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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 9015183" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dungeon Issue 76: Sep/Oct 1999part 5/5Earth Tones: After all the heroic nonsense of the last adventure, this one has the somewhat more neutral motivation of exploring a recently discovered abandoned dwarven steading for treasure. Of course, when the person who discovered it sends out a general call for adventurers there's a distinct possibility other ones will get there before you and take most of the obvious treasure. There's also the risk of dwarves turning up claiming to be relatives of the original owners, (whether they actually are or not) which means they're entitled to take over the property by inheritance. So it turns out here, where the dwarves are actually duergar that have been looking for this place for ages, and not above using theft and causing trouble for the human settlement nearby in the process to get the treasure they came for. This means there's not a huge amount of actual dungeoncrawling here since the place is already mostly mapped out and the treasure claimed by the time you get there, but there is plenty of interesting stuff going on, between the social wrangling and attacks from burrowing creatures in the village like purple worms, bulettes and umber hulks. So this turns out to be mostly an exploration of the politics that happen in a world where dungeon-crawling is a common thing and there are lots of groups of adventurers competing for the same treasures, some independent wanderers, some sponsored by various nobles who will bring down the full force of the law upon you if you try to take stuff found on their land without giving them a good cut of the loot. If you're high enough level, you can still get away or kill them and take over, but either of those will probably lead to further consequences somewhere down the line. (which hopefully can be fun in themselves, but it'll take a bit of work from the DM.) If you want to put a bit more realpolitik in your dungeon crawling as players go up levels and attract more attention from powerful figures in the world, this is a pretty good example of how to do it. The kind of thing they should have done years ago, before the whole attracting followers and domain management thing was mostly forgotten about, as we really need more adventures covering this phase of the adventuring lifecycle to ease them into it without the campaign stalling.Fruit of the Vine: Our final adventure also sticks to the mildly warm end of the colour spectrum, as it looks at what happens when Olive Slime and Yellow Musk Creepers combine. Rather than the slime simply eating the creeper, they reach a symbiosis that makes them more deadly than the sum of their parts, although the zombies probably don't stick around as well long-term. Someone the PC's know has been infected, preferably a merchant or other well-connected figure they have regular contact with between adventures. (so hopefully they'll look for a cure instead of just killing them straight away when they start acting weird) When confronted by you or a bystander who's seen them acting suspiciously earlier they'll release a bunch of slime infected rats and try to get away. Asking people about their recent movements will lead you to the abandoned house where the plant itself is growing. Explore it and root out the cause of the problem. Fortunately, all the infected creatures are still linked to the master plant, and destroying it will free them as long as you don't dawdle and let them plant new seeds elsewhere. (and hey, you can always say it happened offscreen anyway if you want to set up a sequel) A short adventure, but one packed with little setting details that are ripe for expansion and follow-ups, this is another example of the kind of monster design they'll use a lot more next edition, turning some things into templates that can be combined with all sorts of other things, advanced with class levels and generally customised instead of having to make up a whole new kind of monster to challenge the PC's just because they've gone up a level. Chris's tenure continues to encourage that kind of thinking, which I definitely approve of. A curiously self-aware issue, with lots of adventures that feel like intentional exploration of and commentary on D&D tropes. Sometimes the adventure part is good as well, and sometimes it feels a bit underwritten compared to the meta bits, but they have definitely given me more to think about than in the average issue, making this review longer than average as well. Too much self awareness may get irritating at times, but it’s still better than being completely lacking in it. Let’s see what lessons next issue will have to impart, and if they’ll be good enough to melt the heart of a hardened scrooge.</blockquote>

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