The Herbalist's Son
Author: Jacob72
System: "Classic D&D" (actually BECMI)
Party Size: 4-7
Level Range: 3-5
[T]he lost tomb of the elvish prince Calithilben is said to be close to the tiny ruined druid chapel in the village of Sorn, a sorry place of some two dozen low stone and turf windowless huts.
This adventure assumes the party wants to come here, having arrived at the village via a map or legend related to the tomb. Why they would be interested in plundering the tomb of an elf noble
(money, magic, glory, enmity against the elves, etc.) is up to the DM to
contrive.
The text dives right into a description of the druid's chapel. It's not clear whether the chapel is a building or a standing stone. No building interior is ever described, so the word "chapel" here may be substituting as a blanket term for a shrine or sacred spot (like a menhir). It's a small quibble, but I was confused and had to re-read the paragraph a few times (and I'm still not certain).
The text then bounces us back to the party's arrival in Sorn, where the "worried" village headman greets the party and gives them the low-down on the situation: "[T]he local herbalist Tilo Dietl and his teenage son Hempel have been surveying the stone and have now gone missing. They believed that they were close to finding the tomb of Calithilben." (Why they were looking for it remains as much of a mystery as it is for the party. What is it people are seeking there? The text doesn't say) "[I]f he is persuaded that the party is sincere about finding [the herbalist and his son]," the headman directs them to the druidic chapel.
The text bounces back to the chapel, providing additional details about the standing stone. The herbalist and his son have excavated the base, but the description never mentions any sort of sigils or runes on the stone. Yet, "if translated says that the lost tomb of the elvish prince Calithilben (light of the moon) points to a barrow some 400 ft north." (400 feet? So, right over there? That huge burial mound that everyone in the village should be able to see and be aware of?)
This is just the first introductory paragraph, and it blasts you in the face with a scattershot of information but little context. (I'll get into the document's organizational issues below.)
The next paragraph describes the herbalist's comparatively-nicer hut, wherein the party may find his journal notes providing the same info as the standing stone if the party lacks a druid or the ability to magically translate the stone's message. (That's good to avoid an info bottleneck.) In addition, the notes mention that he intends to hire "some nearby woodcutters" to help him investigate the barrow. The party can find some handy supplies, though the headman suggests the party leave compensation for whatever they take.
I want to take a moment to discuss a clue to the adventure's system of choice, which is stated as "Classic D&D" in the sub-title. This could mean OD&D, any of three versions of Basic, AD&D, or a retroclone of one of these systems, so this appellation isn't helpful. In the herbalist's hut the party discovers "six jars of Giant Bee honey (heals 1d4 hit points)." Giant bees do not otherwise appear in the adventure, so we have no stat block to compare.
There are no giant bees in Holmes Basic or in Cook Basic. OD&D classifies giant bees simply as "giant insects" and makes no mention of magic honey. The Monster Manual 2 introduced giant bees to AD&D, but their honey does not have healing properties (the queen's royal jelly does instead). That leaves Mentzer's BECMI, which does indeed feature giant bees with healing honey, exactly as described. So, BECMI it appears to be. I mention this only because each of these systems contain variations that present a slightly different flavor of "classic D&D," which is why it's important to identify which one we're dealing with.
Back to the introductory material, the third paragraph dives into a sub-plot in which the woodcutters are revealed to be bandits led by a pair of werewolves. The headman is suspicious of the woodcutters, believing them to be evil "as many sheep had gone missing after their arrival in the area." That's a fairly big jump to conclusions, but okay.
Next is a Wandering Monsters table meant to be used inside the barrow. The same number of creatures is given for each encounter instead of a range, and 3 of the 6 encounters are written in a situational manner and so aren't really re-usable. This is a big dungeon to search and we're rolling a check three times an hour, so the party will likely burn through this list pretty quickly. Maybe that's intentional, as the population of monsters here is pretty limited.
The dungeon key proper begins, with a narrow cave entrance descending into the earth. Lots of tracks of men and beasts come and go through the opening. A pair of giant stoats (ermine) dwell within a cave at the end of a long tunnel. It's apparent they are the predators devouring the local livestock, as sheep carcasses litter the den floor (along with "some fairy carcasses" and human bones as well).
Are these stoats simply rapacious or are the bandits feeding them? The text doesn't say, so you decide. The bandits have to get past them somehow as this is the only way in or out. The stoats are also rich, as the pseudo-giant weasels possess four sacks stuffed with electrum coins for some reason.
Following the only tunnel exiting the stoat lair, the party comes to an intersection where they find signs of a "scuffle." Equipment litters the floor, while footprints, wolf tracks, and drag marks head to the west. The text goes on to describe an area to the east where a series of descending ledges lead to adjacent areas (and some hidden treasure). These ledges have nothing to do with the scuffle area and are a good 100–150 ft. away from the tunnel intersection, so this material really should have had its own keyed description.
Following the descending ledges brings the party to an underground river where a rusty chain link bridge of "wooden platforms is suspended from iron rings in the ceiling." It's safe for up to two crossers, but a third on the bridge at the same time causes it to collapse. (Why you would build a 60' long bridge of four platforms when a 20' span with one platform would have done the trick?) Since there is no immediate threat time pressure requiring the party to get across the river quickly, this is unlikely to pose any sort of challenge to them. The river is also only 5' deep and poses no danger in simply fording it, indicated by an absence of any reference or guidelines in the key.
The key jumps over to a section of the map that lies to the west of the "scuffle" area, where the tracks and drag marks lead to a "steep," 40' drop down to a lower cave. No indication of rope-work or other scaling method is described for the people and wolves that came this way previously. (Wolves are natural climbers, aren't they?) Anyway, the party eventually finds itself at the bottom, where six cairn piles are marked with gravestones. Three graves are inscribed with the same word ("Smith"), while the other three bear different individual words ("Piper," "Stone," and "Bowyer"). Are these the names of the deceased? Their professions? What relevance do they have to anything? The text doesn't say.
If the cairns are dug up, the three individual graves contain only bones, but the "Smith" graves contain green marble statuettes (with no gp value). Here, the text gets really confusing but as best I can tell, the statuettes are cursed and cause whoever digs one up to start singing (and attract wandering monsters), dancing (to the point of exhaustion), and/or gorging on the party's ration supply (and "becoming aggressive if denied," though how aggressive is never defined).
The statuettes are of "the same man." As in human, or male elf? Elves are known for singing and dancing, not so much for gorging themselves. The two sentences dealing with the curse effects contradict each other. One makes it sound like all three effects occur when a statuette is dug up, while the other indicates that each effect applies to the corresponding statue. The curses appear to be temporary or can be removed immediately with a spell. The curse of dancing is referenced "as per tarantella spider" (more confirmation of BECMI).
Beyond this cave is a wooden log bridge across the same river as above, just downstream. Nothing happens here either, a second missed opportunity to have a distinctive cave feature provide some sort of interest or challenge to the party. The key then bounces back to the opposite side of the map, to the area beyond the iron chain/wooden platform bridge, where a tunnel ascends to the remains of a fairy village. The tiny settlement has been smashed to flinders by stoats, wolves, and men.
A nearby ledge glows with fairy light, a pair of gems cast with Continual Light that flank a 2' x 1' wooden door. A brass face on the door warns intruders away in Common, "but will only converse if spoken to in elvish." What does it have to say? Who knows? There's a 50% chance that "4 elves emerge and investigate the party." How long does it take each full-sized elf to fit through the tiny door frame? Are they shrunken and then grow to full size? The text doesn't say either way. The party can also encounter these elves as a wandering monster, as well as 11 sprites who take revenge for the destruction of their underground village. Why the bandits or werewolves didn't notice the glow and come up here to destroy the door is unaddressed.
A tunnel leading from this cave descends to a ledge running alongside the river, another unique dungeon feature that goes without description or utilization, and a third missed opportunity to put something interesting in an area of the dungeon that isn't just a plain old cave or tunnel. Instead, the key jumps back to the opposite side of the map to pick up the passage beyond the log bridge from the cave with the cursed statuettes.
A bedraggled young boy claiming to be the herbalist's son languishes in a cage, but he's actually a "changeling (a doppelganger). If the real Hempel is with the party, the boy in the cage claims that Hempel is the changeling. This is a great use of the monster, and I think it's the best thing in the entire adventure.
The real Hempel is held prisoner in another cave, injured with a wolf bite and trapped inside a fairy ring "until someone helps him up". The last sentence of this keyed area reads: "Hempel was thrown in here and one of the werewolves was released, but he won’t let on about this, and say that he was captured by bandits and wolves and that he managed to escape." I have no idea what this means. Is he infected by lycanthropy? (There are no regular wolves here, so yes?)
The key jumps to the opposite side of the map again, where a cave filled with a pool of mud hides four giant toads, with the herbalist's corpse lying nearby. Wonder why none of the nearby creatures has bothered to eat him yet? I mean, it's a delicious corpse laying right there. Hempel will recognize the body of his father, but the changeling will not react to it (another good detail, especially if "both" Hempels have been rescued and are with the group under close observation).
The text jumps back to a cave near Hempel's prison, where an 8 HD fire elemental is held within a(n iron?) pot that glows red. The lid is held down by a heavy, rune-carved stone. If the stone is removed, the pot lid begins to rattle, signaling a threat and giving the party time to replace the stone before the elemental emerges and attacks.
There's a cave glittering with gems but filled with a swarm of beetles and millipedes (with 7 total hp). I'm not sure how this is supposed to hinder an average 4th-level party, but the payoff is a sweet cache of gems. Deeper in, the prince's tomb is "carved out of the rock to resemble a domed beehive". Three colored circles are carved in the floor in an overlapping, trefoil design. Standing inside each circle is a 2 ft. tall elf warrior (each a different individual). One circle also contains two partially-eaten corpses. Who or what were the carcasses? We're not told, but they were eaten by werewolves. All three circles are tomb seals, beneath which are the remains of the prince and his two bodyguards (?), who will rise as wraiths if the seals are disturbed. The graves each contain an embalmed body and some treasure.
The penultimate cave holds a well that hides some treasure including a magic sword that cause fey creatures to fear the wielder. The final chamber is an elven temple occupied by six human bandits, two of whom are actually werewolves. Combat quickly ensues and the werewolves try to escape if the party defeats their human minions. This fight represents the adventure's denouement (though it may not be the last fight of the adventure).
Treasure is meager for a place described as the tomb of an elven prince. In several places, the amount of coin treasure is randomized, meaning there isn't a consistent gp/xp value to be expected. I have used the average of each of these random amounts to come up with a total of 6,645 gpv, though quite a bit of it is hidden so even that paltry amount is likely to be lower. Big swing-and-a-miss considering the princely fortune in gold, gems, and jewelry that should be found here.
Magical treasure is also weak for a dungeon filled with wraiths, werewolves, and a fire elemental. Most of it is consumable and of limited ability to alter the party's advantage: The aforementioned jars of bee honey, a scroll of Cure Disease (always handy); a scroll of Weather Control written on a heavy stone slab (useless in this adventure); a Potion of Speed (good to have but costly to use), and a scroll of 5 decent M-U spells which may come into use by the party here, but are probably better left for transcription into the party magic-user's spellbook. The three permanent items—a suit of "elf-sized" +1 Chain Mail, a +1 Longsword that causes fear in fey creatures, and a Ring of Plant Control—are merely okay.
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1) THEME
(How strong/consistent is the adventure's premise, flavor, and setting?)
So many of the thematic elements contradict the fairy vibe the writeup is going for: Iron chains, sprites living underground, the cursed statuettes, the fire elemental, undead, etc.
I get that there isn't a "rule" about iron and fairies, but if you're going for a specific theme (e.g., fey realm), such mythical details are what give a theme real flavor and set a mood and atmosphere for the players, demonstrating that they are no longer in the mundane world. These are the opportunities you must grab in order to write a memorable adventure site.
Another good example is in the cave with the marked gravestones. The curses themselves are mostly thematic, and that's good, but the cave's details impart no information to the party relative to the trick, and it contains nothing useful or valuable. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but the description sets up something interesting with the elf names (or professions), and then completely misses any opportunity to weave in some theme or have the meaning pay off in any way. It only creates lost time and effort.
With a heavy-enough hammer, the DM can square-peg the werewolves into the round hole of the adventure's fairy-land theme, but what's up with the human bandits they work with? Why wouldn't the werewolves just turn the other bandits into werewolves, too? Where is their pack of regular wolves stipulated in the monster's description? Why are they even down here, in a place that is very difficult to exit or enter without a lot of climbing? Wouldn't they rather be up in the forest, running around like... wolves? Sigh...
The elf-prince interred here and his two bodyguards are wraiths? Were they evil? The text doesn't give any indication that they are (and a few decorative clues like the bee and cornflower motifs suggest that they aren't). Granted, "little-e" evil doesn't weigh in to BECMI's alignment system, but no explanation of the elf-prince's current undead state is provided.
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?)
The map's biggest flaw is the way it is keyed—essentially top to bottom but then bouncing right or left across the page in a somewhat haphazard way. I always recommend keying a map along the natural flow of a party's progress through an area until the map comes to a natural break point. Then you switch map areas to cover the next obvious route to its natural break point as you move deeper into the dungeon. That way, the keyed locations nearest to each other are close by in the text and easy to find by scanning just above or below the party's current location. It just makes running the map a lot easier.
In this case, the first divergence point is area 2, and you can see how the numbering jumps east, then west, then east again, then west, etc. If we follow the current key to area 3, I would have swapped key numbers 4 and 5; changed areas 8, 10, and 12 to areas 8, 9, and 10; changed areas 9 and 13 to 11 and 12; and made the prince's tomb area 13.
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 text is in two-column format, left-aligned, with good line spacing between the introductory sections. Once we hit the dungeon key, however, it becomes dense text with no spacing all the way down. Section and room titles are bolded, and a couple important details are underlined, but that's it for formatting. Hit points are given for the enemies but no stat blocks, xp, or book references are provided.
Information flow is an often-confusing mess, and it takes careful and thorough reading to understand which pieces of information are meant to be nested under other higher-level pieces, and much of it is given completely out of order. Even with a careful reading, there are still a few sections that require you to make assumptions as to the author's intent. The whole thing could use a massive reorganization and edit to make it easier to read and comprehend.
SCORE (CLARITY) = 2 / 5
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4) INTERACTIVITY/INNOVATION
(How well does the adventure use the rules to create interesting play?)
This adventure is combat heavy, but it does contain some rudimentary interaction throughout:
- A boulder requires a minimum combined Strength to roll aside;
- A rusty locked chest has a penalty to pick;
- Noise from a waterfall increases the surprise chance (but ONLY if a wandering encounter occurs in the area, which is otherwise unoccupied);
- Buried statuettes with a variety of temporary curses that can screw with the PCs;
- A Wizard-Locked door to the "land of the Faeries." (What happens if the party gets through the spell? Can they destroy the door? Can they go through it to fairy-land? Who knows?)
- The magic circle imprisoning the herbalist's son;
- The fire elemental cauldron;
- A couple of locked doors (installing regular hinged doors in a tomb is a curious architectural choice); and
- Tombs hidden beneath heavy stone floor slabs.
These are all decent dungeon elements, but they're mostly superficial and don't integrate into a coherent whole in any meaningful way. The worst examples are the river crossings—the suspended platforms and the log bridge. They pose absolutely no hazard or challenge to the party, other than having to cross the chain bridge one person at a time, which makes common sense. Just wasted opportunities for an exciting and perhaps dangerous obstacle.
I discussed the bit with the herbalist's son and the changeling above, and it remains my favorite part of this site. It can be tricky to deploy a doppelganger to infiltrate a party as one of its own without drawing immediate suspicion, but if you can cause confusion and doubt among the party members as to which one of these identical people they are supposed to rescue, that's perfect. This adventure sets that up well and even gives a really good way to affirm which one is the real Hempel when he spots his dad's body. That should be easy to turn into a memorable reveal.
SCORE (INTERACTIVITY) = 2 / 5
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5) MODULARITY
(How easy would it be to drop/integrate the adventure into an existing campaign?)
The text states upfront that this adventure "works best if there are no elves in the party." I'm not certain why and the writeup doesn't elaborate. Otherwise, if your campaign world contains elves, burial mounds, werewolves, and fairy-folk, I don't see why this adventure couldn't be used for most classic fantasy settings.
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?)
I've already dinged my main issues with the manuscript in the Clarity section, so I won't hold those against the adventure here. Fact is, if you give this a careful read and can fill in the logic gaps with a hand-wave or improvised answer, you can run this as written.
It may not make much sense in the end, but would probably provide a decent session of gaming (though on the low-energy side). Be prepared for several lengthy pauses as you try to parse the details of a room out of its dense, often confusing text.
SCORE (USABILITY) = 4 / 5
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7) OVERALL THOUGHTS
This adventure site needs a clearer direction and more thematic oomph to turn its interesting setup into a satisfying conclusion, but all the pieces are there. Motivations are lacking, clear signals are missing, connections between the various elements are vague or simply don't exist, and the treasure is insufficient.
The whole thing feels random and unfocused, despite the author's clear vision of what he wanted the adventure to be. I can almost see it, though.
FINAL SCORE = 2.8 / 5
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