Adventure Site Contest 2: Pit of the Red Wyrm

Written by Jakub McFarland
S&W, level 5 adverage
Red dragon lair in a valley.
  The red dragon Nimgobar has stolen a banks strongbox and taken it to his lair, a deep hotspring in the rainforested mountains. In the ruined asylum above, insane dragon-worshipping berserkers grow the merciless insanity peppers of Quetzalemalan which begets them greater strength and insanity.
  One of the biggest disappointments I had last year was that we didn’t have any of the dragon sites in the final collection. Is this not Dungeons & Dragons? Where are our charismatic fire-breaking lizard kings? Mr. McFarland seeks to rectify that lack here with that most classic of dragons, the RED. And he’s doing it in Swords & Wizardry, so he wasn’t even forced to by his system’s name. Good man.
  This site is designed to be active, baby. What do you want as your hook? Rumors of a dragon raiding? Legends of a treasure? No, you guys just got buzzed by a low-flying red dragon clutching a bank vault. There’s treasure. Chase it right now or I, the Dungeon Master, shall personally mock your courage while giving out swirlies. The rest of the dungeon is all the res-e-ist of medias too, there’s an insanity-pepper dosing berserker chief engaging a grimlock in a pit while a captive thief tries to crack the bank safe, there’s a geyser actively erupting, it’s all very dynamic. I kind of love this.
  Map is great here. Said entry is a winding stairway bathed in geyser steam, the three levels go up and down in multiple locations, the secret doors open up alternate routes for all manner of tactical and strategic shenanigans, there’s even an underground river with a secret hidden rowboat that offers an alternate entrance/exit. This is about as good as it can get for a little 23-room dungeon. Good clean presentation too. 

Outdoors noted too, respek.

  Environmental damage is very Red Dragon, without the old standby of a rocky volcano. This is as usual geothermal, but it’s hot water in this case that’s spraying burns all over the place, which also means everything is viny, overgrown, rotting, bushy…welcome to the jungle, hope you don’t mind burns. The other environmental bits are situations with enemies, less traditional traps.
  Monster roster is very colorful, as expected from that intro. Grimlocks and berserkers are the main threats, plus of course the dragon (he’s sleeping by default). A couple NPCs, like the aforesaid thief and a cursed fighter, give nice interaction beyond “scream and leap” with the humanoids. More exotic stuff like vampire bats, bloodvines, a displaced naiad, and rainbow algae add spice. My favorite is a set-piece where algae animates a skeleton with a scimitar of speed as a shambling mound, great case for reskinning a book standard monster. The dragon’s tactics are very solid, using his lair with a scalding pool moat to his advantage when fighting interlopers, a really nasty tentpole bossfight right there.
  Of course this is a dragon’s lair, so you know we have to have a hoard or two of treasure. The main hoard is a slightly chintzy 12k in the scalding water pool but there all other cash prizes elsewhere, notably that bank vault’s safe. Quetzalemalan Insanity Peppers are great boon/bane loot, upping hit/damage for an AC drop, although they also do 2d6 damage if eaten raw. Magic items are also worth getting out of bed in the morning for level 5’s, stuff like a candle of darkness, that scimitar of speed, a wand of lightning, a +2 spell-turning shield…I can dig it. A cursed Ring of Air as Water (which means the wearer can’t breathe air) might actually be the most useful item, I think most of my players would invest heavily in Remove Curse and try some bucket shenanigans to be able to get near-unlimited flying like that. There are tons of statues-as-loot, I don’t know how patient your PCs are for multi-ton statue removal from such a treacherous environment, but if they stick with it they’re going to be rolling in dough even after paying for the mules, drovers, and wagons.
  The suggested location here is “any forested mountain hex” and while that’s right about the terrain placement I do think you’ll want to seed rumors and a little more foreshadowing for a complex of this size. The assumed bank heist is another slightly anachronistic piece that means you’re going to have to burn some calories beforehand setting this site up. Worth the effort, though.

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