Adventure Site Contest 2: The Calid Cryo-Caves

​Written by Jeff Simpson
Seven Voyages of Zylarthen (OD&D), levels 3-5
Glacial cave system.
  East of Hashirkand, north of the Trader's Road and nestled within the Mountains of Kush lie a series of glacial caves where even the local Balushi tribesmen fear to tread. It is said that deep within these caves lie passages leading to subterranean cult-temples along the banks of magmic rivers but many are shallow affairs containing only the bones of primal beasts..
  Champion stick-figure artist and enthusiastic adventure-writer extraordinaire Jeff Simpson was busy fighting in the Secret War of the Wendigo when submissions began, so he wasn’t the usual first adventure, but he came in clutch in the end (even the wendigo don’t campaign in Canada’s winters) and delivers us a Fire & Ice inspired tunnel adventure site illustrated with several trademark figures and complete with not one, but two maps (top-down and vertical). Single-column text, nothing flashy in the format, as always cleanly written but with the underlying enthusiasm of a five-year-old telling you about his kickass dream last night. If this is not to your taste, then you don’t deserve to play D&D.
  Our premise is pretty simple, glacial caves in the mountains open up to volcanic vents deeper in, random critters and skeletons hang out with a golem in a place rife with environmental effects. A story can probably be cobbled together about the past and background but that’s left mostly as an exercise to the reader.
  You, dear reader, are going to be reading a lot of adventure site reviews over these weeks, and you’re going to see quite a few very impressive maps. I love pretty maps, I love interesting maps, I love big maps. But I’m going to be real with you, most of these maps? They are too big for an adventure site. The eleven keyed areas in this one are just about perfect for “stumble into while adventuring” scale that makes adventure sites so useful. There’s no lack of complexity here, either, with twisting vertical tunnels and switchbacks that provide all manner of interesting exploratory choices. A fast and efficient group at the top level(s) will be able to blaze through pretty fast but that’s fine, there’s a satisfying bit of delving gameplay here. You don’t have to make it big. Just make it good.

​  I’ll go ahead and talk about the environmental effects here, because those are a large portion of the caves. Some of the geothermal environments are considered “extremely hot”, with cold spells having a chance at failing and fire spells boosted, while the icy “extremely cold” areas are the opposite for spells. In both cases characters take negatives for the nasty weather. Rare use case of endure elements spells noted, sweet. Tight tunnels also have percentile chances of getting PCs stuck (d6 damage per round) with all the attendant Winnie the Pooh antics for getting unstuck filling any DM worth his salt with glee. A hot spring pool conceals the final passage, which is cool.
  Monsters are all unique and easy to adapt, with a saber-toothed tiger fossil monster, fossilized grizzly boars, and a fisher-spider in an ambush cave, all with good simple tactics and neat environmental rooms to play in. The final boss, a Cryo-Magmic Golem (pictured on the cover), is a genuine JRPG multi-stage boss with an ice shell (cold room) that breaks and then turns into the magma side (hot room), with a classic AoE blast in between the phases, that’s baller. Bonus points for some normal little cave salamanders in a corner that have info if Speak With Animals gets used.
  Treasure is where the lack of story/plot hurts slightly, there’s an okay amount (10,350sp in a silver-standard system) and the magic items are good, but it’s mostly “adventurer died here, had this with him). The biggest cash reward is tucked behind rocks in the final boss cave, somewhat random how it wound up there. Players don’t typically fuss about that sort of thing but it’s an itch. I do like the extremely hazardous little tunnel that is hyper-easy to get stuck in with a cursed ring of weakness in the back, nasty but funny.
  Overall, this should be easy to place in any glacial mountains as a flavorful little cave system. A bit of rumor/hook/story work would help in riffing off of to bring your players into the tunnel but once they go inside they’ll certainly have a fun time.

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