Caverns of Thracia takes a Judge’s Guild Classic from the days of early role playing and updates it to the new version of the D&D engine. Clocking in at 128 black and white pages for $23.94, the book is priced at about industry standard. Written by Paul Jaquays and James Collura, the Caverns of Thracia presents enough dungeon crawling and role playing opportunities to last for months.
First I’ll hit what I consider the bad points. In many ways, the book still reads like it was written twenty-five years ago. It’s not very game master friendly. I know that I’m not the only person who’s ever had to GM off the cuff using the adventure as a guideline. In that aspect, I appreciate a few things.
Boxed text to be read aloud that quickly describes the room is one of them. I know not everyone agrees. Some feel that since you’re going to reword the text, why bother. For me, it’s because I can quickly look at the room and see the visual information that I need to feed the characters. When the basic description is broken up over several paragraphs, I have to do a rewrite of the room just so I know what’s in there.
References to other products isn’t out of control in this book. Sure, a nod here to Tome of Horrors (by Necromancer Games no less!) and Relics & Rituals is here, but it’s not as obnoxious as in some other products. The white space use isn’t as bad here as in some products but the end of the chapters is still pretty heavy.
Now the writing is fine for the most part, but sometimes it’s a little heavy with repetition. This normally wouldn’t bother me at all, but the book refers the reader to the monster manual a lot. Once again, this gets back to a book being as self contained as possible and leaving my table as free of clutter as possible. If every word were used as efficiently as possible, which it isn’t due to several typos and a few other issues, it wouldn’t be a problem. Since it isn’t, I’d like convenience in place of word economy.
The good news on the other hand, is very good. While requiring the GM to read the book at least twice before running in order to check that all map entries are correct and that all adjustments needed to game stats, like replacing material the GM doesn’t have due to appearing in 3rd party books, the adventure is very open to whatever changes the GM needs.
The presentation is top notch. Maps are provided in each section and collected at the end of the book. It’s too bad that we don’t have a separate map booklet, but I figure the book’s expensive enough without it. The maps are all done by Ed of SkeletonKey Games fame and are up to his usual top notch standard. My only note about them is that due to the enlarged scale, one hex equaling ten feet, it might be a little difficult in using something like Dwarven Forge to recreate them.
The cover art is terrible in my opinion. It’s a very static piece, the minotaur looking like he’s waiting for someone to apply deodorant. Thankfully, the interior art is generally much better. A huge part of this goes out to Tyler Walpole, whose joined by Veronica Jones and Mark Smylie. Tyler’s art lends the book a ferocious energy. Take for example his burning humanoid reptillions on page 71 or his take on the various Reptillion caste on page 115. This illustration says to me that I should use these monsters outside of this adventure.
The adventure takes place in the Caverns of Thracia. We are given a ton of history about the Caverns and while not all of it may be of use to some GMs, others will be able to use the various elements, modern Deathwalkers, the descendants of the ancient Thracians, who still have some power in lower levels, against the former slaves, the beastmen (gnolls, minoaturs, and the new dog men), with plot elements tying into the lizard men faction. All of this ties into some elements that the players may never get to as there is a whole level with some vague detail left for the GM to customize.
Now I ran this campaign a long time ago when it was just a Judges Guild Adventure. I ran it for 2nd edition and made changes to the adventure to reflect it’s use in the Forgotten Realms. Yeah, that’s right, the Forgotten Realms. See, while the cover proudly notes that this is a Judges Guild Product, it’s not really set in the Wilderlands. It’s a generic adventure that’s very self sufficient as far as placement. If your campaign has a history to it with some out of the ways places, this adventure is going to work great for you in terms of customizing it.
Some random thoughts on why I like this adventure. It has a lot of potential for rogues to shine. I know, sounds stupid right? Sometimes though I’ve run adventures where the rogue was in essence acting as a backup fighter. Here, if a rogue specializes in social skills, he can be a vital link between the party and the other inhabitants of the dungeon. If he focuses on traps, he’ll shine when it comes to saving the party from the numerous dangers present in the dungeon.
Another thing I like is the little things updated to 3.5. For example, if the party gains the Mark of Thanatos, the god of death that the Deathwalkers worship, whenever they are heavily wounded, an avatar of that god will come to escort them to the death. They can refuse it only for so long before they have to battle it.
Another nice thing that can work for and against the party, is that the adventure isn’t linear. At some points, the party may be facing opponents too strong for them, and in at least two instances, the party will have a rough time of it (almost) regardless of their level. This shows them that the Caverns aren’t some static element that just sits there waiting for them to plunder it.
While the book doesn’t present a ton of material to use after the adventure has been run, there are still several toys that can be borrowed for other adventures. These magic items, while lacking a caster cost in gold and experience points, still provide a wide range of options ranging from the simple ceaseless candle to the rod of control undead. New monsters range on ability from the sheetmetal golem, an ancient construct of bronze clocking in at a CR of 10, to the original inhabitants of the Caverns themselves, the reptillions with four different caste ranging from a lowly CR of 1 to a CR of 4 with the benefit of advancing by character class.
Despite not being optimized for quick play and requiring references to several other books (Monster Manual, Tome of Horrors, Relics & Rituals), this is an adventure worth the purchase price. The Caverns of Thracia can be run as a massive dungeon romp or a shifting alliance of the players and the inhabitants. It’s versatility is its strength.
