[Review] AA2 The Red Mausoleum (OSRIC); Tombmaxxing

[Adventure]
The Red Mausoleum (2006)
James C. Boney (Expeditious Retreat Press)
Lvl 12 – 15

There is something about many Tomb adventures that seems inherently static or limited. By its very nature the PCs are intruding into a space that has remained mostly undisturbed (even with random encounters this will remain in force), and the most likely progression will be that of the PCs mounting a sequential series of careful ventures, wearing down the Tombs defenses one by one, solving its riddles, breaking off if their resources get too depleted and perhaps losing the occasional character to a cunning trap or unlucky combat. This fundamental structure does not appear to change much with the expected level of the characters, although as we can see, complications and developments are possible.

Red Mausoleum is pretty good, maybe even very good. The room descriptions are long and slightly generic, possibly to aid placement into one’s own fantasy adventure campaign, but underneath it is something that has a a real weird vibe to it. There is a mastery of the dungeoncrawling fundamentals combined with some interesting flourishes and additions. It also uses both gameplay and thematic elements to give one a feel of descending into a place of terrible, ancient and transcendent evil.

The Sister-moors, a war-torn region now enjoying over a century of peace, are once again disturbed. A gnomish settlement has been wiped off the earth. Baronial guards report clashes with the walking dead. The baron promises 50 gp for every undead head you come across (and hoping you don’t go Blood Meridian) and the Gnome king throws in another 7500 gp. The high level equivalent of working pro-bono, but who knows, there might be lucrative finds in there.

Red Mausoleum is an adventure set for 5-8 PCs of level 12-15. It is designed to give a high level of challenge to PCs who have “seen and done it all.”

Looks like I came to the right place.

Some useful preliminaries, notes on what happens if the PCs, through various means, attempt to research the origins of the Red Mausoleum, a location that predates the current human settlement into the region. There is a rumor table and some notes on the nearest town and its prominent NPCs, which is appreciated. The great antiquity of the Tomb is hinted at in other ways. All writing in the tomb is in some ancient tongue the PCs have no way of knowing initially (but of course there is magic) but later on they have a chance to get their hands on a pictograhical lexicon so they can translate. Ancient and accursed tomes with names like the Red Antiquities or the living Book of Wrynn add to the sense of lovecraftian evil.

As the players rise in skill and the characters rise in ability and resources, a way of maintaining challenge is to pile on complexity. The tomb is no longer within a day’s convenient travelling distance from the nearest village, being placed instead somewhere in the perpetually fog-shrouded superstitiously avoided centre of the Sister-marches. Narrow and hidden paths are the only way through, and a guide can be hired for a steep fee (he will certainly not stay but will return on a fixed day for 200 gp). A long list of random encounters with various marsh critters (but besides some ghouls, no undead! ominious!) and a druid that attempts to warn people away from the Mausoleum serve as additional speed bumps. A high level party worth its salt is likely going to have ways of dealing with this complication, from scrying to flight to find the path, but it is good that AA2 at least makes the effort, considers complications like the PCs getting lost and does not waste overmuch time covering conditions that are likely to be bypassed.

Red Mausoleum proper starts off with a fantastic set piece to introduce the dungeon: all the vegetation within 50 yards is withered and crimson, then a flat red slab of unknown stone surrounded by 4 fifteen foot statues and no visible means of ingress. Magical sigils adorn each weapon. The PCs can either translate the sigils, find 4 words, and perhaps come upon some combination that will open portal, or if they stare at the red stone slab for too long, they are overcome with some compulsion and begin babbling the words hysterically for 10 minutes Lovecraft style, perhaps inadvertently triggering the portal. The whole thing is foreshadowing for the adventure to come: You have to use your mind, pay attention to detail and experiment.

Three tomb levels proper, not quite a sprawling maze but at least somewhat nonlinear with the exception of the 3rd level. The adventure follows the rhythm of room –> investigation –> trap –> treasure pretty closely. Occasional secret chambers or false doors keep the PCs on their toes. The entryway closes behind the PCs after 3 hours, and escape is by no means simple. There is a carefully hidden glyph key that will open it once more, but of course investigating the wrong features will trigger traps. This trick, of trapping the PCs inside a place, adds to the oppressive atmosphere of the adventure and it is repeated: The 2nd level also closes off after 3 hours, but this time there is no glyph key, and sections of the walls come down, closing off tunnels if a good-aligned character walks through them. And unlike the 1st level, the 2nd level has plentiful wandering monsters.

Whether you are going to like the Red Mausoleum is going to come down on your views on these types of adventures in general. If you like the style of D&D where you come across a tomb, search some feature that the GM has previously described, find a slot or concealed switch, eye its sarcophagi wearily, and either detect the trap beforehand or trigger some trap or guardian. It works on level 1 characters, it works on level 13 characters only this time the collapsing ceiling does 10d6 damage and the sarcophagus contains an extraplanar space filled with 6 Hezrou.

At the same time, I find myself wondering how hard AA2 throws punches. The deadliness of the traps notwithstanding, upper level tombs can be plundered relatively sedately, allowing the party to prepare adequate magical protections before committing themselves, and the plentiful undead encountered in the lower levels can be blasted into oblivion with an (automatically successful) turning check as it does not pull the usual trick of making everything harder to turn. Some of the more powerful undead (Skeletal Warrior, Ghost, Banshee, Apparition) might stand a better chance, but the 56 HP Mummy is going to be turned on a 4+ on a d20 and the Crypt things are unlikely to do much better. There is a fantastic early room that releases a whole menagerie of monsters in a gigantic chaotic fight which stands out quite well.

A bit on the traps or puzzles themselves. I appreciate that occasionally AA2 will give PCs a suboptimal, costly but viable way to brute force their way through a problem. There’s a magical archway at 7. that you can bypass if you are clever enough, or you can attempt to break down the archway and brave its many protections. Same goes for the Book of Wrynn later on, there is a subtle way of opening it…OR you take plentiful damage (don’t forget item saving throws) as you force the electrified locks on its living pages. This staggered approach is a bit more forgiving then S1’s dead stop method.

To its credit, AA2 attempts to mix up the normal tomb formula as the players descend deeper into it. The second level is a bit more labyrinthine, the use of the 3 hour window for delving is nice and cruel, and the entire place is coated with a red ivy that causes damage and irritation if touched, preventing the PCs from resting if they are trapped below. Combined with the sealing passageways, this is nasty, and the conceit of including a possible haven (the Hezrou tombs extraplanar location) with a subtle bit of poison (if the sarcophagus in which the PCs are resting is fully sealed they are trapped) is appreciated. It is herein also somewhat generous, for if the PCs get trapped it is possible they discover corridor 7, which leads to an area near the starting village, eventually allowing them to bypass the logistical hurdles of getting to and from the tomb and resting up for what will likely be the final showdown below, and corridor 7 also does double duty as a means of explaining how the living dead get to and from the tomb.

A linear gauntlet. The fights get hard, with the possibility of permanent harm increasing. The last few tricks get meaner. The random encounter rate has been cranked up to an unforgiving 2 in 6 per turn, and although a TUD will take care of most of them, there’s always the chance those 1d6 wraiths or 2-8 Wights will get a surprise round off. The source of the living dead is here, an obscene pit piled with corpses taken on the raids, bombarded with negative energy, and made to rise again. Large numbers of undead, two harbingers, some sort of deathknight variant, with powerful magic swords. Unlike the rest of the place, the inhabitants of this level are intelligent, will be alerted, and will take intelligent precautions against intruders. The final showdown with Gaheris, Lich Lord of the Red Mausoleum, is suitably nasty, and his preparations and trickery should prove a formidable challenge even for high level adventurers. The suggestion to have the villain ask to be allowed to leave in exchange for all the treasure and attack the players one by one while they are resting if his respect is honored is cruel but completely justified.

Treasure is a lot of art objects and gemstones, with some nice additions. An obscene magic tome, sort of a Book of Vile Darkness light, proselytizing a philosophy of life as a preparation to undeath, a statue of a polar bear that can be used to summon an actual polar bear, nice combined hoards of consumables, gemstones, jewelry and items, with coinage being a rarity. Occasional concealment, more or less on par, with the final hoard being concealed in a place likely to be left alone by the squeemish, but if they made it to level 12-15 they should have developed some persistence. Total treasure amount excluding magic items is positively impecunious, around 56.000 gp even if accounting for the occasional random roll to increase the base value of its various pieces of jewelry and treasure (probably note whether this is the case in the overview somewhere). The magic treasure is likely to compensate for this deficiency to some degree, with the chaotic evil dancing bastard swords +5, deck of many things, girdle of frost giants strength et al. but hot damn 50k, that’s barely enough to make rent. The omission of a gp value for the villain’s full length portrait of a posing Orcus admired by a gaggle of Succubi is dissapointing.

Red Mausoleum is not without its shortcomings, including its tendency to bury possibly crucial information (like the use of lead-lined chambers) in ample paragraphs and its general destitution but it throws a few good punches, is long enough for what it is trying to do and it has good atmosphere. I don’t quite know if it lives up to its boast of being a challenge for jaded veteran players but no one is going to be bored out of their skull playing it that’s for sure. It feels like you are somewhat properly fantasy adventure gaming. Perhaps the Tomb format is inherently limited. Intelligent, reactive opposition might be a better avenue then all these static defences, however formidable.

The quest for the high level holy grail continues, but this one clocks in at about a mid ***, tolerable, probably amusing, but we aren’t hitting full power just yet.

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