{"id":9145,"date":"2024-05-11T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-11T11:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=9145"},"modified":"2024-04-24T11:31:50","modified_gmt":"2024-04-24T15:31:50","slug":"sepulcher-of-the-sorceress-queen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=9145","title":{"rendered":"Sepulcher of the Sorceress-Queen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Michael Stone & Alexander Macris
Autarch
ACKS
Levels 7-9<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Over a thousand years ago, the Zaharan Sorcerer-Queen Semiramis reigned over a court notorious for its decadent arts and lavish opulence. The hidebound nobles of Zahar were troubled by the ascendance of the kingdom\u2019s first female monarch. Semiramis was beset by over one hundred suitors, each one demanding that she marry him so that the kingdom might have a king. Many of these suitors were powerful spellcasters who wove enchantments upon her, but to no avail: The Sorceress-Queen wore the Ring of the Queen\u2019s Heart, a legendary magic item gifted to her by the goddess Nasga that made her immune to her suitor\u2019s charms. As beautiful and cruel as her goddess, Semiramis instead seduced her perfidious suitors into swearing eternal love to her \u2013 then had them slain. The Sorceress-Queen mummified and interred all one hundred suitors in her own majestic sepulcher, where they would serve her as loyally in death as they ought to have in life. Since then, the sepulcher of the sorceress-queen has lain hidden and undisturbed, its undead inhabitants slumbering in torpor until the prophesied time of the Awakening. But now a reckless warband of lizardmen has broken open the ancient tomb and disturbed evils not seen in centuries\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 58 page adventure uses 34 pages to present a tomb, in the process of waking up, with about 67 rooms. This is, I think, the poster child for Decently-interesting-but-never-gonna-use-it cause-its-a-pain-in-the-ass. I am genuinely interested in knowing if anyone has run it COMPLETELY and how you handled it, both generally and specifically in terms or prep and game-play delays. As far as level 7-9 dungeon crawls, though, nice!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, I\u2019m paging through this for the first time. Title page padding, backer padding, blah blah blah, intro padding, long backstory padding, some rumor stuff, some pretext travel to the site stuff, blah blah blah, padding and nonsense. Then BLAMO! The map page hits you in the face. Lots of features on it. A note for dark alters, braziers, monoliths, sarcophaguses, walls that you can kool-aid-man through. And, a notation of \u201cwater\/blood.\u201d Heh. Nice. We\u2019ve got some red bubbles noting undead monsters that can react to sound, lots of room features, lots of features. Sweet little map the likes of which you don\u2019t usually see \u2026 and wish you did. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The environment is nontrivial. There are, I think, nearly five pages of subsystems for the dungeon before we get to the room keys. Dark Alters – Destroy them and reduce the queens regen\/magic resistance. But, also, summon a shadow each time. Weak walls to bust through. The impact of the sounds the party makes, including busting down doors and destroy alters and casting spells, and how that could awaken and\/or summon monsters from nearby (up tp 150\u2019 feet away \u2026 which is then suggested to be The Nearest Occupied Room within range, for simplicity purposes) And, then, how to put those creatures on the wanderers table. There are lizardmen in the tomb also, making an incursion, and they get reinforcements. And, also, they make attempts to clear dungeon rooms each day, with their own rolls and impacts on the dungeon. There are Doors, secret doors, sealed doors and blocked doors, all with different rules. And more. That\u2019s a lot to keep track of. Enabling a rich and deep play experience, to be sure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rooms are \u2026 deep. We get a read-aloud section to start with, generally. I\u2019m not thrilled about them. Not quite the evocative writing style I prefer. More fact based.And this includes over-revealing in the read-aloud \u201cthe doors, which carry a relief depicting a stormy night on the sea,\u201d and so on in the read-aloud. I think an over-reveal in the read-aloud is detrimental to the game. It sets expectations around what the DM will reveal to you and how and when you ask questions of the DM, beyond simply the Q\/A cycle being the core loop of the game. And, sometimes they feel random. A room smelling of moldy paper, in the read-aloud?! Let\u2019s investigate! There\u2019s no reason for it, or any hint of paper in the room. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I suspect the read-aloud is this way because there is no traditional DM text, or, at least, not generalized DM text. Each entry will have a section(s), if appropriate, called [Monster] or [Lore] or [Trap] or [Loot] or [Noise] or [Trick]. And in that section the treasure, or trap, or effect will be described. At length. You\u2019re not getting away with less than a paragraph for each, sometimes more. It is not infrequent for a room to be a page long. Now, this is levels 7-9. There should be some shit going down in some of these rooms, involved shit. I\u2019m not sure though that the selected format is really paying off for rooms this complex. There is very little formatting beyond these section headings; it turns back to paragraph form with a monster named bolded. It\u2019s fucking DENSE man. And frankly the monsters are not done very well. \u201c5 wights.\u201d Well fuck me, that\u2019s great. All undead look the same unless we personalize them \u2026 and, one section of those five pages of intro to the dungeon rules was about interacting with intelligent undead. GENERIC intelligent undead, it would seem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019ve talked about some interactivity already. The doors. The sound situation. The alter thing, and other general dungeon features. As well as the lizardmen and them being potential allies. And maybe saying hello to some confused undead. And then there is specific room interactivity, IE: the keys stuff. Beyond looking at frescoes and traps we get \u2026 well, not much. Fighting dudes and looting and avoiding traps. It\u2019s all pretty straightforward. There ARE some traps that may be a little more interactive than usual. Let\u2019s say a pool  and if you add a drop of your blood then the monster doesn\u2019t attack you. Or, wearing some holy garb form the tomb will give you bonuses on rolls or help avoid traps. Beyond that, man, there\u2019s really not a whole lot. A stalactite next to a bridge being a roper? Ok. I guess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, great map, good concept, lots of always on things to do. But the creatures turn generic, and I think the room descriptions are uninspiring. I really want there to be more to this than there is. But, also, it\u2019s a fucking tomb. As a tomb it\u2019s great, because tomb adventures generally suck ass. And it does pull off a 7-9 adventure. It\u2019s just a little \u2026 I don\u2019t know, uninteresting? Both in the descriptions and the encounters? I need a little more in my life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $7.50 at DriveThru. The preview is ten pages. You can see the map and a few of the always on features, but none of the rooms. I would have preferred a room page be shown also.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/preview.drivethrurpg.com\/en\/product\/317788\/sepulcher-of-the-sorceress-queen?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Michael Stone & Alexander MacrisAutarchACKSLevels 7-9 Over a thousand years ago, the Zaharan Sorcerer-Queen Semiramis reigned over a court notorious for its decadent arts and lavish opulence. The hidebound nobles of Zahar were troubled by the ascendance of the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9144,"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-9145","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\/2024\/04\/queen.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9145","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=9145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9146,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9145\/revisions\/9146"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}