The Sinister Secret of Zenopus' Tower – Part 7: The Village of Saltmarsh

Seeing as how I wrote this series of posts in a disorganized manner, it is only fitting that I end it with the starting point—the village of Saltmarsh, the party's home base while they tackle the series of modules U1–U3. Curiously, though the module describes the "little town" as playing a "pivotal role" in the series, with a "web of intrigue" that affects the party's progress, the village is given short shrift in the module's manuscript.

Instead of presenting the village and its inhabitants, the module hands the task of designing the entire thing to the DM, with advice to draw a map, establish the local businesses, and set up the town's council (and its conspirators). Some may see the omission of these details as a flexible advantage for homebrew campaigns, allowing the DM to put his stamp on the adventure; others may see it as a failure of the adventure designer to do their job. It's why you paid money for the module, right?

Interestingly, the basic "plot" of Saltmarsh is similar to the Sample Dungeon's "plot" of Portown (smugglers using nearby sea caves to run their operation, in collusion with local bribed officials), so those two pieces clicked together very well, along with new details from Zach Howard's Forgotten Smugglers' Cave adjunct. I took the background information from those three sources and crafted my own background "plot" to account for the various adventure areas of the site. 

I started the campaign without a map of the village. Instead, I gave the party a handout list of the main buildings in town along with a brief description and details about what can be acquired/accomplished in each place. This was my tabletop group's first experience with playing early-edition D&D (Advanced Labyrinth Lord in this case), so I explained that town wasn't really a place for adventure but more of an abstract base for their characters to rest and reset between sessions.

The Sinister Secret of Zenopus' Tower – Part 6: The Naga's Lair

 

 

This penultimate post represents the final piece of the kilodungeon site. It uses the dungeon portion of the original AD&D adventure: N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile Gods. I'm actually not a big fan of the module as published. It's very railroady, and the cult activities in the village of Orlane are meh. The actual naga's lair with the troglodytes is pretty well done, however, and it snaps perfectly into the overall site concept. 

Its inclusion also gives me a third "faction boss" to use as a counterweight to the two magic-users competing over the site. She is gathering her forces to first take over the Sea Caves level and expel the pirates, then take control of the Dungeon level to capture its wealth and power. Once she accomplishes all that, she will send her enthralled human minions to subvert and undermine local authorities, and take over the human settlements in this desolate region on the periphery of civilization.

The entrance to this site is down in the swamp below the manor bluff, but anyone looking off the cliff can potentially catch a glimpse of the berm. The entrance can be reached either by sea or by scaling down the steep slope to the NE. There is also a back way into the dungeon via the Sea Caves level. In fact, several of the naga's minions are enthralled pirates who were captured in those caves by her troglodyte agents.

I got rid of everything in the module up to the naga's lair, though I kept some of the swamp description and its wandering encounter table. I added two other entries—a mud viper and 1–3 giant lizards—to make for an even six encounters, and I renamed the module's 1 HD "giant leech" (AD&D) to a "huge leech" instead (Labyrinth Lord's giant leeches are 6 HD creatures).

Adventure Site Contest 2 REVIEW: The Grand Retreat of the Great Sage Tellah

The Grand Retreat of the Great Sage Tellah

Author: thanateros777
System: BX
Party Size: ?
Level Range: ? ("mid-level")

Beneath a ruined resort is an underground complex created by a bygone sage for his personal amusement and examination, accessible only by a small outbuilding long overgrown and ruined. Deep inside may be fortunes and perils alike, as the Great Sage was an eccentric, if not abnormal man. What mysteries and riches may the eccentric wizard’s sanctum hold?

So when I opened this PDF, I was nearly blinded by the Moiré pattern on the page—a font so compressed as to remove all but a sliver of white between the characters. Waves of interference made my brain shut down for a second time in this contest. See for yourself...

Adventure Site Contest 2 REVIEW: Arena Æmilia

Arena Æmilia

Author: Zed
System: BX
Party Size: ?
Level Range: 4-6

Spectacle! at the Arena Æmilia[.] Every Ides new performances. History and legends, classics and new,
thrill and laughter, reenactments and hunts. Entry a silver sesterce, tours upon agreement.

The above notice "hang[s] in ever (sic) town of the region, and every 15th of the month plebeians and nobles alike from all over the frontier province flock to the amphitheater, for some well earned distraction from the toils of imperial expansion."

The site is located in a settlement—any large town or city with an Imperial Rome theme—and its run by Titus, a 7th-level fighter and, variously, a champion, decorated war veteran, and former slave raider. He lives here with his 3rd-level magic-user daughter and her pet smilodon, along with their 100-year old housekeeper, a 4th-level elf who has served Titus's wife's family "for generations" (for some reason).

Adventure Site Contest 2 REVIEW: Tower in the Lake

The Tower in the Lake

Author: Matthew Lake
System: BX
Party Size: 4-7
Level Range: 3-5

From the surface it’s just a crumbling ruin. But beneath the waves lies the arcane lair of the great wizard Thassalius. Can you unlock the wizard’s fabled library? Dare you plunder his flooded treasure vault? Will you prove yourself against his mutated creations? There’s only one way to find out…

A water-obsessed wizard has built an elaborate tower in the middle of the lake that goes all the way to the bottom. There, he conducted arcane experiments to transform himself into a merfolk like his beloved—a "freshwater" mermaid named Adeline. Then he disappeared mysteriously. Now, twenty years later, only the top floor of his tower stands above the surface, while the submerged levels remain mostly air-filled. The place is leaking badly, however, and the lower level is flooded.

Adventure Site Contest 2 REVIEW: The Bridge of Ptelemegesser

The Bridge of Ptelemegesser

Author: Peter McDevitt
System: BX/OSE
Party Size: ?
Level Range: ?

Whoops, this one's missing a couple of pages. Wait, no... it's only one page long. That's a bold strategy, Cotton. But hey, you can do a lot with one page, so let's see if it pays off.

Adventure Site Contest 2 REVIEW: Sausages of the Devil Swine

I was invited to help review and judge the submissions to Coldlight Press's second-annual Adventure Site Contest. Last year's competition resulted in the Adventure Sites I compilation of the top-rated submissions, which included my own adventure. There were 30 (!) submissions to this year's contest, so here is my review of the first adventure on my list (and my first review of someone else's work).

Sausages of the Devil Swine

Author: John Nash
System: BX
Party Size: 4
Level Range: 5

A curse afflicts the good people of Piggton. Insatiable hunger drives them to eat until they are sick and no one knows where the compulsion comes from, nor why some are affected and others not. At night, snuffling and grunting is heard outside. Those who go out to investigate vanish. 

The setup for this adventure site involves a town built on the ruins of an ancient settlement. Lately, many townsfolk have fallen ill with a strange malady that causes them to eat so much that they get sick, but no one knows why. The priests in the temple are completely overwhelmed with the victims. In "unrelated news," the rivalry between the town's two butchers has driven one of them to extremes: He sells sausages at such a low cost that his competition is in danger of going out of business. Worst of all, monsters from the nearby ruins have begun ravaging the town at night. Their depredations are causing the townsfolk and local merchants much angst. Won't someone do something?