I'm writing reviews of one page dungeon contest submissions that I think are interesting, fun and worth trying to throw into your home game. Among the common advice given to those starting their own sandbox, is the suggestion to throw in some one page dungeons. Never mind the staggering number of submissions and sweeping ranges of quality between them. I followed this advice and built my own fantasy hex crawl and in the process I became obsessed with one page dungeons, looking through many years worth of submissions. I feel that there are so many little hidden gems that don't get deserved praise, this series highlighting some is an attempt to undo this crime.
Splashdown in Fiend's Fen was written by Alan Brodie and won Best Science Fantasy in the fourth annual One-Page Dungeon Contest in 2012. Brodie doesn't seem to have a footprint in the TTRPG sphere except for a few gods contributed to a collaborative project called Petty Gods, spearheaded in 2013 by James Maliszewski, author of the blog Grognardia. His contributions were: Beorl, the petty god of honey, mead and beekeepers, Päkkaan, the guardian of the Northern Wilderness, and Xul, who serves Chthonic gods and demon princelings. Brodie is also attributed in Swords and Wizardry Revised edition as a Wraith Slayer at the end of the book. This probably means something like that he backed the books kickstarter at some special tier or that he was an early playtester.
The adventure itself is a compact science fantasy dungeon. A glowing, 50 foot, cube shaped, alien space craft has crashed in a medieval fantasy swamp populated by frog-people. Optional Complications give a few possible major changes to the module. When I ran it, I added the Complication about a captive rust monster having escaped containment due to the crash. I decided that the frog people were worshipping it along with the "Sky Box" itself. I made sure to telegraph that the rust monster could destroy any metal when the players did a bit of recon, so it became a social encounter of bargaining with the frog people to allow them past the rust monster and to explore the cube ship.
Inside, players meet with the malfunctioning ship's chaotic effects on physics while trying to navigate doors that are only operable through matrices of colored squares. All doors are opened a roll of 1-2 on a d6, with intelligence modifiers allowed. I allowed my players to try a door once per dungeon turn. The encounter table, rolled every two turns, is titled Random Strangeitude, and contains events like the changing of the pitch of the ships humming, or the gravity inside the ship inverting, causing damage to everyone. The Strangeitudes and locked doors work together in a fun way that create tension in the dungeon that makes excellent use of the science fantasy angle.
The cube ship contains four first level rooms that can be navigated without violence. The crystal being trying to repair it's ship on the next floor in the fifth, final room, can also be navigated without violence. In this case it is less likely, especially if the PCs have damaged or looted the ship along the way. This overall design approach that allows problems to be solved in open-ended ways means that players have an invitation to use their creativity to overcome the dungeon's hazards.
The final interesting point I have about this one page dungeon is that it offers the possibility of the cube ship being repaired by players, introducing a Spelljammer-like campaign arc filled with planetoids and strange crystal beings. In my first One Page Dungeon Classics review, I wrote about Fane of the Fossilmancer being cool because it is a gateway dungeon to a new setting. Splashdown in Fiend's Fen isn't just a gateway, it gives you your own ride.
No comments:
Post a Comment