The Mound of Akbarj
Author: Kurt
System: AD&D
Party Size: ?
Level Range: 4–6
This is the second submission from Kurt, his first being The Caves of Despair. I applaud his fecundity, but I'm not keen on allowing two submissions to the same contest. It's not an explicit rule but I seem to recall a gentleman's agreement that it was one submission per contestant. Rule or not, I'm only considering his first submission for ranking purposes. In the spirit of the contest's objectives to promote the craft of good adventure writing, however, I will at least give this work a read-through and present my take on it.
Deep in the tangled forest of Ymi – an ancient burial mound, the tomb of an exalted wizard from ages past. Guarded fanatically by the hooved geese-men that are the Katar. A massive oak is said to grow from the barrow, its blood-infused branches bearing gemstones of exceedingly rare size and brilliance. It is well known in town that the tomb is protected by the birds of Ak, ferocious beasts that are capable of turning a man's flesh into solid stone.
Just from the introduction, its obvious this is going to be a weird adventure site, and I like weird. Barrow mounds are always fun to explore and the gem-laden tree sounds sufficiently intriguing enough to lure treasure-hungry adventurers. Not sure what to expect with "hooved geese-men" at this point in the read-through, but I'm fairly open-minded. Exotic names and strange creatures are right up my alley, so hopes are high. Even if "the birds of Ak" just turn out to be cockatrices, that bit of in-game flavor is great and gets me onboard right away.
Some details about the Wood of Ymi follow. A writing tip: While there is no substantive difference between a forest and a wood, we previously established that it is called the "[F]orest of Ymi" in the intro and, since this section is a direct reference to that particular name, it would have been a better idea to title the section "Forest of Ymi" as well, for consistency's sake. There's an encounter table with some fairly pedestrian monsters for a party of this level range, except for maybe the owlbear and an encounter with a couple weretigers. The majority of encounters will be with 3–6 of the horse-geese-men known as the Katar.
The next section describes the Katar as "...a degenerate race of humans (good) who have succumbed to inbreeding with both horses and birds - traditionally geese. (okay?!)" I'm still reading, but I'm not sure I'm down for where this is heading. I like weird; I'm not so much a fan of gonzo adventures that aren't really suited for actual campaign play. The Katari have horse legs and goose beaks, but retain the torso and arms of a normal human, with matted (?) feathers on their heads.
At first it sounds like they have two horse legs (like a satyr), but then the text says they fight as centaurs, including hoof attacks, so maybe they have the body of a horse instead, with the upper torso of a man. Do they have a human face with just a goose's beak, or is their face full-on goose? I'm tempted to prompt some AI art to help me visualize the thing, but I don't want to add that image to my regular nightmares. The Katari tribe numbers nearly 100 combatants: 45 males (fight as centaurs with two weapon attacks), 30 females (fight as normal centaurs), and 20 foals (1 HD mobs with a hoof attack).
The males can also emit a screech that does 1–4 damage to any non-Katari who can hear it within 100"—that's more than a half-mile range! Then it occurred to me that Kurt's previous submission used the same odd scale where 1" = 1'. Still, that's an automatic 1 damage minimum to everyone in 100' each round, so getting spells off in that area will be tricky. The text also doesn't say whether each individual's screech does separate damage, which would make this effect much nastier.
We get details about the barrow's exterior: A circular mound 200' in diameter by 20' high with a 10' diameter entrance hole. Four cockatrice (yep, the birds of Ak) guard the entrance, particularly the gem-laden tree standing atop the mound (the visual description of which should appear before the cockatrice info in the manuscript). The key for the dungeon proper begins next. A fork in the entrance hallway provides a good early decision-point. Going left, we encounter a zombie kamadan in a silenced hall, a library containing valuable (non-magic) scrolls, and a room of many trapped doors, one of which enters a seeming dead-end—a false tomb containing a single son of Kyuss and a pile of loot.
The route to the right winds its way deep into the barrow, through a trapped door into a large hall where a statue of a "demonic horse-headed bird" breathes a constant cloud of noxious steam that not only burns but also has a 5% chance to inflict mummy rot. Beyond this chamber is a lavish tomb with more loot protected by a pretty weak trap (50% to trigger for 1–6 damage... I'd be pissed if I paid for a trapped chest to protect my stuff, but it only works half the time). We then come to an oddball room with three rust monsters and 14,000 coins of silver and gold floating suspended in air, and past that, an empty room and then the final burial chamber containing the mummified Katari wizard—actually an eye of fear and flame. Defeating him earns the party a loot haul protected by another weak trap (1–8 damage) that feels like a petty DM's revenge on the victorious party—a final slap before you go, just to remind you who's in charge.
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1) THEME
(How strong/consistent is the adventure's premise, flavor, and setting?)
The theme here is Classic Barrow Mound, which is more of a design template than it is a creative flavor. Most real-life barrow mounds were simple, single-chambered tombs covered over with dirt. Fantasy barrow mound dungeons tend to be more elaborate and built around a few core concepts: A single entrance; a fairly linear progression into the interior, though branching sections and side chambers are common; mechanical traps (and possibly magical puzzles, depending on the nature of the interred); non-living guardians (undead, constructs, demons, etc.); a false (outer) tomb; and a true (inner) tomb wherein lies the final battle/reward.
This type of dungeon is often called a "gantlet"—a progressive, typically one-way route through a series of challenges to reach a discrete objective. The real-world term once referred to a specific punishment whereby the subject is forced to run between two rows of angry guys with sticks and a penchant for hitting things. The barrow mound version of a gantlet dungeon is typically differentiated by the types of guardians and traps found within. This one is the tomb of a wizard, so we should expect lots of supernatural creatures and magical tricks and traps (right?)
The monsters are appropriate to the template, and I appreciate the use of some of the more obscure AD&D monsters. The zombie kamadan is a neat idea and sort-of fits the exotic details given in the intro, but it lacks the kamadan's special ability (a sleep-gas breath weapon) and the text doesn't tell us how many snake heads it has (or if it even gets those attacks at all). So, being a kamadan doesn't really enter into it here; this is just a 5 HD zombie that turns as a ghast. With 4–7 snake heads, much better. I'll give the author the benefit of the doubt that he intends for it to have the snake attacks, but when a creature has variable features like this, it's good design philosophy to work those details out in advance.
The son of Kyuss is always a welcome and horrific monster, but I doubt one of them is going to be around very long against a capable party. The rust monsters are an odd inclusion but I can buy them as part of a magical trap befitting a wizard's tomb. For the final battle, the text describes the Katari wizard's corpse as a "...mummy that fights as an EYE OF FEAR AND FLAME (45 hp)." The Fiend Folio's EoFaF isn't described as an undead, though; it's a construct of the gods. Further evidence is that it's not listed on the Undead Subtable on p.115. Your take on this particular situation may depend on what the meaning of "as" is.
Treasure is decent but not great: there's potentially 10,000 gpv in gems on the tree outside if the gods of good fortune are with the players, so they have that going for them. Maybe. Inside, there's about 30k gpv in treasure, which isn't that much for a group of 5–6 adventurers, but then again, this site won't give them much of a challenge at 5th to 6th level, so reward vs. risk seems pretty generous, I suppose. A few of the treasure pieces are described, which is always good, though only one piece—a goose-shaped amulet—has any obvious connection to the expressed setting.
Magic items aren't thematic at all; in fact, they seem counterintuitive to what one would expect to find in a wizard's tomb. It makes me wonder whether a warrior was buried here in an original draft but the author changed it to a wizard then never updated the treasure? There's also not much to speak of: a +1 Military Pick (a sophisticated, not commonly proficient weapon), a +1 Bow / +2 vs. Lycanthropes, a Magic Saddle that doubles mounted speed, a +2 Greataxe, and a couple Potions of Delusion and Diminution. The "bow" is not identified as long or short, and AD&D doesn't have a greataxe, but reskinning a two-handed sword will work just fine (though there's still the proficiency problem).
If I'm the party's magic-user and we've trekked ALL the way here to the tomb of a wizard, only to find treasure of great use to a knight, with no spell scrolls or spellbook anywhere to be found, and the only arcane item of use being a potion of shrinkage, I'm going to be VERY unhappy.
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's no exterior map of the mound, though one isn't really necessary as we're dealing with a big circle on the ground surrounded by forest. The interior dungeon map is a cell-phone pic of a hand-drawn layout with a few features and details indicated. The picture is taken at a slight angle so there is a perspective issue with the grid, but it doesn't hinder one's understanding of the dungeon layout. No actual scale is given, but textual clues indicate 10' squares. The map looks simple enough—two linear paths through a series of chambers to a dead-end room—but a trio of secret connecting passages injects some welcome complexity.
I feel like there's a missed opportunity for more interesting design here, however. The route from the entrance to areas 4/5 > 6 > 7 is good. It looks like a branching, secondary route; linear, with some challenges then terminating in a seemingly dead-end room—this is the perfect setup for a false tomb. The "primary" route from the entrance to areas 1 and 2 is good, but I would have put the lavish tomb (area 3) between the secret doors to the east, and had the simple hallway (still with the connecting secret door) joining rooms 2 and 8.
As designed, finding the secret door doesn't provide the party any benefit for taking the time and risk, and then making successful rolls; rather, finding it causes them to potentially miss the treasure in room 3 by not taking the "obvious" route through the door. They may still find the treasure later, but the secret passage doesn't accomplish anything interesting. Better to hide the loot behind the secret doors to reinforce good dungeoneering practices and make discovery worthwhile.
There's also two map errors, assuming the elevation change per length of stairs is consistent. If so, then areas 1–7 should all be on the same elevation, down two staircases. But there is an extra (third) stair between areas 3 and 4, which would put area 3 10' below area 2. Areas 3 and 8 should be on the same level (3 stairs down), but there are two stairs down in the secret passage between areas 2 and 8, which would put area 8 10' below area 3 (a total of 4 stairs down).
The rest of the layout is good, though room 9 (empty) serves no purpose other than to waste the party's time before the main event. There's no further exploration or time demand at this point—all the party needs to do is go through the only other door and round the corner to reach the end. Either put some final test in here (such as making it a second false tomb and hiding room 10 behind a trapped secret door), or make it the true tomb. As written, this room just prolongs the session unnecessarily.
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 and there is plenty of white space to make for easy scanning. Key descriptions are written in unspaced bullets which doesn't impede readability that much, though I might have used all that available room on the page to add some spacing between bullets and maybe decrease the indent. Those are minor layout quibbles, though.
There isn't a ton of detail in the writeup, but it does an effective job of conveying just enough to allow the DM to elaborate if necessary. There's no order-of-battle anywhere; creatures simply inhabit a room and exist until the party comes within range. It's an economy of description that I shouldn't like but it works here, occasionally skipping description altogether and giving only a mechanic for what happens when the party enters. This lends itself well to the fast-paced gantlet-style, where getting through the dungeon means steady progress forward rather than an opportunity to explore or suss out deeper meaning. Just get to the point, do the thing, and keep pushing toward the end-goal.
I'd offer some advice here about the order of the key's descriptions. The way the key is written isn't "wrong," but it flows better to follow a route to its natural conclusion relative to the dungeon layout. Here, we're faced with two routes: left to a false tomb or right to the true tomb. Granted, the false tomb has a secret door allowing the party to continue past, but this route appears to be a dead-end with a natural conclusion. Better to have numbered the key starting to the left (i.e., area 4 would become 1, area 5 would be 2, 6 would be 3, and 7 would be 4). THEN shift the key to the right-hand route and continue with area 5 (formerly area 1), and so on following the direct path all the way to the final chamber.
SCORE (CLARITY) = 3 / 5
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4) INTERACTIVITY/INNOVATION
(How well does the adventure use the rules to create interesting play?)
By the time they reach the mound, the party may have already encountered and defeated (or befriended) some of the Katar. If so, nothing in the writeup prior to reaching this point describes the Katari practice of wearing special sashes that the cockatrice guardians will recognize and subsequently abstain from attacking a person wearing one. Granted, if I've had time to read the text before the session, I might have made a note to include the sashes among the Katari's belongings; if not and I miss this detail, then I can't describe the sashes now or I'll tip the party off to use them here.
There are some dungeoneering tasks inside: finding traps and locating secret doors for the most part. There's a nasty spear-trapped door that does 3d6 damage, which feels right for the level range. The rest of the tomb's traps are weak-sauce—simple mechanical traps (arrows, scythe) that do either 1d6 or 1d8 damage, which likely won't register more than mild annoyance on the victim's part. A good trap has an impact, even if it just causes a significant amount of damage, but the traps here are not very dangerous, imaginative, or situation-changing.
A few obvious clues allow the party to discern the hazard in area 2, though opening the door won't harm them. It would have made for an effective door trap if the steam blasted into the room and hurt somebody. The steam room is mildly dangerous, but the PCs can see the far side and should be able to navigate it in a single round, and if they hold their breath (which they will unless they're dumb) then there is no danger of mummy rot. Finding the secret door would require a minimum of 10 rounds of exposure to steam (10d4 damage), so unless the party can disperse the steam for that time, the party isn't likely to find the door (which is what the tomb's creator would want).
The room of many doors is interesting, but it isn't clear how the trap works. It either shoots when ONE of the six false doors is opened (which is how it's written), or it opens when ANY false door is opened (meaning 6 of the 8 doors—technically 6 of 7 because the party knows the door they came through isn't trapped).
The room with the floating rust monsters and coins doesn't really work for me, either. Touching the coins releases the levitation spell, but this doesn't have any practical effect on the situation other than to make it possible for the rust monsters to attack. Presumably, a spell caster could defeat the rust monsters at range because the text doesn't say if/how they may respond. Then the party could touch the coins to recover the pile, but there's no indication beforehand that touching the coins will do anything, so it would be pure guesswork on the players' part to do it like this. It would be reasonable to rule that characters could pass through the room without touching the coins, so the party could continue on without expending resources on this encounter (the loot's not going anywhere).
Other than that, the party mostly just enters a room, looks around, kills whatever is there, and collects the treasure. Given that this is a wizard's tomb, I expected more magical gewgaws to interact with.
SCORE (INTERACTIVITY) = 2 / 5
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5) MODULARITY
(How easy would it be to drop/integrate the adventure into an existing campaign?)
Fairly easy site to plug in, I think, and easy to shed the few gonzo pieces that might clash with your campaign's setting. That's kind of the beauty of a barrow mound dungeon... they can be anywhere and anything. There's nothing that grounds this site in one reality or the other, so anywhere remote or well-protected by its surroundings will be perfect.
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?)
Not much is required to run it as-is, but some changes may be desired to make the site more interesting. Some of the setting details (like the horse-goose-men) may also need some work to fit your campaign, but most of it is there for you and its actually pretty vanilla, despite the exotic intro text.
SCORE (USABILITY) = 3 / 5
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7) OVERALL THOUGHTS
I recall reading snippets of conversation on the CAG Discord channel about this adventure that lead me to believe this was kind of an in-joke/creative exercise between a few of the members, who are cited as having come up with the concept. As an output of that exercise, I can accept the over-the-top weirdness with the geese-men as just a bit of fun, and the gem-tree is good stuff, but the rest of it turns into fluff—competent enough but pretty forgettable.
As a session or two of adventure for a few pals sitting around drinking beer and having a hoot, it works fine. Is it good? It's not not-good, but its also not very good. As with the author's first submission, it just doesn't live up to the promising intro that made it sound like my party was in for something different this session.
FINAL SCORE = 2.8 / 5
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