{"id":10543,"date":"2026-07-27T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T11:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=10543"},"modified":"2026-07-03T09:52:59","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T13:52:59","slug":"the-hidden-citadel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=10543","title":{"rendered":"The Hidden Citadel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By ND Hobbies, Ulises Martinez, Mauricio Rosel
ND Hobbies
1e
Levels 7-9<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
In the majestic dwarven capital of Runekaatara, the miners’ guild has made an unprecedented discovery. What are these dwarven miners hiding from the city authorities, and why are they desperately seeking the help of a group of adventurers who have just arrived in the capital? In The Hidden Citadel, adventurers will embark on a classic dungeon-crawling subterranean adventure to discover the secrets that an ancient citadel holds, the dangers that protect these secrets, and the reason why the citadel fell into disgrace in the first place<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 32 page adventure is a simple hack on a simple simple map with underpowered monsters and a weird tonal imbalance. Grist for the gristmill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The cover blurb here says \u201cA group of mining dwarves found the remains of an old and forgotten underground city. Everything indicates that it is a lost and ancestral citadel of dwarven origin.\u201d So, of course the heads of the dwarf mining guild, in the dwarf capitol city, looking for the dwarf ancestral citadel of dwarven origin, hires non-dwarves to go find it. Also, the dwarf ancestral capitol and origin is like six levels, each with, I don\u2019t know, about six rooms? Anyway, we\u2019re gonna forget about all of that and look at the rest of the adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So you end up in dwarflandia and in the marketplace you overhear shit like  \u201cThe governor doesn\u2019t have to find out\u201d \u201cThey say the pay is crazy\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s the discovery of the century, whoever goes there will be remembered forever\u201d \u201cWhat if Is there something down there?\u201d and most importantly \u201cThey are in the Anvil tavern. Shall we venture?\u201d This is from people in the market, all members of the miners guild, who beat the characters away from them. But, also, direct them to the Miners Guild inn if they need a place to stay. I do like the overheard snippets of conversation; it smacks of the in-voice rumor tables that I love that I think add a lot of color and framing for a DM to play off of. Arriving at the inn a dwarf, who turns out to be the guildmaster in disguise, drops a bag of gold in front of the party while passing through the room. If you return it to him then you\u2019re honest and he wants you to go on the adventure. If you steal it then it shows daring and he wants you to go on the adventure. If you ignore it then a thief picks it up and runs over the parties table to get out, no doubt prompting the party to intervene, which shows the parties [something] and the guildmaster wants you to go on the adventure. Tell me again, is the illusion of choice a good thing or a bad thing in an adventure? I guess it\u2019s just the hook. Hey, also, they only want 10% of the loot you find in the ancient dwarven capitol origin. For realisies. Anyway, we\u2019re gonna forget about all of that and look at the rest of the adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve mentioned that the map levels are rather small. Five rooms on a level, six rooms on a level. One has like thirteen rooms, an anomaly. They are done in a faux-art style so you\u2019ve got cracks in the stonework and so on. The end result is that it’s hard to make out doorways and other features that you need to run the adventure. What\u2019s a portcullis? What\u2019s a door? What\u2019s an open doorway? Good luck to you. Level entry\/exits are not the clearest, from the maps, but there is an \u201coverview\u201d map in the back that has all of the levels on it and has some lines showing stairs from one location going to entry on another floor, so, that helps. But, also, putting it on the single page maps would have been better. The text says things like \u201c Room 2 is locked behind a closed portcullis and only accessible through Room 1.\u201d Uh \u2026 no? Yes? Technically? The adventure seems to do this a lot. In another place we\u2019re told \u201cTo continue delving into the dungeon, the adventurers will have to open the titanium gates that block the way to the Great Stairs.\u201d Uh. I\u2019m level nine? So, I guess the meaning of the text is that ONE of the room two entries has a portcullis in front of it and the other entrance is just open, the one from room one. It\u2019s a strange way of writing it though. I\u2019m sure there are EASL issues here, which I generally give a wide allowance for, but I think in this case it\u2019s something else. It\u2019s something like a lack of acknowledgement that you can go through the portcullis? Or the gates to the stairs to level two? There are no additional details, like bend bars\/lift gates, or spells or anything. Which I guess you don\u2019t need, it\u2019s just a weird phrasing. Over and over again. Anyway, we\u2019re gonna forget about all of that and look at the rest of the adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Looking at the enemies we\u2019ve got a two hit die ooze. And a one hit die giant rat. ONE one hit die rat and ONE two hit die ooze. Eventually you get to fight like FIVE two hit die creatures. There\u2019s a 4 hit die ghost. What\u2019s the turning rules again? TWO three hit die orbs? There\u2019s a gold golem. I guess he\u2019s seven hit die. The boss is a twelver. I understand that we normally look at dungeon encounters that are tough, and give the \u201cit\u2019s OSR, run away\u201d answer, but I\u2019m not sure what we do in the opposite direction? There is the usual \u201cdoors slam shut\u2019 stuff. Anyway, we\u2019re gonna forget about all of that and look at the rest of the adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Writing is dull. The usual padding. \u201cThis room has several armored corpses, which in the past were dwarven guards.\u201d THIS ROOM HAS is all padding. And then we run in to the usual historical survey of what the room was. It\u2019s dull, long, multi paragraph with little in the way of formatting to help scan and run the adventure. Interactivity is generally stabbing something or a trap or \u201cpull the two levels on the level to unlock the door to the next level.\u201d I mentioned a gold golem earlier. Here is the entirety of that room: \u201cThis room is filled with gold and valuables, as if the noble dwarves had put their riches here to protect them in desperation. If someone takes a coin, several of them take on a humanoid form and will turn into a gold golem that protects this treasure.. Upon death, the golem becomes 355 gold coins.\u201d That\u2019s it. Nothing more. What do you think filled with gold and valuables means? 355 gold coins? Does it seem weird to mention the 355? Everything is like this. Missing information. Dull writing. Lengthy writing that leads to nothing. Anyway, we\u2019re gonna forget about all of that and look at the rest of the adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then the tone changes, in one place. \u201cThis room is full of bags and suitcases, all arranged in a pile. Inside the suitcases there are souvenirs, family portraits, letters, and books. Everything is mundane, but each object represents someone who died in this place.\u201d Uh \u2026. The next room has a bunch of people in it, skeletons, bodies. Children sitting on mothers laps. People huddled. With the marks of slit wrists where they all killed themselves. Jesus man! So, yeah, there\u2019s an emotional impact there. The antechamber, with the luggage, clearly is culturally overloaded. A mass suicide scene would not have as much impact as a mass suicide scene with some hints beforehand to really foreshadow and bring home the horror. \u201cAnd we looted it?!\u201d It\u2019s the Lareth principal, done right. But, also, Jesus man! Here I was just killing rats and oozes and stabbing shit and pulling levers and you dump this on the players? But, whatever, it was good design even if tonally it is out of place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are also a few decent art pieces in this. Good art, in an adventure,helps the DM run the adventure. It helps clarify a room, or sets the mood for them, helping them riff on it. It\u2019s evocative. David Arcila and Diana Rex are credited. I don\u2019t know which one it is but I like them\u00a0 for the purpose of inspiring the adventure. A nice barrier peaks vibe to it, that pulls you in.\u00a0It’s not all the art, maybe four pieces or so, but those are good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, just kind of  generic adventure for the most part. Nothing very stand out in the writing or the room interactivity, with a notable exception. I\u2019m not overly upset by it, but it\u2019s just another of the large number of marginally poor adventures that flood the market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $5 at DriveThru. There\u2019s no preview, but you do get to see some page layout on the product marketing page. It needs a real preview, that shows real rooms, so potential buyers can get a read on if they want to purchase it or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/en\/product\/482182\/hidden-citadel?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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By ND Hobbies, Ulises Martinez, Mauricio RoselND Hobbies1eLevels 7-9 In the majestic dwarven capital of Runekaatara, the miners’ guild has made an unprecedented discovery. What are these dwarven miners hiding from the city authorities, and why are they desperately seeking … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10543","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\/07\/482182.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10543","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=10543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10544,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10543\/revisions\/10544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}