Rappan Athuk: The Dungeon of Graves

After looking for a place to truly challenge my players combat skills, I think I can honestly say I've found it. I will say this is NOT an adventure for the role player OR the weak of heart. High level parties might not even make it out of the second level or much less the first. Rappen Athuk is truly a dungeon crawl at it's finest. Take it for what you will. I certainly know this. That with the added bonuses from the web pages, plus what's already offered here, Rappen Athuk will be remember by players and Dms alike as better, harder version of Undermountain.
 

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Tons O' Fun!

The cover art is good as are the illustrations throughout. My players really liked the picture of Saracek on page 17, especially the undead skeleton with the shield and of course Saracek screaming out "You wanna piece of me!"

The dungeon does get boring in a few places as it lapses into "open door, kill, close door" but there were certainly enough challenges between monsters and traps to keep my players guessing. The dung monster was a piece of crap (lol!). I

The rating may have been 5 if the had wrapped a more intriguing story around the whole set of dungeons -that was not their intent, but it would have made for a more interesting adventure as a whole. I do commend them on the neat feature at the beginning of a dungeon level that gave it an overal difficulty rating similar to CR if you will.

The book is 48 pages long with thin margins making it absolutely crammed with material. I actually extracted dungeons from the product as I did not want to eliminate the characters from the campaign -it is really easy to die in this thing. I recommend taking elements out as needed to place dungeons in your own campaign. More like a resource book than a roleplaying adventure really.

Still, good job overall as was to be expected.
 

Continuing with the "old school" themes of their other products, Necromancer Games has again crafted a memorable and unique adventure. This time, we delve into the most reviled and deadly dungeon in the land, Rappan Athuk.

And I do mean deadly -- even veteran dungeon crawlers will be surprised and likely humbled by the chalenges. A full frontal attack without careful planning will guarantee many character deaths.

Any evaluation of this product should also consider the free wilderness download, map, and encounter suppliments from the company website. Taken together, Rappan Athuk is 48+26 = 72 pages of solid old school dungeon. A DM who doesn't want to subject their players to the whole thing at once could easily tear the dungeon appart and use the levels or encounters individually throughout a campaign.

Rappan Athuk is the king of the dungeon crawl. If you like this style of play, then treat yourself to a copy. If you prefer heavy roleplaying or urban adventures, spend your money elsewhere.
 

As you open the book, the first thing that greets you is a proclaimation that, true to many of the worse adventures of 1st edition, they aren't going to even pretend to show any faith to such droll concepts as "ecology." At least they set out their philosophy, but that may be cold comfort for the players whose suspension of disbelief you are shattering.

The book presents several levels of a fairly deadly dungeon. Some of the dungeon has a good degree of imagination and thought paid to it. But alas, there are large swaths of it that I could have easily gotten out of Jamis Buck's Random Dungeon Generator. Not knocking the program, but I certainly wouldn't want to pay for the output.

Further, the maps look very sloppy. Even the old 1e modules (y'know, the ones with blue ink printed on the inside covers of the modules) had grids. Now I can understand why you would want to forego a neat grid if you were after artistic effect, but these don't look artistic at all.

There are rules flubs in several places. Some goblin characters in the book are done correctly, yet in other places they are done wrong; it seems like they were learning as they went along, but the fact that they did not go back and fix the first batch just seems sloppy to me. Further, they had things like undead creatures with Con scores (and many had level that used the regular HD instead of d12 -- as they weren't using published templates, whether that is required is debatable, but it seems a convention to me.) Also, in one place a Wand of Conjuration appears as treasure. Seeing how all wands are now based on a singular spell now, that seemed a pretty blatant sign that this is just a rewarmed 1e dungeon from the authors' campaign.

Alas, I cannot see why so many people seem to love this adventure. Yes, I played under the auspices of 1e, and have and still do run dungeon bashes. However, this adventure reminded the worst of 1e, not the best. At best, I can see extracting the few good encounters from the dungeon for use elsewhere. I cannot see running this dungeon as a whole, or using its maps elsewhere.

If you want dungeon bashes, pick up AEG's Dungeons instead. The temple described therein has the same general feel of death and corruption as RA, but is much better conceived, and don't have to live under the declaration that the designers are going to make an ill-conceived dungeon in the first place because that's the way it used to be. Necromancer's Demons and Devils is also a much better product.

If a car manufacturer makes a car meant to hearken back to the nostalgic days, they give it the look and feel of an old car, but at least make sure that it works like a new car under the hood. That philosophy is something that Necromancer would be well advised to emulate.
 

OK I hate to rain on everyone's parade, but this wasn't that great a module.
I'll grant my group enjoyed it, but there were quite a few flaws. The encounter
levels were wildly out of whack. Considering that it's billed as a 4th-9th level
dungeon, the first encounter could easily wipe out the party, and you haven't
even entered the dungeon. Once you're in there is some good stuff and some
lousy stuff. The toilet monster was pointless and silly. Some might have found
it amusing, but I just left it out. I do quite like a dungeon crawl, but this one
didn't make very much sense. The levels were in no way related. They could have
been in separate dungeons and made an equal amount of sense.
I do like some of the deceptive tricks. They will certainly keep a DM grinning.
Also the tactical suggestions for the nastier encounters are quite useful (and
EEEEVIL). However, I will repeat again that the ELs are way out of what. The
final battle, portrayed on the cover, is actuallly 15th level or so. A 9th level party
will definitely be pushing up daisies by the end of it.
As for quality of production, well the artwork is pretty good, as is the flavor text
(though it does sometimes make too many assumptions about where one is
comming from or doing). Also the linkage of the different levels is somewhat
confusing. I have to say that it would possibly be wiser to wait for later
sections to be published before you even begin since you will get stuck.
The maps are without any scale (except in a few instances, and there are no
grids. The CRs for monsters are often wrong (though it did precede the MM,
so that is understandable). Also the use of spells by enemies is often described
wrong in the tactical suggestions.
Summing up I will say that if you want a wicked dungeon crawl that will need
modification to be a consistent challenge, it is good. Even if you just buy it
to insert the enounters into you own creations, it will work well. However if you
want to run it as is, I can't vote for it.
 

As a DM, I tend to lean towards more of a in depth role play experience in my world. That being said, I also like to have a place, or places, that are not too far for PC’s to go to that will give them a good hack and slash experience. Even more important, it needs to be a place that will be revisited and will carry them through a few levels. Rappun-Athuk, The Dungeon of Graves: The Upper Levels (long title) is a solid site-based dungeon crawl that does exactly what I stated above.

Beware Spoilers included- If you are a DM in need of a hack and slash dungeon location there are some things you should know about Rappun-Athuk. It is a good dungeon but watch out! Low level characters could get obliterated quite easily. The Toilet (dung) monster, while being very strange, is also a CR 6 creature and on level 1. Some of the encounters on level one are geared well towards lower to mid level creatures but then you find ones that will send the party scrambling away for their very lives.
My players have not delved too deeply into Rappun-Athuk yet but I realized that even at 3rd or 4th level they could actually get to areas that would destroy them absolutely. The lair of Scramge the Rakshasa being one of them. A DM worth his or her salt with a Rakshasa in hand could give a fairly tough party a run for their money. With all the ways in and out of the dungeon it would be a shame for your 3rd level party to encounter a Purple Worm (CR10), Umber Hulk (CR5), and the Rakshasa (CR12) mentioned above. They would last only moments.
So…I actually love the module as a great place for mid level PCs to test their hack and slash metal and gain some experience. As a DM, though, I have had to carefully push the PCs in directions away from certain disaster when possible. It was fun to watch the party flee in a panic when they encounter the pair of wererats (on level 1) that they were entirely unprepared to deal with. They took a beating and the overly aggressive ½ orc rogue got killed but the grouped laughed about it, geared up and went back for revenge. A little better prepared then before.

In Summary….Rappun-Athuk is a good dungeon crawl but, as the DM, you will have to be careful of the power level of some of the encounters. It can be unbalanced in parts. On the artwork, it is solid, standard, D&D module artwork that fits the scene (which I like as I am not a fan of random, unrelated artwork for filler). It is worth 10 bucks and is enjoyable. I did not find that I needed to tweak bad stat blocks or anything of that nature as I have in other modules. Overall, an above average product and I will being by the second one.
 

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.
 

Enter the most famous and feared dungeon in all the lands! The first installment of the Rappan Athuk series details the first 6 upper levels of this huge multi-level dungeon. A classic dungeon crawl for 4 to 6 characters level 5 to 9, guaranteed to challenge even the most seasoned adventurer!
 

The Rappan Athuk series follows the standard we used back in the 'old' days of AD&D 1st edition. If you enjoyed the romps you had in G1-2-3, or A1-4 you'll certainly enjoy this series.

The module itself is packed with traps, some unique monsters and of course treasure! If the module itself isn't enough they also have a few downloads to increase your adventures for the R1 module.

The module consists of several connected dungeons that carries the title of Rappan Athuk. Currently the upper levels are generally inhabited with a hodge podge collection of creatures. The deeper the party travels down into the dungeons the more difficult the creatures get. There are however some rather high level encounters that the party could meet their end at if they chose not to flee. Necromancer game has this idea that just because its a low level module doesnt mean that they (npcs) will be so limited. I think this adds to the excitement factor and teachs players to learn that old phrase 'He who learns to run away, lives to fight another day.'

The only 'con' I have with the module is the maps come attached to module text so pulling them out also removes a few pages from the module. However, Necromancer is soon to have a downloable version of the maps for your pleasure.

The module scores a 5 for what it is. A great first edition feel dungeon.
 

Review of Rappan Athuk 1 & 2

Both of these modules have been covered in some depth by previous reviewers as to their composition, so I won't go into detail in that regard.

The Rappan Athuk trilogy (of which only the first two have been released, with the third due out in two or three months) forms a large-scale dungeon crawl. It is not designed as a plot-based adventure (like the Freeport trilogy), but rather as a place where you can take your group of adventurers throughout the campaign to do some dungeon exploration for whatever reasons you as the DM see fit. Further, the levels are fairly independent of each other, and so the modules can easily be cannibalized and used separately as you see fit.

Obviously, if you and your group hate dungeon exploration, this is not the product for you. However, if you like delving deep into unknown passageways, probing further than any adventurers before you, then it's an excellent buy.

Strengths of Rappan Athuk 1 & 2: Though near the surface, the "Upper Levels" are still quite challenging, especially for characters below fifth level. Further, the challenge level within each level varies, so a level that a group of seventh level adventurers might be able to handle could still have a room or three which could overwhelm them. Far from seeing this a weakness, I view it as a strength because it keeps the adventurers on their toes, forces them to remember that there are times when you need to run away, and makes even the upper levels challenging for higher level characters. The first module also provides a decent historical synopsis of the dungeon, and a long list of rumors to feed the party.

In the second module, the challenge rating continues to hold true, with a few areas that would challenge even 15-20th level PCs. There is also more variety in the second module than the first, and more levels are given.

The Rappan Athuk modules also have excellent customer support, with redone maps for the second module (see Weaknesses, below), a wilderness area expansion for the dungeon, and more product additions coming soon.

Weaknesses of Rappan Athuk 1 & 2: The maps are a weakness for both modules; neither module's maps are keyed, and the maps in RA1 do not even have a grid. While the maps in RA2 do have a grid, there is no scale, and the maps themselves are miskeyed and poorly drawn. Fortunately, Necromancer Games has recognized this, and has made available at their website much superior maps which are among the best I have seen for Third Edition products-but only for Rappan Athuk 2 so far.

Another weakness in Rappan Athuk 2 is the inclusion of certain "maze segments" on a few of the levels, which the DM is supposed to design himself. One sample map is provided of a maze section, but it is very crude. The text itself states that the mazes are filled with a confusion effect and shifting walls, which makes mapping them pointless anyway, so I suppose it doesn't matter that they were never given full map support. Still, I would have liked to have seen something more creative done with these areas.

Another problem with both modules is their incomplete conversion to 3rd edition, with the occasional reference to such relics as "turns" still to be found throughout the text, and some converted monsters not fully thought out in 3rd Edition terms. For the most part, though, this is nothing a DM cannot easily work around.

Summary: Despite its glitches and problems, Rappan Athuk remains an excellent dungeon complex, one of the best out there for the Third Edition. Its lack of a definitive plotline is actually a major strength, since it allows DMs to easily incorporate the adventure into their own campaign settings, or extract individual levels with a minimum of fuss for use as they see fit. Although they both lack a certain polish, this has been ameliorated (especially for Rappan Athuk 2) with their web enhancements for the products, and with more such on the way, Rappan Athuk can only continue to improve.

Rating:
Rappan Athuk 1: 4/5
Rappan Athuk 2: 5/5


If you plan on ever doing any dungeon delving with your group, these are excellent books to get.
 

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