Crimson Garden of the Crocodile Spirits
Author: Tristan Shoudy
System: AD&D
Party Size: ?
Level Range: ?
A ruined greenhouse that has been long abandoned rises about the grasslands surrounding it. Within the crumbling palisade surrounding it are shells of other ruined stone and wooden structures. It was once an alchemist’s greenhouse but was left abandoned long ago after he was slain. Prior to his death the alchemist has imported Crocodiles from the south to act as guards for his precious greenhouse. After his death the crocodiles remained but soon perished. They soon rose anew as ghost’s (sic) continued (sic) to perform the task they were given in life, with renewed dedication.
This is more of an encounter than a full-on adventure site, though I suppose that's a distinction without a difference. It just feels small compared to some of the other entries. The writeup only uses two of the three allowed pages for the keyed areas, with about a quarter of the third page being used for monster stat blocks. We're not quite sure who this is for, as no party size or level range is provided (not a good start).
After the above intro, we're given a couple of hooks, both of which involve retrieving an exotic plant from the old greenhouse. When the party arrives, they come to a compound of buildings behind a broken wall. No specifics of the wall are given other than it is "crumbling" and has a barricaded gate. No challenge is presented by this wall, however, as the many gaps allow the party to enter the grounds "at multiple points."
Within the perimeter, a handful of decrepit buildings stand in the grass, including foremost, a 50' x 140' glass-enclosed greenhouse. The surrounding buildings include a two-story stone watchtower, the alchemist's old house, a bunkhouse, and a couple of sheds. The greenhouse is obviously the set-piece, but the keyed descriptions of the other buildings suggest something else is going on here.
The tower is empty save for some rudimentary furniture and a smattering of coins (likely the pot for a bit of gambling among the guards). In a storage shed, the party can find some rations, torches, and oil (though no quantities are given, and one wonders how long those rations have been hanging about). There are also two clear bottles "filled with green liquid." One of them is a Potion of Healing, the other a Potion of Longevity, so if your players fail to identify each one and assumes they are identical, then they are likely to waste one. (That's on the players, I suppose, but it's kind of a dirty DM trick.)
The alchemist's house is a once-cozy cottage where a wight lurks in its dark corners. Is this wight the alchemist? The text doesn't say. Herbs hang from the ceiling and can be sold, but as with the rations above, dried herbs in the open air don't have a long shelf life. There's some more coins here and a gem. The bunkhouse once housed a group of guards, whose skeletal remains still lie in their beds. What happened to them? How did they all die in their sleep? The writeup doesn't say, but "[i]f anything is touched," the skeletons rise and attack. 'Kay. More coins can be recovered here, along with a magic ring and another potion (that won't help the players on this adventure at all). There's also a wooden shack filled with landscaping tools and four ghouls "feasting upon some unfortunate deceased traveler." Who were these ghouls? Who was this traveler? We're not told.
The greenhouse itself is split into two halves, both of which are given the identical, mirrored description (except for the number of plants and ghosts found in each). Just consolidating this text would have reduced the page length of this already-short adventure by one 6-line paragraph. Both greenhouse halves are "filled with various strange crimson plants growing in neat rows of raised garden beds." Who is tending these plants since the killing of the alchemist "long ago?" The text doesn't tell us, but they're in good enough shape that you can re-pot them for transport and sale.
Touching the plants, however, causes crocodilian spirits (called out as "ghosts" in the intro) to manifest and attack (five total in both greenhouse sections). Five ghosts. For an encounter that appears calibrated to a party that would be challenged by skeletons, ghouls, and a wight (~level 2-4). Good thing there's one Potion of Longevity handy. These spirits are only 3 HD, but while they retain the ghost's aging and fear effects upon sight, they do not have the ghost's Magic Jar attack, nor does their touch also age victims. Instead, they have a crocodile's bite and tail attacks. (Which would require corporeality, no?)
Beat the ghosts, take the plants, sell them. That's it, you're done.
Treasure is light, a little under 5,000 gpv total. Recovering and selling the plants nets another 7,200 gp. If the party is only 2nd or 3rd level, that's not bad for a pretty simple, though deadly encounter. If the party is 5th to 7th level, it's not much for a relatively easy romp (though 5 ghosts are never to be sniffed at). Magic is similarly decent for a low-level party but probably less so for mid-levels: Potions of Longevity, Healing, Invisibility, and Animal Control; a M-U scroll of 3 low-level spells; a Shortsword +1, +2 vs Magic-using and Enchanted Creatures; a Ring of Protection +1; and a Bag of Tricks.
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1) THEME
(How strong/consistent is the adventure's premise, flavor, and setting?)
When I read the title, my mind was swimming with visions of an exotic, scarlet-hued jungle garden filled with algae-covered pools and toppled temples, and teeming with supernatural reptiles. What I got was much less than that, unfortunately.
The most obvious theme would be a plant-based garden, but what is presented here is a simple greenhouse (the two are not the same thing) with very little plant content entering into the writeup (outside of the crimson plants' value as loot).
Maybe we could lean heavily into the crocodile spirits? Not really, they're just guardian monsters. The place is crawling with undead, but we're never sure why or how. Nothing about the site indicates any sort of evil or desecration, other than the possibility that the alchemist (and his guards) were murdered. (Maybe?) But why would the crocodiles rise as ghosts after perishing of neglect?
The compound is described with efficiency but no flavor. Everything is described with vanilla words like: "large" or "crumbling" or "rotting" or "strange."
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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?)
For starters, the simple, hand-drawn map is upside down in the pdf and clipped (there's a word at the top, but we can only see the lower pieces of the letters (I think it may very well be an acronym of the title), and the grid is askew. It's clearly laid out, however, and easy to understand. It looks like a map you would sketch right before the session starts (and that's probably what this is).
SCORE (MAP/ART) = 2 / 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 single-column format, with wide margins and plenty of line space between sections. The bullets and keyed locations could use a little spacing as well (especially the area descriptions). Section titles and keyed areas are in bold, and treasure is listed separately and underlined.
There are some typos and grammar issues, but overall the text is clean and easy to read. The inclusion of monster stat blocks is always appreciated.
SCORE (CLARITY) = 4 / 5
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4) INTERACTIVITY/INNOVATION
(How well does the adventure use the rules to create interesting play?)
The writeup doesn't conflict with the rules in any way (except for maybe the disease poison), although the crocodile ghosts should be considered a "unique" monster as they are neither ghosts nor mere undead crocodiles.
There's not much to do here outside combat. Some of the treasure is hidden, and there's a few locked doors to contend with. A trapped door sprays a poison mist that causes a terminal cardiovascular-renal disease, somehow (in AD&D, you don't make a poison save to avoid disease). That's it, though.
SCORE (INTERACTIVITY) = 1 / 5
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5) MODULARITY
(How easy would it be to drop/integrate the adventure into an existing campaign?)
This could be slotted in anywhere as a quick side quest or a random wilderness encounter site. I can almost see this site as a sentence or two in a Judges Guild Wilderlands key. There's nothing tying it to a specific setting or theme, so you could easily adjust it to pretty much any need.
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?)
This site can be run 100% as-is without requiring any work. If you want it to make any sort of narrative sense or expand the mystery behind what the hell happened here, then you'll have to supply all that detail. There are way too many questions left unanswered, and with an entire 3/4 of a blank page (plus all those thick white margins) to play with, the lack of detail is kind of unforgivable.
SCORE (USABILITY) = 3 / 5
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7) OVERALL THOUGHTS
The score for this is going to be a little better than it should be because the writeup is clear and the site is easily adapted. That's largely due to the fact that there's just not much here. As a result, this is the shortest review I've written to this point. It's a site; there's things to encounter here; there's treasure. But this one isn't for me—a damn shame, because that bang-o title caught my attention right away.
FINAL SCORE = 2.7 / 5
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