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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8437461" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dungeon Issue 37: Sep/Oct 1992part 5/5The Mud Sorcerer's Tomb: After getting a letter a couple of issues ago where they suggested they ought to step up their artwork and use the illustrations to help with puzzle setting in a similar way to the Tomb of Horrors, it looks like we have an adventure that took this advice very literally, coming up with something that's very similar in general, just with the specific details changed. What happened to the lost cult of the mud sorcerers? Why did they go from a thriving villainous organisation to virtually nonexistent 700 years ago, and what lurks in their heavily guarded tomb complexes? If you dare venture within, get ready for the kind of adventure that's best approached in a slow and paranoid manner, for there's several traps that'll kill you automatically if you take the wrong approach. (although they're still fairer in general than the original ToH, and there are at least a few regular combat encounters in between to break the tension.) Many of the obvious ways of short-circuiting the dungeon have been anticipated and countermeasures prepared, so don't think you can scry & teleport your way through this one. The general theme of earth & water based magic is stuck too pretty well, giving all the encounters a nicely consistent flavour even as they vary the types of tricks these elements are used for. Thankfully, despite the sadism, it's also very generous with the treasure (although watch out for cursed/trapped items, as they don't skimp on the ingenuity in that area either) so if you've got the brains to make it through, the rewards will be all the more satisfying. A good challenge for your high level characters that's got plenty of flavour and is designed to be easy to expand upon, this could keep your campaign going for a while after hitting name level and feeling the temptations of retirement. Then you can hit them with the real Tomb of Horrors & Labyrinth of Madness and see if they've built up enough skill and paranoia to survive that, or they'll fall before an adventure that genuinely doesn't pull it's punches. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Lots of adventures where the monsters use their brains this time, so the PC's need to be similarly inventive with their powers if they want to keep up and survive. The level of linearity continues to creep up compared to the adventures of 5 years ago, but there's still more than enough which give you complete freedom to filter that out if you want too. Let's get through another couple of polyhedrons and find out if they have anything special prepared for christmas this year.</blockquote>

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