Return of the Rat Cult is a Labyrinth Lord Adventure for a party composed 2nd to 3rd level adventurers. Let's take a look at it, shall we? ;)
First thing that strikes me is the cover. I love that rat image - it's a fine piece of stock art but now I've see it on the cover of at least two OSR products. There goes my idea of using it for the cover of Copper Droppings, the S&W fanzine I want to put together. Grrr. I really do like this piece of art and obviously others do too.
As for the adventure itself? It starts with a bit of an investigation that the PCs must do in town before they find access to the dungeon part of the adventure.
The dungeon isn't huge, but it has options for the PCs, which is often lacking in smaller dungeons (they tend to be more linear with less actual choices of direction). It is also potentially lethal. The encounters and cultists don't play around, but that's the way it should be in an OSR styled adventure ;)
I would make one small change in the spells memorized by some of the cultists, because as written it's a TPK x 3 at such an early point in the PCs careers. You'll know it when you see it.
This makes a nice evening's entertainment as is easy enough to drop into most campaigns. It might even challenge a part of 3 to 4th level, but in that case you could probably leave the spells as written.
Good stuff. On the image: It's a zombie rat, what's not to love? :)
ReplyDeleteIn our playtest the cultists in the first room absolutely mopped the floors with the group's PCs, who were at the higher end of the suggested level scale.
ReplyDeleteWhat is in the adventure now is a toned down version, and yeah, it still looks pretty tough.
I take it there's a cultist there with either Hold Person or third level magic-user evocations?
ReplyDelete1st level MU spell with no save that 3 cultists can cast that will drop a party levels 1-2 in the first round if any of the spells go off - Sleep ;)
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