Dungeon Crawl Classics #15: Lost Tomb of the Sphinx Queen

[Crothian]

Remember the good old days, when adventures were underground, NPCs were there to be killed, and the finale of every dungeon was the dragon on the 20th level? Those days are back. Dungeon Crawl Classics don't waste your time with long-winded speeches, weird campaign settings, or NPCs who aren't meant to be killed. Each adventure is 100% good, solid dungeon crawl, with the monsters you know, the traps you fear, and the secret doors you know are there somewhere.

Legend tells of a long-dead empire of sphinxes, ruled over for millennia by a great queen named Ankharet. She fell into darkness and her empire was shattered, as her subjects rebelled and cast her down. Unable to kill her, it is said that they bound her with great magic and buried her in a tomb, to wait for the foretold heroes who would be able to slay her and end her evil forever. Their empire in ashes, the sphinxes scattered to roam the world in bitter freedom, save a single great androsphinx.

On the edge of the mysterious Barren Hills, between the mountains and the Great Desert, there is a gigantic statue of a crowned gynosphinx, ancient beyond reckoning. At its feet, a great androsphinx known as Khubsheth the Prophet has dispensed counsel and prophecy to all who come to him for longer than mortal records can tell. The heroes have come to visit Khubsheth, whether for counsel, prophecy or out of curiosity, but as soon as he lays eyes on them, he attacks! Upon his defeat, he tells them that they are the heroes foretold by the legend of Ankharet. Ankharet ruled over a long-dead empire of sphinxes, but she fell into darkness. Her subjects rebelled and cast her down, but were unable to kill her. It is said that they bound her with great magic and buried her in a tomb, to wait for the foretold heroes who would be able to slay her and end her evil forever. Kubsheth the Prophet tells the heroes that they must enter the tomb of the long-dead sphinx queen, kill her, and destroy her cursed crown, an artifact of tremendously evil power. As his blood seeps into the sands, a doorway opens at the base of the statue, leading down into darkness...

If you enjoy this adventure, look for the rest of the Dungeon Crawl Classics series!

Writers: Chris Doyle and Joe Crow
Cover Artist: Michael Erickson
Cartographer: Jeremy Simmons

GMG5014; 48 pages.

 

[Crothian]

Lost Tomb of the Sphinx Queen

Lost Tomb of the Sphinx Queen

It feels good to run a module and get to review it. I rarely get to do that since I do not do special play tests of things. If I am to use a book it will be in my own campaign. And that can make things difficult especially with modules. I really enjoy the Dungeon Crawl Classics and would like to be able to use moiré of them. But I was very happy that I was able to fit in this one into my campaign. This review will cover aspects of the print and PDF version. The module has player handouts and the PDF version made printing those very easy. I ran the module almost straight as is with only two encounters were altered one for campaign reasons and the other because I was not trying to kill all my player characters. Though even with the changes there were many deaths.

Lost Tomb of the Sphinx Queen is an adventure for fourteenth and fifteenth level characters by Goodman Games. It is a bit of a tough module and I will cover that more later although allow me to say Chris Doyle and Joe Crow can come up with some very creative encounters. The art is really good and especially on the players handouts and those are of course important. The module is well laid out and the book is black and white. It is forty eight pages long and it is a good example of the Dungeon Crawl Classic series. The maps are well drawn and easy to use and the over all production values are very nice.

The adventure centers on the tomb of an ancient and evil Sphinx Queen. The background of the adventure deals with an ancient and seemingly short lived Sphinx Empire. It is a simple background but well thought out. It can easily just be used for the adventure or one can embrace it a little more like I did. Now in the history of my campaign world there is a failed Sphinx Empire. It is a tough adventure and we had deaths but it is D&D so death is not that severe just a spell and a level lost. The adventure has combat and riddles and a bit of a puzzle. The players will have to think some and plenty of things to kill though the Tomb is not that big with fewer rooms then a normal dungeon crawl. I liked the shortness and directness of the module. There are no wasted rooms and places that seem to be filled out with little reason.

From here on out there are Spoilers. Please do not read these and ruin the adventure if you think you will be a player in this module.

The module starts with the players going to a Sphinx Profit. This had my players fooled as they were expecting a bit of role playing and not for the Sphinx to just attack them. They failed to notice the Sphinx buffing itself up with spells and that made this battle a lot tougher then I thought it would be. We lost two of the five players and they had to retreat. They came back prepared but of course the Sphinx was fully healed again. They showed up and buffed themselves failing to notice the Sphinx doing the same and two other characters died but so did the Sphinx.

Inside the players slowly pieced together the purpose of the tomb, the history of the Sphinx Empire and what happened to it, and why they got pulled into this whole thing. The encounters were a lot easier and some of them seemed maybe a bit too easy. There is a cool room that the players fight earth creatures that move through sand with sand falling on them but with the high level spells the players had they were able to easily make the sand stop falling. That made that room a bit easier. Another dealt with a reed ship sailing through a river. of acid but fly spells made that room easy as well. None of this was a walk in the park though

Aside from the combat there are of course riddles. My players got two right and the other two forced combats. Well, they got three right but one player choose his own answer over what everyone else though t was the right answer. Also in here are some cool new and unique magical items. There is not a lot of treasure to be found but the treasure is interesting and really fits the adventure. I tire of generic sword+3 in treasure and these items with their history made for a great change of pace.

One of the encounters deals with a labyrinth with teleporting traps. These did a great job of separating the party and while it was a little pain to DM what was up to three separate groups at once I liked it a lot. The beast at the center turned out to be a good battle but again high level spells were more then the deciding factor.

The final battle deals with the Sphinx Queen herself. There are other creatures in there that I removed because I felt she was strong enough and she was. I like the use of symbols and the writers did a good job of presenting her combat strategies to the DM. They make good use of her abilities, spells, magical items and feats.

In the end the module was a good challenge with a few tough encounters and nothing a cakewalk. I liked the story behind the module and the history presented. The module has players think and plenty of combat. The encounters are a lot more interested then the usual standar fair with creativity and thought behind them. This one was a lot of fun.