Continuing with my series of reviews for Coldlight Press' Adventure Site Contest. This adventure is written for OD&D, which I confess I don't have much experience with (and none at all in terms of actually running or playing it). I started playing D&D back in 1981 with Holmes Basic, which I understand to be mostly an edit/rewrite of OD&D. I know there are some important assumptions that are different from Basic and AD&D, but that all three systems are comparable from a conceptual point of view.
I did my best to check references against online sources, but if I make any system errors in this review, I plead incompetence and will note them accordingly if someone corrects me.
The Cleft in the Crag
Author: J. Allen/Graveslugg
System: OD&D (3 LBBs plus GH plus custom)
Party Size: ?
Level Range: 4-6
The Temple in the Crag was made long ago by paragons of LAW to seal away an artifact of CHAOS from the world. The Temple and Tomb-Halls are constructed in such a way as to make it nigh impossible for the CHAOS aligned to gain entry.
The overview explains where the various rules references throughout the manuscript may be found in the OD&D books (very helpful and appreciated!), and gives some suggestions on placing the dungeon and reading the map and key. The designer's notes also describe the tomb and the artifact contained within it as "...purposefully difficult to interact with, likely necessitating multiple trips and employing Sages." This in reference to the builders of the site, who created it with one purpose: Keep everyone out.
The rumors/hooks section contains just two pieces of info: The temple of LAW is a vault for a CHAOS artifact, and lizardmen are kidnapping villagers back to the cleft but no one has the courage to do anything about it. Enter the party.
We start with the characters standing before the dungeon's exterior entrance, a temple facade at the back of the titular cleft and concealed by a natural stone overhang. The exterior of the dungeon is evocative and the text does a great job with the map to help the DM visualize and describe the area. A careful party may notice tracks if they look around: One set of human footprints makes a beeline for the temple steps while another set of reptilian tracks leads into a nearby cave where a squad of lizardmen guards a dark hole into the earth. Parties who make too much noise at the entrance may alert the lizardmen (and possibly their entire lair).
So, two entrances that lead into completely different routes through the sprawling dungeon (very good). There's a LOT packed in this site: 33 total encounter areas divided into 6 thematic sections over 2 levels. They connect in places, but finding the various pathways between each section requires some delving.
Taking the facade entrance, the party enters the Temple Proper, where they are immediately confronted by a pair of gargoyle guardians. Beyond is a table with blindfolds, tomes filled with the names of the judged, and a warning inscribed in a forgotten language: “By the glory of LAW the pillar of the Watcher will judge those worthy and lay plain the sins of interlopers.” Within the inner sanctum, a broken bridge spans a deep bonepit. On the opposite side stands a tall pillar draped in tapestries obviously torn from the nearby wall. Will the characters remove the coverings and submit to the judgment of the Pillar of the Watcher?
Exploring elsewhere in the abandoned temple provides clues to its cadre of former Guardians and the temple's day-to-day activities. There's some treasure to be found, mostly regular old loot except for a pile of carved bear claws of stone inlaid with gold (don't eat 'em). A dead-end dining hall proves to be a way down to the lower level for attentive characters who may notice the off-center table or the slugs that cover every wall except an illusionary one concealing the stairway down.
The Temple Proper is connected to the Upper Tomb-Halls, a series of twisting passages covered in geometric carvings. Ritual labyrinths are a common feature of ancient temple ruins, and the design of this one is flowing and feels purposeful. It's easy to imagine processions of penitent monks weaving through these halls while chanting (and perhaps thwacking themselves on the head with a board). Shadows "peel" off the walls pretty frequently (great verb to describe them), rolling a check each turn, but a party at this level should be able to handle them easily. The labyrinth surrounds two inner rooms with floor mosaics that open at the touch of one deemed "worthy" by the Pillar of the Watcher. Evidence of acid being poured on the mosaics...a clue!
The Lower Tomb chambers feature more shadows, a gorgon (!), a gray ooze, and a trio of mummies each wearing a powerful magic item: a Ring of Spell Turning (nice), a Talisman of Lawfulness (though wouldn't it zap the mummy for 5-30 damage?), and a Scarab of Enraging Enemies (which feels like a CHAOTIC item). Perhaps controversially for many DMs, the penultimate room contains a pair of 14 HD living statues shaped like the temple's werebear guardians with gems in their foreheads. Defeating these statues and prying the gems loose are required to open the portal to the vault containing the chaos artifact, but the statues can only be physically harmed by a LAWFUL character wielding a +3 weapon (luckily the lizardman chief down in the caves has one). Spells still affect them, though they are immune to mind-affecting magic and have 75% magic resistance (as a balrog, we are told), meaning that, based on the suggested 4th to 6th level range, the statues have 100% or greater resistance to the party's spells.
Beyond the portal lies an extra-dimensional area—an open field beneath a bright midday sky (but with no visible sun). A stone dais rises from the grass, where three urssasu (more powerful lamassus with winged bear bodies) protect an ivory rod capped with a crystal ball and exuding black vapors. The urssasu immediately attack non-Lawful characters while commanding Lawful characters to politely GTFO. The evil artifact, if it can be wrested away from these three 7+2 HD spirit beings, acts as both a Staff of Wizardry and a Crystal Ball, but does damage to anyone holding it based on one's alignment—including CHAOS-aligned characters. When it is removed from the dais, the extra-dimensional space becomes a real room as depicted on the map, but with a 200-ft. high ceiling. I assume this is a typo for 20', otherwise this would destroy part of the upper temple, according to the map.
The key continues, describing two other sections of dungeon on the lower level: The functional areas of the temple (a kitchen, a repository) and a series of caves where the lizardmen live. Zefeth the Warlock, a NEUTRAL 8th-level MU with only 5 HD (this may be an OD&D thing), dwells in the Lower Temple Works. He's been geased by a lich to find the artifact but obviously has no hope of attaining it himself, so maybe the party will help him? There's some good treasure in this room: a few nice potions, a Jug of Alchemy, a Carpet of Flying, a Wand of Secret Doors and Trap Detection, and a Ring of Telekinesis. The text states his spellbooks are "not at this location," but doesn't say where they are. Questions arise then as to how he relearns his spells and what will happen if the party beats him and demands his spellbook. Zefeth should also be part of the wandering encounters table.
There's also a Ring of Invisibility hidden in a pile of bio-refuse here. Some referees feel that "forcing" players to root through disgusting dungeon trappings to find treasure or a concealed route is really just an opportunity for a sadistic DM to humiliate his players (and they don't mind emphatically telling you so). I find that to be an absurd idea. Disgust is as powerful an emotion as fear or anger, and hiding something narratively important behind a disgusting obstacle is a legit literary and cinematic trope, one that the AD&D rules support (hell, disgust is the otyugh's whole schtick). Your players' tolerance for such things should weigh in on your decision to include them in an adventure, obviously, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with provoking disgust to deter/inspire players as long as you don't make the party's success contingent on it (in that case, these over-squeamish DMs might have a point).
In the back room of the Lower Temple Works is a cavern filled with huge slugs including 3 GIANT slugs with 12 HD (!) each. This is the backdoor into the lizardman caves. The front door is the hole discovered near the dungeon entrance. If the party decides to explore by descending into the hole rather than entering the Temple Proper, they come into a series of caves and tunnels through which a subterranean waterway flows. There are 40 lizardmen in the lair, so the party is likely to have a big fight on their hands here, especially if the alarm has been raised. The cavernous setting permits the lizardmen to set up ambushes and get around to the party's flanks without exposure to spell or missile fire. Their chieftain is a 4HD reptile with a +3 Spear and a Ring of Regeneration. Hopefully the party is able to use stealth and hit-and-run tactics to whittle down the enemies, but it'll be difficult. There's some good monetary treasure here, about 9,000 gp worth.
Other than the lizardmen, there's a wandering umber hulk that could prove tough and some yellow mold that shouldn't be a problem (though it will be invisible to anyone scouting ahead with infravision, so it could make for a nasty surprise). There's a cave filled with bio-luminescent fungal trees. Another pair of caves contains luminescent blue rock that produces a weird anti-magic effect which lingers for a few turns after leaving the area. In one of these caves is a pool of water that can be collected and consumed later as potions of 75% spell resistance.
If I've counted correctly, there's about 47,000 XP to be had here (not counting the CHAOS artifact), about 8–12k apiece for a party of 4—6 adventurers. My understanding of OD&D is that you generally have much larger parties (maybe 8–12 PCs and henchmen), so the take ends up being much less in that case.
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1) THEME
(How strong/consistent is the adventure's premise, flavor, and setting?)
There is a much bigger scenario at play here than is obvious at first read: This temple was inhabited at one time by a monastic order of werebear guardians. To join their ranks, one was administered a ritual test of worthiness before a powerful entity of LAW known as the Watcher, embodied in a "gnarled and pitted stone pillar crowned with an eye casting rays like the sun." In addition, a warlock roams the dungeon searching for the artifact, evident by many strange clues sprinkled throughout the text (the human footprints at the entrance, the tapestries on the pillar, use of acid to try getting through a secret door, a trashed barracks, the illusion in the dining hall, etc.) These seemingly unrelated little hints of activity begin to add up to something if a party is paying careful attention.
If this adventure site has a theme, I'd say it's plain old D&D. The temple/tomb and lair aspects are pretty vanilla (which I have no problem with at all), and the monster selection, while varied, seems mostly random and without any connection to the stated background. The religious order of (long-dead) werebear guardians is an interesting curiosity, but irrelevant to anything that happens in the dungeon. The lizardmen are obviously squatters and OD&D describes them as NEUTRAL-aligned "aquatic monsters" that "live either wholly under water or in very wet places" which is not this setting. I'm okay with that... actual lizards live in rocks and caves, too. The rest of the site's guardian monsters—gargoyles, shadows, gorgon, and mummies—are all creatures of CHAOS. Why/how are they being employed to protect a Temple of LAW?
Alignment plays a big role in this scenario—as it does in OD&D—but LAW and CHAOS are more closely related to "good" and "evil" in this regard. That brings up a significant question: Why would LAWFUL forces want to infiltrate a "holy vault" to potentially release an artifact of CHAOS into the world? The entire premise hinges on at least one LAWFUL character willing to be the instrument of release, but isn't doing so a CHAOTIC act?
The trappings of the temple don't seem particularly integrated, but do make sense for what this space is designed to do. A temple of LAW has a bone pit full of the sacrificial remains of the unworthy? That's pretty hardcore and seems a little off-brand, but maybe. The Pillar of the Watcher is suitably evocative, but the random chance of lycanthropy upon viewing it feels "chaotic" in nature. A NEUTRAL character seeing this artifact of LAW becomes helpless with vomiting for a turn, which feels counterintuitive (an awed or cowed reaction, perhaps even mild fear, seems more thematic and appropriate). CHAOS deserves what it gets and the eye trauma nicely matches the eye of LAW on the pillar, though no-save permanent blindness is rough (can you cure this in OD&D?)
There's a "skeleton of a werebear" in one of the entrance chambers but wouldn't it just look like a human skeleton? Upon review, the descriptions of OD&D lycanthropes don't explicitly mention shapeshifting... are they just beast-men? Werebears are a LAWFUL/NEUTRAL creature in OD&D, so they fit the setting, but why werebears? Nothing about this place screams Ursine Temple and the party never encounters actual living werebears, so the werebear guardians are really just set dressing. No mention is made as to what happened to the other guardians or why the heck they were werebears, specifically. I also wondered why they bothered manning the temple if its intended as a secure vault; why not just seal it up? And why is the temple now abandoned? Where did everyone go?
Other than the alignment-heavy interaction, a strong theme just never shone through for me. But maybe it doesn't need one? The site works much better as a template upon which a DM could imprint a stronger theme/background if they wanted to. I don't give fractional stars for individual criteria scores, but if I did I would give this 2.5 stars for Theme. I'm bumping it to 3 because, despite my issues with it, I think the site as written would seem congruous enough to the players and be reasonably fun to both play and DM (though the culmination is likely to provoke some player objections).
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?)
The connections between levels are pretty clear, though by my reckoning, a 100' tall spiral staircase separates the temple dining room from the kitchen if a consistent elevation change of 10' per 20' length of stairs is assumed. You can easily handwave this and probably no one will ever notice, but it jumped out at me (and probably would if I was mapping as a player because I'm a weirdo like that).
Maintaining consistency of such elements is important for a dungeon map, because it's a primary source of information for the players as they descend into an unknown area. Unless you specifically call out inconsistencies in the text and then relay that to the players, the risk of creating unnecessary confusion is high. A good example of how to do it is in the Court of the Watcher (B4). According to the map, the bonepit floor would appear to be 10' below the floor of the chamber itself, but the text describes the pit as being 20' deep. That note prompts me as a DM to describe these steps as incredibly steep, which would make sense for a sacrificial pit.
SCORE (MAP/ART) = 4 / 5_____
3) CLARITY
(How easy is the writeup to read/parse quickly? How well does the information flow?)
For example, the dungeon key for the Temple Proper starts with area B1, then turns west to describe B2, then comes back out to B1 and heads north to describe B3 and B4, before coming back through B1 and B2 to describe B5–B7. Ideally, you want to pick a direction/route and follow it to its "conclusion" relative to the rest of the dungeon. In this case, I would recommend going straight north and describing B1 > B3 > B4 (and renumbering them B1–3 to reflect the new progression), then shifting out to B2 (which would become B4) and continuing on as written.
My chief complaint about clarity in this adventure is that it's difficult to understand the big picture at first. Details about the order of the werebear guardians and their ritual of worthiness, as well as the warlock-on-a-mission down in the dungeon would have been handy information to give the DM at the outset. I loved the clues to the warlock's presence and appreciated the little insights into his activities, but only in hindsight. As written, I was tracking these clues as separate from each other and only later figured out that they were all related to the warlock. Could be a me-problem but, same as with the temple's background, I had to work backward to put everything together and it wasn't always obvious.
Any confusion could have been cleared up with a quick contextual explanation for the DM in the overview. When I read through a second time after absorbing everything, it all made sense and was a far more enjoyable experience. I'm a big fan of piecing the story of an environment together via dungeon details and party exploration, but that task is for the players. As a designer, you want to make it easy on the DM to sync up with an adventure site's context, especially if they're likely to be pulling it out on game night to run on the fly.
SCORE (CLARITY) = 3 / 5
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4) INTERACTIVITY/INNOVATION
(How well does the adventure use the rules to create interesting play?)
In the opening encounter, there is a good use of a morale check to help the DM determine a monster's course of action BEFORE combat begins. A positive result means the confident lizardmen stage an immediate ambush; a negative result means the wary lizardmen withdraw and rouse their comrades to action. I'm not experienced with how Morale works in OD&D, but I can certainly extrapolate how to implement it from the description. I like that this randomizes the lizardmen's attitude using game mechanics, but its also intuitive enough to let the DM just decide based on gut feeling.
The major interactive piece in the dungeon concerns the party's judgment by the Pillar of the Watcher in the main temple. Simply viewing the pillar constitutes "judgment." LAWFUL characters are blessed for one month (!) and have a 1-in-3 chance of being stricken with werebear lycanthropy (becoming a temple guardian, I guess). They also become able to navigate a trick hallway and can open the secret doors down to the Lower Tombs. As previously described, NEUTRAL characters get sick while CHAOTIC characters are blinded. Having a LAWFUL character submit to the pillar's judgment and its consequences is the only method of entering the Lower Tombs where the artifact is located, so you'll be relying on the party's tolerance for submitting to the pillar's judgment in order to engage an entire section of content and achieve the adventure's goal.
There is an interesting room hung with strips of fireproof cloth with messages in a forgotten language. The litanies may provide important information to the party, but only if they magically translate the language first and then read every strip of cloth. Otherwise, there's only a 1-in-3 chance they find the info. This is a little unforgiving, though not outrageous. Rather than concealing the info behind a spell AND random chance, I would just give them the message as the "overall gist" of the litanies if they expend a spell to translate the words.
The anti-magic caves are really cool, but they don't have a lasting impact on anything and can't be used to manipulate any element of the dungeon (other than to make the warlock even easier to kill). I would have loved to see something here that provides an alternate method of getting the artifact or overcome something else in the dungeon. There is no in-game explanation for the null effect and players will likely spin their wheels trying to figure out what's going on here, probably by excavating some of that weird blue rock. One wonders why the forces of LAW didn't just hide the artifact in here and seal the caverns off.
The fungal trees bear grotesque fruit that heals you a single time when you eat one, but then makes you sick if you eat another (oh no, more disgusting content). Despite any ethical concerns a DM might have about "forcing" players to eat something gross in order to gain a healing benefit (/s), it's perfectly reasonable to assume an injured character may eat a second one. Making them immediately sick when they do, without telegraphing some kind of warning, is sort-of a dickish move but not too egregious.
The artifact vault looks like a Kobayashi Maru to me, unwinnable for any normal party (though I don't how
normal it is for a 6th level character to have a +3 weapon in OD&D).
There is no way for a party to know the difficulty they'll have without a round or two of (potentially fatal) combat, though they can easily escape. Even so, assuming the LAWFUL party beats the guardian statues, then
reaches the inner vault, the LAWFUL guardians therein immediately command the characters to leave, which a LAWFUL character would do. Doing otherwise puts them into another incredibly-hard fight to
win an artifact they can't possibly use. I recognize that this is the adventure's intent, but looking at it through a player's eyes, I'm afraid it would be a deeply dissatisfying conclusion.
Other than those bits of limited interactivity, your players will be mostly fighting monsters and gathering loot. Core D&D, no doubt, but I would have liked a few more things to play with and some greater impact on the dungeon for fiddling with things.
SCORE (INTERACTIVITY) = 2 / 5
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5) MODULARITY
(How easy would it be to drop/integrate the adventure into an existing campaign?)
Text guidance says this site "may be situated anywhere there is a run of cliffs surrounding or partially hemming in a region of tribal villages (or similar)." There's nothing stopping you, thematically or environmentally, from placing this site anywhere, however. It lends itself well to remote hills or mountains, and the scenario is generic enough (in a good way) that it could be easily adapted to a DM's campaign world.
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?)
There's not much to do to the dungeon, per se, but the gigantic question of WHY a party of LAWFUL characters would travel to this site to do the thing is something you're going to need to work out. The text doesn't give you much to hang your hat on unless the PCs are: a) hired by a tribe to rescue captured villagers; or b) tribal warriors looking to save their village; or c) agents of CHAOS looking to recover the artifact. Options a) and b) don't require the PCs to engage with the temple, while PCs from option c) won't be able to accomplish their task unless they can somehow coerce a LAWFUL dupe into opening the way and defeating all the vault guardians.
You'll also have to decide where to drop this site into your world and work out some setting details, but that's perfectly normal (and often desirable) for an adventure site. One final usability note, and this is a personal taste thing: When including monster stat blocks, it's handy when the designer provides the creatures' hit points, especially if only a few monsters are encountered.
SCORE (USABILITY) = 3 / 5
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7) OVERALL THOUGHTS
There's a kernel of a good dungeon in here, and it has all the elements of a great adventure site, but the point of the adventure as laid out in the overview doesn't hold up well under scrutiny, the hooks aren't very sharp, and the interactions with the dungeon are fairly lifeless. Fortunately, most of these issues can be juiced up by a DM willing to polish a rough stone into a jewel.
FINAL SCORE = 3.2 / 5
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