[No-Artpunk] #5 Death-Maze of the Sorcerer Kings (OSE)

Death-Maze of the Sorcerer Kings
Ray Weidner
OSE Advanced
Lvl 12 – 14
Pages: 41 + 9 maps
Classification: Ironclad

Very strong entry by Edgewise, channeling the wild energy of a DCC adventure, and for OSE Advanced no less. The characters receive an elegantly written letter, informing them they have been nominated by the Sorcerer-King Kypan to serve as his champions during the Contest of Selection. Whichever band of champions first escapes the Death Maze, constructed by the previous Overlord, shall be victorious, and their sponsor shall be crowned Overlord of all Kypan. With the prospect of winning a platinum statue of the previous Overlord worth a humble 400k and owing a favor to a godlike archmage, the characters had better say yes. The Sorcerer-king is banned by the contest stipulations to provide any other assistance to his champions. Enter the PCs!

High concept adventure that could have easily sucked, but does not, because of the correct choices being made. Could have been a simple tournament module style adventure where you plop characters in a magic labyrinth and tell them to escape. Instead, the contest is built up: The characters arrive 3 weeks prior to the start of the event. The city of Eren-Krath, capitol of the crumbling empire of Narzid is detailed, its neighbourhoods are provided with random encounter tables, NPCs to interact with, several mini quests, faction play, you name it. Almost 15 pages of material. Consider the following example: One of the contest stipulations is that the characters can only carry 5 magic items into the Labyrinth (with additional caveats for consumables). Lame! you say. The characters are being gimped! But then, there is an opportunity to obtain an oil that supresses magic radiance, there are ways in which you can smuggle items past the Proctors, there are nonmagical but potent items and boons you can obtain while you are in the city! If you actually get extra magic items past the proctors into the Labyrinth, you are not punished!

Side-quests! A scholar seeks to gain entry to The Black Library, an ante-human construction of jet-black stone, impervious to all forces magical and mundane, in the heart of the city. An antique dealer is rumored to have the key, but the asking price is far outside of his range. He does posses the OIL OF SUPPRESSION. Are you willing to obtain the key through means FOUL and venture into the Black Library! Other hook, someone attempts to ROB the PCs. This could have again, been lame railroading bullshit, but again correct choice: Its treated as a normal encounter, the (high level) burglars have a plan of attack, if the PCs haven’t taken precautions they might get fucked, if not, then they don’t. You want your items back, you have to deal with the Tratti crime family that runs most of the underworld. An emissary sent to the enigmatic Madame Simone of the House of the Pale Moon has never returned. You must discover his fate.

Eren-Krath itself is a pretty wild place. The scale is a bit wonky, 5000 inhabitants for the capitol of an empire led by archmages and with this many magic items and high level characters within its walls is a bit hard to credit demographically (how many 6th level+ characters are you likely to find in a population of 5000?), although we can perhaps invoke a whole flock of colorful explanations involving faded imperial splendours as well as various degrees of wizardry. Picture a crumbling Bagdad, half its territory fallen into decrepitude, inhabited by strange animal-worshipping cults, major religions outlawed, half its population enslaved to the other half, its nobles reclining in opulent manors, its streets patrolled by incorruptable veiled sun-worshipping fanatics known as the Oathbound that can fire searing rays from their eyes, with fighting pits (that you can attend), a goblin market that is as dangerous as it is potentially interesting and its corrupt magistrates carried through the streets on bejewelled palanquins. It rocks. There’s tonnes of interesting NPCs that the characters can visit.

There is a very strong possibility that is left underexplored. The three rival adventuring parties are described in terms of habits and each one is customized. There’s the not-quite lawful guys, that seem a lot more pious then they actually are, with all sorts of nasty suprises like a jester that is actually a powerful assassin, or a knight that is a flesh golem. There’s a band of barbarian hunters with lots of the deranged multi-classing optional rules from Advanced OSE being implemented. And there is the nightmare party from hell, a chaotic band of necromancers that have been plied with the promise of ‘one hundred demon names’ if they are victorious in the Contest of Selection. Custom magic cannibal powers, anti-paladins, devil-swine, the worst of the worst. Each team receives tactics and a location/base of operations. The one thing the adventure does not do, and it does everything else, is to spend a bit more time discussing possible interference from PCs or NPCs before the contest even starts. I can well imagine cunning PCs might decide to try to take out, or at least sabotage the other party. Perhaps a bestow curse, or infect them with a disease, or just ruin their rest before the contest begins should be sufficient. How this is dealt with, other then by the general law of the city (which accepts weregild for most crimes, and inflicts mutilations if the fine cannot be paid) would have been interesting to explore, as it is likely to come up.

This is also an adventure that does not fuck around and is not afraid to use every part of the animal. What good is high level DnD if you aren’t going to use any cool shit? Notoftenseen hits like a Sphere of Annihilation, Gemstone of Enemy Attraction, Ring of spell turning, some sort of ersatz mindflayer, Grell with the serial numbers filed off, an honest to god Immovable Rod, Eye Tyrant and a whole host of fearsome opponents and wonderful treasure make their appearance in this fearsome contender. Yeah the brothel is run by a malevolent serpent person and the girls are greater dopplegangers grown in vats, preying on the local population, what of it? This adventure has chutzpah.

Death Maze proper. So many little tweaks that make it more interesting. Random encounters that get worse as time goes on. You begin with bugbears and mimics that impersonate dungeon doors, by the end its air elementals filled with dust of choking and sneezing, a demon knight riding a nightmare, ropers etc. There is a great little mechanism for both running into rival parties and determining the damage they have suffered or rooms they have pillaged while they were present in the maze. Practical and it adds depth and unpredictability to the game. The only thing that is nerfed is an incantation on the Maze, if you summon a creature, it is banished after 2 turns. The rest you can use, as long as you don’t escape the maze (teleporting out would lead to disqualification). The exit too, great job. The great adamantine doors need 4 of the 6 keys in the maze. A key hunt! From hell!

Encounters proper have that saturday night special feel to them. Weirdness, traps, navigational hazards and brutal setpiece encounters. But measured. There are red-herrings, ominous looking chambers that are harmless. A room that, if figured out, can be used to teleport to different areas. A river, connected via two portals and inhabited by two giant sturgeons re-imagined as dunkleostii, that can be used to get around. It has that balance of wonder, horrible danger, gambling with the weird and interactivity to it that you are looking for in a dungeon. Yeah eat the weird fruit. Yeah sacrifice blood in the satanic chapel. Yeah walk into the painting.
The set piece encounters are pieces of cruel art, and hearken back to White Plume Mountain or Labyrinth of Madness. An invisible wizard behind an invisible slab, using project image to exort magic items from the party. A penitent evil knight with a powerful intelligent magic weapon challenges the party to a one-on-one, if they win, they may keep his (now redeemed) weapon. A rakshasha and his were-tiger harem challenge the party to a game of chance for their immortal souls. All of it with description, density. I mean look at this little gem.

Becker will note that a platinum chalice inlaid with emeralds is likely to be worth more then 2000 gp but otherwise YES YES YES.

And then there’s opportunities to figure out what kind of magical monsters the former Overlord has been stocking his lair with so you can come forewarned and forearmed which is absolutely perfect. It can’t be more then 37 rooms but it packs a lot of punch and the interconnectedness makes it seem larger then it is.

Nice to see pregens properly equipped. None of that +1 sword and a wooden flute that makes your wineskin a different color crap. Cubes of Force. Rod of Resurrection. Crystal Ball. A ring with two wishes. That’s the stuff you carry around at level 12-14. Note here that the party will have to make deliberate choices on what items to bring into the Maze. I have not tallied the treasure total but at 400k reward for success alone is nothing to sneer at, and this does not take into account loot within the maze, in the side-quests, in the city proper etc.

If I, for whatever reason, asbetos in the ceiling? Untimely demise at the hands of Yochai Gal hit squads? do not end up picking this for inclusion in NAP you should publish this, but I believe steps have already been taken. OSE is not well respected in our corner of oldschool gaming so it warms my heart that someone can make such a great adventure for it. With all the Rangers, Assassins and illusionists running around, I suspect some of my readers might decide to take the plunge and convert the thing to AD&D before attempting to give it a run.

Fine work. Great job at making it legable and useable without ripping the soul from the writing with the OSE machine-code format. Besides a few humans with custom powers, the rest is all book monsters, given occasional tasteful reskinnings, or used in interesting ways, exactly what this contest is about. Hell yeah.

I still have 15 more entries to go, not including Slyth Hive. Already I have been absolutely spoiled with great work. Can you not feel it? Can you hear it? Can you smell it? High level gaming is stirring from its aeons-old slumber beneath the primordial ice! Soon it shall live again! Complexity, System Mastery and Wrath! Let false osr enthusiasts beware!

Update: Link to the adventure may be found here.