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Message: <blockquote data-quote="demiurge1138" data-source="post: 4699019" data-attributes="member: 7451">DCC #18: Citadel of the Demon PrinceAn 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.</blockquote>

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