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Message: <blockquote data-quote="demiurge1138" data-source="post: 4696604" data-attributes="member: 7451">DCC #34: Cage of DeliriumAn adventure for 6th-8th level characters.Cage of Delirium was an interesting experiment for the Dungeon Crawl Classics line. It was apparently inspired by the Midnight Syndicate album “Gates of Delirium”, and that CD was enclosed in the print version with suggestions for playing specific tracks during specific encounters. Unfortunately, they didn’t work out a licensing agreement so you got the mp3s when you bought the PDF. The adventure takes place in the burnt-out wreckage of Haverthold Asylum, which was once a good hospital for the treatment of the insane, but ended in a riot of fire and madness. As the PCs investigate the ruins, they encounter a number of ghosts and other undead, some violent and dangerous, but others pitiful and tragic. By speaking to the ghosts, observing the phantoms and piecing together case histories of the patients, the PCs can learn the story of the asylum’s violent end and dispel its evils. The story of Haverthold Asylum is the story of its founder, Renald Stethenfield, and his twin sons, Luc and Marc. Renald’s wife died giving birth to Marc, and Luc had to be pulled from his mother’s corpse. Luc was never quite right, being prone to violence and self-destructive behavior, and Renald reluctantly committed the boy to his own asylum. Marc, on the other hand, was a model doctor, encouraging a lovely young inmate named Leena Dushea to come out of her shell, then marrying her once she was discharged from the asylum. Renald’s experiments in the treatment of mental illness took a dark turn later in his life, and it was this guilt that killed him at an early age. Marc took over the running of Haverthold Asylum, ceased the grim experiments, and tried to cure his twin brother.This was a mistake. Luc Stethenfield had spent his time as an inmate building an army of the mad, and eventually overpowered and replaced his brother—since they were identical, no one was the wiser. Luc used his position of authority to torture the inmates in the name of “scientific progress”, and had Leena recommitted when she figured out the switch—and went back into catatonia after realizing she was pregnant. Eventually, Leena attacked Luc before leaping to her death, driving the wrongly imprisoned Marc insane. Marc escaped and opened the asylum doors to create a mad army of his own, and the asylum died ablaze, the twins clutching at each other’s throats to the last.What I liked: Cage of Delirium is story heavy, and it’s a darn good story. Madness, revenge, ghosts. It’s conveyed to the PCs well through the use of the helpful ghosts, handouts and patient files—the patient files I especially like, because each doctor has different handwriting. This switch in handwriting serves as an early clue to the replacement of Marc by Luc Stethenfield. The helpful ghosts are well done, only conveying information if their own task has been set right. It makes for an interestingly non-linear experience, with the PCs running back and forth through the asylum to do research and meet with troubled spirits.The monsters are creatively utilized in Cage of Delirium—unlike my complaint with The Haunted Lighthouse before, it’s clear what undead are the result of what tragedy. Allips are the inmates, shadows are Luc Stethenfield’s goons, wights his favored lieutenants, ghosts are the most plot important and (generally) harmless. F. Wesley Schnieder also does a good job reskinning monsters to make them fit better—there’s a possessed object template to make animated objects more ghostly, and unique creatures that turn up in this module are highly modified, undead pyrohydras or bone devils.What I disliked: One of the lost souls that the PCs can help to free the asylum is the Ash Ghost, who shows up as a random encounter. It’s given an EL in its spot on the random encounter table, and I kept expecting to see its stat block. None was given. I then double-checked the information on the Ash Ghost, and saw that he is “non aggressive and disappears if attacked”. Oh bother. Should have caught that in editing.The PDF lacks the soundtrack. I get the feeling that said soundtrack would do wonders for the atmosphere of Cage of Delirium. Fortunately, "Gates of Delirium" isn’t exclusive to this module—it was released independently several years before. So it shouldn’t be hard to track down.Was it worth the $2? Although it feels a bit incomplete without the CD, Cage of Delirium is a wonderfully atmospheric little ghost story, and I recommend it highly.</blockquote>

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