[No-Artpunk] #3 Descent to the Cairn of Night (ACKS)

Into the Cairn of Night
Ben Gibson
ACKs (Or is it?)
Lvl 9 – 12
Pages: 35 (+/incl. 9 maps)
Classification: The Naglfar

Uh…Wow. This one fascinates and tantilizes but it makes me suspicious. While I was reading through this one I first got a heart attack and had to breathe into a paper bag because I was like ‘Holy shit is this going to be better then Slyth Hive’ and then I had a second heart attack when we got to the dungeon part because I don’t think this can be run without someone with a medical degree, an engineering degree and a black belt in forensic necromancy going over the entire thing and restoring it. Fortunately it is not that grim. Descent into the Cairn of Night is very good, feels like Death Frost Doom’s extremely ripped, ancient progenitor deity, but it does have some caveats and hickups.

This is the premise.

It is awesome. Unwise shepherds unwisely disturb the aeons-buried burial mound of the Old Men, and from it comes the ancient call. Men drop their tools and wander into the Underworld below, never to return. And the call gets stronger every day. The Mound meets Book of Revelation indeed.

And yes the kingdom is statted, and the armies can be fielded:

So reading this was a dream right? This one was going to have it all. Mass combat, time-pressure, insane, massive, monstrous scale, great maps (and I do mean great). Good mechanism. The call increases in strength, starting at a save +10, expanding by 1 mile radius each day. Your army just takes 1% casualties per day. All these dudes can be mobilized, and have ACKs company stats so they can be used.

Surrounding the Cairn of Night, the Underplain, a vast cavern, miles wide, glowing with pale luminescence. Infested by fungi, inhabited by mutated undermen (and the storm-giant like Those Grown Under Greatness), demonic spirits and patrolled by the risen armies of the Old Men. Here we begin to see the first signs of the sloppy conversion, the glimmers of the old Pathfinder/5e adventure poking through. Innocuous now, ability damage for poison is a D20 artifact, but not strictly speaking illegal in the OSR. Strange random encounter rolls, likelihood increases as players make additional noise, meaning it is more deterministic. It is not made clear if the number of dice in the pool resets to zero after an encounter has taken place. Please note Giant Catfish land ambush and cursed ability-draining attack gemstone.

Overland encounters are quite good. Well thought out for a scale where the PCs are likely to have companies of fighting men. I am somewhat suspicious of the authors grasp of the Domains at War Battles supplement but for all that, whenever mass battles occur, the units are expressed in the form of the standard units provided in Domains at War.

Some notes. So this upperland area is, despite those flaws, impressive. Huge amounts of combatants, undermen that can be bargained with (I would have enjoyed some sort of bribery option to recruit undermen auxilliary companies, or notes on them providing valuable information, but the game does provide an Underman class so retainers may be hired from them), otherwordly environments. Clever design is included, additional entries into the Cairn of Night. A huge assholish trick, the City of the Dead in its centre, laden with the riches of the dead, haunted by terrible monsters, of non-euclidean, madness causing geometry, holds a visibly glowing gate, which is actually a death trap. You get this idea of a protections set up in a greater age to withstand the siege of long ages, to destroy entire armies of interlopers.
Legions of undead (up to 2600 skeletons) animate if you approach with an army, possibly taking up valuable time. I would love this even if you had written it for Knave.

The notes are occasionally vague. It is not clear under what conditions the PCs are exposed to the noted Hazards or how many of the Creatures in the hex they encounter properly. One or two sentences would have covered it. Occasional strange ideosyncracies, Catfish flopping on land attempting to ambush, Wraiths pushing over fungi. But also very interesting terrain hazards. Dust clouds are thrown up that increase the chance of random encounters. Giant aquaducts and dams. My one tip would be to look at the few interactive encounters, and consider how the Party might deal with them to resolve the adventure. Are they willing to ally with them, do they just want gold, do they know anything, are they treacherous etc.

At this point we are still in Nirvana and we are experiencing the greatest high level adventure ever made, complete with mass combat, time pressure, an awesome, otherwordly location, a nightmarish threat and all that. Behold the setpiece above. Its perfect. The bronze golem has AC 24, and is named the Steelman in some areas, a vestige from its earlier Pathfinder incarnation I believe. Occasionally weight is given in Lbs and not Stone, poison inflicts ability damage (not technically illegal, but uncommon), +2 shocking burst dagger is not a thing, or calls are made for skill checks or saving throws that do not exist. More conversion work is needed. And then you see the map, which is brobdignagian, immense, exactly what you would expect of the last redoubt, created to contain a full on demonic incursion.

The biggest challenge of Cairn of Night is wrangling its own complexity. You are dumped into the key with a few notes and even then you must interpret the structure and flow of the dungeon from its individual encounters. There are conditions that apply when the Gate is open, reinforcements that come from other areas under certain conditions, when sluices are turned on or off off. This mostly just noted in the key, and some of the references are missing. You kind of have to calm down, make yourself a cup of coffee, and read through it carefully, absorbing each room and considering its place in the geometry of the whole. Make notes what archer companies will open fire on the Killing chamber. Take heed that there is an Avengers team of high level heroes kept in stasis that will be freed and make a beeline for the Final Chamber if someone attempts to breach the gate.
Most of it works and has been played. Trust in this, and proceed carefully, and you will master it.
My first attempt to grasp it was a failure. You are reading my second attempt.

The maps are grand, glorious and sprawling. They are also not always clear (consider arching some of the lines, doors or arrowslits) and I would have appreciated a key with symbols. Pathways between levels are also not always clear. The dimensions, the ceilings, the properties of its doors, probably could have been given brief consideration, if only for reference. Often you have walkways or balconies suspended over other areas. Perhaps add a height meter or something? You can envision breaking into this thing with hundreds at your back and having them brutally whittled down by traps and horrific savage encounters. There is a keep within a keep, an armored stronghold, with companies of undead archers armed with silver arrows forged in giant cauldrons (1.960.000 sp worth of silver) and silver-bound Beyonders of the realms of night screaming with bottomless rage at their duress. Meanwhile, the fortress is actually slowly falling, the servants of the Archer, lord of locusts, are gnawing at the firmaments, trying to breach the impregnable host. Have you ever seen a company of your favored heavy infantry killed by a spike trap that was worth 28.150 gp of silver? Have you ever fought companies of heroic 9th level revenants armed with silver weapons, beseeching you in one voice to join them in defence of the world, belatedly realizing that despite the awesome killing power at their disposal, it is all turned inward? That is this adventure.

The encounters in Into the Cairn of Night subscribe to the philosophy that quantity is a quality all of its own and, much like the Battle of Stalingrad, it might get a bit grindy. I have lost track of the number of large groups of 9 HD undead Cairn Champions stationed at each demon-warding bastion. I’m missing the occasional cruel or clever combination of monsters or environment and antagonist or monster cleverly equipped with magic items, but I suppose HORDES AND HORDES of powerful opponents followed by POWERFUL MONSTERS WITH SPELL-LIKE ABILITIES will have to suffice. Occasional NPCs with minor interactive potential do show up, including some of the demoniac insect-like Beyonders in the guise of friends and allies, but overal, this is all out war, with quarter being neither given nor received. You get the idea that 9-12 is hopelessly low, and that 6th level spells are barely up to the challenge of carving through this literal hellfortress. This feels like something for characters of level 14-15, with the appropriate arsenal of Prismatic Sprays, Conjured Elemental, Cacodaemon, Blade Barriers and Delayed Blast fireballs to deal with this shit. The presence of the Beyonders, the demons from the outside is still minor, not really a full fledged faction, more incidental interlopers that can be temporarily allied with to wreak more havoc or provide sly information on how to breach the defences. It is also, I should emphasize, awesome.

Treasure is appropriately ludicrous, I suspect millions of ancient gold, silver, gemstones, magic items and precious metals. Its not really hidden, but several areas in the fortress have concealed vaults, that can only be opened with certain keys, lest you take something ludicrous like 20d6 electrical damage. A good balance of magic items and consumables, a bit skewed towards weapons and away from wondrous items. Good luck carrying it out. I’m not even sure if you are allowed to stack glyphs like that. There’s also the weird, but all the weird you fuck around with feels like you are tampering with the primordial forces of creation that will permanently transfigure you by bringing you in touch with a higher reality where man is but a gnat-like interloper. Occasional gifts, 16 cauldrons of acid that can be turned on one’s opponents if one is inventive enough (telekinesis anyone) are quite generous. You see a few of those moments later too, where you can take a dead officers insignia to pillage the giant banners of hordes of waiting skeletal legions or even command them.

So why has this not yet been crowned king of NAP? Grand ambition. Impressive scale. Striking, apocalyptic fantasy. Spirit of high level, embraced. Let me list my reservations.

* This is unquestionably the coolest 5e/pathfinder adventure that has ever been written [note: It was written for an OSR/PF homebrew system]. However, I must express suspicion of this conversion to ACKs and the degree to which this has been calibrated for high level ACKS. I see so many d20isms, in the items, in the monster stats, I’m suspicious about the deployment of mass combat, and I am curious if the Pregens are even strong enough, some of those encounters also, whew. With their current loadout, its hard to imagine success. I think in concept this adventure totally works, I’m suspicious about the amount of fine-tuning that’s needed for the chosen system, and this is not taking into account the editing that would be needed to clean it up.

* This adventure clearly has its own unique sort of flavor and cosmology. That’s cool as shit. It also breaks the contest stipulations. 7 new monsters alone, a bunch of superpowerful relics and new magic items, horrific locust armor, rings that replace the wielder with some sort of ash elemental, and there’s 2 templates. The rules were 10 total. There’s nothing wrong with that objectively, its not a weaker adventure for it, but this will count against the contestant in the final tally.

I’m not sure if I can pick this, if I am allowed to pick this. But this is an entry with immense potential that must see the light of day one way or another. Even if I don’t end up releasing it, I would encourage a release in its original system. Great job.

Minor Update: I did consult with the author, and though it was written for his homebrew system, it was in fact playtested in ACKs, at the stated level range, and the party ended the adventure by unleashing the demonic horde upon the world. Very awesome.