So first things first, let’s address the map situation. I believe this is the biggest blemish on the adventure. This map is very difficult for me to parse, despite being a fairly simply layout overall. Part of the issue lies in the way the side-views are presented. This fortress is essentially two mirrored towers, but the side views are both presented from the same orientation. The left and the right tower both have the cliffs on the left, instead of one having the cliff on the left and the other on the right as it should be. This means that the side views present the front of one tower and the rear of the other, and it’s ambiguous just from looking at them which tower is which. You can figure that out from context clues but I shouldn’t have too. Next, stairs are not marked at all on the top down views. I believe that all the points of interest within the towers are meant to be on the same level, but I could be mistaken on that. This is fine, but I would still like to know where the stairs are to get to the battlements. Those are important choke points, even if the tower in between is mostly empty. I do not feel confident that I could use this map to run the commando action of the PCs assaulting this tower with any degree of accuracy to what the author actually intended. This is my major point of criticism with this adventure, and it drug my overall ranking of it way way down. Maps are not easy things to create, but this one leaves quite a lot to be desired.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about what this adventure does well. First off, it has style baby. For example:

That’s cool. There’s no reason to include a detail like what the boulders are carved into except to really sell that this is a fortress of monsters on garrison duty. Of course they spend their down time carving their missiles into hideous forms to instill terror, garrison duty is freaking BORING most of the time ¹. Monsters need enrichment too! I particularly like Atu-Gallu being a spirit bound to some sorcerer’s clothes as well. This module gets a lot of mileage out its language. I can easily envision what Atu-Gallu looks like, how he acts and what his motivations are just from the brief description he gets as being aware and resentful of his being able to be “rebuked as a wraith.” There are more examples stung throughout, but any GM will immediately be able to piece together some deeper motivations and mysteries about this fortress than just “chaotic border fort the players need to knock over.”

It also does something that many fortress adventure completely fail to do: provide tactics for the those holding the fortress. On top of that, it’s sensible advice. It also has notes about how some of the troops may not be entirely reliable, for example the Orc crossbowmen and Giants who are used as living artillery will attack as soon as they see an in range target, unless there a flag of parlay is clearly displayed. So players hoping to walk up into a close range on the discipline of sentries waiting until they are at an easier distance to hit will be disappointed (good).

Overall, I think this does a good job of presenting the fortress as a military location more than a mythic dungeon. There is loot, in a good enough amount, but it isn’t really the point. Overall, this adventure would be much higher in my rankings if the maps were clear. Good effort over all, with a major blemish. Like a gymnast falling over instead of landing on their feet after a triple back flip.

ACKSman’s opinion

Now, let’s talk about this specifically as an ACKS II adventure. As I said above this module is probably the widest gap from how good of an Adventure Site it is and how good of an adventure for ACKS it is. This is a really good module for your ACKS game, especially if you are like me and primarily use the ACKS II mass combat and siege resolution systems instead of utilizing Domains at War: Battles for your war game piece. This site has it all, it already has the Domain Information set up if you want to run it like the stronghold of a small chaotic domain, it’s got your BR inputs, it has all of the Reconnaissance and Infiltration roll modifiers, and and army breakdown. The fact of this adventure is that for the way I run my game at least, I would likely not need to reference the maps at all to run it. Instead, I would simply mark the location on the map. If the players decide to attack, they would bring catapults and an army. I would run the session with the mass combat rules and we would be off to the races. In fact, I have already run this exact session previously (not this module, but a fortress that the players wanted to siege). They would be against terrible terrain modifier and have a tough time, but this fortress is easily conquerable by reducing the army down and forcing a concession from the Sorcerer-Wraith. If you want to run it with Domains at War:Battles, this becomes even better. The Hex map is basically ready made for it.

This module is one of the best examples of the game play style that ACKS enables. You can run this as an okay dungeon crawl, but you don’t have to. You can run this as a single battle, but you’re still missing out on some of it’s value. The fact that this is a ready made outpost for bandits or chaos, complete with the amount of money it’s making from it’s oppressed citizens is unique to ACKS. Helegran has done a really good job in writing something that really nails what ACKS is about, and what can only be done in ACKS.

This is an adventure that I would point to when someone questions the crunchiness of ACKS II. In another game, the author would need to painstakingly write out all the Domain information, and army and patrols and etc. You would need to triple the page count to allow all the modes that this adventure gets for free by relying on the crunch of ACKS II. And this is only touching on the idea that the players want to fight this domain. If they instead were evil themselves, they may want to trade with this place, or make a deal, or subsume it into their domain. You can do maybe one of these in a similarly sized adventure in other systems. Here, just from the number of families present, I know how big the market is, and what’s available. I can abstract out that the main trader is the Sorcerer-Wraith and come up with some modifiers to reflect that. I can easily determine how willing he is to be a vassal of a more powerful force. It’s “ACKS Already Does That” all the way down. That makes this quite a good ACKS adventure, even if I think its strength as an Adventure Site is weakened significantly.

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Footnotes:

¹ At least, it according to all the fantasy literature I read.

So as you could probably tell from the description here, there is quite a bit going on. Probably too much, players coming here are going to need to grapple with a lot of information in a short time. This in and of itself isn’t a bad thing, but once again we see the in-line major NPC syndrome. I really shouldn’t be learning that a major demon has left its spawn here in end quarter of the adventure. That should be front and center, as it’s the major centerpiece of this location. Same goes with the Gnoll chieftain. Once again a Major NPCS section would have been incredibly welcome here.

Otherwise, the rest of this site is a mixed bag. There are some really good bits, like the Gnoll guards flicking fire at attackers before engaging to help turn the tides in their favor. There’s also quite a lot of character with crude graffiti and the trappings of the old monk order in the less defiled rooms. However, the antagonistic NPC makes no sense to me. Lydia is a level 2 Magic-User who decided that Read Magic, Shield and Mirror Image were he best bet for living through this adventure. Also she’s apparently an “agent of the Gnoll Queen.” There’s a Gnoll Queen? That leads me to the next point, this adventure is written for an existing setting. Phoenix Barony by Grey Area Games. I don’t really mind this in theory, but it does mean I have less use for things like “A Map to the secret dungeon of Zoran the Dwarfslayer.” Cool name, but there is no such dungeon in my setting and there is now treasure type associated with this map, which I would need were I to modify this adventure for my own use.

So, I ended up putting this one relatively low. The glimmers of brightness are weighed down by the amount of work I would need to do to actually use this.

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First off, first impressions. I was a little disappointed when I saw the word Necropolis in the title, only to be greeted by an adventure for levels 1-3. A Necropolis is a city of the dead, not a single ghoul schlepping around in a cellar with a couple of zombies. The scale this thing wants to be at is a little all over the place. We have what seems to be a massive shrine to a former adventuring party, tucked under a no name Inn in a no name town. This is very Mythic Underworld in nature, and fits right in with OSE and B/X style of adventuring. I think though, this style of grand town complex would have felt better at levels 4-6. Give the author more room to run with higher tier undead, or just more undead.

That aside, there is a fair to bit to like here, especially if you are a fan of the more player skill over character skill style of game-play. Most of the secret doors have tells, like a faint smell of incense wafting from a section of wall, or a pile of lose brick in an otherwise smooth wall. The traps here follow a similar line. I’m a particularly big fan of this one:

Pressure plate trap in front of the ember holder makes gas burst out of a beef bladder, causing a 2d6 damage flame burst from the ember holder. 2:6 chance to step on it, surely if just examining the ember holder without precautions.

The specificity of a beef bladder gas trap is not something I would have expected in a Mythic Underworld type dungeon. “Gas Trap, 2d6 Flame Damage” performs the same function but with less flair. I certainly believe that the author here likes the players to fiddle with stuff and not rely on “Trapbreaking” or “Disarm” rolls. So if that’s your jam, this is a great one.

The treasure I think is a little high, at almost 4000 GP up for grabs, with most of it being protected by a single monster (the ghoul and a Living Statue). Plus an absolute avalanche of magic items (probably the previous adventurer’s gear).

I’ll give this another score of “workmen.” It’s good and playable, but doesn’t really exicte me in anyway. That along with the let down of expecting something bigger in scale pulls this one down for me.

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Portage

Caster can move target any vertically 20’ per round (20), Range 15’ (x1.1), 8 hour duration (x4), Concentration Required (x 0.6), 1 Willing Creature or Object (x1), Willing target is unstable (x 0.66) Can only target objects [vessels] (x 0.8), Willing Target cannot carry anything while affected (x 0.66) Arcane (x1). Total Cost: 18.4

Arcane 2 - Type: movement - Duration: 8 Hours, requires concentration
This spell targets a vessel and transforms it into a floating vessel. The caster may move the vessel up and down 15’ per round within the range, however he may not translate it in any direction. While floating, the vessel can be moved by a team of draft animals or men pulling it by connected ropes. Due to the instability of such movement, any cargo in the ship will be destroyed and creatures cannot ride upon it.
Ships count as a burden equal to 1/20th their capacity for the purposes of determining how many animals needed to pull a ship under the effects of Portage. I.e. a small sailing ship will require a team of 12 heavy horse to pull it. Once the duration expires or the caster loses concentration, this spell is Dispelled and the ship immediately begins falling from the air. Upon landing, it will take 1d6 Structural Damage. Casters must be sure to place the ship upon the ground as gently as possible before the duration of spell ends.

Addendum: This spell fails if the ship being targeted is not empty of passengers and cargo beforehand. The spell also fails if the vessel is not currently water-worthy.
Adjusted range to 15’ Boat must remain in that range relative to the caster.

This spell breaks the recommendation that “No non-esoteric movement spell can ever grant the ability to move a creature or object weighing more than 285 st/level or 2000 st (spell creator’s choice).” However, that is intentional. This recommendation is in place because the existence of widely available Telekinesis spells on heavy objects would radically change how construction is done. I have exempted this spell for two reasons. Firstly, this spell is a recent development in terms of the game world. It is only known to a select circle of NPC wizards. In time, as it becomes broadly known and recreated it may indeed change how ship building is done. That’s fine, I want my game world to change and adapt as magic and tech is discovered. Secondly, I believe that the downsides of this spell make up for the weight limit. Only being able to target ships, and still having to manually pull them is a big ask. It will take weeks to and teams of animals to move ships, not to mention cargo. And since you are risking any number of things happening while this is happening (up to and including your ship being destroyed if the Mage helping you loses concentration) this isn’t a spell that will likely be a viable way to manage ships long term.

Ship to Timber

Transform to/from Hardwood Stick (10), Perpetual (x3.5), Touch (x1), Target creature or object can be of any size (x2), Target must be object of particular type1 (x .75), Arcane (x1). Total cost: 52.5

Arcane 6 - Type: transmogrification - Duration: Perpetual
This spell transforms a ship into a single hardwood stave. The stave will be made of the same kind of lumber the ship is primarily made of. Cargo aboard the ship is not transformed. The ship reverts to its original form as soon as the caster stops sustaining the spell or it is Dispelled

This is the most expensive spell in terms of both spell points, and actually paying for the spellcasting service of it. It runs the slight risk that the Mage stops sustaining the spell, but otherwise it is likely the safest option to get a ship from one place to the other.

Express Delivery

Caster Teleports Target any place within 100 miles (900), Teleport effect has chance of error (x 0.5), Only Objects may be Targeted [vessels] (x 0.8), Duration Instant (x 0.1), 1 Object (x1), Arcane (x1), Range touch (x 1). Total Cost: 36

Arcane 4 - Type: movement - Duration: Instant
This spell teleports a vessel to a point within 100 miles of its current location. Cargo is not teleported with the ship. This spell has the same failure chance as the normal Teleportation spell.

Of course, this list wouldn’t be complete without a lossy teleport spell. This sends a single ship somewhere else within 100 miles, most of the time. Most casters are only going to be Somewhat Familiar with the locations ships need to be sent too so that’s a roughly 25% chance of your ship just being eaten. The upside is that this spell is instant, so you don’t need to drag your ship or carry it around in stick form. Hope you like gambling! This spell also breaks the weight limit above, but I have similar reasons for allowing it in my game.

Anyway, this article was a simple diversion to come up with answers to some questions about how some people are coping with the loss of ports in many places. The simple answer is that most people are dismantling their ships to salvage wood and try something new or trying to build them in the clogged shipyards of Dawnsport or the few remaining smaller still coastal towns and villages. These spells are for those with more money than sense and time (i.e. adventurers, eccentric nobles, and other crazies). Hope you all enjoyed! I will be back to the ASC reviews tomorrow, I am still churning through them. So for now,

Sail On!

- ShockTohp

Edits:

My players are already pointing out ways they would use some of these spells for nefarious means. I have just added the addendum to the spell Portage.

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Starting off, this adventure manages to set its tone very well in only a few lines. The party are greeted by a level, eroded section of mountain near it’s peek. Here stands a ruined guard tower (wore down to nubs) in front of a door into the sheer rock face. There is also a fissure leading down into darkness, with fresh Pitons to entice adventurer’s in. Most ominous of all, dragon tracks leading to a the main door, which has been frozen over. All of this I really like. Much like how I judge beast-men centered adventures by how good the name of the tribe is, I judge Dragon adventures by how well the Wyrm itself is built up leading into it. Here does an amazing job, and should the party bash in the frozen door, Albarino will immediately blast them with his breath, as he has placed his hoard directly in the entrance. This is not a sleeping dragon encounter, no sir. He’s awake and active, though a bit lazy. He prefers to stay atop his hoard unless investigating a noise in a nearby room.

Should the players wish to avoid this, they must instead traverse the fissure and wander the maze of rooms. Interacting with the Derro who now inhabit this place. The Derro and Albarino have a tense truce, but the Derro would gladly be rid of him and back to being the sole rulers of this crumbling fortress. They will ally with the party until the dragon is dead, the immediately betray them. Derro are tricky bastards, and will pretend to be impoverished regular dwarves to seek aid and succor, but there are plenty of clues that this is false, aside from casting Detect Evil on them.

There’s quite a bit of good treasure here, and a lot of gubbins to mess with. Like a Paean to the Void God which interacts with a Shadow controlling demon, and the Obelisk outside which can provide a Scroll of Resist Cold x2. If anything, the party is going to have their head spinning with the amount to do here.

This adventure does suffer from the ad&d ism of “everything wants to screw you over.” The dragon of course is a dragon, so surprises there, same to the Derro. But a Dao pretending to be a neutral wish granting spirit whit Change Self who then immediately attempts to kill any weakened party if freed is a nasty trick, as is the obelisk muting anyone who “offers their voice” for 24 hours. If players are coming here expecting to recruit help onsite, they better keep their knives handy. The

If anything, I think this site suffers from having Albarino right at the front. If the party is here specifically to hunt the White Dragon they know of from the rumors, it will be a quick evening. He’s strong don’t get me wrong, but something that can be planned for. I think I would have switched the location of his lair and the inner chapel. Make the players have to trudge through some of the adventure to get to him. Otherwise, this is a very good site.

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So starting off, this is another sort of gonzo site. But in my opinion it does a lot more with its insane premise and makes me want to use it in my setting, thematic clashes and weird monsters that don’t fit into a stock fantasy setting. The themeing here is great, the kings of an ancient civilization were granted a glimpse of Heaven, and instead of trying to get into the honest way they did a Babel and tried to build their own false Heaven. For their arrogance and hubris, they were struck down and their blasphemy shattered into fragments. A few fragments still exist and they can wreak havoc on the mortal world, primarily by sucking up nearby souls who should be moving onto the true after life. These poor souls rise as non-hostile sign post wights, who point to the entrance.

The rumor table is quite good too. Can an angel heart really provide immortality if consumed? I don’t know, but I can certainly by that an NPC believes that to be the case; just as I can buy the idea that the heart of the thing masquerading as an angel in the fragment rots its consumer from the inside instantly. Talk about a bad day for betraying your boss. The only of of these I don’t like is the last one, just because I’m not a fan of NPCs who are set to auto-betray no matter what. Call if professional courtesy, or cowardice, but if I watched some guys tear through a dungeon like this, I would think twice about putting myself on their hit list. Admittedly the guy is called the Great Deceiver so players should see it coming.

Theming aside, let’s talk execution. First off, reading this thing is going to make you confused. I called in a demi-plane in the intro, because that’s the closest I can get to how this place actually functions in D&D terms. Once you enter, you’re the realm of the False Angle (statted as a Movanic Deva but styled as a beautiful humanoid with inverted hands). Everything else in here hides from this thing, or is ignored by it. It can be questioned, but speaks like it’s opposite day and will try to get the party to eat the cursed food that makes you eat forever and damages your Wisdom. The other encounters are all weird and on theme, but probably a cake walk for levels 8-10. Invisible Banshees is probably the scariest but True Seeing fixes it no problem, and are you really going to have made it to this level without being about to deal with a dozen Giants? The central puzzle has to do with calling a real Angel to come and drown the place in holy fire. This kills everything here as the opposing Devas duke it out. But I imagine there are some parties of the intended level who can just kill the Deva themselves and roll everything else. High level AD&D can be uneven, since a large part of your party’s power comes from magic items. So some parties are going to breeze through, while others are going to get stopped by the first fruit pie they see.

Let’s also talk some more weirdness, stat damage. Basically everything here does stat damage of some variety. Looting the walls of their decorations causes Charisma damage for some reason, the cursed food reduces Wisdom until you become a slavering monster. There’s also stat adjustments and a way to gain a level for free AND become immune to level drain for a week, contingent on a spell save. This is all very strange but we are in high level ad&d land, so whatever I suppose.

That’s kind of my entire feeling on this thing. It’s weird, I feel like I’m looking at some sort of deep sea creature out of its natural pressure zone. I have limited experience with high level ad&d (preferring BECMI and ACKS), but my gut is screaming that the danger distribution here is off. Not wrong per say, but lopsided. It doesn’t do the halmark sin of a high level module of just simply turning off most spells and items which I do appreciate, but there are a lot of “save or functionally die” traps, a lot of stat damage and then not much else to really threaten the party. I would have liked some sort of a timer I think, once you’re in you need to get out or be here forever. Or an army that the false angle can summon to have some mundane pressure on the party. As it stands, I find myself more confused than anything having read this.

Finally there’s treasure everywhere here, the very walls and streets are made of it. Go wild.

This thing is in my lower tier of adventures for this contest. While it does succeed in being a gonzo site that I actually would want to run, the mechanical strangeness of it all puts a damper on it. I may salvage a few ideas from his, but as written it’s too esoteric a beast.

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This adventure is tough to review, as I said. It was easy for me to rank, middle of the pack. In a tier list format, a solid B tier adventure. I’d be happy to include it anywhere I needed an old druid grove, and be satisfied with it. But it doesn’t excite me all that much, either positively or negatively. I don’t really want to belabor the point here. It’s clear the Patrick Dolan put effort into this and is a competent designer and writer. I feel quite bad that I don’t have more to say. I do really like the Trapper that the old druid taught to speak with a special tapping language and that the players can figure out how the language works with some gumption (and a healthy dose of Comprehend Languages).

I apologize for the terseness of this review, but sometimes there just isn’t much to say.

Starting off, this adventure is another one that drips with pulp stylings. The cavemen aren’t just an untouched tribe, they are the remnants of the once noble Atlanteans. They are also schismatic over matters of which Old One they worship, the ocean-lord Dagon or hoary Nodens. With the Nodenits being somewhat meek in comparison to the blood thirsty Dagonites. The balance of these barbarians is being upset by the arrival of a new, more civilized sort of barbarians: pirates. These pirates have allied with the undisputed ruler of the Island, Kotomon the Old mist dragon. Kotomon is truly the star of the show here. Proud, dismissive of humans and solely focused on how he can enrich himself. He wafts around the island in Gaseous Form, observing his domain with what I can only assume is passive disdain for those on it. He is, for the time being, allied with the pirates and uses his control over mist to aid in their activities. They in turn pay him tribute, ever growing his horde.

This is a good island adventure. Everything is self contained for a logical reason, the more mundane monsters here have an island twist (things like Palm Tree and Mangrove Treants, Dryads of tropical fruits). It feels as though it’s been self-contained for a long time and developed its own, alternate version of a status quo. This is peak Lost World style adventuring and would do well in any setting with a big ocean. This is very high praise coming from me, I am almost feeling pandered to. I am going to quite happily spring it on my players the next time they get lost in the Shallow Sea.

The map and treasure amount are both good, and there is a fair bit of themed treasure like a Megalodon Tooth battleaxe, Fish control Trident, Narwhal Tusk etc. I highly doubt a party is going to be able to recover everything that is here in one go, but what they can get they will be happen with. Everything is also guarded or hidden, no free lunches here.

Now, I do have one criticism of this site and unfortunate it’s more than just a quibble: information organization. I say organization, because the issue isn’t the amount or density of information provided. The issue is that it’s drip fed to the reader in bits and pieces. There are a few factions and major NPCs to keep track of. The cavemen, who are Dagonites, Nodenits, or unaligned (not in the cosmic sense). The pirates, and Kotomon and his retinue of monsters such as an ettin. Each of the factions has leaders, but there isn’t a “Major NPC” section. You don’t learn about Skolf, the pirate captain until basically the end of the site. Kotomon’s abilities and tactics are split between the beginning and end. There is a lot of information to extract before you can start to run this, more than I really think should be. I realize that this sort of “in-line” style of introducing NPCs and other pertinent information is very AD&D, but it’s irritating to constantly have to update my mental map because a new druid or cleric has been introduced in the middle of a description of a room. This, unfortunately drags down the usability a fair bit and is a large blemish on what is otherwise a really good site.

With that being said, I am glad we finally got a Dragon adventure. Seems those are far too few. The islet itself is a great location, and well worth the effort of gleaning all the information out so you can run the thing. Call this one “recommended for advanced readers.”

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This adventure is tough to review, as I said. It was easy for me to rank, middle of the pack. In a tier list format, a solid B tier adventure. I’d be happy to include it anywhere I needed an old druid grove, and be satisfied with it. But it doesn’t excite me all that much, either positively or negatively. I don’t really want to belabor the point here. It’s clear the Patrick Dolan put effort into this and is a competent designer and writer. I feel quite bad that I don’t have more to say. I do really like the Trapper that the old druid taught to speak with a special tapping language and that the players can figure out how the language works with some gumption (and a healthy dose of Comprehend Languages).

I apologize for the terseness of this review, but sometimes there just isn’t much to say.

So yes, this is a very gonzo site, and not the kind of gonzo I like. The tunnels are maintained by disgusting slug goblin hybrids (the titular Sluggobs) and their mother Gran’ Cursespitter. That’s fine on its own, but we go completely off the rails with the fact that all Gran an “evil being of significant power” sees fit to do is… run a hotel for other evil creatures. Who pay magic items for the privilege of being here. This is pure insanity. None of these creatures should be content to just hand over items for room and board near each other. Then pair this with the site having five entrances that are not correlated to anything, since the tunnels are extra-dimensional and I just check out.

This site does have a good map, but it’s let down by the sort of fun-house gonzo nature of the site. The map feels more like “hey come look at all these weird guests monsters.” There’s weird set pieces like a Gorgon who wants to hear haikus (composed by the players) and wells full of water that hurt the Sluggobs. It’s just a mess.

So, I rank this one pretty low. Gonzo is difficult to do well, and most gonzo settings either come off as being silly for no reason, or not gonzo enough. It’s difficult to place gonzo into most setting, so it needs to do something very interesting with its premise. This one, unfortunately misses the mark for me. It’s not a very good site for most campaign worlds, and I don’t think it does anything interesting enough with its insane premise to justify shoehorning it in.

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This is another site that I really want to like, but as I dug into it more, I found there just wasn’t much to it. The site itself is well done, I can really buy this being a Gnoll lair, but there is just a lot missing. For example, this “Hurok” whom I assume to be a gnoll chieftain of some kind, is only mentioned in passing. His scouting parties apparently come through occasionally, but his main army hasn’t been here in over a year. Cool. who is Hurok? Why do I care if he isn’t here? That’s the feeling of this entire site. Why do I care about the Gnoll-Human War? Why do I care about a traitor in Valgard (wherever that is), and numerous other things. This site reads like someone trying to tell you a dream they had, but they can’t really remember it.

But at the same time, there are glimpses of greatness. Like I said, this map is really good for what it is (certainly not a dungeon, but a believable wilderness site). The Hyena’s attics are brutal, and the Ring of Chivalrous Combat is going into my collection of cursed rings. But overall, there just isn’t enough connective tissue for me to recommend this one as an adventure site.

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So, ruined chapel to Yog-Sothtoth. If the players come here, they can partake in a ritualistic trial by which they kill a Carrion Crawler. The reward for this is a roll on Treasure Table B and a portal to a place of their choosing, provided by the titular Outer god. This site has a lot of charm and is well put together, but man is there not much to do. It’s pretty much just go here, kill the crawler and then leave. As much as I want to like it, I can’t rate it very highly.

This site has a verbosity issue. There are many words used to describe the visuals or possible reasons for the site. Things like this:

Is this interesting? Does a party of level 4-5 adventurers care about the state of nails? Maybe. If so, they seem vastly unprepared. This room is functionally empty and could be condensed greatly. That would leave room for some actual encounters. The best you will get is 2d4 Large Spiders, maybe some centipedes (25% chance) and a ghost (also 25% chance). The ghost I have particular issue with because with all the verbosity about nails, and tools and how the shed was broken, the ghost isn’t described at all.

What do you mean none of that is important? Those are very relevant details if the party is expected to parlay with the ghost (which they are).

This entire site uses a lot of words to describe very little substance. At the end of the day, it’s a go kill the thing site and not much else.

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So, on first blush this adventure is pretty bland. A group of hags are in a cottage, no surprises there. The map is fine, with two guarded entrances into the actual lair portion, which is located underground. Both the guards can be convinced to turn on the hags, but with some conditions. I’m not sure how useful they would be as help though. One is a Galdrtree (think Old Man Willow) and the other a level 4 Explorer who have been magically enslaved and permanently poly-morphed into a Cave Bear. The Galdrtree will require Speak with Plants and doesn’t really like the hags to begin with. The Cave Bear is a little trickier, and I imagine most players just slaughter him and his mate. However if you do manage to recruit him, I’m not entirely sure he doesn’t immediately get killed by a hag. For reference, hags are level 9 spell casters, with a very nasty spell list to boot. They will either simply Turn to Dust, or Dismember or Bewitch Beast the new cave bear, and the tree isn’t going to be able to walk into the hovel. So recruiting help on site is of limited use.

However, blandness goes away as you read the loot on offer there. The main item up for grabs is the titular Hypogean Oracle which is a device capable of searching out underground lairs in a region, provided the caster concentrates long enough. Players can also loot around 4000 GP worth of emeralds from it and go. It’s a cool item, and a way to use magical materials to boot, since it eats spell components to restore charges. There is also a massive geode below the hut that grows a crystal which can be used as a spell components for Earth spells, or creating magic armors. This stuff has a harvesting time and is worth a fair bit. A decent little bit of utility if a group is able to capture this place.

I have a major issue with this site though, and that is expected level and treasure range. I have no idea when or where players are supposed to actually encounter this place. As I said the hags are each a 9th level spell caster (a Witch specifically). But they are guarded by very mundane threats such as Cave Bears and Cave Locusts. The Galdrtree is cool, but easily bypassed. If I’ve done my math right, this site has around ~16,500 GP worth of treasure (if they don’t sell the Oracle without using it). This seems wildly mismatched. A party capable of dealing with three hags is going to look at that as chump change. Meanwhile, a party which sees that as a big haul is going to get rolled unless the Judge bails them out with some sort of deal with the hags. I am all for player’s being conniving and cutting deals, or sneaking around big threats. Sneaking probably isn’t going to happen, as this site is small. That leaves cutting a deal, which with proper flattery is likely doable. This just means that actually looting the site will happen at later sessions (and higher levels). I’m not a huge fan of Adventure Sites which need to be returned to later instead of being able to be dealt with in a few linear nights of gaming, especially in the context of this contest.

This level mismatch also follows with the Oracle itself. Its purpose is scouting hexes, which tells me it’s for around the level 4-6 range, when players should be wandering around and looking for a good location to start a base. While a level 4 party could handle this site, I’m not sure it’s really worth the risk unless they know about the Oracle already and are going to get it specifically. Sadly none of the suggested Story Thread Webs point to the existence of this item at all. The site also states that this site it to be used “to conveniently drop it in when a random wilderness encounter is rolled. If you’ve rolled a hag or cave bear lair, a galdrtre or an elemental place of power […].” Which again tells me that this is intended for use during the Wilderness Travel levels. But man does this feel like a whammy

This sort of lopsided feeling dragged this site down a fair bit for me overall. I like the concept, but I think it I would have rather seen 1 hag with some more minions. I’ll probably make that edit and use this site to introduce the Oracle though, that’s a cool item and there’s a place for it in my campaign as is.

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ACKSman’s Opinion

(As before, this section is not part of the overall contest ranking, feel free to ignore as you see fit).

Now is this a good adventure for ACKS II? Bearing in mind my overall opinions of the adventure, I have to say this is a good ACKS adventure as well. This site does a few important ACKS specific things that I like. I particularly like the Story Web Trheads section as opposed to just Rumors. One of the more difficult aspects of ACKS prep is setting up a regions Story Threads, which are the existing connections and pointers between prepped areas. These are a little different than a normal rumor table, as they are set up during campaign prep and may include things affects on other sites. The suggested threads include both traditional rumors and these sorts of effects which is a huge boon for any Judge. I would go as far as to say this site functions much better as a prepped one rather than being dropped into a random wilderness roll. Three Hags becomes a folklore feature that players can prep for ahead of time and walk into knowingly, instead of blundering into it after killing a Cave Bear. Is this sort of longstanding regional feature still an “Adventure Site?” For how I read the intent of the contest, no; but it is a really good regional monster lair. One that can cause problems for several sessions and has the potential to become a campaign centerpiece.

This site also provides access to Magical Components. I don’t know how most judge’s would feel about a constantly re-spawning source of components for all Earth spells, but I really like it. The site is an Elemental Place of Power (earth) so it makes sense, and the growth rate is positively glacial. Anyone relying on this for their only source of components is going to be burning their most important resource, time. There are a a few quibbles I have with this site. This first is a few missing apparent values on magic items such as the Oracle itself (We have the base cost, but not apparent value). Also, the Hag’s do not have Rune of Warding or Illumination, Perpetual in their repertoires but they should as they are maintaining those spells. Other than that, this is another good entry into the ACKS canon.

The biggest thing to look for in a flying saucer type adventure is how easy it is to slot into a fantasy world without tipping players off too early, and I think that this adventure does a pretty good job of that. The main enemies behave as hellhounds and spectres, despite being of extraterrestrial and technological make. The two provided rumors are believably fantasy-esque, and I believe the materials the saucer is made of can be passed off at some sort of unknown dwarf metal for a bit. But as soon as players see the saucer itself (by asking for an exterior description), the jig is up. Which is probably fine. It’s serviceable.

Serviceable is also what I would call the map. This is a traditional saucer shape, and so is basically a single story tower, with all the issues that entails. However, this site does make up for that by a system of coded key-bracelets which grant higher levels of access to various places, so they can’t just kick in every door clockwise. There is also a fair bit of interactivity, especially for thieves who will need to be on the ball deciphering the alien script everywhere. Hopefully they prevent the party from dying a most embarrassing death by self-destruct. I do like the inclusion of a player and Judge map, with different markings even if the Judge one is a bit crowded.

The tone is a bit better than serviceable, we’ll call it good you get a feel for what the weird aliens were like. You can tell they lived in a very cold environment, and transported dangerous creatures. You can even find their bodies, presumably having died of heat stroke. The Acid hounds are really cool, acid dripping tripartite jaws. I imagine them has having a sort of green plasma fur for whatever reason. It’s all good.

The main issue I have with this site centers around the other centerpiece monster, the Nano-Apparition. It behaves as a specter, but can’t be turned but gains an energy damage weakness. I do think it’s a little strange that a hyper advanced nanite based ship drone can be waved away by a torch (since that is mundane energy damage). I also think that there should have been one that would help deal with the Acid Hounds in some way, because the ones that are here are functionally radiation traps. They mostly feel like an obligation, something that was only included because it’s classic alien tech stuff.

Treasure is good, the “Magic Items” here are technological in nature of course, but are given the proper Apparent Value(s). I particularly like the platinum wire in the reactor, though I question why there isn’t radiation leaking from it. Over all, pretty good site.

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ACKSman’s Opinion

(As before, this section is not part of the overall contest ranking, feel free to ignore as you see fit).

So this is a saucer adventure for ACKS II, which is probably about as far away from ACKS thematically as you can you get. That said, I think it does a much better job of demonstrating that ACKS can do more than just fantasy Rome than my own entry this year. However, that comes with a major caveat which is the technological loot. This is going to cause issues for any Judge running them. Most of the items are presented without a spell like equivalent. The Hand Disruptor isn’t simply a reskinned wand, if functions as its own thing. This is good, as it goes, since I don’t believe that Mages should be able to recreate these things with magical research. However, this will cause player complaints, especially over the lack of Power Cells in the rest of the campaign. The Engineer’s Eye I believe a Mage could recreate a similar item, but not by simply dissecting the eye. They player would need to use their brain and determine that it was the spell X-ray with an activation cost of being a prosthetic. So I feel that the separation of magic and tech is preserved. All in all, very good little curve ball to through your players, provided you as a judge can handle the implications that aliens exist in your setting now.

This adventure is clearly supposed to be an introductory adventure. It’s for levels 1-2 and takes the time to describe a small farming village in the shadow of a mountain. The village is currently being scourged by a cluster of vampire bats that swarms out from the mountain at night to hunt. This particular swarm leaves zombies in its wake, though so far there has only been one confirmed human case of this. However, a prized milk cow or horse is a big loss to a small time farmer. I like these sorts of stakes for a beginning of a campaign. It grounds the players in the world before things get too large scale. This would make a very good jumping off point for any campaign. Even parties who are less altruistic will be happy to help for the sizeable amount of gold on offer for dealing with the problem.

The main antagonist here, Desmodus, is a small time evil cleric. Level three is nothing to sneeze at for a bunch of newbies, but I particularly like that he will flee rather than fight to the death, only to return and begin his evil machinations again. There are a lot of seeds for future adventures in this little site. Good campaign starter.

As for how the thing actually plays, this is also a winner. The map is properly loopy with a fair bit of verticality, a good mix of danger and treasure around. There isn’t too much for the players to interact with beyond kill it or run away, with the exception of a kobold tribe. Kobolds are always good to see in large low level adventures like this, since even level 1 parties have a chance of parlaying with them or intimidating them into cooperation.

One major issue I have with this site is that it requires wilderness travel for low level, but then overwrites the wilderness encounters with ones that the party should be able to handle. The mountain that the shrine is located in is noted as being “The largest mountain of a small cluster one hex away.” Why? Just put it in an canyon or large limestone hill closer to the village. Climbing a large mountain isn’t something I really expect level 1 parties to be able to do with any sort of reliability. But this is really the only fly in the ointment here and is very easy to completely ignore.

Another very good entry from Mr. Blasso.

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Somewhere in an idyllic vale, there is a stinking camp of tents crowded around a hut. The hut is hastily built over an excavation of a shrine to an obscure fate goddess. The shrine is now home to a drunken oaf a Cyclops who can interpret the ethereal whispers of the Fates and give prophecy or hidden knowledge of questionable accuracy. However, this arrangement is threatening to come apart at the seams. The cyclops has taken a giant blooded consort who is becoming more an more paranoid of her Medusan guest. The Mystic’s prophecy skills are declining as he drinks, but thankfully he keeps two more cyclopes chained in the basement who can also interpret the whispers of the fates. I assume he uses them to his advantage when the situation permits.

Overall, I really like this site. It would make for a good transition site to early game wilderness adventuring. The cyclopes is a very easy slot in for a Sage, who are very important NPCs to have floating around for your players to know about and want to visit. This is an excellent site to put just outside the immediate starting region to give the players a goal to reach when they finally get that big, but unidentified magical item, or need some direction on their more esoteric player goals. The danger here is pretty low, but the treasure isn’t massive either so it works out.

This is extremely portable, as Cyclopes and Medusa and Giantesses are ubiquitous. It’s also very easy to reference and run. There’s even an Order of Battle which will be needed if the players siege the place.

There are some little flourishes I like, for example the stairs confer a small bonus or penalty depending on which direction you are fighting, but only to martials. The Medusan hair whip is really funny, even if I’m not entirely sure that the snakes are what petrify people. This site makes for a really good off-session of D&D, where the adventure is simply seeing the site and interacting with it’s various inhabitants. The players could choose to simply smash and grab, but I think they would be wasting their own time and missing out on the charm here.

The one major issue I have with this site is there is a bit too much fill in the blank worth with regards to the plotted rebellion by the Mystic’s followers. It’s mentioned, but I couldn’t find any information on who is leading it and why. That could have been fleshed out a bit more in the module instead of asking the GM to do all the work. Maybe cut the ghost encounter for space.

All in all, I really like this one. It’s a well done functional site to introduce an important NPC archetype and maybe give the players a bit of a lighter evening for research and negotiation instead of the normal smash and grab antics.

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To begin with, the atmosphere here is great. Ruined temple whose only entry is a gaping cobra’s maw, cool snake themed bas reliefs everywhere, archways carved to look like intertwined serpents. The map is very nice as well, with lot’s of vertical movement and interesting pathing. There is a good mix of encounters and things for the players to do, like swinging on vines, making some poison, and getting tricked into placing a crown onto a statue and summoning an incarnate goddess. All good stuff.

Unfortunately, that’s about all the praise I have for this one. It’s very much in the “meh” category for me. Which does mean I also don’t have any hugely negative thoughts about it either. There are only two real criticisms I would want to make. The first is while there’s nothing wrong with doing the “use X monster entry but change Y stats” style of custom monsters, I think this adventure does it a few too many times, enough that I would have rather just seen a small bestiary in the adventure instead. Second, the crown for the statue that summons the goddess is just… in a random room. My actual reaction when reading that was “wow, that’s lame” Which isn’t a great feeling. Would have much rather had it somewhere a little more thematic or telegraphed. But these are pretty minor issues in the grand scheme of things, and if I was more grabbed by the location overall, they probably wouldn’t stick out as much.

Again, I am assuming treasure is correct for some level range, owing to my lack of knowledge of the system. I do wish I had more to say, that map really is a beauty.

So starting off, we have a Greater Titan and his cloud Castle, this is a staple in any fantasy setting. Here though we have some added flair as the Avatar of Storms (more properly know as the Stormlord before he was the victim of a Helm of Disalignment) is presented as a real force in the world. He can be hired to assault realms or payed off if he is currently doing so. He also acts as a sort of arms dealer, selling off enchanted statues to wealthy buyers in the market for powerful sentries. There are also several notes as to how players can become aware of the Titan and his doings before he starts raining thunder and rocks down on their heads; and as a bonus, it comes with a built in reason for the players to not be previously aware of this (it’s a moving castle after all, the Stormlord could be campaigning elsewhere for most of the game time). All in all, the theming is solid, and I can see it being relatively easy to slot into most campaigns. Full points there.

This site also nails the “do I want to play / run this” test. This site is cool, flying castles are cool, giants and titans are cool. A Titan who needs to be taught to keep his magic to himself is extremely fun. The one thing that I particularly like about this adventure is that it skirts a common issue in high level adventures: curtailing the player’s power. Many a high level adventure makes itself challenging by simply banning high level spells and abilities (see the NAP III primer for more on this). This is dissatisfying on many levels, primarily because players worked for those abilities. It’s like getting the BFG in DOOM only to have every Imp from now on be completely immune to energy weapons. It’s lame. Instead this site poses a number of challenges which will require the use of high level magic of abilities to circumvent. For example, Altitude Sickness is rough, imposing CON loss per hour, on top of penalties to basically every roll a player would need to make. The Fortress itself is sustained by the Stormlord’s life force, so killing him can be a nasty surprise on its own for unprepared groups. Finally, the fortress can FLY, so if the Titan doesn’t want to be besieged by a land based army, he won’t be. All of these things can be circumvented, but they require time and effort and high level magics to do. Which is good, it makes it feel like a worthy challenge, not a cheap “nuh-uh, you can’t do that!”

Getting into the actual runability of this is where we have some stumbles. First of all, there is a lot going on here. Servants are darting around carrying keys to certain doors, many rooms have magical alerting systems, partial orders of battle liter the various monster entries and rooms. None of this is by any means bad, but there is a lot of very densely packed information. The information density is made a little more irritating in that I can’t easily reference the maps as they are MASSIVE. This is a publishing issue more than a design more, but they broke my normal PDF reader. I will say the layout of rooms and formatting of entries helps mitigate the worst of this. I think if the maps were more easily referenced I wouldn’t even quibble about this.

Next, let’s talk about portability. I said above that you can place this concept into any campaign setting, which is true. But you are going to stumble some over the ACKS II specific magic items, spells, and some of the other quirks. For example, the Stormlord will reward anyone rescuing him with a year’s worth of magical research. This is a big deal in high level ACKS, but basically meaningless in many other systems. In my opinion, portability issues between systems is less of an issue than if someone brings a site that can only work in their home brew setting. After all, the site is marked as being for ACKS II, not generic OSR. I don’t give points off of AD&D adventures because they include something in Fiend Folio or some obscure Unearth Arcana item. So I’m not going to give points off for this, but it is worth noting. You can just assume this applies to all ACKS II adventures going forward (including my own).

Finally, treasure. On top of the aforementioned research reward, there is a lot of treasure here. ~40k in combat experience, 200k of regular loot, plus magic items out the wazhoo. Loots of magical components from rare monsters like the Quicksilver Golem. Much of treasure has a sort of two tiered approach where there is some obvious glittering gold, and then a further hidden treasure of much higher value; and none of the treasure is particularly easy to access in so far as it’s all guarded and locked up in a flying castle. Maybe once you actually get to the workshop or bedroom its easy. There is also a fair amount of thematic loot like Silks, spices and oil (cooking). Very very good. Also, the lower demarcations of loot (silver, copper) have generally been replaced by an equivalent value for Workshop Apparatuses or Library research materials. The GP to weight ratio of these is about the same as Silver, but they have the added benefit of tying into the magical research system.

Overall, I rate this one quite highly. A few stumbles on usability that come from being ambitious in the amount going on at the site, compounded with a minor usability issue knocks it out of that S rank for me, but still a solid A.

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Bonus Section - ACKSman’s Opinion

I’ve decided to include a small section on each of the ACKS II adventures on how good of an ACKS II adventure I think it is, and perhaps clear up some confusion on ACKS II specific mechanics presented. While I don’t consider myself an authority on all things ACKS II, it is my system of choice, and I have been playing it and hanging around the ACKS II community for long enough that I think I can shed some light on a few things the other contest judges can’t. This section isn’t included in my over all ranking, so feel free to skip it. I’ve already given my thoughts for the contest itself above.

This adventure is a slam dunk as far as ACKS II goes. It leans very heavily into things that only ACKS II does well with regards to high level play. Magical Research, figuring out how on earth you’re going to bring enough troops into the sky and protect them from altitude sickness the whole time, finding powerful beings and pointing them at the petty noble sitting on the land you want, etc. The only thing I really feel is missing is how much damage the Citadel actually does when engaged in a siege. I particularly like that all the values for the magical workshops and library list the actual total stone of books and apparatus. For those that don’t know, Magical Workshops are a requirement for characters to create magical items. Having very valuable ones improves your odds of success on the magical item creation. Libraries work the same way for creating new spells or modifying existing ones (Spell Research). The workshop apparatuses are listed as being giant sized, so while players won’t be able to use them without resorting to casting Growth on themselves (at least that’s how I would rule it), the Stormlord can use these shops as part of his service period once free to crank out some high level items. The Library doesn’t have such a restriction that I see, so the players can loot all the arcane tombs and treatises they can carry. The Stormlord’s spell book is also nasty, and he is written to use his magic to full effect. Double Physical Invulnerability is a killer, but one players should be prepared for at this level. The Clairvoyancy guided Lighting Strikes is similar. All in all, if you need a wandering threat which can reward the players with a boost to their own magical power, this is a great site to include.

Overall, I think this is a good showcase for ACKS II. It fits nicely with the Auran Empire, of course but you can run it in any where. It ties in both with the Treasure Tome and ACKS II specific play paterns. Very well done, but I would have expected nothing less from Birch.

So, this adventure site is pretty unique in one aspect. It describes a wilderness area meant to be tackled by low level characters. Instead some dank dungeon, it’s a border fort surrounded by a wall and a moat. The buildings inside are mostly just a single room, with a few of the more important buildings having multiple areas (like the camp headquarters and commander’s house). The place is fairly large, and players will spend a majority of their time here walking from place to place, thereby incurring checks on the wandering monster table. This table has a 25% chance of spawning an “appropriate wilderness encounter” which could be absolutely deadly for low level parties. Or nothing at all could happen, as is the nature of wandering monster checks. In between the walking though, there is actually quite a bit to do, starting with just getting into the interior of the camp. A thief climbing the walls and tossing a rope is probably the safest bet, but the gates can also be bypassed by Small, unarmored characters. Two of the gates have frog statues with removable gemstone eyes. One of these pairs of statues will animate and attack the players if touched. Lot’s of good stuff just getting into the place. There is also a smattering of ad&d weirdness, in the form of some magical ovens burning with differing colors of fire, all with strange effects. Finally the main antagonist here, Magnus the Merciless, is a properly threatening force. Though he’s only guarded by 15 Kobolds, which may be too few for motivated or smart parties. I do like him placing dead PC and Henchmen heads on spikes, which triggers a loyalty test on return trips after a failed expedition. All in all quite good. Treasure is everywhere, but usually well hidden or guarded.

Now, for the bad. First off, this thing is borderline unreadable. ASC is not an art contest, but it is a usability contest. Not being able to read the module easily either on a screen or printed out is a serious unforced flaw. One that I bring up because it absolutely affected where I placed this one over all.

Aesthetic concerns out of the way, lets talk about something more important, the mechanical issues. Low level wilderness sites are somewhat underrepresented, and I think this site can give us some clues as to why. First off, there is no order of battle at all. No guards watching for thieves coming over the walls, no patrol routes. All of that is abstracted out into the wandering monsters check. This works fine in a dungeon environment, but it makes a camp like this seem very desolate and empty. Along with that, some groups are going to met the world’s most attentive Kobolds and wizard, who jump the party immediately on entry. While other groups will not meet any resistance until they actually get to the building where Magnus and the Kobolds are located. Still other parties are going to get steamrolled by 300 orcs attacking the camp, and spend the next team sessions figuring out what the orcs wanted. This isn’t necessarily a bad outcome, depending on DM skill and campaign goals. 300 orcs attacking the camp could make some interesting alliances between Magnus and the players. But it’s too much sway for a single dice roll to have in my opinion, especially when so much else in this adventure hinges on the same roll. This site feels empty. It has about the same level of content as a small dungeon, but spread out in a weird way and stapled together with wandering encounters instead of coming together as a cohesive whole.

That said, you can’t really fix it without adding more stuff, and there isn’t much more you can add without making it too difficult for low level characters. Maybe a group of patrolling Kobolds (with a basic building path per each turn), or spread out the Kobolds out a bit, with orders to run to the main force as soon as they are found. Something to make it more reactive to what the players do. But, realistically I think I would have much rather seen this site at around level 4-6, with a level 8 wizard and an entire tribe of Kobolds using this site as a base to raid nearby towns, or conduct research with the ovens, or something other than just being there. As it stands, this adventure feels like a pre-show warmup to what should be a much bigger conflict, and not an adventure in its own right.

I don’t hate this site, as I said at the top I think it’s competent. You can absolutely use this to run a good night of gaming, but there are holes that an experienced DM will need to paper over.

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Coral Harvest

3.55MB ∙ PDF file

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Goals

So, for this site I had a couple of goals in mind while making it. The first and most important one was as a sort of “tech demo” for ACKS II. Specifically, I wanted to a lot of this adventure to rest on the back of what is available for a prospective judge to use in the core books of ACKS II. I wanted this be something that leans heavily into the system (even at the cost of portability).
Second, I wanted to do something that is distinctly from my game and world, which is decidedly not the Auran Empire. My setting is well into the Age of Sail, the fantasy Rome there is an ancient ruin that is spoken of in myth, not the current head honchos. This feeds into my first goal of showing what the ACKS system can do, divorced from its internal setting. A big strength of ACKS is that it can be adapted more readily than something like Hyperborea, and I wanted to showcase one example of a non-Auran, non-Bronze age site.
Thirdly, I realized that even though I’ve branded myself as the ocean guy, I haven’t made an ocean themed adventure for the public1. So I wanted to remedy that.
Finally, I had a fourth goal of testing out a new writing and publishing process, which is why the formatting is so wonky on the legal page. Still working out some of the kinks with Org mode to LaTeX publishing.

Results

With those goals in mind, let’s look at the feedback I have received. Starting with the review from JB at B/X Blackrazor. JB had very little to say, citing his lack of familiarity with many of the technical terms from ACKS II. Given that my goal was stuffing this thing full of technical terms from ACKS II, I’d say that tracks.

Next up is the review from Grützi over at Tiny Pink Tentacle. The main criticism here is lack of clarity, both on my map drawing skills and use of color coordination for the coral tunnels through the ship, and more damning, my explanation of the overall situation and what Graver and the Demon both want. This largely stemmed from my desire to use a site that was more closely cleft to my actual world and game. Graver is a somewhat important NPC, as an 8th level chaotic crusader, he is a mover and shaker in the world. His goal in the campaign was specifically harvesting the demon coral located under the Spinefish. He was sent there on orders of his demon patron, and convinced the city of Idletwine to allow him to park a prison hulk over the coral bed and “put the prisoners to useful work.” The coral secretion that the demon creates is valuable in its own right in game and this arrangement allowed Graver to feed the demon prisoners while also skimming some coral off the top for his patron. As for the duration of the current situation and his immediate goals, it’s been going on for no longer than 3 months. Supply ships go out to the hulk once a month, and even though the work to unload them is minimal, it’s normally done by prisoners. The excuse of a lock down to hide the state of the ship only works so long2 and eventually someone would be sent to check. Graver’s immediate goal is simply getting out off the ship in any way that isn’t back to Idletwine where he might have to answer questions about what exactly was happening on the ship. The Weaver for its part simply wants to keep eating people. It isn’t quite smart enough to work out that it killed the golden goose by going on its rampage, causality is uniquely difficult for demons who can’t speak.
As for the maps, I didn’t use an icon set and all the doors are individually drawn, which lead to inconsistencies.

And next we have the review from Ben Gibson at Coldlight Press. His criticisms were about the lack of rumors, and that most of the dungeon roster consists of unthinking always-evil creatures who can’t be reasoned with. He also pointed out an issue that I’m sure others have known about for awhile. I.e. boats make boring maps. They have similar issues to Towers, except without the benefit of being able to climb the outside in most cases. In this case, I was aware of this going into designing the thing, and was taking it as a challenge. I don’t really know that I like the results, but I can at least say I’ve done it. Also, he was the only judge to point out the demon being stingy with his bait money. Eletrum for life baby!

There is also a fifth judge, Owen Edwards. But as of time of writing, his review has not been published. As he does his reviews in bulk format on his YouTube channel, I believe it will be awhile. I will update this section with his feedback when it become available.

Conclusions

In conclusion, I’m an somewhat mixed in the final results of this site. I am happy with my use of the ACKS II “engine.” All of the monsters here can either already exist in the Monstrous Manual or can be created with the creation rules therein. Shadowed Sinkholes add a lot of challenge to a site that would otherwise be “Cleric Crusade, please Turn Undead now” for an easy win; and setting the thing on a Prison Hulk most certainly puts it outside the normal nautical tech of not!Rome. I really like the Weaver, as it was completely made within the confines of the Cacaodemon entry in the Monstrous Manual, not needing to break out the monster building rules for what I think is a very good centerpiece monster, while still having a level of customization is a huge boon that I don’t think any other system really provides. You can make a Cacaodemon that is truly unique. Instead of picking a cool setpiece monster that already has a million modules using that exact monster as a set piece (looking at you Vampires). Over all, I think I did a decent job of accomplishing my goals.

However, I do think that Grützi was correct, this site has a lot of busy work that will need to be completely overhauled to make it more playable at others tables. I think my practice of using sites from games is doing me more harm than good in this case. The map also seriously needs a face lift, and I don’t want to do it or pay to have it done. This one will probably end up in it’s current state, and not published officially. Which is a fine fate for a tech demo.

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