{"id":8613,"date":"2023-06-14T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-14T11:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=8613"},"modified":"2023-06-01T11:37:27","modified_gmt":"2023-06-01T15:37:27","slug":"the-scourge-of-thunderhold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=8613","title":{"rendered":"The Scourge of Thunderhold"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Luiz Eduardo Ricon\nHexplore Publishing\nOSR\nLevel 1?<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
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Thunderhold: An ancient dwarven fortress built deep into a cliffside. Walls as strong as iron, stonework as intricate as a finely crafted gauntlet, a raging waterfall thundering through its main chamber. But why was it abandoned, so long ago? What are the secrets kept within its fortified structures? What treasures and perils it holds?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 46 page adventure details a mighty dwarf fortress with three levels \u2026 and 24 rooms. It\u2019s a basic dungeon, with basic and mundane room descriptions and poor;ly formatted to run. More churn for the ever churning march of the bad D&D adventures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mighty THUNDERHOLD! Gateway to the dwarf kingdoms! Deep is its chambers! Long ha sit been abandoned, before even man came to these lands! DARE TO ENTER ITS GATES AND EXPLORE ITS \u2026 uh \u2026 24 rooms? Uh. OK. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The designer is claminig this takes four sessions to complete. One in town. One travelling through the wilderness. One in the dungeon. And one more to defeat the LEVEL NINE DROW in the last room. A fucking level nine drow. Everything up to this point is all \u201ca zombie\u201d or \u201ctwo skeletons\u201d or \u201csome giant centipedes.\u201d And then a level nine drow, with undead minions. Uh uh. I\u2019m all for a lack of balance in OSR games, but this is not what is meant by that statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ok, so, town consists of some generic buildings and generic NPC\u2019s. EVeryone is chipper, competent, and full of caring and compassion. IE: boring. One night a zombie shows up in the river that runs next to town. After that yo\u2019re hired for 100gp each to go upriver to MIGHTY THUNDERHOLD and see whats up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is, weirdly, the only good part of the adventure, the zombie attack. And by that I mean that there\u2019s a little table of things that could happen to get the party involved. \u201cMen march down the street with torches and pitchforks, heading toward the river\u201d or \u201ca captain of the town uard call upon men to join him on a mission.\u201d or \u201cthe innkeeper rings the bell and yells WERE CLOSING, NOW!!\u201d I think those all imply some things that I, as the DM, can work with. That captain is going to be pressing men in to service with a kick and a shove and a griff non sensea attitude of \u201cyou can go or i can gut you now!\u201d The other two should be pretty easy to run as well. This is the last good thing, and the only good things, in the adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ok, wilderness time. You gotta travel through the wilderness to get to the dungeon. AT this point, major confusion ensues. Two days to reach the forest, a day to cross it if you use the road two if you do not, and then a day to get to the foot of the mountains and Thunderhold. Then, we get a long section telling us what happens if we follow the riverbanks. Or through the grain fields. What the fuck?! It makes no sense at all. But, along the way you pick up three little mini-quests of shit people want you to do in the dungeon\/wilderness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Congrats! You made it to the might dwarf fortress! Revel in its majesty! \u201cA 30 ft x 20 ft room with empty shelves and racks. Stale and pungent smell. Mold covered barrels and crates piled up in one corner\u201d No? Ok. \u201cA collapsed room with rubble and debris.\u201d No? Ok. \u201cThis partially crumbled square room smells of rot and decay. There\u2019s moss and mold everywhere.\u201d Majestic! Inspiring! Wonder & Awe!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I know, they sound short. But we forget that the rooms also have to include all of the door information. Yeah! Padding! It\u2019s just padded out with useless detail. Longish descriptions that tell you nothing. A thundering waterfall in the next room? Good thing that sound is never mentioned before you get there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s just the usual garbage. Minimal descriptive text. Padded out shit. There\u2019s nothing here of note. Just another POS clogging up the adventure stream. My heart despairs at the thought of people thinking that this is D&D. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $6 at DriveThru. The preview is eighteen pages. Which means, of course, that you don’t actually get to see anything of the adventure. *sigh*<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/439002\/The-Scourge-of-Thunderhold–A-dungeon-crawl-adventure-for-starting-players?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Luiz Eduardo Ricon Hexplore Publishing OSR Level 1? Thunderhold: An ancient dwarven fortress built deep into a cliffside. Walls as strong as iron, stonework as intricate as a finely crafted gauntlet, a raging waterfall thundering through its main chamber. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8605,"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-8613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/thunderhold.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8613","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=8613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8614,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8613\/revisions\/8614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}