Round Three: 10 more modules... DCC style!

[demiurge1138]

DCC #44: Dreaming Caverns of the Duergar

An adventure for 1st-3rd level characters.

The PCs are travelling through the Underdark towards the dwarf-hold of Ul Yazhmotk when a nasty earthquake results in a cave in. Trapped on either side, the only way to go is through a passage opened in the rumble. This isn’t a pleasant short-cut, though—if it was, there wouldn’t be an adventure. These caverns are inhabited by a tenuous alliance between duergar and derro, with the unified mission of destroying Ul Yazhmotk. They’re led by cultists of the ascended dragon-god Xhitigal and the descendant of one of his greatest worshipers, the half-dragon Ithamos Cyvorak. Unfortunately for the duergar, Cyvorak is a charlatan with the intent of stealing his ancestor’s treasures and looting the dwarf city during the raid, making off with the treasure before the cultists figure it out. The duergar were conducting large-scale tunneling operations, but they’ve been postponed by the cave-ins blocking their tunnels and isolating a large amount of their force.

The PCs, in addition to fighting duergar and derro, will pass through a sunless garden tended by vegepygmies and perhaps find the great treasure of the original Cyvorak. And, hopefully, they’ll be able to find their way out of the caverns and to their original destination.

What I liked: Oh, the maps! This is what a dungeon should look like! Multiple routes, branching passageways and plenty of options for player choice are all on display here. I’m also quite fond of the old friends making an appearance here. The Tome of Horrors is again drawn on as a monster resource, and players of Dreaming Caverns of the Duergar will be treated to vegepygmies, a yellow musk creeper and an executioner’s hood.

The enemy NPCs also have a lot of personality. The derro are all suitably crazy, leaving scribbled notes, singing madly, and spending the time by shooting at each other with poisoned crossbow bolts. There’s an encounter with a fast-talking garrulous xorn, a sarcastic drow prisoner, and Ithamos Cyvorak is vastly overconfident in his martial abilities (being half dragon will do that to you).

There are also a few shout-outs to other Dungeon Crawl Classics modules, which I really appreciated. The cave-in is caused by the activity at the newly active Mount Rolnith (Volcano Caves reference!), and the vault of C’bogyg Cyvorak was looted by adventurers seeking money to fund their expedition to exterminate the wicked Srihoz.

What I disliked: The listed tactics of the majority of the combatants are not very good. It’s mentioned in a sidebar that the duergar will usually enlarge before entering melee (and we’re given a statblock for an enlarged duergar warrior, which I appreciate), but they’re never listed as doing so in the text. They never use invisibility either, even when setting ambushes, and the derro never use any of their myriad spell-like abilities. The clerics are just treated like fighters, charging into melee without casting any spells, and their listed spells are all pretty terrible besides (you’d think that if they were to charge into melee, they’d at least cast buffs on themselves first). There’s an encounter that highly amused me, where the vegepygmies stab at people who’ve fallen into a twenty foot deep pit… with ten foot long spears. Perhaps these are rare mold men with extens-o-matic arms?

The vegepygmies also mystify and frustrate me. Why do they tolerate the presence of warlike duergar? Why do individual encounters vacillate between them being skittish and avoiding confrontation and them being violent warriors? Do they tend the yellow musk creeper, or avoid it? And why, to change the subject a bit, are all of the Hide and Move Silently checks in the adventure not actually opposed checks? Why are they made at flat DCs?

Was it worth the $2? I really wanted to like Dreaming Caverns of the Duergar, but in the end, I’m forced to admit my ambivalence towards it. If you’re looking for real First Edition Feel, you’ll find it here, but the tactics on display are bad enough that you’ll probably want to rewrite most of them.

 

[demiurge1138]

I have yet to read Vault of the Iron Overlord. When I do so, I'll post the review here.

 

[Knightfall]

This is great, demiurge. I'll read those in depth when I get a chace.

Thanks.

 

[Knightfall]

demiurge,

Can you also post your reviews of DCC #18 and DCC #21 here as well (since those are the two DCC v.3.5 modules I've actually been able to find in Edmonton)?

Thanks.

 

[demiurge1138]

DCC #18: Citadel of the Demon Prince

An adventure for 12th-13th level characters.

The PCs are renowned for their expertise at hunting demons, so are sent to a desecrated church said to be the bastion of the “Cult of the Broken Word”, a demon worshipping cult that’s been harvesting hundreds of innocents, depopulating the surrounding villages. When the PCs get there, they find it a war zone. The cultists were blessed by the arrival of powerful fiends, but these demons are more interested in tearing the cultists apart than serving them. Only two powerful stone golems and an odd dimensional effect protect the remainder of the cult—part of the church is partly in the Material and partly on the Abyssal plain, making it impossible to teleport to and from. The source of this effect is the cult’s dark altar of sacrifice; hitting the altar with a dimensional anchor spell will stop the planar resonance…and bring with it a portal to a desolate hellscape.

The Cult of the Broken Word is even more of a threat than the average group of demon worshippers. They are secretly in thrall to Black Son, a minor demonic princeling who seeks bigger and better things. As such, Black Son has devised a ritual to tear his manor out of the Abyss and transplant it to an asteroid hurtling towards the campaign world. If the party can’t stop him and shut down his soul engines, the madness and death caused by an extinction level event will be enough to pull the entire planet into the Abyss as Black Son’s playground, and grant him enough soul stuff to become among the most powerful of demon lords.

What I liked: The plot of Citadel of the Demon Prince is epic and (literally) world-shattering, especially for the level it’s aimed at. That’s a damned good way to make the PCs feel like movers and shakers in the campaign world—as well they should! The entire module sets a very dark fantasy mood, starting with the rumor that powerful seers have been found in their beds, stricken dead from fear of a black sun. The fact that my playlist came up with a suite from The Omen during the final confrontation with Black Son didn’t hurt things, either.

The demonic host in this adventure is a diverse and memorable band. Multiple demons from the Tome of Horrors are used, which delights me, as its fiends were the best original content in it. There’s three unique monsters too, all of which are quite memorable, although the wrack and angelic effigy might be a bit broken for their CRs. I was quite pleased that the demon cultists were as terrified of and in as much danger from the demons as the PCs were and that the demons did not cooperate well with each other, and the PCs do have the potential to turn this strife to their advantage on multiple occasions.

What I disliked: There’re a number of statblock problems in this module (surprise, surprise). Many of the fiends don’t have a listed number of times per day they can use their spell like abilities. In addition, while the appendix features the stats from the 3.5 Tome of Horrors Revised, the actual text of the adventure contains the non-revised stats from the 3.0 original. This leads to some interesting conundrums in the text, such as a gharros demon that’s the abused slave of a daraka. In 3.0, the gharros was CR 9, the daraka CR 11. Now, they’re 14 and 12 respectively. Shouldn’t the relationship be reversed?

The author, Patrick Younts, clearly spent the time to come up with contingency plans for multiple PC actions, making the static dungeon seem more dynamic and real. It’s too bad that this tactical information often contradicts itself between entries. There’s a pack of howlers outside of the abbey that either charge the PCs if you believe the text at the gate or hide and wait to ambush them if you believe the text for the howlers’ den. Likewise, the outside of the abbey says that there’s a back door that the PCs can enter, but then tells us that there’s two ways in, and that isn’t one of them. We never do find out where that back door is supposed to go to.

Lastly, Black Son’s soul crystal plot isn’t really necessary. You may notice I didn’t say anything about soul crystals in the summary—by the text, the demon cult’s been sacrificing people and putting their souls into crystals, which Black Son then melts down in his soul cauldron. Once he crashes into the earth, he’ll catch even more souls in even more crystals, melt them down and drink the broth to become a powerful demon lord and drag the planet back into the abyss. It might be personal preference, but all references to soul cauldrons and crystals could be removed without hurting the adventure—if Black Son kills 95% of life on the planet in one go, that’s enough for me to think he should get promoted!

Was it worth the $2? There’s a lot to like in Citadel of the Demon Prince, but a lot of niggling little annoyances scattered throughout the text. I’m putting this into the category of “advanced recommendations” shared with Aerie of the Crow God and Curse of the Emerald Cobra. There’s a lot of fun to be gotten from Citadel of the Demon Prince, but you’ll have to put some work in it in order to make it shine.

 

[demiurge1138]

DCC #21: Assault on Stormbringer Castle

Nominally, an adventure for 12th – 14th level characters.

No, this isn’t “Stormbringer Castle” as in Elric’s awesome sword. This Stormbringer refers to a clan of storm giants. Their matriarch, Stozari Stormbringer, uses extortion to finance her many magical experiments—costal towns pay her a hefty “good weather tax” in exchange for not being wracked by hurricanes sent by her ability to control weather. The rates have been steadily growing, and the large town of Argalis has refused to pay, so has been hit with three hurricanes in as many weeks. Argalis’ government has decided it would be cheaper to hire adventurers to kill the giantess than to pay her exorbitant rates.

What sort of magical experiments, you ask? Well, she needs lots of cash to pay for good equipment for her army of ogres and hill giants. She needs to maintain the magical greenhouse that grows the enormous vegetables for them to eat. But she also has been pouring money into the creation of “living spirits”, force elementals powered by the souls of the dead and possessing their memories. She’s also been financing the construction of The Stormbringer Juggernaut, a warship sized for giants intended to take her extortion deal on the road to cities all over the world.

What I liked: Rarely is the question asked, “Where do D&D villains get their money?” Rarer still are the considerations of paying staff, equipping them and feeding them brought up. I liked that Assault on Stormbringer Castle has a certain element of that accountancy; we know where Stozari’s cash comes from, and where it’s going.

What I disliked: Unfortunately, some of Stozari’s financial decisions make little sense. Like the ogre barbarians. She employs dozens of them, but only three hill giants. The hill giants have no more equipment than rocks and hide armor, whereas the ogre barbarians are decked out in magical equipment. Both ogre barbarians and hill giants are CR 7. Wouldn’t it be more cost-effective if it were the other way around?

None of the encounters seem particularly inspired. It’s just fight after fight with giant after giant. What’s worse, many of the encounters seem less than challenging. Some of them (classless ogres, the advanced blood boulders and violet fungi) are too low of CR to even give 12th level characters XP! And our author, Christina Stiles, doesn’t seem to know how non-associated class levels work. The idea is that class levels for classes that don’t compliment the basic strengths of a monster are only CR +1/2 per level. Unfortunately, there’re a lot of giants with spellcasting classes in this module that should be non-associated. It’s pretty easy to just change the CRs to the proper number… and there are enough of these non-associated problems and softball encounters to suggest that perhaps this module should be run for 10th level adventurers, not 12th. Until you reach the encounters that really are that deadly, like a 15th level ogre fighter, with the living spirit template. These living spirits are pretty damn powerful—think of them as force liches and you’re not too far off.

I’m not sure if this complaint belongs with this module or with its sequel, The Stormbringer Juggernaut, but I’ll mention it here. The next module assumes that its premise, that Stozari Stormbringer had arranged contingencies so that she would rise as a living spirit aboard The Stormbringer Juggernaut in order to control it after being killed by the party, was well foreshadowed. It was not. There’s more foreshadowing of a plot that never comes up in the modules proper, for her late husband’s living spirit to animate an iron colossus to march up from the sea and destroy their enemies. The only indication of The Stormbringer Juggernaut’s plot is a mural with a boat on it. Maybe she just likes boats!

Was it worth the $2? No. Although I like the “weather extortionist” plot, the module itself is unremarkable in the extreme. Take that premise and give a weekend of thought to building a dungeon around it—you’ll do just as well, if not better.