Who has not heard rumors of the lost city of Arden Vul? During the glory days of the Archontean Empire, now 1,200 years in the past, Arden Vul was a small, but important, wealthy and secretive imperial center located atop a 1,500’-tall cliff at the head of Burdock’s Valley. Dominated by the imperial administration itself, as well as by the great temples of Thoth and Set, the city attracted alchemists, scholars, priests and sorcerers by the droves. Seeking the lost secrets of long-dead civilizations as well as the mysterious element known as arcanum, the Archonteans delved deeply - and secretively - within the mountain. Alas! The terrible civil war that rent the Archontean Empire, that is, the war of Sortians and Theosophs, led to the utter destruction of the city and the withdrawal of the imperial legions from the western continent of Irthuin.
Now, with the renaissance of imperial power, it is possible for well-equipped adventurers to make the long trek to Arden Vul from the exarchates of the coast. Tales of gold piled in imperial vaults, legendary magical artifacts resting in unspoiled crypts, and the fruits of the lost secrets of ancient imperial smiths and mages lying ripe for the picking are legion. Yet alongside the tales of lost treasures are other, more unsettling whispers. How could a lost city remain unplundered for more than a millennium? Surely only the existence of the cruelest of foes and unimaginable evil within the mountain can explain Arden Vul’s unspoiled status. Only the bravest, the cleverest, and the luckiest of adventurers will survive to plumb the mysteries of Arden Vul.
A megadungeon and setting for 1st through ~10th level characters.
Author: Richard Barton
Other reviews: rpg.net, Look What the Shoggoth Dragged In, Bryce Lynch, rpgpub, reddit-1, reddit-2, idiomdrottning, osr simulacrum, Infyra, Macropterus, RedMageGM
Actual Plays: Shoggoth, 3d6 DTL, Desiree Marcel, Vul Yourself Together, Acksen Vul, Arden Vulgaris, LordOfCardboard, Dungeon Slime, Sterno
Table of Contents
🚧 Ruined City
🚧 Pyramid of Thoth
🚧 Tower of Scrutiny
🚧 Basement
🚧 Howling Caves
🚧 Halls of Thoth
🚧 Forum of Set
🚧 Obsidian Gates
🚧 Troll Lifts
🚧 Court of the Troll Thegn
🚧 Nether Reaches
🚧 Floor of the Great Chasm
🚧 Ziggurat of Kauket
🚧 Tombs of Light
🚧 Hall of Shrines
🚧 Lesser Baboon Caves
🚧 Goblin Warrens
🚧 Lizardman Caves
🚧 Drowned Canyon
🚧 Flooded Vaults
🚧 Caves Behind the Falls
🚧 Kaliyani Pits
🚧 Hold of the Sun-Scarred Knights
🚧 Citadel of the Sun-Scarred Knights
🚧 Tomb of Isadora
🚧 Workshops of Kerbog Khan
🚧 Lost Chambers of Arden
🚧 Chamber of the Beacon
🚧 Druid’s Retreat
🚧 The World of Archontos
🚧 Conclusions
🚧 Tools and Resources
As is traditional, I’ll only review what I have played. Since Arden Vul is heavily interconnected, this means there’s a high chance my players (and thus my reviews) skip around. After they’re done exploring a particular level, I’ll write up that section of the review.
As with the rest of my reviews, my thoughts are structured as a running commentary on the book itself. You can read this review without being familiar with the book, and some amount of it will be useful, but I think it’ll be much more valuable to folks that are familiar with the book, or can open it next to the review.
There’s a lot of book in front of us, and no promises that I’ll finish, or be able to go into as much depth as in my normal reviews, but I’ll give it an honest effort.
Enjoy!
How much of the linked actual plays have you read/watched? Does it seem like most groups take similar paths through the AV content, or does the amount of stuff going on here mean that different groups have meaningfully different experiences and encounter orders? From what I've seen, the Halls of Thoth are quite large, but there could end up being a somewhat standard progression through it due to enemy challenge or other blocking effects like puzzles, locks, etc.
What's your setup for running this? (E.g., do you mostly rely on the actual printed books, or do you primarily use the PDFs?) Information organization and density are the major issues in using a product of this size, and I suspect that something like a heavily-hyperlinked wiki would be the best way to make information accessible but not excessively repeated.