Adventure Sites 3: Wavecrash Maze

​For OSRIC, Levels 4-6
By LouisJo
A glacial metal labyrinth, flanking a 1000’ clif , towering waves crashing its top.
A hellish beacon for minotaurs, draped in adders, who never get out of it (alive).
A lighthouse of sorts, for a barren and forgotten islet, its eternal light ablaze.
   Ah, the maze. Of all the dungeon layouts, nothing else is so controversial. Most of us find solving a maze comprehensible if not enjoyable, and it makes sense to put a maze into your dungeon, but the problem with mazes comes when we try to convey the twists and turns of the structure as someone with the map (the DM) tries to get someone else to solve it (the mapper) by way of precise instructions. It's good practice, but by its nature a maze is far far more mapping call-out than other gameplay. "Okay, you go 20ft and hit a T, left goes 30ft hits another T, while right goes 15ft and hangs left. No, left as you're traveling, not your left. No, wait, you've hit a key, let me check..." Not saying that it should be a problem, but it often is. 
   The story of this maze is that a strange islet existing at a confluence of the planes of Air and Water got a metal maze built by some cultists (drink!) to make a Hell-portal. They oopsied, but not before summoning a Horned Devil, who, uh, summoned minotaurs who now play a weird King of the Hill game in the maze. Also there are brownies underneath. And a pirate ship. I adore the cover illustration by the way.
   Map here is not a lot to talk about other than the maze itself. I like that the islet the maze exists on is also mapped, it's a weird environment that interacts with the maze via encounters and magic elemental waves, so having the whole thing out is good. I like how the cliff side of the maze is just open to the air, that's fun and it interacts with the wave hazard well. 
   So, The Wave. Over half of all the results on the encounter table (frequency 4-in-6 every three turns) is a magic wave that crashes over the entire islet in a random direction, forcing everyone on the ground to make a minor STR test or be tossed in the wave's direction. As a very intentional nerf to flying characters, it's a much more dangerous test for them. Also, the brownies have a continuous mass of dancing lights above the maze to make it visible but that makes it much harder see anything by going over the wall. Intelligent, if somewhat gamey, nerfs. There are also electricity surges (remember, metal walls). It’s a tricky environment. And altars to mess with for different emotion themes, plus King of the Hill rolls…each one has something odd to play with.
   Monster roster is mostly supplied by the random encounter table, which is pretty common for mazes. It’s not just the time-based encounter table, there’s also a chance for the “King of the Hill” (a hyper-buffed minotaur) to appear at every altar, and the bored horned devil after waves (or if he spots a flyer). Lots of randomness there. All the other encounters are in tunnels or little squirreled-away spots with oddball stuff like giant adders or a dead air-focused wizard’s ghost. Plus the brownies. Yeah, it’s challenging, but its weird.
   And the pirates…they have a complex set of motivations and internal factions, but I’m still a little confused about their plan’s interaction with the players. I love that the lieutenant in the planned ambush site is annoyed with his job and will leave if he’s given enough gold level up and a fighter trainer, that’s great interaction with the game’s rules.
   Treasure is very random as well. Worn on monsters most commonly, owned by neutral brownies in several cases, a melted platinum blob in a drain grate. All very strange, although the amounts are fine. Your players won’t feel impoverished, although the extreme randomness of the environment and the encounter setup means that difficulty vs. reward is going to be well-neigh impossible to calculate.
   Weird as this little site is, I’ll compliment it thus: You can put it into most game worlds. A weirdo isle at a planar conflux is very much in keeping with a lot of game worlds…at least if you can figure out where 1d8 swimming minotaurs are coming from once or twice a day every single day of the week. 

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