Adventure Site Contest 2 REVIEW: The Two Spires

The Two Spires

Author: Louis-Joseph Benoit
System: OD&D “3LBB”
Party Size: 3-6 (+ hirelings)
Level Range: 3-4 (total 20 levels)

Situated in a desert and flanked by a cliff, this outpost is visible from afar (and vice-versa). Two 100’ spires dart towards the sky, like shiny needles. They seem linked at their third by a hanging rope bridge. To the East, two domed buildings, a hut and an encampment. A couple hundred people must live there. To the West, a pasture with bushes and eight-legged beasts, studded with white dots in the sand. This outpost was built on the site of a battle won with the Hammer of Glory and is a safe place… for the daring. It is occupied by pariahs of the Copper Men and (recently) by orc mercenaries.

This description of the general area serves as the introduction to the adventure site. Just before this section is a quick reference key for several acronyms the author uses repeatedly throughout the text to indicate certain mechanics for encounters and reactions.

So, we have a desert region with some sort of habitation and a pair of tall towers situated against a cliff. The text then describes the main two factions at play here. The Copper Men are telepathic desert-dwellers who live here in apostasy, raising "eight-legged reptilian horses" and engaging in trade with... (?) Maybe the other faction? That would be the "Praise-Song's (sic) Orcs," a band of neutral orcish mercenaries looking to earn enough money to build a temple. 

 Okay. This is all weird, but good-weird. Gamma World-weird. Keep going...

These Copper Men have split off from their people's religion and desire closer relations with the other tribes of men (why those two are mutually exclusive isn't quite clear). Their weapon of choice is a "weird metallic light crossbow" that fires "radium-propelled silver bullets" (or you can just make them regular crossbows, but that's boring). The leader's husband has been slain and is now an undead spectre haunting the area. The Copper Men are trying to raise enough money—a very specific sum of 13,500 gp—to hire the orc mercenaries to wipe out their fellow Copper Men who still adhere to the old ways. Fanatical.

The Praise-Song’s Orcs are "aligned to Neutrality" but then described as "zealots of a dualistic religion which seek balance." Neutrality and balance go together, but what in the world would a neutral zealot be like? Balanced zealotry? Do they get hot-blooded about everything, or are they committed to complete ambivalence?

Their leaders have impossible names to pronounce and they're apparently polymorphed humans—a 7th-level fighter with a magic sword and an 11th-level (!) magic-user—though this detail is never referenced again. The warband also includes some ogres, and everyone wears plate armor...in the desert. They are trying to raise enough money—a very specific sum of 13,500 gp—to build a temple to "the Praise-Song." There's no explanation as to who or what the Praise-Song is or why these are his/her/its orcs.

There are also two non-factional NPCs: a dhampir witch and her pet giant fox, and the aforementioned spectre of the Copper Men's former leader (or merely the husband of the current leader; or both, it's not clear). 

I looked up a dhampir in OD&D and didn't find anything. They seem to be a big deal for new-5e, so its possible Google is just feeding me pages and pages of that and I don't feel like wading through it all. She's statted out as a 4+4 HD monster (but with a lowly 14 HP) that drains 1 level, can charm like a vampire, regenerate like a troll, and polymorph others into swine. (How does this work? How often can she do it? No details given.) Her giant fox is 3+1 HD and its screams trigger an extra random encounter roll. (How often?) The spectre is just a standard variety, but he also has an anemic 20 hp for a 6 HD creature.

Those paragraphs were a big info dump about the local actors—and it's all pretty neat stuff—but I'm still uncertain what's meant to be done here. Are the PCs supposed to facilitate the acquisition of 13,500 gp to give to the Copper Men, so that they can hire the Praise-Song's Orcs to slaughter their kinsmen and enable the orcs to build their temple? What is the draw for the players? 

The text appears to assume that the DM has provided whatever reasons for the PCs to come here and interact, and does not offer any guidance in this regard. If the party merely stumbles across this location during a journey—which is one of the default uses of an Adventure Site—then they may not even become aware of any treasure or dungeon unless they achieve a positive reaction with the Copper Men's leader (or coerce her into spilling her secrets).

There's just nothing explicit here to incite any sort of activity by the PCs other than to maybe engage in some trade. If you have an overly-curious group of players who respect that this is what the DM has worked up for the evening, and who love to spend session time interacting with NPCs, this might work out okay as they poke around and get involved. My party would just buy up or steal anything of obvious value and be on their way, ASAFP once they discover the Copper Men are telepathic.

The next section describes some random encounters that can occur while in the settlement, including some potentially deadly sandstorms (I learned what a haboob and a simoom are). The reaction code comes into play for the first time here, with a modifier to the Reaction Roll due to the state of the particular creature encountered. It's a quick way to indicate what mechanic to use and how, and also makes perfect sense based on the encounter description. Nicely done. 

Then we get into the description of the various areas of the settlement. The first area is an encampment of apostate Copper Men families, more than 300 individuals (two-thirds of whom are children). If we assume a 50/50 gender split, then 53 mated pairs have birthed 212 kids or exactly 4 kids per family. (Prolific! That's a lot of mouths to feed.) What these peasants will tell the PCs depends on a Reaction Roll, indicated by the reaction code. 

Passing through the camp and continuing west toward the spires, the party follows along a row of buildings lined up at the base of a tall cliff. They first come to the dhampir witch's hut where she sells potions, particularly a "blazing green" healing potion. She has a really neat Reaction Roll-based order-of-battle if the characters show her "garlic, mirrors, sunlight, running water, pointy wood, [or] holy symbols." She'll charm dashing enemies and turn rude ones into pigs, but it doesn't say what she does to those of average Charisma. Kill them, I guess.  

She sleeps on a "soil-filled mattress" (great!) and has set a fiendish trap for any would-be thieves: A fake inventory of six potion vials filled with green slime and enspelled with Continual Light to resemble the healing potions she sells. This is such an insidious trick and I love it, a final "eff-you" to those who would steal her precious wares. Her real potion inventory is kept in a locked leaden box in a secret cache beneath her cauldron. (Very good.)

This is an awesome, long-game trap that could end up having so many campaign repercussions to anyone who steals the slime potions and then uses or sells them later. My one recommendation here is to name her potion-for-sale something different and memorable (e.g., "Hippokore's Healing Tonic"), and/or maybe have her version do a slightly different amount of healing so that when the thief (or one of his customers) drinks one of the "special" healing potions, the DM will be reminded that they are drinking the slime instead. It would be easy to forget in the heat of battle and there's no good way to ret-con it after the fact.

Next door to the witch is an abandoned, caved-in dome made of stone. A secret door inside leads down into the caves below, but it is Wizard-Locked. A 30-year old iron placard tells of "Aros Ghab the Wizard, lover of his family of 7 and his dearest Dradra. The one who showed the Truth." It's unclear who the Truth-shower is, but Aros Ghab is the identity of the spectre haunting the caves below, and he is the long-deceased husband of the current leader of the Copper Men, who is named "Yuedra" in an earlier section of text and elsewhere later. I suspect the name on the plaque is this same person and there may have been a name change at some point without correcting this reference.

The party passes a final structure before arriving at the spires, a stone dome covered with potted, flowering cacti. Incense drifts from the open entrance. Inside is a wide pit "...from which spill [sic] a gigantic dewy pine, its coiled leaves sweating hungrily with pearls of rubied mucilage." (Wonderful!) This plant creature is sort of like the giant honeydew from A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity, flinging its sticky tendrils at prey to capture and slowly dissolve them. The mechanics aren't well defined beyond a saving throw to escape the sap, but a method is given to cause the plant to withdraw down the pit, opening up an entrance to the caves. (Love it!)

Finally the party reaches the first (eastern) spire, a 100' needle made of metal. It's not specified which metal, but we know from the introduction that the spires are shiny. I would imagine they get quite hot during the day. A pair of light catapult and nearly a dozen plate-armored orcs stand outside... in the desert sun... below a reflective metal spire (like that building in London). There's a 1:3 chance that up to a half-dozen plate-armored ogres are camped near the entrance as well.

Inside the eastern spire are 68 more plate-armored orcs living on nine floors. The leaders (supposedly polymorphed humans according to the faction info) dwell on the 10th floor where they keep their modest treasure hoard. They still need about 11,000 gp just to afford the temple. They can sell equipment, arms, and armor to the party, and will hire out orc mercenaries to help whatever expedition the party wants to undertake.

The western spire is occupied by 103 Copper Man Veterans, half of which are "on leave or resting in their family’s tent" in the encampment (though no mention is made of the higher-HD warriors' presence in the previous camp description). They buy or barter for valuables and sell sparkling mineral water (from the magical spring below), milk (from an unnamed source, though the only sort of domesticated animal mentioned are the reptile-horses, so...), and tofu rations (made from the manna-like bushes growing in the pasture to the west).

The Copper Men's leader, Yuedra, lives here. She sells her services as a sage, and if she likes the party, she may share information with them, including the existence of a hoard of treasure and legendary magic hammer in the caves below, and that undead creatures are down there guarding the place, including her former husband, Aros Ghab. If the party can give Yuedra an alternative to hiring the orcs to take care of their kinfolk problem and promise to be "discrete" (sic), she will tell them about the known entrances to the caves to "free Aros Ghab by driving/killing off the orcs." The spectre's beef with the orcs or why their presence is what binds his spirit here is never explained, so this treacherous attitude on her part kind of conflicts with her desire to hire the orcs. (Right?) I don't quite get it.

A rope-and-plank bridge is suspended between the spires, 30' over the desert floor, and guarded by orcs and Copper Man veterans. Falling damage from the bridge is reduced by landing in the soft sand which is a nice touch, but the damage appears to be calculated incorrectly as a 60' fall. This may be an OD&D difference I'm not aware of.

On the western outskirts of the settlement is a "Cranial Pasture" where a herd of 12 reptile-horses graze on the manna bushes that grow from the sand here. "[G]oblinoid" skulls litter the sand; if removed or smashed, they reconstitute and reappear in a few turns. It never mentions how many skulls are in the sandy pasture, but if they are all removed quickly before they can reappear, then a sinkhole in the sand appears—a pit down to the caves where the treasure is hidden.

A wandering monsters table for the caves is given next, featuring all-undead encounters including skeletons, wraiths, zombies, and the angry spectre of Aros Ghab (the party can parley within him, though he is "crazed and tormented"). If the party agrees to kill the orcs or free his "family," then he won't molest the party. It's unclear what "freeing his family" means, and a note on the wandering monster table indicates that "Aros and Wraiths won’t drain orcs" but doesn't say why. Something is going on here that is never revealed to the reader.

There are about 18 caves in the dungeon, depending on how you count, but only three of them are keyed, so there's a lot of pointless exploration of empty caves and tunnels. One cavern is a long gallery next to a subterranean river. Its floor is covered with a carpet of corpses (unidentified humanoids) that slows the party's movement unless the cleric can clear a path by turning undead. (Neat!) 

It's unclear whether these undead are meant to attack the party at any point, but the wandering monsters table includes entries for skeletons and zombies, both of which reference this cave's key #, so maybe. The description does not give any indication of numbers of "idle undead" that might be here, nor does it have an order-of-battle; it only mentions the movement penalty. This cave will play out entirely different depending on which interpretation the DM adopts.

The subterranean river empties into a pool of sparkling water with a crystal island and a glowing sapphire that acts as a magical filtration pump system and sends sparkling-fresh mineral water up a pipe to the Copper Men in the western spire. The sapphire is incredibly valuable and so can presumably be removed and taken as treasure. I assume this stops the flow of water which could be a problem.

The final cave contains the "cursed hoard of the King of Enedud." No idea who or what this was, but the treasure is a huge pile of more than 9,000 ancient gold coins and a magic hammer—the Hammer of Glory mentioned in the introductory description. The hoard is surrounded by seven sand-filled graves. An eighth grave is dug open and contains a mummy (with only 14 HP?) wearing an expensive harness. The other graves contain wraiths (with only 8 HP?), and digging up each grave reveals a buried harness identical to the one the mummy wears. 

Touching the hoard triggers the hammer to shoot a Lightning Bolt at the offender, while messing with the surrounding sand triggers it to release a Fireball. Anyone killed by either effect rises as a wraith (!), and using certain spells around it causes deadly side effects. If a human or demihuman touches the hammer, these effects cease. The hammer is a powerful weapon of Law against goblins, magic-users, and Chaos clerics. It would be useful to kill one of the orc leaders, but won't help the party rid Aros Ghab of the orcs. In the hands of a scion of Law, it becomes even more potent.

The discrepancy as to why closed graves contain wights while the open grave contains a mummy isn't explained, nor do we learn who or what these undead are. In fact, the point of the entire cave system is a mystery, and we still don't really know why the PCs would come down here. Oh, and the hoard should just about cover the money needs of either faction. 

Total treasure runs about 30,000 gpv, more than half of which is found in the hidden treasure vault, and more than half of that is presumably meant for the party to turn over to one of the factions (though I suppose they would still get the XP). The rest requires killing everyone else in the camp to get it. On top of that, much of the remaining value is tied up in very heavy, very difficult to transport objects. 

For example, there are seven potted cacti worth 250 gp each (1,750 gpv total), though to whom they would be sold is unclear. Presumably the Copper Men and Praise-Song’s Orcs don't want them or they would have just taken them already. Each plant and urn weighs upwards of 250 lbs., however, so the party is unlikely to realize any value from them unless they happen to be traveling in a caravan and have the extra encumbrance to spare. The polymorphed "orc" magic-user also has a spellbook, but I'm not sure how those are valued in OD&D.

Magic items are sparse, almost entirely potions and a scroll except for the Hammer of Glory, a +1 Warhammer/+3 vs Goblins, Magic-Users, and Chaos Clerics that sheds Continual Light. In the hands of a Lawful fighter or cleric, it adds +1 to loyalty/morale rolls in combat and does an additional 1d6 "thunderous/fiery damage per hit." Finally, the hammer can be used to cast Fly and Cure Serious Wounds once each day.

Is the reward worth the effort? Well, it's a damn fine hammer...
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1) THEME
(How strong/consistent is the adventure's premise, flavor, and setting?) 

This adventure is going for a sword-and-planet feel, I think, and the thing is full of creative tidbits that made me want to keep reading. It's written with a different energy than I normally see. Part of that may be the difference of play-styles and assumptions of OD&D compared to the more structured versions that followed. It feels wildly incomplete, yet seems consistent with what I've read of OD&D game-play. 

Despite the desert setting, everyone's needs here seem to be satisfied and, other than the sandstorms that descend suddenly on the settlement, there don't appear to be any major threats. There are cross-currents between the factions, keeping this place in a tense equilibrium that could result in complete cooperation or utter violence. But without the party's interaction, it is unclear what should be happening here other than a slow accumulation of funds through regular trade.

Some of the writing is terrific, with nicely-rendered descriptions that reinforce the feel of the desert setting. It almost feels like a '60s Star Trek planet. It just lacks any of the inherent conflict that defines a reason for the party to get involved here.

The situation with the undead below the settlement is never explained either. Why are they there? Why did Aros Ghab become a spectre? Undead and sci-fantasy are not incompatible, but the dungeon is completely disjointed from the settlement. The obvious goal of the adventure is to obtain the huge treasure pile of coins to satisfy one or both faction objectives, but is the party just going to turn that over to the humans or orcs? Don't they need it?

Despite its narrative problems, the details and a lot of the background material totally support the established mood and flavor of the location. It feels exotic but still grounded in D&D "reality." Everything has a little spin on it, even if it never quite pays off in the adventure (like the Copper Men's telepathy). 

That the author wasn't wholly successful in developing a great adventure site here is secondary to the fact that I totally get what they were trying to do. It oozes a different flavor and that goes a long way toward the scoring in this category. 

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?)

This map is a cellphone pic of a hand-drawn image, with a warped grid as a result. The map is a challenge to read. It's more of a sketch, really—the kind you would doodle for yourself when you already know how everything is laid out in your head but want a quick reference for between sessions.

It's actually three maps: The settlement on the lower part of the map, the dungeon on the upper part of the map (with the dividing line between the levels representing the actual cliff that protects the settlement), and a lateral map showing the vertical scale of the site. 

Once you understand the site writeup, it all makes perfect sense and has a certain amount of crude charm, but I was baffled at first. It took reading through each area and flipping back to the map to finally figure out what the thick lines, dots, colors, and scratchy markings represented. "Non-intuitive" would be a good word to describe my experience with it. 

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 two column format, aligned left. The margins are wide, leaving a lot of white space around the edges and in the gutter. Line-spacing is good between sections, but each section's text is crammed together into a single block. Bullet indents are too wide as well, and they chew up a lot of page space.

Reducing the margins and adding line spacing between paragraphs and bullets would open the dense text up a little and greatly improve readability. Monsters and magic items are bolded, but the section titles could use some formatting to make the document easier to scan and locate what you're looking for.

I suspect this manuscript is the exact same writeup the author used for his home game, as it is written in a very loose style and makes obvious assumptions that the DM already knows what's happening here. Sentence fragments, bullet points, the use of reaction rolls to drive interactions, a focus on stats and mechanics over textual descriptions (though some of the descriptions the author does include are wonderfully written)—it all reads very much like I'm perusing the DM's raw notes rather than a polished adventure site written for other DMs to parse easily. I'm not saying that's inherently bad, but I had to really chew through this one to piece things together.

The reaction/encounter code works well throughout the text, but the initial explanation of this could be given some additional formatting/explanation to make it more prominent (I missed the note during my first read-through. After "cracking" the code myself, I facepalmed once I realized the note was there).

The most glaring issue is that—to borrow a '90s business cliche—this adventure badly needs a "mission statement" introduction. A good intro immediately imparts the tone and overall point of the material to the prospective DM. It should be short and punchy, what they call "the elevator pitch" in marketing. Just as hooks and rumors serve to draw players in and help them become engaged with the action, the introduction to a site is the designer's hook for the DM. It's critical in getting the referee onboard with what you're about to lay down in the rest of your manuscript. 

The introductory paragraph for this adventure works just fine as a visual description of the locale (and the author calls it that) but after reading it, does the DM running this adventure tonight understand what's happening here, or what the party will be doing over the next 3 pages? Is the central conflict apparent? Do we know who the antagonists are? (Possibly, on that last one, but we lack any sort of context to make a call). 

I don't mean to single out this particular author here, but it's a common mistake designers make when writing adventures for others and this is a good example to use as advice to everyone. You have limited time and space in an adventure site writeup, so you need to quickly set the stage with the intro and then begin presenting the specifics in a logical progression that leads the DM through the whole manuscript in a way that will make sense at each individual stage. The introduction is probably the most important piece of text you will write for your adventure—work it hard.

On the flip-side of that, this adventure lacks any sort of conclusion or post-resolution development. Like, nothing. 

We don't know what recovering the hammer does for the factions (if anything). We don't know what will happen when the party turns over the gold (or what either faction does if they don't). What happens if they take the magic sapphire running the pump? Won't that bring them into immediate conflict with the Copper Men?

I mean, sure, you don't have to spell everything out and space is limited, but the designer's duty is to help the DM, not create extra work for them. 

SCORE (CLARITY) = 2 / 5
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4) INTERACTIVITY/INNOVATION
(How well does the adventure use the rules to create interesting play?)

A lot of this adventure is going to consist of either communicating with NPCs, or fighting undead. The primary interactive mechanic at play here is the Reaction Roll, but the author has done a good job at creating a sort of "order-of-battle," with different levels of information and assistance available to the party based on those reaction interplays. There are also ways to modify the reaction rolls through party actions (even inadvertently). It's pretty well-done in a Japanese RPG, select-your-answer kind of way. 

That's not a criticism either; I think it's a very handy tool for not only giving the DM a quick way to work out an NPC's responses to the PCs, but also serving to key the DM in to each NPC's particular motivations and attitudes. I like this feature of the adventure a lot. It's integral here, but doesn't feel over-used.

There's quite a bit of dungeon trickery going on here as well, but it's subtle: a poison dart trap, some undead turning, the skull-sand trick, lots of entrances to unlock, etc. There's an absolutely devastating magical trap protecting the treasure pile which will likely be occurring during a battle with multiple wraiths and a mummy, with a solution that may not be obvious. 

The "undead carpet" room suffers from an incomplete description and is difficult to understand. I think it's meant to be a movement inhibitor, during which the party is assailed by skeletons and zombies, but the text is missing some critical mechanical instructions.

For making full-throated yet practical use of the Reaction Roll system, and providing a variety of challenges and things for a group of players to investigate over a session or two, I think this adventure site does pretty well. It may not make total sense, but it's certainly never dull. 

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 ease with which this can slot into your campaign depends on a couple of things. One is the environment. This site has a very specific flavor, and it's Barsoom, man. Maybe Tatooine if that's more your sci-fantasy flavor. It looks like a desert, smells like a desert; it's a desert. That limits its modularity immediately. Not a criticism by any means.

The second limit is going to be your tolerance for the off-beat. I can't quite call this gonzo because there's nothing here that gets that nuts, but it's all slightly out of phase with what we think of as "classic D&D." 

If you don't mind a weirdo town with a dangerous secret below but an otherwise innocuous "plot" going on above ground, then this may be for you (though you'll still have to figure out what it all means if you want the site to actually "do" something). 

SCORE (MODULARITY) = 2 / 5
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6) USABILITY
(How much work will the referee have to do to run this adventure at the table tonight?)

The interesting writing and oddball setting details make me want to use this adventure site, but the lack of direction or overall point means I'll need to fill in a lot of holes with my own effort. 

The vagueness of certain elements provides some flexibility to do that, but whether you want to or not will be the determining factor. That is always the case, I suppose, but the point of the contest is to write a quick and complete adventure that a busy DM can pull out of his hat and run right away. 

On the other hand, if you're good at improvising situations on the fly and can spin well-made pieces of something into a logical scenario, this one might work just fine for you. 

SCORE (USABILITY) = 3 / 5
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7) OVERALL THOUGHTS

This thing is stuffed with creativity, and I kind of love it as a place, even though it strains credulity. If you run with its quirkiness, however, and accept facts like: All these creatures eat is tofu made of bush sap (and maybe lizard-horses), then you can present a place where nothing is quite what you would expect. That can throw the players off their normal game and push them out of their rational comfort zone. Sort of like Twin Peaks.

I'll bet the author did a great job running this with his players. I wish he had made more of an effort to help me run it. I really want to.

The adventure's core problem is that it has no real beginning or end for the DM to engage. It is a giant Oreo filling in search of two cookies. Tasty, but always in danger of falling apart. 

FINAL SCORE = 2.8 / 5