{"id":3912,"date":"2017-11-15T07:14:49","date_gmt":"2017-11-15T12:14:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=3912"},"modified":"2017-11-08T09:43:15","modified_gmt":"2017-11-08T14:43:15","slug":"mistress-of-the-ghost-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=3912","title":{"rendered":"Mistress of the Ghost City"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nBy John Turcotte
\nDragonsfoot
\n1e
\nLevel 6-8<\/p>\n

This fifty page adventure in an evil fortress is part four of the series that include Fallen Jarls, Towen, and Stormcrows. The last third are appendices, so you\u2019ve got about thirty pages describing about eighty rooms\/ over five levels in the fortress. <\/p>\n

The snows are melting and the northern clans have rallied to turn back Her Dark Majesties forces. The party is sent to her fortress to kill her once and for all.<\/p>\n

This tends to the minimally keyed side of the spectrum, with brief bursts of longer room descriptions. You can think of it as a little room description and then a longer \u201chow the monster interacts\u201d added on \u2026 with a lot of variety in that generalization. A two sentence room and a one page room are also featured. The descriptive style could be described as baroque or gothic, with word choice and sentence structure giving it a slightly off kilter vibe. It works well to help get you in to the \u201cfortress in Hell\u201d mindset. As with the previous modules in the series, illusions, both for places and for monsters\/devils, are used to great effect to provide variety, mystery, and the horror of the unknown. \u201cBob the barned devil likes to hand out as a nude man with the head of a cuttlefish.\u201d Well, ok. Don\u2019t see that everyday. Likewise every banquet feast is offal and every majestic visage something else. Likewise a skeleton hunched over with a candelabra on its back, the only light illuminating a great hall. Illusion.<\/p>\n

The encounters make the place FEEL like hell. (And \u2026 that\u2019s what this is, a fortress that teleports between the prime plane and Dis.) Gardens full of beautiful flowers \u2026 that you can use to make poison. A great bell that tolls thirteen times at midnight. Rooms that dim your light and magic mirrors that summon a minor death that only the mirror-user can see. The adventure is full of weird little non-book things, illusions and effects, that make the place feel like a weird ass fortress in Hell.<\/p>\n

The bell also serves as a nice entry mechanism to the fortress. After an overland journey (just some \u201cnormal\u201d wandering tables) you see the ghostly fortress. At midnight a bell rings thirteen times and it fully materializes, until dawn arrives, giving you a window to enter and leave. That\u2019s a great \u201center the mythic underworld\u201d transition to the dungeon.<\/p>\n

These \u201cevil fortress\u201d adventures are, I think, hard to do, and I don\u2019t think Turcotte has cracked the code. They need to feel cohesive and alive, and I don\u2019t think this one does. It almost feels like little vignettes. He addresses several of the issues with evil fortresses by simply noting that Hell Is Weird, and the devils know that, so the mere fact the party is in the fortress doesn\u2019t mean an full on alert. <\/p>\n

But things feel disconnected at times. That great garden has a room with a gardener. \u201cThe gardener, a red abishai devil (HP: 16) dwells here. It appears as a tortoise-like humanoid with an impressive moustache. It has no treasure.\u201d What\u2019s the point of this? We know that they don\u2019t immediately attack \u2026 but the encounter goes nowhere. What\u2019s the gameable action this enables? Is he proud of the garden? Resentful? It is, essentially, minimally keyed. <\/p>\n

The kennelmaster is another good example of this. \u201cThe kennelmster lives here. He looks like X.\u201d and then a long paragraph on how he attacks. And yet other things in the adventure fit in so well. A guy at the front desk takes your names. If you read the book then clerics and mages get a certain bonus, since they now know so much about demons\/devils from it. It fits perfectly. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m grasping for how to summarize this. There\u2019s a minimally-described overland journey, and the same through a ruined city, with only the main fortress keyed. The fortress has great window dressing and great things to mess with. In spite of that I think it is still on the minimally keyed side of things. There\u2019s just not that little extra to shove the DM\u2019s brain over the edge in to ACTION. <\/p>\n

\u201cA pair of dead trees stand sentry on either side of the short passage leading to these doors, their withered branches intertwining to form a high-roofed tunnel of sorts. Weird garlands of iron wire, hooks, teeth and pins hang on the trees, numerous small bones dangling from the hooks and barbs. Beyond, the heavy doors are constructed of bronze and depict endish faces leering from wreaths of bas-relief owers. A flickering red candle is set into a small recess wall beside each portal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Great description! Now what? This is one of the best “evil fortress in hell” I’ve seen. The window dressing is excellent, if a bit long in places. But it feels like it lacks potential energy.<\/p>\n

This is available, free, at Dragonsfoot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By John Turcotte Dragonsfoot 1e Level 6-8 This fifty page adventure in an evil fortress is part four of the series that include Fallen Jarls, Towen, and Stormcrows. The last third are appendices, so you\u2019ve got about thirty pages describing … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3911,"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-3912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/gcity.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3912","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=3912"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3914,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3912\/revisions\/3914"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}