{"id":10378,"date":"2026-04-15T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T11:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=10378"},"modified":"2026-03-24T10:14:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T14:14:16","slug":"the-rook-the-crook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=10378","title":{"rendered":"The Rook & The Crook"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Taron Pounds
Land of the Blind
OSR\/Vagabond
Levels 6-10<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
An explosion rocks a nearby mountain range. Once the dust clears, two twisted and screaming towers remain: one black and one white. Ominous seals appear on the moon and stars. A wicked smile spreads across the eye-spotted black tower\u2019s upper story, capped by a witch hat-like roof. Its upper and lower floors appear to be separated, with arcs of blue lightning emanating from its center. The white tower is a bastille of pale stone, with an otherworldly blue fire burning at its top. Windows of stained glass bend without breaking along the white tower\u2019s exterior, and eyes of madness follow those who approach the black. A flock of winged serpents fly around these profanities of architecture. No one knows where these towers came from, and what has corrupted the celestial bodies. It is up to the heroes to uncover the mystery to stop a cataclysm that has been unfolding for centuries in secret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 44 page dungeon presents two towers with about nineteen rooms between them. It\u2019s a funhouse dungeon in which the world ends. That\u2019s fun! Also, you don\u2019t actually need to do anything here but go to the top floor and pull a lever. That\u2019s fun! I don\u2019t see a reason to go inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The gods have trapped one of their own in a magic prison. Dude wants out and finally is about to break free, thanks to his two followers, each of whom built a tower. You don\u2019t know any of this. You\u2019ve just got some generic rando hooks that come down to \u201cyou see these two weird towers.\u201d I hope you go inside, because if you don\u2019t then the world ends. That\u2019s rough. Anyway, you go inside and find a funhouse dungeon, the two towers connected to each other with some magic pathways and normal stairs and so on. Turns out that if \u201cthe steamworks\u201d is functioning inside the tower, and someone has had their soul aged in the aging room, then if you pull the level at the top of one of the towers then the trapped god will go back to jail. There\u2019s a friendly phoenix, powering the steamworks through a portal to the elemental plane of water, that will tell you all of this who is at the top of the other tower. Anyway, so, the steamworks already works. And someone has already given their soul to the aging room. So, just pull the level in the other tower. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To get there you will need to \u2026 ignore everything. Basically. Whatever is in the room, just ignore it and go up the stairs or through a door. Yeah! You\u2019ve overcome that challenge. I\u2019m not sure anything really attacks you in this unless you go fucking with shit. Oh, wait, hang on, there\u2019s a death knight. \u201cMotionless at first, but disappears if vision on him breaks and he then stalks the party.\u201d I don\u2019t know what the whole \u201cdisappears and then stalks\u201d thing is about. I guess that\u2019s for the DM to handle. So, I guess you gotta fight him? I THINK that\u2019s the only required combat. Also, \u201crequired\u201d is a loose word; I think you can make your way through the tower without having to go in to the throne room where he sits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s double check my theory. Room one, walk backwards down a mirror hall. No consequences for not doing that. Room two, touch nothing and go up the stairs. No consequences for not doing that. Room three, go up the stairs and don\u2019t touch the floating books. Room four, ignore the tree and go through one of the doors. Room five ignore everything. Room six, go through a door. Room seven, go up the stairs. Room eight, go up the stairs. Room nine, go up the stairs. Room ten, meet the phoenix. That\u2019s one full tower and half the rooms. Congrats. The second tower, to my recollection, is more of the same. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, hey, you can still make the world end. Every time you use a spell or a magic item or go through a magic portal in the tower then the DM rolls a die. The third time they roll a one the dude breaks free and immediately destroys the universe. You get a warning though, you hear an owl screeching, which, obviously, means the universe is going to end if you cast another spell. This mechanic also ties in to a fun \u201cweird things happen!\u201d table, with entries like \u201cUnluckiest PC must save or their limbs become accordions for 1 Minute.\u201d or some blobs teleport in, loudly fart, and then teleport out again. Fun! \u2026 Humor, gentle readers, is highly subjective and doesn\u2019t translate well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We lead off with three paragraphs of italics read-aloud. We get read-aloud like \u201cThis room appears to have been built to keep a phoenix in a consecrated prison.\u201d Appears to be. And how the fuck do we know it\u2019s a prison? Or that it\u2019s consecrated? It\u2019s just garbage. In one room you find some masks. \u201cEach is Cursed and Sentient, but only speaks while worn.\u201d We\u2019re referred to a table telling us what they do. \u201cThe wearer fails Checks against surprise.\u201d Dazzling. Sublime. You didn\u2019t even bother to give the mask a name or a personality or anything else. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m not a fan of the zany funhouse, but this isn\u2019t that. I\u2019m also not a fan of the museum trip, and this is more in that vein. Just don\u2019t touch anything and look at the scenery and you\u2019ll be fine. But, also, the whole \u201clets nerf the party\u201d and \u201coops! The world ended! Guess you didn\u2019t figure out that was going on!\u201d is VERY time. You need to communicate that the party is racing against time or else it\u2019s not a race against time. It just ends up being the wandering damage table and rocks fall, everyone dies. Weird that\u2019s not fun.\u00a0And if you need to nerf the party then you wrote the adventure for the wrong level range. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $5 at DriveThru. The preview is seven pages and shows you nothing of import. Poor preview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/en\/product\/561060\/the-rook-the-crook?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Taron PoundsLand of the BlindOSR\/VagabondLevels 6-10 An explosion rocks a nearby mountain range. Once the dust clears, two twisted and screaming towers remain: one black and one white. Ominous seals appear on the moon and stars. A wicked smile … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/561060.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10378","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=10378"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10379,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10378\/revisions\/10379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}