy but does a good job conveying the ‘feel’ through the extra verbosity. It’s got a good vanilla setting that appears to be standard fantasy but it doesn’t just pull stuff out of books. That extra fluff makes it. It would make a great introductory adventure’ for a group. In fact, it may be the best introductory product I’ve seen. It can also scale well and would make great hex crawl location.

The map for this a classic trope: a giant statue head with crown leaning in the ground, mouth agape and waiting for someone to enter. ZARDOZ? Skull Mountain? Argonath? Its a pretty sweet trope and the map illustration does a wonderful job instantly conveying the setting. Rumor table? Why Yes, please. How about “What the Scabrous Yokels in that village of broken down huts are saying.” That is a seriously great rumor table title. You don’t need a village description after that title. I can run a pretty decent village out of just that description. These sorts of flavor inspirations are exactly the kind of thing I’m looking for in a published adventure. I need some core seed of an idea that I can take and run with … and that title does it for me. There might be, like, two of three more sentences in the background that can also contribute to a nearby village but the core … the core is in that one sentence. Yeah yeah ,the actual rumor table is decent also. The background information/history lesson is terse and contained in one paragraph. It’s descriptive enough to get a DM going but leaves lots to the imagination, which is exactly what a description should do. The map/head has three entrances: through the mouth at ground level, climb a tree and go in through an eye socket, or toss up a rope to the crown. That’s great, especially when combined with “you see a whole lots of shadowy figures moving just beyond, in the darkness past the mouth.” Eeek! Let’s find another way in! The rest of the map is pretty simple, just a couple of rooms per level with a staircase and a trapdoor. There are now wanderers, per se, but there is a percentage chance that certain creatures will be in certain chambers, one of which is nigh infinite in quantity.

I mentioned a “slow burn” earlier. The dungeon is a prison purpose-built to house a deposed tyrant. A dead-ish one. A pathetic one; think Smeagol as his most pathetic, but worse. And guarded by the shades of his dead victims. Ouch! The encounters tend to convey this. His victims, his pathetic nature, his former stature, etc. The encounters tend to have a room with some kind of background/history lesson in them and also a random chance of some creatures being present, either The Hated Pretender or his shade guilt-torturers. Frescoes showing his atrocities that he’s defaced … but he still avoids this room because of the way they make him feel. A real magical ward in the entrance chamber with shadowy figures just beyond who cant pass. A pumpkin surrounded by fake magical wards, an object of desire by THP. The bones of small creatures that THP kills when he can catch them. You get a very real sense that that both the dude was bad and that he’s currently a pathetic wretch. This work because YOU CAN TALK TO HIM! Yeah, he’s batshit and he gets REAL upset in certain rooms, like the Pumpkin one, but you can also give him a piece of pie to win his “friendship.” Woah! WTF?!?! An adventure that has a complex bad guy, makes no judgement about how the party will interact with him, and maybe even leaves an avenue open to the party to interact with him in the future?! !!KrAzY!! Crazy cool, that is. There’s a trap or two and a few interesting things to play with, enough to add some variety.

There are only two monsters: THP and the Shades. The shades can some in a variety of cosmetic appearances but all have the same stats and abilities with slightly different flavor text. Enough to keep things interesting. I love the fact that these undead are so totally non-standard and yet make perfect sense for the way in which they are encountered. These are not just throw-away undead monsters, they have a meaning. The same with THP, although most of his flavor comes from his personality rather than his abilities. The party is going to be freaking when they find these guys! The non-magical treasure is pretty good: gold-inlayed mace, valuable screws, etc, and it fits in well for a “looted prison/tomb” type adventure. The magical treasure consists of gleaming silvered +1 scale mail and some rubies that heal when sprinkled with blood. I’d say those are great items!

As an introductory adventure this is great. The setting is a classic one. The monsters are wonderfully different. And there are hooks and mysteries. WONDERFUL hooks and mysteries. There’s an oracular device inside that give a vision of the future, perfect for setting up a campaign. And a treasure map to keep things going for a second or third session. There is some graffiti inside that says “I NOT KNEEL NOR BOW!” Woah!! Are we SURE that Mr. Pretender is the bad guy here? The adventure does a great job of setting things up for a DM to expand on; providing those throw-off phrases that imply mystery and adventure. One upon a time The Scarlet Brotherhood were just such a thing. A phase mentioned in passing in another book. The mind leaps to figure them out and expand on them. Then 8000 supplements were written about them and all the mystery and excitement was lost. 🙁

Good Adventure. Complex environment. This could be a great stop the first night on the way to the first village and the first bar. Or, maybe this is the ACTUAL prison of Turin Turkoobasis, or whatever his name is from Dwimmermount. He’s THIS pathetic little thing, and not sitting in the prison at the bottom level. The mind races to find excuses to use this adventure. That’s a good supplement.

by Gus L
Freely distributed by Dungeon of Signs
Labyrinth Lord/ASE1
3rd-4th level characters

This is a nice little lair dungeon with a fair share of ancient death awaiting visitors. The stetting is a weird science-fantasy and the adventure an exploration of an ancient giant battle tank. It would make a decent hex crawl encounter for gonzo or post-apoc settings.

There is just enough background information provided to let a decent DM construct a decent little village encounter. ‘Fish Village’, in the clutches of the Fen Witch, chiefs elder brother disappeared in the Red Demon when they were younger, villagers like outsiders. Just the barest outline presented in just a paragraph or two but more than enough to run with and build a nice little encounter. In fact, if you’re not building a full fledged village to interact with then I’d suggest that the amount and depth of detail provided in this description is a perfect length. Either I want a developed village or a decent and shot flavor idea for a village, and this adventure does that.

The map has a vertical/tower feel to it. A central shaft system with a couple of chambers off of each level and some hatch doors sometimes between rooms. It’s a decent bit of variety to the usual tower exploration. The extra bit of flavor goes a decent ways in helping make this feel different and fresh. There’s also a decent variety in the environment, from control rooms to wrecked machinery to flooded levels. The whole map/environment thing does a decent job of conveying an ancient wrecked war machine, which is exactly what it is. I’m pretty sure its communicated in such a way as to help the DM run it. There are no wanderers, except perhaps the main creature who has a random chance of appearing in certain rooms.

The keyed areas are … oh, let’s say wordy. They are arranged as each keyed room having several paragraphs describing what’s going on in it. There’s quite a bit of descriptive text mixed with various entrances and exits described. This is supplemented by a game mechanic here and there (STR-10 to open a door, etc) The text is nice and descriptive and paints a decent picture, if a little long in places. You’re going to need a highlighter or do something else in order to condense the room down for quick reference during play. The various chambers have a decent mix of traps, creatures, and weird things to play with in them. I especially like the random table for opening fuel jars; very cute and probably deadly. The various environments do a decent job of mixing up the locations and action and the couple of monster and trap encounters don’t feel arbitrary at all. They feel like they fit in, and given that this is an ancient battle tank that’s a decent accomplishment. No generic old “the skeleton animates and attacks” to be found here! The old ammunition is set up like a trap and it should be obvious to any players who is paying attention. Players being what they are though they are sure to mess with it and suffer from the effects of the moldy and decaying stuff. And when it bites them in their asses they’ll know exactly what they did, groan, and should admit their own stupidity instead of blaming the DM for being arbitrary.

The new monsters are pretty good and varied and nicely horrific, with new powers and abilities to freak the players out. The treasure also fits in well: who wants to play meth-addict and strip the gold and silver wires out of the circuitry, or melt down the boards for some loot, or plunder the silver bearings?! I Do! I Do! I’ll also take that shotgun, laser rifle, and nifty little boarding shield. No generic +1 swords here! Admittedly the guns could get a little more description but they don’t suffer as much from ‘boring magic item syndrome.’

Totally worth it to pick up and put in your bag of DM tricks.

by Gus L
Freely Distributed by Dungeon of Signs
Labyrinth Lord/ASE
Levels 3-5

This is a small and well-done lair dungeon for an ASE-like environment. It’s short, just 11 rooms or so, and quite simple at its core. It does Lair Dungeon well though, with an evocative environment, nice combats, good treasure … pretty much a perfect example of the content that should go in to a good lair encounter. Some editing might help the actual text be a bit clearer.

A lot of adventure modules revolve around lair dungeons and most lair dungeons suck. They generally amount to just four or five cave rooms and a generic monster in it. This adventure ain’t that. This one has a great little environment with a monster that fits in with it perfectly. The adventure revolves around an old clock tower sticking out of the desert wastes with a ruined building half-buried under it. Cool! The “giant frozen clock face” is a nice trope. When you combine it with the “ruined steampunk train station” that it’s a part of then you have something that will be immediately recognizable to your players. There’s power in that; in a just a couple of short words you’ve been able to describe the environment around them and bring the place to life. That’s REALLY nice. The brief sketch helps cement things quite a bit also; a really nice combination of “one sentence description” and “evocative artwork.” There’s some background that goes with the setting that helps also: traders use the site as landmark when making their way through the wastes, but avoid it for the ill omens/rumors. Nice! This is supplemented by a pretty nice rumor table for The Timeless Pillar. The rumor table is pretty sweet, but you should read through it AFTER checking out the adventure; it makes more sense then.

The map comes in two small parts: an area map around the clock tower and a brief 11 entry interior map. The exterior portion really just details the ground floor and a statue field around the clock tower. The statues are iron … this should give the players pause and is a nice bit of hint. The maps are otherwise pretty simple, just a couple of rooms connected together by a hall. The three-level nature of the place is interesting through. Ground floor, clock tower top, and below-ground interior all seem to work together pretty well to give the impression of a single environment rather than three separate levels. It happens pretty seamlessly (though the below ground is a little more “disconnected” and the lair feels like a single place. The wanderers are pretty good .. and not all focused on eating the party. Some of them are a bit of ‘dragon flyover’ type encounters with the main enemy while others are a decent bit of encounter by themselves. In particular I like the grave of unquiet dead erupting from the ground as skeletons … which can totally be avoided by the party. In fact, I REALLY like the wanderers; they fit in very well with the environment and the main enemy. A good example of how to work a wanderer table to enhance the main adventure.

The encounters are pretty good also. Each rooms gets a small description section that highlights the lighting, odors, and sounds, and then a small section with some more detailed descriptions of what’s in the room. Each one also has a description of how the monsters use it for combat, how they fall back, where the come from, and so on. It’s a pretty decent environment. The traps are a combination of things the lair monster has set up and some environmental hazards occurring naturally. They tend to make sense in the environment and should have the players saying “Of course!” after they spring them … and that’s the sign of a good trap. The whole environment feels like a single place rather than a collection of rooms. You’re probably going to have to read it several times to make sure you can run it that way, but that’s a small price to pay.

The monsters and treasure are very well done. The main enemy to encounter is an iron statues that can breathe gas that rusts metal under certain circumstances. It’s implied that these guys are under control of the main enemy: a clockwork Gorgon. It’s the perfect kind of enemy for an abandoned clock tower/railstation in the desert wastes. It fits perfectly … up to and including the iron instead of stone statues. This is a really nice tailoring of the monster to the setting … or setting to the monster, whichever it is. It’s not often this happens. The treasures are great also. A lifetime of raiding caravans has left a huge ruined pile of stuff that needs to be dug through and it full of unique goodies. Ebony boxes with dried aphrodisiacs, hides, enameled red armor, silks, cash, astronomical orbs .. .a HUGE amount of unique little items that feels in place with the setting and provides a wonderful assortment of goodies that the players may be loathe to part with, cash or not. I’m really impressed with it. The magic items are totally non-standard as well.

The whole thing, from the monsters to the loot to the magic to the background to the setting, to the art and colorful layout, all fit together to create a wonderful little environment. I may be reading more in to it then I should but right now it’s hard for me to think of a module environment that ‘works together’ better than this one.

by Carlos de la Cruz Morales
Freely distributed by Legendary Games Studio
Mazes & Minotaurs (D&D)
Level 3+

A sinister curse has fallen on the colony of Coristea. Ancient powers have awakened, forgotten secrets have been unearthed and dark monsters once again threaten the land of men. Will your heroes brave the dangers and mysteries of the Tomb of the Bull King?

Holy shit, how have I missed this? This is a large adventure with 245 keyed encounters described over 211 pages that takes place on a greek island. It has VERY strong roots in greek mythology. It’s for the Mazes & Minotaurs game. That game postulates what D&D would look like if Gygax developed the game around Greek myths instead of Tolkein. It’s close enough to D&D that you can it on it fly without too much trouble, but I suspect the core rules (also free) would add a lot to the experience of running this. It’s set in a floor-plan of what looks like the actual palace of King Minos of Crete aka: the original home of the original Minotaur!. It also looks like many of the rooms in the adventure are based on the actual rooms in the palace. The floor-plans, “greek-based D&D” and “actual rooms” are not gimmicks. They all work out really well. This is TOTALLY worth checking out. It ends with a bad ass EPIC mass battle. Sweet Adventure!

You need to go download this. NOW. Looks, I’m even going to give you the link. This is it: http://mazesandminotaurs.free.fr/TOMB.html Click on it. DO IT! DO IT NOW! It is TOTALLY worth it. This is the kind of thing you are looking for when cruising the Internet looking for content. This is the sort of awesome thing that is out there, hiding behind all of the other dreck. Yeah, it’s for a clone that you don’t know anything about. Macht Nichts. The clone is free and it’s close enough to D&D that you don’t need it. [And is one of the more interesting ones, I’d say, just from what I’ve learned about it from the module.] You’re looking at a full on D&D-like game, but based in greek mythology instead of the default Tolkein-land of standard D&D. What’s great about this is that it FEELS like what’s it trying to do, or at least the adventure does. I’m no scholar of greek myth and history. All I know is from pouring over mythology books as a kid and watching Harryhausen films. This FEELS like that. A little bit of the classic greek myth, a little bit of the silly monsters, and a test that communicates both.

The three page into/background feels like a greek myth. Kings with hubris. Brothers loving sisters. Betrayal. All of that great greek undercurrent, all of those classic tropes, presented in a brief little bit of history on the situation. I usually rail about longish intro stuff. Not this time. It moves fast and it does a great job of communicating some classic greek tropes without ever feeling heavy-handed or forced. The hooks try to follow this up but, perhaps, fall a little short. I’m torn here. One the one had they are classics but they seem … just a bit flat? Terse? I don’t know. Oracles, heralds, Hermes relaying a message from Zeus … they all have a bit of greek flavor to them, even though they are just two sentences long. This ‘greek tropes’ show up again on the island when the players reach the main city/town. There are three little flavor encounters presented, each just a couple of sentences long, that serve to set the mood for the palace encounter/meeting/job interview. A street fight between townies and immigrants, a grieving man wailing and shouting omens. Bloody symbols above doorways no one will talk about. This does an EXCELLENT job of creating a certain mood and acting as a build-up to the main event in the city, the job interview with a wounded king. You see, he was wounded by the demon minotaur and his sage says he needs the horns of the beast to be healed (Classic!) and the party is tasked to go get them. I don’t like job assignments in my D&D but this is GREEK D&D. If we ignore poor old Gil then this is the origin of much of our western hero. You get a pass on being stale when you create the trope. Besides, it’s well done. The king asks your names, your family history, to hear tales of your deeds. All of the usual stuff kings do in old stories. Sweet! If you gotta be a hero then you should be treated like one in a non-throw-away fashion, and this does that.

The main adventure is in an old ruined palace in the middle of the island. It’s a pretty sweet map! Probably because it’s THE REAL RIGGING MAP OF THE PALACE OF KING MINOR OF KNOSSOS! You know, of Mr Minotaur and Mr Maze claim to fame? It’s complex. REALLY complex. This one if going to take some time to explore. Several different ways in. Several areas open to the air as courtyards. Lots of hallways, lots of “sub-areas.” I suspect that the party can get to almost any section of the map quickly if they were to choose to. It’s a pretty decent open-concept setting style map. You might think of them as a large number of lair maps laid out and placed next to each other. Google the real floorplan, it’s the actual map used. Some areas have wanderers, some don’t. The wanderers are usually guards of the area you are in, the ‘Lair monsters’ out patrolling.

There’s a pretty strong diversity of encounters between traps, unusual stuff/tricks, and monsters. There are a METRIC FUCK TON of factions running around this place, each in their own little sub-section lair. The idea is that the group will travel around meeting them, interacting with them, killing them, allying with them, hunting them, getting hunted, and maybe going on a quest or two for them. There are prisoners to free, jewels to recover, tombs to find … a WHOLE lot is going on. It reminds me a bit of the Lost City of Gaxmoor … I haven’t read that but The Pretty Girl ran it for a few months and it seems very similar. There’s a pretty good feel that the place has a life of its own and the group is just coming in and getting in the middle of it. It’s a great location sandbox to have adventures in. The very end of the adventure, where the Bull King is met, is the only slightly railroady part. When fighting him the battle has two parts: a solo battle and a mass combat. Not every railroad is bad and this is a good example of a good one. After an EPIC long adventure in the ruins the adventure needs a climactic end and this happens. The Bull King summons his horde from the pits and then the parties allies that they’ve made show up to do battle. The bad guys can have ogres, boarmen, wolfmen, goatheaded demons, skeletons, ophion, harpies and The Beastlord (and his minions). Giant snakes, trog, wildmen, a dragon, griffens, cyclopes, and a bronze colossos can show up to help the party! All the while the shades of the undead erupt from the pit from the underworld and are joined in battle by brave ghostly warriors … While the Judge of he Underworld and The Queen watch the battle from a balcony overhead!That, kiddos, is a fucking payoff! You’ve been in this place for MONTHS of player time. You’ve killed tons of bad guys (which deplete their forces for the final battle) and maybe made some allies (or killed them) or done some deeds (like help a mage get some jewels so he can finish his statue work.) Then, at the end, it all pays off. You had very little idea but BAM! As a player that’s exactly the kind of payoff you want after a hard long game. This is the kind of shit that all of those railroady things try to do and fail at. That’s because there’s no investment in those things. In this the players have worked their asses off and gained some familiarity with the place. When the good ghosts show up that MEANS something to the players because they helped enable it and were not expecting it. Their actions had consequences. Your players are going to remember this for a LONG time to come. And did I mention that the wildmen can ride giant spiders?!?! This ain’t some boring old AD&D thing. This is just as bad ass as ASE1, but in a classical way.

I totally want to ditch my entire campaign now and run this. I’m not sure there is higher praise.

Oh, and you TOTALLY have to put AC/DC ‘Thunderstruck’ on repeat during that final battle!