{"id":8065,"date":"2022-07-02T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-02T11:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=8065"},"modified":"2022-06-22T09:27:49","modified_gmt":"2022-06-22T13:27:49","slug":"dragonmaw-cave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=8065","title":{"rendered":"Dragonmaw Cave"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Richard Ruane\nR. Rook Games\nB\/X\nLevel 0<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
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For many decades, the towns of the valley were guarded by Olkana, a kindly, young brass dragon, who lives in the even older Dragonmaw Cave to the north. No one has seen any sign of her in months, though, and recently livestock and pets have been stolen, travelers have gone missing, shrines have been desecrated, and even some wells have gone foul. You and your friends have traveled three days to Dragonmaw Cave to see if the elusive Olkana can help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 24 page adventure uses five pages to describe eight rooms in a cave system. It\u2019s minimally keyed, but with expansive text that turns the entire thing in to a meaningless slog of a deathtrap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This zero level adventure features two cacodemons! Yeah! And a 5hd dragon with \u201carmor as plate.\u201d Like, what the fuck man? I don\u2019t even know \u2026 like, I get it. It\u2019s OSR. You can have overpowered challenges. But, things you are meant to kill? Like, placed in your path as an obstacle, or, the goal of the adventure? A 5HD dragon? With breathe weapons? Ok, sure \u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh, wait, I\u2019m supposed to say something good or nice in each review. Here, this is a cute thing: \u201cIf the PCs don\u2019t immediately attack, she\u2019ll offer to wrestle one of them in exchange for safe passage. If the PC wins, Hano will create an icy bridge so that they can cross the underground stream safely.\u201d That\u2019s an ice mephit, doing that. The wrestling thing is cute, as is the ice bridge. Very folklore, both of them, and you know I love folklore. Of course, the rest of the adventure has no folklore elements at all, and no vibe at all in that area, but \u2026 again, I\u2019m supposed to something nice at least once in every review, says mom. Oh, and there\u2019s no hook. And I\u2019m taking that a bonus. Or, rather, maybe I mean there\u2019s no intro text, no lead in to the adventure in town, etc. It\u2019s just what\u2019s in the marketing blurb. And I\u2019m totally cool with that. This is a location, it\u2019s got some shit in it to stab and steal from, and all you need to know is what\u2019s in the marketing blurb. There\u2019s enough there tossed out to play with. Fouled wells. Ship missing. \u201cDesecrated shrines\u201d \u2026 like what the fuck is that? Covered in dragon shit maybe? Idk. But, whatever. You don\u2019t need a lot of background shit to get goin in the adventure.Just give me a bit to riff on and a location to go with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One room has a dragon nest \u201clined with several silver chalices.\u201d No word on how many. This drives me nuts. Put in the fucking amount man. Same thing with monsters, when it happens. This is pretty basic fucking shit. And room keys. Put it the fuck in. Stop fucking around and fulfill the basics of the format. Once you get a few under your belt and don\u2019t suck donkey balls anymore tTHEN you can experiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s see, room descriptions. How about \u201cThis location is guarded by the ice mephit<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hano, who’s bored with working for Calder. \u2026\u201d Yeah. Nothing. Or, how about \u201cAmari the hatchling spends its time resting atop its small hoard here. \u2026\u201d There are, essentially, no location descriptions. There\u2019s maybe a line, that says what is here, and it devolves in to mechanics. Lots of wordy mechanics. Lots of wordy tactics. Lots of focus on shit that don\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rest of the page count is a fuck ton of new classes and zero level rules. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whatever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sucks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $6 at DriveThru. The preview is six pages and shows you a few rooms, and some of the new class shit. The few rooms ARE representative, so, good preview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/400448\/Dragonmaw-Cave-for-OSR?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now that shits over with, let\u2019s talk important shit: New cars. I give my car to my son, who got his license two weeks ago. He\u2019s starting his first job at the home of Winter Fantasy and, no, you are not riding the fucking bus for ninety minutes like a peasant when you could drive ten minutes away. So, all I\u2019ve got is the truck, which I have turned in to a camper with a camper shell. It\u2019s an old Frontier, so, small, but still not something for running around town in. I start looking and think I want a Miata. Go look at some, manuals of course. I\u2019m looking forward to getting twelve speeding\/reckless tickets in the first two weeks and then driving in to a pylon and dying. THen, I think, woah, no backseat. And the girlfriend has three-ish young kids. That\u2019s not a cool relationship move. But, I still want something fun. So I start looking at two door Wranglers. Right?! Softtop, fun, backseat for kids. Perfect! Ain\u2019t none new. Used is looking pretty ratty. One dealer has a new one but what\u2019s a $500 window etching fee, I walk out over it and they don\u2019t chase me down, even though I\u2019m paying fucking cash. \u201cWe\u2019ll sell it tomorrow.\u201d Fuck, the market is hot, especially for Wranglers. Depreciation websites show that they are the #1 least depreciating car. Wow. I try Carvana. Find a 2012 with 98k on it for $1k MORE than the 2012 window sticker was. Wow! I grab it. Comes in. A little loose (jk) but, hey, it\u2019s a fuck run around town car, right? That\u2019s cool and adds to the charm. On the way to the mechanic (which I bribe each time with a meat and cheese gift platter. Always tip folks, it gets you better service.) the check engine comes on. Great. I get a call two hours later \u201cYou DO NOT want to buy this car.\u201d I go in. Misfires on #2 and a main seal leak. Ouch! I go straight out and try to look at some buy here pay here places, but all they got are jacked the fuck up four doors. I find a dealer with a 2-door sport thirty minutes north in BFE, go up, and buy it on the spot. Fucking thing will never leave the pavement. Gonna take off the roof and door and put two yellow surfboards on top and drive it around year round like that. Off road is for the truck, man!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Richard Ruane R. Rook Games B\/X Level 0 For many decades, the towns of the valley were guarded by Olkana, a kindly, young brass dragon, who lives in the even older Dragonmaw Cave to the north. No one has … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dungeons-dragons-adventure-review","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/cave.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8065","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=8065"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8066,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8065\/revisions\/8066"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}