{"id":10676,"date":"2026-10-24T07:39:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T11:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=10676"},"modified":"2026-10-01T11:41:35","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T15:41:35","slug":"the-caverns-of-anamosa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=10676","title":{"rendered":"The Caverns of Anamosa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Todd Leback
Third Kingdom Games
B\/X
Levels 1-3<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
[…] The pair had left behind a small garrison at their fortress, led by their faithful steward, Tercy One-eye, with instructions to guard their domain and await their imminent return. Weeks turned to months, and months to years, and the pair did not re- turn. In that time, Tercy and the squad of garrisoned troops began to experiment with the magical pools that Zoridror<\/p>\n\n\n\n
maintained within the fortress, drinking from one and then an- other and marveling at the strange effects they produced. Alas, the magic drove them mad, and now Tercy rules what parts of the fortress he can claim, lording over the remaining garrison who have been reduced to rage-filled berserkers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This seventy page adventure details a three level dungeon with about sixty locations based around B1: In Search of the Unknown. It has a lot of classic elements and, even better, know how to use them to create an exploratory environment. Full of color and interactivity it is also, as the page count indicates, padded out to an abnormal degree. A decent adventure if you wish to wade through the text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are adventures that really stand out. You\u2019re excited to run them, they are full of interactivity in multiple ways, the locales come alive, All you want to do is hire some dudes at the bar and GO. Then there are the journeyman adventures, pretty good but just really not grabbing you. Then there\u2019s the loathsome money grab adventure, the waste of space adventures, and the They Tried adventures, and the Meh I Guess it\u2019s fine adventures. This adventure belongs to somewhat a rare category. The designer knows how D&D works. They know what elements are needed for a good dungeon. They also have, I think, developed few frustrations with running others work at the table. And I\u2019m gonna botch about that ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This adventure is based around B1. It\u2019 the first of several and it wants to turn the B1 backstory in to a larger campaign, so after exploring the dungeon the next adventure is going in search of the two missing adventurers in the land of barbarians, returning to their dungeon to explore further, and beating back the hordes of barbarians. And it all starts here, with this reimagined B1. Which as none of the tables from B1, so, no worries about that. This is a fully developed two level dungeon with an above ground area also. The barbarians and henchmen The Bros left behind have devolved a bit and then been pushed to level two of the dungeon. Fey have invaded, looking for a lost item The Bros stole from them. And bandits have moved in to the above ground area, with all three groups kind of mixing it up a bit. The three factions here, and their competing and overlapping goals, gives the party room to maneuver, socially, in the dungeon. The goblin fey, led by elf, do not give a fuck as long you don\u2019t have their Prize or are impeding them from it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is combined with some classic dungeon elements. The Pools! The Pools! Yes they are present. But, also, there\u2019s secret second way in. The well also gets you down a level. The privy gets you down a level. The bandits guard the gate, but, also, a section of ungirded wall has collapsed to rubble. An underground stream, with strips of land, leading to a hidden chamber. That\u2019s absurdly classic. Ye olde rickey bridge over deep water\/chasm, complete with \u201conyx statuette depicting a hideous, betentacled humanoid figure with unnatural proportions\u201d at the bottom of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The issues here are with organization and padding obfuscating the ability to run the thing. \u201cBryce, you always say that!\u201d Yes, and it continues to be the number one issues facing adventure designers. And, in this one, there\u2019s a occurrence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let us say that you design a sixty room dungeon. Every room is dark, except one. Or, every room has no treasure, except one. Should you then note, in every single room, except one,  \u201cLighting: Dark\u201d or \u201cTreasure: None\u201d in each room entry? Can we assume tha there is no treasure, or creature, unless the designer tells us that is one\/some? Now, let us expand that example. What if, in every room, I note the First Impression, the Room Size, the Lighting, the Room Shape, The Exits, the ceiling height, any secrets in the room, any creatures in the room, any treasure in the room, any sounds in the room, and what a ruckus in the room will cause to happen? Each of these, individually, may be appropriate, but should I include these notes for every single room, every single note for every room, even if the note is \u201cnone?\u201d No. obviously not. This gets in the way. What\u2019s important I don\u2019t know I have to slog through a bunch of unimportant stuff to get there. The concept, as a mental checklist in the designers head, is a good one. \u201cHey, things react to this room, I should note that.\u201d But, you don\u2019t need to note it if nothing is going to happen. When you do note it then I have to pay attention to checking for that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every room here has each of those sections, called out at the start of the room in a grid block. A grid block that is then shaded or colored differently to differentiate things. The entries are busy. They demand our attention even when there is nothing to pay attention to. This makes it very rough to follow a room and run it. This is a trap. I know it SEEMS like you making things easier but in reality you are not. If something is not present then don\u2019t note it. Yes, absolutely, have a mental checklist, or a paper one, to go through as you design the entries and write the entries, but you don\u2019t need to include the checklist in every room for things that are not present. The cognitive burden is real and this contribute in a major way to trouble running the dungeon. No one wants to wade through this. As a result 2\/3 rds of every column is the checklist and stat blocks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
DM notes for the room are further padded out, a conversational style, almost. A walkway support three medium creatures AND WILL COLLAPSE IF MORE WEIGHT IS ADDED. (Emphasis mine.) \u201cIn case of a collapse, everyone on the wall-walk falls \u2026\u201d We\u2019ve now been told three times that the walkway will collapse. And I\u2019ve not even gotten to the Once Was padding, like \u201cCommander\u2019s Antechamber. Jabet Ceol, the captain of the garrison, lived on the top two levels of the tower, and this room was the antechamber where visitors waited prior to an audience.\u201d This serves no in game purpose. If its not contributing to the room in play then it almost certainly doesn\u2019t belong there, with very few exceptions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a relatively decent adventure, in terms of an exploratory dungeon. Things to mess with, factions trying to do their own thing. Classic elements and dungeon environment which encourages a free form play style, in the classic exploratory style. There are a decent number of these sorts of adventures available. It is hard to want to run this, given the padding and cognitive burned of digging through the entries, which is nontrivial, especially when other classic exploratory adventure do not have these problems. I would reach for something else. You have to WORK the text, the room entries, hard. Focus them. Work on the organization and decluttering. Why are the bandit reactions noted in the towers instead of on the walkway where the party is seen? A great haunted stable encounter can\u2019t resolve the issues with fighting the text of the adventure in order to run it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $10 at DriveThru. There is not a traditional preview on DriveThru, but several pages are shown, images of them, in the marketing text. Unfortunately, you can\u2019t easily blow them up to get a look at them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
??https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/en\/product\/581097\/quest-for-the-unknown-the-caverns-of-anamosa?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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By Todd LebackThird Kingdom GamesB\/XLevels 1-3 […] The pair had left behind a small garrison at their fortress, led by their faithful steward, Tercy One-eye, with instructions to guard their domain and await their imminent return. Weeks turned to months, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10668,"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-10676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/581097.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10676","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=10676"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10677,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10676\/revisions\/10677"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}