{"id":2789,"date":"2015-10-07T07:15:20","date_gmt":"2015-10-07T11:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=2789"},"modified":"2019-02-21T10:08:22","modified_gmt":"2019-02-21T15:08:22","slug":"telgars-tomb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=2789","title":{"rendered":"Taglar’s Tomb"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"tt\"<\/a>
\nby Hereticwerks
\nSwords & Wizardry
\nLevels 1-3<\/p>\n

An old plundered tomb where many a grave-robber got their start \u2026 now it\u2019s your turn to spend the night.<\/p>\n

This is an interesting little thing. It\u2019s a three room cave. That\u2019s 20 pages long. That\u2019s usually the lead in to a Bryce Lynch monstrous ranting diatribe. Not in this case. This thing is like some academic treatise on how to add complications to an adventure. It seems like every possible avenue of additional complications has been added in .. and all in table format. The tabular format allows for quite a bit of additional use. This thing could almost stand in for every adventure ever written or to be written in the \u201csmall cave adventure\u201d sub genre. It\u2019s got a big font and doesn\u2019t make the best use of its whitespace, but what it does have is A LOT of those little evocative things that I\u2019m looking for. Those things that I believe are at the core of a good adventure, that a DM can riff off of for hours of content. It could use a bit of improvement in consistently providing those bits \u2026 or maybe I mean in consistently making them specific and actionable. The tabular data strays into \u201cbizarre window dressing for the sake of window dressing\u201d on more than one occasion. Those are the weakest parts of the adventure, but there is more than enough in the way of goodies to keep this fresh time and time again.<\/p>\n

Three rooms. Each room has a loot table for things you may find. And who you might mind in the room when you arrive. And you might wander in while you there. And then usually something else like where does the crack go\u201d or \u201cwhat does the obelisk do.\u201d In addition to the three rooms there\u2019s also \u201cthe wilderness on the way to way to the caves\u201d, which also tables for wanderers, bad weather, animal dens, and trail hazards. Finally there\u2019s the section on town rumors and guides. Again, multiple tables for each. This is the primary way that the adventure fills those 20 pages and how it fills the role of several adventures in one. The adventure is almost completely table driven and, unlike almost every other adventure that is table driven, does it well.<\/p>\n

The strength of the adventure is in the tables, or more precisely: specificity of the content in the tables. For example, there are six NPC guides offered. \u201cWeird Willy. Seems normal enough.\u201d or \u201cThat Blakely Boy. Not the brightest, probably not the best, but most folks figure he\u2019s too dumb to lie.\u201d Or Constance, the Harpy with a crippled wing that can\u2019t climb or swim well. This is PERFECT. It\u2019s just a sentence for each but it adds an enormous amount of potential energy to riff off of. This are all examples of the sorts of content I\u2019m looking for. There\u2019s this very small space between \u201ctoo generic\u201d and \u201ctoo much information.\u201d The examples I cited fall perfectly into that sweet spot. It\u2019s the kick start the DM needs to get them going and add and build for the rest of the sessions. The tables go on and on this way. It\u2019s wonderful. \u201cLast trip out your guide was bit by a creature they were barely able to fight off. They aren\u2019t sure if it was a lycanthrope or something else.\u201d OMG! I can use that over and over again in an adventure to add life to the NPC. \u201cA dead basilisk carcass, washed out of its burrow. If the lair was occupied then there is a viable egg in the nest \u2026\u201d Wonderful wonderful content.<\/p>\n

Except when it\u2019s not. A smaller percentage of the content is trivia. Content which is not actionable, which you can\u2019t riff off of. Ok, I guess you can riff off of anything, but some content is better at this than other. Crystals are \u201cwarm to the touch and smooth\u201d, \u201cthey appear to be \u2026 breathing?\u201d Certainly interesting, especially the breathing one, but much more \u2026 high-level? and not quite as gameable.<\/p>\n

I might mention that, similarly, the rumor table could use a bit of work. There IS one, which is great, and the core of the rumor content is pretty good also. And it all ends with \u201cAny of these rumors might be true \u2026\u201d Well, now, that smacks of a \u201cit was all just a dream\u201d television episode. Cop. Out. Let me also say that while the rumors are quite good, as these things go, they could be quite a bit better. The last rumor is something like \u201cThis place makes a poor hide-out, as three separate bandit bands have learned to their great displeasure and loss.\u201d Not bad. But SO much better if it were conveyed as something like \u201coverheard in a bar: bertie\u2019s boys didn\u2019t come back from the cave last night. Yeah? Clint says Yanys got arrested but I heard they fled after half were mauled in the cave\u201d or something like that. Just a bit more color.<\/p>\n

Overall this is a great adventure toolkit. I\u2019d be much happier paying money for this (it\u2019s free, I believe) then I would a hundred other lengthier products.<\/p>\n

This is available on DriveThru.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/131634\/GL1-Taglars-Tomb-Revised?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Hereticwerks Swords & Wizardry Levels 1-3 An old plundered tomb where many a grave-robber got their start \u2026 now it\u2019s your turn to spend the night. This is an interesting little thing. It\u2019s a three room cave. That\u2019s 20 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2788,"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-2789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/tt.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2789","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=2789"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5657,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2789\/revisions\/5657"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}