Narrow and hidden paths are the only way through, and a guide can be hired for a steep fee (he will certainly not stay but will return on a fixed day for 200 gp). The tomb is no longer within a day’s convenient travelling distance from the nearest village, being placed instead somewhere in the perpetually fog-shrouded superstitiously avoided centre of the Sister-marches. Ancient and accursed tomes with names like the Red Antiquities or the living Book of Wrynn add to the sense of lovecraftian evil.Īs the players rise in skill and the characters rise in ability and resources, a way of maintaining challenge is to pile on complexity. All writing in the tomb is in some ancient tongue the PCs have no way of knowing initially (but of course there is magic) but later on they have a chance to get their hands on a pictograhical lexicon so they can translate. ![]() The great antiquity of the Tomb is hinted at in other ways. There is a rumor table and some notes on the nearest town and its prominent NPCs, which is appreciated. Some useful preliminaries, notes on what happens if the PCs, through various means, attempt to research the origins of the Red Mausoleum, a location that predates the current human settlement into the region. ![]() It is designed to give a high level of challenge to PCs who have “seen and done it all.” Red Mausoleum is an adventure set for 5-8 PCs of level 12-15. The high level equivalent of working pro-bono, but who knows, there might be lucrative finds in there. The baron promises 50 gp for every undead head you come across (and hoping you don’t go Blood Meridian) and the Gnome king throws in another 7500 gp. Baronial guards report clashes with the walking dead. A gnomish settlement has been wiped off the earth. The Sister-moors, a war-torn region now enjoying over a century of peace, are once again disturbed. It also uses both gameplay and thematic elements to give one a feel of descending into a place of terrible, ancient and transcendent evil. There is a mastery of the dungeoncrawling fundamentals combined with some interesting flourishes and additions. The room descriptions are long and slightly generic, possibly to aid placement into one’s own fantasy adventure campaign, but underneath it is something that has a a real weird vibe to it. Red Mausoleum is pretty good, maybe even very good. This fundamental structure does not appear to change much with the expected level of the characters, although as we can see, complications and developments are possible. ![]() By its very nature the PCs are intruding into a space that has remained mostly undisturbed (even with random encounters this will remain in force), and the most likely progression will be that of the PCs mounting a sequential series of careful ventures, wearing down the Tombs defenses one by one, solving its riddles, breaking off if their resources get too depleted and perhaps losing the occasional character to a cunning trap or unlucky combat. There is something about many Tomb adventures that seems inherently static or limited.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |