tenfootpole.org

In a time long ago a local noble family rose to power through the use of an evil artifact: The Witch’s Head. Eventually a good member of the line came to power and buried the head in a dungeon, protecting it with traps. Recently that same family is now being threatened: send money and your teenage daughter or the bad guy will turn loose the power of the head once more! The party is summoned and sent to root out the evildoers. Oh yeah … a local contingent of the lords troops, as well as two other adventuring parties ,have not returned from the same quest …

This module starts out strong in two ways. First, we have an immediate gruesome artifact in play, the Witch Head. It’s an actual head with evil powers. That’s a pretty cool item. Second, we get a good dose of foreshadowing: the last three attempts have failed. There’s no overland adventure however there is another good piece of foreshadowing right outside the dungeon: 23 bodies crucified on oak X’s surrounding Witcheed Hill. Not only does this further build tension, but we also get a little dose of name evolution in the hills name. I like both of these elements, it gives a sense of continuity to the adventure; things have happened in the past and the party is seeing the results right now. The build-up to the villains could be a little stronger, but it’s much better than poor old Lareth in T1. For a villain to be truly effective you need some build up to him, and the intro to this scenario does this more than a little.

The dungeon proper is interesting. While it was once a real dungeon to house and protect the head, it’s been broken in to by our villain and partially cleared and is now where he’s operating out of. Thus we get some aspects of the dungeon in their native form, some with the new villain, and some that are a mix as the new guys beef up or leave traces of their coming & goings. Again, this presents the dungeon in a living and breathing manner, rather than as a static location where things never change. There are only about 20 keyed encounters on the map. It has a couple of loops on it, however it’s too small to be a truly interesting map. There are lots of weird shaped rooms and a lake though, and I still found it’s layout interesting.

There are several very nice tricks and traps. Braziers that can be lit for effects, a desecrated temple where good & evil vie with each other, crumbling floors, and so on. I really enjoyed how these were presented. The old ‘desecrated temple’ bit is presented nicely: the room impacts both good & evil characters in strange ways, and a boon is gained if the temple is cleansed of the desecration. There are a couple of other interesting traps also: the crumbling floor for example, and a Wand of Illumination/Magic Mouth/prism room trap that I found interesting. The creatures are a good selection, a few new undead, a few old undead, constructs, and an NPC party of bad guys. There are a few vermin & such around the lake also. I found the monster population made sense, especially in the context of the new guys moving in and setting up shop.

Several new magic items are presented, in addition to the Witch Head relic. The Staff of Screams has a great name and effect, and the Dust of Distortion is a nice new item also. They both lend to the feeling of weird fantasy that I like in my games. Staff of Soundburst? Screw That, I want a Staff of Screams! We also get about three pages of new monsters. I like new monsters in my adventures; the party never knows what to expect when they encounter one and it scares the daylights out of them!

The module is short. Only about five pages describe the dungeon, with the second half be given over to the new monsters, magic items, and NPC party (which should hound the party throughout their crawl.) It packs a lot in to those pages though, and would be a great little adventure to run for an evening or two. I approve.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/55328/Advanced-Adventures-3-The-Curse-of-the-Witch-Head?affiliate_id=1892600

Different strokes for different folks.

In ages long past a backstory was prepared. Through careful cunning the author outlined much trivia that is no longer relevant and not needed for play. Cleverly, major portions of the backstory were interspersed throughout the module, providing a duplicate of much of trivia presented. Verily, the backstory was mighty detailed and contained two separate plot lines, held together through tenuous strands. And thus the lovers of terseness were driven mad. In their despair they turned to the mighty warlock Synopsis, who spoke thus: “The party is sent somewhere to find out what happened to the last party.”

The party is transported to a barren desert like wilderness to look for The Last Guys. A small hex map is provided along with a small wandering table. Most of this is not needed, since the planned events lie on a nearby road the party is told to look out for AND there’s an immediate encounter with nomads who will direct the party to the appropriate places. There is a brief description of overland travel rates, which I always appreciate in wilderness adventures since I’m always forgetting how many miles a party can move. I’m serious, movement rate to hex scale conversion always seem to throw me for a loop. A couple of the wandering encounters are environmental, and one if with a potentially friendly band of clerics, but most are of the “they fight to the death” variety, with very simple motivations. Actually, Motivation, singular. They fight to the death trying to eat the party. I prefer a tad more variety.

The planned encounters consist of a briefly detailed, but not mapped, ruined city full of undead (with a crap load of ghosts, of the Monster Manual variety.) There’s also a ruined palace, a ruined tomb, and a ruined temple before reaching the prison complex.  These could all be bypassed by a smart party, but it’s likely they will be investigated as the players try to look for The Last Guys. The ruined capitol is nothing more than a chance to roll a 4-in-10 wandering monster check every 30 minutes, with ‘Undead’ being the result. The ruined capitol has still more undead, of every variety, including another Ghost. It also has the first moment of “Ug! Not again.” for me, a permanent illusion that can’t be detected along with a non-detection spell. It also triggered in me a final realization of why I have a problem with many of these modules.

Too much backstory! I don’t care why the permanent illusion was created. In fact, by offering me an explanation you are forcing me to therefore question, and in many cases ridicule, the explanation. This sort of ‘why the room is the way it is’ drives me nuts. I don’t care! It doesn’t need an explanation! By reading it I must then analyze the reason given, which certainly then makes me mock it. Magic is magic and weird shit happens. Nuff said. There! I could have made the module 15 pages shorter.

The ruined palace has about six keys and is full of undead. Another Ghost appears.

The ruined tomb starts out wrong, in my eyes. There’s a poison on the door which has a save or die effect. Fair enough. But it also says something to effect that even if you are wearing gloves you must save or die. Ug! Counterproductive! I wore the damn gloves so I WOULDN’T be impacted by contact poison! That sort of jerking control out of the hands of the party is a big no-no in my book. The ruined tomb with the impassible door has trolls, sandmen, a bodak, a mimic, and a trapper all waiting around for someone to come by. The additional backstory provided indicates that the tomb was built 3000 years ago, so those creatures have been here a LONG time. Wonder what they were eating? Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m being a killjoy pointing this out. I’m not too much of a stickler for this sort of thing, but this jumped out at me. DId I mention the ice elemental and magma elemental princes sitting alone in their throne rooms, just waiting around for the party to come by? Oops, I think I left my naturalism out … This portion, like the palace, is just a hackfest. There’s also another Ghost. Better read up on Magic Jar. The map is purely linear, with 15 keys.

The temple isn’t too bad. It starts out ok, and has a decent little mini-plot going on. It’s short, just just six or so rooms. Yes, the inhabitants want to kill the party. This little section ALMOST gets things right, with a nice little sub-plot of a captured demon and it’s lamia lover. It squandered by the hackfest though.

The prison proper is the final location and touches on just about everything I don’t care for. The walls are warded against teleportation/passwall, etc. I don’t like this sort of thing because of the lack of options it presents the PC’s with. It smacks of the designer wanting the party to solve the dungeon their way, rather than letting the party come up with their own solution to problems. This is further exacerbated by the ANOTHER magical ward, which prevents all extra-planer contact. There’s will be no Communes, Auguries, Contact Other Plane, or other magical knowledge gathering in this place; you solve the puzzles the way the designer wanted or die guessing. And you’ll do much guessing and therefore much digging of graves for fellow party members. There are five linear paths through the dungeon and each must be explored to get the parts of the key which solves the riddle of the complex. You don’t need to do this; The Last Guys are in the beginning of one of the linear sections. Find’em, heal them, and sending them on their way solves the module. Of course, the parties going to want to ‘explore’, and I use that term lightly. Each of the paths is set up for one of the four core classes, with the fifth being full of puzzles. I don’t like this sort of thing. First, the linear levels preclude actual exploration. It’s just a railroad. Second, the rooms are set up to force the PC’s to do certain things. One of the thief rooms forces them climb a wall. Fly, etc don’t work here. ARG! No creative play for you! Suck it and do what the designer wanted you to do! There’s lots of save of die situations, lots of traps, lots of hacking up monsters, which are released from stasis as soon as the party opens the door. Lame. The entire prison is just a series of puzzle rooms, with varying definitions of the word puzzle. A mini-arena with an announcer that the fighter must enter, etc. There’s a PC Mirror of Opposition at the end of most of these, and members of the ‘wrong’ classes must save or be petrified. I loathed the puzzles because there was a correct answer and no way to shortcut them, thanks to the teleport/commune ban. It’s just trial and error for the most part, if you’re not thinking the way the designer wanted you to, with each ‘Error’ resulting in lots of damage/death. For example, a riddle. Guess the correct answer or take damage. There’s too many doors slamming shit behind people and doors appearing when you kill the last creature. It all feels like a fake set up.

I did not enjoy this.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/55549/Advanced-Adventures-4-Prison-of-Meneptah?affiliate_id=1892600

The Lord Admiral of a local seaport town has disappeared, and now the flaming footprints of a long-dead pirate known as Firebeard have started reappearing in the streets of the town. The party is sent to an abandoned pirate-lair on a distant island to investigate the return of Firebeard and the missing Lord Admiral.

Thus begins the terse introduction of AA5. This background introduction is two short paragraphs long and is all there is is prior to a description of the island lair. Now, I’m a man that prefers a terse description, so I didn’t have any problem at all with this. It was very refreshing to not have to read a three page primer of evil lord Douche-bag, featuring what he had for dinner and his personal ‘evacuation’ schedule.  Short, sweet and to the point. I can fill in the details with something from my own mind on the fly.

The module is presented as a kind of Isle of Dread style island adventure with four short mini-dungeons. The overland portion on the island is not too long, the island is only about 10 miles in diameter. There are day and night wandering monster charts presented. They are heavy on the vermin, which I prefer, and have a couple of ‘special events’ located on them as well. These special events are very cool little set pieces, and quite evocative and interesting. One involves the site of an age-old massacre (Dead Marshes anyone?) and another an interesting little environmental hazard with a couple of undead crocs thrown in for good measure. Almost all of the monsters are given a little note on their motivation or what they are doing out, and not all of them have to end with the PC’s hacking the encounter to pieces. I liked the wandering table quite a bit, although I was a little sad to see native goblins thrown in. I like my humanoids Human and my undead with a purpose, your milage may vary.

There are three little mini-dungeons on the island, all linked together. The first is the old pirate caverns. The map for this has a few interesting features, like the dock and the tide lines, but it is essentially a very small branching map with a couple of alternate paths; not quite a looping map. There are about eleven keyed encounters, and the caverns are full of vermin and a couple of undead, the result of the town wiping out the pirates long ago. There are a few tricks and traps in this section, most of which center on the pirates trapping some kind of chest to catch/kill looters. They fit in with the theme of this section and are nice little details. On an academic level it’s hard for to criticize, however I’ve just about had it with pirate lairs, so it left me a little flat. It is probably a very good example though of what would happen if the citizenry of Saltmarsh wiped out their smuggler problem in a more organized fashion.

The second little dungeon is a portion of a gnome compound and is linked to the pirate caverns via a tunnel. It has eleven keyed encounters in a short little branching map. I found this section a little more interesting than the last. It has vermin in it and a couple of undead, just like the last section did. It does have more of a weird fantasy element to it. There’s an erie poltergeist, a crawling hand in a jar that could end up being a familiar (Cool!), and a casket to be looted while the final scene from Indiana Jones plays out. These are all very cool little details and encounters which add a lot of atmosphere. There’s also the remains, sometimes literally, of a previous adventuring party that came in through the pirate lair to explore. They’ve come upon hard times though, with a few dead and few captured by beasties To Serve Man. This is a nice little element that many products could do more with: what actually has happened to all of those other groups that went down down to goblin town? Seeing their remains scattered about tells a little story and gives the dungeons that lived-in feel that players and DM’s love.

Linked to the gnome gncompond is the lair of the Wax Wizard. There are eight keyed encounters here on a small little branching map. It’s essentially the home and lab of the Wax Wizard. Unfortunately he’s run in to some trouble lately, as wizards in lair modules are wont to do. He specializes in wax creations and one of his creations has run amok and developed an answer to the ‘Am I butterfly or a man?’ question. It’s run the wizard out and taken over. This section has two or three wax golem/construct type encounters as well as a couple of vermin encounters. There’s a trap or two, one of which can be looted for it’s ammunition, which is a nice touch of realism. Notes found in this section lead the party to a lizard man encampment where the wizard can be found. It seems they have a taste for human flesh as well, and are fattening up the wizard for a feast. Defeating the lizard men and freeing the wizard could earn the party a new wax construct buddy, if they return the wizards spell book to him … which would NOT be a given if I was playing, it has 5th level spells in it! It also turns out that the wizard has the pirates old flaming boots, which is where the the footprints in town are coming from.

There are several new monsters presented, two of the wax construct variety and two of a humanoid abomination variety. There are also several new magic items. Sling stones that turn in to boulders, rings of exploration, lesser swords of sharpness, and a ships figurehead are all interesting new treasures. I prefer my items a little more weird (like that hand familiar!) and a little more unique in description, however I do appreciate the attempt made to introduce new items. The module has quite a few book items as well; ring of regeneration, wands, and so on. Overall, it feels like a series of episodic dungeons with some tenuous ties. It’s seems to _almost_ be touching on some weird fantasy elements in places but never quite makes it over the edge in to the strange & unknown that I prefer.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/57095/Advanced-Adventures-5-The-Flaming-Footprints-of-Jilanth?affiliate_id=1892600

Every 37 years a mysterious chasm appears in a certain region. Never in the same place twice, always in the same general area, and always close to some settlement and ALWAYS a source of adventure … until it disappears exactly 108 hours after appearing, taking everyone still inside with it. The time of it’s appearance is close at hand, so strap on your bastard sword and warm up that wand, it’s time to go adventuring!

This is a cute little hook which allows for a lot of interesting little things to occur. Why is the village suddenly overrun with monsters? The chasm just showed up and it’s caves inhabitants are looking for dinner. Rumor table? Of course! And of course, things may have changed in the last 37 years since the caverns appeared. The clockwork like appearance also allows for rival adventuring groups to be encountered, and there are tables provided, as well as NPC stats, to help the GM determine how many other groups are also raiding the chasm. Those are all nice little touches that actually make sense given the chasm’s backstory.

There are eight small lair dungeons detailed over the three distinct tiers of the chasm. Oh yeah, the bottom tier is filled to a depth of two feet with all sorts of bones. Nice! The various caves are full of beasts, humanoids, and tricks/traps. For example, the first cave is full of ‘super orcs’, along with a corpse full of rot grubs, a couple of prisoners, and a statue/idol with ruby eyes that will … disagree … with looters. Another cave complex just has a couple of beasts, a few undead, and a weird status in a pool that does … weird things. There are also potential allies to be found within the caverns, which means FACTIONS! And factions are a very good thing indeed, it provides opportunity for role-playing and diplomacy. Combined with the NPC parties and the time limit, things could get very interesting indeed. Each complex only has a handful of room, five to eight or so. Some of the caverns interconnect, and two are linked to the history of the chasm proper. A 14th level MU is going to be a challenge for the party, as is the nascent godling nearby.

The backstory is very brief, and the entire product radiates a kind of terseness that reminds me quote a bit of the older TSR modules. In most cases rooms just get a sentence or two of description, with the monster stats worked in to the paragraph, and usually those are just the HP and maybe the HD if that could be variable. Woe be unto the DM who doesn’t have a MM nearby. I appreciate the terseness in the room descriptions, although I do like a little more in the monster stats area. There are three of so new monsters described, a few new magic items if the weird magic variety, and a nice little write-up of the various other NPC groups the parties could encounter.

The product feels a bit … short. Perhaps I’m unconsciously comparing it to the the caves in B2/Borderlands, however the cave systems seem small and there don’t seem to be very many of them. The tricks are pretty good, and there are a fair number of them. There’s not really any real wandering table for the chasm or caverns. The interlinking cave systems are the more interesting ones, from an exploration standpoint, I just wish there were more.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/56872/Advanced-Adventures-6-The-Chasm-of-the-Damned?affiliate_id=1892600

Oh No! The Sultans fifth wife has been captured by desert nomads! The party is sent to recapture her! Except … the Sultan is actually a horribly disfigured man, replete with dripping pustules, and wants his wife back so he can use her special blood (she’s descended from the Pharaoh’s of old) to perform a vile ritual and raise an undead army. Of course, the party doesn’t now the second part … Thus starts a pretty damn good little adventure by Andrew Hind. It contains a short overland section and two small dungeons.

The party tracks the nomad band through the desert and in to three encounter locations. A small wilderness map is provided, however it’s mostly a chase/tracking exercise. The three encounters, as well as the wandering monster table provided for this portion, are all very well done and interesting. There are ghouls disguised as lepers, jackals which only hang around the edge of camp, a sandstorm (de rigueur for deserts), and a nice little starting encounter with driving off a group of normal vultures in order to get access to the abduction site. There is a nice blend of the normal and the fantastic and a nice set of twists thrown in. For example, a pack of zombies who were raised by the scorpions that cover them. Flicking off the scorpions makes battling the zombies easier. That encounter also illustrates another nice feature: a good set up for each encounter. The party actually comes upon a group of nomads who’s remains are partially buried in the sand. The flavor text and setup are pretty nice and should provide a lot for the DM to work with.

The first dungeon is set in an old dwarven mine complex. The dwarves were very greedy, probably evil, and were eventually overrun and killed by derro they met. Those were, in turn, destroyed by the an evil hybrid dog/giant rat animal that they has created to server them. C’est la vie …  The complex map has a nice little backstory and the flavor text works well with it. The map is essentially a star shape, so there’s lots of choice on which ‘corridor leading to a room’ to take, with only a couple of ‘rooms behind a room.’ Not linear, which is good, however it could be better with some loops. There are no wandering monsters, as usually defined, however the parties actions do have a chance in several places of attracting groups of those dog/rat things. The complex has the sense that it has history. Skeletons crawling off to die, manacles with skeletons in them, doors half open and such. It’s a mystery Charlie Brown! Those sorts of details about a complex can give the party more to chew on and always gives them a feeling of accomplishment when they figure out what is going on, no matter how obvious. I approve heartily of this type of description. It gives the place a lived-in feel.There are a couple of tricks/traps, but really the ‘history’ aspect is what gives the place it’s flavor. There are also a couple of rooms which lead to areas the DM can expand upon. This was a feature of the old products that I really got in to when I was younger and I like seeing those additional hooks in published material. It _might_ be possible for the party to get & rescue the wife without fighting anyone, and maybe having only one encounter, in the foyer/entryway room. This is the sort of thing that a smart party should eat up. Complete the mission while avoiding combat and grabbing some easy loot! Or, be a completist and get your ass handed to you …

Upon coming out the party is set upon by an overwhelming force of the Sultan and left in the desert to die. Now Mr Sultan, I realize you are evil, but why do this? Why not just pay the party for their work and go about your business of raising an undead army? Another item for the Evil Overlord list, I guess. This part is a railroad. Surrender or Die. Break out of your bounds in the desert and pursue the wife and/or get revenge. Not a cool interlude to what is otherwise a good start.

The second mini-dungeon is a tomb complex with three parts: the eastern tomb, the west chambers, and the Sacrifice chamber. Again, the party can make it to the wife by only encountering one group of creature prior to the ‘climax battle’ with the EHP (who’s a MU) where the wife is to be sacrificed. As I stated earlier, I like this. It doesn’t force a smart party through attrition encounters, it let’s THEM choose to attrit themselves. This complex has a couple of nice creatures with some history behind them. For example, the party comes upon a group of guards who are in the process of doing a little looting. There’s also a nice ghoul priest with disgusting features. The eastern tomb complex is a nice little egyptian tomb raid. The entire place has a nice egyptian feel without ramming it down your throat, with several weird fantasy elements thrown in, like a fountain of blood. There are several places in which foolish characters are going to die if they play with the ‘buttons’, which is exactly how it should be. It’s not arbitrary kiddo, YOU are the one who chose to defile the statue …

This is a nice little adventure. The short linear wilderness adventure as well as the two dungeons have a good mix of the normal and the fantastic. There’s a nice little backstory, and also nicely short, for the Sultan and the two mini-dungeons. Their lengths are just about right. The dungeon encounters and their rooms have a nice lived-in feel, as if there were things going on before the party arrived on the scene. This sort of in media res really adds a lot to an adventure, I find. The worst thing I can say about it is the railroad in the middle when the party the Surrender or Die choice. That’s a minor issue in a module full of nice new beasts, new freaky magic items, and two flavorful dungeons.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/58814/Advanced-Adventures-7-The-Sarcophagus-Legion?affiliate_id=1892600

Evil cults: You can’t live with them and you can’t live without them … because every time you stamp one out they go and leave some evil kind of evil temple complex behind. The evil order in question this time is the ancient toad cult of Nav-k-Qar. His now long-dead followers built a false temple on top of their real one and filled it with death traps to punish looters, as evil toad god cults are wont to do. The location of their long hidden main temple falls in to the hands of the party, after the discovering scholar is found dead covered in flies …

A small rumor table about the temple is provided for PC’s who want to find out more before playing tomb raider. The temple proper is located underground in a great and vast swamp, under a giant toad idol on a marshy island 1000 feet in diameter. A small wandering monster table is provided for the island, in case the party wishes to exit & rest between forays in to the temple. There are only about 5 entries and they focus on “monster kill” type of encounters, although there is a ‘special’ encounter provided with an NPC who could possibly provide some additional temple detail. It would have been nice to have a small overland section with a few more encounters detailed on the way to the toad temple, but such is life.

The temple complex is on two levels. The upper level is a small complex of branching hallways, each of which tends to dead-ends in to one or two rooms. There are a few interesting/spooky/weird details about the complex. First, the entire place is covered in toad bones, so much so that it will inhibit combat and give the party penalties to rapid movement. That’s a very nice descriptive touch! There are also a couple of features which give certain areas a weird fantasy feel. There’s a dungeon-wide theme of small illusions, dancing lights, spooky sounds, and so on meant to confuse the party and draw off resources. The DM is encouraged to sprinkle these liberally about the dungeon. That’s a nice idea however the examples cited are a little generic and non-specific to a toad temple complex. There are also a couple of other features, such as pool that generates a low-clining mist that causes hallucinations. I love that sort of thing and it brings to mind vivid imagery of doors opening and fog billowing out, and such. Unfortunately these are used only sparingly; I would have preferred to see much more of this. The traps are somewhere between generic & good, for example, a statue that vomits acid when someone opens a door. The monsters are hap-hazard at best. There are a couple of ‘cheap-shots’: living creatures held in stasis and freed when the party does something. Nothing special, just bugbears & ogres. A little more work could have gone in to replacing them with something else. There are a few undead encounters also, although a couple of them just feel tossed in without reason other than “Need another encounter.” The parties major challenge on this level is going to be recognizing the ‘false’ shrine and finding the stairs to level two without attritting too much.

The second level is essentially just a series of linear rooms, a trip through each of the seven shrines. Each shrine has a combat encounter or a trick/trap that must be ‘defeated’ in order to pass on to the next section. ‘Defeat’ two, then move to the next two shrines, Defeat two, move to the next two, and so on. Defeat is not defined, and it’s unclear to me if the monster encounters must be slain to be defeated. Actually, the implication is that the monsters must be slain and the traps triggered and survived, which is kind of lame. This is just a slogfest to find the last of the seven shrines, with a final battle with a toad statue and, hopefully, a treasure hoard. The shrines themselves are not very interesting: a booming voice and a detail or two. Overall I didn’t find the encounters here too evocative. There were a couple of exceptions, like some curtains, which I totally need to steal the idea for and use heavily in some other adventure. All of the weird fantasy momentum that was building on the first level seems to disappear on the second. It’s like two separate modules.

I felt things could have been improved upon by providing a wilderness travel aspect, including more weird fantasy elements, a bit more description of the traps rooms (for the players) and the more creative use of monsters and their selection. The maps are really not that interesting, and while the first levels does provide for a bit of an exploration it could be better, while the second level is just linear and a bit arbitrary in it’s encounters.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/60149/Advanced-Adventures-8-The-Seven-Shrines-of-NavkQar?affiliate_id=1892600

Once upon a time a group of monks created a prison in their monastery to lock away that which should not be found. Over time they became corrupted and the monastery fell in to ruin and that which should not be forgotten, was. This module depicts the monastery, it’s prison, and a dungeon level underneath, with a small wilderness adventure in order to reach the main adventuring site.

The hok here is not the strongest. The party shelters for a night with an old hermit and the next morning the hermit is gone, with two mysterious tiles left behind, and small rough map to a location called Solitude. The tiles each have an animal shape on them that moves when the tiles are placed together in a certain way. These are actually two of the six keys needed to gain full access to the prison portion of the monastery. Like I said, not the strongest hook, however it should be easy to work the map and keys in to a hoard to provide a better hook, or perhaps send the players on a quest to gain entry to one of the prison vaults for some reason. The adventuring site and module background are strong enough to be easily worked in to an existing campaign.

The wilderness map has the party traveling through a mountain pass and three valleys in order to reach the monastery and is of the “one each equals four miles” variety. The wandering monster table for this section is full of ‘normal’ animals, such as bears and goats, with a group of ogres thrown in. There’s not much detail however I found the animal-heavy table a refreshing bit of realism. There’s an up-river rapids & waterfall stream that the party could take also to bypass the three valley sites also, however it’s going to be off limits to parties without the means to take advantage of it. The alternate paths to the site, one normal and one outside the box is a nice thing to see. The valleys have a lake full of beasties and a giant ant colony, a field with patches of carnivorous grass, and a couple of ‘dragons.’ The valleys proper are large enough that the players can explore and pursue alternate paths through them and the encounters once again provide a nice dose of realism and a welcome change from the ’12 kobolds attack you’ linear encounters that tend to be a staple of modules.

The monastery is a compound of buildings with a surrounding wall, much like a medieval citadel/fortress. The outer wall complex is about 400 feet on a side and the interior is DENSLY populated with large rooms/buildings which are integrated in to the design. It’s a very clever location for an adventure site; essentially a small walled town with streets and buildings, or those large japanese compounds we see in samurai movies. There’s A LOT of room for the party to choose where they want to go and how to get there. Every map should be that way. The rear of the compound has another building attached, the ‘jail’ portion in which the monks kept their charges. The current occupants of the out monastery consist of two factions of gnolls in the west half and animals, of the giant variety, which have occupied portions of the eastern complex. It’s a relatively straight-forward exploration of an abandoned ruin, with a THIRD faction thrown in for good measure, if the party recognizes it as such. There are not a lot of tricks/traps in this section, although there are one or two which fit in well … I know when _I_ was 12 I used to cut open bodies in D&D looking for loot. There are several features and descriptions which give this level a lived-in feel, as if life was going on before the party showed up and will continue after it has left (if they don’t slaughter everyone.) I enjoy that kind of detail quite a bit, it gives the place a touch of the real. We’ll get back to the jail portion in a minute.

Underneath the compound are the dungeons. There are four separate factions running around down here, including that mysterious one I mentioned up above, so the party should be able to mix things up quite a bit between diplomacy, exploring, and combat. In addition there are some undead, automated guardians, and vermin/slime/fungi. The various factions have some pretty good backstory attached with enough detail for the DM to get a good feel of them and how they will react to the PCs. The rooms also have some good descriptions, such as with The Chamber of Filth. The map is another good one, with lots of ways to get from point A to C without having to go though B to get there. Again, it’s low on the trick/trap quotient. The other four tiles/keys are to be found down here.

The prison complex requires the tiles/keys to open the various ‘cells.’ Between two to six tiles are required to get in to the cells, depending on how large they are. Some cells are empty, some have creatures in them, and some have items locked away in them. These range from evil water elemental princes to an Avatar of Famine, and several other creature. In fact, the module contains 15 new monsters, all of which are very interesting and have their own flavors. I really enjoy it when designers load of a module with new creatures. Nothing scares the pants off oaf a PC more than an unknown beastie showing up and doing something weird.

This is a great module. The location setting is a good one, and while the given hook is week the ease in integrating it in to your own campaign should more than make up for it. The maps are nice & complex with many many ways to get between locations, giving the party many more options than is typical in a module. It’s almost megadungeon-like in it’s maps. The various factions give the party more than one way to approach encounters and other subplots to pursue while adventuring at the site. The heavy use of ‘animals’ in the wilderness portion and half of the monastery, as well as the backstories for several factions and several of the room descriptions give the site a lived-in feel, all of which tend to reinforce a realistic feel to the adventure. I can certainly recommend it.

EDIT:

At this level of play the party may have a stronghold, or be thinking about planning/building one. There are two magic items present in the module that directly impact this area of campaign play. That’s usually not something you see in published material. It is bot interesting and noteworthy.

This is available at DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/62412/Advanced-Adventures-10-The-Lost-Keys-of-Solitude?affiliate_id=1892600

Five hundred years ago a thing from beyond space and time came to the frozen north. It quickly subjugated the primitive humans and other natives of the region. A frost giant Jarl put together a major army and had a magic weapon created and with these he broke the White Worms army of thralls and and deeply wounded the beast. Now the worm has awakened from his slumber and once again gathers an army of thralls. The party must raid the tomb of the jarl to retrieve the weapon, force their way in to the white worms domain, and defeat him in his iceberg lair, all before the worms magical cold, creeping across the lands, destroying all life. That’s a nice backstory, although it’s presented a bit of an overly long format. I particularly like the aspect of ancient ‘heroes’ being something that is usually considered a monster.

There’s about ten miles of overland adventure before reaching the tomb of the Jarl, and then about another five miles in the same direction before the party reaches the citadel of the white worm. Overland travel is restricted by the snow and cold to about three miles a day, and there are severe impacts to the party health and travel rate as the temperature further drops by five degrees a day as a result of the worms magic and the cold creeping over the land. There’s a small wandering monster table with a lot of murderous creatures on it, a potentially friendly encounter, and a couple of environmental hazards, such as crevices and snowstorms. The creatures do have motivations, but with the exception of the friendly one, they are all ‘looking to eat the party/kill them.’ I do prefer a little more depth in my wandering encounters.

The frost giants tomb is setup up as a challenge for the next group of heroes who the giant assumed would need his weapon to finish off the white worm. The tomb complex is very linear and is essentially just a straight line of corridors connecting rooms. I prefer a more open type of complex that gives the party more choices; the linear format, while useful sometimes for tournament modules, limits things too much for me in non-tournament play. The doors inside the tomb are double wizard locked and magical travel is forbidden, so no passwalls, phase doors, or teleports are allowed. I don’t like this because I feel it restricts the parties options too much. Essentially, it forces things down a ‘what was the designer thinking’ route instead of a ‘let the party be creative in their solutions’ route. The tomb is full of traps and puzzles, although neither are of the variety I prefer. Again, this is because I don’t want to guess the designers intentions, I’d rather play creatively. Several of the traps are of the ‘a false door that triggers a trap’ variety. I would prefer an environment in which cues are given to inquisitive PC’s about the nature of the hazard, and if they pick up on these subtleties and inquire more then they can avoid the trap. Predictably, the Jarl is now a mummy and battles the party prior to them winning his magic worm-killing sword. This sword crumbles to dust when the worm is killed. Nice, in that it has had it’s special purpose fulfilled, however probably not needed because the sword is of an appropriate power-level for play at this high of a level.

After the tomb there’s a small encounter with some border guards at a choke point in to the white worms stronghold. This is a massive wall with four frost giant thralls, all of whom are equipped with Eyes of the Eagle magic items. Yeah, I know the worm is a high-level duel caster, but this strikes me as a ‘magic economy’ sort of thing and that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. They have some winter wolves as guards also, as well as some boulders and javelins of lighting. The party then has another short overland encounter prior to reaching the iceberg that is the worms fortress.

The worms citadel once again prevents extra-dimensional travel such as teleports and the like, and all of the doors on two of the three levels are double wizard locked. There are 24 keyed locations on the three levels with the maps being a kind of central hub arrangement with corridors branching off them, dead-ending in rooms. More options for play and exploration then the tomb, which is good. It’s full of deadly traps/tricks, such a staircase in which every fifth step is trapped for 15-90hp of damage. The encounters are mostly with ‘cold’ creatures, demons, and a group of sis high-level magic-users. The worm proper will be a challenging encounter as it is a 20th-level cleric and 15th-level MU with 200HP and does a lot of damage each round with it’s bite. Finally, the party can turn off the cold-device, which is AC-6, has 1000hp, is 90% resistant to spells, requires a +3 weapon to hit, and does 500hp of electric damage each time someone hits it. Good luck!

I didn’t find the text of the adventure too inspiring or evocative. There are some attempts at weird fantasy thrown in, idols, pools, and the like, which remind me a lot of the last section of the Tharizdun module. There are a lot of ‘save at -4 or go insane’ type tricks and lot of traps which tend to focus more on damage then Save or Die. I don’t have a problem with Save or Die, but I do tend to think it’s overused and needs to be within the context of a room description that gives the PC’s a chance to avoid. I prefer a PC push the button that kills him, rather than simply entering a room which kills him.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/65039/Advanced-Adventures-11-The-Conqueror-Worm?affiliate_id=1892600

Counting backwards from #21, most of the AA line has thus far been tournament modules, linear tombs, or small dungeons. This product is a bit different; it’s a small sandbox and home base. White Dragon Run refers both to a small river and the small village that sits on it. It’s located on the edge of the borderlands; the last bastion of humanity & civilization. Or maybe The First to be Invaded, from a different point of view. In this respect the module is very similar to B2 – The Keep on the Borderlands, and to T1 – The Village of Hommlet.

The wilderness area is about 23 leagues by 20 leagues. From the northeast corner the map is composed of bands of terrain running NE to SW. We get mountains, hills, forests, swamps, and forests again with a couple of rivers running through the region. There are numerous caves & played out mines in the hills, leading to lots of opportunities for a DM to expand the region with their own creations. This is exactly how it should be for a sandbox/home base type area.

The village proper has about nine of the major buildings detailed, including the garrison, inn, jeweler, church and general store, as well as the home of some of the prominent members of the community. These tend to be third level or so NPC’s who seem to have the best interests of the community at heart. There are about a dozen or so other homes on the map along with some tables for generating their occupants. The surrounding fields & such are not detailed at all. We also get a decent sized rumor table, as is proper for a home base environment. The village is a bit … bland. The occupants all seem to be fine upstanding members of the community with everyone else’s well-being at heart. The NPC’s, major & minor, just don’t seem to have much personality to them. A couple of folks from Pembrooktonshire would go a long way to spice up the village.

The region surrounding the village has a variety of wandering monster tables provided. A perusal of the tables indicate two things. First, the region is CRAWLING with zombies. It’s like some zombiepocalypse movie; they are everywhere and in huge numbers. The second item is that this place is a death trap! A feller could get killed outside of town, and pretty easy at that! These are proper wilderness tables, so we get 2-20 wolves, 1-6 ogres, or 2-20 gnolls, for example. I sure as hell your players a) are quiet and b) know how to run away. They are sure going to learn some of the OSR style of play in this puppy! We also get a couple of various tables for generating detail in the various hexes the payers explore: empty hexes, piles of dead bodies, ruins, and encampments. 1 in 6 hexes has ruins in them, and 50% of those are haunted (2-16 ghouls anyone?). 1-6 hexes has piles of dead bodies in them; this place is even deadly for the NPC’s! There’s a lot of folks running around also. Wanderers are checked for every hour or every other hours, with a 1 in 6 chance. This reminds me of some of the old computer RPG’s from the 80’s; leaving town was a sure fire way get to get yourself killed. You’d run out, have a encounter you prayed you made it through, and then run back to town to rest up. Nothing wrong with that, and it will sure teach the players some humility!

The modules is mostly a home base/sandbox, but it does have two small encounter areas detailed. The first is an old abandoned temple. This is a nice open-concept map with a couple of large central chambers with lots of small rooms off of them. There’s some vermin about (8 giant spiders in one of the rooms!), a few undead, and a group of 15 hobgoblins. The treasure content of this section feels a bit light; maybe 1,500-2,000 coins worth. It’s a nice little ‘dungeon’ though. The second encounter area is an old outpost that was overrun some time ago. It’s now inhabited by bandits, 25 or so with another $2k or so in treasure, and is largely comprised of long corridors with small offshoot corridors with single rooms at their ends. There’s a small hidden section with a ghast and large cache of the original rulers weapons. This last creates a bit of a poser for the PC’s. Haul it out and sell it or turn over the weapons to the rightful authorities? The small amount of loot may play in to their decision …   That’s the awesome kind of follow-up that these sorts of beginner adventures deserve; hooks to get the game going further and set the tone of the game.

I’m a bit torn on this product. I like seeing a nice new sandbox with home base, and I really like the super deadly wilderness wandering encounters. The region though needs a few more mysterious ‘things’ floating about, rumor & history nd so on. The village is a bit bland though, as are the dungeons. The large number of creatures in the dungeons are nice, however the loot content is a bit low. This being an early edition module, most of the XP should come through loot, and given the large group of henchmen & hirelings the party are going to need …

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/79564/Advanced-Adventures-13-White-Dragon-Run?affiliate_id=1892600