Adventure Site Contest 2: The Stables of Zothay

​Written by Patrick Dolan
AD&D, levels 4-5
Weirdo stables in a metrapolis
  Kritas, the tyrant of Zothay, has a cavalry of 100 men and 100 horses. Horse shows have long been featured at his stables, but he has recently entered the horseracing field with an emaciated black steed named Kate. She has won the last three races.
  A neglected subgenre of adventure-writing is the City Adventure. Most D&D assumes a bucolic pastoral milieu, but there’s an equally hoary tradition of blood-soaked sword-and-sorcery cities, high on dust and decadence, low on good civic engagement and responsible government. It’s high-energy by default, a ton of potential interest available…but it’s a lot harder to convey what to do. Adventure sites like this should be more common, approaching the S&S city with a look at interesting side sites.
  (As a little aside, there’s a secondary genre to S&S sometimes used in city adventures, specifically noir mystery. Call of Cthulhu has the majority of this content, but Eberron shows it’s not entirely alien in a higher-magic setting.)
  The plot here has a touch of mystery, but mostly we’re in pure heist mode. Either the Thieves Guild or a powerful priest hire the party to investigate a strange horse that’s been winning all the horseraces, completely ruining the betting market. Said horse is a half-nightmare, horsemorphed to look normal. Break in, steal stuff, murder horse, try to avoid the guards and the multiple horrible monsters in the stables, including axebeaks, a gorgon, a manticore, and a triceratops, plus a bulette eating horses and a ghost rider who saddles up the nightmare to go for a joyride regularly. Why? No idea, but here, why not.  What happens when you assassinate the mare?  404 File Not Found.

  Maps are good insofar as content, although the two that are in pencil are a little hard to parse in the scans. Main level is much clearer. The building is arranged logically, which as I’ve mentioned before in a heist is a good thing. Positioning matters for approaches, planning, patrol routes, searching…all of this should be logical and flow well, because the players need to be able to control the approach. I’m a little unclear on the faint pencil map of the water system that leads to the wells in the stable complex, that’s a logical place for sneaky players to approach from but it’s a little bit handwavy as a navigation task.

​  There are some good environmental details for break-ins. Some of the bars on the windows are notably rusty, there are gaps in the patrols where they avoid the ghost, traps are restrained but logical, likewise the few secrets are all “of course that’s what’s being hidden” things, and discernable by careful parties just from the site’s geometry. All reasonable, until the alarm is raised.
  I just listed the monsters above, all polymorphed (except for the landsharks) to look like the target horse so that’s a nasty set of surprises. This makes me a little bit confused in terms of verisimilitude…okay, you have a debauched tyrant king of a city, I’m fine with weirdo exotic pets, even exotic pets kept at his stables. But he hides them in secret? That’s strange, I can see using them as body doubles for the nightmare even, but these should be known possibilities for a showy dictator’s special animals. All the neat monsters have tactics and reactions to make their encounters really shine…which is more than can be said for the large guard contingent, alas. An order of battle for the human guards is not a plus, it’s a must for a site this heavily manned. I cannot imagine running this without having to make one painfully myself.
  Treasure amounts are okay for the level, little thin, but very light for the level of threat this place represents if the whole thing gets roused, because if that happens with level 4’s you’re going to be using that church discount on several Raise Dead spellcasts. And probably Stone to Flesh, given the gorgon is what’s guarding the biggest chunk (4,000pp). More rumor-seeds would perhaps help this better but as it is we’re going to feel a little ill-used risking this much for that payday. And the enmity of a city tyrant, lest we forget.
  I’m all for the concept here but inserting into a city-crawl is going to require some hefty homework. As a one-shot, a lot of my objections fade, but integrating this one will be a beast. Love having a dinosaur here though, more adventures need dinos.