Adventure Site Contest 2: The Cleft in the Crag

Written by Graveslugg.
OD&D, levels 4-6
Caves and temple in a cliff face.
  The Temple in the Crag was made long ago by paragons of LAW to seal away an artifact of CHAOS from the world. The Temple and Tomb-Halls are constructed in such a way as to make it nigh impossible for the CHAOS aligned to gain entry, including Guardian Statues that functionally must be destroyed by one aligned with LAW.
  Original D&D and Advanced D&D have numerous actual differences, but I don’t interact with the two systems organically as a dungeon master much. Instead, my main mental divide between the systems is in the styles of adventure each produces…I think of AD&D adventures as being “traditional”, often with sweeping scope and complexity, while OD&D adventures are more raw, gonzo, and weird. This is just my impression, but it pervades a lot of my thinking. In The Cleft of the Crag, we have what I’d consider the classic OD&D adventure, where a cave full of raiding lizardmen ties into an ancient temple of LAW (always all-caps), an environment both discordant and creative, built by someone looking to harken back to the creative dawn-time of the hobby. Salt in a generous helping of slugs for gonzo and you’ve got a dense two-column three-pager that describes a site and half in robust and enthusiastic prose.
  I mean it when I say there’s a site-and-a-half on this one…the lizardmen have a decent-sized little cave village system with an order of battle and several plans to deal with invaders (although the order of battle must be sussed out via keys). Barely interacting with this cave system is the TEMPLE OF THE CRAG, which is a well-thought-out LAW temple built extensively around protecting a mega-artifact, The Clutch of the Void which acts like a Staff of Wizardry plus a Crystal Ball. The only connecting tissue is a wizard in a repository who is buddies with the aforementioned slugs and is trying to brute-force the artifact’s protections. Both stories are solid, just a little bit disconnected, much like the map sections.

​  The (very large) maps are quite pleasing, both artistically with the watercolor-on-graph-paper look and with how they flow. Although the complex is more linear than the first impression given there’s just enough differential flow to make exploration feel meaningful. Spirals and mazes aren’t enough to be annoying, just enough to add a little spice to things. I want to comment as an aside about the admirable information density on this map; the illustrations for things like deep pits, curtains, columns/rubble, statue locations…none of these things are strictly necessary, but they all add a lot to add “stickiness” to the given room’s description. Admirable case of going the extra mile in presentation that you don’t get nearly as often as tables/mind-maps, and I’d say it matters even more. All of this is accomplished without devolving into excess, which is even more admirable.
  The monsters, now, those might occasionally get accused of excess on this one. I’m going to press X to doubt on the “level 4” part of the suggested level range, with the multiple mummies, gorgon, shadow random encounters, lizardman masses, grey ooze, invulnerable law-golems, and bear-like lemmasu-expys. Oh, and a level 8 M-U and a random Umber Hulk encounter. Level 6’s will have a fun time but less than that might be feeling a little rough without a proper platoon-sized retinue. Of course, bringing low-level goobers along will properly wreck them with some of the traps and hazards present, most impressively a pair of carefully-covered columns that, when uncovered, blesses lawful characters, sickens neutral characters, and MAKES CHAOTIC CHARACTERS’ EYES EXPLODE OUT OF THEIR SKULLS. That’s one hell of a trap, and well-telegraphed that “this crap is dangerous”. The blessing of LAW also having a 1-in-3 chance of making the recipient a werebear tickles me. Some decent classic D&D stuff that mixes trap/treasure/monster too like the gross pool with a grey ooze inside of it that of course also has loot on the bottom.
  Treasure isn’t too bad, enough cash on hand to make an at-level party show up for at least scale, not particularly hidden but typically well-guarded. Magic items outside of the artifact are mostly consumable, with some decent quality potions and fun stuff like fungal fruits that heal once, then make characters sick if repeated and a pool of anti-magic water that grants spell resistance. The site doesn’t typically sprinkle rewards everywhere but prefers to have a few big hoards sitting underneath bosses, which is fine, more of a preference thing.
  The most notable piece of loot is of course that super-magical CHAOS artifact. That thing is completely nuts, completely over the top and campaign-warping in its power, particularly at the low-to-mid level this is aimed at. I’m not sure if that’s a problem, per se, but it’s something to be noted. The temple’s defenses are extremely strong, brutally designed to straight-up stop chaotic players at several junctures, and even lawful characters will be sore pressed (and possibly turned into bears). The module itself suggests this will require multiple trips, with sage consults and research and the works. I like this, but the scope creep is notable.
  All this to say, I feel like insertion of this adventure site whole is going to be a little challenging. Now don’t get me wrong, as a perfectly workable little lizardman lair the caves can be played out by themselves, but the very dangerous and difficult main temple is the kind of thing that you want to make a central mystery for a given campaign. The OP artifact is a ton, but as dangerous as the space is, you also want a huge reward for players who slug through the gnarly threats to make it there. It might be too ambitious for its size, but of all creative sins, ambition is the most forgivable.