Adventure Site Contest 3: The Sanctuary of the Black Buddha

Written by Seb Howell
For AD&D, levels 5-7
Shrine in a Canyon
01 Raiding the Zon mines, the northern fur merchants and caravans from the capital have built a large horde for General Tak Shimin. He hides his wealth in an old mountain Sanctuary.
02 After insulting the King's favoured eunuch, Tak Shimin sent his family into hiding and fled the capital with 150 loyal men. He sits at a key river crossing, taxing trade and antagonising local Barons.
03 An august cleric of law came from the Capital to command Tak Shimin to return to his post, he was stoned to death by the loyal lieutenants of the General, and the bejewelled cudgel, symbol of his office, now lies pride of place in the bandit’s horde.
   It was but a brief moment, our departure from theme. Now we’re solidly back in temple territory, this time with an OA coat of paint. Oriental Adventures is famous for producing a rather different type of adventure from the familiar Gygaxian “let’s all go underground in tunnels” mode, much more likely to be “get a yokai drunk for a blessed pebble used to quiet a well’s spirit to free the village from bad luck”. Sure, they can trade on stereotypes a little hard, but they’re also fresh and interesting and a lot more wide than the narrow confines of your Moathouses of Chaos.
   This adventure is a little more trad than that example given, but it is still “wide”. A general with 150(!) minions is in rebellion, taking over a hex’s silver mine plus the eponymous sanctuary. The location is open-air and interesting, integrated into a much larger political context, with assumed history, local lore, and implicit story based on the character given. It’s actually also a very good ACKS scenario, ironically, but whereas ACKS would probably break out the mass battles and domain actions, in AD&D we’re expected to have a midlevel party sneak in and use fireball wisely a couple times. Two different solutions for the same scenario, very cool.

​   Now mapping…uh, we went a little nuts with the allowed extra maps. Don’t get me wrong, no rules are violated here, but boy oh boy did we include a lot of extra maps here. There’s the hex, the canyon location, a 3D view, illustrations of the Buddha…it’s all very good. The full-color map of the camp/ruined barracks/shrine is awesome, this thing is a shoo-in for placing very high in the art portion of the contest. Unfortunately, as you know, not an art contest. I’m pleased with the map-as-map too, though. It’s not a traditional crawl, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a lot of useful bits here for exploration and infiltration. Unfortunately, the choice to make keys A, B, C and A, B, C and A, B, C makes referencing a little confusing and annoying, more than it had to be.
   Bonus points for making the terrain features interesting, by the way. The river getting lost in limestone sinks, the canyon being hard to climb (but doable with a thief), the locations of the local population…all of this makes for a very solid six-mile-hex to place in your crawl. 

​   If you go there better hope you’re prepared to deal with a lot of dudes, though. Order of battle struggles with clarity a little bit, but bottom line up front, you are going to eventually find yourself in a pitched battle against one hundred and fifty bandits, plus their leaders, plus an allied (captured?) hill giant. Oof. Not a lot of enemy variety outside of a few giant ants, but there are interesting tactical situations generated by the guard locations and alertness levels, so you won’t be bored running recons. Add in a nice prominent alarm bell at the very center of the shrine and you have a bunch of different potential set-piece combats. Or, a thrilling set of avoidance scenes.
   Traps keep up the OA thing by being naturalistic/spiritual. Killing someone in the shrine gives a Curse of the Black Buddha, which is even more intense if you mass-murder with fireballs. Neat. Those aforementioned ants prompted the bandits to place noisy traps to warn when they’re active…won’t make them go beat the bushes, but makes them more alert. All of this makes sense, and both the mystical and the mundane hazards make sense.
   Treasure is a bit of a mixed bag. By which I mean that’s it’s a fantastic mix, but all of it is found in a single giant bag. Well, not a single bag, but in a single big location, making that part of a potential heist useful. The variety is great…rumored cleric’s cudgel is a Mace of Disruption, there are gems, silver lugs, precious statues, etc. Also the bell and the Buddha can probably get looted too, but that kind of desecration won’t sit right with most lawful buyers. Said rumor does give a nice potential double-visit to the site…the first time, parties sneak in and recover the mace while laying eyes on the valuable-but-heavy pile of everything else, prompting a loud wagon-driving second expedition where a pitched battle is really needed to clear out the fabulous cash and prizes. This is rumors leading to treasure and treasure leading to gameplay, good design.
   Despite the confident statement that this is a classic AD&D adventure merely given an OA coat of paint, removing the flavor here really would do some violence to the best portions of the adventure. Beyond that, it’s a broadly applicable site that goes into almost any rivered hill hex. Break out your ACKS book afterwards and figure out how to exploit that silver mine.