Adventure Site Contest 3: The Dragon and the Eagle

​Written by Ghri Ziffe
For AD&D, levels 2-3
Crumbling Roman Army Camp
In the borderland between the rural farm communities that cluster around any city and the wild lands beyond them, lies an ancient fortress - an echo of the Auld Raglan Empire, meant to secure the land from invasion. It now lies ruined and forgotten, it's ancient treasures hopefully still kept in it's crumbling barracks and forgotten stables.     
   WARNING: THIS MODULE CONTAINS NEITHER EAGLES NOR DRAGONS.
   Okay, for starters, I’m going to have to talk about presentation for a minute here. This module is written with white text on grey background. An aesthetic choice, and a controversial one, but these things aren’t just about preferences. Before we consider art, before we look at “vibe”, we should first and foremost consider usability, and any deviations from the bog standard format should be justified with a rigorous analysis of what is gained versus what is lost with the unusual presentation. And let there be no mistake, obscuring textual clarity is a loss. In this case, there are several mistakes like having a giant ant hoard contain CP, SP, EP, and…CP. Easy typo. The main villain of the site is a 4th-level MU, but in the key in area eleven he is first noted as 2nd-level. These mistakes aren’t fatal and its easy to make them, but having hard-to-parse text makes those errors harder to catch. The choice to squish the columns tighter than usual with wiiiiide left/right margins also cut into the document’s bandwidth, areas 11 and especially 12 could use a few more sentences of description, easily obtained by going with a more standard format. Again, not an art contest, but these are things a writer should consider.
   I do find the pencil-art sketch on the cover very charming.
   The story of the site makes perfect sense, we have an old fortress, built like the standard Roman Army Camp. Long abandoned, the hope is that level 2’s or 3’s can find a little scratch in the site, although as always monsters and magicians squat in ruins so they’ll need to be shifted first. I would have made this spot a little more recently fallen, but hey, ruins is ruins.
   Our map, cleanly sketched pencil on graph paper, is extremely realistic. There are both advantages and disadvantages to this; on the one hand, verisimilitude is off the chain and your more historically savvy players will be able to accurately predict what goes where. On the other hand, most real-world fortifications don’t have a lot of exploratory potential, all the constraints of real-life function make for very simple, logical layouts. In this case, it’s a nice big open camp plan but without the hundreds of obscuring tents of an active legion fort. This is fine, just a note…a proper game has both environments.
   The challenges (both in-game and in-comprehension) start with entering the fort. West gate? Carved frogs with gem eyes, free to take, only costs a turn, then either bend bars/lift gate check or grease up the naked halfling to slip him through. North gate? The frogs animate as KILLER FROGS, oops. South gate? Pit trap, our first indication about who the place’s new management might be. East gate? 404 error gate not found. Erm. Well. On we go.
   Once we wander around inside we’ll be menaced by wandering monsters (ants or kobolds or kobolds + MU) as we poke and prod at a very realistic camp environment. The forementioned giant ants are hinted at by a dead one elsewhere, and there’s the middle two main admin buildings that are all trick (11) or all treat (12). Fair enough and we’ll get to the loot in a moment but one thing I do want to highlight is the kitchen…multiple magical hearths, with the first one already kindled, have various different flame colors that grant various different boons or banes. THIS is great D&D, messing around with weirdo magic stuff and figuring out what it does, and the effects are fun too…I’m particularly fond of the first fire, holding a torch lit by that fire grants magic resistance, that’s great. Love it.
   Beyond the gifts of secret fire, loot here is mostly in coinage, largely buried and hidden. I like all the secret trapdoors hiding basement loot-rooms, that’s solid, and the amounts are generous for the level range and danger. My personal favorite potential loot is actually a trap, three wooden marbles magically enchanted to make a loud noise when dropped. You better believe a canny group will take those things for potential shenanigans later. Rewarding trip.
   Where can you put this? Well, honestly, anywhere there used to be a Roman Empire. Which is more or less every single fantasy world ever. My own desire would be to make its fall more recent, but regardless…yeah, of course, this adventure site can go anywhere.