Adventure Sites 3: Great Drum Primordial

​For system unspecified, Level 6
By Ethan B.
In the depths of the Jungle, there’s a primeval drum in a natural amphitheater. It has become a primal holy site for a tribe of carnivorous apes. The locals fear the site more than anything, and will defend it for they think a curse from the primal gods will come down if it is violated.
   Kind of a bummer there’s no system specified here, because this thing’s got flavor for days. I’m going to assume with the druid build and all it’s AD&D but calling out your system is a big deal.
   Having said that, the real beating heart of this adventure is pulp. The story hook, slightly obscure, apparently involves a Dr. Starling trying to capture an ape specimen and getting caught in turn, a massive fake sacred drum site claimed by both an ape troop and a tribe of savages, each faction uses the drum at different times. All the other local natives hate the savage tribe so go nuts and kill everything on every side. I think that’s the story, despite the very dense three-column format some information still appears to have been cut.
   As usual, when we have an outdoor map, we have a somewhat unclear expected progression. Its nice to see color here and the environment makes sense, but even without flying (level 6 in most systems will have occasional flights but not everyone air walking) the whole area is a little exposed. The three little cavelets are explorable but mostly you’re just wandering from point-to-point. There’s also a village in this adventure without any map at all, but it’s described decently. I’m not entirely sure how much use this map will get in play, which is a common outdoor site comment. Charming visual though.
   As is fitting for the pulp vibe, every single location seems to be some kind of trap. Pit traps, fire traps, pit traps full of firey centipedes…all good clean pulp. Giant orb spiders who inflict blisters painful enough to temporarily lose the use of a limb? Nasty. The big drum in the middle of the site is made up of dozens of taxidermied animals all stitched together to look like a dead dinosaur, stretched taut over a pit, played by dancing on it…and so yes, it can be knifed open, releasing sulfurous gas and very possibly sending the dancer tumbling into the sharp rocks below (also there are green slimes clinging to the underside, nice). This desecration means war, of course, including all the ape going apeshit.
    …which is not a metaphor. “Apeshit” is a game-mechanical term for the berserk state that the apes go into at low-hp. These apes are gnarly fighters. There are also a few jungle enemies to be had in side areas, like a “minotaur” (probably monitor) lizard and all the bugs. Up in the cliff an ogre hangs out just because. The savage tribe is not guaranteed to fight but if they do they have an extensive order of battle and some nasty tricks like poison darts wielded by Terror Trooper assassins which inflict hours of sleep onto the victims. I got a chuckle for the village description including “1 idiot” who is all about swiping diamonds from the skulls within the village’s central 400-skull pillar. Blood diamonds, natch.
   Treasure is…odd, and I think kind of low. All the apes and humans adorn themselves with treasure (50% chance of having 30gp worth), and of course 400 skulls x 2 eye sockets each x 10gp per diamond means there’s 8k in the evil village. The oddball eccentric doctor fellow pays 10,000gp for a live ape, which, um…I guess we were supposed to figure that out via mind-reading? Otherwise, you have a ruby necklace from a lovelorn centipede, 4,000sp with the ogre, a rando white leopard-skin rug worth 2k, golden-tipped drumsticks for the elephant ribcage xylophone…it’s okay, just odd. Magic isn’t awful, just an odd +1 weapon here or a spell scroll there. Of course there’s a bullwhip.
   Difficult as the adventure is to parse at time, it’s a pretty neat jungle site. I just wish I had a better bead on the story, feels like some critical cuts or a few assumptions missed messing up an otherwise solid location.