{"id":2761,"date":"2015-09-20T07:30:09","date_gmt":"2015-09-20T11:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=2761"},"modified":"2015-09-13T08:58:28","modified_gmt":"2015-09-13T12:58:28","slug":"dungeon-magazine-57","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=2761","title":{"rendered":"Dungeon Magazine #57"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"d57\"<\/a>
\nTo Cure a Kingdon
\nby John Hartshorne
\nAD&D
\nLevels 8-10<\/p>\n

This is one of those hyper-realistic environments and features an assault on an evil temple. You know the type this is: \u201cthe guards never look at the torchlit courtyard so they don\u2019t destroy their nightvision\u201d sort of thing. There\u2019s good and bad in this. On the one hand there is plenty of advice on how the temple dwellers react. On the other you have to sit through yards of nonsense like \u201cthere\u2019s a plumbing system that takes waste to the swamp\u201d and other trivia. There has the potential for some large battles; groups of 48 lizard men or 16 giant spiders attack in the swamps on the way to the temple. There\u2019s way too much read-aloud in the beginning, the \u201crealistic\u201d environment causes the room descriptions to be overly long and the traps overly elaborate. There are some nice magic items with nice effects. This needs a pruning but could be a nice addition to a mass-battle kind of campaign. Vikings, or nortlanders, or \u2026 man I really liked Vakhund. A Vakhund campaign addition. Man, that adventure was so borderline. <\/p>\n

Carcass Fracas!
\nby Stephen J. Smith
\nAD&D
\nLevel 1<\/p>\n

Uh \u2026 two thouls attack on a road. This is a side-trek? What\u2019s next, a kobold you fight in a dungeon corridor? As an aside, \u201cBrigands\u201d are mentioned in the read-aloud. You should never say \u201cBrigands\u201d or \u201cBandits\u201d in a game. It should always be \u201cJacks\u2019s Gang\u201d or \u201cthat mob of Bandy\u2019s boys.\u201d Specificity brings a world alive and genericism kills immersion.<\/p>\n

The Rose of Jumlat
\nby Jeroen Grasdyk
\nAl-Qadim
\nLevels 3-7<\/p>\n

While escorting a caravan you\u2019re distracted and it\u2019s ambushed. The party assaults a fortress to recover the jewel it carries. A very railroady beginning and a very railroady ending. The entire beginning can be thought of as the hook, as you\u2019re railroaded all over the place so the caravan can be alone to get ambushed. The ending has an evil spirit, you\u2019ve carried with you, fighting the big bad. The middle has a couple of highlights (tower of fire, tower of water) mixed in a lot of drudgery about sweet smelling privies. There\u2019s some nice NPC descriptions in an ambush (a fat elf woman who uses small sharp knives, two twin brothers using javelins, etc) that calls to mind cheesy witty banter from GI Joe cartoons. That\u2019s a nice little way to bring some additional color to an otherwise mundane ambush. The wondrous imagery of magical arabia isn\u2019t strong enough to save this one.<\/p>\n

The Murder of Maury Miller
\nby Cameron Widen
\nLevel 1<\/p>\n

I have some vague recollection of this one. There\u2019s an arsonist in a small village that turns out to be a scarecrow. But it\u2019s a good scarecrow, trying to draw attention to his murder. In life he was the miller, murdered by a corrupt tax collector. When presented evidence the king send you to apprehend the corrupt official. Way way WAY too much text here for such a short adventure. Let\u2019s play a little game I call: Danger Wil Robinson! \u201cNeutral characters will have trouble finding motivation to complete the adventure.\u201d In lazy adventure writer speak this means \u201cI couldn\u2019t be bothered to think of any way to motivate the party.\u201d Here\u2019s another one: \u201cThere is nothing of interest or value to the PC\u2019s here.\u201d This means the reader has just ingested two paragraphs of text that has no bearing on the adventure. <\/p>\n

Cloaked in Fear
\nby Peter C. Spahn
\nAD&D
\nLevel 3-5<\/p>\n

Maybe the first published work by Peter Spahn? A cloaker is \u201chaunting\u201d a village and it\u2019s cemetary. The party wanders around awhile as it gets hit & run attacks in. Nice \u201cfrightened villagers\u201d thing going on, but Peter does resort to the tried & true \u201ckill a friend of party to motivate them\u201d tactic. You could probably make a great campaign around everyone the party interacts with, talks to, etc, dying shortly after they are met. This is one of the better side-treks, even if it is a DM torture porn adventure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To Cure a Kingdon by John Hartshorne AD&D Levels 8-10 This is one of those hyper-realistic environments and features an assault on an evil temple. You know the type this is: \u201cthe guards never look at the torchlit courtyard so … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dungeon-magazine","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/d57.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2761","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=2761"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2762,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2761\/revisions\/2762"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}