{"id":4292,"date":"2018-07-04T07:14:31","date_gmt":"2018-07-04T11:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=4292"},"modified":"2019-01-04T11:48:28","modified_gmt":"2019-01-04T16:48:28","slug":"the-palace-of-the-king-under-the-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=4292","title":{"rendered":"The Palace of the King Under the Water"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nBy W. R. Beatty
\nRosethorn Publishing
\nS&W
\nLevels \u2026? Mid to high?<\/p>\n

Long forgotten by the people of the Rosewood Highlands, these ruins, now called Blackfalls Hall, have become the palace of the mysterious King Under the Water. [\u2026] What does the King Under the Water want? What is he hiding? Who will brave the depths of Blackfalls Hall to discover its secrets and treasures?<\/p>\n

This 59 page adventures describes a multi-level complex of humanoids dominated by an evil king. With about 120 rooms, it is the real deal when it comes to multi-level dungeons. Fleshed out and fully realized, it has great variety and a \u2026 continuity? to it. Also, the editor was on LSD. I want to say something like \u201cthis is a nightmare of epic proportions\u201d but that would be a great exaggeration. It\u2019s disorganized with the DM text being all over the place, making it hard to parse at the table. For some reason I\u2019m reminded of Dark Tower \u2026 great, but not simple to use. Or maybe Yrchyn the Tyrant from Usherwood \u2026 fully realized.<\/p>\n

This thing don\u2019t fuck around. It has a short background on page four and starts the keys on page five. Page 45 ends the keys and starts with the maps, monsters, magic items, AND A MONSTER SUMMARY SHEET!!!! The entire thing might have two pages of background info; that half page at the beginning and one page at the end describing rumors, hooks, and factions. The font is small and the information DENSE. It\u2019s been a long long time since something like this popped by.<\/p>\n

By my count there are seven levels, with varied map styles. Dungeons, grottos, outdoor cliff dwellings with an isometric view to help you understand it \u2026 perfect. The maps are Dyson. I know a lot of people love Dyson maps but I\u2019m cooler on them. The ones I\u2019ve seen generally tend to be small, almost like lair maps, with varying degrees of interesting features. Some of these are larger, to the point of being full on exploratory maps with many loops. Magic items contain a decent amount of uniques, especially with swords. For example, Bitter Root, the longsword, +2 can only penetrate magical armor, useless against non-magical armor though still cuts flesh.<\/p>\n

Multiple prisoners to rescue, factions and machinations, up to and including the False King and the True King of the halls. Garran Ocar, High Priest of the Flood makes an appearance. Who the fuck is he? Hell if I know, but that name, oh man! Well, yes, I do know, he was drowned and raised by the true king. That\u2019s the sort of detail that just oozes flavor. An old bitter ghost has cursed the place and now long-time residents are obsessed with birds (a part of it used to be a temple to a bird god.) This opens up some bird theming for the goblins, including riding giant vultures in places \u2026 like a cave mouth overlooking a high cliff, and a shamen that may jump out of window to be at one with the bird gods. There\u2019s a kind of interconnectedness that runs throughout the place, with multiple themes. PERFECT for D&D exploration! Players love that kind of shit, and so do I as a DM.
\nNow, let’s talk about why this wonderful piece of work would be a nightmare to run. Room 1:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe path up the cliff side is winding and treacherous, following a series of switchbacks, ending at the bottom of a series of buildings clinging to the cliffs on the western side of the waterfall. The entrance is about 50\u2019 above the great pool below. The door here is thick oak, reinforced with iron bands and painted red and blue (the royal plumage of the Birdmen).\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not a bad initial description. It even establishes some mythology with the red\/blue stuff. We\u2019ll give this paragraph MOSTLY a pass, since it\u2019s really \u201cthe outside.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paragraph two \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cThe door is locked. Inside the 15×20 foot room are 7 Goblin Guards and a Bird Shaman, called \u201cThe Sky Watch\u201d by the other denizens. Normally they simply sit at tables playing dice or complaining. If alerted, one will climb the spindly winding stairs to the next levels to alert the garrison guard while the remaining six stand against the wall on either side of the door to ambush anyone who comes through while the Shaman casts darkness which covers the whole room.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m gonna be an ass here. The locked door sentence belongs in the first paragraph. That describes the exterior and the lock is the exterior. In fact, that entire first paragraph could\/should be a preamble before the keys start, but, whatever. Anyway, locked door goes OUTSIDE, where the information on outside is. Once INSIDE The room then you can start with those details.<\/p>\n

Room dimensions in text are almost always bullshit. That\u2019s what the map is for. Start strong, with the first thing. \u201c7 goblin guard and a bird shamen dice & complain at a table. If alerted the Sky Watch will \u2026\u201d That\u2019s direct. It\u2019s targeted at play.<\/p>\n

THEN comes the third paragraph \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cEach Goblin wears leather armor with a blue waterdrop symbol crudely painted on the chest, fights with a shortsword and a dagger and has 1d4 sp and 1d10 brilliantly colored bird feathers in a leather belt pouch. The Bird Shaman is covered head to toe in blue and red feathers. In addition to his spells, he wields the Staff of the Air (Stinking Cloud 2x\/day, Predict Weather 3x\/day, Air Blast 4x\/day). Air Blast pushes an ogre sized volume of air (3\u2019x5\u2019x8\u2019) at an extremely rapid speed, pushing up to 600 pounds of weight 4d6 feet (save for half distance). Air Blast does no damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is at this point I think the description is really off the rails. There\u2019s really two things going on here. First is the description. Blue waterdrop and covered head to toe. Very nice, Probably belongs after the \u201ccomplain at a table\u201d since it\u2019s something the party sees immediately. The leather\/shortsword stuff, as well as the Staff of Air, probably belong in the monster stats, which is paragraph four, or even putting the staff in the magic item appendix, maybe with a page number reference. \u201cStaff of Air (p44)\u201d<\/p>\n

(paragraph four)
\nGoblin Guards (7): hp 2,2,5,7,4,8
\nBird Shaman: hp 9
\nSpells: Fly, Feather Fall,
\nBird Form (limited polymorph self)<\/p>\n

This sort of muddling of information happens not only within room but between rooms as well. Information from one room is referenced in another, obliquely. \u201cThey will release their pet.\u201d pet? What pet? Oh, that\u2019s in a different keyed entry. A reference to that entry, \u201crm 7b\u201d, would help immensely. This is pervasive throughout the adventure, even if it can be excused a bit in the Cliff Dwellings section because of the way the buildings kind of all run together.<\/p>\n

This is a great multi-level dungeon. I just wish it were edited better for use at the table. It\u2019s a hard sell to slog through things. Something like 15 adventures made my Best Of list in the last year. That\u2019s more than one a month. Why would I suffer? It\u2019s time like these I have No Regerts.<\/p>\n

This is $4 at DriveThru. The preview is six pages. The last half shows the keys, with room on, the bird shamen, on page four. Check out those last three pages for a great example of what you\u2019re getting. A great preview.https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/240471\/Blackfalls-Hall-The-Palace-of-the-King-Under-the-Water?affiliate_id=1892600<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By W. R. Beatty Rosethorn Publishing S&W Levels \u2026? Mid to high? Long forgotten by the people of the Rosewood Highlands, these ruins, now called Blackfalls Hall, have become the palace of the mysterious King Under the Water. [\u2026] What … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,15,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-level-6","category-no-regerts","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/kingunder.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4292","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=4292"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4787,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4292\/revisions\/4787"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}