[Review] AA9 The Lost Pyramid of Imhotep

The Lost Pyramid of Imhotep

Author: Alphonso Warden
Contents: 12 saddle stitched black and white pages, 1 title page, 10 pages of adventure, and 1 open game license page.
Publisher: Expeditious Retreat Press
Product Code: XRP6109
Retail Price: £7.00 or $12.00

Overview

An adventure for 4-6 characters of levels 4-7, the Lost Pyramid of Imhotep is an unusual five level dungeon with a tightly integrated theme. The physical product is furnished with a glossy cover stock, durable internal pages, clearly printed text, and well rendered black and white internal maps. Both the front and back cover illustrations are by Jeff Womack, though misattributed to Advanced Adventures stalwart Bradley McDevitt, and each depicts an encounter from the adventure with suitable atmospheric weirdness, complementing the relatively unusual subject matter. Whilst the title page illustration, also by Jeff Womack, is the only interior piece provided, it similarly sends a clear visual signal to the reader to anticipate a conflation of the familiar and the strange. Of the three images, this last is probably the most compelling, perhaps because it contrasts in its exterior enormity with the more claustrophobic and close quarter encounter environments used for the cover pieces. Even though the module is only twelve pages long, it is disappointing for there to be no other interior illustrations, especially when there are none of adventuring parties exploring or interacting with the dungeon and its denizens.

The scenario premise is straightforward, in that the player characters are hired by a magician to investigate recently unearthed evidence of a tomb in the desert. Since the adventure takes ancient Egypt as its thematic inspiration, there are numerous references to the trappings and theology of that culture, and a good deal of concern is given to the need to translate hieroglyphs. Indeed, it is noted that adventurers native to the area will have a much easier time than outsiders, and that holds true for much of the module. Progressing to the lowest dungeon levels requires being able to answer several rather culturally specific questions, and unless the players happen to know or guess correctly the game master will have to decide how to handle the player characters accessing the necessary knowledge. Whilst some of the rooms require clever thinking or intuition to overcome, many of them rely more heavily on the random outcome of the dice with little consideration given to alternative solutions. Although this is not much of an issue in cases of combat with guardians, it is more problematic when characters are left with no option but to make saving throws, as is the case in area fourteen for instance.

Interestingly, there is very little treasure to be had in the tomb complex, and what little there is could easily be missed. As a result the player characters will likely waste plenty of time searching fruitlessly, but in the absence of wandering monsters they can do so at their leisure. There is an item that could conceivably have a similar role, but as soon as the players figure out what is going on they are likely to stow it somewhere safe until needed and thereby obviate any time considerations. Similarly, the compact nature of the dungeon has left little opportunity for the game master to expand on what is provided, which is unusual for traditional style modules. Of the nineteen encounter areas at least seventeen of them must be explored, largely one after the other, in order to reach the final location. Naturally, this makes for rather linear exploration, which may frustrate players and game masters used to more expansive designs, but for tournament purposes is entirely suitable. Moreover, not every dungeon need be cut from the same cloth. Given that the adventurers manage to successfully negotiate all the dangers and puzzles there is a satisfactory denouement as well as a rather unusual, but substantial, reward to be had.

Technicalities and Errors

With regard to grammar and editing there is little of note to complain about. It is rather vexing to see a true minus used early in the text, only for hyphens to be used thereafter, but it is of little consequence. There appears to be a mistake in the ghoul statistic string on page five, insofar as damage is listed as "1-3/1-6/1-6" and it seems obvious that "1-3/1-3/1-6" was intended. As far as design flaws go, encounter area eleven is troublesome, in that failure to roll the right numbers on the dice not only results in an unsuccessful trial of strength, but destroys the means to carry out future attempts and thus the method of passing beyond the chamber. Stumbling blocks of this sort, but of lesser consequence, are typical rather than exceptional and can easily lead to a party being stuck in one area for a prolonged period. In another instance, one player is required to play and win the ancient game of Senet in order to obtain a necessary item, which aside from being quite random excludes the other players from active participation. However, whether any of these potential issues will manifest at a given game table is likely highly subjective, depending on the ability of the players and the skill of the game master.

Conclusion

Conceptually the Lost Pyramid of Imhotep is engaging and innovative, but whilst the design is suitable for a tournament environment, it could bear considerable improvement and expansion. Although redesigning the dungeon might not be a desirable undertaking, there is plenty of room for a wilderness description, random encounters, a settlement, rival treasure seekers, and other augmentations. Several encounter areas could also be improved on so that they are less linear and have several potential solutions. Less emphasis on combat in some instances would also be worthwhile, in particular for the locust and beetle vehicles; the usefulness of the latter in the passage of annihilation already hints at alternative possibilities, rather than simply combating a like opponent. Whatever its design shortcomings for regular campaign use, the adventure is well written and Warden demonstrates a considerable knowledge of the history of ancient Egypt without overwhelming the reader, though anybody expecting a swords & sorcery Stygian theme might well be disappointed. If the implementation of the concept is somewhat pedestrian, it remains an entirely playable and imaginative module that should make for one or two entertaining and challenging sessions.

[Review] AA8 The Seven Shrines of Nav'k-Qar

The Seven Shrines of Nav'k-Qar

Author: James C. Boney
Contents: 12 saddle stitched black and white pages, 1 title page, 9 pages of adventure, 1 page of Your Games Now and Other World Miniatures advertisements, and 1 open game license page.
Publisher: Expeditious Retreat Press
Product Code: XRP6108
Retail Price: £7.00 or $12.00

Overview

An adventure for 6-8 characters of levels 8-12, the Seven Shrines of Nav'k-Qar is a straightforward two level dungeon crawl with a strong theme. The physical product has a glossy cover stock and durable internal pages, onto which the text and black and white maps have been clearly printed. Both the front and back cover illustrations by Bradley K. McDevitt are atmospheric and complement one another by contrasting two related scenes with different degrees of action. Including the title page, there are four interior drawings by Jeff Womack, each related to events and encounters in the module. Of these, the title page is the most compelling composition, depicting a group of adventurers apparently deliberating over how to deal with the smiling stone golem in area fourteen of the first level. Two of the remaining illustrations are of new monsters introduced in the appendices, and the last shows the focus of an encounter area. Although more interior art would be welcome, and the frequency varies considerably by module, the use of diverse artists in the Advanced Adventures series is much appreciated, as is the overall stylistic continuity, which speaks to a skilful choice of illustrators.

Very little space is given over to the premise of the scenario, just two paragraphs outlining the history of the titular toad cult of Nav’k-Qar and how the seven shrines came to be abandoned, whilst the introductory text contains the entirety of the otherwise unreferenced adventure hook. Unusually, there is also some advice to the game master with regard to fairness and moderation of the effects of randomness, which is probably not strictly necessary. A selection of rumours and wilderness encounters are provided as a precursor to entering the dungeon, the latter including swamp orcs and an adult black dragon, as well as several other interesting or environmentally suitable items. The dungeon itself also has several thematic and atmospheric features that help to give it a unique feel, such as the poisonous walls or the virtual carpet of toad bones covering the floors. On the other hand, the ogre and bugbear guardians held in suspended animation seem somewhat out of place, though such things are perhaps inherent to the design sensibilities of the author. Nevertheless, this feels like a missed opportunity to invent or use something more indicative of the degeneracy of the toad cult and its presumably twisted activities prior to being overthrown.

There is very little treasure to be had on the first level of the dungeon, but plenty of interesting and deadly encounters, so player characters that do not make use of divination magic, or otherwise fail to take sufficient steps to determine what they are facing, will be in for a hard time of things. By contrast, the second level is very linear in design; three sets of shrines must be entered and defeated, each pair in turn so as to gain entry to the next, before the seventh shrine finally becomes accessible. The challenges in these areas are heavily combat orientated, which is a bit of a pity as more puzzles would certainly have been welcome at this stage in the adventure, as would more latitude with regards to methods of bypassing the dangers. Once within the final sanctuary the party is confronted by almost an avatar of Nav’k-Qar himself, which should makes for a difficult battle and a fitting climax. Nonetheless, it is possible to come away from this module practically empty handed in terms of treasure; diligent parties will be well rewarded, but they run the risk of a final deadly obstacle in typical swords & sorcery style. As the introductory text warns, there are numerous places in the module where an unfortunate party could be wiped out.

Technicalities and Errors

In terms of grammar and editing there is very little to complain about, though the "chamber of dispair" on page four is a notable exception. As with the majority of Advanced Adventures preceding this one, there is a tendency towards using a hyphen instead of a "true" negative and it seems strange to see "1/2" in preference to "½", but the usage is consistent and so nothing more than minor gripes. Other very insignificant errors or inconsistencies include a colon after "HP" on page four, "d6" instead of "1d6" on page ten, the unnecessary pluralisation of the abbreviation "HP" to "HPs" in several places, and the appearance of "1-4+1" rather than "2-5" on pages four and five. In the latter case there is also an instance of "1-12+5" on page nine, but maybe that is a preferable notation to "6-17". That this is a module originally designed for use with the Old School Reference and Index Compilation and not a conversion from another system is evident throughout; indeed, the author has made full use of its terminology and potential. It might have been useful to include, for ease of reference, the movement rates for the various monsters in addition to their armour class, hit dice and damage, especially considering the environmental movement restrictions in the dungeon.

Conclusion

Whilst the Seven Shrines of Nav'k-Qar is perhaps not as strong an offering as the earlier modules penned by James C. Boney, it reads well and is bound to provide a satisfactory high level play experience. As with the three previous scenarios he has authored for the Advanced Adventures line, the most significant way in which this adventure could be improved is not in terms of quality but quantity. For instance, the concept could certainly be extended to a wilderness hex exploration of a partially swamp submerged and ruined city containing the eponymous seven shrines, with lizard men, bullywugs, swamp orcs, cultists, and worse vying over the drowned and broken remains. However, that probably goes rather beyond the scope of what can really be effectively conveyed in a standard sixteen page or even thirty-two page module, and as it stands the length and structure are well suited to a four to six hour tournament slot. Whilst the design is not particularly ambitious, it is certainly effective. A party of player characters of the appropriate levels should find the dungeon a difficult and entertaining challenge. Furthermore, they can consider themselves to have achieved something of note if they emerge relatively unscathed and victorious.

[Review] AA7 The Sarcophagus Legion

The Sarcophagus Legion

Author: Andrew Hind
Contents: 16 saddle stitched black and white pages, 1 title page, 13 pages of adventure, 1 page of OSRIC advertisements, and 1 open game license page.
Publisher: Expeditious Retreat Press
Product Code: XRP6107
Retail Price: £7.00 or $12.00

Overview

An adventure for 4-6 characters of levels 2-4, the Sarcophagus Legion presents a desert wilderness area and two dungeons, each consisting of one level. The physical product has a glossy cover stock and durable internal pages; the text has been clearly rendered, as have the black and white interior maps. Happily, the spine seems to be showing more resistance to wear than the last two in this series. The cover illustrations by Bradley K. McDevitt depict encounters in the module and appeal to traditional sensibilities, though the back image is perhaps the more compelling of the two. Of the three interior pieces by John Bingham, the title page image is particularly good. In addition to being evocative of the substance and theme of the module, it is a stylistically strong example of his work. The writing is for the most part energetic and clear, but does sometimes become cumbersome and over descriptive in places. An informed reader might suspect that the module was written in the style of a Dungeon Crawl Classic and then later converted over as a prospective Advanced Adventure, the read aloud text being integrated into the area descriptions, and a repeat error in the monster entries appears to confirm that as a likelihood.

The basic scenario is relatively straightforward; the sultan of a small desert kingdom seeks to engage the services of the adventurers to retrieve his fifth wife, Syriana, from a band of dervishes, who have taken her captive after ambushing her caravan. However, unbeknownst to the party and only lately revealed to the sultan, this unfortunate woman has been determined to be the reincarnation of a long dead queen, whose blood can be used to ritualistically animate the dead. In particular, she can potentially be used to bring into undying service a legion of mummies reputed to lie dormant beneath an abandoned temple deep in the desert. This is a setup with great potential, and reminiscent of a good number of Doctor Who episodes, but it is unfortunately largely squandered. Instead of becoming embroiled in the political intrigue and power struggle between the sultan and the dervishes for control of the ruined temple and the means to awaken the undead legion beneath, the adventurers are sidetracked to a former derro stronghold where Syriana has ended up; after rescuing her they are unavoidably betrayed and captured by servants of the sultan, then expected to escape so that they can rescue her again from the temple.

Whilst both dungeons are reasonably interesting and playable individually, they read as though they were designed independently and then stitched together into a heavy handed narrative. At first blush the wilderness map seems to promise open ended exploration, but the reality is much more linear, a string of encounters leading to a final showdown in the temple, the sacrifice essentially delayed until the adventurers show up. Hind, as always, provides numerous memorable encounters with innovative denizens, which offsets to some degree the larger design shortcomings. The clockwork spider and Laukshar the Leaking, a diseased ghoul priest, are particularly interesting examples of twists on conventional monsters, but there are also thematic magical items to be had and deadly locations to avoid, such as the "Pit of Fangs". Good use is made of task resolution mechanisms, rather than simple reliance on linear attribute checks, such as bend bars/lift gates to escape magical attacks and opportunities to forestall saving throws. Even experienced players should find an entertaining surprise or two in this module, and intelligent play will usually be rewarded, allowing the party to avoid expending resources unnecessarily. 

Technicalities and Errors

Occasional textual errors, such as "desrt" (p. 2), are almost unavoidable, but still worth noting. The stylistic and notational inconsistencies are somewhat irritating; for instance, the forms "1-6", "2-12", "1-6+1", "1d6", and "d6" are all in evidence, and whilst such lack of standardisation might be thought endearing by some, it is seems doubtful that it was really intended. On the other hand, the notation for less than a full hit dice is consistent in that it is presented as a hit point range, even if fractional notation is arguably more aesthetically pleasing. However, the most significant technical fault of this module is that the movement rates for all of the monsters and non-player characters are the D20 values, up to and including the new monsters in the appendices. Consequently, skeletons and dervishes have a move of 30’ instead of 120’, and that can only be confusing for a game master who does not realise what has probably happened. Errors of this sort must be caught in editing, especially if a module shows signs of being originally written with a different system in mind. It is particularly unfortunate because the statistic strings are otherwise very consistent, the product of some considerable care.

Conclusion

Conceptually, the Sarcophagus Legion has a lot to offer, the sultan is well characterised and the political situation provides plenty of opportunity for adventure. Moreover, its individual elements are good examples of Andrew Hind’s imaginative approach to swords & sorcery adventure, but as a whole it falls somewhat short of being an ideal module. Perhaps its worst design transgression is the pause between dungeons that requires the player characters to surrender or die, presuming the former. The lack of wandering monsters in the dungeons and relatively linear structure of the maps (though this is less of an issue with the mines than the temple) are also issues. With enough time and will, any experienced game master could get a lot out of what is provided, but as it stands the Sarcophagus Legion is in need of redesign and further development to meet the full potential of the ideas it contains. That is not to say that the module is a failure, indeed it is not a bad marriage of traditional game rules and modern adventure design sensibilities. Nonetheless, that is not really what has come to be expected of the Advanced Adventures series, but it is still to be hoped that Hind continues to bring his creative talent to future modules of improved design.

[Review] Blood Moon Rising

Blood Moon Rising

Authors: Peter C. Spahn.

Contents: 32 portable document format black and white pages, 1 title page, 29 pages of adventure, 1 page of  advertisements, and 1 open game license page.

Publisher: Small Niche Games.

Product Code: SNGLLA001.

Retail Price: $4.95.

Overview

An adventure for 3-6 characters of levels 1-3, Blood Moon Rising takes place in and around the small village of Garanton. It consists of a description of the settlement, short history of the locality in which it is situated, a five day festival itinerary, and three short encounter areas that become of interest during the course of the celebrations. The electronic product appears to use relatively large verdana font and spacing, which is easily legible, and presents the text in two columns with half inch margins and a header and footer decorated with a narrow celtic border pattern. Each page contains about 600 words, giving the whole document a total count approaching 18,000 or so. There are four maps, one of the village and three of the encounter areas, and four illustrations, the best of which is reproduced on the front cover and has a very gothic feel. Of the other three, there is a very dark and almost indiscernible image of warrior with an axe, a crudely drawn moon symbol, and what appears to be an image culled from a medieval manuscript of two Germanic knights duelling. The writing is clear and workmanlike, rarely dwelling needlessly on ancillary topics or over lengthy descriptions, which makes for agreeable and uncluttered reading.

Whilst the method by which the player characters are introduced to the village of Garanton is left up to the game master, the adventure unavoidably takes place against the backdrop of the five-day Feast of Saint Garan, whose tomb is nearby. The events and random encounters likely to take place during the course of the festival take up eleven pages, and the six pages of character descriptions and statistics towards the end of the module largely pertain to those individuals associated with these. As the festival progresses it becomes increasingly apparent that something untoward is occurring in the vicinity of the settlement, the result of the excavations of an inquisitive soul, whose actions accidentally reopen a portal to another plane, unleashing a plague of "night demons" and result in his own disappearance. Meanwhile, a number of orcs are attempting to open the long sealed tomb of Saint Garan, having been set to the task by their shaman, prompted by signs, portents and visions related to the impending release of the night demons. Active and motivated adventurers may drive off the orcs, uncover the secret of the saint in his tomb, reclose the portal and rescue its hapless victim, not to mention become embroiled in acts of murder and thievery in the village itself.

This is an adventure with a strong timeline, and keeping the action moving over the course of several days of game time will require more than the contents of the module, even with its robust selection of random and scripted encounters. However, there is plenty to build on, and it should pose little problem for a seasoned game master acquainted with settlement based adventures. The broad selection of non-player characters is diverse and occasionally amusing, such as "Big Annamar", a large barbarian woman with an affection for “little folk” and a poor reaction to rejection. Opportunities for role-playing abound, particularly with some of the relatively unsavoury rival adventuring groups present for the festival. The local inhabitants are of similar interest, and the larger world context is hinted at in the fact that there are no clerics amongst the local priests, all of whom are presented as fighters. Should the player characters be successful in putting an end to the night demon attacks, the village of Garanton would make a good base for further adventures, and in the traditional style it is hinted that the encounter areas already discovered may lead to larger underground complexes with greater evils to be faced and treasures to be won.

Technicalities and Errors

Happily there are very few editing errors to be found in this module, and it is particularly pleasing to see a true minus used over the less aesthetically pleasing, but more usual, hyphen. The only typographical errors that were noticeable was the occasional missing space as in the case of "battle axe+1”"on page twenty-four, but it seems to be applied so consistently in the text that this may be a house style, though it looks ungainly to my eye and a space is used on page eighteen outside of a statistics block. As noted above, an experienced game master should have no problem keeping the pacing, but there should perhaps have been some advice for the neophyte. The maps are not pretty and two appear to be crammed into the columns, but they seem to be useable enough, though the scale of one square to twenty feet is perhaps slightly overly ambitious. Whilst in line with the random charts in the rulebooks, the amount of treasure available does seem rather a lot, resulting in very quick advancement for low level adventurers, and it might have been a good idea for Spahn to have addressed this in some way. Finally, the name of the new monster seems rather unimaginative; "night gaunts" immediately leapt to mind as an alternative, but others can no doubt do better!

Conclusion

Non-dungeon based adventures are difficult to write, as they lack the structure that a restricted environment provides. Spahn has taken a reasonable approach here in using a timeline to substitute for that lack and has created an interesting locale for the players to explore. The night demon attacks are a little flat as written, but their execution is really largely in the hands of the game master anyway. Where this adventure falls short is when it comes to dungeon exploration, and that is admittedly a subjective criticism given the nature of the module, but expanded subterranean areas beyond the sparse four pages provided could only have improved the whole, even if left relatively incomplete. By the same token, more information on the plane of the night demons would have been welcome, particularly what lies beyond their mausoleum sanctuary. Of course, the inclusion of such additional material might also have driven the price beyond the target range, and there is little that could be reasonably omitted that was provided, save perhaps the details of the back story. All in all, this is a well thought out adventure, well edited, and worth the price. Last of all, it is worth noting that player characters who do too well may find an unexpected drawback in the prize!

[Review] AA6 The Chasm of the Damned

The Chasm of the Damned

Author: James C. Boney
Contents: 16 saddle stitched black and white pages, 1 title page, 13 pages of adventure, 1 page of OSRIC advertisements, and 1 open game license page.
Publisher: Expeditious Retreat Press
Product Code: XRP6106
Retail Price: £7.00 or $12.00

Overview

An adventure for 4-6 characters of levels 6-10, the Chasm of the Damned consists of eight relatively short dungeons, each accessed from the titular location, some of which are interlinked. As with previous offerings in the series, the physical product has a glossy cover stock and is clearly printed on durable paper with black and white interior maps, but with a spine that appears to be susceptible to wear. The cover art is by Bradley McDevitt and appeals to the traditional aesthetic associated with the game, as well as being reflective of the subject matter. Both the front and back illustrations depict atmospheric scenes from the module that are easily recognisable. There are six interior pieces by John Bingham, including a particularly evocative depiction of a new monster that features in the adventure, and as with the cover illustrations almost all self evidently refer specifically to the content of the module. With regard to the writing, James Boney is typically economical and clear, rarely dwelling overlong on a description, and preferring to provide only enough to spur the imagination of the reader, which is of course in keeping with the methodology of traditional swords & sorcery adventure module design.

What has earned the chasm its ominous appellation is that it is a well known but randomly located plane shifting occurrence, appearing regularly every thirty-seven years for four and a half days. Rumours abound that great fortunes are hidden in the caverns it harbours, which is a natural draw for adventurers of all sorts, but commensurate dangers await and few are said to escape unscathed. The module presents two possible ways in which to get the player characters involved. In the primary scenario, it is common knowledge that the chasm is due to appear again and they are competing with several non-player character groups to locate and raid the caverns before the allotted time is up. As the alternative scenario, it is suggested that the player characters are employed by an enterprising cleric or magician who has determined the location the chasm will appear at in advance, and are engaged to prepare an expedition in secret. Of course, if they are incautious there is an ever increasing chance that a local guild of thieves or assassins will get wind of what they are up to and lay an ambush for the treasure laden party upon their return. A collection of rumours of varying degrees of veracity are provided for the party to glean about the chasm in advance.

There is a map of the chasm provided; it is about a mile in length and divided into three levels, each of which has access points to two or more of the eight dungeons. Several additional access points are provided in order to alert the game master to the possibility of expanding the chasm. The caverns entered from the first level are fairly straightforward, offering some relatively standard monster encounters, a few strange objects to interact with, the opportunity to rescue and recruit some non-player character associates, and the possibility of negotiating for a place to rest. From the second level, the caverns accessed are stranger and feature three new monster types denoted bogwings, madsome gargoyles, and faceless ones. One area is home to a powerful middle eastern inspired character known as the Gray Sultan, who has quite a lot of potential for a thoughtful game master. There are also some more familiar monsters that may be encountered or avoided as fortune dictates. Should the player characters reach the final level of the chasm, which is somewhat inaccessible, they will have the opportunity to explore the last set of caverns and uncover the mystery of the chasm, perhaps earning themselves a powerful enemy or patron in the process.

Technicalities and Errors

Besides the occasional editing error, such as "shortsword+1" (p. 6), and the somewhat vexing, but hardly unusual and in any case consistently applied, tendency to use compound words such as "chainmail" and "shortbow" there is little to complain about. The use of hyphens for minuses (e.g. p. 10) is worth commenting on, since a true minus does appear (p. 14) and I would like to see that practice extended to all instances. Oddities like "2-4 +2 turns" (p. 3) occasionally crop up, and mixed use of terms like "footman’s mace" (p. 6), "mace", and "war hammer" (p. 14) are maybe questionable in the context, since it seems inconsistent to specify the former, but not indicate whether a shield is intended to be small or large (p. 14). Hardly an issue for any game master more than passingly familiar with the system, but worth mentioning all the same if simply overlooked. The large efreeti bottle (p. 10) is also of interest, since it is not bolded, leaving the reader to wonder at its significance, but perhaps that is the intent. On the whole, the module is an improvement stylistically on its predecessors, suffering from fewer inconsistencies and hopefully future instalments will continue to ensure there are very few nits to pick.

Conclusion

Chasm of the Damned is a good example of James Boney’s work. It has a strong and innovative adventure hook, is engagingly written, and features plenty of interesting encounters. As with his previous modules, there is a tendency towards the eclectic, with a number of seemingly randomly selected monsters appearing as the result of what amount to traps, and no fear of including creatures capable of  draining life energy levels. The author shows excellent understanding of the system, and knows where to provide mechanisms for adjudicating otherwise undefined actions, as well as knowledge of how elements of the adventure are likely to interact with typical and experienced players. His modules feel like they are very much in the tradition of their predecessors without being simple retreads of the past, and have a definite identity of their own. That said, this adventure was less tightly themed than his previous two, and ran the risk of amounting to a number of dislocated set piece encounters. A more fully integrated theme and, as always, more content would have improved the whole, but it is nonetheless a very good module.

[Review] AA5 The Flaming Footprints of Jilanth

The Flaming Footsteps of Jilanth

Author: Andrew Hind.
Contents: 16 saddle stitched black and white pages, 1 title page, 14 pages of adventure, and 1 open game license page.
Publisher: Expeditious Retreat Press.
Product Code: XRP6105.
Retail Price: £7.00 or $12.00.

Overview

An adventure for 6-8 characters of levels 3-5, the Flaming Footsteps of Jilanth presents a small subtropical isle and three dungeon levels. The physical product is sturdy enough, having a glossy cover stock and durable interior pages, on which the text is clearly printed and the black and white maps are well rendered, but unlike previous offerings the spine seems to wear easily. The cover illustrations by Bradley K. McDevitt are in keeping with the traditional aesthetic, though the image of an enraged carnivorous ape on the front is a little misleading, being only likely to be encountered as a wandering monster, and suggesting a homage to the Isle of the Ape that does not materialise. Including the title page, there are three interior illustrations by John Bingham, which relate directly to the substance of the module.

The premise is fairly straightforward; the Lord Admiral of the port city of Ranste has gone missing, and flaming footsteps, the hallmark of the long dead pirate lord Firebeard, have been seen in the streets. In response, the city council has dispatched the player characters to the isle of Jilanth, a former pirate stronghold, to search for signs that Firebeard might have returned, or else some other indication as to what is going on. The isle is about ten miles in diameter and consists of around seventy hexes. Four of the hexes are keyed as adventure locations, whilst the rest are a mixture of jungle, swamp, hill and mountain terrain types. The random encounter table has thematically appropriate entries for day and night, as well as three special events that each have quarter page descriptions. It is a little strange that the chart allows for the appearance of goblins armed with blowpipes, but not the lizard men whose camp is one of the adventure locations.

Each of the other three keyed locations presents a short dungeon level that consists of around a dozen or so encounter areas. The first of these is a cavern complex that was used by Firebeard and his pirates as a stronghold. The main opposition are giant vermin and skeletal undead, but there is also a mummified voodoo witch to contend with. Further upriver is an abandoned gnome hold, which can also be reached by means of an underground tunnel from the pirate caverns. Once a prosperous copper mine, the gnomes were overwhelmed by an insidious curse. In addition to giant vermin and undead, corrupted creatures known as hold creepers stalk the empty halls of the gnome hold. They have also captured the last surviving member of an ill fated expedition to the pirate caverns, who the adventurers may rescue.

If the players choose to continue following the river or otherwise explore the isle they may discover an entrance to the wizard lair that serves as the third dungeon. However, the magician has been driven out by a wax doppelgänger he created of himself, and languishes in captivity amongst the lizard men. The adventurers may find out about this if they manage to overcome his usurper and other wax creations, or if they encounter the lizard man encampment whilst exploring the wilderness. Should they be able to rescue or in some other way gain access to the magician, then he may reveal that he wears Firebeard's flaming boots, and that he is responsible for the reappearance of the flaming footprints in the streets of Ranste. However, his motives are left up to the discretion of the game, as is the reason for the disappearance of the Lord Admiral.

There is a lot of interesting material here, several new monsters and magic items, as well as a self contained wilderness area to explore. The author has added a twist or two to several conventional monsters, such as the skeletons in the pirate caverns, and generally shows good knowledge of the rules in developing the various encounter areas. It is not clear if the lack of wandering monsters in the lair of the wax wizard is intentional, but it seems a reasonable supposition. There are occasional missteps, such as the blessed ring in the well room, which seems out of keeping with more traditional dungeon elements, but such things show a willingness to explore the boundaries of the game.

Technicalities and Errors

The Flaming Footsteps of Jilanth suffers from the usual editing errors and notation inconsistencies here and there; for instance, hit point spreads are mainly used in place of fractional hit dice, but occasionally, as in the case of the giant centipede, the latter is used. There are also occasionally redundant phrases like "chain mail armour" and references to weapon nomenclature that is not used in the Old School Reference & Index Compilation. It should probably have also been noted next to the various stirge entries that whilst the creature has only 1+1 hit dice it fights as though it has 4. These are very minor technicalities, however, and do little to affect the utility of the module. There are rather a lot of calls for attribute checks, and a few rogue references to boat handling checks, which could probably have been safely excised. On the other hand, defined procedural methods are useful for a module when run under tournament conditions.

Conclusion

This is a module that would benefit from having a tighter focus. As it stands it feels like three short adventures that are otherwise unrelated have been combined. Each dungeon has the potential for significant expansion and seems like the kernel of a larger adventure location. The gnome hold in particular feels like it could have been developed as a completely independent module. Whilst a lot of traditional adventures leave undeveloped hooks to spur on the imagination of the game master, there is rather too much left open and unexplained in the Flaming Footsteps of Jilanth. An abandoned and haunted pirate stronghold on a deserted subtropical isle is a strong concept, and the presence of the wax wizard adds an extra threat, but in the form that they are currently presented the elements are too disparate and not suggestive enough.

[Review] DCC The Saga of the Rat King

The Saga of the Rat King

Authors: Jeffery Quinn, Harley Stroh, and Jon Hershberger.
Contents: 64 soft bound black and white pages, 1 title page, 56 pages of adventure, 4 pages of handouts, 2 pages of advertisements, and 1 open game license page.
Publisher: Goodman Games.
Product Code: GMGGC08.
Retail Price: £8.99 or $15.99.

Overview

A compilation of three thematically linked adventures for 4-6 characters of levels 1-6, each instalment being intended for a shorter and progressively higher power range. The first and last of these are conversions of Dungeon Crawl Classics #1 Idylls of the Rat King and #27 Revenge of the Rat King, designed and written for third edition by Jeffery Quinn and Harley Stroh, respectively. The module that now bridges these two, Scourge of Silverton, was authored specially for this compilation by Jon Hershberger, who also did the first edition conversion work.

As is the case with all of the adventures in the Dungeon Crawl Classics line, the Saga of the Rat King is nominally set in the world of Áereth, but is intended to be easily adapted to any conventional swords & sorcery campaign milieu. Parts one and two take place near to the small mining settlement of Silverton, which receives around a page of exposition in the first appendix; part three takes place in, or rather beneath, the free city of Soulgrave, which is left undescribed beyond a few brief details. The adventures are tied together by the intrigues of the vengeful scions of the Gannu family; disinherited and cursed to live as wererats, their purpose is both revenge and redress.

The physical presentation of the compilation is very familiar and intentionally recalls the classic first edition aesthetic. The artwork is mostly reproduced from the original modules, the exceptions being three new pieces for Scourge of Silverton and the cover illustration, which is by Jeff Dee. The original cover art by Jim Holloway for Idylls of the Rat King and the original and alternative cover for Revenge of the Rat King also feature as interior illustrations. I particularly like the drawing of the great rat idol being despoiled by adventurers, a laudable homage.

Each part of the saga is provided with an introduction, summary, and background, as well as advice for the game master regarding scaling the difficulty, involving the player characters and dealing with their possible defeat and death. These individually take up two to three pages of text and clearly relate all the intended material. They are followed by the various encounter area descriptions, each of which contains information to be immediately conveyed to the players and a separate section for the game master. All handouts and maps are found at the end of the module, except the map for Revenge of the Rat King, which is attractively printed in black and white on the inside covers. The text is easy to read and I was pleased to see that the wide margins evident in previous first edition conversions have been reduced from three quarters of an inch to three eighths.

I was also gratified to note that the tendency to fully repeat monster statistics whenever and wherever they appear has almost entirely vanished. In some cases they could have been shorter still, as with the triple identical listings for the wererats in Idylls of the Rat King, and in others the necessity of listing variant possessions is sometimes overlooked, as with the crossbow armed goblins in area 1-5 of the same adventure. However, these are fairly minor editorial quibbles and do not detract very much from the intended brevity and functionality of the compilation.

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of converting third edition adventures to first edition is how to approach task resolution. In the case of Saga of the Rat King, this has for the most part been left open; secret doors and hidden items are noted, but the method of their discovery is not specified. This is an excellent approach for experienced game masters, who may assign a reasonable probability to the finding of such things as a result of a general and abstracted search, or allow the player characters to discover them by interacting directly with their imagined surroundings. It might be more daunting for less seasoned game masters, but the same answers are available in the rulebooks. However, towards the end of the compilation, some of the encounter areas begin to suggest or call for attribute checks on 1d20, generally in order to maintain balance, jump or swim. Whilst these are reasonable task resolution methods, I think their inclusion was unnecessary.

Idylls of the Rat King

The first adventure in the compilation is a four level dungeon crawl through what was once an abandoned mine, but now serves as a bandit lair. There are two pages of handouts, two pages of maps, and twenty-three pages of text that detail sixty encounter areas. In the original version, the bandits were a goblin clan that Lawrence Gannu had subverted to his purposes by means of his curse. The conversion takes the time to briefly explain that, since only humans are susceptible to becoming wererats under first edition rules, it was necessary to diversify the bandits to include half-orcs and humans. At the behest of the eldest son of the Gannu family, these have been attacking caravans and seizing silver shipments, which is what draws the interest of the player characters.

As might be expected of the first adventure in the Dungeon Crawl Classics line, this is a very traditional and straightforward affair. The dungeon rooms are uniformly rectangular or square, and the passageways are all ten feet wide and turn at ninety degree angles. There are numerous traps and secret doors, plenty of directional choices and the constant threat of wandering monsters. The first two levels of the mine are principally defended by goblins, half-orcs and men, though a few wererats are present on the second level; giant rats may be encountered, as might some stray zombies or a small group of skeletons. In the original version there were also several groups of goblin women and children, which have been replaced in the conversion with slaves and half-orc taskmasters. I was glad of this, as my feeling is that the inclusion of such dependents only serves to pointlessly humanise and undermine the monstrous perception of goblins.

I think some of the encounters rung a little false, such as the secret vault that contains an empty locked and trapped chest, whilst the true treasure, a silver long sword +1, is hidden beneath a loose flagstone. According to the area description, the blade was left behind by a mortally wounded fighter for others to find, which is reasonable enough, but the chest seems like a lot of unnecessary trouble for a dying man to go to. Some other encounter areas feel a little disconnected, such as the secret chamber that conceals an amulet of protection from evil; the area description tells us that Narzy Hilspek suspects the existence of such a chamber and would pay handsomely to know of it, but there is no hint of a reason as to why he would. An imaginative game master can come up with solutions to these oddities, and they can be construed positively as challenges to his creativity, but I think they could have been presented in a more inspirational manner.

The presence of undead on the wandering monster tables for the upper levels and the amusingly labelled “zombie closet” are explained by an undead mining operation on the third level of the dungeon. A human necromancer temporarily in league with the rat king is using zombies to extract silver ore. In the original version he was an evil gnome, and two of his minions were zombie badgers; the conversion has replaced these last with more conventional dwarf zombies, which makes better sense to me. The area is quite maze like, which means there is plenty of potential for wandering undead, such as skeletal ogres, to harass a slow moving party, but there are relatively few encounter areas. The necromancer is the most significant keyed hazard; the text indicates that he will attempt to bargain with the adventurers, but only with a view towards immediately betraying them. I suspect that an earlier draft presented him in a less uncompromising manner, since this is the very Narzy Hilspek who would pay to know the location of the secret chamber on the second level of the dungeon. Depending on how the player characters approached him, I would probably be inclined to have him bide his time before betraying them.

The final level of the dungeon is the abode of the rat king and his wererat minions, but unknown to them it is also the secret prison of a powerful vampire. It is quite possible that the player characters will defeat the rat king without ever discovering this additional terror, which makes for an interesting potential future plot hook. Indeed, even if released by over covetous adventurers, the vampire may become anything from a temporary ally against the wererats to a recurring villain, neither of which are mutually exclusive. Lawrence Gannu himself is a reasonably challenging foe, and since he is not inclined to flee or surrender, the adventure will either end with his death or those of the player characters.

This is a good conversion of an entertaining dungeon crawl; most of my criticisms are relatively minor and rarely detract from the functionality of the module. The dungeon maps are a bit artificial and some of the encounters a little forced, but the content is very playable and interesting. Almost all of the design choices made for the conversion have made for a better adventure and, combined with the inclusion of details such as the spies amongst the slaves, makes me wonder whether a heavier hand might have further improved upon the original. My one real complaint is that the body of the father of the rat king, Aaron Gannu, is entombed at area 4-13, as it is in the original. In the context of this compilation such a consistency question makes little sense, since Aaron Gannu is the primary villain for the remainder of the saga.

Scourge of Silverton

The adventure that links Idylls of the Rat King to Revenge of the Rat King is a fairly short affair, taking up only eight pages of text. Whilst it is intended as to form a bridge between them, it can be used independently of either with only a few minor changes. The premise of the default plot is that Marcus Gannu, half brother of Lawrence Gannu, has come to Silverton seeking revenge on the slayers of his sibling. To this end, he has taken prisoner a number of the local villagers and is purportedly holding them for ransom in the abandoned Deveraux silver mine. However, this is merely a pretext to lure the player characters into his trap; the unfortunate prisoners have already been taken to Soulgrave to be sold into slavery.

Assuming that the adventurers take the bait, they are told to deliver the ransom money to the nearby mine, where Marcus and his men await them. Whether they pay the ransom or not, it quickly becomes apparent that the hostages will not be relinquished easily. Arrayed against them are some thirty or so adversaries, mainly low level assassins and bandits, though there are also some dire wolves, a third level fighter and a dual classed cleric/magician, in addition to Marcus himself. All are lightly armoured, which allows them to effectively employ hit and fade tactics, the aim being to draw the party deep into the mine, through prepared defences and into a final killing ground.

This sort of dynamic scenario can prove quite deadly to an incautious or overconfident group of player characters, especially if a party of assassins manages to achieve surprise. Unless they manage to take out their opponents quickly at each stage, the party may find the last encounter too difficult to overcome, and their fast moving enemies will likely catch any fleeing adventurers in short order. The text indicates that any player characters captured are conveyed to the dungeons of the elder rat king, and any who are slain are resurrected and treated to the same fate, which leads directly to the third instalment of the saga.

The dungeon itself is laid out so that players have a number of directional choices, and good tactical use can be made of the environment. Particularly cunning adventurers may even manage to cut off the escape route that Marcus has planned. There is also plenty of room left explicitly for expansion, should the game master be inclined. The suggestions for wandering monsters serve as good inspiration for what might dwell in an expanded mine; a giant frog spawning ground was my first thought.

Whilst relatively brief, this is a well put together adventure that provides an interesting and extendable dungeon environment, sets up a compelling villain, and demonstrates a confident familiarity with the flexibility and potential of the first edition rules and design philosophy. A good example of this understanding in practice is the mix of class levels and hit die advancement used to effectively represent the capabilities of the villains. Producing a bridging adventure of this sort cannot have been altogether easy, but this module both serves that purpose and stands well on its own merits.

Revenge of the Rat King

The final part of the rat king saga takes up twenty-two pages all told, including two pages of handouts. There are thirty encounter areas divided into three stages, most of which are quite unavoidable and must be completed to reach the next. The central premise of this adventure is that the player characters are captured by the rat king in area 1-14, the remainder of the module being concerned with their escape from his prison. This event is considered to be so critical to the progression of the plot that the game master is advised to increase the number of wererats in the planned ambush from more than a score to as many as needed, should it look as though there are not enough to prevail.

Having read through the original, I had hoped that the conversion would dispense with the importance attached to the capture of the adventurers, and so I was disappointed to find it was still so strongly urged. A predetermined event of this sort constrains both players and game master in a way that undermines the fundamental “choices and consequences” nature of traditional adventure gaming. It would have been more aesthetically appealing to have provided the rat king with alternative courses of action, each depending on the outcome of his primary plan; if the wand of stone and earth were placed in the possession of Azrod the Dying and the capture of the player characters turned into a possible outcome, rather than a mandatory event, this adventure would have been much improved.

Whilst in terms of overall design concept I thought this was definitely the weakest instalment in the compilation, by contrast it also boasts some of the strongest set pieces. From the zombie infested collapsible cages of the slave pits to the failed clones in the workshop of the Dying One, the dungeons of the rat king are full of evocative and deadly encounters. I particularly like the rat filled swarming hole; the numerous additional rats that rain down on adventurers as they try to cross over, by means of a narrow and slippery beam, creates quite the visceral mental image. I thought it a bit of a pity that the curse of the spinner encounter area was not included in the conversion, as that was also rather good. I would quite like to see it converted as a web supplement at some point.

Although most of the dungeon runs fairly linearly, areas 2-6 to 2-8 form an adjunct, and are deliberately left open ended for the game master to expand upon. They can be reached from the main sewer by means of a large drain, and comprise a small part of an ancient and ruined necropolis; the accessible part leads to the tomb of a fallen paladin who bargained away his soul to a demon prince in return for worldly power. The strange writing and whispering demonic voices that begin if anybody reads the words aloud are well used here, creating a sense of otherworldly danger and apprehension. There is just enough information about this area to get the reader thinking about how to develop it, a solid element of first edition adventure design.

Apart from the plotted event structure, which a skilled game master should be more than capable of overcoming, this is actually rather an interesting dungeon. It is diverse and has plenty to offer by way of challenges, only really lacking a dynamic and adaptable outlook to get the best out of. A significant shortcoming by any stretch of the imagination, but hardly an insurmountable one. Whether the rat king escapes or is defeated, there are many potential plot strands left intentionally unresolved for future development, and which can be used to tie the series into the larger campaign milieu, such as Áereth or some other suitable swords & sorcery setting.

Technicalities and Errors

Conversion work is a double edged sword; editing errors in the original are usually spotted and removed, but substantial changes always run the risk of introducing new mistakes into the text. I did not spot a great many of these, but there are some, such as the notation “Ftr5/Th6/Brd3” appearing at location 2-3 on the Encounter Table on page three, or the assertion on pages twelve and forty-two that some of the wererats have a “giant fat form”, which gave me a chuckle. A less obvious error is the accidental conflating of Silverton with Soulgrave on page twenty seven, the former of which is unlikely to have much of a slave market for its own citizens. In keeping with a great many other modules, terms such as “long sword” are treated inconsistently, occasionally being rendered as “longsword”. There is also a noticeable tendency for repeat words to crop up in the writing here and there, which is a little disconcerting, and could have probably used another editorial pass.

Some of the background material was rewritten to improve cohesiveness, which is by and large an improvement on the original. However, some strangeness has resulted from some of the changes, such as the mention of a goblin shaman on page five, who no longer features in the adventure, all the goblin clerics having been converted to humans. Similarly, the half-orcs in area 2-2 fight with “suicidal devotion” because their slaves are at stake, which made more sense in the original when it was their dependents at stake. There is also the illustration on page sixteen, which depicts the original bespectacled goblin wizard in area 2-21, rather than the human magician of the conversion. More annoyingly, the title page illustration shows a crowned wererat sat upon a wooden throne, flanked by two vicious looking goblin types bearing spears; this can only be the bandit chief from area 2-18, whose goblin bodyguards have been replaced with humans. It would have been no trouble at all to have made these half-orcs, not even their hit dice would needed to have been changed.

With regards to the technical rendering of statistics, I found the notation for hit dice less than one to be unnecessarily baroque. For instance, goblin and giant rat hit die are presented in the form “HD 1-7 Hit Points” and “HD 1-4 Hit Points” respectively, which contrasts with the more concise “HD ¼, HP 1-2” used for normal rats. These would have been better rendered as “HD 1-1, HP 1-7” and “HD ½, HP 1-4” for the sake of consistency. In a similar vein, when class level is indicated, providing hit die type and number is redundant, as class type and level supersede this notation for the purposes of determining saving throws, to hit numbers, and life energy levels.

I also thought that the wererat and rat king statistics could have been briefer, more along the lines of those used for Marcus Gannu in fact, and that the ogre zombie and skeleton statistics could have done with another edit, but it is hard to say for sure as they are listed as new monsters. For the most part, excellent use is made of hit die advancement as an alternative to advancement by level and class for non player characters and monsters, but there are also occasional lapses. Most of these appear to be simple editing errors, such as the hobgoblin slavers on pages forty-three and fifty, who are listed as “Ftr1” and having “HD 1+1”, or the notable villagers of Silverton, who are variously listed as “Expert5” or “Commoner2”. The half-orc slavers in Revenge of the Rat King are a different matter, as their hit die notation shows that they were intended to be first level fighters; my complaint with regard to this is that it actually makes them weaker in terms of offensive strength than the half-orc bandits in Idylls of the Rat King, which I do not think was intended.

In terms of further minutia, the notations used for damage are often inconsistent. For instance, on pages thirty-one and thirty-two, Cedric the cleric/magician has the damage notation “2-5+1”, which should more reasonably read as “3-6” or if complete clarity is desired “1d4+2”, whilst Marcus Gannu and the bandit leader have their damage ranges listed as though using normal weapons, though both bear magical blades that should show the notations “2-9 and 2-7” or “1d8+1 and 1d6+1” respectively. It is also worth noting that whilst the rat king is listed with a rapier +2 and his minions with mundane equivalents, the weapon does not appear in the first edition rulebooks and so lacks any extant weapon versus armour modifiers; they could have been replaced with scimitars, as was done with the Tower of the Black Pearl, but this would have contradicted the cover art.

Conclusion

There is a lot to like about Saga of the Rat King; the production values are high, the aesthetic appealing, and the writing is good. The content is a bit variable in places, but generally strong, especially with regard to the individual set pieces; I particularly liked the encounter with the demon summoning cleric at the start of the sewers of the slavers, for instance. The conversion work has been handled skilfully and with obvious practical and theoretical knowledge of how to get the best out of first edition. I very much appreciated the open approach taken toward task resolution and willingness to present variations on the default statistics for characters and monsters.

Where I felt the compilation was at its weakest was in some of the things it carried over from the original adventures. I would have liked to have seen a greater degree of the text reworked in a way that facilitated more dynamic and less static activity on the parts of the monsters and characters arrayed against the adventurers. However, I also recognise that there is only so much that can be done with this sort of project before the adventure ceases to be recognisable as a conversion.

This is a solid first edition conversion that will make for several entertaining sessions of play, either as part of a longer campaign or within their own context. The additional material that has been included is all to the good of the whole, and the presentation is both functional and pleasing. I think I would have preferred as the cover illustration the despoiled rat idol to the rapier wielding rat king, but that is no doubt a subjective preference. The conversion work is a significant improvement over the offerings of previous years, and the content is comparable in terms of quality. Overall, I was very satisfied with this product.

Alternative Reviews: None

[Review] DCC The Golden Auroch/Tower of the Black Pearl

The Golden Auroch/Tower of the Black Pearl

Authors: Harley Stroh and Andrew Hind.
Contents: 24 saddle stitched black and white pages, 2 title pages, 20 pages of adventure, 1 page of handouts, and 1 open game license page.
Publisher: Goodman Games.
Product Code: GMGGC08-2.
Retail Price: £5.99 or $10.99.

Overview

Two distinct adventures for 4-6 characters of levels 1-2, each designed to potentially serve as the starting point for a longer campaign or be played as they are. The Golden Auroch and Tower of the Black Pearl were originally written and designed for third edition by Andrew Hind and Harley Stroh, respectively; both titles first appeared in Dungeon Crawl Classics #29 The Adventure Begins. They have been adapted for first edition by Jon Hershberger, who also did the conversion work for Iron Crypt of the Heretics and Saga of the Witch Queen.

Whilst both of these adventures are intended for use with any traditional swords & sorcery campaign setting, they each have a suggested location in the default Dungeon Crawl Classics world of Áereth. The Golden Auroch takes place on the eastern edge of the Achsfel Wastes, in the shadow of the Kitezhan mountains; the Tower of the Black Pearl lies some thousand miles and more distant, in the Straits of Ymtal. However, if it were desired to play both these adventures one after the other with the same party, it would be no great stretch to move the tower to the coastline north of the wastes.

The module is presented as a “flip book”, which is to say that it is printed in such a way that there are two front covers, each reading forward, and no back cover. The maps are not printed on the inside of the covers, which I understand to be mainly on account of the expense involved. Instead these can be found in the middle of the booklet, where the two adventures meet. The internal art is mainly taken from the original versions, but the cover pieces are entirely new; both are by Brad McDevitt, and rendered in a neo traditional monochrome style that recalls the earliest first edition offerings.

Both the Golden Auroch and Tower of the Black Pearl have their own introduction, summary, background, suggested methods of getting the player characters involved, and advice for scaling the difficulty to accommodate larger and higher level parties; these take up a page and a half of each module. In each case, a short description of the adventure location is followed by the various keyed encounter areas, which make up the bulk of the text. Every encounter is divided into information to be immediately related to the players and details reserved for the game master. The text is clearly printed, and the margins set at three eighths of an inch, which is half the width of earlier Goodman Games conversions, and results in more words to the page.

The monster and non player character statistics are suitably brief, and no space is wasted with needless repetitions, which is very much appreciated. Task resolution has mainly been well handled, all evidence of the third edition skill system has been erased, and the game master left free to determine whether to leave things up to the dice, player interaction with the environment, or a combination thereof. Some tasks are described as “extremely difficult” or “easy” and that is about all the guidance that is needed.

The flip book format is undeniably a gimmick, hearkening back to venerable predecessors, but it is also perfectly practical. The two halves feel entirely distinct and there is no need to page through the booklet to reach the second module, as there would be if they were simply bound one after the other. Whilst in general I prefer the aesthetics of a module with a front and back cover, there is no denying the functionality of the design; it is a durable product with very good production values.

The Golden Auroch

This adventure takes place amidst the desert swallowed ruins of Ur, a cursed city destroyed at the behest of a vengeful deity. Beneath the shifting sands some structures remain partially intact, not least of which is the palace turned tomb of the sorceress queen Nicrotis, wherein the golden auroch lies, long undisturbed. The premise is straightforward enough; the city state of Akkad is in the grip of a drought, and the aforementioned relic is said to have the power to end it. The player characters have undertaken to find the auroch and their guide, a man named Nebu, has brought them to the ruined city. Of course, unbeknownst to anyone, Nicrotis still dwells in her palace and, what is more, she has need of brave mortals. So, when the adventurers find themselves hopelessly outmatched against the Scourge of Ninurta, a powerful guardian set to watch over the ruins, a nearby pair of doors inexplicably open and provide a convenient means of escape.

Unlike the introductions to many other Dungeon Crawl Classics, no space in the Golden Auroch is given over to an explicit list of plot hooks for getting the player characters involved. Rather, it is simply assumed that they are seeking the relic on behalf of the prince of Akkad. There are alternative explanations offered, but they are very brief. The adventure begins at the buried city, and any game master who wishes to deal with prior events is essentially left to his own devices. Starting the game in media res has the advantage of bringing the players straight into the action and is also good for tournament play, but it also robs them of the opportunity to gather information, plan their expedition, and equip themselves accordingly. Consequently, whatever knowledge the player characters have is entirely at the discretion of the game master. For my part, I tend to run modules independently of campaigns and do not want to spend a lot of time setting up the story, so I favour this approach; nonetheless, anyone used to having more elaborate plot hooks provided may feel the lack.

The opening encounter with the Scourge of Ninurta is problematic; it is scripted so that the adventurers quickly recognise they are outmatched and flee into the palace. If they choose to make a fight of it, or run in a different direction, they will almost certainly be slain, because the guardian is an eight hit dice monster with more than fifty hit points and a movement rate of twelve. Even if the game master uses Nebu to show the players the “right” course of action, there will almost certainly be casualties, and a party lacking hirelings is likely to suffer. However, the real problem with this encounter is that even once the adventurers acquire the golden auroch, which weighs five hundred pounds, the guardian has no reason to allow them to leave with it, short of a deus ex machina. Unfortunately, the prescribing does not end with the party being funnelled into the palace; poor Nebu is destined to dramatically die at the hands of a new monster, a dust para-elemental. Happily, this event is unimportant, easily ignored, and the only other scripted portion of the module.

Despite the rather heavy handed introduction, the dungeon itself is designed to be explored in a much more open and traditional manner. The player characters are presented with a number of directional choices, and could potentially locate the auroch with relatively little in the way of combat. The dust para-elemental will shadow the adventurers, moving between encounter areas to ambush them at opportune moments. However, once it is defeated they are relatively free to rest and recoup as their rations allow, as there are no other wandering monsters in the palace. Therefore, the way in which the game master handles the dust para-elemental has the potential to significantly affect the difficulty of the other encounters with regard to the renewable resources available, particularly spells. That said, with the Scourge of Ninurta awaiting them outside, other opportunities for rest are decidedly limited, making the eventual destruction of the dust para-elemental a virtual necessity for a successful outcome, its role as the guardian of the golden auroch not withstanding.

In addition to the Scourge of Ninurta and the dust para-elemental, adventurers may encounter a number of diverse monsters, including an animated iron maiden, a horde of carnivorous beetles, and an enraged magmin. The golden auroch itself is protected by a seething nest of vipers, whose venomous bite could easily confer an unpleasant death. However, the most dangerous foe in the dungeon is the sorceress Nicrotis, former queen of Ur. What remains of her mortal shell is almost entirely confined to her throne and slowly crumbling away, but as a sorceress she is still a potent threat. Nicrotis’ aim is to persuade the player characters, by means fair or foul, to complete the ritual that she failed to finish and fully open a portal to the para-elemental plane of dust. Of course, complying with her wishes is inadvisable, resulting in the restoration of her corporeal form amongst other misfortunes, but an unsuspecting party may well be fooled. In the original version of the Golden Auroch, players could defer to a character skill to determine Nicrotis’ true intentions, but under the first edition paradigm they must rely on their own intuition, a by far preferable situation.

Conceptually, this adventure is great. A divinely cursed and desert buried city serving as both the prison and the tomb of a desiccated sorceress queen is a premise almost guaranteed to fire the imagination. The ruins of Ur could easily be expanded and developed into a major adventure location by an enterprising game master. The conversion work is excellent, each encounter being a suitable challenge to a well organised party without being impossible for a group of new players. However, an unseasoned game master might find running the adventure difficult. Using the dust para-elemental as intended requires experience and skill, and the same could be said of the Scourge of Ninurta. Of course, dealing with challenges is the principal means by which such skills are acquired, and the text provides some pointers here and there, so there is little reason to dwell on that overlong. As written, the Golden Auroch is a good module, and my principle complaint is that it is not longer, as it seems to me that this is only the kernel of what it potentially could be.

Tower of the Black Pearl

The focus of this adventure is the exploration of an underwater tower that emerges from the ocean once a decade. Should the inherent mystery of such a place prove insufficient, rumours of a black pearl of unusual size and value may entice reluctant player characters. There are three potential plot hooks presented in the introductory material, each revealing the existence of the tower and a reason to seek it. These may prove useful starting points for a game master who desires to integrate the module into an ongoing campaign, whilst for those wishing to move directly to the dungeon proper they do good service as instant background. Although the introductory suggestions are principally methods of involving the adventurers, they also provide differing degrees of information about what they can expect to face. There are three salient details that the game master may reveal; that the black pearl is said to be cursed; that the tower will be accessible for only eight hours before the tides return; and that a notoriously vicious pirate named Savage Quenn is seeking the pearl for his own nefarious ends. Control of this information is significant, as each rumour has the potential to alter how the player characters initially perceive their expedition and its purpose.

There are twelve encounter areas described in the module; the first four correspond to the immediate upper levels of the tower, and are accessed one after the other. The whereabouts of the other eight is more ambiguous because they are accessed from area 1-4 by means of two magical portals. Judging from their size and the fact that they begin to flood if the black pearl is removed from its pedestal, they are most logically situated beneath the tower, but the text leaves this open to interpretation. As with the first four, the remaining eight areas follow one after the other in a linear fashion. A particularly quick thinking or daring party might manage to move directly from 1-6 to 1-10 or 1-11, but there are otherwise virtually no directional decisions for the players to make, which is a bit of a shame. On the other hand, it means that the adventure is very straightforward; the only real problem a prospective game master might face is if the players take a long time to solve some of the puzzles, as my group did. Deciding how to measure the passage of time and whether or when to give hints is crucial.

Savage Quenn and his pirate crew provide the main combat opposition, and are encountered in three groups. The first three stalwarts lie in a stupor atop the tower, having succumbed to the temptation of a cask of rum whilst supposedly guarding the long boat; a second party waits at area 1-5, ready to ambush anybody who steps through the portal; the last group have accompanied their captain as far as area 1-7, where they have been stopped by a great iron door. Additional pirates may also be encountered as a wandering monster result, though the confined quarters of the dungeon will sometimes mandate the use of discretion for the sake of internal consistency. The adventure is designed so that Savage Quenn and his companions have not managed to open the gate by the time the player characters arrive, a fact that prompts him to propose a short term alliance. The text indicates that the pirate captain will betray the party as soon as the door is breached, which I regard as a missed opportunity; far better to have Savage Quenn stretch out his treachery until the black pearl is within his reach, the tower flooding, and everybody scrambling to escape. I ran this encounter as the module suggested, and instantly knew I had made a mistake.

The conversion work for the pirates is good, and corrects an error in the original text whereby they lacked the bows mentioned in the first area description. As veteran fighters armed with short swords and short bows, they are dangerous, but their poor armour class means that they are also vulnerable. Savage Quenn is a somewhat better fighter, but similarly first level, making intimidation and deception his best weapons against the adventurers. In addition to the former crew of the Black Mariah, there are giant rats and animated statues to contend with, as well as a skeletal boatman who takes exception to being short changed. Of these, the statues are new monsters with first edition appropriate statistics.

At various points in the dungeon are puzzles that have to be solved in order to reach the next encounter area, and which have the potential to significantly slow the progress of the player characters. With only forty-eight turns to explore the tower before the tide returns, the speedy resolution of these obstacles is paramount to success. The first challenge is the entrance hatch, as it requires a specific action to unlock, and there are no prompts. It took my group a couple of turns to figure it out by trial and error, but they could have gotten the information from one of the pirates they captured, had they questioned them more insistently. The same party found activating the first portal in area 1-5 more difficult; ignoring the evidence of a recent blood sacrifice, they spent rather a lot of time rearranging the jewels in the hope of activating the portal, and a hint was eventually necessary to get things moving. The traps and tricks in areas 1-7 to 1-10 are fairly straightforward, and some lateral thinking allows the worst of their effects to be mitigated, though it seemed odd that the spear trap in area 1-10 had a reset mechanism that so readily revealed its presence. The final puzzle of the tower is how to reach the black pearl itself, which is separated from potential thieves by thirty feet of water broiling with poisonous sea snakes; if the players have not yet given any thought to the wisdom of stealing the black pearl, this should give them cause.

This adventure falls short in two principal regards; it is too linear, and the main opposition too static. If there was an event timeline, so that reaching the black pearl was a race against time, then linearity would not matter so much. Catching up with, or beating, Savage Quenn to his goal would be the main objective of the adventure, and the players would probably have to make some interesting choices along the way. As written, the pirate captain and his companions will be encountered at area 1-7 regardless of whether the adventurers arrive on turn ten or turn forty. The way that certain elements of the adventure interact with one another also seem a little inconsistent; for instance, how is the tower flooded by the removal of the black pearl, and why do the solars watching over the candles in the hall of mysteries allow them to be extinguished by the flood, but punish characters who maliciously extinguish them? Questions to be answered by the game master, no doubt, but the lack of ready solutions makes things feel a little haphazard. That said, this is not a bad module; the encounters are diverse and well balanced, the concept is interesting, the writing is engaging, and it makes for an entertaining evening of adventure gaming. A bit of work is needed to get the best out of it, but that can be said of a good many traditional modules, and the Tower of the Black Pearl is no different in that respect.

Technicalities and Errors

It is surprising how many editing errors can creep into even a short work, and conversions are prone to introducing new ones, even as they correct mistakes in the original. An example of an inconsistency that was not caught here is the illustration of the dust para-elemental armed with scimitar and round shield on page four of the Golden Auroch, which is faced by a short description indicating that it is “armed with tower shield and spear”. A newly introduced disparity can be found on the cover illustration of Savage Quenn; his scimitar has a guard in the shape of the head of a cat, but is described on page seven as having “a black steel blade” and a “pommel cast in the shape of a cat’s head”. I might also complain that the handout on page ten is somewhat misleading as to the distance separating the adventurers from the black pearl, at least as seems to be implied on the map. Moreover, the map for the Golden Auroch has a wall separating areas 1-12 to 1-15 from the rest of the complex, which is not mentioned in the key and can only be an oversight.

There are occasional inconsistencies in the monster statistic blocks. The animated figurines are listed as having “HD 1d4, HP 2”, whilst the giant rats are listed as “HD 1-4 HP” on the same page, which reads confusingly and should preferably be rendered “HD ½, HP 2 (or 1-4)”, and the same for the poisonous sea snakes and vipers. Similarly, it is superfluous to indicate that the pirates are “HD 1” when they are listed as first level fighters, a convention that is variably repeated with Savage Quenn as “HD 1d10” and Nicrotis as “HD 7”. The pirate captain is also listed as doing “1-8+1” damage with his scimitar and “1-3” damage with his dagger, which ought really to be “2-9” and “1-4” respectively. I suspect that the absence of a damage listing for the skeletons on page seven is a mistake, and in the same vein it is not clear why movement is listed for some monsters and not others.

Although on the whole vestiges of third edition have been excised from this product, they do occasionally crop up here and there. The two references to “chain mail shirts” on page seven of the Tower of the Black Pearl appear to be of that sort, as does the “tower shield” on page five of the Golden Auroch. On the other hand, the vast majority of new monsters read as first edition entries, though I thought the complete removal of damage reduction might have been a little overzealous. The one exception to this is Nicrotis herself, who seems to be partially presented as a seventh level magic-user and partially as a monster entry, which is reminiscent of the way third edition handles such things. A typical monster entry with the notation “casts spells as a seventh level magic user” would perhaps have been clearer, even bearing in mind that no statistics are provided for her “restored” form.

Conclusion

Although I am certainly not without complaints, both of these are good conversions for first edition, and either will provide for an entertaining session with minimal preparation; however they do feel too short, and when I compare the twenty four pages of the Golden Auroch / Tower of the Black Pearl to the sixteen pages of the Pod Caverns of the Sinister Shroom I am struck by how much more is packed into the latter compared to the former. I do not usually think it appropriate to criticise the use of boxed text, as it is as much a stylistic preference as a functional one, but I think in this case these adventures could have been much improved by the reduction of each entry and the inclusion of more areas. Of course, that is not really a reasonable criticism of a conversion, but it is of the complete product. There is a lot of potential here, and I would have liked to see it more fully realised.

Alternative Reviews: None

[Review] AA4 The Prison of Meneptah

The Prison of Meneptah

Author: Alphonso Warden
Contents: 32 saddle stitched black and white pages, 1 title page, 28 pages of adventure, 2 pages of OSRIC advertisements, and 1 open game license page.
Publisher: Expeditious Retreat Press
Product Code: XRP6104
Retail Price: £7.00 or $13.00

Overview

A stand alone adventure for 4-7 characters of levels 8-10, this is an interesting offering and, compared to earlier modules in the series, very reasonably priced. The background and concept are extremely appealing and captured my interest right away, being a heady mix of extra planar travel, devastated locales, unwise ambitions and fallen deities. The introduction takes up only the first page of text and the adventure hook is a straight forward offer of a large sum of gold in exchange for the services of the player characters.

The task involves travelling through a portal to a barren world in order to ascertain the fate of a party of explorers previously sent to investigate. After the introduction, the first fourteen pages or so of the module deal with travelling through the wilderness, the various random encounters possible, a planned encounter, and three or four relatively short, but potentially deadly, adventure sites. This is followed by twelve pages dealing with the prison proper and one page detailing new monsters and items. The external and internal artwork meets the familiar old school aesthetic.

On the whole, I found the first part of the module to be more satisfying than the second part, which I thought was a bit of a disappointment. The variety of approaches and possibilities that surrounded the adventure sites, and even the random encounters, made the main dungeon seem somewhat stifling by comparison. The diverse challenges in the prison are ill served by being grouped together and tailored to specific classes, not to mention being exceedingly deadly and too often combat orientated. Furthermore, there seemed little reason for the builders of the prison to create class based challenges, rather than layered defences, which made the context of the dungeon seem an excuse for the ordeals.

I was expecting the dungeon to be more of a prison, and I was left wanting on account of that, but that was admittedly a result of my expectations. Conceptually, I found this module to be inspirational, but as a result I would want to rework much of the second half to better meet the potential that I thought it had.

Technicalities and Errors

My copy of this module had an odd ‘raindrop effect’ on the front and back covers only visible on close inspection. I do not know if this was damage sustained in transit or a printing error. However, pages twenty four and twenty six have certainly been misprinted at an angle, which was somewhat annoying, though all of the information is legible.

There are a number of errors in the text, relating both to internal consistency and technical accuracy. On page two, for instance, the Ashai are said to have been a northern people and the Muhati a southern people; however, from that point on, the opposite appears to be the case whenever it is mentioned. On page twenty one, the commander and lieutenant are described as being armed with boulders and spears respectively and then the reverse is asserted to be the case.

The notation ‘SA +X to hit’ is inconsistently used. Whilst in most instances it takes into account both strength modifiers and magic bonuses, such is not always the case. The primary examples are the dervishes on page four, entries which also take the time to note ‘SA Spells’, but not ‘SA Turn Undead’, leaving the reader in some doubt as to whether they can. Moreover, the armour class of the third dervish is in error, forgetting to take into account his dexterity. It is also noticeable that these four, and others elsewhere, are said to be armed with ‘footman’s maces’, which are designations not present in the OSRIC document. It would, perhaps, have been wiser to simply list these as ’mace’, as is done with the first assistant on page six and a practice universally applied to ‘shield’ [i.e. there are no ‘large’ or ‘small’ shields]. The DMG and MM are also occasionaly referenced, which I thought a bit risky.

Similarly, the nomads on page five are listed with an armour class that does not take into account their unusually high dexterity. Additionally, the nomad leader on page six seems as though he ought to have rolled for exceptional strength, but that could be purposeful. Another odd instance is the monster zombies on page eight, who are listed with ‘longswords’, but with damage 4-16. The terms ‘long sword’ and ‘long bow’ are also inconsistently applied, sometimes appearing as ‘longsword’ and ‘longbow’.

As with the previous modules, there are a number of textual errors here and there, but no more than one might typically expect.

Conclusion

On the whole, I thought this was a good module. There is plenty of adventure fodder here and, whilst stronger on concepts than content, I was pleased with it. It could probably have done with one more editorial pass with an eye for the above consistency errors before going to the printers and I think there was greater potential than was realised in the prison itself, but it is a worthy addition to the Advanced Adventures line.


Alternative Reviews: Stuart Marshall,