Today we’re looking at “Temple of the Blood Bat” by Jason Blasso Written for OSE (either the classic or advanced version will do) for a group of 4 to 6 characters of level 1 to 2.
We’ve got 4 pages in total, a title page with all relevant information, two pages of text and the last page being a map of the site.

So what’s going on here?
The small farming village of Dax has been terrorized by the Night Scourge, a strange black mass that descends from the sky at night and drains anyone caught by it of all blood, turning them into zombies. The mayor has collected a thousand gold pieces to give to the heroes who free the village from this threat. The Night Scourge it is revealed, comes from Mount Mondax, a mountain one hex to the west in which lies the titular temple to the blood bat, now occupied by the mad cleric Desmodus… who is also the one controlling the Night Scourge. And off you go to do good.
The site somewhat deviates from the standard layout of introduction, then background, then site related information, then room keys, then statblocks and such. Instead we get several paragraphs, each giving some information and background about either a location, a person or monster or about some general feature. This might seem strange at first, but the flow of information here is really good, each paragraph neatly transitioning into the next, giving you all you need to DM this when you’ve read it all.
So we start with the village of Dax, go trough a section about the Night Scourge, learn about the mad cleric Desmodus, then about Mount Mondax and finish up with a section about the cave walls inside of Mount Mondax as well as some information about the night/day-cycle of the monsters and how they react to noise.

With all that done we get into the 17 keyed areas.
The map is well done, though heavily on the abstracted diagram side of things. Mapping caves is ever mappers nightmare and most resort to drawing bubbles with the important bits being passages and where they lead and such. The map here frontloads all of that by being simple geometric shapes (circles and rounded rectangles) representing the caves, the focus here clearly being on the usability side of things.

The map also makes good use of verticality, by including sheer walls the party has to climb to get into lower or higher caves. Some of these walls are slick, necessitating a check by all but the thief, others are not. There’s also more details marked on the map like the sword, the idol or simple pits to fall into and die.
So while the map is somewhat abstract and more like a diagram than a true map… I actually quite like it. This is a good case of substance over style, with everything you need to run this on the map. Nice.

So what is actually in these caves?
Ew’ve got Fire Beetles, Zombies, Skeletons, Kobolds (but those actually want to talk to you), slimes, pits, giant centipedes, yellow mould, cave locusts, a carcass crawler, giant rats, a great black widow… and the mentioned cleric, plus bats. There is a lot of deadly stuff going on there and a party that isn’t careful will get annihilated pretty quickly. Don’t get me wrong, what is there fits thematically and works… it just seems a bit much for a party of lower level. The Night Scourge alone is treated as a swarm that does ten attacks with each attack doing 1d4 damage plus a possible paralyzation… ouch.
Treasure is in the ok range with coins, gems and jewelry nicely spread about the complex and adding to a bit over 5000gp. There’s also a good selection of magic items in the caves with the highlight for me being the +1 sword hidden under bat-shit (which will get washed away if the party topples or breaks the bat-idol that is full of blood).
There’s actually not that much for me to say here as most of what is there simply works and the fundamentals are there. Good map, multiple entrances, nice setup that is still instantly plug-and-playable into any campaign world, good treasure, some nice set pieces while still being open enough to allow for exploration and crazy shit to go down.

It is very, very deadly… especially for newbie players or players who don’t give a damn about being stealthy.
So a site with good potential, nice execution that’ll probably kill 9 out of 10 parties of level 1 or two… if they’re not careful or make a bad roll.

The next time we’ll take a look at “Chipped Saucer” by Daniel Hicks.

Today we’re taking a look at “The Prophet’s Spiral” by Ben Gibson. Written for AD&D 1e for an undisclosed number of characters of levels 3 to five. There’s 5 playtesters mentioned, so that’s the number I’m using here.

So let’s see what we got here.
Six pages in total with the first being a title page (with all relevant information except group size) and the last being a back cover containing a haiku-like teaser.
The second page contains the playtesters and some license/publisher stuff.
Pages 3 to 5 are the meat of this site, with 3 being the maps of the place and 4/5 being the text proper.

So what is going on here?
Well.. in a hole in the ground there lived a mystic cyclops… wait what?
The site was once a temple to some obscure goddess of fate called Aiona, then was overtaken by a cyclops seer and his giant-blooded consort. Over time a small cult formed and the story of the prophet has spread far enough that folks travel to the so-called “Prophet’s Spiral” to get their future foretold. Enter the party…

Let’s talk about the map first.
We’ve got 25 keyed areas stretched along a spiral staircase descending into the depth a freaking seven levels.

The map itself is a Dyson Logos map so it looks great, has fine details, makes sense spatially and there’s really not too much to criticize here. Ways up and down the spiral a marked, though these marks can sometimes be tricky to see as they kinda “vanish” into the map itself (see room 19 or 22 for example). There’s also different ways to go up and down besides the main spiral: There’s a somewhat hidden ladder connecting levels 3, 6 and 7. There’s a freight elevator construction going on connecting levels 2 to 6 and there’s a few smaller ladders and holes that connect different levels. In short for a sort of reverse-tower situation, there’s enough ways to go up and down, to sneak about, to flank and to hide so that every group can get their game on.

Onward to the actual text.
The structure of the text is pretty standard as Gibson knows his Adventures and this isn’t his first rodeo. We’ve got a paragraph each on Introduction and Background, then some hooks/rumors, an order of battle with some info how inhabitants of the site will react in different situations, a random encounter table and then the room keys for the 25 areas. After that we finish with statblocks, descriptions of magic items and a small rule for how a prophecy by the mystic actually works.
Introduction and Background are on-point and give you everything you need to quickly get a hang on the situation. The rumors/hooks are all good and written in first person which instantly gives them way more character than their actual content, which is pretty basic. I wrote it before in another review that I don’t think printed rumors/hooks are actually necessary for a two-pager, but these ones are ok, my one gripe being that the space for this table could’ve been used for better content (more on that in a moment.)
The “Site encounters” paragraph is well done. The order of battle is a simple, but welcome one, giving a DM some guidelines on what should/could happen. There’s a short list of all inhabitants of the complex which I quite like, though the number of folks in specific rooms is variable based on dice rolls. This could lead to there being more of a type of enemies than listed in the beginning, which I don’t like… though it will hardly be a gamebreaker.
What I absolutely loved about this section is the short note about how a party bearing at least 500gp in coin or wine (or other valuables I suppose) is granted an audience with the prophet right away, being led down onto level seven and being told their fate. This is the god stuff. On one hand we don’t actually need to kill everything… do we? On the other hand this opens up so many good opportunities. The first being that this site can actually be used for quite some time as a campaign locale, before then becoming a dungeon to plunder. The big bit here though is the chances for a clever party to exploit this: The party spend 500gp to get a basic tour of the place… if that isn’t good reconnaissance I don’t know what is (especially if the party manages to sneak an invisible thief into there). Great stuff.
The random encounters are good and I like that they include what the encountered being is actually doing.

Then come the room keys.
I’m not gonna lie but the room descriptions are actually the weakest part of the site for me. Don’t get me wrong, what is there is great.
Strange traps, treasure obvious and hidden, acolytes and inductees of the cult doing their thing. The descriptions themselves are short… often too short for my taste. There’s some rooms that are mostly empty except acolytes or some mundane stuff in them:

6 Upper Larder
Dusty sacks filled with oats and dry beans, barrels of suspect water.

14 Kitchens
1d4-1 inductees cook here at any given time.

This is not actually bad as is, I just wish there was more here. Some of the rooms feel barely there from their descriptions, especially if these rooms have way up/down in them or secret doors. There’s also two cases where keyed areas area actually multiple rooms differentiated on the map by letters… but this is never brought up in the text.
The worst offender here is the room 8 complex: These are 8 separate rooms/alcoves along the central spiral that are tombs for the old faiths priests. Here the disconnect between what is in the description and what’s shown on the map becomes very bad.

8 Priest’s coffins
Respectfully honeyed bones, each holding an agate-topped dagger (450gp). If any of the old cult (9, 10, 15) witness one of these dagger being used they fly into a murderous rage.

This sounds simple enough, but we’re never given a number of actual coffins. On the map it shows 5 in 8a. Then 3 in 8b… but one of them is maybe opened already and another is maybe a secret passage or mechanism to room 9, another 3 in 8c… but there’s also a statue there and none in 8d… though there a 5 alcoves there. 8e to h are then alcoves further down (which took me a minute to grok) with one coffin in them each. The problem that none of the finer details are mentioned in the room key and thus we are kind of lost here (and this can make a difference of several thousand gp in agate-topped daggers here).
The same missing description problem can be found at several other points in the site:

• Is the central spiral open to the sky? Could I jump from level one down to level 4?
• Is room 7 open to the sky and thus a platform or does it have a ceiling?
• How do the secret doors operate?
• How much does the ivory altar weight? Hw much does the alabaster throne?

All of this means a DM has to read the site carefully and be prepared to make some calls if this comes up.
Treasure is varied and well placed. There’s enough in there to make a trip worthwhile, while also making it a pain in the ass to get some of the stuff out. Both the aforementioned throne and altar are down on the sixth level and I suspect very DM will make these heavy as fuck… have fun bringing them above ground.
Monsters and magic items are good, there’s some nice effects in here and in some places a certain synergy and planning shines trough.
You can find two scrolls of stone to flesh on a lower level, while there are three petrified clerics of the old faith of Aiona in an upper level (who will lose their shit if they se you carrying any of their priests daggers)… this is good stuff.

This is an ambitious site with a fun map, an interesting premise and some cool effects and stuff… that sadly needs either a bit more room to breathe or to throw some stuff (like the hooks/rumors) out and use the given space for more detailed descriptions.

Next time we’ll take a look at “The Temple of the Blood Bat” by Jason Blasso.

Today we’re looking at “The Lost shrine of the Snake Goddess” by Matthew T. Austin written for the Savage Swords RPG system.
Now I have to be pretty direct about this, because I had never heard of that system until I first opened that adventure. From what I have gathered so far it is a sword & Sorcery D&D-ish Fantasy game going for a strong Conan vibe. Nothing wrong with that, I just don’t know shit about it. So as a disclaimer up front: I will judge this adventure site mainly for the usable content coming from an “Adventure gaming” perspective.

So what do we have here?
Three pages, with two pages of adventure site text and two maps on the third page.
There is no title page, neither is there any indication of level range or group size. Maybe Savage Sword’s doesn’t use levels, but this is the kind of stuff that instantly springs to my eye these days.
We get a short introduction/background paragraph telling us that this is an ancient temple to some forgotten deity, a crown worth a pretty penny is rumored to lie there and a terrible monster also lurks there, killing all that come to close. All the elements of a good dungeon crawl are there. There’s also information about the stuck doors in there and a ton of flavour… the only entrance is the maw of a giant stone cobra. While I normally scoff at one-entrance dungeons, this one may be forgiven for how cool it is.
Following that we go directly into the room descriptions. 16 rooms stretched over two levels are detailed in short, but very nicely written paragraphs.
There’s some bolding drawing attention to the important stuff and specific things might get a little bit more detail. As this is an abandoned temple to a snake goddess you expect undead, snakes, traps, snakes, ancient horrors and snakes. There’s something called the “Lurker in Darkness” (the monster alluded to in the intro section), that is basically a giant spider on steroids (the adventure tells us to use a giant spider and double hp, as well as combat and stealth-bonus). This is actually one of the things I quite liked about this site: Whenever a monster is concerned it notes the name and page number in the savage swords core book. This saves space and it allows people trying to use the site in another system to substitute the monsters with adequate ones from their chosen system (every good system has snakes, undead, spiders and the like.). The only exception to that is the goddess of the temple, which can actually be awakened and is a bitch to fight… I suspect. More on that in a moment.

What else is good here?
The rooms are flavourful, the layout is interesting to explore and the map incorporates damage from time, like a giant fissure into the whole.
There are fun effects to find with some even having multiple levels, traps to navigate and some loot to be found. All treasure and enemies are thematically appropriate, and the enemies at least aren’t overkill… except maybe the awakened goddess.
Now there’s some stuff that isn’t quite so good. Treasure is low with roughly 13000gp to be found in the dungeon (+/- a few hundred gp depending on what you roll for random gp and stuff in certain rooms.). I don’t know if Savage Swords actually uses “Gold for XP”, but I suspect not. Still for a very low-level party the site should work.

My biggest two problems with the whole site are basically small stuff about the map and that there are several small misses that make the site harder to use than should be necessary.
The map works well as a temple and despite having only one entrance it branches off immediately and thus allows exploration, flanking, hiding… the usual.
The map is also “rendered” in some kinda old-school dark blue, grainy filter thingy… which makes is somewhat harder to read. There’s some good details on the maps (same level stairs, chests, altars,…) but these are sometimes hard to make out. This is really just a minor thing though. The main problem is that many of the smaller misses kinda add up and stretch over different areas of the site. Some examples:

There’s the big fissure on level one intersecting some rooms. It even has its own room number and in the room key there’s rules for swinging over it and climbing down into it. All good so far. The information that the fissure connects down to level two is in another room key (specifically the first room the fissure intersects). It also isn’t shown on map or in description where on level two the fissure actually connects to. Not ideal.

There’s one stairway on the map connecting the two levels, but this is never mentioned in the text. Not that much of a problem, but the spial staircase symbol is kinda hard to see on the second level so a DM could miss it and get confused for a bit.

There’s two big X marks on the first level, but the text actually never calls out what they represent. From the specific room descriptions it can be understood that these are places where specific monsters in each room wait/lie in ambush… but this is once again a chance for a DM to miss something. There’s another X on the second level, but this one is described in the text.

Room 9 has two subsections called 9a and 9b which describe two adjacent trapped shrine passages, but the map doesn’t show which one it is (no 9a/9b on the map). The text actually makes it clear which is which, but once again this could lead to some DM getting it wrong, then having to backtrack and search the text.

The rest of the room is nice, especially doors that open only one way and cannot be opened from the other side (though some rules for those that like to try would be appreciated here), and some sly traps.

And then there’s the goddess of the temple that can be awakened. Let’s not actually get into the “Low-Level party fights a god”-argument that is so common these days. This is actually done nicely, there’s a good chance the goddess never even awakens and the party just leaves. But…
If she awakens she has several abilities that’ll doom any low-level party that das to go up against her. Take a look:

So by my reading she can simply ignore any physical damage anytime (but then maybe doesn’t attack…2d6 attacks can swing many ways here). She can paralyze opponents, summon and control snakes (in a temple already full of the damn things), her poison either paralyzes or kills (her choice).
This’ll be a long hard day for the party that’ll probably end in their painful death.
Damn. The saving grace here is that the party has to either actively try this shit (by placing a magic crown on the goddess statue) or be actively neglectful (by letting a mummy go their way, which then places the crown on her head.).

So to recap: we’ve got a good temple site that oozes flavour and theme, that is weakened by the sum of some small mistakes. Nothing a good read and some notes can’t fix.

Next time we’ll take a look at “The Prophet’s Spiral” by Ben Gibson.

Today we’re taking a look at “The Stormlord’s Citadel” by Birch Boyer written for ACKS II.
Designed for 3 to 6 characters of levels 9 to 11, this site details the flying fortress of the titular Stormlord, a once wise and sly titan, now turned chaos aligned and self-proclaimed avatar of the storm by a “helm of disalignment” he was tricked to put on.
We’ve got three proper pages and 4 giant maps to look at.
A title page with all the necessary information on it, then two pages full of text detailing the site itself and then the four maps.
The maps are also the first thing that jumps at you when you open the pdf for two different reasons: First they’re not the standard dungeon maps, but rather very pretty VTT maps (They look like they were made in Dungeondraft). We’ve got nice wall and floor textures and object like beds and cabinets are actually visible on the fully colored maps. This is great, but sadly leads to some small readability issues with the text over the stone texture and such. Nothing big, but somewhat irksome. What’s big, as said above, are the maps themselves. Sadly they’re not big in the gaming sense that they have grand areas to explore (though the site isn’t small being titan-sized), but rather it’s the dimensions of the maps themselves that are big. Each of the four maps is over 3000pixels wide and roughly as high. No problem in these modern times, but the maps were appended to the text pages in the pdf with their original size… so the effect of opening the pdf, then scrolling down and seeing the size of the map was funny to say the least.

But enough about that, what’s in there?
The site helpfully sums all the treasure found inside (204,320gp) plus the worth of all mundane and harvestable monster parts (48,400gp). This is an ACKS II Adventure Site alright.
We get a background section detailing the sites background (duh!), also adding in two rumors/hooks the DM can use to get the party interested in this thing and some more words regarding possible skill checks giving the party some information about the place.
After that we get a dense section on “general notes” such as system info about the citadel, how the doors work, what happens when the alarm is sounded and how the stormlord reacts if you manage to get the damn crown off his head. All good stuff.
The rest of the page is filled with a six-entry random encounter table that double-times as the monster stats repository for this site. From mute elf servants, to griffons and invisible stalkers, over to animated statues and a quicksilver golem to the stormlord himself. Numbers are noted down and the encounter chance is different for day and night. The statblocks are a bit bloated to my AD&D trained eye, with many special abilities noted, but this is ACKS II we’re talking about here and I actually don’t see any useless information in there. There’s even little colored symbols denoting specific types of damage. So while it looks a bit much it is actually all good stuff here.
The next page details the 16 rooms of the four-level citadel in a short-paragraphs. The descriptions are somewhat workmanlike, but function as intended. We get a short sentence setting the tone, with numbered lists detailing specific important things in each room. Good use of bolding and such makes this quickly read- and scannable.
There’s some good traps in there, animated statues are a constant hassle, there’s chances to free and befriend other beings and there’s a lot of stuff to be found. Some secret doors, dead-ends and winding passages allow for clever tactics and to flee/hide/surprise the denizens of the citadel. This is all well done.

My two main gripes with this part are the fact that:

• Some of the room descriptions are somewhat superfluous… like:

5. Dining Hall: A grand chamber around a huge table, 10’ tall.

Especially as the map is very detailed and shows you the dining hall exactly as described.

• The citadel has a central “statuary garden” which is like a central courtyard with the 3 upper levels surrounding it. I would’ve loved to get a few more sentences on how this affects order of battle and such. There’s a bit in there about the statues on level 2 watching characters on level 1, but I would’ve loved to know if they can jump down? How hard is it to climb up level here? stuff like that. The central garden can quickly lead to a “total fuck-up” situation and this isn’t made that explicit in the text.

There’s of course other small stuff that could be done better. A mirage is mentioned in the lower level hiding „ an opening to the skies from the sight of intruders” but this is rather unclear. Does it hide the opening from the outside? The inside of the room? What’s shown there instead? A bit more clarity in places could’ve gone a long way here.
Still these are all just nitpicks in an otherwise very tightly written and well thought out adventure site. I also love the call out in the beginning that one doesn’t need to kill the big bad… but can simply try to take the alignment changing crown from him… in which case everything turns out fine and the dude is actually thankful.
I’m no ACKSman so I’m unqualified to review the actual system, but it at least seems to me to be right on the money for the stated level.
This is an interesting site going towards the higher side of the level scale. It has many interesting bits and for experienced ACKSmen this will probably be a very sweet treat.

Well done

Next time we’ll take a look at “The Lost Shrine of the Snake Goddess” by Matthew T. Austin.

Today we’re looking at “The Dragon and the Eagle” written by Ghri Ziffe.
An abandoned camp of some pseudo-roman army, now inhabited by giant Ants and a Magic-User with his Kobold minions written for AD&D 1e.
As the site itself states it was written for 3 to 6 characters, bringing them from level 2 halfway to level 3.
Four pages with a “creative” (meaning: godawful to your eyes and your printer) background beckon us closer.
We’ve got a title page with a lovely hand-drawn picture of Magnus the Merciless (great name, okay guy) the evil M-U with one of his Kobold minions. Note that the title picture is actually a photograph of the hand-drawn picture slapped onto the background. Otherwise we’ve got system, title and author.
Pages two and three stimulate the eye once more with the “novel” (meaning:  pixelated and eye-cancer inducing) background and the full text for the site.
Page four then really shines with another photograph of a nicely hand-drawn camp map, slapped int other middle of the page before… yep you guessed it… a “avant-garde” (meaning: of questionable choice) background.

So what’s the background (see what I did there?) of this site?
A short merged “background/system info/level range & group size/random encounter table” – paragraph at the beginning helpfully tells us this. It is a long-abandoned outpost of the Auld Raglan Empire (Now there’s a name) sitting somewhere in the wilderness, monsters inside and out, but also riches… maybe?
We also get some very good information on wall/building sizes, how the windows (which are just holes with metal lattices in them) work, what the emblem of the outpost was and such stuff.
Then a random table with 4 entries which are Giant Ants, Kobolds, Kobolds with Manager (Magnus) and … roll on the appropriate wilderness table.
Now lesser Reviewers might say this is somewhat lazy, but I actually like it. The Camp is sitting there somewhere in the wilderness so I find it very fitting that denizens of said wilderness come to visit every once in a while. It also makes it possible for an actual dragon or a giant eagle to be an encounter in this site (DMG p. 184, Encounter Table for Temperate and Sub-Tropical Conditions – Uninhabited/Wilderness Area in the plains… for example). And if you manage to roll a Dragon and later a Giant Eagle and then have them fight inside the camp under the banner of the dragon and the eagle fighting…you win AD&D… congratulations.
The camp itself has 12 keyed entries with nearly each entry describing several buildings serving the same purpose in one swift go. The entries are short and mostly give you all you need, though there are some misses here and there. Seeing as the layout doesn’t really use all the space on the page (the text is probably frightened of all that “marvelous” (meaning: to make one marvel at why it was included) background) there was ample chance to clarify some things. More on that in a moment.  Still the camp as shown makes sense for a permanent military installation, it has four gates, one in each cardinal direction and all are somewhat secured… or at least appear to be. This feels like a real place fallen into disrepair then used as a base by an evil M-U.

Some highlights (good and bad):
There’s a building with 4 magical ovens inside. Each ovens flame burns in a different color and has a different effect. The first one grants magic resistance for as long as one holds a torch burning with the ovens flame, the second one steals 3STR for the first ten minutes of burning, then grants +3STR for an hour thereafter, the third flame ages you five years and the last flame deals 1hp of damage, but urns with a different color from time to time. It also tells you if you can light a torch (or other material) with the ovens flame, though there’s some ambiguity here regarding the first flame (though the intended use is clear).
There’s the Kobold building where Magnus and his gang lair which is all well and good and even has a small section detailing how they react to a party who doesn’t kill them all and then comes back later (spoiler: They go into war mode and try to scare you off.).
We also get a lovely and detailed description of a mass toilet on a small hill inside the camp. Behold:

4. TOILETS. This building is on top of a 1′ tall dirt mound. The West wall contains a 3′ tall, 2′ wide stone bench, with 14 circular holes, 2 ½’ apart.

Thankfully it doesn’t include the diameter of the holes so I can say to the thief who wants to climb down there: “Not big enough! Moving on!”.

Regarding treasure there is actually some good stuff here, scattered throughout the site.
Old treasure from the original owners is hidden behind secret doors and in hidden alcoves, which is very good. The Kobold gang has a loot-stash all in one place, though they will of course fight to protect it. The treasure is mostly coin, though there’s a potion, a ring or protection +1 and some gems to be had, as well as some jars of spices worth a pretty penny.
At the beginning I told you that the site was designed to bring 3 to 6 level 2 characters halfway up to level 3. If we assume a five-person group it’ll definitely do that, though there is actually a lot more treasure in there. Depending on how one counts there’s either a bit over 17000go or even roughly 19250gp in there. How come? There’s a single treasure hoard that counts copper pieces twice (first 10000cp, then later 2200cp). The way the treasure hoard is written I suspect these 2200cp are meant to be gp which gives us the ~19250gp… which is still way too much for the stated purpose (10000xp for 5 PCs is a good measure here) but… 10000gp of that is the ring of protection+1… and no group on level two will sell a ring of protection at this point.
So if we discount the ring and take the 2200cp as gp… then we get a bit over 9250gp as possible treasure… which is pretty good.
Coming to and end here the site is solid and works well. There’s stuff that could’ve been better, there’s room for better descriptions but at its core this is a solid, low-level site that should fit into any good hexcrawl and produce a good session of D&D.

Oh and did I mention the “terrific” (meaning: to terrify those who look upon it) background?

Next time we’ll take a look at “The Stormlord’s Citadel” by Birch Boyer.

Today we’re taking a look at “The Crawling Maw of Malakor” by DangerIsReal.
A long abandoned Wizards lair with some goblin caves beneath written for AD&D 1e for 5 to 7 characters of levels 3 to 5.
DangerIsReal delivered an absolute banger of a site in the first ASC called “Legacy of the Black Mark” which was not only ranked as the third in general for the whole competition, but was also my first ranked site for my personal judging.
While his contribution to ASC II was not as widely acclaimed, it was still a very solid site with a lot of cool shit going down.
Now participating for the third time he delivers another damn fine site.

So what’s going on here?
A hundred years ago the Wizard Malakor went mad, retreated into the Marsh of Despair and started working on creating the perfect predator. Some time after that he actually managed this astonishing fact (at least by his twisted standards,) by creating a Stegocentipede, which promptly escaped and killed him (he was probably proud of it for doing this).
Now a tribe of Goblins led by the awesomely named Grubnak the Mandibled lair in the caves under the old laboratory and worship the Stegocentipede, which gets fed sacrifices by them ever so often. Enter the heroes.
Four pages of awesome horror await us. The first being the title, with an ai generated picture (that fits the description of the site) and all necessary system information plus playtesters.
The next two pages describe the two levels of the site, with the last page having the two maps of the laboratory above and the caves below.
Layout is straight, on point and easily readable. This is a site you can read ten minutes before a game and have everything you need ready.
After the short background we get 4 rumors about the place, then a short paragraph about the site as a whole. After that we go into detail about the 7 rooms in the laboratory, then the 5 more rooms in the cave below. Each of the areas gets a short paragraph with general notes pertaining only to this specific section. Information is presented clearly and in good order, good use of bolding allowing a DM to quickly get the information they need. Excellent!
The rooms themselves are well written, with a good mixture of short descriptions and going into detail where it is needed. I’m getting flashbacks to “Legacy of the Black Mark” in the best possible way… this thing rocks.
From the main door made of decorated chitin, to the blazing spheres of electrum cackling with energy to contain monsters, to the room full of animal parts preserved in alchemical liquids… this whole space screams mad wizard.
The lair of the goblins beneath is just as awesome. While the caves themselves are rather “standard” the gimmick of the Tribe being a cult that worships the Stegocentipede (more out of fear of being the next sacrifice then true faith) really ties the place together (like a good rug).
There’s also a fortune to be found in this place with a good mixture of gold, gems, jewelry and non-standard treasure… like a 200 pound wooden wardrobe made by dwarves worth 10000gp, gold embraided silk sheets worth 2000gp or glowing silver plate worth 1000gp.
All of this treasure is of course guarded by strange creatures, locked doors (keys of course noted in the text) and magic traps (If it is not also hidden behind a secret door.). The monster rooster is a highlight here as DangerIsReal draws from the first and second Monster Manual, as well as the Fiend Folio. All monsters are noted in their respective Rooms with hp prerolled, the statblocks handily collected at the end of the text. Nicely done.
The site itself is also well built as there are three distinct ways in and the site itself has numerous chances to flank, ambush or evade monsters.
This is simply a great site that works well and is a hell of a lot of fun fo players and the DM alike. There’s modifiers to surprise chances for the goblins of players are to careless, Grubnak will release the Stegocentipede if all else fails (but might get eaten first), there’s an elf to be rescued before he becomes the beasts next meal… there’S even a dead Halfling corpse (probably another Lipply) in a chimney. Great stuff.

Of course not everything is perfect.
The rumor table is mostly superfluous. I said it once before that adventure sites this small don’t need prewritten rumors and hooks. The rumors here are good and two even foreshadow some stuff in the site (the goblins and the captured elf), but they’re not strictly necessary. If given the choice I would’ve rather used the space for some more information on the site itself.
There’s also the fact that Grubnak seems to have some sort of rapport with the Stegocentipede… even though the beast has a stated intelligence of “non”, which I think should be pumped up to “animal” at least for this arrangement to work. And as awesome as the monster rooster is they’ all “standard” monsters as printed in the books. It would’ve probably worked well if the Stegocentipede was a one of a kind special version, this way also explaining its higher intelligence.
The biggest miss of the site though is the amount of treasure inside of it… which is simply way to high for a site this size and made for the stated level range.
If I use the Fighter Standard Model I get a value of a 102000gp the site should have in treasure. One could even argue to cut that amount in half to 51000gp as the site is only twelve rooms big and can be “cleared” in one session easily. (The Fighter Standard Model is: A party consisting of a number of fighters equal to the average number of characters stated and of the average level stated should find enough treasure to advance one level. In this case 6 fighters of level 4 would need 6 times 17000xp to all go from level 4 to 5 which gives us 102000gp).
The treasure in the site amounts to over 150000gp and I didn’t include a spellbook that could be worth 12000gp (if you use the UA rules) and some spellscrolls.
So while the treasure is varied and what is there makes sense to be there… it is a tad too much in my eyes, especially as I tend towards halving the value as stated above so the treasure is actually thrice as high as it probably should be. Players naturally won’t complain.

So to end this let’s recap:
An expertly written site with a cool backstory, nice theme, good monsters with a bit too much treasure. DangerIsReal delivers what the ASC III promised.

Next time we’ll look at “The Dragon and the Eagle” by Ghri Ziffe.

Today we look at “A Murder Most Foul” which is an “experimental” adventure-site for Seven Voyages of Zylarthen by Jeff Simpson.
No level range or group size is given for this site, though the author explains why this is so (with several other design-decisions) right at the start of the text.
You see what we have here isn’t really an adventure site in the normal sense. Rather it is a very interesting encounter to be placed at a location of one’s own choice. Simpson tells us that this encounter is taken whole cloth from an as of yet unreleased Megadungeon he is writing for 7VoZ and he has taken this chance to see his idea for the encounter judged by… well us judges here in this contest.
So it is not an Adventure site in the way it is defined in the rules of the contest and it has no map. This means I can’t really review and score this entry with regards to the contest, as it simply doesn’t fit into the contest’s rules.

What I can do however is review it as what it is and give feedback to that.

So what it is actually?
We’ll let the author speak on that:

This was written to provide some twenty minutes of a break from dungeon crawling – to give players a chance to flex their moral muscles through a puzzle that is not intended at all to be difficult but rather to present to them choices – no single one of them necessarily being the “correct” answer.

How does it look then.
On roughly one page of text Simpson sets the stage for a strange murder mystery/moral dilemma.
Wherever it is placed, the party will encounter four strange figures: A dead thief, head bashed in lying on the ground, obviously dead. Flanking him are a warrior with grim, scarred visage and a bloodied pommel on his trusty sword and a Magic-User with two spellbooks on a chain and a curse affecting him, turning his arms skeletal. All three of these figures are suspended in some sort of magic stasis, unageing, but still able to respond to questions. Between them hovers the shining figure of an angel of justice posing the central problem to the group: These three before them are brothers, bound here for a hundred years now to face judgement. One of them killed the thief and the angel wants the grouped help to find its verdict.
This is a fun and interesting situation from the go and Simpson then goes into fine detail regarding the workings of this “case”.
Basically a demon called Shagal the Deceiver duped the M-U into inciting the warrior to murder the thief. Shagal did it for the evulz, the M-U thought the brotherly blood would help him start his long awaited transformation to lichdom. This actually worked, explaining the skeletal arms, the poor evil asshole was just frozen in time by the angel before the transformation was complete. How did he incite the murder? Each of the brothers ha a locket with a picture of their mother inside. The M-U cast invisibility on the warriors locket and then pushed him into believing the thief had stolen it. The warrior blood still boiling from an earlier battle with a tiger, didn’t hesitate too long and bashed his brothers skull in. Then the angel appeared.
As Simspon told us above this is not designed to be some unsolvable riddle, quite the opposite actually. The two still living figures cannot lie when questioned, though their memory sometimes needs to be jogged by the right words or actions.
What I really like about this is that all you need to solve the case is there and somewhat readily apparent. All three have lockets, but the warriors is not there… it is invisible on his person, which a detect magic spell or the like will quickly reveal. The spellbooks on the wizard contain good information, the first one being a journal basically telling you he wanted to become a lich by spilling blood. The second containing his spells “invisibility” and “contact higher plane”. The last one is even marked with Shagal’s glyph.
So solving this riddle won’t take your party too long, but that’s intended. What much more juicy is the decision who to judge. The angel will helpfully inform the party that only one soul can be held responsible… and it will even tell you exactly what will happen to each soul you choose (the warrior, the M-U… you can even say Shagal is guilty).
The party will then get an appropriate reward and be on their way again.
All of this is great for a short and interesting encounter to liven up the dreary monotony of dungeon crawling all day.
The three material rewards are nice being either a sentient sword (if the warrior is found guilty), the M-U’s spellbook (if he is found guilty) or a divine gavel which acts as a dwarven Warhammer (if Shagal is found guilty).
If I had to criticize one thing it would be that except for the rewards the encounter is basically a “solve-and-done”-affair, meaning that it has no real consequences for the party except getting them some loot, maybe.
What I mean with this is that the figures just vanish or stay bound there forever. I think it would be much more interesting if, depending on who they find guilty, the party gains a new ally or enemy. If they find the warrior guilty, the M-U ascends to lichdom, free to do evil… but he is actually thankful to the party and promises his help if they need it. Same for finding the M-U guilty, his brother the Warrior swears his allegiance to the party for a year and a day… but he is an uncontrollable hothead that brings trouble with him wherever he goes. If the party finds Shagal guilty, the angel cannot actually punish him due to cosmic law (this is clearly stated in the text), but he then takes an interest in the party, watching them from now on… as well as both the warrior and the M-U being freed to solve their family feud any way they see fit.

So here we are.
This is not an adventure site. It is too small, it has no map and it breaks to many of the contests rules to be applicable for judgement as an adventure site… but it is a funny and whimsical encounter you can place in damn near any dungeon, tavern or in the wilderness.

Next we’ll take a look at “The Crawling Maw of Malakor” by DangerIsReal.

Today we’re looking at “The Sanctuary of the Black Buddha” written by Seb Howell for AD&D 1e.
A raid on a bandit camp for 7 to 9 characters of levels 5 to 7 in an Asia inspired world.
We’ve got 5 pages in total, with the first one being a title page with nice art, all relevant information regarding the adventure and a few words about the playtest and the implied setting.
After that we get two pages with proper adventure site text and two more filled with maps and sketches of stuff that is actually in the adventure.
So what’s the situation?
Well, here we have the first hiccup of the adventure site as there is no helpful overview or background section. One has to read the entire thing to get the big picture of the situation and even then, it’s easy to miss or misunderstand some things. The organization and presentation of information is probably the biggest problem with this site, but more on that in a moment.
General Tak Shimin has lost favour with the king and fled into the countryside, built a camp there and now taxes local trade, antagonizing the local gentry in the process. He also got quite rich from taxing and raiding around so he has hid his hoard of treasures in an old mountain sanctuary nearby. And to top it of he killed a lawful cleric from the capital commanding him to return to his duty and stole his symbol of office.
Busy guy that Tak Shimin I must say.
All of the above is relayed to the reader in the form of three rumours in the first of 6 numbered sections. The rumours are solid and all have relevance to the adventure though it is not shown which are true or false (I suspect all are true).
Section two then details the sanctuary surroundings, with section 3 going into detail on the sanctuary building, the titular sanctuary of the black buddha. Section 4 is a detailed order of battle for the camp, while section 5 quickly summarizes the local hex this all happens in and section 6 collects all necessary statblocks for NPCs and monsters in one place.
The last two pages give us the map of the Sanctuary surrounding (detailed in section 2), while the last page collects the sanctuary building map (section 3), the hex map (section 5) and multiple sketches of buildings and items that’ll pop up in the adventure, as well as a small addendum regarding travel distances between places in the hex.
There’s a lot going on here and that is the second big problem for this site.

Let’s start with the good stuff:
The initial situation is very interesting and great for a game. General Shimin has fled into the countryside with a host of his men, essentially turning himself into a robber lord by taxing and raiding the locals. While is main camp sits at a rivers crossing, his collected treasures are stored and hidden in an old sanctuary in a mountain vale two miles behind his camp. In the sanctuary we got his loyal men turned bandits and they have a hill giant in their service. The sanctuary building itself has been turned into the makeshift treasury and it has a nice magic effect going on that severely punishes anyone killing someone in there.
Another good point is the detailed order of battle, that not only includes what the bandits at the sanctuary will do, but also how the main camp will and can react if they know about an attack on their loot. Reading the order of battle was the moment the site finally clicked for me and it all came together.
Finally the maps and sketches are beautiful and help immensely with understanding and imagining this place. The hex map gives a nice overview, with the sanctuary and sanctuary building maps drawing it all together, the building sketches adding flavor to it.

So far so good, now what can be improved?
Above I mentioned that the site has basically two big problems: organization and presentation of information and that a lot (actually too much) is going on here.
I believe both these problem stem from the same source which can best be described as “Baggage”.
See on the first page Howell informs us that this site was created and played in his Oriental Adventures like home-game. This in itself is not a bad thing of course, but “porting and adapting” stuff from ones home-game can often lead to the aforementioned “Baggage” in two distinct ways.
The first problem is that in your home-game you’ve got a lot going on, especially if it has been running a while. So all NPCS and places have a rich history, stuff has happened, things are interconnected… which is all great, but one simply cannot bring all that into a two page adventure site without cluttering up the text with information that is… honestly speaking… mostly worthless for a prospective DM looking to run the place.
The second problem has to do with memory and how it works. If you’ve played a specific session you’ll always remember it way better than if you’ve just read about it. Same for having DMed it. This can lead to assumptions of “what is known” or “what is understood” in the way things are presented and written.
Both of the above problems show themselves in this site, though the first problem (too much going on) is actually the bigger one here, with the presentation/organization of information being rather easily fixed.
The first thing I would do would be to drop everything in the hex except the base camp of Tak Shimin and the Sanctuary, the rest (like a pilgrimage trail or a description of the river) are not strictly needed, being artefacts leftover from the campaign (that other people will have no knowledge of). This would delete the entire section 5 plus the hex map. Then include an up-front detailed description of the whole situation and what all the important NPCs want/how they will act as section 1. After that add the rumors, though they can be dropped too if the background section covers the facts well enough. For a two-page site I don’t think one needs prewritten rumors or hooks to work, rather each DM should be given all necessary information and can then craft these for their own campaign world.
The Sanctuary description and order of battle are good to stay, as are the stats. Then use the freed space to add some details about Tak Shimin and his main camp (which is not detailed, being barely mentioned in the Order of Battle.).
With that we have a well organized text that focuses on the actual site (the sanctuary and secondary the camp).

So what’s left to say?
A good idea, a good site, but cluttered up with too much unnecessary information and presented in a somewhat unintuitive manner.
You can still play this, but you’ll have to work a bit harder to make it work than the other sites reviewed so far.
Oh and before anyone asks… the asia flavour can be filled of pretty easily… so this part won’t stop you from slotting this site right into your campaign world.

Nex time we’ll take a look at “A Murder Most Foul” written for Seven Voyage of Zylarthen by some dude named Jeff Simpson.

Next up is “The Wreck of the Spinefish” from fellow judge ShockTohp.
A little jaunt into a demon haunted and devastated prison ship for ACKS II for 5 to 8 characters of levels 4 to 6.
We’ve got six pages in total comprised as follows: A title page with credits, system information, playtesters and a nice picture of a sectional view of an old ship. The second page is mostly empty, just containing information about the picture from the previous page. Then we get two pages of text and two more pages of maps, one with top-down maps, the other with a side-view.
So what’s going on here? The short introduction tells us that the titular “Spinefish” was a prison ship that was attacked by a demon, the misery and bloodshed turning the place into a Shadowed Sinkhole of Evil. Note the very specific way this area is referred to as this is a term used in ACKS II to denote an area of great evil, which also has specific rules attached to it. So now a demon is sitting in some strange coral cave under the ship, while the thing itself is basically a death trap.
After the introduction we get a wandering monster table (sadly no encounter-chance and check-frequency are noted down). Then a section detailing NPCS and Monsters, which in this case are the demon named “The Weaver Below the Waves” and the Warden-Captain of the ship, a no-nonsense chaotic crusader called Graver, who fell out with the church for worshipping yet another demon, but managed to hide the fact and pose as a still good member of solid standing.
After this we get the keys for the 15 keyed entries of the ship plus demon cave.
The wandering Monster table is solid and fits the ship and the theme that’s going on. I actually don’t know if ACKS II has a standard encounter-chance (like 1:6) and a standard check-frequency (like every other turn), but that’s the biggest miss in my eyes here. There’s a heck of a difference from 1:6 every turn to 1:10 every third turn… so that info should be in there.
Everything else I dislike about this encounter table can be rad in my last review, where I went into some detail about it, though like I said there, none of this is game-breaking.
The NPC/Monster Section is also well done in the sense that it gives you the basic information needed to “play” both the demon and the Warden-Captain the right way. The only thing really missing are some goals for both these fellas. The demon can safely be assumed to want to bring misery, but it is a bit unclear (from this section and the rest of the adventure site) how the Captain is actually dealing with the crisis. A bit more clarity could’ve helped here (we will come back to the point of clarity in a bit.).
Off to the room keys then.
We’ve got 15 rooms in all, with 14 being on the ship, which has three decks, plus the last room being the demons coral cave submerged beneath the vessel.
The map is a mixed bag, but it is essential for actually understanding where stuff is (duh!).
Let me be clearer on this: We’ve got a page of top-down maps for all three levels plus demon cave, then another page with a sideview of the whole affair. This helps immensely in imagining the place. There’s also a windrose and scale on the map (finally!), as well as a little legend detailing some of the symbols used. All good so far, but there’s some nitpicks I have. While the map is also color coded in some way (showing which coral shafts descent to where into the ship) I have an old printer who doesn’t do color, so all that nice color coding is wasted if you print the thing in grayscale. There’s no uniform door symbol, just rectangles of different dimensions. In short the map takes a moment to decipher and make sense, especially in grayscale. Nitpicking over.
The room descriptions themselves are short, get to the point quickly and include the most important stuff. There’s treasure to be found, though by my count it is on the low side for an adventure for characters of level 4 and up. There are multiple magic items in there and I have to confess I actually don’t know how ACKS II handles magic item and gp-values for such… so the actual amount could be significantly higher, pushing it back into the “ok”-range.
All in all, there’s lots of good stuff in the rooms: hints to hidden treasure, traps and hidden monsters, stuff to fiddle with and get fucked… all good stuff.
My main quibble with the whole site and how it is written is basically coming down to the aforementioned “clarity”. If I had to describe this site with a word I’d say “busy. Now busy in itself is not bad, but there’s “good busy” where stuff is happening, actions matter and change stuff and the place feels real and interesting. Then there’s “bad busy” where the place feels cluttered, confusing and doesn’t seem to make sense. I’m afraid “The Wreck of the Spinefish” leans heavily into the second kind of busy for me. It is not a single thing that makes it so, but rather the overall presentation simply lacks certain important things for me.
It is never specified how long this whole demon situation has been going on… hours? Days? Weeks? Depending on the answer the site would play very differently in my book.  
It’s also totally unclear to me what the Captain actually wants to do. He has kept the demon away from himself and his men with an unholy circle, he still has living crew members (who think he is a good church guy), he also controls several zombies on the ship, he has brought the main treasure into his own chamber. This is a complicated situation and the text doesn’t actually clarify much here. Thus a prospective DM would have to not only read the text, but also make sense for themselves of it on a basic level and deciding on some fundamental facts. Now this doesn’t mean that the site is unplayable or even bad… it’s just another extra step for the DM to make.
So a good site with an interesting premise, somewhat reduced in usability by a not so ideal presentation of information.

Next time we’ll take a look at “The Sanctuary of the Black Buddha” by Seb Howell.

Today’s offering is “The Temple of Bast” by John Nash.
Written for BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia for an indeterminate amount of level 3 characters, two pages of text with another page of maps detailing two levels of a smaller Temple to Bast, Guardian deity and patron of cats.
Looks and layout are solid, with good bolded headlines, good spacing, boxed monster stats inside of the main text… all is well here, nothing fancy, but simple, workmanlike craft. Read it in a few minutes, then off you go.
After a short introduction we get a wandering monster table, then the key to the ground level, followed by the key to the catacombs one level below.
Setup is the bare minimum: abandoned temple at the edge of wilderness, now occupied by an evil magician and his Gnoll henchmen. No hooks or rumors, but with a setup that simple none are really needed. Place it in your campaign and slap down some rumors in the next town… done!
The wandering monster table is appreciated, though I’ve got notes. First the good stuff. Chances and frequency are noted clearly, each monster has their page number in the Rules Cyclopedia noted down and the whole table has a nice range of monsters that nonetheless fit the vibe and background of the place.
What could be done better then? All monsters on the encounter table are also “normal” monsters that appear in the site in keyed entries. This is not a bad thing in itself, though a wandering encounter table allows to add monsters with a bit more “bite” (both in regards to combat and general effect) to the adventure. The stats for nearly all monsters on the table are also given later in the adventure, while the table itself only notes down the RC page number (which is good). Though I have a few more words on the statblocks for monsters and their use in this adventure site later. The biggest miss with regards to the encounter table for me is the lack of a few more crucial details for each entry. This can be seen by the “Feral Cats” encounter on the table. That’s it. Just Feral Cats. No RC page number, no stats later in the adventure, no behavior, just …cats. I absolutely get what is happening here, but a few more words would’ve gone a long way here. Same for the other entries on the table. A party will encounter Gnolls and Mountain Lions in the site anyway, so adding a few more details to the ones on the encounter table could make them really pop. Also never underestimate the chance to add small effects through an encounter table, instead of just monsters.
Onward to the room descriptions then.
We’ve got 24 rooms spread over two levels. Level one is the surface ruins of the temple, with level two being the catacombs that house the really nice stuff.
Descriptions are minimal in the way they describe the rooms, focusing more on inhabitants and interactive/interesting stuff. There’s not a single line actually telling you what the temple looks like. Rather we get told who is in these rooms, how traps work and what shiny and interesting things are visible. This is not bad and actually allows a DM a bit of freedom in slotting this into their campaign world Still I would’ve wished for a few more words, maybe paragraph at the beginning giving us some bare basics in regards to look and feel of the place. As it is I can’t even really tell if the place is a ruin (I just assumed that) or if it is actually in good repair.
Still what is here works well and gets the point across.
Monster stats are placed within the respective rooms, though there is some unfortunate doubling as a consequence of this. The “Gnolls” statblock is in this two-page site a whole four times, with only the respective HP changing (and the last gnolls have bows/spears, while all other seemingly only do generic “as weapon” damage). Once again, this is no dealbreaker, but I think no one needs statblocks in every room a certain monster type appears… at least not in a two-page module. Collect all stablocks at the end of the thing for easy reference and use the freed space for some descriptions and more content… or if only book monsters are used just collect the references to their respective entries in the books at the end.
What is there though is very good. The temple nails the vibe and feel very nicely. The Gnolls are obviously intruders, cats of all sizes (including lions) roam the temple and the catacombs, undead guardians do their job (and some might even help you if the group is not to trigger happy) and everything feels like a cat-goddess temple. A highlight is the room that turns 4 Feral Cats into Panthers if you attack any cat, but can also bestow a blessing (which can actually be important later on) on you if you show some respect. Traps are well placed and nicely telegraphed, yet can still be deadly if a party is not careful. I also really liked the secondary, hidden entrance behind a locked door in another building… that’ll allow a party to bypass most of the dungeon and confront the evil mage and his minions directly.
The module helpfully tells us that there are 15411gp of treasure in it, with nearly all of it being in gold, silver and gems. There’s also a multitude of magic items (A staff of healing, a wand of paralyzation, some potions,…) to be found either in the dungeon or carried by monsters/NPCs. All of that is good, though I would’ve wished that the magic laboratory of the evil mage would’ve been more than just a throwaway line… especially as his spellbook is stated to be in there, but alas… no spells are noted down. Still with only the monetary treasure a group of 4 level 3 characters should find this place worth at least a good chunck towards the next level.
With all that said I think this is a lovely temple-site well worth putting into a campaign world. Good vibe, nice traps, good treasure and all in all a good site for an evening of good D&D.

We’ll take a look at “The Wreck of the Spinefish” by fellow Judge ShockTohp next time.