Dungeon Dive 2: Abandoned Temple is a pdf product by a new pdf publishing company, Amalara, and is the second in their Dungeon Dive series. Written by David Garrett, it offers a very generic dungeon, full of creatures, traps and more, that a DM can use by simply adding plot elements and perhaps a NPC, monster or both. The 18 pages of this pdf are filled as follows: 1 page for the cover, 2 pages for introductory material and advice on using the product, 2 pages for OGL declarations, 1 page for the map - thereby leaving 12 pages devoted to detailing the generic dungeon. Dungeon Dive 2: Abandoned Temple normally retails on RPGNow for $3.95. This review was done as part of the Review Project.
Initial Impressions:
The Dungeon Dive series is aimed at busy DMs who don't have the time to populate a dungeon - it provides that dungeon for you, a generic dungeon complete with critters and all that you can use as part of your plot, or to house that evil NPC that's been tormenting the PCs. Dungeon Dive 2: Abandoned Temple details a generic lost temple that still contains a relic. It provides a map, which I should add does not contain a key or legend unlike the add indicates, and a generic dungeon environment built around that map. There are one or two pieces of art distributed throughout the pdf, taken from published sources such as Image Portfolio. Layout and editing is good, and the pdf is easy to read. The dungeon itself is well-written, although, being generic, it was a little uninspired in the descriptions or room layouts, and did nothing to inspire the imagination - it has priests' quarters, storage chambers, a garden, entrance foyers; all really standard stuff that one might expect for an abandoned temple devoted to a sun god. But, let's delve a little deeper.
The Details:
The abandoned temple provides a low, medium, and high level alternative to each encounter area or trap found. There's no mention of exactly what is defined by each of these, and a range of levels would've been useful. Creatures, traps and treasure are arranged according to these classifications, and the busy DM can simply decide which he wants to use depending on his characters.
The dungeon is generic with no cohesive back story, exactly as indicated that they would be. DMs are expected to add the plot elements, extra creatures and presumably anything else they need to add. Creatures encountered in the dungeon range from spider-types (spider, phase spider) to turn to stone-types (cockatrice, medusa) to annoying critters (pixie, hellwasp swarm). Several of the creatures actually make an appearance in more than one location. There are a multitude of traps and hazards, and some of the older edition gamers will recognise the rot grub amongst those. There are twenty-one encounter areas described, and two hazards (rot grub and russet mold) are given in the appendix, both taken from Tome of Horrors (not Tomb of Horrors, as listed in the pdf).
While I think the idea is admirable, I'm doubtful as to its use. For a quick dungeon, this is a nice little resource. But, while it aims not to be prescriptive in story or plot, it is still prescriptive in dungeon layout and creatures. As such, having a temple filled with phase spiders is not necessarily something that would be around if your temple was occupied by a lich, or some devil or other fiend. Certainly the creatures I would populate a temple with would be closely associated with the purpose of said temple, and the owner of said temple. In that sense, if you want to use an abandoned, generic temple that holds a relic and as such contains generic creatures, this pdf is for you. If, on the other hand, you want to add a good back story, some NPCs, spice up the room layouts and background, then you might find that the creatures, traps and locations may not suit your needs, and you'd need to start from scratch in any case. That makes this, to me, a rather niche product, and one that many may prefer not to use, simply because the creatures do not suit their needs, or the map is not what they were looking for.
Conclusions:
Dungeon Dive 2: Abandoned Temple provides a very generic temple, populated with creatures, traps and treasure, for busy DMs that don't have time to create their own dungeons and simply want to add plot. As a niche product it does a good job, providing everything that it says it will. However, it's a product that some such as myself may not find that useful, given that even creatures can be very prescriptive if you want to develop a dungeon around a specific NPC, theme or even layout. Based on good presentation, but overall being a niche product, I'd grade it as average with three stars.
