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ORCHIDS OF THE INVISIBLE MOUNTAIN (Terry H. Romero): I actually quite like this scenario, and I’d like you to keep that in mind while I discuss its two major problems. (Then we’ll cycle back around to the good stuff.)

First, there’s a trend I’ve seen in Wizards of the Coast adventures — particularly in their anthologies — of designing a scenario hook that offers an intriguing enigma for curious players to investigate, but then immediately having an NPC show up who barges in, orders the PCs to investigate it, and gives them a specific checklist of tasks to complete. Frequently, this NPC will also just immediately explain the enigma, robbing the adventure of any sense of discovery, but nevertheless leaving the busy work.

“Look, I’m going to be perfectly honest with you,” the DM says. “I think you’re all idiots and incapable of taking any action unless someone is literally holding you hand. Hang on a sec, let me wipe the drool off your chins.”

In the case of “Orchids of the Invisible Mountain,” it feels particularly weird because the strange enigma is literally an NPC ordering the PCs to do a thing. And then another NPC shows up so that they, too, can order the PCs to do the exact same thing.

It’s like you’re stuck in some kind of middle-management hell.

The second problem with “Orchids of the Invisible Mountain” is what I refer to as scale mismatch.

“Orchids” wants to be an epic fantasy quest. It wants the vast scope and epoch-shattering consequences of The Lord of the Rings as the PCs journey forth on a grand expedition across many worlds, interacting with legendary characters and god-like beings.

But, on the other hand, it’s fifteen pages long.

It’s basically impossible for adventures like this to achieve their lofty goals, and so they end up feeling hollow and forced. You can’t squeeze Frodo’s journey to Mordor into a one-shot and expect it to have the same weight.

(There’s also a sad little bit where the text basically says, “If the PCs have plane shift, of course, they can just skip most of this adventure.” This feels like somebody in the development process realized there was a calibration problem between what the adventure expected and what 14^th-level characters are actually capable of, but it was too late to actually fix it. You can see a similar calibration problem near the beginning of the adventure, where the text confidently states that the PCs will have no way of stopping a barn fire.)

You can see a dramatic example of this scale problem in action with this map of “mountain” which is… what? About a hundred feet across?

Having said all that, the reason I’m rather fond of “Orchids” is that it’s actually remarkably effective at evoking the epic scale it’s grasping for. Far more so than any similar module I’ve seen. It achieves this primarily by just daring to dream vividly, conjuring forth dream-hazed visions that are startlingly memorable by virtue of being both unique and drawn in specific detail.

“Orchids” will take you:

• Through a burning sugar plantation.
• Across the thri-keen-haunted Grassroads.
• Into a giant termite mound which is also a thinning between this world and the Feywild.
• Up the jungle-tangled slopes of the Ghost Orchid Tepui.
• Into the Crystal Caves where the Sleeping Stone is guarded by an aboleth-cursed dragon.
• The husk of the Drought Elder, an alien god of the Far Realm whose consciousness echoes through its own dead skein.

Along the way they’ll meet:

• The Sugar Man, an ebullient leader of the people of Atagua.
• A thousand-year-old spirit kept alive by the whim of the Feywild.
• An iridescent thri-keen.
• The Dawn Mother, an ageless giant striding out of legend.

There’s nothing generic here. It’s all fantastical and wonderful and strikingly imaginative, hampered only by the necessity of its just-in-time-exposition: The PCs need to go to the Dawn Mother, and so now we’ll tell them about the Dawn Mother for the first time.

“Orchids of the Invisible Mountain” would be much more powerful if the seeds of its lore were planted much earlier in your campaign. (It’s just so much cooler if the players have known about the legends of the Dawn Mother for a long time, and now they get to actually meet her!) Planting those seeds would mean doing a lot of groundwork.

But “Orchids” just might be worth it.

Grade: C+

CONCLUSION

As with my review of Candlekeep Mysteries, what I’m looking for in an anthology is not necessarily a home run with every entry. I’m much more interested in how much good stuff the anthology offers me. It’s fairly easy to just ignore the stuff that doesn’t work.

Bearing that in mind, let’s take a peek at the hit rate for Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel:

Salted Legacy	C+
Written in Blood	A
The Fiend of Hollow Mine	C+
Wages of Vice	D
Sins of Our Elders	C-
Gold for Fools and Princes	F
Trail of Destruction	D-
In the Mists of Manivarsha	C
Between Tangled Roots	B
Shadow of the Sun	F
The Nightsea's Succor	B+
Buried Dynasty	F
Orchids of the Invisible Mountain	C+

Anything with an A or B grade is an adventure I would definitely run. Stuff with a C grade I’m more skeptical of, but are likely salvageable if you particularly like the concept or content.

So of the thirteen adventures we have:

• 3 that I would definitely run;
• 5 that could be salvaged with a little TLC; and
• 5 that I think are a complete miss.

It’s clear from these numbers that this is a weaker anthology than Candlekeep Mysteries (which scored 8/4/5 on this metric). But this is a pretty good showing for an anthology like this, and when you combine it with the gazetteer for the Radiant Citadel itself — which I simply adore — I can easily recommend Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel as a solid value.

Style: 4
Substance: 3

Project Lead: Ajit A. George, F. Wesley Schneider
Writing: Justice Ramin Arman, Domnique Dickey, Ajit A. George, Basheer Ghouse, Alastor Guzman, D. Fox Harrell, T.K. Johnson, Felice Tzehuei Kuan, Surena Marie, Mimi Mondal, Mario Ortegón, Miyuki Jane Pinkcard, Pam Punzalan, Erin Roberts, Terry H. Romero, Stephanie Yoon
Rules Development: Jeremy Crawford, Makenzie De Armas, Ben Petrisor, Taymoor Rehman

Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Cost: $49.95
Page Count: 224

FURTHER READING
Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel: A List of Names
Review: Candlekeep Mysteries

 

Go to Part 1

SHADOW OF THE SUN (Justice Raman Arman): Fifty years ago the city-state of Akharin Sangar came under the despotic rule of an archangel named Atash. He enforces an intolerant code of absolutist religious laws (which are every bit as bad as you might imagine them to be). Various rebel groups are working to free the city from Atash’s tyrannical rule, but their efforts are ruthlessly quashed by a secret police of religious zealots known as the Brightguard which the despot angel has empowered to replace the former legal apparatus.

Reading that introduction you might be thinking, “Oh! Sweet! Let’s bring down the tyrant!”

But that’s not what “Shadow of the Sun” is about.

“Shadow of the Sun” is about how Blue Lives Matter.

Ostensibly, the adventure is framed so that the PCs can choose between working with the Brightguard or working with the rebels. But that’s not entirely accurate: There are two different rebel groups. The first is the Ashen Heirs, who do things like stage protests and disrupt capitalism. The other is the Silent Roar, who are very concerned that the uppity Ashen Heirs will ruin their big plans of doing nothing. And then the Silent Roar’s worst nightmare happens! Their leader is mistakenly associated with the uppity Ashen Heirs and is arrested! Oh no!

So the Silent Roar wants the PCs to crush the Ashen Heirs so that their leader can be freed from being wrongfully imprisoned by the religious zealots. And the religious zealots want the PCs to crush the Ashen Heirs because otherwise Atash will be “forced” to “cancel the celebrations and impose martial law.”

If the PCs are maybe a little hesitant about all this, they’re told to go check out the Ruz Bazaar, where members of the Ashen Heirs are once again disrupting capitalism and proving that they’re really bad people because they’re (checks notes)… breaking into a smuggler’s shop to free a slave?

Once the PCs have crushed the Ashen Heirs, the Brightguard naturally says, “Good work! Now, let’s move on to crushing the Silent Roar.” It’s at this point that the PCs have a choice to either continue working with the gestapo or not.

The adventure has an EXTREMELY linear plot to follow, though, so the choice has little impact on what happens next. You can tell which option Arman assumes the PCs will take, though, because it’s the only one that makes any logical sense.

The conclusion of the adventure has a quote that neatly sums up its structural issues:

Regardless of the characters’ allegiance, their actions and the fallout of Afsoun’s detainment or escape have broad implications for Akharin Sangar. The Silent Roar’s resistance efforts increase in either case, causing the organization to become the Brightguard’s greatest rival.

There’s a cool flying carpet chase in the middle of all this, but everything else is a mess, and the, “Let’s all join and/or collaborate with the gestapo!” framing is beyond tasteless. I find it hard to believe it’s what Arman intended, but it’s what’s on the page. As someone who lived just three blocks away from where George Floyd was murdered, I may be biased, but I cannot imagine any version of reality where I would want to see this scenario brought to the table as written.

Grade: F

THE NIGHTSEA’S SUCCOR (D. Fox Harrell): “The Nightsea’s Succor” is another adventure that positions the PCs between Authority/Tradition and Rebellion/Reinvention, and it’s somewhat stunning how much more effective it is.

Long ago the nation of Djaynai was plagued by reavers known as the Vultures. My personal touchstones for this are Viking raiders and the Bronze Age deprecations of the Sea Peoples: Cities were looted and burned. Thousands of Djaynaians were taken as captives and loaded onto ships to become slaves.

A couple key things happened during this time. First, some of the Djaynaian captives staged a revolt and leapt off the reaver ships rather than remain slaves. As they plunged into the ocean, powerful sorcerers among them used the sorcerous secrets of their civilization to weave a powerful rite which transformed some of them into merpeople known as the chil-liren. The descendents of the chil-liren formed the underwater city-state of Jayna.

Second, in order to protect those same sorcerous secrets – known as the Blackmist Way and the Blackthrone Arts – they were loaded into a ship and sent away to a place of safety. Unfortunately, the ship was attacked and sank. The legacy of the Djaynaian people was lost.

Cue the beginning of the adventure, when some ghosts from the shipwreck cast detect player characters and give them the information they need to find the shipwreck and the lost arts that lie within it.

This immediately puts the PCs in the crosshairs: They’re contacted by Atiba-Pa, the regent of Djaynai, who wants to use the recovered lore to restore Djaynai to its lost Golden Age. But they’re also contacted by the Night Revelers, a group of counter-culture revolutionaries who would prefer to use the lore to reinvent the Djaynai and forge something new and unshackled from the legacy of the past.

Following the clues given to them by the ghosts, the PCs eventually end up in Jayna. And here, too, they’re torn between different political ideologies: On the one hand, those who want to stay separate from Djaynai and would keep the lore secret. On the other hand, those who believe the Janyans need to forge their own future. Once again, the legacy of the lost lore of ancient Djaynai is crucial.

Things wrap up with a short dungeon crawl through the ancient shipwreck (which is also an underwater library? the lore gets a little confused here) and then the PC have some tough choices to make.

What elevates “The Nightsea’s Succor” is that Harrell crafts a meaningful and nuanced dilemma. There are a few things that make this work.

First, it feels like a legitimate choice. There’s enough nuance depicted in all of the political and cultural factions that the PCs should be able to see both the potential good and the potential bad in each one.

Second, having two different rivalries on separate axes that are nevertheless connected to each other is, frankly, inspired. Introducing them at different times is also crucial here: Even if, due to their own opinions and predilections, the PCs find it easy to choose between A or B, the introduction of C or D as an intersecting issue and choice will force them to re-analyze the “easy” choice they made earlier. Even if they ultimately don’t change their minds, it’s kept the core philosophical debate an active part of the adventure.

Third, the choice feels truly meaningful. It doesn’t seem as if the world will radically change overnight as a result of what the PCs choose, but there will be definite consequences that affect both the PCs personally and society as a whole.

In short, “The Nightsea’s Succor” is really nice. In structure it is quite simple, but the cultural crux adds considerable depth and every scene is studded with lush detail.

Grade: B+

Prep Notes: The problem with using a ghost as your scenario hook is that it just takes one impetuous PC to say, “Ah! Ghosts!” and use turn undead to leave you without a scenario. Not necessarily a problem, but a good idea to be aware of the possibilitiy.

BURIED DYNASTY (Felice Tzehuei Kuan): This adventure has a really cool premise. The White Jade Emperor of Great Xing has lived for centuries due to a customized potion of longevity created using a secret recipe. Unfortunately, the rare ingredients used for the Emperor’s potion have run out. Without the potion, the Emperor will die and the effect on Grand Xing is likely to be cataclysmic. Grand Secretary Wei Feng Ying, therefore, is desperately trying to locate a new source, and she hires the PCs to help her.

Unfortunately, everything else in the adventure is utter nonsense.

Wei doesn’t want the PCs to know what she’s actually looking for, fearing chaos if the imminent death of the Emperor were to leak out. So they’re actually just assigned to guard Wei’s personal agent, a scholar named Lu Zhong Yin. Zhong Yin is under strict orders not to tell the PCs anything and his character description explicitly says, “I’ll follow any order from my commanders.” But he just tells the PCs anyway.

They don’t find the missing ingredient, but they DO find three unused doses of the potion of longevity itself.

But now the PCs know too much! So Wei, who is observing them through a crystal ball, decides this is the perfect moment to betray them and orders a court mage to collapse the entrance to the ruin. (You might think it would make more sense to have them bring back the potions of longevity and then betray them. But no.) The author has also cleverly established that teleportation and planar travel are both blocked in the ruins.

OH MY GOD! THERE’S NO WAY OUT!

… is what the PCs would say if they weren’t 13^th-level characters with probably a dozen different ways of trivially escaping.

Left with “no other option,” the PCs then make telepathic contact with Wei who says, “Oh no! Let me help!” She then opens a one-way magical portal that the PCs can use to escape!

(…wait, wasn’t teleportation magic blocked down here? Yes, but it’s okay because there’s a loophole! But can’t the PCs just use the same loophole and avoid all this nonsense? Yes, but they presumably won’t because by this time the rails should be obvious!)

But this is a trick! Wei has actually teleported them into a trap! A hologram of Wei appears and she says, “I’m sorry to inform you that I’m betraying you because there’s a vague possibility you might know some of my secrets. My only choice is to teleport you into a room directly next to my uber-secret alchemy laboratory filled with all the secrets you shouldn’t know. Your deaths are assured, for in this room I have arranged for you to fight a level-appropriate Easy encounter.”

So the PCs trivially escape the “death trap” and then proceed through an entire linear dungeon. In the last room of the dungeon, they find a gold dragon who has been captured and shackled by Wei’s secret cabal of imperial alchemists. If they free the dragon, he thanks them, and then goes scurrying up the Exit Tunnel.

The PCs, of course, can follow the dragon along a perfectly straight tunnel with no turn-offs before arriving at a hatch. If they open the hatch and crawl through it, they emerge directly in the center of the stage at the Pear Garden Imperial Opera in the middle of a performance being attended by the Emperor himself!

…

The layers of stupidity here are truly staggering.

First: Where the fuck did the dragon go?

The adventure actually goes out of its way to confirm that the dragon definitely went through this very same hatch in the center of the stage, but apparently without any member of the cast or audience noticing.

Second: Let me get this straight. Wei built her secret alchemy laboratory directly below the Imperial Opera? And the only way into or out of this laboratory is through a trapdoor in the center of the stage?

…

Anyway.

We have now reached the conclusion of the adventure, in which the Emperor demands to know, “What is the meaning of all this?!”

The PCs can now tell the Emperor their story, but he will only believe them if they have three out of four pieces of “evidence.” At this point, the adventure copy-pastes from the worst school of Sierra adventure game design. Did you randomly decide to pick up a gold dragon scale from Area S4? You didn’t? You lose!

(If only the Emperor had seen the Huge gold dragon who came through here not thirty seconds ago! Too bad. Sucks to be you!)

If the PCs did collect the three random items, then the Emperor believes them and Wei ends up confessing everything — the missing ingredient, the lack of longevity potions, the Emperor’s eminent death — in front of the entire audience of the Imperial Opera.

The Emperor will then invite the PCs to a private audience where he pays them hush money in exchange for promising “not to speak of what they have learned about Dragon’s Blessing and his eventual death.” Because if they were to, for example, tell an entire opera house full of people about that, it would be bad.

And on that final note of abject stupidity, this adventure mercifully comes to an end.

Grade: F

Go to Part 7

 

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 32A: Enthralled in Oldtown

But as Agnarr cut through the room at the center of the complex, the floor suddenly buckled beneath him – plunging him down to the first floor in a loud, splintering crash of broken wood.

Looking around, Agnarr saw the problem: Several support walls had been completely destroyed and there were several broken floor beams. He tried climbing back up to the second floor, but the acid-eaten floorboards broke beneath his weight a second time and dropped him back down again.

“I’m just going to stay down here,” Agnarr said, heading towards the far door of the room he’d fallen into.

The PCs should not be in control.

Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they should not be given control. If they exert control, that’s completely different. In fact, exerting control is likely to be their goal. But a good scenario – particularly a good dungeon scenario – will continually challenge that control and force them to fight to maintain it.

The problem with a lot of modern dungeon design is that it allows the players to trivially control the expedition: The monsters politely wait in their rooms. The PCs are free to engage and disengage with them in whatever way and whatever pace they choose.

The problem is that when the PCs have that level of control, the game breaks in multiple ways: Resource management becomes irrelevant. Weird exploits become reliable. The experience flattens. The challenge vanishes.

When you challenge their control, on the other hand, the players will be forced to respond dynamically, shepherding their resources against unknown threats and thinking outside of the box when faced with situations that are neither ideal nor anticipated.

One way to achieve this is with dynamic opponents (through the use of random encounters, adversary rosters, etc.) that challenge the players’ ability to control the pace and composition of encounters.

But you can also challenge the players’ control over navigation.

This can be done through confusion or deception (e.g., a maze-like dungeon where the PCs literally get lost, illusory walls, undetectable slopes, etc.). It can also be done through metamorphosis (e.g., tunnels collapse or walls move).

But an old school classic is the trap that moves you. The teleportation trap is perhaps the Platonic ideal here: You’re in one place and then, against your will, you are in a completely different place. You are no longer in control of your expedition and you’re going to have to work (and apply your expertise and knowledge) to regain that control (by figuring out where you are and how to get back). As the current session demonstrates, of course, there are other options, including entirely naturalistic ones. In this case, Agnarr has broken through the unstable floor and dropped down to a lower level: That was not a choice the PCs made and now, instead of being able to proceed in an orderly fashion through the dungeon (clearing rooms before methodically descending to the next level), they’ve been thrust into a completely different tactical situation.

The fact that I was using adversary rosters, location timelines, and other active opposition techniques only served to enhance the trap. Intriguingly, in this case, it worked both ways: It wasn’t just the PCs who were thrust into a new tactical situation and needed to figure out how to handle it, the NPCs were also surprised!

And being challenged like that is fun for me, too!

Campaign Journal: Session 32B – Running the Campaign: Death at Tier 2
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 32A: ENTHRALLED IN OLDTOWN

December 20th, 2008
The 18th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

When Tee returned shortly after noon, the group retrenched its plans. They had already decided to meet with Sir Kabel for dinner that evening and they now resolved to use that meeting to lay out a complete strategy for dealing with Rehobath, the arrival of Kirian Ylestos, the affairs of the Order of the Dawn, and the decisions facing Dominic.

This, however, left them with several hours of empty time to fill. Ranthir and Elestra had a variety of minor chores that they thought they might be able to pursue (the writing of magical scrolls, the gathering of information, and so forth), but then Tee proposed going to the project site of the cultists in Oldtown and laying siege to it.

This plan met with immediate and enthusiastic support. And, in short order, they found themselves approaching the building.

SCOUT BY SNAKE

Elestra called upon the Spirit of the City to cloak her companions from sight, allowing them to easily slip into the alley next to the building. Calling upon the Spirit once more, she shifted into the shape of a snake. Tee, using her boots of levitation, carried her up to the window on the second floor that she’d used before and slipped Elestra inside.

Slithering under doorways, Elestra noted several cocoons scattered around the upper level – some of them still whole, others hatched.

In a room on the far side of the building there were two of the hatched cocoons. There were also two doors, one of which had been barricaded shut with an assortment of half-broken furniture.

Elestra decided to avoid the barricade for now, and instead slithered under the other door. In the center of the next room were two of the “venom-shaped thralls”.

Fortunately, the creatures appeared to be sleeping – they were hunched down on the floor and their long, beclawed arms were drawn in close. Elestra beat a hasty retreat back into the outer room.

She considered heading directly back to the window where Tee was waiting. It would certainly be the safest thing to do. But, on the other hand, it would be helpful if she could finish scouting out the entirety of the second floor. Then they could form an accurate plan of action.

And so she slipped her way through the barricade and poked her head under the second door.

On the far side of the room there was a half-hatched cocoon. But extending from its broken shell there were writhing, gelatinous tentacles that groped grotesquely at the empty air. For a long moment, Elestra was captivated by the horrific sight of it. But then her reverie was broken by painful, stinging bites.

Wrenching her head out of the room, Elestra saw a swarming carpet of strangely deformed, red-and-black beetles pouring out of one of the hatched cocoons in the outer room. She had been literally overwhelmed by the outer edge of the swarm.

She fled back towards Tee with the chaos beetles biting and stinging her as she went. Tee, seeing her plight, flung open the window and fired once into the mass of creatures. The blast had little effect, but it did cause the creatures to fall back long enough for Elestra – momentarily freed from their mass – to escape out of the window as Tee scooped her up.

Ranthir, seeing the panicked scene above, reacted quickly. With a wave of his hand the window slammed shut.

Mere moments after the window shut, Tee saw one of the venom-shaped thralls scurry into view – evidently awoken by the sounds of the swarming chaos beetles. Before it had a chance to notice them hovering outside of the window, however, Tee dropped out of sight and returned to the alley below.

MELEE ON THE SECOND FLOOR

When they reached the ground, Elestra returned to human form. She quickly described what she had seen to the others. Since the second floor was so sparsely populated, they decided to quickly mop up the minimal opposition before the riled up chaos beetles alerted everything in the building to their presence.

Levitating back up, however, Tee found the window Ranthir had shut swarming with the chaos beetles – the entire surface a churning, chitinous mass. She blanched. Disgusting…

“Did we ever figure out why the bug-things were called venom-shaped thralls?” Elestra asked.

“Because they’re poisonous?” Tor ventured.

“But venom-shaped…” Dominic said.

“They’re made out of venom?” Elestra suggested.

Tee, meanwhile, was circling around to the western side of the building. There she found another window, this one looking out over the rear alley. Peeking through it she saw one of the thralls patrolling the hallway leading to the stairs. And there was another of the black cocoons attached to the far wall. But it would have to do. She eased her way up to the roof, tied off her rope, and lowered it to the others below.

Returning to the window, Tee eased it open and slipped inside. She slid in behind the banister of the stairs. From her hiding place there, she waited for Agnarr to reach the window. Then, once the patrolling thrall’s back was turned, she gave the signal: Agnarr leapt through the window, silently rolled to his feet directly behind the thrall, and then gave his familiar battlecry: FOR THE GLORY!

As the flaming greatsword bit deep into the creature’s chitinous hide, acidic ichor sprayed from the wound and oozed down its side. Agnarr’s arms burned at its touch.

The thrall whirled with a hideous, chittering hiss that echoed through the upper level of the ruined apartment complex. Tee, timing her move perfectly, circled it in the opposite direction and buried her sword in its back. It howled its hiss again, its serrated beak and claws going into a furious flurry at Agnarr’s expense.

Agnarr was forced back a step by the thing’s furious onslaught. “They’re bigger than we thought!” he shouted over his shoulder.

But then Tor, who had scrambled through the window behind them, stepped up and beheaded the creature with a single smooth stroke. Its head went bouncing down the length of the hall… but as it passed over the cocoon at the far end of the hall, a thrall-claw suddenly burst forth from the purplish-black mass and impaled it in mid-air.

“Oh shit…” Tee turned towards it and drew her dragon pistol. But as she prepared to fire, she saw – through one of the gaping holes in the wall – the chittering mass of the chaos swarm sweeping towards her like an ambulatory carpet. “Oh shit!” She swung her pistol in that direction and fired.

Her blasts had little effect, but then Ranthir stepped forward, lowered his hands, and bathed the creatures in flame. Unfortunately, they kept coming. Elestra, calling on her own magical might, dropped a ball of roiling fire into their midst, but the creatures swarmed around it and clambered up Ranthir’s legs – leaving hideous red welts in their wake.

Ranthir screamed. But then Elestra swung the ball of fire back into the midst of the swarm and, this time, the flames shattered the swarm’s hivemind, sending the desultory remnants scattering into the corners of the room.

Tor went racing past them and plunged his sword into the hatching cocoon – but to no avail. The half-dozen claws of the creature continued ripping their way to freedom.

Tee dropped her dragon pistol and drew her bow, wanting its greater accuracy. As the newborn thrall ripped its way free from the cocoon, Tee loosed her shot – placing the arrow straight through the emerging creature’s eye.

With a flip of her hand, Elestra engulfed the thrall’s head in a ball of the flame. And then Tee shot again, her arrow ripping through its second eye and bursting through the back of its skull – leaving a slightly flaming arrow flicker in the wall at the center of a splash of green ichor and black brain. The creature slumped forward over the edge of the cocoon.

Meanwhile, another of the thralls – the second of those Elestra had seen before – had burst through the door on the far side of the room. Agnarr moved to engage it and Ranthir quickly scurried in that direction. Laying his hand on the barbarian’s back, he released a sharp burst of arcane energy. Agnarr grew and grew and grew… finally reaching thirteen feet in height.

In a panic, the venom-shaped thrall scuttled backwards – its flashing claws and beak lashing Agnarr, but doing little real harm. Agnarr drove it back and then cut it in ichorous twain.

TIP-TOEING THROUGH THE TULIPS

Ranthir and Tee could both feel the venom of the chaos beetle swarm burning in their blood. As its effects grew worse, their limbs began to shake uncontrollably. Dominic was able to help Tee, but they lacked the proper resources to fully cure Ranthir (who was left shaking with a severe palsy).

Tor wanted to finish their sweep of the upper level as quickly as possible, convinced that anything on the lower level of the apartment building must already be aware of them. He moved into the next room, verified it was empty, and started heading towards the barricaded door.

But then, on the ceiling, he spotted an effervescent patch of violet-colored slime. It looked… unpleasant.

Since Agnarr was thirteen feet tall (and stooping even in the high, vaulted ceilings of these ruined apartments), Tor called him over to take a close look at the patch of slime – and deal with it if necessary.

But as Agnarr cut through the room at the center of the complex, the floor suddenly buckled beneath him – plunging him down to the first floor in a loud, splintering crash of broken wood.

Looking around, Agnarr saw the problem: Several support walls had been completely destroyed and there were several broken floor beams. He tried climbing back up to the second floor, but the acid-eaten floorboards broke beneath his weight a second time and dropped him back down again.

“I’m just going to stay down here,” Agnarr said, heading towards the far door of the room he’d fallen into. “Tip-toe… through the tulips…”

Running the Campaign: The Traps That Move You  – Campaign Journal: Session 32B
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

Go to Part 1

TRAIL OF DESTRUCTION (Alastor Guzman): Powerful fire elementals known as tlexolotls slumber deep beneath the surface of Tletepec. Above them rise volcanoes, their smoke and eruptions reflecting the uneasy dreams of the fiery gods below. Now Izel, one of the tlexolotls, has awoken and seeks to similarly awake his brethren, leading to massive volcanic eruptions and earthquakes which are racking the region.

This is a cool concept. Unfortunately, I find the adventure to be fairly baffling.

First, the adventure obviously revolves around erupting volcanoes. The PCs travel along ash-choked roads, crisscrossing the region alternately trying to figure out what’s happening and delivering offerings to the volcano gods. Given this concept, there are two things that would be super useful to include on the map: The roads and the names of the volcanoes.

On the actual map, unfortunately, there are no roads. (Oof.) Most of the volcanoes are also not labeled, although what appears to be a single volcano is labeled the “Onyx Volcanoes” (sic) and another set of volcanoes is labeled the “Twin Gods Volcanoes.” There are actually four volcanoes near this latter label, but I’m pretty sure I know which two were meant to be the Twin Gods. Also the “Twin Gods” are, as far as I can tell, never identified. It’s possible they’re supposed to be the “two lovers” mentioned in the Legends of Tletepec? But the lovers aren’t given names, either.

This ties into a general cosmological confusion which is the other major liability of the scenario: The tlexolotls are the volcanoes, but no one in the area believes that the tlexolotls actually exist. Instead, they believe that there are unnamed(?) gods inside each volcano. The local religion (or possibly multiple religions?) offers sacrifices to keep the gods placated, but the sacrifices are actually going to the tlexolotl and placating them instead.

This is a needless layer of confusion that doesn’t have any real impact on the scenario. There’s something potentially interesting about the PCs revealing that “your gods are actually not gods,” they’re just semi-mindless beasts who, if not kept fed, periodically “emerge in a rage, rampaging forth” to “gorge themselves on massive amounts of animal and plant life … until its belly is full,” except:

• The consequences of this metaphysical nuclear bomb being dropped on the local culture is entirely ignored;
• the PCs figure out the truth by studying the prominently displayed carvings in all the shrines of the local religion (which is hilarious — “Yo! Your religion is wrong! The proof is all the bas reliefs you keep making!”); and
• even the “gorging beast” thing isn’t consistent, since Izel the main villain of the piece, is an awakened tlexolotl who explicitly doesn’t do that.

So it’s all kind of a big ol’ mess. This is also reflected in the central thru-line of the adventure, which is all over the place, but mostly revolves around the idea that Ameyali, a local religious(?) leader, is trying to deliver a shipment of offerings to the Gate of Illumination so that they can be given up to the gods and placate their fury. This is a problem, though, because Izel has dispatched his salamander minions to intercept the offerings and bring them to… the Gate of Illumination.

It feels like the adventure is missing a location (possibly due to word count?): Structurally it really needs the offerings to be going to Location X and then being redirected to the Gate of Illumination (where Izel is). There’s even a fire giant wandering around the area who will helpfully tell the PCs that:

Salamanders and fire snakes serve this tlexolotl. They have been stealing offerings meant for the gods and carrying them back to [the Gate of Illumination].

But instead the whole logical backbone of the adventure is broken.

There are some potentially big, interesting ideas here, but as written these are not coherently developed. Furthermore, it’s very hard for me to imagine running the adventure as written without it being a painful experience at the table.

Grade: D-

Prep Notes: The key to sorting this adventure out would be to clearly add the concept that every volcano in the region has its own shrine. (This concept is present in the adventure as written, it’s just completely obfuscated from the players.) The local cities are trying to send offerings to the shrines, but the salamanders and other servants of Izel keep intercepting them and taking them to the Gate of Illumination (the shrine at Jademount, which is the volcano formed around Izel).

(You could probably run with the idea that each shrine is referred to as a “Gate,” and create unique philosophical identities for each Gate.)

Having done this, there will still be some pretty drastic rehab required to beat the rest of the scenario into a coherent structure that will make sense to the players in any way other than “the NPCs told us to go there, so we went there.” But it would, I think, ultimately be salvageable.

IN THE MISTS OF MANIVARSHA (Mimi Mondal): Okay, good news! The festivals are back!

This time it’s the Shankha Trials, a vaguely defined athletics-and-art competition that dates back to the dawn of Shankhabhumi’s history. When the first human settlers arrived in Dishahara Bay, they discovered a land dominated by countless water spirits known as riverines. Each riverine is a guardian of a waterway, and the constant struggle for dominance among the riverines had turned this place into a hopeless maze of marshland.

The elven leader of the settlers, Kubjhatika, killed a giant mollusk and carved its shell into a beautiful work of art. She “offered it in tribute to the riverines, appealing to them for refuge amid the unforgiving lands,” and the “four greatest riverines — Adirohit, Iravati, Mehul, and Joltara – each wished to claim the Riverine’s Shankha.” Kubjhatika proposed the creation of the Shankha Trials to determine how the Riverine’s Shankha would circulate between the riverines. The riverines, in return, each raised up a large area of dry land where the people of Shankhabhumi could build their cities. These four cities became the major centers of civilization here, each supported by their patron riverine.

Five hundred years ago, however, catastrophe struck. At the conclusion of the Shankha Trials that year, a huge tidal wave swept down the Adirohit River and wiped out the city of Manivarsha. The riverine Adhirohit then vanished and its river dried up. The few surviving members of the Manivarshan people were scattered as refugees among the other three cities, but (apparently at least) remain a distinct cultural group in their diaspora and continue competing in the Shankha Trials.

The PCs are in attendance this year when an artist-athlete named Amanisha becomes the first Manivarshan to win the Shankha Trials since the catastrophe. The moment that happens, another tidal wave — considerably smaller — comes sweeping down the Iravati River. It simultaneously wreaks vast destruction, but also very specifically seeks out Amanisha and the Riverine’s Shankha and sweeps them upriver.

This whole concept, however, will naturally lead you to peruse the map of Shankhabhumi with a particular focus on the riverways. Then you’ll rub your eyes and look again. And then eventually you’ll give up because these rivers do not make sense. And that’s even before you get to the weird mismatches between map and text, like the Tinjhorna riverine who hopes to “one day be a mighty river,” but which, according to the map, is already the second longest river in the region.

(If you want a head canon, I recommend leaning into the fact that all these rivers are semi-sentient elemental gods and assume that they can just arbitrarily flow however they want to.)

The fact that the rivers don’t seem to make any sense is particularly unfortunate because the entire structure of the adventure is: Sail a boat upriver looking for where the tidal wave took Amanisha and the Riverine’s Shankha.

(Isn’t the Riverine’s Shankha like the most important political and religious artifact in their entire civilization? Yes. Does it seem likely that local leaders would mount an expedition to retrieve it? Yes. Are they going to do that? Absolutely not. They will send the PCs and nobody else. They will not pay for the PCs to rent a boat.)

Because the rivers don’t make any sense, the PCs can’t just sail upriver. Instead, they have to be supplied with a chain of NPCs who sequentially tell them where to go. That’s unfortunate, but ultimately this boils down to a sequence of river encounters, and these are mostly well done culminating in a conclusion that mostly makes sense if you don’t look at it too closely.

Grade: C

BETWEEN TANGLED ROOTS (Pam Punzalan): The shining star of “Between Tangled Roots” is the setting of Dayawlongon, a vast archipelago of islands linked by the awe-inspiring skybridges built in ages lost by the bakunawa dragons. That single, grand image captures the imagination.

The adventure begins with the PCs approaching the city of Kalapang when it’s attacked by a bakunawa which has been corrupted by evil spirits. The adventure confidently declares that “no matter what methods the characters use to reach Kalapang, the bakunawa has already departed by the time they reach town”… apparently forgetting that these are 10^th level characters and it’s more than plausible that they could just dimension door straight into the attack.

Either way, the PCs are coming to Kalapang to meet with a binukot storyteller named Nimuel. In fact, they’ve been summoned by Nimuel so that she can introduce them to Lungtian, a dryad who was once friends with the bakunawa and believes its actions are due to its lair on the island of Lambakluha being corrupted.

This, of course, cues a road trip across the skybridges and then a journey across the haunted isle of Lambakluha. Along the way they’ll meet fellow travelers and, naturally, face uncanny dangers. When they reach the baknuawa’s lair, they’ll have the opportunity to either cleanse the corruption eating at the dragon’s heart or slay the dragon. Either way, the threat is ended.

“Between Tangled Roots” is just a rock solid adventure. The concept is simple, but has some nice thematic twists. The characters are varied and interesting to roleplay. The haunted isle is creepy.

Grade: B

Prep Notes: One thing to note is that the journey across Lambakluha requires rolling at least eight times on a random encounter table that only has five entries on it (and one of those including rolling again for another encounter). You should probably flesh that out a bit.

Go to Part 6