Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Burnside" data-source="post: 9697066" data-attributes="member: 6910340">The 10th and final adventure is Dragons of the Sandstone City, also for level 12 characters. And it's a really strong finish to the book.The adventurers must enter a ruined, subterranean desert city and use the power of a brass dragon's egg to weaken an ancient blue dragon so that it can be destroyed before it's able to raise its own ancestors and use the undead dragons to conquer the region.The GoodThe art here is excellent and evocative, and the map is good too, with warm orange and gold tones that evoke sandstone and desert rock and give it a distinctive feel. The detail work is limited but very effective.The adventure opens with the quest-giver getting mugged as she tries to approach the party for help. This is a nice way to kick things off with some action; I might have had her attacked by monstrous servants of the blue dragon instead of random street thugs; the fact that she is a known and watched target of the dragon would then give her a built-in excuse not to accompany the party (which she refuses to do, despite being a reasonably powerful NPC). You could actually do a fun set-piece here kinda like the Shanghai nightclub prologue at the start of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, with the brass dragon egg instead of the diamond.To get a password to enter the ruined city, a sphinx's riddle must be answered. It's a good one and most groups will get it, but if they don't there are nice clues available. If all else fails, the sphinx is not above simple bribery!The dungeon (16+ keyed locations) has some nice features, including lightning crystals that are dangerous if damaged (watch those fireballs) and medallions that must be collected to bypass a guardian statue.Dungeon has a great layout for open exploration. Denizens include basilisks that turn victims into lightning crystal, the undead former king of the city (an imperious halfling mummy lord), and an evil but not especially loyal dao ally of the dragon, with her gargoyle servants. Mummies and flameskulls are also to be found.In the climactic fight, the brass dragon egg weakens the Ancient Blue Dragon (into an Adult Dragon) and temporarily buffs our heroes, which players will love.If the halfling mummy lord doesn't get what he wants, he pursues characters who leave the tomb to take his revenge. The adventure doesn't get into specifics, but it could be a fun epilogue encounter if he shows up at the victory feast back in town.Oh, this dungeon is also - again, not called out - wheelchair accessible. Complaints.I really don't have any. You can improve it, but everything here is really good.Verdict. At least an A-, for some groups an A. Either this or The Baker's Doesn't are the best adventures in the book imo, and fwiw Baker's Doesn't has some flaws and this really doesn't - but they are tonally very different, so it's really a matter of taste which is on top.</blockquote>

Verification