Wailing Tower
Author: ShockTohp
System: Adventurer Conqueror King
Party Size: ?
Level Range: 4-6
In the salt district of the city, an old moldering water clock sits rusting. This marvel of hydraulic engineering, a gift from the local dwarf vault, was created as a heroic burial site of a human general of great renown, who once saved the dwarfs from a horde of lizardmen. The hero was interned (sic) with his spoils in a crystal dome, located in the basement of the tower (and surrounded by its reservoir) but in such a way as to allow admirers to look down on the interred from the ground level viewing gallery. However, its glory days are long gone, and the clock has been abandoned by its keepers. Now its ancient waterwheel creaks and groans, the machinery inside screeches like a tormented beast. While it was once protected by an army of statues, many whisper the enchantments have long since drained into the earth below, leaving the grave vulnerable to pillage by those who would rob the dead.
This adventure site is written for ACKS, with which I have no experience playing or running, though I understand it's built on the BX chassis. I'm not going to focus too much on rules issues but if I get something wrong, feel free to correct me and I will update the review.
Alright, so the centerpiece of this adventure is a water clock—a timekeeping mechanism housed within a tower that is slowly rusting away due to engineering neglect. It is a monument to, and the burial place of, a legendary human general. The site is haunted by a banshee—the spirit of a jilted lover who died heartbroken and penniless after being abandoned by the general long ago.
After the introductory material, we are given information about the banshee. When the party first meets "The Woman in Grey," she will have disguised her form and is not hostile. If she becomes angered (perhaps as a result of the party possessing her comb, or by rolling low on the Reaction check or interacting with her long enough that her mental instability causes her attitude to swing), she reveals her true form and attacks.
The banshee is not a monster in BX, though it does appear in AD&D (as a groaning spirit with the banshee name as a parenthetical). I like the way this banshee is structured. She's not nearly as deadly as the AD&D version but able to sustain a longer fight. Her wail drains levels instead of killing those who fail their saves, but the levels return when she is banished (by turning her or reducing her hp to 0, or naturally with time and recovery). Again, I don't know how ACKS is structured, so this type of thing may be the norm, but a temporary drain lowers the risk level here substantially. When banished, she drops her comb. She can only be permanently destroyed by returning her comb to her burial site—a pauper's grave two days' travel from the tower. Otherwise, she rises again at sunset and will continue haunting the party so long as they have her comb.
The next section provides general notes about the dungeon environment, describing the various mechanical and security features of the dungeon: Geared doors that only open on odd- or even-numbered turns; the brittle crystal dome (and what happens if it breaks before the reservoir is drained); and the clock's sentries, which are living statues. These terracotta soldiers line up in tidy formations outside the tower's front door and only become active if someone disturbs the earth around the tower's base. Even then, fewer than half of them still function (a dozen total). What if the players decide to just smash the hollow figures as a precaution? Problem solved.
An option to make one or more characters a descendant of the general is provided, a choice that would surely seem attractive to some players. Agreeing to this carries absolutely no benefit; instead, it is intended to "add an additional bit of challenge" because the consequence of being related to the general is that the banshee automatically hates the character and will attack on sight, ruining any chance of speaking with her or otherwise learning her information. Oh, and she will continue haunting the related character(s) until they are dead. Oh, and you'll have to kill her at least once so she drops her comb, and then journey TWO DAYS away from the adventure site to resolve the curse. This option doesn't work for me. Feels like sandbagging your party.
Another complication is thrown in as a band of brigands led by a 6th-level thief is also interested in draining the water clock's reservoir to attain the general's crystal crypt. A paragraph about their intentions for the site is repeated in the Notes section as well. Other than the leader's magic dagger, no treasure is listed for the band of bandits.
Following those notes is a section on solving the puzzle of the water clock, a real-world innovation from antiquity. Fully mechanical, self-regulating water clocks were in use in Imperial China and the Roman Empire, and the technology continued evolving well into the 17th Century with the invention of the pendulum clock. It's a fascinating invention, but I don't think the author did much research on how water clocks work, as the mechanism described here doesn't make much sense from an hydraulic engineering perspective.
The reservoir chamber is 45' x 45' and 10' high. Within it, the crystal dome has a diameter of 35' (thus, a 17.5' radius). This creates a bit of a problem because an architectural dome is a hemisphere, meaning it should be 17.5' high at the center of the floor. But the ceiling of the dome can only be 10' high because that is the height of the reservoir chamber. Furthermore, the side view map shows a gap between the top of the dome and the reservoir chamber ceiling, so let's call it 9' high.
That means the dome is flattened significantly (by nearly 50% in fact) like a shallow bowl turned upside down. Assuming a uniform curvature, the ceiling slopes approximately 3' in height for every 5' of radius. At the mid point between the dome's center and its outer edge (i.e., 8.75'), the ceiling height would only be ~4.5' high. Just a few feet further and a person would need to get on their hands and knees to approach the dome's outer edge.
Why is any of this relevant? It's not, really—I just started thinking about the map scale and the construction of the dome and realized there was an issue. I've also had a lot of coffee.
Thinking about it, though, I guess it's somewhat relevant because in the Puzzle Solving section, the text gives the spell Lower Water as an alternative solution to attaining the dome if the players can't figure out the mechanism to drain the reservoir (which is likely as there are no instructions or even clues as to how it is done provided to the players). More specifically, the alternate solution recommends a scroll of Lower Water, because it is a 6th level spell (in BX at least) and would require an 11th-level magic-user to cast normally.
Without knowing the spell's details in ACKS, I'm going to assume it's like the BX version, in which case the spell lowers an area of water up to 10,000 sq. ft. (100 x 100') by 50%. In this case, the spell's area of effect would reduce the reservoir's depth to 5', which would still cover more than half of the dome's surface (only 4' of the upper part of the dome would protrude from the surface). The writeup indicates that "a mage of level 5 would be able to just barely reduce it to a depth of 1 inch" which suggests that the ACKS version handles the spell differently.
I'll accept that explanation but this brings up another problem, as BX also indicates that clerics and magic-users cannot use scrolls of higher level spells because "lower level characters should not become as powerful as these spells permit" (p. B18). Maybe ACKS doesn't have that restriction, but then I wonder how easy it is for a 5th-level mage to cast a 6th-level spell from such a scroll? Is it automatic? Is there a chance of spell failure?
Since the party would need to have thought to bring such a scroll with them (and why would they?), the alternative method for solving this puzzle seems likely out of reach for the intended characters, so we'll have to trust that they can figure out how to make the mechanisms work. The "correct" way requires activating a pair of switches (the text says "areas 4 and 7," but there is no switch in area 7, only a pipe; there is a switch in area 5, so maybe that's it?) and then covering two exterior grates (of four). None of this is elaborated for the players anywhere in the site so they must simply guess the steps.
Doing this "will drain the reservoir in three turns, causing the first floor to flood instead." Huh?? What if the front door is open? Once the first level is flooded, "[t]hen the switch at 10 can be activated to raise the top of the crystal dome, allowing full access to the treasure, provide (sic) the players brought a rope."
Here again, I can't figure out how the hell this works. There is no accessway into the reservoir chamber from the ground floor (except the water grates). If the reservoir chamber is 10' high and the dome is 9' high, I take it the winch can only raises the dome one foot as there is nowhere else for the other 8' to go. What the hell is the rope for? None of it makes sense to me as the DM reading the text, so I have no idea how the party is supposed to figure any of this out.
It is also very possible (likely!) that the mechanism will break and become unusable in short order, but the party can also crank the pump manually to drain the reservoir. There are also guidelines on what happens if the elaborate system of pipes is damaged.
Though none of this is intuitive based on the dungeon key, with enough trial-and-error the party could possibly succeed. Unfortunately, though they don't know it, they are rapidly running out of time to do the things. The next section describes a "Dungeon Clock" which is more of a timeline that lists some events that occur over the course of the next 10 turns, presumably starting when the party first enters. It isn't clear, as there is only this cryptic description of the section: "Some events will happen as the players interact with (or ignore) the dungeon." ... m'kay...
Example: On turn 2, some giant hawks return to their roost on the upper level. I mean, sure, but so what? The party is unlikely to have explored their way to the topmost level in just 2 turns, so the hawks are far likelier to be there than not. How long do they stay before leaving again? How long will they be gone a second time? Why not just keep it simple and assign a chance that the hawks are there at any particular time?
Another event occurs on turn 4, in which a rust monster in a closed-off room on the second level chews its way through an important piece of machinery, not only causing the gear doors to maintain their current open/closed positions, but also making it impossible to use the automatic pump/winch to drain the reservoir and raise the crystal dome.
Okay...not adventure-ending since half the doors are always open or closed, and the pump/winch can be operated manually (though more slowly). But unless the players happen to stumble upon the rust monster room within the first 40 minutes of their adventuring day, the mechanism is busted. Worse still, none of the details about the rust monster and the machinery will ever become known to the players, nor will they ever be aware they could have prevented it from being destroyed. All they will be aware of is that the doors stopped opening and closing for some reason, and that the winch lever doesn't work. It's a fun little Easter egg for the DM I suppose, but it seems so behind-the-scenes as to be meaningless to the party.
Finally, on turn 10 (a mere one hour and 40 minutes after the party enters the site), the brigands arrive to begin tunneling. This activates the sentries and triggers a big battle, I presume, but one that doesn't involve the PCs. Since a dozen 5 HD living statues will utterly murder six 1 HD brigands and a 6th-level thief, I don't see most parties butting in, especially not one cynical enough to rob a hero's grave. And since the party isn't digging up the tower base, the statues shouldn't bother them.
Did I mention the party has no idea that a clock is ticking? Fortunately, it doesn't matter much to the adventure's resolution.
There is a long paragraph describing the exterior of the water clock—a three-story, octagonal granite tower (though the introduction said it was "moldering" and "rusting," so I initially presumed the tower was made of iron). Granite neither molders, nor rusts.
A large waterwheel turns creakily on one side of the tower, beneath the roost ledge of the aforementioned giant hawks. The adventure setup mentions placing the tower "anywhere there is a sufficient source of flowing water to run its pump mechanism," but the map gives no indication that water flows right next to the tower so as to turn the waterwheel. Perhaps it is being turned by water flowing from an attached aqueduct, but no information about that is given.
Secondarily, the waterwheel is hung on the west side of the tower which would require a water source flowing from north > south (or vice versa). According to the map, that means the water would have to pass over one or both grates into the reservoir chamber which is just beneath ground level (see the map below).
Carved spouts on the tower's exterior pour water from the topmost level through the grates and into the reservoir chamber. How and why is this water pumped all the way to the top of the tower, since the purpose of the spouts is to keep the reservoir filled? Why not just pump water into the grates at ground level without having to fight 30' of gravity? For that matter, if water is constantly pouring into the enclosed reservoir, how does the water even drain, as there is no outflow? The grates are open and exposed to the sky; doesn't a heavy rainfall
cause the reservoir to overflow and flood the streets around the tower? It's all elaborately nonsensical.
The front door is a "gear door" (as are most of the doors inside the tower), meaning that it exists in a binary state: open or closed, depending on the current turn. The door stands wide open when the party arrives, but if they don't enter within a turn, it closes with a metallic shriek. If they wait another turn, it opens again (but now they are three turns into the 10-turn adventure time-clock and only one turn away from the entire mechanism becoming broken).
At the top of the tower is a large landing platform and nesting area for the giant hawks. Why was this built on a clock tower and why is it completely open to the interior, exposing the complicated metal mechanisms and pipes to the elements and depredations of giant raptors? Who knows??
This is an ongoing problem with the site as presented: The functions of the tower as a water clock are essential to solving the puzzle and attaining the treasure, but as a mechanism, it makes absolutely no logical sense. This is best encapsulated by the fact that no time-keeping display (clock face, hash marks, water level indicators, etc.) appears anywhere, inside or outside the tower. It's a clock apparently, but you'll have to look elsewhere to figure out what time it is.
We finally get into the interior key and the text is, well... mechanical. With a few exceptions, most of the rooms are simply pieces of the mechanism with a terse description of what it does and/or what the party is supposed to do with it. For example:
3. Chain Connection Main connecting chain that lifts the dome when the winch in 9 is activated.
This is not the case in the entrance room on the ground floor, however. Here, the floor is made of transparent crystal, through which the party can see the reservoir and the general's domed burial chamber with all its treasures. How they can see all this is unknown, as there is no light source in either the reservoir or the dome to illuminate anything. Torchlight would only penetrate a few inches into the water (through reflective crystal), so it would just look like blackness beneath the floor (and no way in hell would my group of players step out onto that).
In the center of the room is a statue of the young general. At its feet sits "[a] young woman in a pale dress with a silver comb in her raven hair." She is the banshee, and if she does not immediately attack the party, she relates her version of the background story, expressing her desire to destroy the crystal dome so that she can move on. Why she wants to bother with that is left unstated.
She is described as "exist[ing] to extract revenge on the descendants of their betrayer, until the line is wiped out." Well, honey, I'm happy to tell you...the general is dead. Maybe she just wants to desecrate his grave, but it sounds to me like there's nothing keeping her from moving on to her next victim. Hope none of the players took the DM up on his offer to make them one of the general's descendants, because roll initiative!
She can also inform them that a rust monster is loose in the building and explain how to use the valve levers to close two of the reservoir grates. Okay, so maybe that counts as one clue if the party is able to speak with her—but does she tell them why her clue is relevant to anything? And if she knows why it's relevant, why does she only know that one piece of information about the reservoir's operation but not the rest? Shrug...
One room is covered with yellow mold from a leaky pipe, and the top level has the hawks' nests with some treasure and some eggs (how many and their value remain unspecified). The pump to drain the reservoir and the winch to lift the dome are here as well, but by the time the party reaches this area, the equipment is likely damaged beyond repair. They'll have to turn the equipment manually, but they likely still have no idea that they're supposed to. It takes a combined 18 STR to turn the pump and then it takes 12 TURNS (!) of "strenuous activity" to drain the reservoir without any indication that their labors are accomplishing anything. After 1 turn of cranking with no obvious result, my players would abandon the effort and move on to something else. No idea how long or what it takes to manually crank the winch to lift the dome, the writeup doesn't say.
There are two rooms that feature shut-off valves for two of the grates the party is supposed to close to solve the puzzle, but the text says both valves shut off the "northwest" grate (it's obvious the author meant southwest for one). There are four grates, however; how does the party close the other grates to drain the reservoir? The side view map clearly shows water flowing from the eastern spouts. The Puzzle Solving section mentions "manually cover[ing]" the grates. What does that mean? Does the party need to run to the hardware store and buy some plywood?
Other than the crystal dome, that's it for keyed locations. A tower full of pieces and no description or clues as to how the whole thing operates. If the PCs can somehow figure it all out and drain the reservoir first, then use the winch to lift the crystal dome, they are rewarded with a small burial hoard worth 8,000 gp. Not many magic items, but the few that exist are decent, particularly a Necklace of Adaptation, a Bag of Devouring, and something called a Delver's Dagger, which is +1 normally, +2 underground, and can locate treasure 1/day. A sword resting in a stand remains unidentified in the treasure list (see below).
Should the party lift the dome without draining the reservoir, much of the treasure is washed away, leaving only about 3,250 gpv in treasure and the sword, which is now identified in the "Amended Treasure" list as a +3 Frost Brand. Some of the washed-away treasure can be recovered later if the reservoir is subsequently drained, but not most of it. Where this remaining treasure goes is unspecified as the reservoir is an enclosed, water-filled room, but it's just gone.
I don't know what ACKS does for xp in terms of leveling, but a party of 5 is looking at recovering somewhere between 600–1,600 gpv out of this place. Doesn't seem like very much. Then again, other than the banshee, there isn't much threat or challenge in the dungeon for a group of 5th-level characters so maybe it's fine.
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1) THEME
(How strong/consistent is the adventure's premise, flavor, and setting?)
The theme here is clockwork puzzle dungeon for the most part (with a "haunted" tag). It's a time-sensitive puzzle with several pieces but no clues or indication that a clock is ticking. Not much to hang your DM hat on as none of it makes any thematic (or mechanical) sense. The ghost of the spurned lover is probably the most thematic piece, but even that misses the classic D&D mark.
The writeup reinterprets a banshee as any sort of female spirit, treated poorly in life and doomed to destroy the entire lineage of the one who wronged her before she may finally rest. That's neat, but why make her a banshee if you intend to ignore its mythological nature?
To be clear, a lot of DMs won't care and that's totally fine with me; my quibble does not impact gameplay at all. Players don't even need to know the spirit is called a banshee. I'm only pointing out things that leap out at me from a thematic point of view.
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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 two-page, hand-drawn map is a cellphone image so the grid is askew. A scale of 5' squares is given and the second map page includes a side view map. The scale of the side view is incorrect, as it shows the
tower being only 15' wide (assuming the same scale of 5' squares). That
scrunches up the dome into a conical shape.
A legend explaining a dozen or so map symbols indicate the various parts of the mechanism (though additional symbols on the map, such as the grates and stairs, are not included in the legend). I have no idea what this is, for example.
3) CLARITY
(How easy is the writeup to read/parse quickly? How well does the information flow?)
The text is written in two-column, justified format, with medium margins and a tiny gutter. There's plenty of spacing between not only major sections, but also between titles/subtitles and the paragraphs. The text itself is presented in single, often lengthy paragraphs of dense, undifferentiated copy.
It's well-written except for a few typos here and there, but the information flow struggles to be understood through the monolithic paragraphs. I had to re-read sections two or three times to connect related sentences together. I imagine this would be a nightmare to find the details I need with a quick scan at the table while all the players are staring at me waiting for an answer. Paragraph breaks would work absolute miracles on readability (and the document has page space to spare).
The writeup could be reorganized to flow better as well, as a few of the early sections reference things that aren't described until later in the document. For example, the mechanical solution to the puzzle is described before any details of the tower interior or keyed descriptions are given, so the operating instructions won't have much relevance until the DM has read later sections.
SCORE (CLARITY) = 2 / 5
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4) INTERACTIVITY/INNOVATION
(How well does the adventure use the rules to create interesting play?)
Despite being a complex mechanism, the clock's puzzle elements (unintuitive as they are) consist only of yanking on levers and maybe hand-cranking a pump or winch. The doors are sort of interactive at first, but only for the first 4 turns of the adventure, after which they become static and uninteresting.
There are no secret doors or traps to find, no clues to put together to figure out how the machinery works, really nothing to do except kill a few creatures and ignorantly tamper with the equipment until something good or bad happens.
Attempting to get the treasure relies on doing it "right" (without any context provided) or the party loses a substantial chunk of it. That's not good at all.
SCORE (INTERACTIVITY) = 1 / 5
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5) MODULARITY
(How easy would it be to drop/integrate the adventure into an existing campaign?)
While the Wailing Tower fits best in an ill-used ward of a city with aqueducts, it can be placed anywhere there is a sufficient source of flowing water to run its pump mechanism. Some other examples could be: A ruin (sic) fortification on a stream, the precipices of a mountain waterfall, or something more exotic.
I suppose all that is true. The setup also requires accepting things like dwarf clockwork, non-fey banshees, and a party willing to violate the tomb of a hero to steal his stuff. But yeah, if none of that bothers you or your players, then you can stick this in a lot of places.
SCORE (MODULARITY) = 3 / 5
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6) USABILITY
(How much work will the referee have to do to run this adventure at the table tonight?)
To turn this from a baffling but possibly-solvable puzzle (if the players get lucky) into a complex but solvable one with a satisfying conclusion (if the players are clever and pay attention), you'll need to modify a few dungeon elements and maybe create some clues to give the party some idea what they're supposed to do here. The clues/instructions could be cryptic or more literal as suits your taste, but with some gentle party direction this site could provide a decent evening's lark.
The identity of the entombed subject could be an issue for some DMs in terms of party motivation. (Strangely, quite a few of this year's submissions adopted a "kill the perfectly-innocent/good-aligned people and steal their stuff" motif as the default assumption for the adventure hook.) If your party of do-gooders would balk at plundering the tomb of an heroic figure, you may want to retool the background of the clock and the occupant of the crypt. If not, then you're good to go.
Finally, while you can hand-wave the technical specs of the water clock and just assume this contraption functions normally, you should at least incorporate some sort of indicator—like a clock face at the top of the tower—so that the site actually functions as a clock and lets everyone know the time (its stated purpose). This new element could add another interesting piece of the overall puzzle to the dungeon, or even somehow indicate the ticking clock behind the whole adventure.
The dense paragraphs are also badly in need of formatting, so either make some good notes or paste a copy and reorganize it yourself for faster readability at the table.
SCORE (USABILITY) = 3 / 5
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7) OVERALL THOUGHTS
I like all the background elements well enough, and there's a half-formed idea for a neat puzzle here, but it needs more connective tissue and a little more thought and planning. My understanding of ACKS is that it is a system which embraces complexity and a minute attention to detail. Those characteristics must go hand-in-hand, however, because complexity without sufficient detail becomes inscrutable.
Many of the writeup's flaws can be fixed by a creative DM, but that shouldn't be necessary. The point of this contest was to give the DM a ready-to-run adventure. It should be cogent. There's plenty of empty page space in this writeup, available to
add more explanation and details. I'm disappointed the designer didn't use it.
This is another good idea for which I would love to see a second draft.
FINAL SCORE = 2.2 / 5
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