[Audit] Tower Silveraxe

Old School Essentials

My Saturday night group is ~5 sessions deep into Castle Xyntillan! I’m a player in a Thursday night Masks of Nyarlathotep game, which has been an absolute blast. We just wrapped up (burned down) England and are heading for China, so we’re taking a monthish long break to let the GM for that game unwind and prep the next piece. In that month, I’ll be running In The Shadow of Tower Silveraxe!

I figured it would be a good opportunity to use Silveraxe as an example of auditing and preparing a module. Without further preamble:

Auditing Guidelines

I’m looking for the following ideas:

• What is the main gameplay loop?

• How does the game start?

• Do the details within the game have internal consistency?

• Does each faction have a goal?

• Room audits:

  • Is it clear what I should say when the players enter the room?

  • Does each trap and secret door have a mechanism and tell?

  • Does it have all of the information necessary to run it?

  • Do the details in the room have internal consistency?

  • Are stat blocks accurate and complete?

  • Do magic items have a description (need to describe a sword +1)? [1]

• Do the bespoke mechanics work in play?

• Does the key match the map?

• Are there at least two clues that point to each interesting thing?

• Is the amount of treasure appropriate for the risk?

• Can I replace random values with pre-rolled results?

• Are the dungeons sufficiently loopy?

What is the main gameplay loop?

It’s a hexcrawl! The players are going to be traveling from hex to hex in a way that’s very similar to exploring a dungeon where each room has ~6 doors. Many of the hexes (rooms) are empty, some of them have obvious features that the players discover right away, and some of them have hidden, off-the-path features that the party has to explicitly say they search for.

Often, the features they find are dungeons (even just 1-room dungeons), and then we go into our normal dungeoncrawl procedures. I run towns a lot like dungeons, but without random encounter rolls. Each NPC/building is effectively a room, and they connect to other NPCs/buildings.

With that in mind, it’s worth making sure that our hexcrawl rules are solid. Here’s my take on hexcrawling:

• The party can move a number of miles in 1 hour equal to it’s slowest exploration speed divided by 40.

• However long it would take to cross a hex, the party can search the hex and find anything hidden in that amount of time.

• Roads (no matter the terrain), and Easy Terrain (farmland, meadows, beaches, etc) move at full speed.

• Moderate Terrain (forests, deserts, hills, etc) moves at 2/3rds speed.

• Hard Terrain (jungle, swamp, mountains, etc) moves at 1/2 speed.

• Ignore getting lost. Bogs the game down. Really weird at the table.

• There is a 1-in-6 chance of getting a random encounter each time the party enters a hex. There is an additional night-time random encounter check.

• A party can travel for 8 hours in one day. They may spend the other 4 hours doing whatever (searching, foraging (6 turns), dungeon delving, etc).

The setting in Silveraxe is all moderate terrain with some roads, so that simplifies our exploration speeds:

| Speed | mph (road) | turns/hex (road) | mph (med) | turns/hex (med) |
| ----- | ---------- | ---------------- | --------- | --------------- |
| 120   | 3          | 12               | 2         | 18              |
| 90    | 2.25       | 16               | 1.5       | 24              |
| 60    | 1.5        | 24               | 1         | 36              |
| 30    | 0.75       | 48               | 0.5       | 72              |

It’s very likely that they’ll be traveling at 60ft speed (the speed if anyone in the party is wearing chain or plate). They have 48 turns of exploration, which means they’ll be able to cross 2 hexes (12 miles) a day on the road, or 4 hexes in 3 days in the wilderness.

Here’s a worked example (without weather):

• Day 1: The company spends the morning clearing the Shrine on the Lake (C5). They travel by road back to Karn Buldahr to offload. The trip back to town is 25 miles, so they’re able to make it halfway. We’ll say they enter 2 hexes (C6 → B5). This triggers 2 encounter rolls (4, 3), so no encounters. At night, they also do not get an encounter (6).

• Day 2: They make it back to Karn Buldahr (A4 → A3 → B4) and offload. 3 encounter rolls (2, 1, 2), so an encounter in A3. 1d12 for encounter (10: 1d4 elf (4)), then 1d6 for each side for surprise (pc: 4, elf: 2) 1d4•30ft for distance since the elves achieve surprise (120), then 2d6-2 for reaction (0, lol, rolled double 1), so these elves absolutely hate the PCs and spring an ambush. No night encounter since they’re in a safe place.

• Day 3: They set out for Forgel’s End (D4). They take to road to C4 (22 turns), and then spend their remaining 26 turns to make progress toward D4. It’ll take 10 turns to enter on D4 on Day 4. They trigger 1 encounter roll when they enter C4 (4) and 1 at night (2), so no encounters. They forage on the way and fail (2).

• Day 4: They spend 10 turns entering D4 and trigger an encounter roll (3), so no encounter. They spend 36 turns searching D4 to find Forgel’s End, and enter it. They forage on the way and fail (6).

Seems like it works to me!

How does the game start?

Two broad options

1. Start the game in Karn Buldahr and let the party gather rumors

   1. Myrya points the party to D4, C7, D5, G7, H5

   2. Bulgrun has a treasure map that points to E7

   3. The Troll attack rumor leads to C5

2. Start the game at the front door of a ruin. C7 seems like a great candidate.

Whenever possible I like to start games off right at the dungeon door. It’s also really useful that when they bring their loot back to Karn Buldahr, they’ll restock but also get a bunch of new leads. Easy!

Do the details have internal consistency?

Theory

This is a wordy way to say “check for verisimilitude”. What has the “appearance of being real” will vary from table to table. Robert Conley, for example, cares about the impact of air currents on climate. My table doesn’t! Here’s a list from ACKS II that I like a lot:

• Why does this dungeon (still) have loot?

• Why hasn’t anyone killed these monsters yet?

• How did these monsters even get here?

• What are the monsters eating and drinking and where do they poop?

• Why are these traps still set?

For instance, I complained at length in my review of Hall of Judgment that the undead at Logiheimli were created in a single ritual hundreds of years ago, very close to an extremely large town. The skeletons roam every night and have no way to reform, and yet nearly all of them are still around to fight the PCs. Why hasn’t anyone killed these monsters yet?

More abstractly, we’re checking to make sure that we don’t have effects without plausible causes, and causes without probable effects. If goblins are nervous that their comrades just got killed by an undead axeman, we should make sure that there’s an undead axeman and some goblin corpses. If we find some goblin corpses, we should make sure that the goblins are talking about it.

The more internally consistent the world is, the more the players can engage and reason about the world!

Specifics

Going page by page and only pointing out stuff that seems weird or sticks out.

• Why did The Builders write “A B C / J K L / S T U” on the north eastern statue, “D E F / M N O / V W” on the northwestern statue, and “G H I / P Q R / X Y Z” on the southern statue? How would the players know that when read warrior→faceless→bear that they form a left-to-right-top-to-bottom alphabet?

• Myrya Cadreth, the 4th-level MU in Karn Buldahr is paying 1000g for each power crystal. That’s a lot of money for a 4th-level mage (~1/8th of their net worth). Where did she get all that money, and why does she want power crystals so badly? An easy way to fix this is that she has a buyer lined up that she can flip this to.

• The faction information for the Dwarves of Karn Buldahr explicitly mentions that the council has sought aid from any willing adventurers to deal with monster attacks on farms and livestock, yet this is never referenced again and never specified. The closest we have is that the amethyst ranch is having a troll problem and that the town guards are rumored to pay an (unspecified) bounty for troll heads.

• Taggart paying 2000g to drive off a troll is a lot of gold. That’s ~17 years living expenses for a skilled labor. That’s enough money to enlist 1000 light infantry for a month. A good rule of thumb is that gold should be worth ~4x the xp value of the threat, which this is in line with. I suggest lowering Taggart’s offer to 400g, put 600g in the Troll’s lair (which has no treasure as written), and have Taggart give them a stamped missive to the council redeemable for 800g. Udlad Molviggi in the Guard Barracks (p9) can pay another 200g per head to make up the full cost.

• Taggart giving the PCs 3000g worth of gems for his locket is also bananas. Is this dwarf made of money? An easy way to fix this is for Taggart to not understand the value of the gems.

Does Each Faction Have A Goal?

I love GFC's take on factions. The TL;DW is that you should be able to write

<FACTION> wants <MOTIVATION>, but [OBSTACLE]; therefore, [METHOD OF SURMOUNTING OBSTACLE>

for each faction. If the faction doesn’t want anything, it’s hard to know how to get them to act or how they’ll react. If nothing is stopping them from getting what they want, why don’t they have it? If they’re not trying to remove their obstacle, what are they doing, and do they actually want the thing?

Faction-wise, we have The Silveraxe, The Elves of the Tower, The Dwarves of Karn Buldahr, and The Golthek.

Silveraxe

It’s not fully clear what the Silveraxe are doing now that Duard has become a shade. The most we get is in the “Shadow of the Tower” section:

Unbeknownst to the settlers and inhabitants of Gemthrone, the shadow of Silveraxe will soon be cast over them. His green and malice has grown exponentially with the ritual complete and his apetite for conquering will not easily be satiated.

It seems like Duard wants to conquer the Gemthrone wilderness. The natural opposition to that is that there are ~400 dwarves in Karn Buldahr and ~70 elves in Ryo Taesi. In order to overcome them, he needs to muster significantly more forces, so he’ll attack outskirt settlements to transform the living into the undead.

Elven Stewards of the Tower

The elves want to keep the tower’s shadow magic a secret and protect the great tree Ilex, but they were bested by Duard who claimed the shadow power and holds the tower. So, they’re licking their wounds and training troops to retake the tower.

Dwarves of Karn Buldahr

The dwarves want to flourish in their idyllic community of craftspeople, artisans, farms, and whatnot. Unfortunately, they’re now beset by monsters from The Labyrinth of Shadows. So, the council is seeking aid from willing adventurers to help deal with the attacks.

The book specifies that the council is seeking aid from willing adventurers (which makes sense) in the faction overview on page 4, but in the Karn Buldahr description on page 9-10, there is no mention of this.

To fix this, we’ll move some money from Taggart’s troll bounty (originally 2000g) to the town. The council will pay 800g if the Ranch is secured, and Udlad Molviggi (p9) will pay 200g per troll head.

Golthek

Pell the Exiled wants to remove Gelka the priestess as the leader of the tribe, but he fears Gelka’s power. So, he wants to group up with adventurers willing to support a coup.

Room Audits

The text specifies that 50% of the mundane doors are stuck, so we pre-roll all of them and annotate the map.

The text includes monster stat blocks (which is awesome), but does not include some of their very important details. Notably, movement speed is missing from all monsters (which is very relevant to grid-based combat), and none of the special abilities are defined. For example, on page 13, room 2:

Stirges (6) (AC 7[12], HD 1* (4hp), Att 1d3 + bloodsucking)

All of the HP listed in stat lines are from the author taking the average HP (4.5 • HD rounded down), so this does not provide information. Other modules will say something like HD 1* (7, 1, 8, 1, 7, 6). This saves the GM time rolling for HP, and if they want to use average values in lieu of rolling, the formula is easy. I think rolled HP values are a fun part of gameplay, so I use them.

I also don’t have all of the monster manual special abilities memorized! For instance, did you know that a stirge’s first attack is +2 to hit, and that once they hit they attach and do an automatic 1d3 damage per round?

Likewise the troll encounter on page 11 lists:

Troll (AC 4[15], HD 6+3 (30hp), Att 2 x talon(1d6), 1 x bite(1d10), THACO 13[+6], ML 10(8 fear of fire))

Compare that to the actual entry for a troll. Left out is the regeneration ability, the note that damage dealt by fire or acid can’t be regenerated, that “fear of fire” is also triggered by acid, and that trolls will rise in 2d6 rounds after being slain.

There’s enough left out of the stat blocks that I spot-checked that I don’t trust the stat blocks and instead will just run the creatures out of the monster manual. Since that’s the case, the in-line stat blocks become wasted space/distracting.

Karn Buldahr

I find the way this is described to be confusing. We get a map of the city with numbered locations, but it’s not clear to me what the intended play is here. If D&D is always a conversation, then what does the conversation of exploring a small town like this look like? It seems ridiculous to say

You arrive in Karn Buldahr. The notable points of interest are the Travelers Inn, the Stables, the Diamond Djinni’s Tavern, the Guard Barracks, Umberdor’s General Store & Outfitters, Crafters Quarter, Outdoor Market, The Pavilion, The Temple/Library, The Western & Eastern Gates, Myrya Cadreth the Mage, Clan Hall, and Leatherworks.

That’s far too big of an info dump. Likewise, it seems too open-ended to say

You Arrive in Karn Buldahr. It’s a dwarven artisan town with a population of about 400. Most of your staples are here. What do you want to do?

My preferred way this works is to create a web of connections like in the Black Wyrm of Brandonsford. We pick somewhere they more or less have to go, like the Inn. The Inn points them to other locations, which points them to other locations and so on. Here’s a good way (thanks mermaid.live)

The text gives us what is essentially boxed text:

On the southern slopes of Mount Serjili sits the walled town of Karn Buldahr. With a population of over 400 dwarves, it is a busy place where on most days the streets are bustling with its citizens going about their various business. Over the clamor coming from the blacksmith in the Crafters Quarter and the hagglers in the marketplace, the rushing waters of the Amethyst River flows under stone bridges, through the canal bisecting the town. Above the gates, stout guards keep watch for approaching trouble.

When the approach the town, that’s what they get, in addition to the Inn that sits just outside the west gate (the one they’ll use). That gives them 4 points of interest to investigate: the Inn, Crafters Quarter, Market, and Barracks.

We have Vander Bandurfist at the Inn point the PCs to the Stables, Market, General Store, and Diamond Djinni Tavern.

The Diamond Djinni Tavern has Guards talking about their Captain’s Troll bounty, patrons discussing the performances at the Pavilion, people leaving for the Airing of the Grievances, and the Kraghorn the Innkeeper pointing out Bulgrun with the treasure map.

Udlad Molviggi lets the players know that she’ll pay 200g per troll head. At the Temple/Library, Myrya Cadreth the Mage will be doing research, citizens will be airing their grievances about the leatherworks, and Gravek will be delivering a sermon on the strange lights at the tower of the builders.

The other thing to hash out is equipment and services availability. We can use my (adapted from ACKS) economy tables at their defaults. Numbers apply for both buying and selling.

Monthly Availability of Goods

• 1g or less: 10

• 2g-10g: 1

• 11g-100g: 10% to have 1

• 101g-1000g: 5% to have 1

• 1001-10000g: 1% to have 1

Spellcasting Services Per Day

• Divine 1st (10g): 5

• Divine 2nd (40g): 1

• Arcane 1st (5g): 1

• Arcane 2nd (20g): 1

Shrine on the Lake

• The door to #5 is locked, but I don’t see any keys detailed. I assume that there isn’t one. 1 turn and 2 encounter checks to bash down a door.

• The sword+1 in #5 needs a description. Let’s use d4 caltops magic swords and say that the hilt secretes sap.

• The false wall in #9 needs a tell, which is that the stone looks slightly newer than the rest.

• The trap in #11 needs a tell, which is that the floor is slightly uneven.

Mount Kozengi Ruins

This is odd:

The entrance to the dungeon is a 5’ square opening in one of the foundations which is covered by brambles. Roll on the wandering monster table as the players search for it.

How do you actually play this? OSE has search rules, but those apply to 10x10’ squares. There’s no map of the entrance with the brambles, so this would presumably all be theater of mind. The GM might describe:

Ruins can be distinguished from the boulders and rocks. All that remains here of some ancient building are some partially standing stone walls and foundations, perhaps a ruined temple.

But then, the players just… leave? There’s not anything for them to interact with. If we add: “Some sections of the floor are obscured by bramble”, then that gives the players something to latch on to. “Oh, what’s under the bramble? Let’s clear that away”. But also now that’s literally the only way in, which violates the three clue rule.

Fortunately for me, I’m starting the game at Mount Kozengi Ruins, and so the opening scene can be me narrating a lucky player removing brambles to find the entrance, sidestepping the problem.

• In #1, the room description includes “There are 2 Doors east and south”. There are a lot of rooms with doors, and almost none of them explicitly call out the existence of mundane doors. This feels like padding that can be cut. Definitely don’t bold it.

• In #1, there are Stirges clinging to the ceiling. Players get any non-hidden information for free when moving at exploration speed, and things on the floor, wall, and ceiling are all free. If you make players say “I look at the ceiling” in every room they enter (and punish them with surprise stirges if they dont), you invite madness.

• In #1, it specifies that the large orange gem encrusted in the stirge guano is not easily noticed. What does this mean in practice? OSE doesn’t have perception checks, so either things are noticed without interaction or they must be searched for. The in-between here is the Matryoshka Search Technique. Rather than saying “You see a large orange gem encrusted in stirge guano”, or “The floor is caked in stirge guano”, we can say “The floor is caked in stirge guano; it’s mostly level but with some discernible lumps”. Now, there’s something to interact with, and they can choose to dig into the poop or not.

• In #2, there is a marking for where pit to #12 is, but #12 does not have a marking for where the opening in the ceiling is.

• In #3, we get this:

A large room with runes inscribed on the far wall. […]

Runes: The runes on the wall are a phrase that must be spoken to open a magically sealed door to room 17, but they must be spoken underwater. Can only be read with a read languages spell or underwater, in the dark, with infravision.

What’s the phrase? Does the door refer to the secret door marked S on the map? If so, seems way more interesting to make that not secret door, just an obviously magically sealed one. Might as well allow wizards to cast knock.

Let’s make the phrase. ChatGPT recommends “Aqua apertio ad tenebras”, which is latin for “Water opens the way to darkness”, which I think is really cool.

• In #4, we specify that there are 4 exits to the N, S, E, W. This is padding! Cut it, and include more monster stats! It’s on the map!

• In #5, there’s no tell or mechanism for the trap. Let’s say that there’s a carved, deep-set line from the door to the ceiling. Inside is a wire that can be cut to disable the trap.

• #9 provides a great demonstration of a secret door. You have a normal door covered in red lichen. The players can be like “oh what’s behind the lichen” and find a door.

• The shield+1 in #10 needs a description. From d4 caltrops, how about “Fashioned from cloudy green glass, can shed sharp shards as caltrops once a week that it regrows”. We want a command word for that, so how about “Fragor”; latin for “crash” or “shatter”.

• #11 has more mundane door description filler.

• #12 has a redundant map description “two passages lead to this room from doors leading from 11 and 14”. Useless. Mark it out.

  • The trap for door a needs a tell, which i that the wall has been bored with 2 angled 1” holes (angled toward the space in front of the door).

• #13 has more door filler.

• #14 has more play-by-plays of the map “The long hall has 4 doors, 2 along each side. The hall dead ends 20 or so feet past the furthest door on the western end” is just describing the map in plain english without helping the mapper place the doors. Not evocative in any way. Cut it. Move the description of the plastered western wall (which conceals a secret door) up to the top.

  • The stat line for Giant Rats wrote HD but forgot to include a number. Giant rats have 1/2 HD. We can pre-roll: [3, 3, 1, 4, 4, 1, 4, 4].

• The sword+1 in #18 needs a description. From d4 caltrops, “blade is especially shiny; reflects nothing.”

  • Let’s make the vault openable with an orange gem of power just to hammer that home. Seems better than another lock without a key that the thief has to roll to pick.

Ruins of Forgel’s Peak

Here’s a pet peeve:

Though it is uncertain, explorers of the ruins believe the builders may have used it as a rite of passage or kind of trial of willpower due to the demonic imagery found in the statue hall.

Who is the author talking to here? If this is something that the GM is supposed to convey to the players, it would be much better to have this be a rumor in one of the towns (if that’s where they’re talking to the explorers). If the author is talking to the GM, just tell me what the truth is. Compare:

The ruins were originally used as a rite of passage by The Builders. Modern explorers speculate this is the case due to the demonic imagery found in the statue hall (#3). See Explorers of Forgel’s Peak, Karn Buldahr, p10.

This is the first dungeon that mentions that there are Brigands here. Are these Silveraxe Brigands (probably)? Why not say so? Inferencing is work!

• “There are 2 entrances that can be used to enter the ruins, east and west”. Cut this; it’s on the map.

• In #1, “2 Doors ot the E and S and the stair leading up and out”. Cut this.

  • The bit about being able to see the light and hear the brigand voices from #5 is great room isolation. We want everything we need to run a room to be in the room, and stuff like that helps a ton.

• In #2, “Doors are east and west”. Cut this.

  • The goblin corpses are a great detail for what is otherwise an empty room. I’d appreciate a GM note that says “Slain by the Brigands from #4” or similar.

• In #4, “Door to the west, opposite the entrance, and a passage down a stairway to the south end of the room”. Cut!

• In #5, “Brigands are here discussing something about orders from the upper ranks”. What are they discussing? Compare this to “Brigands are here discussing their annoyance at Duard making them scour this creepy shithole for loot”. Roughly the same number of words, way more interesting/game-able, way easier on the GM.

  • The chain+1 and shield+1 both need descriptions. More d4 caltrops! Let’s say the armor is decorated with bloodshot eyes, and the wearer can skip 3 days of sleep per month. The Shield can be well polished, with an icon of a fairy. A brownie lives in the shield and comes out to polish it each night.

• In #7, “The room is quite large (70’ x 60’ running east to west)” - Cut! “At either end are doors” Cut!

• In #8, the secret door is never described. Let’s say that it’s an illusory wall (dark souls style, my favorite default), and that they can hear the chittering of the beetles beyond it.

  • The ring of protection +1 needs a description. We’ll say it’s “shimmering, silvery, rune-carved”.

Forgel’s End

• In #1, “There is a door on the far wall”. Cut!

• In #2, We can cut this entire description except “wood beam archway”.

  • In the bullet, “had a cave in at some point” - we can cut “at some point” - it’s filler. As for “now there is no way to proceed”; the PCs can’t excavate? Of course they can!

• In #3, “There is a small tunnel dug by the ants. It must have partially collapsed but is easily opened again.”, Author, do you not know? Either that’s what happened or that’s not what happened. Pick one! Just tell me that it collapsed! Compare: “There is a small, partially collapsed tunnel dug by the ants. It is easily opened again.”

  • How easy are we talking here? Be specific! “It can be opened with a turn of excavation.”

  • #5 mentions that the Troglodytes might hide and wait for an opening to third-party the players (presumably in Room 3). That means this information needs to be duplicated into this room.

• In #5, the text mentions “The Trogs are trying to avoid confrontation with the ants in #3. They will wait until hiding until the players have handled them…” Where are they hiding? This is a blank room!

• In #6, the text mentions “the ladder descends into the natural cavern below”. What ladder? Need to add one to the map.

• In #10, what are we gaining by not mentioning that the corpse is Forgel? Include a note! Don’t make me infer!

The Vaults

• The callout that the secret doors are hidden by moss (rather than intentionally hidden), and that you can see the doors behind some scratched away moss. This is great!

• The Spear+2 in #2 needs a description. “Medusa motifs. Bearer can resist petrification 3 times.”

• In #6, we’re given context on the brigands. This is great! It specifies that these Brigands were sent by Duard (unlike the brigands in Forgel’s Peak). More of this!

• In #9, a Staff of Commanding isn’t an item, it’s a category. In that category, there is Staff of Commanding Animals, Staff of Commanding Humans, and Staff of Commanding Plants. Additionally, per the staff rules, it comes with 3d10 charges unless noted. We pre-roll that and get 17. It also needs a description. Let’s say its a Staff of Command Plants that ends in a twisted weave with a green gem inside.

Labyrinth of Shadows

Entering the Labyrinth is considered by most to be a death sentence.

Who tells the players this? Is it common knowledge? If this information is supposed to be imparted, then it needs to be located in the book section where the players could learn it, ie rumor tables or part of the entries in a town.

There is a 3-in-6 chance of becoming lost while traveling through the labyrinth. That is, unless you can find a guide. Movement through the Labyrinth is also very slow and is equivalent to jungle terrain.

3-in-6 is already the chance to get lost in a jungle! This could use pointer to where the players could find a guide. There’s a rumor on p36 in Ryo Taesi that says “The elves of the Tree know how to navigate the Labyrinth without becoming lost. The spirits guide them.” Also, rather than specify “equivalent to jungle terrain”, and then make the GM look up the rules for jungle terrain, I think we can safely say “movement is 50% slower”.

Finally, we’re switching audiences here. We say “unless you can find a guide”. The GM doesn’t need a guide; the players do. Later, we use the phrasing “as the players set out to travel” rather than “as you set out to travel”. To maintain consistency, the audience for a module is the GM, who can then be told about information they can impart to the players.

As the players travel through the Labyrinth, they will come across various forest features and locations. Unfortunately for the players, due to the mysterious nature for which the Labyrinth gets its name, these features can’t be navigated by. In fact, they may seem to be in different places from time to time altogether.

As the players set out to travel each day, roll or choose from the list of possible locations they will encounter for the day.

I’m having a tough time interpreting the procedure here. The fictional situation is easy enough to imagine; it’s basically the lost woods from ocarina of time.

What’s going on mechanically? According to the map, the Tower of the Builders is 1 hex away from the forest’s edge in almost all places. It feels like they’d spend one day (and thus one hex) max having a chance to get lost, and a lot of groups can just go straight to the tower without issue.

In terms of actually running the module, I think we can just say that we’re rolling a d6 for hex description every time they enter a hex in the Labyrinth. This might give us repeats, and that’s totally okay (makes it eerie).

Tower the of the Builders

The area may have undead patrolling.

Why “may”? Under what circumstances would there not be undead patrolling?

If elves are encountered, they may be infiltrating the tower or escaping it.

That’s not my job! That’s your job! Decide, as the module designer, whether it’s more interesting that when the players approach the tower that elves are infiltrating or escaping, and write that down. If you want it to keep both, here’s how Xyntillan would handle it: “If elves are encountered, there’s a 3-in-6 they’re infiltrating the tower, otherwise they’re escaping it”.

Zooming out, if the intention here is that the players have the potential to interact with the elves in some way, it would be great to flesh this out. What’s the leader’s name? Do they want help? What can they offer? If they’re escaping the tower, is anything chasing them? How do they reward players that guard their retreat?

• The door description in #1 is very evocative. “When approached, the door opens automatically, rearranging pieces of itself away from its center to reveal #2. It closes itself again.” This is a great example of conceptual density.

• In #2, “In the central part of this room, there are 2 stairways that go up to the 2nd floor. 4 Doors lead to other rooms. Through the hall to the south, around a few turns, another stairway leads to a door(21).” This is a dry description of the map. Cut it!

  • After cuts, this room description becomes “Ghouls (3) roam the halls of this first floor. There are marble pillars with unlit torch sconces.”

• In #5, the Sword+2 (charm person) needs a description. The trunk has elven motifs, so how about “Elegant wooden handle, shimmering, rune-etched blade.” And then note that the wood is from the great tree Ilex in Ryo Teasi, and would be recognized by the Elves

• In #6, we get “This room was the sleeping quarters to one of the elves”. Are they alive? What was their name? Can they be found in Ryo Taesi? This is a great opportunity to create a hook. Same deal in #6. Did the steward make it out and back to Ryo Taesi?

• In #9, it states “This room contained food stores at one time, but the Silveraxe rummaged through the entire cache and depleted it to just a few rations first.” They must have done this before being turned into undead. Makes the timeline for taking the tower a little more clear.

• In #13, both the axe +2 (silvered) and chainmail+2 need descriptions. Additionally, “Axe” isn’t a weapon in OSE. It’s split into Battle Axe (1d8, two-handed) and “Hand Axe” (1d6, throwable). As far as I can tell, there are no pictures of Duard, but given the lack of shield I’m guessing this is meant to be a big ol’ Battle Axe. We’ll give it d10 damage to make it on-par with a 2h sword. How about:

  • Silveraxe (Axe +2, silvered) (1d10 base damage). Rune-etched blade set on an pristine, ebony haft. Draws in light.

  • Chain+2. Matte finish. Chains do not clink.

• In #14, “This room has two apparent passages; the stairway up to the west and a tunnel breaking through the east alcove". Cut!

  • “At one time there were three statues here, but all that remains is the statue in the north above - the others were destroyed”. Looking at the map, it seems like the other two destroyed statues are to the south and to the east. Generally, we want to move irrelevant-to-play information into GM-asides and focus on player-relevant information. The relevant information here is that there’s a statue to the north, and statue-rubble to the south and east.

    • The notes “a statue of a monstrous snake fighting with a tusked catlike creature” as the remaining statue. This is a pattern break. The other statues in the module so far have all been related to the builders. A note talking about why this one is different would be helpful.

• In #16, “There is a tunnel to the north and a door on the south wall.” Cut!

• In #17, “There is a single door to the east of the room”. Cut!

• In #18, “There are two pillars to each side of the platform. There are two doors along the south wall and one on the north end of the west wall.” Cut!

• In #21, “There are doors at either end of the long L-shaped hallway”. Cut!

• In #22, “There is a door on the south end of the room.” Cut!

  • In describing the secret passage, the text says “One part of the wall is slightly discolored. Looking closer, a character might notice a thin outline of the door” (emphasis mine). Is the intention to call for a roll here? If not, cut “might”. If so, specify that. More clear is “A character that looks closer notices a thin outline of a door.”

• In #23, “There are three doors in this room on the north, west, and south side.” Cut!

• In the boxed text, the author describes “but will come to this level and attack if a character finds themselves in #24 (the holding pen) or #25 (the arena).” These names for rooms are massively helpful. I would not have realized that #24 was a holding pen had it not been specified here. In general, room names convey a lot of information for a small amount of text. We could easily give every room in the module a name after cutting all of the describing-the-map fluff.

• In #24 and #25, the author specifies that the Rhadodessa arrives in 1d3 rounds. This doesn’t matter; we’re in exploration mode, so we track time in turns. If we want to specify that the players notice that a creature is on the way to attack them and start initiative, then that’s valuable.

• In #25, “It would be worth 3000g to the right buyer”. This is a pet peeve of mine. Is there such a buyer in the Gemstone Wilderness? If so, specify that! If not, specify that!

• In #26, “There are 2 doors(north and northeast)”. Cut!

• In #27, “There are 3 doors in this room (north, south, and east), and a passageway that has a set of stairs down to the SW.” Cut!

• In #28, “A 40’ hall with a door at either end”. Cut!

• In #29(b), we have the same “might notice” verbiage from #22 (like literally copy+pasted). Same thing applies.

• In #29(c&d), we’re given two elves with names specified(!!!). They have motivations and obstacles. Ayyyyyyy. “Both elves are weak from starvation and will slow the party down until they can recover, should they choose to rescue them”. What makes them recover, and how much do they slow the party down? Compare “They have an exploration speed of 30ft until they’ve had a meal and a full day’s rest.”

• In #30, “The stairs descend into the center of a 30’ by 50’ room. There are doors on the east and west walls and a burrowed tunnel through the north wall.” Cut!

  • The flagstone needs a tell. Let’s say that it squeaks when prodded.

• In #32, the plate+2, shield+1, and ring of protection+1 need a description.

  • Plate+2: Light green tint. Elven leaf pattern.

  • Shield+1: Dark wood. Golden elven script.

  • Ring of Protection+1: Rough-hewn stone, earthy, solid feel.

• In #33, the secret door needs a tell. Additionally, the secret tunnel’s exit to the surface needs to be discoverable from the surface, and a reference to it needs to be included in the surface overview. The easiest way to do this to automatically have the players find the cave entrance if they bother to search the perimeter (in exchange for time and random encounter checks). Agency!

Zalante’s Tower

This occupies an awkward spot. We’re given a keyed map, but there’s effectively nothing to explore, so it feels like it makes way more sense to run this (and structure the text) as theater of mind. I appreciate how each of his findings has been separated out into its own digestible block. That helps the GM figure out how much info Zalante gives out, and structures what he knows.

I enjoy GMing in a high-information style (no agency without information), so I think for a scene like this, they’d receive all of these if they were polite and interested.

Ryo Taesi

We get a map and key, similar to Karn Buldahr, this one with 4 locations. It’s still hard for me to imagine how the map gets used in play. Compare to Brandonsford, which describes the titular town without a map and does not struggle at all.

The page includes 4 Rumors, but does not include a procedure that guides the GM on how many rumors the players should receive, or any indication of who knows what.

Notes:

• The 20 elves don’t have a stat block, and their name isn’t bolded like the rest of the combatants in the book. I think it’s fair to assume it’s the default elf block but with a shield (and so +1 AC).

• The muscali wine is described as “somewhat euphoric”. Does this have any intended mechanical effects, or is it just flavor? If so, it would be nice to specify them.

• In the rumor section, we get “Jorthon, heir to Korthabien (the leader of Ryo Taesi who has recently fallen ill), is looking for a remedy to heal his father’s sickness. It takes the glowing thorax of a fire beetle - preferably one that still glows.

  • How long does a thorax of a fire beetle glow for?

  • What will Jorthon offer the players in exchange for a glowing fire beetle thorax? One that has extinguished?

  • We have the space to answer these questions in the text if we cut the map!

  • I think we disambiguate. It has to be a glowing thorax, and let’s say it’ll glow for 48h after death. In exchange, Jorthon will offer up to 5 of the Elfs as hirelings for a month, no pay required (but they still get a half-share of XP).

Temple Ruins on the Bluff

• In #2, “The stairs descend into a large room with three doors (east, west, and south). Cut!

• In #3, we’re instructed to have the cleric play a game of Druzza (ancient chess) against a magical projection. The way they play this is to “succeed on 3 WIS ability checks vs the opponent (Wisdom score of 13)”. It’s unclear to me what this means; OSE does not define opposed checks. A couple of ways jump out at me:

  • Have each contestant roll a d20 vs their wisdom. The one that rolls the most under their score wins. Best 2 out of 3. For example, a cleric with a WIS of 15 rolls a 9 (they rolled under by 6) loses the round to the projection who rolls a 5 (they rolled under by 8). Roll again on a tie.

  • Have each contestant roll a wisdom check (d20 <= wisdom). If they both succeed or both fail, roll again. If only one succeeds, they win that round. Best 2 of out 3.

  • I suggest the version where no one has to calculate margins of success. It’s more rolling, and so more dramatic.

• In #3, we’re told that we can get a key to #15. We verify that #15 specifies that the key can be found in room #3. It doesn’t! So we add it.

  • We’re told “a magical projection of a humanoid” appears. This is as vague as possible! How about a brief description? Let’s go with “portly friar with twinkling eyes”.

• The trap in #4 needs a tell. We’ll say that this particular flagstone is covered in algae (because it’s being avoided).

• In #5, “There are doors at the N end of the room and the E.” Cut!

• In #6, “There are doors on the west and south walls.” Cut!

  • The leather armor+1 needs to be described. We go with “Patchwork of different leathers, surprisingly cohesive".

• In #7, “There are tunnels on the north and south”. Cut!

• In #8, “Bugbears(3) are standing around admiring this awesome shiny sword Zork just found”. Who is Zork? This is the only reference in the book to the word “Zork”, so I think it’s safe to infer that it’s one of the Bugbears. Say that! As far as I can tell, this is the only instance where a monster that would have a name is given one, so it’s a jarring pattern-break. I’d either cut the name (implies that bugbears have names like Zork in the setting) or elaborate “Bugbears(3) are standing around admiring a shiny sword+1 that their leader, Zork, just found.”

  • The sword+1 needs a description: “Sapphire-embedded crossguard, shimmering edge”.

  • We also get “There are 3 doors in this room on the east, west, and south walls. A stairway going up is also on the west side of the room.” Cut!
    

• In #9, “There are 2 doors at each end of this 50’ hall with a branching hall to the west that dead ends.” Cut!

  • We’re instructed “Upon forcing the door open by kicking, shouldering, or using their own mass thrown against it, the character must save or fall into the crevasse”. OSE has specific saves, unlike swords and wizardry. It’s worth specifying which save. Also, were the character to fall into the crevasse, we need to know (in this room description) how deep it is. It looks like the pit is in room 13, and checking the description there we get “At the east side of the room, the floor has collapsed into a seemingly bottomless pit.”
    
    Is it bottomless or not? In bottomless pits, you die from starvation. In ten-thousand-foot-deep-pits, you die from impact in a few minutes and a wizard with fly can recover your body. It matters! Let’s go with 1000ft deep pit.
    
    So this seems like a save vs unrecoverable death (much worse than just getting stabbed to death) and all of your loot is lost with you, with zero telegraph. This will be the like 30th door that players force open, so it feels super lame. I’d just cut this completely, and describe the player balancing on the precipice looking into the abyss holding on to the door knob for their life.

• In #12, the italics get funky. The pattern through the rest of the book is that the monster stat line (everything in the parens) is in italics. I think the italics should continue until “1d3 rounds”.

• In #13, the chainmail (cursed) and mace+1 need descriptions. We can also cut the weasel wording “a player may notice a slight breeze” in relation to the secret door.

  • Chainmail (cursed): Glowing faintly red. Ominous aura.

  • Mace+1: Brass finish. Brass finish, intricately patterned grip.

• In #14, “There are 2 doors here; northwest and southeast.” Cut!

• In #15, we need to reference that they “special key” is from winning the Druzza game in #3.

  • “The projection (#3) appears here and grants the cleric with a new spell of appropriate level”. Clerics have no need to learn (or be granted) spells! Let’s instead have the projection grant the cleric an icon that can cast Bless once a week. Command word: Benedictio (latin for blessing).

Hsokren Ruins

• "In the APPROACH section, “A keen adventurer may notice book tracks following the trail”. Which adventurers are keen? Under which circumstances do keen adventurers notice the tracks? I’d cut the uncertainty and qualifiers and say “Boot tracks follow the trail.” The text mentions that Brigands patrol a mile out. I think it’s fair to infer that these folks are the ones making the tracks. Are these Duard’s men? If so, mention that!

• In #1, specify that the Brigands are Duard’s men (if they are). As a bonus, are any of these Brigands a leader, or are these folks leaderless? That’s a good way to make the negotiations more concrete, introduce a name, and give players some agency in a potential combat (go for the leader or take out the cronies is more interesting than 8 identical bandits).

• In #2, the archway trap needs a mechanism and tell. Here’s GPT to the rescue. The stone block is triggered by a tripwire, given away by disturbed dust near the base.

• In #4, The tell can be that there are scratches (like those near the keyhole of a car) on the scabbard.

• In #5, “This hall is long and has a few exits and turns. See map.”. buahahahahha he just gave up.

• In #6, the Gauntlets of Ogre Power and Ring of Protection+1 both need descriptions.

  • Gauntlets of Ogre Power: Rugged, oversized with reinforced knuckles.

  • Ring of Protection+1: Ancient bronze, hieroglyphs circling the band.

• In #7, the magic items need a description:

  • Dagger+1: Blood groove, glows under moonlight.

  • Battle Axe+1 (+3 vs regenerating creatures): Trollbane. Heavy iron, inscribed with anti-regeneration sigils.

• In #11, “At the far end, down a set of steps, there are 3 doors (north, north-west, and northeast).” Cut!

• In #13, we get a couple of pattern breaks. First, in the rest of the rooms when there’s a trap, the word “trap” gets bolded. Not here. Second, the word “The” is bolded for some reason. Maybe the author meant to bold “Altar”?

  • We’re told “the altar here is imbued with the power of the builders. A magic-user or elven party member may be able to harness the power once.” Okay, how? Does this take a turn? How do they know they can harness it? Or more specifically, what does this look like from a player-facing perspective?

    • Let’s say that the altar is glyph-covered, and that there are insets for hands. The glyphs, swirl and shadows gather. If the player leaves their hands there, it automatically succeeds.

  • There’s a falling stone block above the door. What’s the tell and how much damage does it do? Unusual tension when opening door; 1d10 damage.

• In #14, “The walls of this room once had a mural painted on them, but due to the passing of ages, it has mostly faded”. This is fluff; replace with “The walls are covered by a mural that is time-faded past recognition”.

• In #15, it specifies that the crevasse “has no visible bottom”. Does it have a bottom? This matters since folks can recover loot with the fly spell. Let’s say it’s a 100ft pit.

• In #16, “The wall in this spot is uneven. The stone looks to have been laid hastily.” So… is it mortared? How do the PCs get through the unevenly laid stone? Let’s say that it’s just blocked by a pile of laid stone, and players can sort of just knock it over or pull it out.

• In #18, is praying at non-descript stone daises something that cleric players normally do? A better telegraph here would be good. The ring of invisibility and plate+1 both need descriptions:

  • Ring of Invisibility: Slim silver band, vanishes when worn. Command word: Evanescere (latin for “to vanish”)

  • Plate+1: Royal blue, with golden trim.

• In #19, “There is one door". Cut!

• In #20, The text “20. The 30' x 30' room is empty except” is completely covered up by the art. You can read it by selecting it in the PDF, but it doesn’t show up at all in print. Notably, this is only a problem with “v2” of the module.
  
  The pit trap needs a tell. We’re going to go with “subtle depression”.

• In #22, the dagger+1 needs a description.

  • Dagger+1: Curved, with a blue steel finish.

Golothakk

The only thing that sticks out here is that Pell could really use a stat line. The appendix includes a default Golthek block, so let’s make Pell a better version of that.

Pell. AC 16, HD 5+1, +5 → Trident (2d6). MV 30, ML 9.

Torthan’s Tomb

• In #2, we get more seemingly-bottomless chasms. It’s either bottomless or not! Let’s say this one is 150ft.
  
  ”Past the bridge, there is a door at the end of the cavern”. Cut!
  
  ”The bridge is very old but looks fairly sturdy and has been reinforced numerous times. However, there is a 5% chance a wood plank may break underfoot.” So the players cross the bridge. You roll a 1-in-20 and get a 1. Does the plank break or not? The text says it may break. Are further rolls required, or should the text be “There is a 5% chance that a wood plank breaks underfoot”?
  
  Then, after a plank breaks, what happens? Does the character fall to their starvation because this is a seemingly bottomless pit? Do they get a chance to save? Is it just flavor to put the players on edge? Write out what’s in your head!
  
  A bridge that has a mechanic which is only relevant in~10% (because they go back and forth) of playthroughs seems weird to me. I think it’s better to jack up the chance to 4-in-6, but make the break harmless; just for narrative tension.

• In #3, the bow+1 needs a description. Additionally, OSE differentiates between short bows and long bows. Let’s go with short bow (more of an adventuring weapon).

  • Short Bow+1: Frost-touched maple, cool to touch.

• In #4, the spear trap needs a tell and mechanism. Tampering around doorframe and tension on the door.

Appendix

• In the Crystals of Power section, we get “There may be mechanisms within dungeons that use the power of the crystals to operate”. There is no need for ambiguity! There are definitely mechanisms within the dungeons that use the crystals to operate. You don’t need to keep me, the GM, in suspense! Better is to explicitly list them.

  • The mouth in #9 of Forgel’s Peak

  • The vault door (#3) of The Vaults

  • As a gamble in the game of Druzza (#3) in the Temple Ruins on the Bluff.

  • Locations:

    • 4x on the corpse of forgel in forgels end (#10)

    • On the statue of the builder in #9 of The Vaults

    • In the face of the cyclopean statue standing in #12 of the Hsokren Ruins

• In Balgrun’s Treasure Map, we get “perhaps Bulgrun can be convinced to

  part with it”. It would be good to specify what sort of convincing Bulgrun is open to. Can it be bought? How much? Let’s go with 50g. That’s about 6 months earnings for Bulgrun.

Bestiary

The only real comment I have (and this is a pet peeve of OSE and BX in general) is that often monster abilities do not list (and thus ask for the GM to make an on-the-fly-ruling) what sort of action it is. For instance, check out the vampire.

Change form: At will; takes 1 round
…
Summon beasts: In human form only. Creatures from the surrounding area: 1d10 × 10 rats, 5d4 giant rats, 1d10 × 10 bats, 3d6 giant bats, 3d6 wolves, or 2d4 dire wolves.

We’re explicitly told that changing form takes 1 round, but not told whether they’re summoning beasts uses up their movement, their attack, or both (like changing form). Casting spells uses both (you can’t move and cast), does summoning beasts?

Relevant to this module, we have Duard’s Shadow-walk. Does this ability take a full turn? Just his movement? I’d hazard that letting him shadow-walk and attack in the same round is a little strong; he’d obliterate the back line with little counterplay. I also recommend giving Duard a bow (he seems built to do hit-and-runs).

Hex Map

The hiking map is really cool; I wouldn’t mind this becoming more standard. I dislike the numbering though. I ended up going through and labeling each hex by hand because I was frustrated by trying to do these diagonal shenanigans.

Bespoke Mechanics

There’s only a couple that I noticed.

Hunting

As it stands, it asks the GM to make a judgment call about whether or not a particular animal is “scant”, “fair” or “bounty”. I don’t know why we’re doing this. It feels like we could have condensed this into a single 3-column table, with the author making the call about how many rations each thing is worth. For example:

| d6  | Quarry          | Rations Per |
| --- | --------------- | ----------- |
| 1   | 1d4 Crab Spider | 1d4         |
| 2   | 1d6 Boar        | 2d6         |
| 3   | 1d8 Mule        | 2d6         |
| 4   | 1d4 Wolf        | 2d6         |
| 5   | 1d4 Black Bear  | 4d6         |
| 6   | 3d10 Antelope   | 4d6         | 

Weather

I find the specification that the precipitation and storms last for a number of hours (and that this is doubled by a weather change) to be odd. In the wilderness, we don’t normally track time by hours; it’s also just not how granular I want to get with my weather. I’d simplify:

| d8  | Weather                    |
| --- | -------------------------- |
| 1   | Storm                      |
| 2-3 | Precip, or Storm if Precip |
| 4-8 | Normal                     | 

This is a slight modification of the weather system used in mythic bastionland, using a d8 instead of a d6. I like it a lot, and it’s what I use in my home games.

Does the Key Match the Map?

The technical accuracy is very high here. My only complaint about dungeon maps is that staircases and level-shifts in general don’t detail which room they lead to on the map, but normally that information is in the key.

Connectiveness

The amount of breadcrumbs are relatively low. Clues:

• Vaults (D5)

  • Stone Map

• Tower Silveraxe

  • The module in general

• Amethyst Lake Ranch

  • Karn Buldahr rumor

• Shrine on the Lake

  • Taggart’s quest from Amethyst Lake Ranch

• Forgel’s End

  • Starting Rumor

I think the intention for the rest of the locations is that players will wander around on roads and bump into them. I think that’s totally fine for a hex crawl (which is one of the benefits of the hex crawl format).

Treasure

Here’s a an itemized list (not including my suggested adjustments):

• An unspecified bounty on troll heads in Karn Buldahr

• 2000g from Taggart at the Ranch for driving off the Troll

• 3000g from Taggart for retrieving his locket

• Shrine

  • Potion of Healing (#5)

  • Two-handed Sword+1 (#5)

  • 20g (#6)

  • Leather+1 (#6)

  • 50g (#9)

  • Scroll (cure light wounds, shield) (#9)

  • 120g (#11)

  • Helm of Telepathy (#11)

• Mount Kozengi Ruins

  • Power Crystal (1000g) (#1)

  • 50g (#7)

  • Shield+1 (#10)

  • 340g (#12)

  • Scroll of protection from undead (#12)

  • 90g (#14)

  • 500g (#15)

  • 3800g (#18)

  • sword+1 (#18)

• Ruins of Forgel’s Peak

  • 10g (#4)

  • chain+1, shield+1 (#5)

  • 65g (#5)

  • 1150g (#7)

  • Ring of Protection +1 (#8)

  • 4000g of Power Crystals (#10)

  • 17710g (#10) !!!

• The Vaults

  • 7000g (#2)

  • Spear+2 (#3)

  • Staff of Commanding (plants?) (#8)

  • 1000g Power Crystal (#9)

• Tower of the Builders

  • 1920g (#2)

  • 100g (#5)

  • Sword+2 (charm person) (#5)

  • Elven Cloak and Boots (#7)

  • 100g (#10)

  • Ring of Fire Resistance (#10)

  • Scroll (shield, knock, hold portal) (#11)

  • Battle Axe +2 (silvered) (#13)

  • Chain+2 (#13)

  • 230g (#18)

  • 3000g (#25)

  • 150g (#27)

  • 640g (#28)

  • 8050g (#32)

  • Plate+2 (#32)

  • Shield+1 (#32)

  • Potion of Invisibility (#32)

  • Ring of Protection +1 (#32)

  • Scroll of Floating Disc (#32)

• Temple Ruins on the Bluff

  • 50g (#6)

  • Leather+1 (#6)

  • 110g (#7)

  • 2600g (#8)

  • Sword+1 (#8)

  • Scroll of Protection From Undead (#8)

  • Potion of Healing (#9)

  • Potion of Levitation (#9)

  • 220g (#11)

  • 50g (#12)

  • crystal ball (clairaudience) (#12)

  • mace+1 (#13)

  • 1000g (#13)

  • 1000g Power Crystal (#13)

• Hsokren Ruins

  • 450g (#2)

  • 2125g (#3)

  • Gauntlets of Ogre Power (#6)

  • Ring of Protection+1 (#6)

  • Dagger+1 (#7)

  • Battle Axe +1 (+3 vs regen) (#7)

  • 50g (#8)

  • 1310g (#10)

  • 1000g Power Crystal (#12)

  • 2300g (#14)

  • 3200g (#18)

  • Ring of Invisibility (#18)

  • Plate+1 (#18)

  • 1480g (#19)

  • 1740g (#21)

  • Dagger+1 (#22)

• Golothakk

  • 2500g for the rescue of Fodric and Enz

• Torthan’s Tomb

  • Scroll (floating disc, ventriloquism) (#1)

  • 2020g (#3)

  • Bow+1 (#3)

  • 1660g (#5)

This sums to 80,960g in raw treasure, 29 permanent magic items, 10 one-time-use magic items. Based on my simulations 🤓 there’s around a 20% chance to get a magic item for every 2000xp earned, on average (so 1 magic item per 10k xp). We would expect to see ~10 total magic items if there’s also about 20k XP in monsters to slay (you normally want to aim for ~4g of loot for every 1xp of monsters guarding it), so this magic item count is way too high (like, 4x as many magic items as we should be getting).

100k xp gets a party of 5 fighters midway through level 5, so I think it’s a reasonable amount of loot.

In terms of the threat level, the module contains the following xp values from killed monsters (non-random only)

• Shrine on the Lake: 343xp

• Mount Kozengi Ruins: 268xp

• Ruins of Forgel’s Peak: 185xp

• Forgel’s End: 1315xp

• Tower of the Builders: 2440xp

• The Vaults: 250xp

• Temple Ruins on the Bluff: 530xp

• Hsokren Ruins: 930xp

• Torthan’s Tomb: 101xp

• Total: 6362

So, 6362 xp from monsters (as a way to measure how threat), with a reward of 81000xp worth of treasure, and ~40 magic items. There should be roughly triple the amount of monsters guarding this treasure, as far as I can tell. Were I to overhaul the module, I’d probably cut the amount of treasure by 1/3rd, so you end up with ~30k xp total, and then trim the amount of magic items from ~40 down to ~4-5.

Randomness

The module leans very little on randomness. All of the treasure values are specific and all of the keyed encounters have specific amounts of enemies. The only place we use randomness is in the random encounter tables. A++++.

Dungeon Loops

We care about loops because loops are a vehicle for agency. If there are two different ways to get from A to B, there must be a loop (they can take the first path from A to B, and then the second path from B to A).

• Shrine on the Lake: 2 loops, 11 areas (18%)

• Mount Kozengi Ruins: 4 loops, 18 areas (22%)

• Ruins of Forgel’s Peak: 2 loops, 9 areas (22%)

• Forgel’s End: 1 loop, 10 areas (10%)

• The Vault: 1 huge loop

• Tower of the Builders: 5 loops, 33 areas (15%)

• Temple Ruins on the Bluff: 3 loops, 15 areas (20%)

• Hsokren Ruins: 0 loops, 18 areas (0%)

• Torthan’s Tomb: 0 loops, 5 areas (0%)

Here’s a flowchart of the Tower:

Compare this to something like Hole in the Oak (9 loops, 50 areas, 20%) and most of the dungeons are doing fine. I’d consider adding some more routes in Hsokren Ruins, but we’re good otherwise.

Conclusion

There’s a lot of content here! I think this is a good base for vanilla fantasy, and it could have been much better if the author was more specific and evocative. I’d love named rooms, named NPCs, described magic items, and tells/mechanisms for traps. If you need more space to meet layout goals, I think art can be cut and all of the useless describing-the-map can likewise be cut.

There’s way too much treasure (though often difficult to carry around) and way, way too many magic items (none of which are evocative).

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[1]: Magic Item Descriptions: we’re going to need a lot of these. I have two suggestions here.

My main source is to search google for `site:https://blog.d4caltrops.com/ <query>`, so if I wanted a magic sword i’d search “site:https://blog.d4caltrops.com/ sword”. That brings up d100 magic swords and d100 tells for magic treasure which are both useful. Note, modern browsers let you alias this sort of search in the “site search” settings. For instance:

This is the URL. Then, you can type “d4 sword” into your browser bar and google will search ktrey’s whole site for you (including contents).

The other thing I use is ChatGPT4. If you specify exactly what you want, it’ll get you there. Here’s a good prompt:

give me a list of 10 physical descriptions for D&D plate+2 in 6 words or less. I don't need titles, just terse physical descriptions

It spits out:

• Gleaming silver with intricate golden runes

• Blackened steel, adorned with fiery gems

• Engraved mithril, ethereal blue glow

• Rust-red, dragon scale inlays

• Mirror-polished, reflecting otherworldly landscapes

• Dark iron, entwined with thorny vines

• Celestial motif, stars shimmering on surface

• Frost-covered, radiating a chilling aura

• Overgrown with ancient, magical ivy

• Storm-themed, crackling with lightning energy

Which is exactly what I’m looking for.