Adventure Site Contest 3: Save vs. Sarnoth

Written by Riley
For Swords and Wizardry, levels 4-5
Centaur Grove/Maze
The temple of Phlogesmos (flog-es-moss), god of sputtering flames and patron to lamplighters, lies at the heart of an enchanted grove deep in the wilderness.
The grove is watched over by a clan of Centaur, and is also home to a group of Nixies and a Dryad. Underneath the temple its ancient guardian, a Gorgon, slumbers.
   We have our first adventure, hooray. Riley, writer of last year’s delightful Tower of the Necromancer, brings us one of the old tropes, the “enchanted maze dungeon”. The garden maze is a cool image and adapts well for an outdoor dungeon schema, but as always there are challenges with the setting, too; “Why not go through the bushes?” and “Why not go over?” only the two most prominent.
   The solution here, as happens so often, is “magic”. It’s a tangled grove, with the trees nearly blocking out the sunlight, and going between the trees teleports individuals randomly outside of the woods. This is because this particular grove is a sacred variety, shielding the ancient temple of a god of lamplighters (cool, great petty god portfolio). Motivations for the guardians here are “guard the sacred temple” and motivations for the PCs are “plunder the sacred temple”, with possibly a side of “use the starmetal spine of the guardian gorgon to forge an epic weapon”. I have no objections whatsoever, although a brother could use a rumor or two.
   Small side note on bias: My campaign is currently taking place mostly in a very Greek-themed region, particularly filled with multiple fallen demigods’ lost cults, there are nature spirits and centaurs…this is so far up my alley it’s insane. So take this with a grain of salt. But I really do think there should be a lot more fantasy (TTRPG and media) set in Greek-themed settings. It’s fresh compared to the heavily-trodden ground of “Ye Olde Renn Faire” but also extremely accessible to Western players and readers. I’m clearly biased toward this theme, but I really do think its great and more D&D should embrace Homer in their Appendix N.
   Okay, map. It’s lovely to look upon, drawn in a simple-but-pretty hand-drawn style that evokes so much. Practical design? No scale given, one tut-tut to Riley. We can assume 10ft squares pretty safely though. It’s pretty solid for an adventure site this size, with a couple very rewarding secret paths and the all-important third dimension utilized to further reward exploration. The usual maze problem of “which way to go” is somewhat mitigated by carved standing stones that have images showing what’s in each direction; those are also how you sus out secret passages. Everything flows very well. Then there’s the telegraphing…
   Yep, the centaurs dug pit traps. Normal, right? Well, those trapped passages are indicated by the standing stones having crude pictures of coins scratched on them. That’s telegraphing, worldbuilding, humor, and fun all together. The guardian centaurs are different groups in random encounters, with the leader a pretty nasty little fight for level 4 OD&Ds. There are also a lot of threat/interaction/boon mixes with a dryad, some nixies, a sacred bowl…you have quests here, I like it. The nasty final threat in the form of a gorgon is brutal fight if faced directly, but there are telegraph signals in the form of petrified adventurers (three from the playtest group, cute) and a secret back entry that offers a chance to bushwack the threat up from above. Given the biggest chunk of loot is officially the guardian’s spine, that’s important.
   Oh yeah, you won’t feel like this adventure site is even remotely parsimonious with treasure. Loot isn’t massive but there are several handsome hoards around the most dangerous and/or secretive locations. I’m fond of the potential intelligent sword made from the metal monster-spine, but other weapons and items of magic really pop too. The best potential “loot” in my opinion are those petrified adventurers. Players love getting retainers, and there’s some nice fun in having clumsy stone adventurers to free. Solid stuff.
   You have infinite capacity to put this adventure site in your world. C’mon, it’s an enchanted grove to loot, you can have fun with this. If this thing is an exemplar of what we can expect from the rest of the submissions, we’re going to have a very nice contest indeed.