Why is the dungeon there? Noone knows. Why do the monsters usually fight rather than talk? We aren't really sure. Why are there 16 trolls in a cave with a Bottle of Alchemy? No one cares. What do all the monsters eat? We don't know that either (although adventurer probably tops the menu). And we do not need to know these things. This isn't an ecology experiment; its a dungeon-the quintessential setting for pure sword and sorcery adventuring!"- From the Introduction of Rappan Athuk, Dungeon of Graves: The Upper Levels
Warning: This Review Contains Spoilers. Do not read it if you shall be playing it.
Rappan Athuk, The Dungeon of Graves: The Upper Level, is the first of three modules detailing Rappan Athuk, designed by Necromancer Games, and published by Sword and Sorcery Studios. Written by Bill Webb and Clark Peterson, the levels of Rappan Athuk detailed within are recommended for characters of at least 5th level for the main dungeon, and 7th level for the Well. Like the previous module by Necromancer Games, the Crucible of Freya (reviewed previously by the AtFantasy Alliance), it is designed for ease of use in any world, connections exist that allow it to be easily useable with other Necromancer Games modules, however.
Presentation:
Rappan Athuk, like the Crucible of Freya, is a forty-eight page booklet with a laminated card-stock cover stapled along the spine. Internally, it contains narrow margins, with a compact, readable font.
The cover artwork is by John Masse, showing a confrontation between a party of adventurers and a pair of iron golems led by the undead wizard Zelkor. The cover's artwork captures the scene well and indicates both the mood and contents of the module. The well-placed pieces of black and white interior art are both appropriate and potentially useful, in that most cases they can be easily shown to players without giving away too much.
The maps, which are at the center of the module, convey their subject matter well. Unfortunately, they lack a measurement grid, reducing their overall usefulness.
Overview:
The module itself is divided into seven sections, including the introduction, details for each of the levels and sub-levels, and an appendix.
The introduction provides a boxed-text introduction to Rappan Athuk for the players, a list of rumors, twenty-eight total, about Rappan Athuk, and the general notes about running the adventure that are included in most modules. Within this section is a brief discussion about the idea of a dungeon adventure in general and both an explanation and admission to the fact that Rappan Athuk does not pretend to be anything more or less than that. Also included is a listing of the names of all of the twenty-four levels and sub-levels of Rappan Athuk (most of which will be in forthcoming products) and an outline of a feature that appears to be unique to Sword and Sorcery dungeon modules, the dungeon level sidebar.
The sidebars deserve separate mention and explanation. In the form of a stat block, they appear at the beginning of each dungeon chapter, describing in sufficient detail the difficulty level (what level the party needs to be in order to be overwhelmed but still challenged), the entrances and exits for the level, the wandering monster chart for the level, and the details on any shieldings, things, such as evil, that can be detected, alteration of spell functions, continuous effects, and standard features of the level.
The dungeon levels themselves are described into the typical fashion of numbered locations, as well as the previously mentioned dungeon level sidebar. The first level is called The Lair of the "Dung Monster," and its primary feature is the so-called "Dung Monster," a mutated killer mimic. The second level, Marthek's Place and Ambro's Base, serves as the guardhouse of a cannibalistic barbarian named Marthek, a tough ogre named Ambro, and a powerful, skeletal warrior named Saracek. The third level, "Beware of the Purple Worm," presents chances for encounters with the worms for which the level is named, and it possesses a trio of secrets that can serve either as a bane or boon for PCs. The third level is also home to the first sub-level of the dungeon, "the Well," which serves as the crypt for an archmage who led a doomed army to assault Rappan Athuk. He now exists as an enhanced wraith and, with his two iron golem minions, is the most dangerous foe in Rappan Athuk, the Upper Levels. The fourth and final level detailed in this module is "The Basilisk Caves," a set of caverns that serves as nothing more than a home to a variety of unintelligent, dangerous creatures such as basilisks, piercers, rust monsters, and an undead ooze, as well as a band of powerful goblins.
The Appendix contains stats for monsters found in and around Rappan Athuk that are not keyed to any particular encounter.
The Good (i.e., what I liked)
Rappan Athuk, as a self-admitted roll-playing dungeon crawl, is good in most ways that make a dungeon crawl good. It has varied and interesting encounters, especially "The Dung Monster," Scramge the Rakshasa, the Oracle, Zelkor, and the Lost Goblins, tapping into the flexibility and breadth of the third edition rules system. Even the encounters with more standard monsters were interesting and well thought out, with a variety of tactics to use against the party. I appreciated the variety of the rumors about Rappan Athuk, which provided a number of ways to attract your PCs to the dungeon. The dungeon level sidebars were helpful and innovative, providing useful information in an easy to utilize format.
The Bad(i.e. what I did not like)
Rappan Athuk possesses three flaws, one of which has a significant effect on game play, the other two only affect the particular encounters they are present in. The major flaw of the module is the sheer deadliness of the module. Though it is advertised as being dangerous, there are a number of situations where this goes to without a suitable level of warning extreme levels. One monster, "The Dung Monster," is practically invulnerable and will probably claim at least one PCs life due to its rather imaginative disguise, if the group is prone to fighting things till things look especially bleak than it will probably claim even more. The initial trap is similar, providing little or no warning and the possibility of most, if not all, of the party meeting a gruesome fate.
The second flaw is that Scramge the Rakshasa's illusionary trap/attack is not sufficiently explained. How he does it, specifically the transportation of the character across the room, activates multiple powers in the same round, and maintains multiple complicated illusions at once. As it is explained, it would be impossible without him being detected for what he was.
The final flaw, which is probably more of a nitpick than anything else, is the fact that the designers assigned a constitution score to a skeleton blackguard that results in thirty additional hit points, when undead are not supposed to have a value for constitution.
Conclusion:
If you enjoy traditional, multilevel pits of utter evil in the form of a dungeon crawl, than Rappan Athuk, the Upper Levels is a worthwhile purchase. It compares favorably to similar modules, such as the Temple of Elemental Evil and Undermountain, in both quality and cohesiveness. If you have no interest in dungeon crawls or demand a logical and cohesive internal ecology then your money would be better spent elsewhere.
