Adventure Site Contest 3: The Crawling Maw of Malakor

​Written by Frédéric Roelandts
For AD&D, levels 3-5
Wizard’s Lair in a Rock in a Swamp
One hundred years ago Malakor the High was a mad Sorcerer (M-U 9) obsessed with creating a creature that embodied the perfect, unstoppable, predator. After almost a lifetime of experiments, he finally managed to create his master piece: a great Stegocentipede. Alas, it was also his demise when the monster escaped and devoured him. Nowadays his abandoned laboratory, hidden deep in the Marsh of Despair, is crumbling under the weight of time and elements. Nevertheless, within the damp caves below his lair, a small tribe of Goblins are worshipping the Stegocentipede known as The Many-Legged Terror.     
   Worship is happening, so we’re going to count it as shrine.
   Awesome, another Danger Is Real joint, he was a finalist in ASC I with the wonderful Legacy of the Black Mark, and while his ASC II entry didn’t place as highly, it was interesting and took a different approach to mapping. Now we’re back to top-down maps and a bit more traditional of a setting, and I am happy, because there’s an infinite need for this kind of content. This man knows what he’d doing.
   Setting here is solid, just a massive rock looming out of a swamp (technically, although the swamp part isn’t a must). A wizard built his laboratory into the upper part of the rock, like they do, then spent his life obsessively making the perfect monster, like they do, then got himself eaten through his hubris, like they do. Beneath Ye Olde Magik Laire lurks a tangle of tunnels, filled with a right proper mass of goblins. Solid reason for plundering a hole in the ground, and a few bonus rumors point the denser players over there too.
   Maps are pretty simple, both levels being basically entrance->loop->extra branch, which isn’t criminal and can often be obviated by some 3D design. But alas not this design. I often rant about verticality in maps, about how much is improved by adding a third dimension to your explorations. So this two-level map meets with my approval, yes? Well…there’s an issue. Only one interconnection exists between the two levels (beyond both having outdoor access, natch). Plus, that interconnection is very central to the whole site, being the two spots where the site’s “boss” monster can be encountered. None of this is fatal, but it makes the back half of most explorations feel a little anticlimactic.
   This is a bit of a pity, because the monster roster here is pretty decent and has a nice escalation and good variety. Up top there’s an iron cobra and a Guardian Familiar (Fiend Folio beast), down below there are 52 goblins all headed by a shaman. Both sides have centipedes to mess around with to properly warn about the nice scary “Stegocentipede” final boss. I have a slight quibble about the level scaling…if you’re taking a party of level 3’s into this thing, I suspect a TPK is on the table unless they are hair-trigger about mashing that “flee” button. 4+ will have a blast though.
   Other threats and interactables are pretty standard, with poison fitting the theme…if your players are genre-savvy, they’re going to prep for poison if they hear swamp, so that’s okay. Everything else is what you expect from a wizard. His chest has a fire spell on it, there’s a sparking/malfunctioning sphere that’ll zap you, etc. An elf and hobbit went here before, and they show the dangers nicely with the elf captured and able to give information about the wizard’s experiments and the hobbit dead via trap. Solid stuff, might have one more line available for Speak With Dead usage but that’s not a lot.
   Loot is very good, even at level 5 the players will feel extremely rewarded. Biggest chunks are well-positioned, basically the secret room, the upper bossfight area, and the lower bossfight area, with a nice mixture of jewelry and coins, “odd chunks” like electrum balls, and magic items (a luck blade +1 with three wishes, yowza). I like that the goblin leader has a Staff of the Adder but it is reskinned to be centipede-themed. Nice.
   Of course you can place this site easily in your game. Even the swamp location isn’t a must, really any rock/cliff/hillside can have the Crawling Maw carved into it, and your players will be very happy to plunder this place. Except for guys who get poisoned and die.

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