{"id":10285,"date":"2026-02-21T19:11:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T00:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=10285"},"modified":"2026-01-29T17:47:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T22:47:20","slug":"lovely-jade-necropolis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=10285","title":{"rendered":"Lovely Jade Necropolis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Joseph R Lewis
Dungeon Age Adventures
OSE, etc
Levels 3-5<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
In the Garden of Amuul, the fey raised a palace for their human guests. But the humans betrayed them, so the fey swiftly slayed them. Now Amuul is a Wasteland, where the dead cannot rest. Twin necromancers, a sister and brother, found the jade palace, and then turned on each other. They raised undead armies and decadent courts, and turned the palace into two warring forts And in the Fey Realm, the Twilight Empress watches and rages, sending her goblins and elves to pay the intruders bloody wages. But all the while, the palace groans with cruel weapons and bright treasures, mythical creatures, and strange magics beyond measure. So will it be wealth, justice, glory, or bliss that entices you to enter the Lovely Jade Necropolis\u2026?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 81 page adventure uses about sixty page to describe one hundred locations in and around a complex full of undead and fey. Lewis always does at least a fine job, and that\u2019s present here also. It does seem to lack a bit in the joy category though, as in a sly wink and wry grin. It is better than the vast vast majority of the dreck produced today and easy to run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lewis is a good designer and a good writer. There\u2019s some balance between specificity and abstractions that needs to be obtained in order to provide effective encounter text. In the very best you can kind of detect a bit of glee in the designer as they were writing it. I\u2019m not entirely certain that this Dungeon Age is quite up to the standards of most of the others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The set up here is a cave\/camor thing that was built by the fey queen for her prince lover, then they betray her and the fey, there\u2019s a big slaughter. Now, long later, two necromancers move in and start animating bodies, and then turn on each other. So we\u2019ve got a fey queen section, and a section for a necromancer interested in having a good time and a necromancer interested in killing just about everyone. This is mostly backstory though. It explains the \u201cplease go kill my sister\/the other necromancer\u201d deal one of them is willing to make, and the bored\/jaded\/disgusted elves wandering around who just want to go back to the fairy realm instead of carrying out the gruesome work of their mistress. Otherwise \u2026 meh, it\u2019s a framing for some conversations and a different way of saying Die Petty Human Scum\/Adventurer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our zombie friends bring a bit of joy to the environs, retaining a bit of their old selves and acting, perhaps, more like a charmed undead person than a mindless undead ravenous thing \u201cUnder rare circumstances, a zombie may be able to bend the meaning of their commands to act more freely: \u201cI\u2019m looking for supplies! Just not very quickly\u2026\u201d\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am not exactly thrilled about the treasure here. The magic contains that Lewis charm of effects over mechanics, but the mundane loot is handled by a loot table. I love it in The World of Gamma, but here \u201civory flute\u201d or Glass lens\u201d have no monetary values mentioned. Nor does \u201cWalls, floors, and ceilings are solid green jade covered in elegant carvings of forest plants and animals.\u201d What was that adventure I just reviewed that had the villagers stealing the old abbeys walls for their own uses? I guess I\u2019m supposed to not be a murder-hobo and just IGNORE walls and doors made of solid jade. What do you think that does to the local jade economy? Don\u2019t I recall some system or article about inflation and devaluation beaue of the party when they flood a town? Anyway, Gold=XP and that\u2019s all abstracted away here with no treasure values. Boo, Hiss. And \u201csilver chalice\u201d and \u201civory flute\u201d are not exactly winning me over either in the description department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Writing of the encounter descriptions remains relatively solid \u201cTwo massive dead trees flank the broken road, their fragile branches interlaced overhead. Tiny white slivers dot the trunks, and tiny black nodules pepper the ground\u201d Thats a decent rooms one, Elsewhere \u201cGiant dragonfly wings glitter in the ceiling, high above a long table laden with sumptuous dishes. A well-dressed couple and a dozen soldiers linger by the buffet.\u201d Glitterring, sumptuous, well-dressed, linger. All great word choices that communicate a lot without being purple. I\u2019m not sure, though, that I ever got the complete picture, room after room. I\u2019m not sure why. The descriptions are there, in each room, but it never clicked in to a unified whole for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, at times, that balance between specificity and abstraction seems off to me. Those two well-dressed people lingering at the banquet table? \u201cCOUPLE. \u201cMaster Dulcim\u201d and \u201cMistress Vina\u201d (spice sellers from Kalahar). Silken robes, sparkling veils. Lured here by dreams of opulence. Want to escape. Fear the undead. Unaware of the fey. Suspect \u201cpoison (so no one is eating). Also, the soldiers are undead zombies. Pretty much everyone you meet who was lured in are \u201cLured here by dreams of opulence. Want to escape. Fear the undead.\u201d This just seems off, there\u2019s little personality here, none I would say. The grounding, the think to hang your hat on, is missing. And that\u2019s a little too common here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I do like the general set up here. Some fey loathe their existence and just want to go home. Some are still greatly embittered by their experiences with the humans. One old goblins living in a hut that is precariously balanced on a silt is slowly dying from a col iron splinter in gut form a hundred years ago. Embittered, he will try to collapse his beloved house down on the party if need be. Elves tasked by their still-enraged queen to torment and torture the undead with salt knives, not to their noble callings of grace. Pixies as thumb sized mindless eaters of bones. The bored, jaded, disgusted undead zombies. The totality here is great, \u201cZOMBIES in gray tunics drag an old corpse toward #19 for Lord Marfest to animate\u201d but that wandering example could use one more word. Chatty zombies. Jaded zombies. Upbeat zombies. The final bit of framing for the encounter is often missing, as with the two spice-merchants agave. And maybe that\u2019s the theme running throughout; there\u2019s one more bit that seems to be missing to add life to it. The NP\u2019s, the ire between the the parties and their machinations, even the room \u2026 themes\/layouts\/interactivity? There just seems to be one bit more missing that would really send it. Maybe it seems, passive? In an expansive sense of that word? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s not bad. It\u2019s certainly better than the vast majority of stuff I review. But I think you can see what this almost is and really WANT it to be that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $12 at DriveThru. Lewis comes through on the preview. Forty pages; more than enough to get a sense of the work and see a great many parts of it. Great preview!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/en\/product\/540137\/lovely-jade-necropolis?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen a PC spends a turn chanting this word, there is a 2\/6 chance that each nearby fey will be stunned for one turn.\u201d OMG! You have to chant a word for ten minutes and then there\u2019s a 33% chance the fey will be stunned for ten minutes?! Oh Dungeon Turn, you are the gift that keeps on giving long after the thrill of living is gone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Joseph R LewisDungeon Age AdventuresOSE, etcLevels 3-5 In the Garden of Amuul, the fey raised a palace for their human guests. But the humans betrayed them, so the fey swiftly slayed them. Now Amuul is a Wasteland, where the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-no-regerts","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/540137.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10286,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10285\/revisions\/10286"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}