{"id":8417,"date":"2023-02-08T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-08T12:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=8417"},"modified":"2023-01-25T09:32:19","modified_gmt":"2023-01-25T14:32:19","slug":"pearly-prison-of-the-crocodile-queen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=8417","title":{"rendered":"Pearly Prison of the Crocodile Queen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Maximillian Hart\nSelf Published\nOSE & 5e\nLevels 3-5<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
A town has asked you to rid it of a monstrous menace, but it seems some barnacled druids have gotten to the creature’s lair first. Will you ally with the druids, aid the temple\u2019s lizardfolk defenders, or delve straight down the sinkhole to challenge the crocodile queen herself?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This ten page adventure uses four pages to describe a sinkhole dungeon with thirteen rooms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, there\u2019s this giant sinkhole. A couple of hundred feet deep. Caves in the side of it. Old temple the the bottom of it. The bottom, full of water, is SWARMING with crocs. Including a giant one \u2026 our titular queen. The locals take some food and treasure there every so often to sacrifice. The last group didn\u2019t come back. So you\u2019re do gooding. Turns out some druids have started attacking the place, so, you\u2019ve got the druids on one side and the lizardmen who live there and worship the croc on the other \u2026 all arranged around\/in the sinkhole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sinkhole map is fine. It\u2019s hand drawn and tries to show a kind of 3d image, with passages and rope bridges going up, own, and around the sinkhole, along with chambers and so on. It takes a second to grok but then it\u2019s ok. And, the rope bridges and cave mouths and such, with the croc swarm looming below, make for good company. Or, as the lizardmen say, if you talk to them about the missing villagers, who it turns out slipped and fell, they \u201cwere eaten by crocodiles upon hitting the water. It was hilarious.\u201d Nice bit of text there. The formatting here is similar to Dungeon Age\u2019s excellent tree-colum system with boxes, underlines and bolding. It\u2019s a nice hybrid of text and formatting to make things pretty clear. Maybe not as much as a Dungeon Age adventure, but it gets close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ok, so, two factions, with the druids in control of the upper part of the sinkhole and the lizardmen the lower part. And no order of battle for either. So, slaughter away with your stabbing and no one is going to come out to play. THis relates to a general lack of interactivity beyond combat. While theres a reaction table, nd some faction notes, everything else is going to be limited to stabbing someone and\/or maybe clearing some rubble. At one point there\u2019s a missing goblet on a pedestal. Obviously missing. Replacing it gets you nothing. And there are several setup like this. Prompts to do something. That result in nothing. Just stab a stab a stabboy stabbing up your stabs. You could lose a stab. You could lose a stab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Descriptions are fact based. If it\u2019s underlined or boiled it gets a sentence in the read-aloud. \u201cThis room extends deep into the limestone walls and becomes a natural cavern. Holes of various sizes dot the floor. Incense burning in a thurible set on the floor in the center of the room cannot quite mask the faint acrid smell that lingers in the air. A number of dead lizardfolk litter the floor\u201d Not bad. Gets the job done. Not particularly evocative either. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The beginning of the adventure tells us that \u201cChance: If the text says there is, say, a 1-in-6 chance of something occurring, roll 1d6, and on a 1, the thing happens.\u201d Wonderful. Value added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s fine. A little one dimensional. It reminds me of a 4e adventure, with a location with some quirkiness and a couple of groups of people to stab. You want that? Here you go. The promise of the map, though, is held back by the issues mentioned and the lack of depth\/size to the dungeon. A larger space, a little more complexity in the map, more rooms \u2026 it would allow things to breathe. Mini-dungeons have to be spectacular to be any good at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, hang on, I want to talk about the main thing in the adventure: the fact that the bottom of the sinkhole is full of water and SWARMING with crocs! And 10k in gold under it all \u2026 So, we\u2019re gonna collapse the beginning tunnels to block shit off, and then shoot arrows at the queen untli she submerges. Maybe we kill her. Maybe not. Anyway, then we start dumping in poison and poisoned animals. Kill all those normal crocs. Pump out that fucking water. Sure, water from the elemental plne surges \u201cup and down\u201d it. But, hey, thats the story of mankind. Bringing order to the entropy of the elements. At least long enough to get that fucking loot at the bottom in the most low risk way possible. Combat as War motherfuckers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $4 at DriveThru.The preview is all ten pages, so, good job on that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/422390\/Pearly-Prison-of-the-Crocodile-Queen?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Maximillian Hart Self Published OSE & 5e Levels 3-5 A town has asked you to rid it of a monstrous menace, but it seems some barnacled druids have gotten to the creature’s lair first. Will you ally with the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,29,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-5e","category-dungeons-dragons-adventure-review","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/croc.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8417","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=8417"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8418,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8417\/revisions\/8418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}