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?)
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
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