Adventure Site Contest 2 REVIEW: Tower of the Necromancer

Tower of the Necromancer

Author: Riley
System: Swords & Wizardry
Party Size: 3-4
Level Range: 1-2

Hidden amongst a copse of trees atop a small cliff lies the tower of Santha of Nikoza, the Conjurer. Recently villagers have reported seeing undead and hearing strange moaning sounds.

What's really going on? The magic-user has captured a blink dog and her two pups, whose pitiful howls echo through the caves (this is the ghostly moaning heard by villagers). The magic-user has been experimenting on the blink dog and his magical research has resulted in the flesh of his sell-sword guards phasing out and becoming transparent, giving them the appearance of skeletons (these are the reported undead). Finally, the experiments have caused his charmed ogre servant to periodically teleport to a random location nearby.

The rumors are all pieces of information the party needs to get started (except the false one), so they shouldn't be rumors but simply part of the introduction (as already partially referenced above). Why the party would want to investigate the site isn't specified so it's up to the DM. No reward or incentive is offered by anyone, either.

Turns out Santha isn't an evil necromancer at all, but a "not evil" 4th-level conjurer (not sure the significance of level titles in S&W, but in AD&D these titles indicate a significant difference in ability). He just wants to be left alone to continue his normal, not-necromantic arcane research. His mercs are there to keep people away. Then the author throws us this curveball: 

"[This adventure site] doesn’t need to be a dungeon crawl; Santha will be open to hiring adventurers to perform duties for him that would otherwise require him to travel. If adventurers are found to be trespassing, the reception will be less warm."

Okay.

The key starts with a description of the general approaches to the cliff-top tower: A direct path through the forest and up the cliff, or a pair of entrances into a cavern system and cellars below the tower. Then we get a few descriptive sentences about each of the exterior locations: The forest approach (where the party can encounter some "skeletons" i.e., the mercenaries with transparent flesh); the tower itself (with the name of the resident in elvish above the door); and both cave entrances, from which the party can hear the "strange moaning." 

Now, the sound of howling puppies is pretty damn recognizable—not at all like the "harrowing" groans of the living dead—so the mystery here escapes me. Or even the need for it. Tell me I hear moaning undead, I'm liable to avoid the cave at 1st level. Tell me I hear puppies howling in despair and I'm charging inside to rip somebody's head off. I get it, it's all in service to the bait-and-switch designed to trick the PCs into trespassing on private property and probably, at a bare minimum, committing some sort of breaking-and-entering crime. At worst, the party will accidentally murder up to nine innocent people and steal all their valuables.

The front door is marked with the resident's name and actual level title in Elvish. More subterfuge. This revelation may tip the players off that something else is going on here and give them pause about attacking immediately, but more than likely, they're just going to assume this person was the former resident who was slain by the necromancer that now occupies the site (according to the fake background). 

The inside of the tower was once opulent, but is now old and worn. The lower tower levels are occupied by 8 mercenary fighters (stats as bandits). Some treasure can be found with basic searching, but there's nothing else of interest here. The magic-user lives on the top floor, but the stairs are trapped with an exploding glyph, which is a clerical spell in "regular" D&D (and a 3rd level one at that). Again, I don't really know S&W so maybe it's different?

Santha's room is furnished with some alchemical equipment along with a few treasure items. The tower's general description says to roll encounters "normally" but doesn't give a rate or chance, so whatever constitutes normal in S&W. If an encounter occurs, there is a 1:6 chance to encounter the magic-user traveling between his room and laboratory, but what is the chance he is here in his room? The text doesn't say, though he's statted up in this section. He has taken the time to learn all the optimal spells a magic-user would need for a good dungeon crawl/mass combat. (But the premise here is that he is studying/doing research? Is he expecting trouble? Isn't that why he hired the guys? Or does he plan to Magic Missile his research? Maybe surround it in Darkness? Put it to Sleep?)

The cavern level is described next, where things get a lot livelier. As a result of the 4th-level magic-user's experimentation on the blink dog, "his charmed ogre" ally now teleports every turn between one of four caves (including the entrance). But ogres are not affected by Charm Person, and Charm Monster is a 5th level spell (in D&D at least). Regardless, Santha doesn't have any sort of charm spell memorized in his stat block and his spellbook is never mentioned in the writeup, so... just go with it.

The charmed, teleporting ogre will presumably destroy the recommended party of 3-4 lowbies when they meet, which will happen almost immediately as the adventurers must pass through three of the four teleportation caves just to get inside, while the fourth cave is a junction into every other part of the level. Eight (smaller?) giant spiders live in the back of one section of the caves, while 7 giant centipedes lurk in another. If the party somehow survives the ogre, these critters are probably going to finish them off. Maybe S&W is balanced differently, so I could be off-base here, admittedly. (I also wonder why the critters don't attack and eat the ogre when it's asleep.)

The caves open into the tower cellars, where a pair of blink dog pups are held captive in an arcane circle to prevent them from blinking away. (Gosh, I hope their mom is okay.) They howl piteously but also in a way that sounds exactly like undead moaning apparently, so be prepared for an overcautious party to just murder the puppies, assuming they're an illusion or some other ruse. There's an empty storeroom with a trapdoor up to the tower, and then the magic-user's laboratory, where a vivisected mama blink dog lies on the table. (Nooo!!) Is Santha here? Doesn't say.

Treasure amounts to almost 2,600 gpv, mostly in coins, gems, and jewelry, though a few pieces are object-related (fancy robes, books, alchemical equipment, etc.). The mercs don't carry any loot, though some may be found in their footlockers. But to get almost 100% of the treasure, the party will need to kill Santha and his mercs, and steal all their stuff. 

Magic items are scarce, as they probably should be for a low-level adventure site. A Potion of Healing (classic), a Mirror of Mental Scrying (?), a +1 Two-handed Sword, six Potions of Invisible Flesh that make the drinker look like a skeleton for 24 hours, and most notably, a Magic Net that prevents anyone trapped in it from teleporting or phasing. This is an incredibly powerful and useful item that totally won't come back to haunt the DM someday. The blink dog pups may also come in handy if they can be tamed. Not sure what the total XP would be with the monsters and items, but maybe enough to gain second level or get a good chunk of the way to third.

And that's it folks. This is definitely a site, but how adventurous it will be depends on your party because there's not much to do here except kill some people and critters minding their own business and doing absolutely nothing wrong (ogre-charming and blink dog-murdering notwithstanding). 

Or the party can talk to them and maybe get another job elsewhere... hope you have another adventure site ready.
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1) THEME
(How strong/consistent is the adventure's premise, flavor, and setting?) 

The theme here may appear to be "mage's tower," but it's not. The theme is: "Let's trick our group of players into making a rash decision based on intentionally-faulty information with little chance for their low-level, poorly-equipped characters to understand the true picture before initiative commences." At that, this adventure succeeds wonderfully.

The party can enter the front door, where they may be confronted by a few skeletons in leather armor and swords, actually the transformed mercenaries specifically hired to guard this place against intruders. Roll initiative. If not, then the party is free to explore the lower level and find some loot, but now they've committed trespass and possibly theft. Further exploration will eventually bring them into contact with the skeletal mercs, particularly when the "glyph" explodes outside the magic-user's room. In any case, according to the intro text, the guards will not treat trespassers warmly, so roll initiative.

If the party enters the main cave entrance, there is a high probability of encountering the teleporting ogre in one of the first two caves, so roll initiative. If they get lucky and the ogre is in one of the other two caves, then they either encounter giant centipedes or giant spiders, so roll initiative. Presumably, since these side caves are close to the ogre's caves, combat in either area will bring the ogre, so roll initiative. If the party takes the narrow cave entrance, they encounter giant spiders (the same ones as above), so roll initiative. Again, the ogre will probably hear this, so...

My point here is that the DM's introduction to this adventure has primed the party to come into this site guns-a-blazin'. They have zero reason to suspect that any (much less all) of the setup information is false, and upon their arrival at the site, the initial evidence ("the unnerving sound of undead moaning") strongly reinforces the "truth" of the setup info. 

To repeat, Santha and his men have done nothing (much) wrong, so the chance here of a misunderstanding or miscommunication resulting in a terrible crime is high. VERY high. Maybe this magic-user has it coming for performing experiments on a sentient, Lawful Good being with its own language, but do any local laws apply here? Does Santha have any friends or allies? What is his alignment? (The text says he's "not evil" but an argument can be made that neither is he good.) What is his standing in local society? The answers to these questions all contain serious potential consequences for the party, having been misled by the DM—ON PURPOSE.

There's just no reason to shitcan the party like this, and it's really kind of malfeasance on the part of the referee. The players rely on a neutral DM to impart a certain amount of "known" information—the adventure setup that they reasonably assume to be true. It doesn't mean that no "false" information can ever enter into the equation, but there should be some context for it (WHY are we misleading the party?) and the party should have some reason to suspect the information may be false—or the source, faulty—as part of their decision-making process (even if the reason is given subtly). This is a simple matter of narrative "fairness," in the same sense that a DM shouldn't pose the players with a puzzle that has no solution, or a riddle with no answer. Sure, you can do it, it's easy; but it's an abuse of game responsibility.

Moving on...

The keyed descriptions of the interior locations are well-written enough and concise, though absolutely mundane in terms of helping the DM set a thematic mood (e.g., "Santha’s chambers are large and richly decorated.") Can't you just imagine the arcane splendor of the conjurer's inner sanctum?

SCORE (THEME) = 1 / 5
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2) MAP AND ART
(How complex/useful is the map and/or art? How easy is it to grok the layout?)

The hand-drawn layout isn't very dynamic—a pretty bog-standard tower design and a set of fairly-linear caves—but they're otherwise clean and easily understood. No scale is given, nor do any textual clues provide an indication, but I believe the author's intention is 10' squares (due mainly to the ogre's needs for moving around).

Area C (the key location entitled "Bottom of the Cliff") is not indicated on either of the maps, though we can infer its rough location by correlating the tower map trapdoor with the cellar trapdoor and counting squares.

There's an unclear connection between areas 2-6 and 2-10. Is this a wall? An overlook? A secret door?

SCORE (MAP/ART) = 3 / 5
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3) CLARITY
(How easy is the writeup to read/parse quickly? How well does the information flow?)

The text is in two-column format, left-aligned, with wide margins and gutter and plenty of line spacing. The document is easy to read, though the transitions between sections can get lost in the equal title weights and bolding, reducing the ability to scan quickly (but not by much). Creatures are italicized, though no stat block or hit points are included. The variety of monsters is limited and the populations are all concentrated in the same spots, so there won't be too much page-flipping to find the monster's stats in the book.

The Adventure Summary sections are not ordered well in terms of information flow. Paragraph 1 is the 10,000' view of the adventure, two simple sentences that establish the key points. It's fine where it is. Paragraph 2 is the "What's Going On here?" information, but it references details that aren't established until later paragraphs (e.g., that Santha is not an evil necromancer or that the undead figures are reported to be "skeletons"). Paragraph 3 is some guidance on placing the site and then a table of rumors, while paragraph 4 details the truth about Santha and his men, their openness to cooperation, and a vague order-of-battle if the party decides to behave like a normal party would in this situation.

Paragraph 2 should slide down after the rumor table, moving original paragraph 3 and the rumor table up by one section. We want the rumors to come before the material in paragraph 2 because they set up some questions that the details of paragraph 2 answer. Reorganized, the summary information now flows from: Introduction > Site Placement > Rumors > What's Going On > Santha's Motivations and Objectives. Then we move into the key for the exterior and interior locations. Boom, we're done. 

The rest of it reads well, except the room key in the caves is off by one number, from areas 2-6 to 2-10. As written, cave 2-6 is actually exterior area E (now described twice), meaning the descriptions for 2-7, 2-8, and 2-9 in the key are actually describing areas 2-6, 2-7, and 2-8. The actual areas of 2-9 and 2-10 are both labeled 2-6 in the key.

SCORE (CLARITY) = 3 / 5
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4) INTERACTIVITY/INNOVATION
(How well does the adventure use the rules to create interesting play?)

There's really nothing to do here except fight or parley. If the party parleys, then the adventure is over unless they decide to become belligerent. There is very little in the way of exploration, none of the doors are locked, there are no secret doors or traps to find (other than the invisible glyph, maybe), the sensory clues are false, none of the treasure is hidden.

Oh, wait! At the very end, we read: "A rusty iron gate leads out into a cave system, the door is locked..." (Woo-hoo! Something to do!!) "...however the key for this door and the cells are hung upon the wall." (D'oh!)

SCORE (INTERACTIVITY) = 0 / 5
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5) MODULARITY
(How easy would it be to drop/integrate the adventure into an existing campaign?)

"This adventure site is designed to be placed in any forested hex near a small town or village." 

This is an accurate statement.

SCORE (MODULARITY) = 3 / 5
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6) USABILITY
(How much work will the referee have to do to run this adventure at the table tonight?)

None, if you just want a place for your party to murder-hobo their way through, or if you don't intend for your party to have an adventure tonight and just want them to meet an NPC quest-giver. 

If you want to present an actual adventure with goals and clear enemies, then you'll need to figure out a different background. If you want the site to also feature some good dungeoneering opportunities and interactivity to keep a low-level party engaged and on its toes, then you'll need to add all that to this framework. But you'll also have to ask yourself why you wouldn't just create your own site.

Usable, but only to a point. Ymmv. 

SCORE (USABILITY) = 3 / 5
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7) OVERALL THOUGHTS

This one has a lot of elements of classic "vanilla" D&D—which I am always down for—but it lacks any of the fundamental gameplay elements necessary for adventure, starting with a coherent objective. 

If I foisted this adventure on my players as written, I'd receive an earful of complaints after it was over, and probably be left with a big campaign mess I would have to fix somehow. They would scream, "What was the point of that?!" And I wouldn't have an answer. 

FINAL SCORE = 2.1 / 5

Adventure Site Contest 2 REVIEW: The Copper Circle

The Copper Circle

Author: A.M Jackson (bucolian)
System: AD&D
Party Size: ?
Level Range: 1–2

This construct was built by the once-great wizard Thenzur for magic-users to find his spell, which can only discovered through exploration. He was known to carry every coin out of the dungeon; this structure is what he made from all the copper: a giant cylinder 200' wide and 60' high. [It] is actually a levitating vehicle which housed Thenzur’s exploratory study as well as a site full of puzzles. The vehicle “landed” here a while ago, driven by psionic pygmies in search of Thenzur.

The Designer's Notes at the end of the writeup explain that, "[t]his dungeon was created with the simple prompt of: “What kind of shrine would house [a] 1st-level spell that must be discovered through play?” Questing to find new spells is considered part of the essential activity a magic-user must engage in to fill his spell book, and this adventure places that activity front-and-center. Love that.

Fellow players are likely to want to help out for such a personal quest, but the trick to running a satisfying party adventure for a single player's purpose is to make it short and self-contained, and include elements that some or all of the other characters in the party can benefit from (even if it's just solid treasure XP). If the group can do a 1–2 session jaunt to add a new spell to the party's repertoire, pick up some phat loot, and continue on their way to new adventures, then any grumbling players won't have much to complain about. This is the essence of a well-designed "Adventure Site."

The idea here is that the wizard who formulated the Floating Disc spell (Tenser in the PHB but renamed here for licensing reasons) built a device to travel around in, using the same powerful forces that drive his famous spell. The text describes Thenzur as "long-dead," and names his wizardly specialties: "electricity, psionics, and hand-to-hand combat." These line up perfectly with the two spells named after the original character in the PHB. 

Levitation such as Tenser's Floating Disc spell can be accomplished by electromagnetism in the real world and by psionic telekinesis in an imaginary one, while the Tenser's Transformation spell turns the caster into a brawling machine. Copper conducts electromagnetic forces and this place is made entirely of it! This is a perfect example of how you lift little details from the core game materials to build a theme that absolutely resonates throughout an adventure. If you know the actual history of who Tenser's player was and why he invented this spell as a result of Gary's very first session running D&D for his kids, then it's an even bigger tip of the hat to the deep origins of the game. Well done!

So, Thenzur built a huge copper piece (a disc 200' in diameter and 60' thick) to float around in and study stuff (possibly traveling between planes of existence). He dies and at some point his craft is commandeered by a band of "psionic pygmies" described as "a race of grey-skinned, dark-eyed, psionically-gifted halflings." They've flown the disc to a location of the DM's choosing and they're just hovering there for a while before moving on. The only motive we're given for what they're doing is that they are "in search of Thenzur." 

Some rumors are provided, though how the party would know or attain this information is left unclear (a sage seems like the most-likely source). The value of these rumors is questionable, as most of the information can already be discovered through normal observation or reconnaissance, or is not really actionable (e.g., "Demons haunt a room full of treasure").

Following that is a series of paragraphs describing the general features and elements of the adventure. There are three open and accessible entrances to the disc: stairs and an elevator on top, and a ramp underneath. The text doesn't say how far off the ground the disc levitates, but since 2nd-level characters probably don't have access to flying, we can assume it's close enough to the ground to at least attain the ramp entrance. 

Next we get a description of a three-statue puzzle that involves attaching removable arms and head(s) to open a stone chest at its feet. It also mentions a pass-code that opens the chests, written on scraps of paper. Each of the three stone chests holds a scroll of Tenser's Floating Disc Thenzur's Soaring Disc, along with a vial of mercury (the spell's material component). Fiddling with the three statues and/or finding and using the pass-code gives the party six opportunities to open one or more of the chests and obtain at least one scroll. If they can't manage that, then they don't deserve the spell (and really shouldn't be playing the game).

The dungeon includes several prominent uses of Thenzur's arcane technology: Permanent "mage-disks" that make an audible "thrumming" sound as they move in preset patterns. The disks are invisible though, so leaping onto one without first locating it with dust, coins, etc. requires a save or the leaper becomes unbalanced and falls. The greys—err, psionic pygmies— are given some additional description, indicating that they are neutrally-aligned and aren't hostile unless the party damages the craft or steals something important (or, presumably, attacks them)—all likely scenarios with my group of players. Finally, there are some operating instructions to activate the craft and move it elsewhere, though the party will have to somehow coax the procedures from the secretive leader of the pygmies. If they do, the craft can be made to travel up to 100 miles per day. Fantastic!

Next we get into the dungeon key proper with some general details about the copper interior. The metal walls and floor are slick, the ceilings are 20' high, and the copper doors have "rotatable knobs which can be spun different ways to open the door left, right, or up" (not sure what that means or why it would be relevant). Even though the party is most likely to enter from the underside ramp, the key starts with the staircase entrance on top, which descends 40' into a 30x50 open courtyard. This adds to our knowledge about the craft's appearance: There is a large rectangular notch cut into the center of the top surface of the disc, and because we know the disc is 60' thick, we can infer that the interior space is sandwiched between 20' thick layers of solid (?) copper—giving the structure good internal logic.

The courtyard floor is covered with dragon poop for some reason, and three exits create a good early decision-point. Each exit is marked with a permanent Magic Mouth spell that encourages the party to perform three tasks: “Make my statue whole again;” “Read the paper full again;” and “Count the coins again.” The first two messages pertain to the two methods of achieving the same goal (opening a stone chest). The third is a red herring. Oh, and there's a scrap of paper floating around with a strange word on it.

I'm not crazy about the inclusion of the Magic Mouth messages here: We're explicitly telling the players what they need to do, while also lying to them to create unnecessary ambiguity. They'll already find the first piece of the pass-code (the paper scrap) just by looking around this very room, and they'll soon discover one of the statue rooms and its missing pieces—they'll come to understand what to do without needing to hold their hands so tightly. 

The players may also misunderstand and believe they need to do all of these things before they solve the puzzle, a mistake that will be compounded when they discover there are three statues and chests. I guess nothing would be lost for all the effort other than session time, but wasting an entire session over-thinking a simple puzzle because of confusing and misleading clues can cause players to become frustrated, which can cause a nervous DM to start over-correcting by handing out information to course-correct the errant party. All of this bad behavior can seriously undermine gameplay. But I digress...

Taking one exit from the courtyard, we come into the first statue room with a 30' wide, 5' deep reservoir of salt water. On the opposite side is a 20' high platform. A smaller platform midway across rises 10' above the water's surface. This all creates a conflict with the vessel's internal logic, so beautifully established in the courtyard area. There, we learned that the floor of the dungeon is 40' below the top surface of the disc. We're also told at the start of the room key that, "[b]y default, ceilings are 20' high," meaning that half of the party's current depth of 40' is hollow space, while the other half is solid copper.

If the platform on the far side of the reservoir is 20' above the main dungeon floor, the ceiling should rise to the default height, making it either open to the sky or wafer-thin (relative to the rest of the craft). If it's only, say, 10' high, then the text needs to address that because a default was explicitly established. Am I being super-pedantic here? Sure, but I noticed it immediately. And I'm fairly certain some of my players would notice it, too. Make of that what you will.

Anyway, invisible, humming mage-disks float between each of the two raised platforms, Super Mario-style. Luckily someone has done the party's work for them by sprinkling some coins on the first disk to reveal it. In the water between the two raised platforms is the body of a magic-user, beneath which hides an electric eel. Up on the highest platform are the statue and stone chest, along with a thief NPC who just watched his buddy drown after falling in. He is willing to join the party for half the loot (sure, buddy...get ready to be curb-stomped for even suggesting that stupid idea). Since he plans to steal the loot and escape while the party fights the bad guys anyway, he should just pretend to be grateful for the assist and keep his mouth shut.

The statue is missing its right arm (aha!) and the chest is closed. (What happens if the party tries to smash it open?) The thief has stolen an "ice-blue opal eye" from the statue's head, though the description fails to mention any sort of obvious notch or socket for it. Also unclear: Are the ice-blue opal eyes necessary for the puzzle to function? Presumably not, since the text makes no mention of the requirement. The thief may describe how he narrowly avoided being disintegrated to get it (a nice telegraph of the same danger in another room), or he might not and let the trap eliminate a few party members first.

Another chamber holds a similar statue, this one missing every piece of the statue puzzle except the left arm. Hanging out here, chanting, are a half-dozen psionic pygmies and their leader. They seem friendly enough and their leader asks the party to take care of some demons in another area of the vessel, though they offer nothing in return (in fact, if the party tries to take the treasure in the demon room, the pygmies will attack them for stealing, according to the writeup).

Though the greys pygmies are described as "psionically-gifted" in the intro, their leader seems to be the only one with actual psionic powers. If the PCs decide to throw down with the pygmies, he'll Psi-blast the party and then try to Dominate someone. If the party builds trust with the greys, however, the humanoids ask them to help find Thenzar or another powerful wizard, and in exchange, they will ferry the party anywhere they want to go within 100 miles. At the tail end of this room description, we learn that the pygmies will only relinquish the statue's arm in exchange for 100 gp in metals or gems, or it's "Roll Initiative" time.

Two hallways in separate sections of the vessel share the same odd title of "Secret Passage." Both hallways end abruptly in a 10-ft. deep pit that continues forward then turns 90 degrees just ahead. Both L-shaped pits have an invisible humming mage-disk passing back and forth between each end of the obstacle. Easy, the party just climbs down into the pit and navigates around, right? Wrong, as the walls close every 3 turns, crushing anything in them. These traps are called "garbage pits." How much garbage do these pygmies generate that they need 600 sq. ft. of compaction every 30 minutes?? I'm taking the piss here, but the author sometimes can't decide whether this is a habitation or a puzzle-dungeon and often tries to justify a puzzle element with habitat logic.

Both pit segments end up in the same room, which contains the ramp on the vessel's underside (and the most probable route of entry for a party). It's kind of a cramped room for the bronze dragon that dwells here, as they are among the largest of dragon-kind, but this is a young one so it's probably only about 5–6' in length if we assume that each age category doubles the dragon's size and that they reach their full size during the adult stage. Plus, the room has a wide opening to the outside, so sure, I can buy that. It's like a nice roost inside a metal cave. What a way to enter a dungeon, huh! "You climb the ramp and before you stands a man-sized bronze dragon." (Very cool!) She has some treasure in a sack, including a rod that controls the mage-disks found throughout the dungeon which she will trade for a box of powdered metals (found in the demon room... what a coincidence). 

I really like the idea of a party encountering a dragon at such an early level, but why isn't it a copper dragon?!? I get that the bronze dragon has lightning breath which leans into the electromagnetism theme, but acid-copper batteries are a thing, too. I find it amusing that the pygmies invited the dragon here to get rid of the demons but she just moved in instead. I'd still like to know why she chooses to fly up to the courtyard to do her poops. Bad dragon... no! Another thing about this chamber, there is a bitchin' mural on the wall of three legendary wizards, including Thenzur, who strikes the same pose as his statue—an excellent hint for an attentive party to reference any missing pieces of the puzzle.

There's an elevator room, with a shaft that rises 20' to the top surface of the disc and an invisible mage-disk platform to ferry occupants back and forth. The platform is operated by pressing glowing triangles. A scrap of paper with a piece of the pass-code for the stone chests is stuck to the bottom of the platform. At the bottom of the shaft is the smooshed corpse of an unfortunate fighter. He has some gear, including a Potion of Heroism, which is coincidentally (?) the material component for the Tenser's Transformation spell.

Other rooms include a navigator's chamber—a glass throne with glass helmet attached to cable, by which a psion/magic-user can pilot the disc. A stack of 25 differently colored crystals apparently corresponding to the planes of existence are stacked on the floor. One of the adventure rumors indicates that the disc may be a planar vessel and these crystals suggest some truth to that, but no more mention of this possibility is made. 

There's a brine pit with copper rods suspended over it, and a toggle to lower them into the brine, but a gray ooze lurks on the ceiling. The room's small size makes it likely the grey ooze would come into regular contact with the rods, but it dissolves metals (e.g., chain mail in 1 round). So, wouldn't the ooze melt the rods immediately? 

There's a third statue room; this one has its head and the disintegrating opal eye-gem, but the trap is telegraphed in a mostly-obvious, not-very-dangerous way. There's a chamber with a copper sphere that sheds lightning, obviously some kind of power source. It requires an interesting form of key to open the door, but the key is found just a few feet away on the floor. (?)

A training room has a lot going on in it. Characters can spar with a training dummy. Their selection of weapons ramps up the difficulty, but the combatant can earn a special potion for fighting at the riskier level. There's also a color-based trick (ROY G. BIV) which has been used in a lot of dungeon puzzles, though the fact that there's even a puzzle here to be solved isn't obvious, which is good. If an observant and clever player figures it out, they receive the Sword of Gems: When certain gemstones (size?) are placed in the pommel socket, the sword gains the gem's inherent magical power (as suggested in the DMG). The sword doesn't indicate any sort of magical plus, so it's not clear whether it counts as a "magic weapon" for the purposes of fighting the demons found elsewhere.

The training room also contains a shelf of potion bottles, each trapped with a rune that shatters it "unless it is moved by magic." What spells would a 2nd-level magic-user be able to cast to facilitate this? Push, maybe? Unseen Servant? There is a scroll of Unseen Servant hidden in this very room (what a coincidence!), but it's hard to imagine a low-level magic-user sacrificing the chance to get another 1st-level spell to gain an unidentified consumable potion. I don't get how this trick is supposed to work otherwise, but I predict a bunch of broken potion bottles and pissed-off players. Finally, this room contains a staircase of invisible mage-disks, with the stone spellbook element of the statue puzzle floating on the top step. Finally, some giant ants lurk in a pile of debris that hides the spell scroll, along with a gem, a vial of acid, and a scrap of paper with a piece of the pass-code.

The "main event" fight takes place in a component room occupied by a pair of manes demons. Though only 1 HD creatures, the demons are immune to non-magic weapons and have three attacks each for an average of 5 damage, and they can each cast Darkness. The thief has a +1 Dagger, but unless the party is equipped with magic weapons, this could be a deadly fight for a few PCs. If the party kills the demons, they can recover the box of powdered metals for the dragon along with some other components including a pearl (for casting Identify) and another vial of mercury (to cast the disc spell). 

Total treasure amounts to about 5,076 gpv, plus an assortment of okay magic items: Boots of Elvenkind are the main item found here (and a big XP award) though they are thematically random, and there are plenty of consumables like +1 Arrows and a selection of potions (though as mentioned above, acquiring many of the potions require a degree of finesse that may be outside a 1st-level party's ability to pull off). 

The Gem Sword doesn't appear to have any magical bonuses to hit and damage, but it's a really neat idea and I can see terrific long-term potential with it. I can also see a clever player testing the DM's patience with certain gem selections (moonstones cause lycanthropy? hoo-boy). Very cool idea in concept though and with a little forethought, this could be an epic weapon for a low to mid-level fighter.

The players can find a Tiny Luckstone which only applies to rolls for success when casting Identify on an item (odd little nugget but definitely useful). There's also a set of copper-plated banded mail that may or may not be magical, but which increases the wearer's natural psionic ability. Maybe someone can use it but probably not.

Total XP (treasure and magic) should yield ~2,000–2,500 XP apiece for a party of 5. Not bad for a side quest and the magic-user will presumably get at least one new (and very useful) 1st-level spell. Some of the new magic items aren't given XP values, so the number may go a little higher (but probably not by much).
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1) THEME
(How strong/consistent is the adventure's premise, flavor, and setting?) 

The author established at the start that this is a science-fantasy mash-up, with magical technology and totally-not-aliens driving around in a big metal flying saucer in search of its creator. This is the only motivation we are given for the pygmies (though general excitement, curiosity, and a touch of possessiveness about the ship and its treasures are all mentioned). There's not much of an ecosystem in the dungeon (What do the pygmy-halflings eat? How are there giant ants on a floating disc? Why does the damn dragon crap in the courtyard?!?) and it's a dangerous environment for living creatures to inhabit, but it's easy to tune in to what the author is laying down here if you don't think too hard about it.

But then the Designer's Notes at the end read:

The puzzles [Thenzur] left in the Circle were meant to kill or maim the dim-witted and reward the wily. Even the monsters are arranged like puzzle-traps and head-on battles are not a big feature in this “dungeon.” In any case, there are enough chances for a level 1 or 2 character to die--the referee should take note.

This second theme emerging from the late notes—that of a "puzzle-trap" dungeon designed to conceal knowledge from all but the most worthy—throws a bit of a wrench into the first theme. Both thematic concepts work well individually here, but the attempt to bring them together into a coherent whole doesn't quite pay off. 

If it's a spaceship interior, then bend the environmental details and all its consequent hazards toward that theme, mini-S3 style. If it's meant to be a puzzle dungeon, then skip all the pygmies and "searching for Thenzur" stuff, and design this thing like a wizardly test (exemplified by the statue puzzle). Pieces of both themes are present, and the individual elements are all well-done in terms of addressing one of the two themes. They just don't nail BOTH. I'd rather the author had settled on one of the themes and really run full-bore with it.

There's lots of great nods to the thematic technology: the salt water pools that conduct electricity from the electric eel, the copper rods and sphere, the elevator, the navigator's room; all that stuff. Dueling themes aside, I enjoyed reading it and I'm positive this would be enjoyable to play and run, while feeling different from your normal dungeon escapade. 

Because of these sort-of conflicting themes battling for supremacy, however, I would probably only score this a 3.5 if I were grading on half-points. I'm bumping it up to a 4 because the author added many nice little details that really punch up one of the two themes (sometimes both) while remaining consistent with the AD&D rules. That's not always easy to do.

SCORE (THEME) = 4 / 5
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2) MAP AND ART
(How complex/useful is the map and/or art? How easy is it to grok the layout?)

I stated in an earlier review that I'm a big fan of solid b&w maps, but I understand the criticism from those who dislike them. This one is a clever little complex within a constrained space (a 200' diameter circle), with plenty of the loopy-doopy magic everyone loves. It has a nice symmetry that makes for a believable interior of a craft, though some of the essentials such as living quarters are absent (if this was simply a floating puzzle-dungeon, however, that wouldn't matter). A scale of 10' squares is indicated.

Three entrances provide a good opportunity for decision-making: One route is easy-peasy; one route is challenging; and one route requires interaction with an NPC. There's plenty of spaces to explore, but the small chambers and relatively short distances between keyed areas means the party should be able to cover a lot of ground in a single session, which is exactly what we want in an adventure site. I have one map quibble in area 2, but it's entirely textual (and described above).

It's always awesome to see artwork in an adventure site writeup, especially because space is at such a premium. The image of Thenzur oozes the 1e aesthetic and works great as a handout to show the players at the table because it both enhances the theme and supports the gameplay. Excellent! 

SCORE (MAP/ART) = 5 / 5
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3) CLARITY
(How easy is the writeup to read/parse quickly? How well does the information flow?)

The text is in two-column format and justified. (Praise be!) Section titles are in bold and all-caps. The dungeon details at the beginning (from Approaches to Ignition) could benefit from some alternative formatting to indicate they are sub-sections of information. As presented, each individual dungeon detail has equal formatting weight with the document's "main" sections. This is a fairly minor and subjective complaint, however. Line spacing between sections is good, but individual room descriptions are single-paragraph blocks of text. Important details are bolded in the text, making them easy to pick out of the sometimes lengthy room descriptions.

The Designer's Notes at the end should be at the very top of the writeup (except for the part about selling the construct, which is fine where it is). These notes contain important details that clue the DM in right away as to what this adventure is all about and what players can expect inside. The Wandering Monsters table should also come in before the keyed room descriptions. The aftermath notes and credits should stay at the end.

Even within a room's description, information is often given to the DM in an unhelpful order. As an example, here is the description for area 1:

Stairs descend 40' into an open-air courtyard. The floor is littered with droppings (dragon spoor). Magic mouths (speaking in Thenzur’s voice) appear above each door as they are approached. N: “Make my statue whole again,” a hint to reconstruct the statue. SW: “Read the paper full again,” a hint to read the pass-phrase. SE: “Count the coins again,” a false lead. A scrap of paper (ZAM) floats around.

The first two sentences are static and descriptive of the space in which the players find themselves. The next four sentences are reactive and occur only when the players perform an interaction. The final sentence is active and descriptive of an element found in the space. 

As the element in question is one of the essential keys for success in the dungeon, its appearance should be front and center in the DM's description as the party enters the room. If it's only meant to be found by searching, then say so in the text, but even so, the information about it should still appear above the information about what happens as the party attempts to exit the room. It would be easy for a DM running this adventure on the fly to miss that critical detail. 

This issue happens throughout the writeup, which will require the DM to read through carefully and make notations to link disconnected pieces. The overall format and readability of this manuscript is good, though, and with a second edit and some minor reorganization, this could easily bump to a 4 or even 5.

SCORE (CLARITY) = 3 / 5
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4) INTERACTIVITY/INNOVATION
(How well does the adventure use the rules to create interesting play?)

The design of the floating copper vessel and its interior environment creates lots of opportunities for fun interaction. The puzzle-trap pieces are simple and intuitive, which helps move things along for a low-level group. The description of the copper walls labels them as “very smooth--slightly slippery” for climbing purposes, a handy detail to help the DM quickly evaluate a thief's chance of success.

There's plenty of things to play with: Clues that reveal what this place is and what's going on here. Not one, but two different factions to parley with and gain information/rewards. An NPC who may become a party ally (at least temporarily). Strange rooms that contain valuable items if the techno-hazards can be avoided. A recurring bit of thematic technology with the invisible platforms, a dungeon obstacle that forces players to rely on figuring out a sensory detail to overcome it (Yes!)  A simple "boss fight," but with creatures that may be nigh-invincible to a low-level party. All great stuff in individual bites and probably pretty damn satisfying to a group of players just looking to have a fun time banging around a weird place without thinking too deeply about it.

As with the Theme category above, this would be a perfect '5' if I felt like all the interactive components fully supported each other to reinforce a stronger central theme.

SCORE (INTERACTIVITY) = 4 / 5
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5) MODULARITY
(How easy would it be to drop/integrate the adventure into an existing campaign?)

The writeup says that, "[the copper disc] can be placed almost anywhere: on a mountainside, by a tower, in a tree, under the streets, etc." It's an almost-perfect adventure site in this regard. Its floating, mobile nature and nebulous purpose suggests it wanders the globe (and maybe other planes) looking for something it will never find. Just tracking the site down could be a mini-adventure of its own, Krull-style. 

It's difficult to provide rationales for dungeon sites sometimes, but this one can suit just about any idea or setting. The one thing that might be required is a low-level magic-user who wants a specific spell they don't already have, but you could replace the goal here with just about anything.

SCORE (MODULARITY) = 5 / 5
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6) USABILITY
(How much work will the referee have to do to run this adventure at the table tonight?)

You can 100% run this as-is if you don't mind some of the underlying burrs. The puzzles are well done but spelled out for the players, so the dungeon is on "easy" mode in that regard. This might work well for kids or absolutely novice players, but it's a cakewalk to anyone aged 15 or above or with any experience playing a Zelda-like video game. 

Removing some of the handrails (like the Magic Mouths) would make this a more challenging test without making it too difficult for the players to still attain the goal. It wouldn't require a whole lot of work if that is your only objective.

If you want to reconcile the issues between the conflicting themes instead, to make this either a vessel to explore or a puzzle-dungeon to test a neophyte wizard, you'll need to rethink the basic premise a bit and maybe swap out some of the encounters with other content that better supports the theme you've decided on.

SCORE (USABILITY) = 4 / 5
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7) OVERALL THOUGHTS 

It's a superb setup and setting for an adventure site, and I like each of the individual themes presented here. I just wish the author had chosen a lane and jammed the accelerator to the floor. 

I would love to see this blown out into a two-level dungeon: One is the ship to explore; the other is the puzzle-trap. That's definitely ambitious to fit the contest guidelines, and may be a little too scope-creepy for what is meant to be a low-level side-jaunt, but the adventure's concept is really clever and worthy of expansion.

FINAL SCORE = 4.2 / 5

Adventure Site Contest 2 REVIEW: The Moldiwarp's Burrow

Continuing with my series of reviews of submissions for the Adventure Site 2 Contest. Unfortunately, this one violated the contest rules by using a font size smaller than the 10 point limit (this appears to be 6.5 point or so). 

As a fellow contest participant, I scratched and scraped and cut and snipped to fit my 10-point manuscript onto 3 pages, so I cannot afford mercy to a fellow author who didn't accept the same limitations as everyone else. This would probably be a 5–6 page document at 10-point. I will still evaluate the adventure to provide feedback, but I will not be including this submission in my list of potential winners.

The Moldiwarp's Burrow

Author: Woad Warrior
System: AD&D
Party Size: ?
Level Range: 5–6

Located not 10 miles from the borderlands of civilisation and visible from Skepeside, rising ominously above the windswept moors of the wild lands, Gnomish hill has long been a symbolic landmark in the division between wild and civilised land. 10 years ago an adventuring party by the name of the Blue Band laid claim to the hill and built a home for themselves to civilise the wilderness, but were slaughtered to a man by a gnomish army. Now the hill has only its black reputation, even as the wounds left by the Blue Band slowly heal.

The intro identifies this adventure site as "...a combination of dungeon, small settlement and timeline-activated plot. It is not intended to be material suitable for a one-shot, but rather as material to place within a sandbox or campaign." So, not an adventure site? Timeline-activated? Plot? Uh-oh.

"You can, of course, use just the dungeon component of the module, Gnomish Hill." Ok, there we go.

The adventure starts in the village of Skepeside with some basic details about the layout of the town, the residents' religious practices, and a few sentences about regional governance. The only NPCs mentioned are the lord of the area (who is typically absent), his brother (who mostly runs the place), and a local sage (who knows a few things about demi-human law, human politics, and local "mosses, grains, grasses and ferns"). 

There follows a list of village "hooks," though they can be more accurately called details. The village is close "to 'the dungeon' of your early campaign, as such its role as a safe resting place and a market is significant." You can only buy gear up to 10 gp value though, and if you need heavier weapons or armor, you'll need to hoof it to a different village an hour away to find a smith. (That doesn't make Skepeside sound like a "significant" market for adventurers to me.) The smith in the neighboring village has a suit of +1 Splint Mail for sale for 750 gp, which is a steal because the DMG's listed GP sale value for the same piece is is 4,000.

We learn about the village's religious festival of Beltane. The basic gist is that the celebration marks the end of spring and the beginning of summer. Local druids, human clerics, and gnomish priestesses (?) get together and perform ceremonies to keep evil spirits from crossing over and messing up their growing season. The final village hook concerns the "family of Cergid Hackneyman" (seriously?) which consists of the drunkard horse-seller Cergid Hackneyman and his adopted son Caith, actually the son of a now-dead adventurer who was slain exploring Gnomish Hill. 

The party first meets Cerdig being attacked by a giant mole while leading six horses. If the party runs off the monster, he'll be grateful and offer the party room and board at his house in the village. If they heal his injured horse, he gifts it to them for some reason. He will pay the party's magic-user to let Caith copy one of their spells into the boy's apprentice spellbook. This whole section is sort of a hook, but I think qualifies more as an adventure set-up, as Caith is central to the "timeline plot" this writeup has threatened us with.

Additional "hooks" are provided as relevant to Gnomish Hill. Two different locals can sell the party a treasure map to an adventurer's buried treasure (that of Caith's dad, coincidentally). There's a rumor about a criminal gang holed up in the ruined tower atop the hill, along with an offered reward of 250 gp. Finally, the party learns of a terrible ritual to be performed during the Beltane festival that will bring a yearlong winter to the area. The author recommends that this hook be used, but makes no mention as to how the party learns this information. It further reveals that the Moldiwarp of Gnomish Hill is behind the timeline plot and provides a deadline date, but doesn't specify the current date so I guess the imminence of the timeline is up to the DM? No clue what a "Moldiwarp" is either, but we're only halfway down the first, densely-packed, tiny-fonted page.

The other half of the first page is a description of the troubled lad, Caith, including a bizarre table of his misdeeds. The party learns about one of these misdeeds each time they pass through the village (but not more than one per week). Caith is variously "mingling with dangerous miscreants," experimenting with magic spells, being heretical, and quarreling with another boy over the heart of a pretty girl. Lots of background details are provided for each misdeed, including something the PCs can do to give the boy a course correction before he succumbs to the dark side. You know, classic adventure gaming stuff...

Each of these four sections—arranged in a 2x2 grid—include a smattering of patois-tinged, read-along dialogue meant to be spoken by some unspecified villager expressing their concern about Caith to the party. I'm not a fan of scripting in an adventure except in very specific circumstances. This is not one of them. If I read a sentence like: "These strange folk our Caith's been holding fellowship [sic] got me afeared," at my table, I'd get laughed out of the house. This feels like half a page of wasted space.

Without warning, the text abruptly changes to a keyed description of a giant mole lair. This dungeon area (which I believe is meant to be the aforementioned "Gnomish Hill," though this is never explicitly stated) is approximately 10 miles overland from town, meaning the party has a 3–4 hour wilderness journey to reach the site. Above ground are the "(r)emnants of the destroyed human village that once perched on the hill above, they are solid stone and timber, 12’ high. Piles of earth and rubble." That's all the detail we get about the ruins, but it aligns with the intro text. If this is the right place, then where is the tower we're told is atop the hill? I'm definitely confused what the heck is happening at this point, and I'm already halfway down column 1 of page 2—almost at the midpoint of the manuscript. Not a lot of space left to right this listing ship.

So, five feet below the village is a labyrinth of disturbingly-straight mole tunnels described as "a closed system with no entrances," meaning the PCs will have to dig through a molehill to open up an entrance. Doing so takes a single person with a shovel 13 turns to accomplish, referencing the excavation rules on p.106 of the DMG (though where this precise number comes from is unclear). Nevertheless, nothing kicks off a grand adventure more than an hour or two of hard labor after traveling for four hours to get to the spot. 

Technically, once they're done digging, it should be about time to head back to town for the night unless they intend to camp in the ruins. There's also the option of wandering around the ruins to provoke an attack by giant moles and allow them to drag party members down into the tunnels one at a time, presumably requiring separate encounters. It's easy to see why this isn't a great option for entry. 

There's also a secret entrance—an old chimney shaft—but we aren't told about it until much later in the writeup. It's even indicated on the map, but nothing is said about it in the initial text (in fact, the text explicitly tells us there is no way into the tunnels except via digging). Also, using this secret entrance is likely to ruin 9,000 gp worth of treasure in the form of a delicate orchid growing at the bottom of the shaft.

Once the party makes it inside, they can navigate the tunnels and encounter a half-dozen or so "interesting" things.  Some of these encounters include giant ants somehow trapped in these dirt tunnels. Have you ever met an ant? Becoming trapped underground is not something they do. There are the remains of a dead paladin and his trusty armored steed. Wait, this guy rode his horse down here? The tunnels are literally described as "narrow, only 5’ wide and in places, less than 5’ in height." 

This is the point where I kind of want to stop reading. I'm so confused as to what I'm reading, and I'm losing all desire to follow this fever dream to its conclusion. 

There's some buried treasure that can be located with the map procured back in town. (That's cool, but if the guy who buried it died here and never returned to town, who made the map and how did it come into the possession of the locals?) There's some obliviax moss in one tunnel, but with no context or stats, and a stone that allows a chaotic magic-user to "project their consciousness to several points along the [ley] line." No clue what that means and the text doesn't tell us. 

There's also a mole "eating worms from a felt hat." This is the moldiwarp's familiar, who will promptly report the party's arrival and makeup to its master. (Aren't moles blind though?) I want to pause here and state that, at this point in the text (not counting the cover page title), the moldiwarp has been mentioned twice—once in capitalized form (Moldiwarp) and once in lower-case form. Other than identifying this figure as the central antagonist in the starting hooks, absolutely no information has been given as to who or what the moldiwarp is, or what involvement they have with any of this material. 

Can you encounter anything else in here, like maybe giant moles? You can, but the wandering encounters table is found way further down in the manuscript rather than adjacent to the keyed area where it would be most useful and accessible. Plowing forward...

The Feeding Tunnels (which are 5' below the surface) lead down into the second level, the "Main Tunnels," which are 10–12' diameter (along with some narrower side branches). These tunnels are said to be 30' below the surface and they connect to various cellars of the abandoned human village on top of the (Gnomish??) hill. (The cellars of the buildings are 30' below ground?) This is where we're given details about the ruined village. But wait, can't the party just enter the cellars from the surface ruins? Apparently they can't, as there are no openings or stairs indicated in the map.

The cellar chambers are described by the building above it. A wine cellar contains valuable bottles and a secret room in which clues are revealed about some sort of treachery against the king involving Caith's dead birth-father. There's a cess-pit (have care, ye squeamish DMs) crawling with 3' long "(m)agical roundworms: mutated by the potion-infused waste of the adventurers above." I have no idea what this sentence means. The worms project apathy such that anyone staying longer than 1 turn (i.e., exploring) must save or be overcome with severe apathy that can only be "cured by stimulating activity (such as sex or narcotics) or magic." Is this written for LotFP? *Checks notes* Nope! 

One cellar contains the man-cave of a "prominent raider" filled with the trophies of his adventures including a two-headed lion (sufficiently cool), a warship's figurehead (suitably awesome, though this isn't a coastal setting, so squint a little here), and not one but TWO adult dragon heads. There's also a magic axe and a collection of valuable helmets from exotic lands. One of these—a jade helmet worth 1,000 gp–contains a spirit that tries to convince the party to take it to a nearby portal chamber where it can return to its home plane and become a treant or some such. What does the party get as a reward for helping it? The jade helmet of course, which they already have. Moving on...

There's another cellar where a single shaft of light from the chimney nurtures a growing orchid blossom which grants its power a great deal of authority over the wild lands (whatever that means). The orchid hasn't fully blossomed yet, and apparently animals and the moldiwarp (reference #3, lower-case, still no description) won't bother it. When it does blossom (in 2 months!), it is worth 9,000 gp. Players absolutely love delayed gratification.

A carpenter's cellar contains a bunch of furniture, including a stool trapped with a poison needle ("Gotcha!") and a weird mechanical chest that appears to be a miniature vehicle. There's an unnecessarily detailed (and pretty pointless) backstory behind it all that requires deciphering a code. There are no details about how this is accomplished, but if the party translates the sheaf of documents, they learn of a completely unrelated plot to use the chest and diminution potions to pull off "an elaborate heist." (Of what and from whom? You decide!) The chest can be sold for 250 gp. (To whom?) There's also 19 Potions of Diminution disguised as bottles of wine among other (real) bottles of wine. (Tricksy DM.)

An elf's (?) cellar is blocked off from the rest of the tunnels by a dirt wall that can be dug through in 2 turns. Dwarf tracks can be seen coming and going. Beyond it is a nicely-furnished room with some valuable furnishings and paneled walls painted with murals of "elf children with knives behind their backs, dancing with woodland animals." This leads into a library with shelves full of crumbled parchments and set with trip wires that drop clay pots onto the heads of intruders. Two are filled with green slime. A worn trail in the dust provides a safe path. Not bad, but once the first pot falls, the party will be eyes-up and smashing the pots and/or cutting the tripwires. Maybe you get a second, careless party member with some green slime, but the effectiveness of the clay-pot trap is eliminated almost immediately. 

A secret door leads into a shrine dedicated to various Finnish and English figures from mythology, folklore, and literature. The moldiwarp (reference #4, lower-case, still no idea who or what this is) is here "tormenting a ferret." He apparently did not hear the party's tunneling efforts a mere 80' away. We are told that around the Moldiwarp's head (reference #5, upper-case) float two gemstones while his "dwarven plate mail +2 lies at his side." Some description, at least, but I still have no idea who this is, what they actually look like (other than male, dwarf-sized, and apparently in his undergarments), or what relevance they have to anything going on here. I should not be halfway through column 2 of page 2 with these questions in my head. Onward!

The final room in the elf's cellar-complex contains a portal to Fairyland through which the moldiwarp (reference #6, lower-case) came into this world. For why? Only the author knows and he isn't telling anyone at this point. There's a solid-gold rocking chair inside a cottage inside the portal room, but a dozen quicklings will mess you up if you try to steal it. Oh yeah, Caith the Troubled Teen™ "may be here." Chance of that? What's he doing here? If he's here, why has the moldiwarp (my reference, so it doesn't count) allowed the boy down here unattended? The unanswered questions are piling up. 

We leave the finished human cellars and move into a section of the key related to a pair of cavernous areas called "Nesting Chambers." One of these is described as having a "wonderfully cozy nest of lined straw and glittering [silver] coins." Whose nest this is, we are not told, but let's assume it's where the big-M bunks down (or little-m, if you prefer). Baby shriekers (aww!) sing quietly but raise their voices if bothered, possibly alerting the Moldiwarp (reference #7, upper-case) in the shrine (even though he apparently can't hear the party digging into the much-closer elf cellar). There's some stuff here, including a lady's cloak of pink silk, so we can add "flamboyant" to the moldiwarp's slowly-evolving description. Oh no, let's go!

The other nesting chamber has some "dog-sized" mole pups (aww!) who have been dressed up as "humans in surcoats bearing the skull and turnip of House Mandragora, the elven family associated with the Moldiwarp" (reference #8, upper-case). What any of that sentence means, I cannot tell you. Oh, luckily for the party, the blind mole pups are loaded! There's a big stash of coins and textiles here. Makes sense.

The dungeon key concludes with a series of five "Store Rooms" in which the moles "store dead and paralysed prey for later consumption." These chambers are filled with lots of dead insects (including an ankheg), a still-alive but paralyzed ettercap ready for an insta-kill, and a group of angry giant ants. One chamber conceals another secret exit to the surface, and in another is a paralyzed elf courtier "of the above gnomish realm who was attacked and left for dead by the criminals in the tower above." Whut?!

We were told in the intro that a human village was wiped out by a gnomish army, and the tower and criminals are mentioned as adventure hooks. This sentence provides obvious confirmation that the village and mole tunnels are part of Gnomish Hill, but no mention is made of a tower or criminals in the scant description of the village ruins. Where is the one in relation to the other? Do the criminals spot the PCs nosing around? Can the PCs just go straightaway to the tower? None of this information has been presented to this point. (Spoiler: It's further down on the next page, in a completely unrelated portion of the document.) On to page 3!

We shift, jarringly, to a section titled, "The Curse of the Maypole." This has something to do with the festival of Belthane mentioned on page 1. Here we get some additional info about the festival, which is performed to ward off otherworldly spirits who want to "wreak havoc on the delicate ecological balance upon which the people depend." The ceremonies also allow the people to court favor with beneficial spirits and even speak to the dead. OK, neat. We're then told that "(d)isruption of this ritual, especially if facilitated by a powerful artefact, such as the skull totem of the slain fairy lord Raistling Leaf, could spell disaster for the entire area." (What's all this, then?) I'm so lost at this point.

Patience and perseverance pay off, however, as we are finally presented with the info we should have been given at the very start: The villainous plot. Basically, the moldiwarp (reference #9, lower-case) took possession of the "skull totem" in an offscreen scene and plans to hide it in the crown of the maypole, thus cursing the entire area with permanent winter. Why? Maybe we find out later. Anyway, this is followed up by his actual plan. The night before the festival, the moldiwarp (reference #11, lower-case) instructs Caith (because, you see, they know each other somehow) to place the totem on top of the pole "and conceal it with a scroll of Permanent Illusion." I have to stop right here.

First of all, we learned earlier that Caith is not yet a 1st-level magic-user. As not-a-1st-level magic-user, Caith does not have the ability to cast spells from scrolls (in the same way that 0-level men-at-arms do not get to roll on the 1st level fighter's table). Second, Permanent Illusion isn't a magic-user spell; it's an illusionist spell, and a 6th level one at that! Even if Caith could cast from the scroll, it requires a 12th-level illusionist to cast a 6th-level illusionist spell, so that means his chance of casting failure is (12 – 0 = 12 x 5% = 60%), with a 70% of causing a reverse or harmful effect if it does fail. Who wrote this scroll? We don't know (maybe the moldiwarps's offscreen benefactor), but they're risking a lot of time and money on an untrained kid to pull this off. It's also not clear why a simple old Phantasmal Force spell wouldn't do the trick.

Here's where this whole plot goes completely off the rails for me. The next few sentences say this:

The moldiwarp [reference #12, lower-case] will then return to the hill, where it will command three of its giant moles to take the skull totem back from Caith and deliver it to him. Caith, unwilling to let the totem go, will be kidnapped by the moles and brought to the moldiwarp [reference #13, lower-case], where he will be left paralyzed in the Portal Room. If the PCs have successfully turned Caith to good in 3 or 4 events, he will trick the moles with a fake skull, leaving the artefact with Cerdig for the PCs before being taken.

So this explains the earlier reference to "Caith may be here" in the portal room, but I don't know what to do with the rest of that paragraph. I'm sorry, I just don't get it. Even worse, this all takes place off-screen so how does the DM engage the party with any of this information? Does the kid do the thing or not? Is the festival ruined or not? I literally have no idea. It gets worse, however, because the next section details the curse working:

As the men and gnomes dance on, spinning and weaving, laughing and singing as the pole takes colour, unease thickens the air. The glimmers and gusts that fill the air seem to fill with shadow as lawful onlookers and strong-willed pagans heave the cry “The ritual errs, the spirits turn, end this folly!”. But heedless are the dancers, for when their masks are torn from their faces to reveal feral unthinking eyes they dance their dance as if driven by devilry. As the ribbons wind up to the top with a shrieking crescendo the pole falls, leaving the air filled with snowflakes and the trance broken.

What... the... f...??

Luckily, the bottom of page 3 is in sight. After the description of the cursed dance, we get the info about the tower and the druid-killer bandits inside (I'm not even getting into it), and THEN we get the wandering encounters table for the mole tunnels (including a chance to encounter the Moldiwarp, and THEN we get information about the aftermath of the ritual in which the gnomes kill all the bandits in the tower and then kill all the moles in the tunnels (assuming the party hasn't already). You know, now that I'm here at the end, I just realized that the party never much enters into the action (except for the part about getting them to care about and then nurture Caith's emotional development). All this stuff happens without the party having to do anything.

The final section is where we get stat blocks for the new monsters: giant moles, giant snails (only one of which is used off-camera so why stat it up?), and the MOLDIWARP (reference # 14, all-caps) where we FINALLY get a description of it, a sort of half-dwarf, half-mole, half-fairy creature. We still never learn WHY he's doing any of this or what force is behind its activities, but I no longer really care. The final-final section describes the Skull Totem of Raisting [sic] Leaf.

Treasure totals around 70,000 gpv, but more than 16k of that is found in the buried treasure chest which the PCs probably won't find without the map. Another 9k of that is tied up in the orchid that the party will need to wait 2 months to harvest, and 8k is in the gold rocking chair. Magic items are scarce and only okay: A +1 Battleaxe, a pair of Ioun Stones (+1 CON and the breathless one), a few +1 Arrows, a Ring of Locate Animals. The bandit boss is said to wield a shillelagh that has the druid spell stats, I don't know what that's all about. There's also the Skull Totem, which is a pretty powerful artifact with the ability to cast Miracle once/year among other things. There's a chance the totem could fall into the PC's hands, so be careful with this one.
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1) THEME
(How strong/consistent is the adventure's premise, flavor, and setting?) 

The basic premise of this adventure is fairy-themed, though this only becomes apparent deeper into the text. The situation in the region is unclear, as are the villain's motivations. Few details are provided about the village, the gnomish presence, the giant mole infestation, or the bandits to allow one to quickly understand what the party's goals are here, what stakes are involved, and what the different factions in the area want and are doing. 

The intro indicates a "timeline-activated plot" and then fails to provide a timeline outside of the situational interactions with Caith, which are said to take place at least a week apart. This means the party is meant to be in action in these parts for at least a month, but there is absolutely nothing keeping the party here for that length of time beyond whatever contrivance the DM designs. If I'm reading it correctly, this adventure site is meant to be integrated into a broader sandbox—almost like a DLC for an existing campaign area.

The moldiwarp actually sounds like an interesting antagonist, once we finally get to it, and the mole tunnel lair isn't bad, per se, but the entire structure of this adventure isn't good. The fact of gnomes is irrelevant to anything, and their post-credits assault on the tower and mole hills is just odd and pointless (especially if the party has already done its thing here).

The details about Caith's angsty troubles make more sense once you've read through the text, and they do seem like the kinds of issues the protagonist of a YA fantasy novel might contend with, but the emotional travails of a teenage NPC are not what Classic Adventure Gaming is about, and the cringey scripts are right out. 

The descriptions of the Belthane festival and all the implications behind it is interesting and on-theme, but the execution of the conspiracy, with the illusion and the convoluted betrayal(s), is highly questionable. And, again if I'm reading correctly, none of it will likely happen as the party has already dispatched the moldiwarp according to the (recommended) starting rumor that warns of the "Moldiwarp of Gnomish Hill."

If you're going to do a timeline adventure, you have to have a central event, and the maypole dance is it. This becomes the zero hour, and then you design the timeline backwards from that. Establish when the plot events happen along that timeline and provide clues and opportunities for the party to figure out what's happening at each juncture. To avoid a railroad, there need to be ways for the party to get ahead of the villain and interrupt their machinations, even stop them completely. They need to know the stakes and be invested in stopping the bad outcome. I think this is what the author intends here, but the foundation is poorly built.

One of the helmets in the raider's collection is a jade kabuto (a Japanese helmet) inhabited by a Dōc Cu'ó'c (a Southeast Asian spirit—Annamese in fact, I looked it up). Now, this is an inherent problem with the Oriental Adventures book, in that it tried to create a setting that blends across Asian cultures in the same way that AD&D (Occidental Adventures) is a mélange of European/Mediterranean/Levant elements. For me, the mixture in OA missed the mark, even though I liked the book's take on the Japanese elements and the martial arts designs. The encounter with the helmet spirit doesn't appear designed to end in combat, so the specific spirit doesn't really matter. I would have preferred just making this a random samurai spirit or something. 

Then again, I have to question why these elements are even in a fairy-themed adventure? I get that it's supposed to indicate the raider was a far-traveler, but who cares? It's of no absolutely consequence to the adventure or anything else. The incongruity of the Oriental elements only takes attention away from the theme the author is trying to build.

The other monsters are mostly on theme: the moles, the ants, quicklings, fungus, etc. And, of course, the Moldiwarp. Bandits. Gnomes, maybe. The magic items are thematic enough. If I were grading this using half-points, I might give this a score of 1.5 here, but the fact that I can sort of see where this might go if we reoriented the focus and put in some extra work bumps it up to a 2. There is a theme here, it just needs a better, more dynamic framework. 

SCORE (THEME) = 2 / 5
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2) MAP AND ART
(How complex/useful is the map and/or art? How easy is it to grok the layout?)

There are three maps: an overland map (scale = 1 mile per hex), and maps of the upper level (the Feeder Tunnels) and lower level (the Main Tunnels), both with a scale of 10' squares. There is a hand-drawn charm to them, though they appear to have been created in a program like GIMP or Photoshop (maybe Paint). The images are colorful and easy to read.

The overland map is hex-based, though the hex grid itself is absent. Terrain types are color-coded and use a stamp-type icon to distinguish it. Even without the hex grid, the terrain changes are obvious at a glance and it's fairly easy to calculate distances. The map labels are drawn in program for each of the major locations: The village of "Skepeside," the borders of "Human Land," "The Gnomish-Gogonomia," and "Gnomish Hill. (No idea what a Gogonomia is supposed to be; the text doesn't ever mention it.)

The upper level map shows the ruined village and the maze of giant mole tunnels, which isn't immediately clear. Once you figure out the vertical orientation it makes sense. There are also places on the map that aren't described at all: a stone circle, an apparently-intact house, a statue of the goddess Mielikki, and (what we learn later) is a chimney entrance to the lower level (this alternate entrance would have been nice to know about before learning it exists much later in the key, especially as the text explicitly says that the mole tunnels are "a closed system").

The lower level map does a nice job contrasting the finished cellars and the dirt mole tunnels, though a few of the details (particularly the tripwires and green slime pots in the cellar library) are difficult to see unless you zoom way in. A desktop printer is unlikely to pick it up as more than a smudge if it even differentiates the colors at all.

The bandit's tower is unmapped. Other than that, my "issues" with the maps come from lack of clarity in the text. 

SCORE (MAP/ART) = 3 / 5
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3) CLARITY
(How easy is the writeup to read/parse quickly? How well does the information flow?)

The text is written partly in single-column format and partly in two-column format, left-aligned with tight margins. The section titles are bolded, but the rest of the formatting and the tiny font make this document difficult to read and a challenge to find information quickly. The Grützi Rule about font size was implemented to prevent this very thing from happening.

This adventure is a mess in terms of organization and information flow, as well. Many of the content sections are completely out of order in terms of where and when the DM needs to employ it, and critical information about the scenario and personas are withheld until the very end. I struggled to complete my initial read-through because I was so confused and frustrated by the presentation. 

SCORE (CLARITY) = 0 / 5
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4) INTERACTIVITY/INNOVATION
(How well does the adventure use the rules to create interesting play?)

Exploring the mole tunnels requires the party to use excavation rules, face movement restrictions, and choose the right weapons carefully for length and space requirements. That's excellent utilization of the rules, but also sort of de rigeur for such things, so not particularly innovative. I appreciate the attention to details though, and the inclusion of reminders to the DM to apply these rules in these situations (along with the book and page number for reference) is welcomed. It's always good to include such things if you have the space.

The party is also meant to interact heavily with the boy, Caith. The point is obviously to turn the boy to goodness and light and away from the dark fairy influences, but that's pretty railroad-ey in design. It's not required for gameplay, but it is the only route for success in which the party can stop the curse and recover the artifact for a minimum amount of risk. In fact, all of that can happen without the party ever entering the dungeon or interacting with the Moldiwarp. This kind of thing is fine for a storygame or a 5e adventure, but it's definitely not what I'm looking for in an adventure site.

There are a few traps and secret doors to contend with. The jade samurai helm contains a spirit that the party can help pass on to its eternal rest (though they get nothing for it). There's an elf to rescue. Most of the other interaction in the dungeon is combat, but that's okay; it's a monster lair. Same with the bandit's tower.

The big interaction is supposed to be with the festival, but other than flipping the kid or killing the moldiwarp, it's unclear what role the party plays here. 

SCORE (INTERACTIVITY) = 2 / 5
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5) MODULARITY
(How easy would it be to drop/integrate the adventure into an existing campaign?)

The designer's intent is for you take your existing sandbox campaign world and "place Skepeside on a frequently travelled thoroughfare in the early game, such as between the major market and the first dungeon." 

The adventure is loosely written in a way that you could insert this into any number of generic places, but the specificity of some of the details (references to gods, the existence of Fairyland, etc.) and occasionally loose approach to some of AD&D's assumptions (details about gnomes, spell casting, etc.) may complicate any integration.

SCORE (MODULARITY) = 3 / 5
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6) USABILITY
(How much work will the referee have to do to run this adventure at the table tonight?)

It's already quite a bit of work to figure out what's going on here, but to get this ready to run at the table in your campaign is probably going to require a lot more. The manuscript would be greatly improved without changing any of the "story" by just taking it apart and reorganizing the sections. But to truly clean up the adventure's narrative flaws and align it more closely with AD&D, it needs a lot of additional text.

If you're comfortable running an adventure from rough, disjointed notes in which maybe a third of the details required to grasp everything didn't make it to the written page (despite the tiny font), then you may enjoy this one.

SCORE (USABILITY) = 1 / 5
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7) OVERALL THOUGHTS

I love some good fey/faerie flavor, especially when its the malevolent kind. This one just doesn't work for me. 

FINAL SCORE = 1.8 / 5

Adventure Site Contest 2 REVIEW: Stables of Zothay

Stables of Zothay

Author: Patrick Dolan (aka OwlbearHugger)
System: AD&D
Party Size: ?
Level Range: 4–5

Kritas, the tyrant of Zothay, has a cavalry of 100 men and 100 horses. Horse shows have long been featured at his stables, but he has recently entered the horseracing field with an emaciated black steed named Kate. She has won the last three races.

This adventure is written for use with Gabor Lux's expansion of the City of Zothay setting—as found in the Barbarian Altanis region of Judges Guild's Wilderlands of High Fantasy. Related materials are used with his permission. The writeup even provides a location for this site on the Zothay city map, which is a convenient touch.

So, there's a local lord who's on a winning streak with his new black mare. Why does the party care? 

On the one hand, local bookmakers are losing big and need capable horse-killers to take care of business. So deep is their anger, they want the beast's head as a trophy and offer 10,000 gp to do the deed. To sweeten the deal, the gambling cartel reveals that the lord keeps his fortune in winnings in the stables, there for the taking. On the other hand, the local high priest is convinced that the mare is a tool of corruption planted by foreign powers, and wants its head to divine its origin. He offers the gratitude of the gods and the services of the temple to the party.

The horse is a half-nightmare, gifted to Kritus by an unnamed benefactor who knows his weakness for exotic mounts. In addition to Kate, Kritas owns a styracosaur, a manticore, a gorgon, four axe beaks, and a pair of bactrian camels. The true nature of the supernatural creatures (and the dinosaur) are concealed by a special illusion spell to look like regular horses. Why a tyrant would need to hide this fact eludes me, though. Who would dare even raise a question about it?

Before we get into the key, I want to return to the idea that this particular site is wedded to the specific setting of Zothay. The intro places the stables at a map location in the city's key (excerpted here from Gabor Lux's expansion material): 

8a. Cavalry Barracks: Commander Strephon Arthon and 100 trained light horsemen with their 10 officers are stationed in this compound. Drills are held daily at the central courtyard, and three patrols of 20 horsemen with an officer each are out on the road at all times.

This brief paragraph is followed up by the stat blocks for the 100 light horsemen, the 10 officers, and the commander. According to the city writeup, the site should be occupied by ~40 horsemen and 7 officers plus the commander at all times. Looking at the adventure site writeup, however, we encounter some discrepancies with this. 

The soldiers and command staff have all been reduced in level (which may be a change due to a difference in rule system as the city writeup is designed for Castles & Crusades, I believe), while the commander's equipment has been beefed up a little. All 10 "officers" (here, 7 sergeants and 3 lieutenants) are present, despite 3 of them always being in the field according to the city writeup. In the adventure site writeup, 60 horsemen and sergeants bunk in the barracks (which is confusing because the 7 sergeants already have another room in the key). None of these differences sinks the adventure by any means, but if you're going to link your piece of content with a pre-existing piece of content, I think you have the obligation to keep your material consistent with the source. Not out of a sense of honor or anything, but as a convenience to other DMs who may want to use both pieces.

The layout of the place is a walled military compound, with four wings surrounding an open courtyard. One wing has two-stories and houses the men and officers of the cavalry company. The other three wings are stables for the warhorses and Kritas' menagerie of monstrous mounts. A side enclosure off one of the stable wings is a dirt-floored arena where something untoward is going on.

In addition to the troops who watch over the stables, a ghost visits nightly to ride the nightmare into the ethereal plane (why it needs to bring a magic Saddle of Etherealness with it isn't clear as both creatures are ethereal by nature, unless the idea is simply to provide an opportunity for treasure). There's also a bulette (!!) lurking around the stable grounds.

Normal entry to the compound is via several guarded and often-barred gates. Infiltrators can also enter through some barred windows, or by climbing over the outer walls and across the stable roofs, or by coming up through one of four wells that connect to a large underground cistern beneath the city. Once inside, there is an insane wandering encounter chart that could find the party battling giant beetles, giant bats, or giant horseflies (not to mention the bulette or the ghost!) There is literally an equal chance to encounter some guards as there is to encounter the bulette. There is a second random encounter table for being down in the cistern (giant frogs, cave fishers, a flail snail), which isn't really necessary.

The interiors of the cavalry barracks and stables are all logical, though the discrepancies with the makeup of the troops stationed here are described above. The text doesn't say how many regular horses are being stabled here, but since about 60 cavalrymen are described as on site, we can assume a similar or greater number of horses. Descriptions aren't very detailed, but they don't need to be. It's a barracks and stables; often a room's title does all the heavy lifting. Even so, most areas have a few nicely-picked words that give the DM a quick rundown of a room's contents. The arena section (more of a parade ground, I think) has attracted the bulette, and the guards feed it old horses in an attempt to capture and tame it. If the party tromps across the dirt arena floor, the bulette has a good chance of appearing.

Unless you're running for a party of dunces, they will avoid the barracks area completely and head straightaway for one of the stables. They're looking for a black, emaciated horse to denogginize. Among the dozens of normal horses kept here are 8 monsters: four axebeaks, a styracosaur, a gorgon, a manticore, and the party's target—a half-nightmare. 

The monsters are all concealed by a special illusion spell called "Horsemorph." The spell is never actually described, beyond its power to make these monstrous creatures appear to be regular horsies. Apparently their LAWFUL GOOD owner, Kritas, is so overly paranoid that he routinely disguises the gorgon and manticore to look like his prized steed, while making the nightmare look like one of the other regular horses. The styracosaur is also disguised as a fat old horse, but in real-life these creatures were like 15' long and weighed 2–3 tons; how does an illusion conceal its considerable passage as it moves around?

The gorgon (disguised as the half-nightmare) is kept behind a metal, Wizard-Locked door with "a small (1x2-ft), tight-fitting sliding door." If the horse-gorgon is attacked through the little door-window, "the horsemorph is dispelled—and the gorgon will attempt to break out," followed by a set of procedures to manage that. This makes it sound like the Horsemorph spell prevents the creatures from using their natural powers until attacked or the illusion is dispelled. 

Without knowing exactly how this spell is designed, it's hard to know for sure, but illusions don't generally work that way. If the intention is that this is a type of polymorph spell, that's alteration not illusion. The similarly-cloaked manticore is kept in another metal-lined room with chain mail curtains, suggesting it can use its spikes in horse-form, and there is no similar requirement that the manticore be attacked before it may act, which makes one wonder why the gorgon doesn't just flood the stables with gas when the door-window is opened for feeding. It's all confusing, but details about the spell might have cleared it up.

All this is meant to complicate any investigation/recon efforts, though a way for the party to figure out which horse is which is provided. But more than likely the party will simply hack its way through a gorgon and a manticore before running out of viable targets, and then maybe figure out which horse is their quarry among all the other regular horses in the stables. One last issue with Kate, the half-nightmare. She's said to be leaving her competition in the dust at the track, but her movement rate is listed as 21". An average light riding horse moves 24", so how is she winning all these races?

Treasure is a mix of coins, some jewelry, and non-obvious loot like exotic foodstuffs and fancy china. Total amount lands around 31,000 gpv, two-thirds of which is bound up in the race winnings: 4,000 pp in a metal chest (minimum 500 lbs. of encumbrance). There are some magic items to be found: a Wand of Fire, +2 Banded Mail, a Saddle of Etherealness, a Crossbow of Distance, a Caparison (horse blanket) of Displacement (neat), Eyes of Minute Seeing, and a few potions and scrolls (including a scroll of Horsemorph, but no spell writeup so it's up to you, DM).

Most (and I mean basically ALL) the loot is only going to be recovered if the party can kill every guard and monster in the place and have sufficient time to search all the rooms. That is not what this adventure is designed to be, which is a quick infiltration for a bit of horse assassination with a clean escape. Competent players are not going to go anywhere near the barracks to locate their target, so almost all of that nice detail is probably wasted. And even if the team does go in and kill everyone and steal everything, that's just going to make the LAWFUL GOOD Kritas even more furious and determined to find the villains who massacred his innocent men and made widows of their young brides. The inevitable consequences (and questionable morality) for doing this mission should shoo away most intelligent, non-evil parties.
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1) THEME
(How strong/consistent is the adventure's premise, flavor, and setting?) 

The premise and hooks are a different flavor than what we normally get out of an adventure and seem well-suited for a more criminally-oriented party than your standard group of dungeon explorers. Here's where the adventure's explicit setting starts to cause a narrative problem. According to both the original Judges Guild material and Lux's elaborations, Zothay's ruler is Kritas the Red, a 6th-level LAWFUL GOOD magic-user. He is described as a "benevolent tyrant," which is an odd choice of words as tyranny typically involves oppression and cruelty, whereas Kritas' rule could be more accurately described as "authoritarian." 

Granted, this sounds like a huge nitpick, but the differences between the two terms signal vastly different outcomes for a party caught in the act. An authoritarian is likely to follow legal procedures and allow the chips to fall where they may (perhaps keeping a thumb on the scales of justice to ensure the most populist outcome). A tyrant, on the other hand, is likely to flay the perpetrators alive in the public square and then have his dogs eat their skins as they watch, still alive and wheezing their last breaths.

Why am I even getting into all this? Because, remember, the party is being asked to kill the prized possession of a mid-level magic-user with an army at his disposal, so they will probably be identified and caught at some point

Furthermore, on the alignment angle, Kritas has a penchant for exotic mounts, but his stables are populated by blatantly dangerous monsters who pose a real threat to his subjects. Both the manticore and nightmare are evil-aligned (though I suppose a half-nightmare might not be). On top of that, he is concealing their presence with illusions, and using a supernatural beast to cheat in order to win the local horse races. Finally, he has commanded his cavalrymen to supervise the daily slaughter of a horse to feed a deadly monster, which must be a morale-crushing horror for the dedicated horsemen tasked with the duty. These are not the actions of a LAWFUL GOOD person.

All that aside, the adventure site itself is a singular location with a very simple theme. The stables setting itself is well-realized in the map and keyed room titles. It looks and feels like the type of compound a cavalry troop would occupy inside a city, and it feels like a very real and lived-in space. Good job, there. 

Some of the lord's menagerie feel a little off-theme. The nightmare and axebeaks are suitable mounts, but who would ride a metal bull? Or a spike-necked dinosaur? Or an outright evil, human-headed lion? I mean, that sounds metal as hell, but in practice would probably be really uncomfortable and dangerous. The point of these creatures being a gorgon or a manticore is simply to trick the party into fighting them.

I think this whole scenario might have been more effective without the ruse, instead populating the stables with actual monstrous mounts like griffons, hippogriffs, maybe a pegasus, maybe even a subdued dragon, and then working out some different methods of interaction to deduce where the nightmare is kept. Make it more of a covert investigation into how the lord's new mount is having so much success rather than a weird mission to slaughter it.

Finding evidence for one of the city's political factions (the thieves guild, the temple, etc.) to use as leverage wouldn't necessarily create a "situation" between the party and the lord of Zothay, either.

SCORE (THEME) = 3 / 5
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2) MAP AND ART
(How complex/useful is the map and/or art? How easy is it to grok the layout?)

Three maps accompany the adventure: Ground Level, 2nd Story, and the underground Cistern caves. The scale on both stables maps is 10' squares; the cistern map scale is 20'. The Ground Level map looks hand drawn and then finished using a program like GIMP or Photoshop. The key for this level is definitely done in a program, with fonts for labels and circled key numbers.

The 2nd Story map is hand-sketched and appears unfinished as there is a large blank space contained within the walls to the right of the barracks, while the crude Cistern map is barely a sketch. Both feature handwritten labels and key numbers. 

It looks like the designer ran out of time to finish up the maps, and though the sinking quality diminishes the overall presentation, they remain usable, accurate maps, so I won't deduct any points for aesthetics.

The architecture makes logical sense, though the simple layout makes for some pretty uninteresting exploration. As a "place," though, this site feels realistic. I question the need for the Cistern map, but I do think it's a nice way to connect the site to the original city material. 

SCORE (MAP/ART) = 3 / 5
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3) CLARITY
(How easy is the writeup to read/parse quickly? How well does the information flow?)

The margins are wide with good line spacing between sections, bolded section titles on their own lines, and bolded key locations and monster names. Magical stuff is italicized. The document is very easy to scan and find what you're looking for quickly. High marks there. The text is in two-column, left-aligned format. I prefer a little spacing between paragraphs over the indentation, but that's a personal thing. 

The adventure is well written and tight, information flows in a logical manner without a lot of fluff. Stat blocks are provided for all stable occupants except for the cavalry horses. This is pretty much how it should be done. 

SCORE (CLARITY) = 5 / 5
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4) INTERACTIVITY/INNOVATION
(How well does the adventure use the rules to create interesting play?)

This is an infiltration-type adventure into a military facility, so there aren't a lot of interactive pieces here, although the monstrous mount fights (and the bulette) have some interesting features to them. The nightly ghost ride is a neat vignette, though it ultimately doesn't mean or impart anything of use to the party or mission. It's more likely to lead the party to tangle with the ghost and get seriously barfed up for no real purpose.

There's a kitchen cabinet filled with fine dinnerware (for the cavalry officers, I guess?). It is trapped with a Glyph of Warding (Blindness). It costs 2,000 gp in material components to cast the glyph, which is protecting a total of 1,500 gp worth of treasure. (Kritas must be serious about preventing thievery if he's allocating precious city funds and divine spells to protect his cavalry's dinnerware.) The bit about the glyph's command word and the staff having possibly misheard it is clever, but players who use the false command word would probably see this as a petty "gotcha" moment on the part of the DM (and it kind of is).

The arena is a mystery at first, with a few clues about the bulette's presence (though who would imagine a bulette would lurking under this specific spot in the midst of a city?), and there is a semi-secret attic crawl space above where a kleptomaniac guard has stored his stash of filched treasure. That's a neat little piece of hidden loot, but the backstory will be completely invisible to the players.

SCORE (INTERACTIVITY) = 2 / 5
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5) MODULARITY
(How easy would it be to drop/integrate the adventure into an existing campaign?)

This site is written for a specific setting and much of the background is strongly associated with that locale, though not dependent on it. I think the background stuff could be easily modified or replaced with something different, allowing this scenario to be inserted into any type of urban setting. 

 It is the nature of the mission itself that may limit its modularity. The high-stakes nature of the task and its probable outcome is going to deter many freelance parties I think, but it may work better as a factional-type mission in which the players are obligated to do it (and can expect some faction protection for any blowback when Kritas catches wind of the crime).

Your mileage may vary here, but the core gameplay of this adventure site requires some precise setting details for it unspool properly, and that will drastically limit how and where it can be used.

SCORE (MODULARITY) = 2 / 5
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6) USABILITY
(How much work will the referee have to do to run this adventure at the table tonight?)

Unless you intend to play this adventure exactly as written, you will need to do some work to integrate it into your campaign setting (particularly with the factions and mission motivations). Probably not a lot of work, but definitely some. Critically, the adventure doesn't give any guidance at all about what comes after the deed is done, which is important because this mission could (and should) have severe consequences for the party. 

You're completely on your own in that regard, but when one starts to consider what resources a 6th-level magic-user, who runs a city with an army, could leverage to find and capture the villains, it's not hard to see this ending badly for the characters. This part of the post-adventure is likely to require a lot of work and could conceivably become the central conflict of the campaign—escaping Kritas' wroth.

Having said that, the author was under no obligation to worry about the aftermath according to the contest rules, so I won't ding the adventure for it (my personal score here would be a 2).

SCORE (USABILITY) = 3 / 5
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7) OVERALL THOUGHTS

Tough one. It's good for what it is—a site for an infiltration mission. The horse assassination seems a little over the top for me, particularly when one game-theories out the resolution and aftermath. The adventure wraps itself in some of the trappings of a normal D&D dungeon setting, but the nature of the mission demands stealth, speed, and careful timing so some of the team will have to sit on the bench for a bit while the thief-types get things done. There's also the angle of the party using magic to charm their way in and look around, but in either case, there won't be time for searching or looting or sussing out a backstory. It's in and out, then collect the reward and get the hell out of Dodge before the wizard gets the news. I like it well enough, but I have trouble imagining myself ever running it.

FINAL SCORE = 3.0 / 5