Review of Skull Mountain by Jeff Sparks
Skull Mountain is a Labyrinth Lord Adventure by Jeff “Bighara” Sparks with art by Andy ATOM Taylor and Steve Zieser and published by Faster Monkey Games. The module is 36 pages long with illustrated player handouts taking the last two pages. The adventure is aimed at 4-6 characters of level 4-6. Disclaimer: this is not a play test review (unfortunately for me).
There have been a lot of old school style modules coming out for the past few years. Most of those have been for AD&D 1e/OSRIC. It seems recently, B/X D&D/Labyrinth Lord has been gaining quite a bit of momentum. I’ll admit to being caught up in that wave to some extent. This is the first module geared toward Labyrinth Lord that I have picked up. The main attraction to me was the draw of the adventure being based off the wonderfully evocative skull map found in the back of the Holmes Basic D&D book. This adventure fleshes that map out and makes it into a fully realized adventure site. Of course there are modifications (as any DM worth their salt does). Andy Taylor recreates the scene of a few adventurers looking on the famed Skull Mountain in B&W. I like Andy’s verisimilitude with the characters in the picture. No mohawked elves or the like here. Just good, old school styling. Good work ATOM. The cover pretty much sets the tone for the adventure inside. The Steve Zeiser illustrations on the handouts at the end of the booklet convey an appropriate mood for the adventure. Again, well done Mr. Zeiser.
The back story for the adventure is a take off of the standard wipe out the evil cult adventure. The story spans approximately 1000 years with a black dragon finding a wand of polymorph and using that to dupe the nearby humans population into thinking he’s a god. It goes on for a long time until some adventurers put and end to the depredations of the cult and then collapse part of the dungeon. The Dragon survives and eventually encounters some subterranean lizardmen with whom he successfully convinces of his divinity by the same ploy. Eventually, the remnants of the surface cult reorganize over the years and become a thieves guild instead of a religious following. However, one member wants to bring back the old ways. He is expelled from the guild and sentenced to be cast into the volcano behind Skull Mountain. He survives the fall, makes contact with the lizardmen and eventually returns to the surface and takes over the guild. He then proceeds to bring back the old ways and all that entails (including kidnapping locals for use as sacrifices/food for the god/dragon). He then proceeds to kidnap the son of a prominent local, and that’s the hook for the adventure to start.
This adventure does not pose much in the way of innovation and does not make any pretenses otherwise. This is a straight ahead dungeon crawl just like the ones we used to play in the 70’s/80’s. There is a new monster in the form of a hybrid dragon/lizardman but most of the creatures encountered will be lizardmen. I’ll admit that I’m glad to have an adventure that veers away from the goblinoid races for a change. It makes it a little reminiscent of the classic adventure Tomb of the Lizard King. The adventure itself is fairly lengthy. While I haven’t had a chance at play testing, I’d think it would take several sessions to complete. There are a few natural break areas to allow the adventurers to regroup and resupply (with the most notable being the rescue of the boy mentioned above). Like any good old school module, there is a lot of open endedness here. There is no detail of how to handle the return of the boy, the clearing out of the cult, etc. These things are to be handled by the DM as they see fit. This style of play may be off putting for DMs that are experienced in newer iterations of the game, but I find it makes tailoring the adventure to suit the individual campaign much easier. There are no complicated plot threads that might unravel if removed from a specific setting for instance. Good stuff.
The adventure, while taking place within skull mountain, does provide for some variety in that it starts with a fairly standard bunch of human cultists in an evil temple and then goes all the way to a subterranean delve fighting lizardmen and ultimately a black dragon. It should keep a group intrigued for some time.
All-in-all, I found this to be a well crafted old school style romp. It does not pretend to be anything other than what it is: an old school romp through a dark and dangerous place. No grandiose world saving here, just a hook for some adventurers to do what they do best: explore dangerous places, kill some nasty and hostile beasties, and make off with anything of value that they can. It achieves this well without being pretentious about it. It is flexible enough for a DM to adjust to their group’s needs which is another major plus. If you are looking for a multisession adventure to plug into your campaign world that is easy to plug and play, you can not go wrong here. I give this four out of five stars. Well worth picking up.
There have been a lot of old school style modules coming out for the past few years. Most of those have been for AD&D 1e/OSRIC. It seems recently, B/X D&D/Labyrinth Lord has been gaining quite a bit of momentum. I’ll admit to being caught up in that wave to some extent. This is the first module geared toward Labyrinth Lord that I have picked up. The main attraction to me was the draw of the adventure being based off the wonderfully evocative skull map found in the back of the Holmes Basic D&D book. This adventure fleshes that map out and makes it into a fully realized adventure site. Of course there are modifications (as any DM worth their salt does). Andy Taylor recreates the scene of a few adventurers looking on the famed Skull Mountain in B&W. I like Andy’s verisimilitude with the characters in the picture. No mohawked elves or the like here. Just good, old school styling. Good work ATOM. The cover pretty much sets the tone for the adventure inside. The Steve Zeiser illustrations on the handouts at the end of the booklet convey an appropriate mood for the adventure. Again, well done Mr. Zeiser.
The back story for the adventure is a take off of the standard wipe out the evil cult adventure. The story spans approximately 1000 years with a black dragon finding a wand of polymorph and using that to dupe the nearby humans population into thinking he’s a god. It goes on for a long time until some adventurers put and end to the depredations of the cult and then collapse part of the dungeon. The Dragon survives and eventually encounters some subterranean lizardmen with whom he successfully convinces of his divinity by the same ploy. Eventually, the remnants of the surface cult reorganize over the years and become a thieves guild instead of a religious following. However, one member wants to bring back the old ways. He is expelled from the guild and sentenced to be cast into the volcano behind Skull Mountain. He survives the fall, makes contact with the lizardmen and eventually returns to the surface and takes over the guild. He then proceeds to bring back the old ways and all that entails (including kidnapping locals for use as sacrifices/food for the god/dragon). He then proceeds to kidnap the son of a prominent local, and that’s the hook for the adventure to start.
This adventure does not pose much in the way of innovation and does not make any pretenses otherwise. This is a straight ahead dungeon crawl just like the ones we used to play in the 70’s/80’s. There is a new monster in the form of a hybrid dragon/lizardman but most of the creatures encountered will be lizardmen. I’ll admit that I’m glad to have an adventure that veers away from the goblinoid races for a change. It makes it a little reminiscent of the classic adventure Tomb of the Lizard King. The adventure itself is fairly lengthy. While I haven’t had a chance at play testing, I’d think it would take several sessions to complete. There are a few natural break areas to allow the adventurers to regroup and resupply (with the most notable being the rescue of the boy mentioned above). Like any good old school module, there is a lot of open endedness here. There is no detail of how to handle the return of the boy, the clearing out of the cult, etc. These things are to be handled by the DM as they see fit. This style of play may be off putting for DMs that are experienced in newer iterations of the game, but I find it makes tailoring the adventure to suit the individual campaign much easier. There are no complicated plot threads that might unravel if removed from a specific setting for instance. Good stuff.
The adventure, while taking place within skull mountain, does provide for some variety in that it starts with a fairly standard bunch of human cultists in an evil temple and then goes all the way to a subterranean delve fighting lizardmen and ultimately a black dragon. It should keep a group intrigued for some time.
All-in-all, I found this to be a well crafted old school style romp. It does not pretend to be anything other than what it is: an old school romp through a dark and dangerous place. No grandiose world saving here, just a hook for some adventurers to do what they do best: explore dangerous places, kill some nasty and hostile beasties, and make off with anything of value that they can. It achieves this well without being pretentious about it. It is flexible enough for a DM to adjust to their group’s needs which is another major plus. If you are looking for a multisession adventure to plug into your campaign world that is easy to plug and play, you can not go wrong here. I give this four out of five stars. Well worth picking up.
Thanks for the kind words. Good review!
ReplyDeleteGreat review, I have been thinking about buying this (drawn in by the Holmes connection as well) and now I definitely will!
ReplyDelete