Crapshoot Monday: This Free Thing I Found on Itch.io…Shadows Hammered by the Stone

​A dungeon by Jason Renslow, no levels listed.
Written for Down We Go
  We’ve been in far too many long adventures lately, need to return to the bread-and-butter of itch.io scutwork; a two-page dungeon with a little blobby map of nine rooms, probably populated via random rolls. It comes from a little game jam for some devoted itcher’s bespoke homebrew abomination system that probably takes B/X, flenses it, and wears its skin as a suit. There’s nothing wrong with this, and it’s spiced up by a cute little dwarf illustration, but you’re in the bog standard here, Renslow.
  This lil’ cave system is taken over by Jerk Dwarves, who have an Obvious Trap in the form of a chest in the middle of an ambush point, where they will attempt to first extort the players nonviolently before moving into an inevitable big ol’ brawl. After wiping out the dwarves in the this initial fight (possibly chasing into one of the nearby caves), the players poke around at a trap room, a skeleton room, a curse room, and an Random Big Minotaur Bruiser room. Treasure is intimated but never explicated, not sure this is a gold=XP kind of joint, but there’s stuff to gain and battleaxes to face-tank, so it’ll fill the time while you all polish off the Cheetos and glug down that Mountain Dew.
  What I liked beyond the cute little dwarf picture and the double axe drawing was the software used to draw the map, it’s very clear (except for the excretable font chosen for the key numbering). The cursed circlet gained from an ancient shrine is a good cursed item…it messes with sleep and makes the wearer appear irritable and anxious, but fools the wearer into thinking he’s more charming. Good item curse, that. As obvious as it is, the chest brimming with leaden gold-painted fake coins made me chuckle.
  Beyond the annoying font on the map, what can be improved first and foremost should be “move the dang ambush to the rear of the caves”. There’s a tempo problem with an adventure site like this having a big pitched battle (or pair of battles) first, then the rest of the session a downbeat set of less dangerous fights plus the usual interactive bits. As an example, there’s a buried dwarf/his ghost who hates the Dwarf Leader and warns about him, needs the leader dead to be free, will go nuts if his grave is plundered beforehand…that’s got potential, but the sprawling initial fight probably pulls said leader and so the whole thing is moot.
  You see the second main thing to improve in that description, of course…why is it “Dwarf Leader” instead of “Sluggar Greyhammer, leader of the Flint Shadows”? Specificity in names, in treasure, it’s so important dear writers. If I’m playing and I want to change any detail I’m fine with changing, but there’s great value-add for just putting this stuff in there.
  No idea about the system, but best use case here is probably playing this straight but modifying the initial rooms to encourage deeper exploration of the tiny little loop rather than making to biggest fight first. I won’t be, but you can. I’ll swipe that cursed crown though, that’s fun.
  Final Rating? */***** but near enough to two stars that I rate it without rancor. 

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