{"id":10463,"date":"2026-06-08T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T11:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=10463"},"modified":"2026-05-18T07:51:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T11:51:18","slug":"the-tower-of-the-standing-stones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=10463","title":{"rendered":"The Tower of the Standing Stones"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Marco G. Fossati
Self Published
Dragonbane\/OSR
I think this is a BRP system<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
\u2026 hear the tale of Ardana, a mage who defied the Dragon Emperor and vanished with her dark grimoire, The Heart of Ardana. Her ruined tower still stands, touched by strange demonic magic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This eight page adventure features an old wizards tower and uses four pages to describe eleven rooms on like five floors. Long read-aloud, over-reveals, abstracted treasure. It\u2019s really hard for to describe how \u201clackof adventure\u201d this is. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I\u2019m out with friends and the chick next to me is like \u201cHey Bryce, where are some places to go to meet people. I want a summer fling.\u201d So I turn to some stranger next to me sitting alone at the next table and am like Hey man, where are some fun places to go in Indy, Chickula is looking to meet men. And he\u2019s like \u201cI\u2019m gay.\u201d Dude, not you, I\u2019m like 30 years older than her, maybe you, as a young fella, know of a place where the the young women might go other than a fucking D&D convention?!  \u201cSo he replies: \u201cI know of three jazz clubs …\u201d Dude has missed the point. Oblivious to it all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ok man, let\u2019s GET! IT! On! We are Dragonbaning and I couldn\u2019t be more excited this morning. \u201cAt the first light of dawn, in the settlement of Outskirt, the player characters came across a ballad sung by a highly skilled female Bard, named Tymolana.\u201d Oh Jesus h fucking Christ. Fortunately, that\u2019s all there is to this. Except the ballad itself. What do they call that? At the cons? Filcing? Felching? Whatever. It then jumps to \u201cThe ancient tower, called The Tower of The Standing Stones, lies at the foot of a hill. The player characters will face a hard journey which lasts at least a full day.\u201d So, you get the \u201chighly filled female bard\u201d sentence, the ballad, and then the whole \u201cit\u2019s a hard journey\u201d sentences. I absolutely thought, given that bard line, we were gonna at least mary sue the chick or at least spend an hour having to deal with some read-aloud, but, no. It just tosses in that \u201cit was a rough journey\u201d thing and you\u2019re at the fucking tower. I don\u2019t understand why any of this is in the adventure. The bard has nothing to do with it. The ballad doesn\u2019t matter. The journey clearly doesn\u2019t matter. And the adventure is like this, time and again. This weirdly specific attention to detail and then, quick, abstract everything!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA weathered stone tower at the foot of a low hill. Its crown has crumbled and the masonry is cracked and flaking; the whole place looks worn-out. A short run of broad stone steps climbs the slope to a heavy, skewed door. Faint chisel-marks and moss stains can be seen on the lower steps and around the lintel. Windows and fissures reveal that it is a 3-story tower. On the top, some standing stones point to the sky. From time to time, some crackles of purple energy strangely illuminate the surroundings.\u201d Over-reveals in the read-aloud. A read-aloud that is too long. Three stories?! Let\u2019s climb to the top! Windows? We\u2019re in! Never use the front door, kids, when doing & B&E. Does the adventure handle any of this? No, of course not<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA narrow stone corridor with damp, flaking walls. Faded paintings of skeletons line the west wall. One skeleton has an oversized skull with purple eye sockets\u201d Where do YOU think the secret door is? Jesus. Ok, so, when you write a description like this you start at the abstracted layer. There are faded paintings on the walls. As the party asks then you tell them it\u2019s of skeletons and the whole purple eye thing. That\u2019s it. That\u2019s the core fucking mechanic of D&D. The DM describes something and the party responds. Why not just fucking say there\u2019s a secret door behind the purple eyes? Fuck me man. Don\u2019t do this. Please. Don\u2019t write descriptions that over-reveal. Keep the game alive. Keep the core mechanic alive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTreasures: Among the crates and the sacks, the player characters can find treasures equivalent to one treasure card.\u201d I don\u2019t know about you, but I like to show off my treasure cards to the young ladies at the bar. They love that treasure card flash! So, I assume this is some Dragonbane shit, but, still, \u201ctreasure card?\u201d The party wants the fabled rose of Amun-Sur or the cape of Verde Tacana, not \u201ca treasure card.\u201d Good treasure makes the party want to keep it and wear it, even if it\u2019s non-magical, instead of melting it down immediately to purchase twelve more torchbearers. Why abstract this? It\u2019s like buying an adventure and opening it to read \u201cHave an adventure\u201d and nothing else. That\u2019s it. That\u2019s a major part of the whole fucking experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And this extends. That fucking ballad, which is like eight short lines long, mentions The hEart f Ardana or some shit like that. A spellbook. You ready for it, the reveal, the object of infinite desire, the thing to which launched a thousand ships, The grimoire called The Heart of Ardana: \u201cGrimoire: The grimoire is the Heart ofArdana. The grimoire is trapped (see below).\u201d That\u2019s it. Nothing else. No more description. Not in the text. Not in an appendix (there are none.) No mention of it or its contents. Shall I compare thee to a Summers Day? \u201cVecna: Seldom is the name of Vecna spoken except in hushed voice, and never within hearing of strangers, for legends say that the phantom of this once supreme lich still roams the Material Plane. It is certain that when Vecna finally met his doom, one eye and one hand survived. The Eye of Vecna is said to glow in the same manner as that of a feral creature.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead we get backstory. \u201cThe demon was conjured by Ardana during the siege as her last defense, but the ritual was interrupted before it was fulfilled. It has been in that state since there and looks to be freed. In order to do so, the ritual lines must be canceled\u201d I DON’T CARE. This nonsense adds nothing to the adventure. And it\u2019s EVERYWHERE. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is absolutely one of the most boring adventures I\u2019ve ever seen of everything that actually qualifies as an adventure. And it\u2019s not because there is, like, five bandits in the tower. It\u2019s because of the writing, the mechanics of handling things \u201cPlace hands of altar and make a wil save\u201d. It\u2019s weirdly abstracted method of not tellin you ANYTHING about anything to want to know about but still making sure that the room entries are a column long. And that each one has a section about every exit in the room. Except for the ones that DO NOT have a sections about every exit in the room. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is boring and inconsistent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $2 at DriveThru. There is no preview. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/en\/product\/567777\/the-tower-of-the-standing-stones?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Also, hey, a question for all the eurotrash: I assume each country in europe has a dominant game, aka that Das Schwarze Auge shit. But Italy seems to be the only country in which we get adventures out of. They just crank them out. Something weird in the Italian water, D&D-heavy, or something else going on? Why don\u2019t I see frenchy adventures?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Marco G. FossatiSelf PublishedDragonbane\/OSRI think this is a BRP system \u2026 hear the tale of Ardana, a mage who defied the Dragon Emperor and vanished with her dark grimoire, The Heart of Ardana. Her ruined tower still stands, touched … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10459,"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-10463","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\/05\/567777.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10463","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=10463"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10464,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10463\/revisions\/10464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}