Wyvern of Whitepeak

By Greg Daley
Tarichan Games
1e
Levels 2-3

Dead bodies turn up, purple with poison. Word reaches the village that a pair of bodies have been found at the ford of a lonely vale, slashed and bloated. A wyvern has been seen on the mountain nearby. The adventurers explore the valley below the mountain, on the search for the killer. Can the characters defeat a threat from the frigid mountains? Will they defeat the creature and overcome the curse of the peak?

This 55 page adventure presents a small wilderness area and a four level dungeon with about 75 rooms, with the dungeon proper using about sixteen pages. There’s a conspiracy afoot, or two, all caused by the dwarves in the dungeon that the party will no doubt get mixed up in. You might think of this as a “normal” dungeon that then has some framing to it to spice it up by way of the conspiracies. While not particularly evocative, it’s a solid little bit of adventure that perhaps illustrates how to add emerging plot to an otherwise “normal” dungeon.

The marketing blurb above lays out the basic situation that the party stumbles upon. Two imperial tax collectors turn up dead, fat with poison and covered in wounds and a wyvern has been seen flying about in the mountains nearby. If you poke about the wilderness some you find a few unusual things. A stream full of grey silty runoff. A farm near the mountains has had some improvements. A nerid is pissed her pond is now polluted with the grey runoff. There’s also a trio of ogres and their minions who have taken up residence on a small hill, waylaying passersby that the party can run afoul of. 

In the mountains there was an old dwarf diamond mine that suffered a cave in and has been shut for a long time. A clan has moved back in and restarted the mine, surreptitiously. That’s causing the runoff. The farmer is working with them in exchange for his brand new roof and some new dwarf tools he has, as well as a future payoff. So far, just run of the mill stuff. But, the dwarves DID poison the tax collectors, who were getting too close to their secret, and have been flying a wyvern kit to scare folk off. Which is a tad complicated because there IS a young wyvern nearby as well. So, the party can kill a wyvern and the killings continue, which puts the party in bad with th (not really detailed) town. Not nice dwarves. Talking to the dwarves reveals a problem, there are monsters in the mine, could you pretty please? This is a trap, with the dwarves planning, through several subterfuges (including drugged food; breaking Host law! Forshame!) to kill off the party. The monster in the mine is a rock dude who is overseeing a nursery of rockling eggs that the dwarves fucked with and thus he’s been causing tremors to drive the dwarves away. Finally, the dwarves stole of “gem seeds” from him, and they are playing to make the underlying kindof dormant magma/volcano erupt to score a big diamond haul from the gem seeds. Which is also going to result in the nearby town and settlements getting ravaged from the eruption. And then, a dimensional dude is going to show up who wants the gem seeds also to create a gem warrior army for his rebellion efforts back home in his own dimension.

It sounds like a lot going on and maybe a bit convoluted, but I assure it is not. Instead, it is CONSTRUCTED, with what’s going on being the goals of the various entities. Let’s start by, say, building a dwarf mine/home/dungeon. They’ve moved back in to reopen a family holding and, being greedy fucks, don’t want to pay taxes and want to keep their secrets. So we’ve got a level or so of their clanhome and workings. And then have some abandoned parts with more verminy type creatures and a creature on the bottom causing them major problems. All pretty standard, yeah? And grounded in some real motivations, those yahoos who hate the gubberment and their taxes. Which fits in perfectly with the greedy dwarf thing. I love that it is playing to that, not just stout humans, but greedy fucking dwarves. And this is causing the killings, the wyvern thing, the fucking with the rock dudes nursery, the trick violations of host law,  and finally the potential eruption. Who gives a fuck about the people nearby? We care about our clan .. and gems. Really nice implementation of demihumans as an alien culture that LOOKS normal until you dig deeper, and, one of the dwarf themed adventure I think I’ve ever seen. 

Then, lets take that and build in the killings as a hook, and the required wilderness/overland portion to support the investigation of the “wyvern” attacks. We put in some clues for those paying attention, and dump in the nearest farmer as a further clue as they need a little support in their mine and have paid him off ‘in kind.’ We expand that wilderness a little also with the ogre fort to throw in some extra danger as the party tools around and then add the real juvenile wyvern as a decoy/aside to complicate the situation further. Everything is built around and supports the initial idea: the dwarf clan home/mine. Really excellent job constructing the supporting situations around the central conceit, which is itself built on the solid greedy dwarf foundation.

The encounter style is relatively terse. There some summary up front of the overall situation which helps frame the terse encounters. That summary could be clearer, it’s a little scattered, but it’s fine; one read through and you’ve got it. This allows for a wilderness encounter that reads: “3/Grey Brook- This stream is filled with a grey, cloudy silt. Dwarves or other underground creatures may identify the contaminant as dust from crushed rock. Those who have mined previously may identify this as mine tailings, from a process which pulverises rock.” That’s it. It’s a clue to more going on, a fact for the DM to build on. Or, a freshly hewn fence at the farm. A creek near the farm with a gangway hidden in bushes on one side and a cart hidden on the other side. Hmmm. Why’s that there? A body, killed by the “wyvern” may reveal stomach swelling … ingested poison. But you’ve got to pay attention, both as a player and as a DM to build on these little dropped facts and make it your own … in exactly the way a DM should in an adventure.

On the downside, the summary/intro is a little bit of a mess. It’s not a disaster, but things are scattered, repeated, and so on. It needs a hard edit with some laser focus to make it really stellar, but, again, not a disaster by any means. There’s not much for the town AT ALL, and a little bit more there in terms of personalities or complications would have gone a long way to supporting this part of the adventure. It’s essentially nonexistent. And the “adventures” presented in this section are really more of telling the DM the arc of how the designer expects things to happen. Investigating the killings, hunting the wyvern, finding the dwarves, getting fucked over by them maybe, the rock dude and dimension guy showing up … potentially the party being led there by the dwarves, and the potential eruption. The dwarves don’t really have an organized order of battle for when/if things go south with them. More of arcs or milestones than “adventures.” And, then the scale on the overland map is fucked up I think? It’s putting everything pretty much on top of each other if the “one square equals 20 feet” legend is to be believed. The writing could be a bit more evocative also. The rooms are fact based, maybe with a sentence or two on usage which is not supremely relevant. For example “7/Ablution Rooms These are a set of sparse washing rooms, divided for female and male dwarves. “Beard” dwarves wash with their sisters, for modesty. The rooms contain each contain three sets of chambers. The first is for dry clothes and towels, the next contains (cold) showers, and baths. The final room is for necessary (if unpleasant) functions. All of the rooms are solid, stone hewn, and work with hidden mechanisms, hiding unnecessary pipes, levers, or drains. “ No great sins here, but also nothing too evocative. The greater situations in the complex lend themselves to this fact-based descriptions, still allowing the greater play opportunities. 

Pretty solid. Maybe a little cumbersome in places, which more focus would help with, but I suspect that comes with time and practive.

This is $3.50 at DriveThru. The preview is fifteen pages with a decent variety in there. Good preview.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/553089/em3-wyvern-of-whitepeak-old-school?1892600