[Review] Incandescent Grottoes
Old School Essentials
A bubbling stream cascades into a hole in the earth, leading to a series of underground watercourses and scintillating grottoes. Adventurers who delve within may discover odd mosses and fungi, a ruined temple complex, and the lair of a crystal-eating dream dragon.
An adventure for characters of 1st-2nd level.
Author: Gavin Norman
Other reviews: ENWorld Play Report - Kapars, Bryce Lynch, Ben Milton, Stu Horvath, Timothy S. Brannan
Here’s my favorite blurb:
There isn’t a ton to write about, honestly.
-Stu Horvath, 2022-09-06
I have v1.3, so that’s what I’ll be reviewing!
Text And Formatting
The book fits a table of contents, introduction, overview, rumor table, random encounters, treasure summary, and 57 keyed encounters in 48 digest-sized pages. Fantastic! Just like Hole in the Oak, the text is evocative but terse, formatted in Gavin’s house style.
I still maintain my complaints! Pre-written adventures serve two (game) purposes1: an initial reading to give the GM context, and an at-the-table reference for moment to moment play.
For moment to moment play, good room keys are paramount. The GM has two tasks:
Describe the initial scene to the players. What they see, smell, and hear before they enter the room or start messing with stuff.
Engage in the conversation with players as they ask clarifying questions and do stuff in the room.
For a (highly stylized) example of this, check out On Set Design - Courtney Campell. We’re looking for something that does these two jobs well; formatting is a means to that end. It could be natural language like in Guy Fullerton’s Many Gates of the Gann:
Or, it could be heavily formatted like Yochai Gal’s Rise of the Blood Olms (this is also, more or less, how Gabor Lux formats Xyntillan and the Echoes zines)
Gavin’s house style makes it easy to engage in the conversation but hard to cobble together the initial reading. Here’s the formatting again:
Dark stone blocks (pockmarked, walls, ceiling 10'). Green tiled floor (zig-zag pattern). Cast iron bars (to Area 17). Cast iron lever (centre of north wall). 2 frayed copper cables (run along walls, leading from the lever to the top of the bars). Intermittent crackles and flashes (blue light, from the bars).
I’d love to be able to just read out the bolded words, like how I can in Campbell’s style, but it’s nonsense: “You see dark stone blocks, a green tiled floor, cast iron bars, a cast iron lever, frayed copper cables and intermittent crackles and flashes.”
It’s even worse when there are multiple headings:
I find myself frequently pulling in descriptions from inside the parenthesis and rearranging multiple headings to cobble together the whole room description. For instance, for the Temple Entrance above, I’d say something like:
The hallway opens up southward into a 15x40ft entrance chamber. Three ooze statues, 6ft tall, stand along the northern wall. The statues face southward toward glittering obsidian double doors, 12ft tall, adorned with brass ring handles. An inscription is above the double doors, but it’s too far to make it out. Two skeleton statues with swords, 10ft tall and on plinths, flank the obsidian doors. Between the skeletons, in a pool of blood, lies a corpse, face down. An arrow protrudes from its back. There’s a penetrating cold emanating from somewhere, and the stench of rotting flesh.
I bolded all of the information that I pulled from parenthesis or inferred. It’s a lot. The more you have to do this stuff, the easier it is to miss something, and the more time I have to spend at the table reading over the room before I begin narrating (“give me a second yall, this room is complicated”).
That said, I’m not totally sure how to save it while keeping the house style. I’d overhaul it to be:
27 | Entrance Chamber
Three ooze statues, 6ft tall, stand along the northern wall. There are glittering obsidian double doors, 12ft tall, adorned with brass ring handles to the south. An inscription is above the double doors. Two skeleton statues with swords, 10ft tall and on plinths, flank the obsidian doors. Between the skeletons, in a pool of blood, lies a corpse, face down. An arrow protrudes from the corpse’s back. There’s a penetrating cold emanating from somewhere, and the stench of rotting flesh.
Ooze statues: The western statue is made of pink rock and depicts dripping ooze. The center statue is made of green rock and depicts mounded ooze. The eastern statue is made of blue rock and depicts tentacled ooze.
Obsidian double doors: Smashing off obsidian chunks is a noisy process. Roll for a Random Happening. Chunks are worth 1d6•10g per chunk. Opening the doors is heavy, hard work. The doors close automatically after 30s.
Inscription: “Final Dissolution Awaits Those Who Plead” in common.
Corpse: The female elf warrior’s face is frozen in intense maddening horror, apparently fleeing Area 28. She equipped with chainmail, a sword, and a polished bronze shield. She wears a backpack with 10 iron spikes and a coil of rope, belt pouch (20gp), silver necklace with a pearl (150gp, grants +1 bonus to saves against magic). She is the source of the stench.
Stench: From the rotting corpse.
I understand that this specific implementation is getting into stylistic preferences, but I do think that the underlying theory (support both the initial description and the conversation) is sound.
The formatting is inconsistent with how they want sub-headers to work. Most of the time, information about a sub-header doesn’t show up in the intro paragraph. But sometimes it does.
For example:
2 | Crystal Corridor
Crystal grotto (6' high). Sandy floor (soft white sand). Pulsating crystals (cover walls and ceiling).
West: Splashing water and animal chirruping.
Passing through the corridor: 3-in-6 chance Area 4’s kobolds are spying on PCs.
Examining the sand: A web-toed humanoid footprint is spotted (heading west).
—Pulsating Crystals—
Prismic growths (6" long). Pulsating glow (phasing purple / orange).
Examining the crystals: Giddy feeling of observing an expansive depth within.
Gazing into the crystals: 1d3 turns slip away unnoticed. Characters with WIS or INT as a prime requisite feel mentally cleansed, healing 1hp. Others feel paranoid and suffer –1 to attacks and saves for 3 turns.
—Spy Hole—
Square (9" across, 3' long, clearly artificial). Metal grille (rusted, 1" gaps). Crawling with bugs (spiders and centipedes).
Peering in: Glimpse Area 4: kobolds gathering moss, purple glow.
The pulsating crystals show up in the initial description, but not the Spy Hole. This happens over and over throughout the module. Personally, I think it’s better to reference everything in the intro paragraph.
The Map
The map is great! The room numbers are extremely easy to read and the monster labels are great. The art is useful without being distracting, and the grid scale is included. Literally no complaints, this thing is great.
The team goes the extra mile by providing spoiler-free player-facing maps, both gridless and gridded. I think player mapping isn’t worth the effort, so I printed these off and handed them to the players; worked great!
Melan Diagrams
The first level is very wing-based. There’s the troglodyte wing in the northwest, the ooze wing in the southeast, and the statue wing in the center. The altar area (which my players skipped) is only connected to the rest through secret doors, so it’s either 1 loop or 2 loops, depending.
One loop (more if you consider the multiple ways up/down), so still pretty linear. There aren’t a lot of different ways to the same place, so the choices are more in the vein of “where” rather than “how”. That said, the map played fine!
Content
Adventure Overview
The history and explanation about the cult provides terse but necessary context for what would otherwise be baffling.
Factions
The faction information is serviceable - my litmus test is from Factions - GFC. We should be able to write
[FACTION] want(s) [MOTIVATION], but [OBSTACLE]. Therefore, [PLAN OR METHOD OF SURMOUNTING OBSTACLE]
If they don’t want anything, what are they doing? If nothing is stopping them, why don’t they have it? If they’re not doing anything about the obstacle, do they really want the thing?
The Troglodytes want to capture invisible presence they’ve detected creeping through the dungeon (the Prismist), but they’re in disarray following the recent murder of their leader by Old Greg who fled to the Hole in the Oak. Therefore, Slank Pidder and Bloody Mary are fighting to determine the new leadership.
The Prismist wants to prove to the world that the Emperor is dead and the Arch-Prismists now rule via their illusory emperor, but her husband who witnessed the coup is trapped inside of a magic prism with 12 dangerous Shadows. Therefore, the Prismist is conducting research in secret on how to free her husband from the prism.
The Dream Dragon wants to eat crystals (and meat).
The Ooze Cult is big chilling.
The Necromancer wants the Ooze Cult’s arcane secrets (?) but is too scared to go into the temple.
The trogs make a lot of sense to me as a faction. Their motivation is a little shallow, but works totally fine at the table; it’s something the players can actually do.
I don’t like what’s happening with the Prismist. This is making hard assumptions about the world that it’s getting slotted into (like that there’s a nearby Emperor, and that the Emperor employs Prismists, and that the Arch-Prismists just overthrew the Emporer secretly). That’s not my world!
I can sort of buy that a magic user with their husband in a crystal would flee into a dungeon populated (not 80 feet away) by a dragon, trogs, a necromancer, and an ooze cult, and then try to perform a lot of research to extract her husband, but my players were extremely skeptical.
The Dream Dragon is hardly a faction. The text says it wants to regain access to Areas 49–52 (the Prismist’s area), presently warded by blinding magic. It’s totally unclear why it cares about this (there’s no meat or crystals there) and it’s totally unclear what it’s doing about it.
The Ooze cult consists of two jellied skeletons, the high priestess, and her two acolytes. The jellied skeletons are bored, but eternally half-heartedly stop people from going into the (empty) eastern room. The ooze priestess does not have any explicit motivations (and also spends all of her time in a coffin). The ooze cult is not a faction in any traditional sense.
The Necromancer isn’t even a person the players might meet! As far as I can tell, he only shows up on a 1-in-12 chance on a 1-in-6 chance rolled every turn, so there’s a 50% chance to see him after 72 turns. The book doesn’t give him a name, any traits, or a physical description. He wants “arcane secrets” from the ooze cult, but isn’t doing anything about it.
Harvesting Crystals
The dungeon features a number of beautiful crystal-lined grottoes. Players may wish to har- vest these for sale.
Tools: Crystals are delicate and can only be harvested (without destroying them!) using proper mining equipment.
Time and yield: Each hour spent mining yields 4d20gp of crystals. The referee should check for Random Happenings (see p8) as normal.
This is a first-party OSE product. Which items on the adventuring gear list count as “proper mining equipment”? I don’t see any that qualify.
Each hour (6 random checks) yields 4d20g of crystals. How much do they weigh (for the purposes of encumbrance)? How many crytals can the players mine? This is important, because if they ever manage to clear out the dungeon (very possible) they can mine for days and days.
I lucked out - my players never tried to mine crystals.
The Underground River
The river is cold and fast-moving, making it dangerous to swim in. Characters have a 1-in-20 chance of drowning per round (1-in-6 if wearing heavy armour). Swimming upstream requires a successful STR check each round.
How far do you swim on a successful STR check?
Boats are carried eastwards at 30' per round. Rowing upstream requires a successful STR check each round.
How far do you row on a successful STR check? I understand that this is the OSR and we’re supposed to make rulings but like… we’re so close.
Rumors
A water dragon lairs in a great submerged cavern. (P)
A notorious outlaw band uses the caves. Imperial soldiers are heading to flush them out. (P)
Those caves used to host human sacrifices. Devils still dwell there. (P)
Mischievous fairies haunt the grottoes. (F)
Nogfolio’s fabled brass hand—with the power to throw lightning bolts—was lost within. (F)
The local fungi are deadly poisonous! (F)
The caves may appear beautiful to the eye but stink of Troglodyte.
An odd fellow clad in black was spotted furtively carting barrows of bones into the caves.
A ruined accursed temple—filled with great treasure!—lies in the caves.
An Imperial Prismist entered the grottoes a few months past and never returned.
What is the procedure for giving out rumors? OSE (and BX) does not specify, so it’s up to the modules. For instance, B1 specifies that each player receives 1d4-1 random rumors.
According to the ICI Doctrine, the game is about making meaningful choices. In order for a choice to be meaningful, it needs to be informed (otherwise you’re choosing randomly), and it needs to be impactful (otherwise the choice didn’t matter).
We can think of rumors as providing information for later choices, as well as providing context, tone, and world-building. In that light, I generally prefer true rumors, and partially true (P) rumors can be okay so long as they drive interesting choices (gameplay). False rumors should be met with skepticism.
For instance, “A water dragon lairs in a great submerged cavern. (P)” is great! Letting the players know that there’s a dragon here (it’s actually a dream dragon) is very helpful. It’ll be frustrating when they prepare a bunch of water dragon counter-measures and then it’s a dream dragon (gotcha!), but better than nothing.
On the other hand, “Nogfolio’s fabled brass hand—with the power to throw lightning bolts—was lost within. (F)” is dumb. The players will never find the hand (it doesn’t exist), and any attempts they make to try to find it will fail. It doesn’t drive interesting decisions, but does encourage them to pick the dungeon clean to try to find the hand. It was never there! Gotcha!
Finally
An Imperial Prismist entered the grottoes a few months past and never returned.
The Prismist has been down here for months? Holy cow. What has she been doing?
Random Happenings
We’re rolling 1-in-6 every turn (which is more frequent than normal), but half of the results are pure flavor, so it’s standard with some flavor sprinkled in.
A rushing gust of wind, accompanied by ghostly voices moaning “Save us from the Faceless One!”
The Faceless One gets mentioned a lot. He’s not in the module. He’s the demon prince of oozes and slimes. He destroyed his own cult hundreds of years ago and doesn’t hang about these parts.
From a player perspective, he’s mentioned:
in this random encounter
by the voice of the crystals in area 4
by the skeletons in area 11
on the robe in area 12
above a door in area 13
on the robe in area 15
on the robe in area 17
on the bridge post in area 46
My players were very confused about where this guy was; expecting that they’d meet him. Eventually they forgot.
2d6 Kobolds (see Area 4 for stats) searching for a gang of charlatan moss-peddlers.
Oh okay so there’s Kobolds here. That sounds like a faction! We have random kobolds roaming around, and keyed kobolds in area 4. What do they want, why don’t they have it, and what are they doing about it?
Also, what the heck is the “gang of charlatan moss-peddlers”? It’s never mentioned again and has no context besides this line. Makes it awkward to roleplay.
A black-robed Necromancer and 1d6 Guards heading for Area 40 with a sack of bones.
Is this the same necromancer or a different necromancer from the one detailed in the faction write-up? I assume it’s the same one, but l still don’t understand why we’re not using a name.
Related to this, the most we have on this person is (cross referencing from the encounters to the faction write up) that he’s (gender is only stated in the faction, not the encounter) using the crypts for nefarious research, doesn’t live here, covets the ooze cults arcane secrets, but hasn’t actually gone into the temple.
What is his name?
What are some traits (a mannerism, a feature, etc) that I can use to roleplay this necromancer at the table?
Which arcane secrets? It would be lovely to specify that he wants the Scroll of Gelatinous Transformation from area 10 (or something else specific).
What is his nefarious research?
What is he willing to do to help the players? See Synthesizing Good NPC Advice.
1d4 elixir-addled Lizard Men daubed with blue paint, seeking the “sacred caverns beyond the waterfall” (lost and befuddled).
Since this is copy+pasted from Hole in the Oak, I’ll copy+paste my analysis!
What does “elixir-addled” mean? Why would Lizard-men who are sneaking to the sacred caverns be in the grottoes? What waterfall? What happens when the players follow the Lizard men (either sneakily or because a good reaction was rolled) to the sacred caverns, but the GM hasn’t made that area yet and the book doesn’t describe it?
This is the sort of thing that I think Justin Alexander would refer to as a booby trap.
Aside
When we played this module, I rolled “12. 2d4 Giant Centepedes” for 3 out of the 4 first random encounters. I know I harp on random encounter tables a lot, but this is bad! There are better ways! We can have encounter sequences!
Order of Battle
There isn’t one! This is something that we used to get in old modules that’s fallen out of favor in modern efforts. For example, B2 has this:
DM Note: Orc losses cannot be replaced, but after an initial attack by adventurers, the males at location 10. will move four of their number into area 9., arm these orcs with crossbows, and lay an ambush for intruders. If the leader is slain, all surviving orcs from this locale will seek refuge with the tribe at C. (see below), taking everything of value (and even of no value) with them, and B. will thereafter be deserted.
[…]
DM Note: Orc losses cannot be replaced. If this tribe is attacked, they will have the males at area 15. watching the entrance, ready for a second try by the adventurers. If the leader is slain, the survivors will seek safety in area B., if possible; otherwise, they will flee the place entirely, carrying their goods away.
[…]
DM Note: Goblin losses cannot be replaced. If they are being soundly defeated by intruders, the goblins will attempt to hide or flee east. Those who do so will go from area 17. to area 23., inform the hobgoblins, and join forces with them, so adjust encounters appropriately.
[…]
DM Note: As usual, hobgoblin losses cannot be replaced during the course of normal play, which is a period of only several days or weeks of action. The hobgoblins are fairly smart, well-organized, and alert. If their chief is killed, they will typically seek to escape alive, unless their opponents are obviously weak and inferior. Survivors will reinforce the goblins at D., above, unless their attackers are very dangerous and the hobgoblins can see that the whole Caves’ area is in trouble. . .
[…]
DM Note: Losses by the gnolls cannot be replaced. They are in a loose alliance with the orcs, so if there are surviving gnolls, they will move to the orc areas and vice versa. If you wish, allow the chieftain to be able to escape enemies by climbing up the chimney of the fireplace in his area.
For Incandescent Grottoes, we need two write-ups: one for the trogs and another for the kobolds (who also need to be included in the faction writeup).
Area Descriptions
1 | Swimming Simians
This is a great entrance chamber with a lot going on. The monkeys provide info about the water breathing properties of the bubble moss. This abstracts into all of the fungus in the dungeon being potentially edible and unique.
I appreciate that the trog spy might be there, and will alert its companions (dynamic!), but it would have been even better if we knew what Gavin intended (or did during playtesting) when the trogs were alerted. Do they band up to attack (setting aside their leadership quibbles)? Do they send someone to parley? etc.
2 | Crystal Corridor
The views are so cool. Not just here, but everywhere feels so magic. The grate to see into area 4 is a nice touch (information allows informed choices), and the crystals are good tone-setting without being punitive.
Examining the sand: A web-toed humanoid footprint is spotted (heading west).
A couple of notes. When we describe a room to the players, we choose how much information to give them. I tend to categorize information into stuff that’s freely available (landmark), and stuff that they have to engage in the conversation to attain (hidden). If you make information on the floor, walls, or ceiling hidden, as in you wait for your players to ask about the floor walls or ceiling before providing information about them, and there’s no in-game cost to asking, then you’re creating a dumb checklist for your players. You’re training them to say “Do I notice anything on the floor, walls, or ceiling?” in every room and cooridor they enter.
So here, we need to move the information that there are web-toed humanoid footprints to the initial description, rather than gating it behind examination.
Second, please tell the GM what made this footprint. Do kobolds have webbed feet? Do the monkeys? The trogs? I have no clue. I checked the OSE descriptions of kobolds and trogs and neither mention webbed feet. Instead, say “A web-toed humanoid footprint is spotted (heading west, troglodyte tracks).” or similar.
6 | Ooze-Filled
Opening the door: Hasty characters may walk into the ooze block filling the room.
What does “hasty” or “may” mean here? If the author intends some sort of check or saving throw, say that.
8 | Slime-Filled
Dark stone blocks (pockmarked, walls, ceiling 8', and floor). Slime-filled (horrid pink).
Opening the door: Acidic slime rushes out (dissolves metal and flesh—not stone). Characters in front of the door must save versus breath or suffer 1d8 acid damage. Characters to the west must save versus breath with a +2 bonus or suffer 1d4 acid damage as slime gushes towards Area 4. Once displaced, it seeps away over 3 turns.
Okay sweet, this is the exact sort of mechanical workup I’m talking about. Very clear.
I would have preferred for the tell for this trap to be duplicated from its origin in area 5: “Door to 8: Cobwebbed brass plaque. If cleared: “Master of Slime”. Knocking: sound of liquid beyond.” As it stands, I need to refer to area 5 (the cooridor, on a different spread) to figure out what’s on the door to each of these areas.
9 | Devoured Chamber
Searching: A loose flagstone conceals a divine scroll of cure light wounds and a 6" lead square engraved with a jelly-like creature covered in eyes and mouths and the inscription “Final Dissolution Awaits Those Who Plead.”
This inscription shows up twice (the other place is above the glittering double doors to the temple (area 28). I still don’t know what it refers to. It seems like the sort of thing that’s supposed to be a clue to something, but I never figured out what and neither did my players.
11 | Skeletal Wardens
We had fun with this. I pre-wrote a monologue for the skeletons (thanks chatgpt) to be appropriately contrary and argumentative for the pink skelly, and lonely/eager for company for the green skelly, while being simultaneously old fashioned and also referencing “The Master”.
I did have trouble figuring out what the skeletons know. They make references to “The Master”, which I initially thought was the Faceless Lord, but in writing this review I realize is the cult leader (unnamed) who tried to betray the Faceless Lord.
Oddly, they mention that the master’s chambers are through the eastern doors, but as far as I can tell there are no such chambers on the map. There’s a long double cooridor leading to a laboratory. The closest candidate is the area 14 (the ooze demon), but there’s nothing in that room to give any indication that its the leader’s chambers.
13 | Slime Guardian
Door to 14: Magically sealed. Centre: 1'-wide fist icon (brass). Inscribed above: “Submit to the Faceless One’s will. What remains after utter acquiescence?” Saying “skull” aloud opens the door. (This refers to Area 21’s statue.)
I love how this was done. It’s super nice to reference where the answer to a clue can be found. Note that area 21 should also reference that it’s a clue to the the door (it doesn’t).
14 | Imprisoned Demon
Reaction: Attempts to mind control anyone opening the door into breaking the slime ring.
If unsuccessful, pleads for release, promising 101 days’ service—most likely a lie and, if freed, attacks or flees.
Is the 101 days of service a lie or not? “Most likely a lie” is very annoying. When would it actually promise 101 days of service (random chance)? When would it attack rather than leaving peacefully? Compare:
Reaction: Attempts to mind control anyone opening the door into breaking the slime ring.
If unsuccessful, pleads for release, promising 101 days’ service (a lie). If freed, flees at the first opportunity.
18 | Control Room
Bubble stream: Can attack targets up to 20' away. May attack two different targets each round.
Anti-magic: If the target is carrying a magic item, they must save versus death or a random magic item explodes, causing 1d6 damage.
Holy cow
21 | Skulls Statue
This is really cool! It’s also a really light version of GM-facing show-not-tell, which I think is the opposite of how we should be treating GMs.
To me, the purpose of an adventure module is to communicate as effectively as possible to the GM (who you will not get a chance to have a conversation with) the situation and tone of the adventure in your head. Treat a GM as your co-conspirator, the person who is going to run your adventure for their players. It’s extremely similar to a screenwriter writing dialog and stage directions for actors and a director, who will then perform for an audience. The GM is not the audience. The GM is the performer. The players are the audience.
Here, we can infer that there’s a skull statue, and people have historically touched it, where they disintegrated, leaving behind only their skull. These are the loose skulls. Recently, the trogs moved in and one of them touched the statue, adding a troglodyte skull to the loose skull mixed. The remaining trogs scrawled a warning.
As a GM, there’s so much going on that explicit callouts like this to give me context are super helpful. One of the the things that Justin Alexander talks about in The Art of the Key is GM Background Text. I think stuff like that is very helpful. As always, it’s a careful balancing act between padding word count and lowering signal to noise, but in this case I think it’s valuable.
Otherwise, and I know there’s a good bit of OSR Challenges going on here, but I’d love some more information about the disintegration effect. Does prolonged touch continue to force checks, or if they pass the first save can they pry out all of the gems? Does the disintegration effect apply to tools like crowbars?
Something like:
Touching the statue: Save vs death or be disintegrated, except the skull. Fully disintegrates objects. Repeat touches cause repeat saves. Prolonged touches incur one save per round.
Not too crazy, only a few more words. Way less ambiguous.
22 | Eyes Statue
The tiny figures are really cool foreshadowing. My players picked up on the “2 identical women in wizard robes with prism-topped staves” being a clue that one of them was a doppelganger, which was awesome. “1 ogre carrying a large chest” seems like a huge red herring, it’s the only time an ogre is ever referenced in the adventure (probably take it out).
I think “3 dwarf warriors with mining equipment, 2 knights, 1 female elf warrior” refers to an adventuring party that the elf corpse belonged to, but again, I would prefer to be told this.
I think “1 hooded figure” is the necromancer, and “3 soldiers” are the imperial soldiers looking for the Prismist. We should probably adjust the “1d3+1 Imperial Soldiers” encounter to be 3 Soldiers for consistency.
All of this info is important because there’s a real solid chance that every time the players meet a NPC in the future that could plausibly be one of the figures, they’ll ask “do they look like the little figure from next to the eye statue?" and the GM will need to know the answer.
23 | Smashed Icons
Examining the alcoves: Each contains a pile of smashed bone and twisted wooden fragments (some kind of smashed frame?), splattered with a brown residue (dried blood).
Emphasis mine. There should not be a question mark after the description of the wooden fragments. Either they were a smashed frame or they weren’t, there’s no reason to not know. The players don’t know what they used to be, but tell the GM. If you, as the author, don’t know what these are wooden fragments of, DECIDE.
24 | Skulking Doppelganger
Impersonates an adventurer seeking her lost companion (“Meg,” a warrior).
We’re going to need more than this. At a minimum:
What is the name of her companion?
How did they get separated?
Where does she want to go to search for her companion?
As is, you either need to be extremely good at improvising lies and also know the layout of the dungeon so you can pick somewhere with a good spot for an ambush, or you need to fill in this detail yourself ahead of time.
I didn’t do either, and so my doppelganger kind of sucked. The players shoved it into the skull statue and it disintegrated, which was awesome.
27 | Temple Entrance
We covered the issues I have with formatting at the top (which is probably most extreme in this room).
Content wise:
West: dripping ooze (pink rock), centre: mounded ooze (green rock), east: tentacled ooze (blue rock).
I’m not sure about the significance (if any) of the colors of the ooze here. This screams clue, and all of my players wrote all of the details down (west: pink dripping, center: green mounded, east: blue tentacled).
A little more abstractly, without trying to get deeply into GNS theory, I think it’s easy to imagine details and mechanics in a game world as serving either narrative (plants and payoffs), gameplay (informed choices with impact), or simulationist (it’s there because that’s what would happen) concerns.
My preference is that when tradeoffs need to be made, sacrifice narrative for simulation and gameplay, but especially gameplay. As far as I can tell, the oozes are different colors and different materials and that looks like a clue, but is actually just an immersive detail (just like the inscriptions about dissolution).
It’s the same beef that PrinceOfNothing had with AX2:
A seperate but related problem is that of the [Lore] entries. AX2 makes use of the setting’s extensive pantheon of Cthonic deities like Nargund, Telith, Bel, Naga etc. etc. and the dungeon is filled with bas-reliefs, shrines and murals dedicated to them. There’s this separate lore entry you can roll on and then the party nerd knows the deity’s name. I think a huge opportunity was missed to sort of justify all this anthropological detail. If there had been some sort of area where knowing what particular god was being worshipped would have clued the characters in on some sort of rite to bypass its guardians, all this detail would have paid off.
It’s a fine balance - we want to be able to provide immersive detail, but ideally not detail that feels like a Clue that we should write down to solve a Puzzle later.
-Rotting Corpse-
Lying near Area 28’s doors (face down, apparently fleeing). Killed by an arrow (stuck in back). Decomposing stench (seems about a week old).
I think leaving out background is fine here - the history isn’t relevant and this is actually a gamist detail to signpost that there’s scary danger in the next room (since the threat is concealed).
However! After I read this, I poured through the text to figure out who shot the arrow, and if there was some other NPC somewhere (dead or not) that this connects to. As far as I can tell, it’s missing entirely. Maybe they left? Who knows.
This is, broadly, the problem with keeping secrets from the GM. Lots of modules are sloppy, and GMs are trained to shore them up and fill in the gaps. When an author omits information, the GM doesn’t know if that’s a mistake, intentional, or they missed something and they need to read more.
28 | Temple of the Faceless Lord
The Gibbering Mouther’s stat block is confusing
The mouther can make 6x bite attacks (that only unattach with death) OR gibber.
The gibbering triggers a save vs spells, and on failure you mostly don’t do anything interesting (except a 1/4th chance to attack the nearest creature, which could be the gibbering mouther). Broadly, you lose control of your character completely (save or sit out for a bit).
The gibbering effect only continues for as long as the mouther keeps spending it’s attack every turn. If it ever wants to attack, it has to stop gibbering, and then all of the players can attack it back. I’m not sure what the play is here - is it more effective for the mouther to just slam attacks and ignore the gibbering?
A nice touch is that the mouther only has a 10ft move speed. Smart players can indefinitely kite it with a shortbow, staying out of its 60ft gibbering range.
This is a time when I miss the mechanical precision of pathfinder 2e: have a gander at their mouther.
Troglodytes
If I’m understanding this correctly, there are a total of 6 Trogs living here. There’s 3 in 35 (“Eyeballs, “Captain Hog”, and “Fraggle”, which might be in 30, 31, or 32), 2 leaders battling in 33 by themselves (“Slank Pidder” and “Bloody Mary”), and a one in the Boss’ room staring at a puzzle cube (“Waggle”).
A Trog Lair in OSE is 5d8 trogs, so there’s a solid 0.02% chance that we rolled up 6 Trogs. Surely, the treasure will correspond with the tiny threat2.
32 | Flesh Store
A large toad is still (barely) alive. It speaks Common and may address approaching PCs. It claims to be the prince of all toads in the Magical Forest, promising riches for aid. (The referee should decide whether this is true.)
How about the author decides whether or not this is true, and how much riches it can promise.
34 | Boss Trog’s Lair
Around the top rim, inscribed in Common: “Mountain’s might, Army’s blight, King’s conceit, Nobles’ meet.” Speaking “castle” aloud at the cube causes a face to click open.
Is a castle a “Mountain’s Might”? Seems dubious. My litmus test for riddles is whether or not gpt 4o can get it right. It did, so I think this is fine. My players heard the riddle with about 30m left in the session, pondered on it for the rest of the time, and then one of them got it (they said Keep, which I accepted) on the drive back home. Good stuff, Kevin.
Searching the bedding: A jagged-bladed short sword is hidden deep in the layers—a magic weapon granting the wielder a +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls in rounds where they win initiative and, otherwise, a +2 AC bonus. The wielder is also afflicted with an insatiable love of gambling.
Does this mean the blade is cursed (the player can’t release it)? What does “wielder” mean? Like, if you wield it once do you have an “insatiable love” of gambling forever, or do you just love gambling while it’s in your hand? Can players with an insatiable love of gambling choose to not gamble?
Reaction: May ask PCs for help decoding the riddle. Willing to share the contents before fleeing.
When does waggle ask the PCs for help and when does he not? We have this lovely reaction roll mechanic, why not tie it to that rather than just saying “may”? Or, even better, just say that he asks for help. As in, “Asks the PCs for help decoding the riddle on a uncertain or better reaction roll”.
35 | Troglodyte’s Lair
Pit and Prisoner
Natural hole in floor (5' wide, leads 20' down to Area 53). Wooden frame (above pit, old tree trunks). Delirious dwarf (strung up, semi-naked, greasy dangling beard, drunk, belching and mumbling). Sturdy wooden plank (12' long, resting against wall behind pit, used to cross the chasm in 36).
I’m so confused here. The pit is framed? Also, what does the dwarf have to do with the pit? Like, when I related this information to my players, I put the dwarf in the pit before realizing that it didn’t have a bottom (it opens up into area 53) and had to retcon. What makes the dwarf a prisoner?
Maybe this is a British english to American english translation problem, but “strung up”, on this side of the pond, means tense/nervous/jittery. That doesn’t jive with “drunk, belching, and mumbling”. Maybe Gavin meant “tied up” or similar? If the dwarf is just tied up (not to anything specific) then what does this have to do with the pit?
Likewise, what does the sturdy plank have to do with the pit? Such a confusing way to organize information.
edit: A couple of helpful folks were able to explain this (ty Dave and u/KanKrusha_NZ). The frame refers to a gallows-like constructing, and “strung up” as in the dwarf tied to the frame. I ran the whole thing through chatgpt:
Which makes way more sense. Finally, I did some light sanity checking and sent the description to some other friends living in the American southeast and they were also confused, so I don’t think it’s just me. Language is a funny thing :)
38 | Acid Bath
This is a really cool and well-specified room/trap. No complains here, just wanted to give credit. The grille is a great tell (why use a grill? to let acid through).
39 | Poison Gas Trap
This checks all of the boxes of A Treatise on Traps - GFC. There’s a tell (the pupils are small holes for egress), the mechanism is well-defined (the mouths close and release gas; just stop the mouths from closing), and the consequences are well-defined (everyone nearby saves or dies).
47 | Tomb of the Ooze Priestess
Beneath the trapdoor: A small space containing 3,000gp (stamped with an evil eye). Anyone spending these coins (even a single one!) is cursed. (The referee may decide the curse’s nature and how to dispel it).
How about the author decides what the curse is and how to dispel it.
Hateful of the living. Vain -- may listen to flattery relating to the ooze cult’s former glories.
Emphasis mine. Under what circumstances does the Ooze priestess listen to flattery? Either make it deterministic (Vain — listens to flattery relating to the ooze cult’s former glories), or hook it up to the reaction roll (Vain — listens to flattery relating to the ooze cult’s former glories on a reaction roll of indifferent or better).
50 | Phantasmal Bedchamber
Lamp of Fictitious Finery
A small, finely-wrought lamp with rainbow-hued glass shutters. When lit, projects illusionary luxury.
Area: The illusion fills a 30' radius around the lamp.
Illusion: Luxurious objects of the character’s choosing, including furnishings, textiles, food, and drink.
Interaction: Within the affected area, all illusionary objects are quite real (affect all senses). Foods and drinks may be consumed without nutritive effect. Objects taken out cease to exist.
Duration: The illusion lasts until the lamp is snuffed out. Since the lamp does not burn fuel, it may remain lit indefinitely.
Moving the lamp: The illusion moves with it. (Disorienting for anyone within the affected area.)
This lamp is wild. You can have it spin up any luxurious object you want in a 30’ radius. Want to cross a pit? Spin up a bunch of luxurious wardrobes to fill the pit. Want to Block a door? Same thing. The possible utility, with no limits on duration or usage, is campaign warping.
When I priced it out (as I think all magic items should be), I ended up costing it at ~75,000g.
55 | Dragon’s Larder
Man, what a cool dragon. I really appreciate having dragons in dungeons and dragons, and I think there’s far too few of them in general :D
This one is well-designed for a low-level party (its breath puts creatures to sleep instead of killing them). I also appreciate how the breath specifically does not interact with the shadows in the prismist’s prism of life trapping - makes the shadows a natural counter for the dragon.
Treasure and XP
The book contains a (partially incomplete) summary of treasure that lists 43,280g worth of treasure. Interestingly, the book lists 4 playtesters total: John Anthony, Noah Green, Frederick Münch, and then Gavin credits himself as a playtester. If I had to guess, I’d guess that this was played-tested with Gavin DMing and the other three each playing a single PC. I think this is further reinforced by the cover art:
which features just 3 PCs.
43,280g for 3 PCs is a lot. That’s 14k XP for each of them, which is enough to take a fighter from 1 to just shy of 5. It’s way too much.
It’s also totally disproportional to the monster XP that’s guarding it:
7 Kobolds (35xp)
2 Gelatinous Squirms (40xp)
3 Carcass Crawler Larvae (39xp)
2 Jellied Skeletons (50xp)
1 Ebony Slime (50xp)
1 Ooze Demon (175xp)
1 Floating Bubble (50xp)
1 Doppelanger (125xp)
5 Giant Mutant Frogs (75xp)
1 Gibbering Mouther (350xp)
1 Dissolved One (25xp)
6 Troglodytes (150xp)
7 Slug Babies (91xp)
1 Coffer Corpse (30xp)
2 Janitor Zombies (40xp)
1 Prismatic Shade (13xp)
1 Ooze Priestess (50xp)
2 Ooze Acolytes (50xp)
1 Cave Turtle (50xp)
1 Prismist (425xp)
1 Dream Dragon (725xp)
1 Sentient Dream (35xp)
This totals 2673xp with the Prismist (who is probably an ally) or 2248 XP without her. That means the ratio of gold:monster xp is ~16x at best. OSE aims to have ~75% of its XP come from treasure, so normally we want a ratio of ~3x, so there’s too much treasure by a factor of 5. Yeah, a lot of the treasure can be missed, or is behind traps, but also a lot of these monsters can be bypassed or negotiated with.
I divided every treasure amount by 1/5th and it was still lucrative for the players, and there wasn’t a whiff of perceived stinginess.
The amount of magic items is also ridiculous. In 57 rooms, we have:
Bubble Moss (1h of water breathing) in undefined supply.
Divine Scroll of Hold Person
Scroll of Charm Monster (oozes only)
Potion of Healing
Scroll of Cure Light Wounds
Scroll of Gelatinous Transformation
Scroll of Cure Light Wounds
Potion of Gaseous Form
Amulet of Ooze Demon Mental Power Immunity (heh)
Silver Dagger +1
Necklace of +1 to Saves vs Magic
Chalice of Cure Light Wounds 1/day
Shield +2
Ring of Plant Control
Potion of Poison
5 Arrows +1
Sword of +2 (when you win initiative), +2 AC (when you lose initiative), and “insatiable love of gambling”
Scroll of Cure Light Wounds
Scroll of Cure Disease
Scroll of Blacklight
Scroll of Wraithform
5 Slight Bullets +1
Lamp of Fictitious Finery
Ring of AC 14
Dagger +2
Potion of Invisibility
This is way too many magic items. The party is going to come out swimming in magic items. It takes progression away and ends up kitting everyone out after their first adventure.
Like, imagine the party’s dwarf. After this first adventure, they’re rocking a Sword +2 (or +2 AC when you lose initiative) and a +2 Shield. With +1 DEX and Plate, they’re at 21 AC when they lose initiative, meaning that 1 and 2 HD creatures only hit them 5% of the time.
The OSE charts for armor and shields never give out +2 Shields. +2 Swords only happen 1/8th of the time.
I’d trim this down to ~4 consumables and a permanent so that you don’t wreck your campaign or set up weird expectations for dungeons. Magic items should feel special. Here, there’s an average of 1 magic item per two rooms. It’s wild.
Conclusion
Buy and Run! Despite all of my technical quibbles, I think the adventure plays well. Really cool imagery and some high fantasy scenes.
I’d change:
Create an order of battle for the Kobolds and Trogs, potentially doubling or tripling the number of trogs (there are currently only 6 total).
Divide all of the treasure by 5
Cut down to ~5 total magic items (there are way too many)
Flesh out the Necromancer faction
Flesh out the Kobold faction
Fill in the gaps
Any time you see the word “may”, pre-commit to a mechanic or just cut the word.
Figure out if the frog prince is actually a prince or if he’s lying. Figure out what the frog prince would offer for helping him.
Figure out how to integrate the Prismist into your world (unless you’re okay saying that the Emporer’s Arch-Prismists recently staged a secret coup and the Emporer is now a magic illusion).
Convert the random encounter table into a random encounter sequence. It feels really weird to use the same encounter multiple times here.
Cut some of the boring rumors. Specifically “Nogfolio’s fabled brass hand—with the power to throw lightning bolts—was lost within. (F)”, “Mischievous fairies haunt the grottoes. (F)”, “The local fungi are deadly poisonous! (F)”, and “The caves may appear beautiful to the eye but stink of Troglodyte.”
For a slightly larger overhaul, I’d think about what to do with some of the red herrings:
The Faceless Lord is referenced a bunch, but never comes up
“Final Dissolution Awaits Those Who Plead” leads to nothing
The eyeball motifs are weird - is this an eyeball cult or an ooze cult?
The figurine of “1 ogre carrying a large chest”
Don’t get me started on people who think that adventures should be also written to be fun to read as a book, especially at the expense of the people who try to play them. Check out James Jacobs (of Paizo) in this thread: https://www.enworld.org/threads/modules-it-turns-out-apparently-do-sell.276741/page-11#post-5182450
It doesn’t.
Gabor and Prince are great, but your reviews (whether adventures, systems, or mechanics) are, without a doubt, the best being generated right now. This is fantastic stuff.
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