Continuing with my series of reviews of submissions for the Adventure Site 2 Contest. This one is by a prolific adventure designer with a unique style and voice who offers his material for free, therefore I'm approaching this review with a great deal of respect baked in already.
The adventure's written for the Seven Voyages of Zylarthen (7VoZ) ruleset, which I understand to be a retroclone of OD&D with a sort-of implied Mediterranean/Levantine sword-and-sandals flavor. I have no experience with the system (or OD&D for that matter), other than having read some of Jeff's other adventures, so I plead ignorance if my review gets a rules detail wrong.
The Calid Cryo-Caves
Author: Jeff Simpson
System: Seven Voyages of Zylarthen
Party Size: ?
Level Range: 3–5
A set of twisting tunnels set in the liminal space between glacial frost and subterranean heat hide the treasures of long-dead travellers but also fearsome creatures! Can you survive the sweltering heat, the oppressive cold, and the cramped passages of the Calid Cryo-Caves?
Why is the party even trying to address that question? That's up to you, Mr. DM. They're already here, standing outside a darkened geothermal cave. They enter, stirring up (harmless) bats. The air turns suddenly cold. The striated cave walls brim with fossilized plants and shells. A cryptic message is drawn in the dust. Three cramped passages exit.
Good opening. Nothing dramatic happens, but it sets a nice stage for the theme established in the intro. One cave exit carries a 30% chance to get stuck, but its fairly easy (70%) to wiggle out of it. Navigating this passage requires three such rolls, but is rewarded with a rope and a magic Ring of Alarm (a new item). The other two exits lead to different routes to the lower caves.
One of these is a winding passage down to a frigid cave (-30F) with an icy wind that extinguishes torches (but not lanterns). Using a certain wall to navigate blindly risks becoming calcified instantly then silently (!) absorbed into the natural rock, so hopefully the party recalls the cryptic message in the cave above and chooses wisely. The faces of those absorbed into the wall are revealed in the glow of a lantern or magic light (very cool). From here, the passage "warms" back up to 50F and continues down to the lower caves.
The other route opens into a humid cavern (95F—or what we call early-June in my neck of the woods). An icy crevice drops into the lower caves. A saber-toothed living fossil hides in the dark recesses of the cave, waiting to pounce on the rear ranks of an unsuspecting party as they negotiate the crevice. A side passage at the bottom leads into a tight space where the trapped body of a priest may be discovered with some treasure. Salamanders on the wall warn of a dangerous creature who lives further down in the caves, if Speak with Animals is used.
Pushing onward from the base of the icy wall, the party enters a bone-chillingly cold (0F) cavern, where both routes from the entrance cave converge. A trio of living fossils—the stony skeletal remains of grizzly-boars—guard this cave. Among some bones are a surgery kit (?) and another new magic item: a Blade of Tempering. A wide tunnel provides an obvious exit, but exploring a narrow canal in another part of the cave requires 1–6 turns and runs a big risk of getting seriously stuck. For their persistent efforts, a character can recover a magic ring. Alas, it is a Ring of Weakness. Man, that's harsh.
Continuing deeper into the caves, the party finds themselves on a ledge high above a geothermal spring. The air is warm and moist (95F), and the craggy rock walls are easily climbed. Hiding on a ledge above the party is a fisher-spider (a new creature that seems molded after the cave-fisher...not sure if this is a regular 7VoZ monster or a unique creature). A fat diamond can be found in its nest.
Disturbing the waters of the hot spring causes the skeleton of a giant piranha to float to the surface, but it does nothing except maybe shoo the party away from exploring the spring and finding the secret tunnel hidden beneath the water' surface. It's very specific and seems unrelated to anything around it, so I suspect this is an inside joke or a reference to something I'm not aware of, maybe?
If the party does search around the pool, they discover a patch of colder water, a clue to the submerged tunnel that leads into the final room, a frigid (-15F) cave protected by a cryo-magmic golem—a giant icy, man-shaped shell surrounding a molten core. Who made this thing? No clue. Why was it placed here? Apparently to guard about 7,000 sp worth of treasure (6k of it in a single piece of jewelry) and a Scroll of Druidic Rejuvenation. mm-kay.
That's it... the party's done. Time to head out and divvy up their meager takings while they wonder what that was all about.
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1) THEME
(How strong/consistent is the adventure's premise, flavor, and setting?)
This site is delivered as an environment for dungeon activities. It is highly naturalistic, though fantastic in terms of its physics. There are clues found throughout to a failed expedition, the remains of explorers who met their various ends in the caves. In fact, most of the treasure appears to be their ill-fated hand-me-downs. Other than that, there's absolutely no "story" here; nothing going on at all other than a space to move around, explore a bit, and stab things. For you, that may be the perfect adventure site.
The geothermal aspects are interesting in concept and will give exploring the caves a flavorful angle, but there's no explanation of why the extremes are occurring and the overall effect is sort-of inconsequential (see further below). The players (my players, certainly) may be curious and spend time looking for a reason or significance. Since there isn't any, the DM is either going to have to risk his players becoming frustrated or bored in a fruitless search for meaning, or hand-wave it all and explain that it's some sort of magic blah-blah they don't need to worry about. Neither is desirable.
The monsters are all unique (I think): two types of living fossils, a fisher-spider, and a cryo-magmic golem. They mostly support the cavernous setting, though the golem's origin and purpose are a complete mystery. Treasure seems sparse: 10,350 sp in valuables only amounts to a handful of coins for members of a decent-sized party, and assuming the silver standard is equivalent to OD&D's gp/xp ratio, the xp take is similarly low. It's not terrible for a side jaunt and the caves don't seem that dangerous for a party of 4th–5th levels, so the risk:reward ratio may be more decent than it looks.
The magic items are also unique and kind of weird. This may be another 7VoZ thing, but two of them have potentially bad side effects. The druid scroll contains a spell described as "[a] limited form of reincarnation [that] can resurrect any mammal or fully heal them of damage or affliction. It is also capable of restoring petrified creatures such as the grizzly boars." I thought reincarnation turns you into another creature when you return to life. Additionally, "[t]here is a 1% chance of magic backlash which will cause all plants within 1 mile to instantly rot and blight." This potential downside seems incongruous with the spell's primary effect acting upon mammals, and the party's druid is going to need to do some serious penance if things go wrong, which seems a little capricious.
Similarly, the Ring of Alarm sounds neat at first. While worn, "a 20' bubble will be created around the wearer that detects against intruders while he is sleeping." That's a great utility item for a character. We've all had that experience of not waking up during an overnight encounter in camp. Reading on, however, reveals that the nature of the alarm is that "[h]ostile creatures entering the bubble will cause a point of damage against the wearer." Hopefully that means one or more creatures do 1 point of damage and not 1 damage per creature, because a lot of creatures can enter a 20' circle. The description doesn't specify whether the 20' dimension is radius or diameter, but I'm assuming the latter.
The Blade of Tempering is also contradictory. A +1 Sword / +3 vs. Plants and Plant-creatures, it glows red when near water (does it just glow or become actually hot?) and if plunged into water, creates a 2' sq. patch of ice that can be strung together to create a bridge. Huh?! None of those abilities feel like they go together...at all.
It's a neat setting idea: a frozen cave containing a geothermal hot spring. I would have liked to have seen more environmental activity: steam clouds; thin ice walls barely holding back a flood of frigid water, scorching hot stones and magma pits. Juice all that up and you've got the caves of awesomeness. It needs more of a point—something to tie it all together and give your party a satisfying reason to visit.
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?)
The map image itself appears to have been photocopied and then scanned, maybe; there are copier-like smudges, and the grid is at a slight angle and fades out in sections, but the sloppiness doesn't detract from the map's usability which is the important thing.
A second, side-view map is provided as well, showing the dungeon's verticality, which isn't nearly as apparent from the top-down view. This is great, but I wish the designer had included a vertical grid as well so I could quickly gauge depth. Very helpful in understanding the delving challenge here, otherwise.
The artwork of the main monsters is fun and Jeff's uniquely crude style always brings a smile to my face.
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 plenty of white space. The text is in single-column format and left-aligned which isn't ideal, but its part of the author's formatting style.
The text is written with a certain verve and directness that imparts a lot of substance without expending a lot of words. There are some minor typos and grammar issues (mostly instances of using a passive voice), but the text is easy to read for the most part.
SCORE (CLARITY) = 3 / 5
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4) INTERACTIVITY/INNOVATION
(How well does the adventure use the rules to create interesting play?)
A few general environmental features are given upfront in the intro, which is right where this type of information belongs. This avoids explaining the same ideas multiple times in the key, and gives the DM a logical, centralized spot to look up the details. Consolidation of information is an important element of good dungeon design.
Temperature plays a big role here: temps over 90 degrees Fahrenheit and under -20F reduce move by half and confer a -2 penalty to hit (but not to anything else?); temps under 10F only reduce move by 1/4, but still carry -2 to-hit penalty. Also, spells have a 75% chance to fail in opposite temp conditions (i.e., a fireball in an area of extreme cold), while spells in a like temp condition do 50% more damage. These sound like conditions custom-designed for this dungeon, as opposed to something found in the 7VoZ ruleset. In any case, the temperature extremes are mostly there to reduce the party's chance to hit in every combat. It feels very arbitrary.
It is also possible to get stuck in certain tight corridors (causing 1–6 damage!), and requiring you to either unwedge yourself or get someone to help pull/push you out. No guidance on size factors, but % chances to get stuck/unstuck could easily be adjusted as the DM sees fit. Maybe 7VoZ doesn't have small races.
The fossilized skeletons aren't affected by clerical spells (and presumably turning) because they're made of stone instead of bone. There's a note about creature stat blocks, indicating that monsters with an asterisk (*) after their AC require magic to-hit. That's a neat visual cue that saves space within a stat block, but then such a thing doesn't appear anywhere in the writeup. I suspect this is an artifact from the author's design template that snuck through.
In terms of specific interaction within the caves key, there's not a whole lot. The frigid cave with the torch-snuffing wind and petrifying wall is a confusing trap to parse. The right-hand (west) wall is marked with a 'T' which indicates the trapped wall. The solution is tied to to the cryptic message in the entrance cave warning "...against widderschynnes." If the players know what the archaic term "widdershins" means (i.e., moving around something in a counter-clockwise manner, so that it is always to your left-hand side), then they'll realize they should move in a clockwise direction along the left (east) wall of the cave.
This works fine if the party approaches from the north. If they approach from the south, however, then the clue drives them toward the west wall, right into the trap. Then again, there's nothing in this cave that would lead a party to connect it with the warning, so it's all probably a moot point and the PCs have a 50/50 shot at guessing correctly. It's also clear that if the characters have lanterns or magical light and/or don't touch the wall, they are in no danger.
A mechanic is established for climbing an icy wall: "Each point of dexterity over 10 provides a 1-in-6 chance of descending without issue." You obviously succeed automatically if you have a 17 or 18, but do you automatically slip and fall if you have less than 11 Dexterity? I don't really know how 7VoZ handles thing like this or how this might interact with the thief class (if there is one), so my slight confusion here may just be on my end.
The fight with the golem has two phases as the party wears the creature down: Its icy outer shell has one set of hp and when reduced to 0 hp it shatters, releasing a punishing blast of steam and a molten core with its own hp. Very simple mechanics to create a dynamic combat that even switches the cave environment between different temperature extremes, upending any protective spells the party may have cast to contend with the initial icy foe. That's good stuff.
Other than that and exploring the tight corridors, though, there really isn't anything else to mess with here. The dungeon action is almost entirely combat.
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 adventure site works great as a drop-in weirdo encounter area on the way to somewhere else, perfect for a Judges Guild Wilderlands-type setting where the countryside is sprinkled with lurid lairs and pockets of oddball goings-on.
7VoZ's sandals-and-sorcery vibe may be slightly challenging to certain campaign settings in terms of some of the game elements and rationales (like the silver standard), but probably nothing too severe. I don't know exactly how this writeup squares with the system, either, but I know the author is passionate about this version of the game so I trust his creative voice in that regard.
SCORE (MODULARITY) = 4 / 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 hard to say because I don't know 7VoZ, but I feel like it's mostly runnable as is, once you figure out why the players would be there—and that might be as simple as, "Hey, you're traveling through some mountains; along your path you spy a dark cave with steam drifting out of it."
If you want to expand on the environment and build a backstory into the site, you may have to spend some time thinking though things, but even so I can't imagine it needing much work to resolve any issues or missing pieces.
SCORE (USABILITY) = 3 / 5
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7) OVERALL THOUGHTS
The site doesn't have a lot of oomph, and I wish the author had explored some of the tantalizing hints about chthonic temples and rivers of magma mentioned in the intro material. It may be easy to quibble about the details in the writeup, but it's clear he is having fun writing the adventure and that gives it a certain charm that is hard not to like.
FINAL SCORE = 2.8 / 5
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