The continent of Zyl-Kaduun—also known as Kaduun or ‘the
Sullenlands’ after its once-beloved king, Redgold Sullen is broken not once,
but twice! Zyl-Kaduun is broken because King Redgold, who unified the lands of Zyl-Kaduun,
is dead and his heir, a daughter, is missing, and the only king is King
Ravianwhurst, whose rule from the City of Eldercliff in the far southwest of
the continent barely reaches the borders of his own province. Thus, much of Zyl-Kaduun
remain broken and ungoverned. Zyl-Kaduun is broken because a once in seven
generations conjunction of the thirteen moons has occurred and the God Mist has
descended upon the land. No longer can the gods see their worshippers, no
longer can worshippers reach out to their gods for guidance and succour. No
longer can priests and wizards cast their magics with any degree of
predictability or safety—if they ever could. Even heathens who do worship the
gods or have the wherewithal to practise magic may be beset by the
unpredictability of the God Mist. Worse, with the separation of the gods from Zyl-Kaduun,
the Dark Chorus—Kreathorne the Boiler of Souls, Vlox of Between Things, and the
carrion crow goddess Malotoch—all seek to take advantage of the situation, grow
their followers, and gain in power and influence such that they can become more
than mere minor gods! This is the situation across the continent of Zyl-Kaduun,
although few if any, realise quite why of Zyl-Kaduun is broken, and on which
the Player Characters will explore and discover in The Sullenlands Adventure
Omnibus & Guide.
The Sullenlands Adventure Omnibus & Guide is a mini-campaign and guide for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics RolePlaying Game from Goodman Games. Published by Purple Sorcerer Games,
it collates three scenarios by the same author, provides background details of
the Sullenlands, the setting for all three scenarios, as well as adding a
fourth, new, mini-scenario. The three scenarios, ‘Nebin Pendlebrook’s Perilous
Pantry’, ‘The Frost Fang Expedition’, and ‘The Crypt in Cadaver Canyon’, take
the Player Characters from Zero Level to Second Level in a campaign which will
take them across the Sullenlands and reveal a little of the setting’s secrets.
These are only the key scenarios though, for the map given in The Sullenlands Adventure Omnibus & Guide has plenty of bank spots where the Judge can
insert adventures of her own design or prewritten. If she plans to continue her
Sullenlands campaign beyond the three core scenarios, this is something she
will need to do.
After a foreword explaining both the author’s introduction
and reintroduction to roleplaying games, The Sullenlands Adventure Omnibus & Guide opens with ‘Nebin Pendlebrook’s Perilous Pantry’. Set in the village of Bitterweed Barrow, this is a Character
Funnel, in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Level
Zero characters and have them play through a generally nasty, deadly adventure,
which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough
Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of
their Class. In the scenario, a local, well-to-do halfling, known for his
excellent hat, has not been seen for a few days and so the villagers—the Player
Character—assemble to investigate his house. When they do, they discover a
tunnel leading deep into the ground. Amounting to just twelve locations, the
scenario and dungeon complex are fairly linear, with just the occasional side
passage or room. This perfectly suits a Character Funnel, which designed to
have Zero Level Player Characters dropped in at one end, and a mix of corpses
and First Level Player Characters squirted out at the other.
The various rooms and locations are nicely detailed and not
all of them involve deadly encounters, but the mix of monsters will whittle
down the would-be adventurers until they face the first of two confrontations
in the dungeon. There is one which solves the mystery that triggers the
adventure and one that solves the mystery that becomes apparent as the dungeon
is explored. Along the way, the Player Characters will find some interesting
equipment and magical items that will help them, as well as the ability to cast
a spell or two. The survivors will have found Nebin Pendlebrook, learned a
secret or two about the complex beneath the village of Bitterweed Barrow, and
hints about the greater situation in the Sullenlands. It is designed to be played
in a number of different ways. It could of course be played by a standard party
of First Level characters, but the Judge might want to add a monster or two to
each encounter because as written they do not represent too much of a
challenge. Alternatively, it can be run as a ‘Character Funnel’ in one of two
ways. The first is as an ‘Instant Action Adventure’, one that can be run in a
single four-hour session, including character creation, making it suitable for
play at a convention or a demonstration game in a hobby store. The second is as
standard scenario, allowing the players to take a bit of time creating their
characters and establishing themselves in the Bitterweed Barrow and their
relationships with each other, checking for rumours, buying equipment, and so
on. Then it is off into the depths of the missing Halfling’s pantry… There is
good staging advice for the Judge to round the adventure off.
‘The Frost Fang Expedition’ is the second adventure and is designed for four to eight First Level
adventurers. It takes the Player Characters to Village of Neverthawes in the shadow
of the Frost Fang Mountains. The village is famous for the enormous chunk of
earth hovering above it, upon which stands the castle of the wizard, Dagon the
Doleful. In recent days, the castle’s lights have grown dark, and chunks of
earth have reined down upon the village, and it is feared that the island and
its castle will crash down upon Neverthawes and crush everyone in the village.
As villager after villager prepares themselves to flee, the local priest and the
last Dwarven descendant of the head of the now abandoned Ardokk mines are
preparing to lead an expedition up the mountain and across the bridge to Dagon
the Doleful’s castle.
Unfortunately, neither of the expedition’s leaders can
agree upon their eventual aim once they get to the castle, the Dwarf believing
that the only good wizard is a dead wizard… Either way, the expedition’s aim is
to determine if the old wizard inside the castle is still alive, and if
anything can be done to keep the castle afloat.
Like ‘Nebin Pendlebrook’s Perilous Pantry’ before it, ‘The Frost Fang Expedition’ is a linear adventure. The
expedition and the Player Characters climb up Frost Fang Mountain, following
the steep path which winds it way around and through the mountain. The path
does split, so the Player Characters do have a choice, both routes offering entertaining
encounters—either a cow-medusa hybrid thing called a Moodusa or a talking goat looking
to extort passers-by… These are not the only weird encounters to be had up the mountain,
two of them involving ambulatory buildings! There are plenty of smaller
encounters two before the Player Characters have to scramble across the rope to
the castle not unlike Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. There is even a table
to roll on if they fall or are shot off the bridge by the strange humanoids who
live up the mountain.
As the Player Characters travel up the mountain, the two expedition
leaders will be bickering with other and there is scope for the Judge to play
the two off against each other and the Player Characters. In addition, the Player
Characters will suffer visions that give hints as to the situation on Frost
Fang Mountain. As to what is going on in the castle, it is fairly complex, and
the Judge will need to read through the background and possible outcomes with
care as there is no easy solution to the situation. Appendices detail the
expedition leaders, provide simplified rules for spell duelling, the situation,
a possible patron for the Player Characters, and a guide to linking the scenario
to ‘Nebin Pendlebrook’s Perilous Pantry’. It is a surprisingly big adventure
and whilst like ‘Nebin Pendlebrook’s Perilous Pantry’, it is designed to be
used as an ‘Instant Action Adventure’, a great deal has to be excised from the
content for it be run within a four-hour session at a convention. Otherwise, ‘The
Frost Fang Expedition’ is an entertaining affair and should actually provide
several sessions’ worth of play.
‘The Crypt in Cadaver Canyon’ is the third scenario and shifts the action far to the south of the Sullenlands
in the Bleaklands Desert. This does mean that there is a bit of a physical distance
between its location and that of the previous two scenarios. Here there is
plenty of space for the Judge to insert content of her own and potentially, the
Judge may also want to bump up the Level requirements for the scenario, which
is designed for four to six Second Level Player Characters, if she adds content
in-between. The scenario begins in the partially hidden City in the Cliffs,
built into the side of the Crimson Canyon on the Deep Scratch River. The city
has a ritual it must enact every thirteen years. This is that a birth-marked
chosen one must be sacrificed to a desert god known as Buldakatak the Burning
Warthog, so that he will not destroy the city along with its two-thousand inhabitants.
Unfortunately, the last known birth-marked candidate was accidentally executed
as a thief by the city’s ruling Council of Thirteen and her body unceremoniously
sent floating down the Deep Scratch River to the Crypt in Cadaver Canyon. The
Council intends to resurrect the thief long enough to sacrifice her to
Buldakatak and save the city, but first, the body must be retrieved. Which is
where the Player Characters come in.
The scenario can either start with the Player Characters arriving in the city
and exploring it, earning more about what is going on, or it can leap straight
into the action on a boat travelling down the Deep Scratch River. Again, ‘The
Crypt in Cadaver Canyon’ is a linear adventure, this one down a river rather
than up a mountain. There are fewer deviations, and the scenario makes a great
deal of its desert setting, giving it something of Swords & Sorcery feel as
the Player Character sail down the river to lands of the dead in the nearby
cavern. There is course, a twist or two at the end, which make the scenario not
as straightforward as it first seems, and the scenario is supported with
several appendices detailing various desert encounters and giving solid staging
advice for the Judge. If there is an issue here it is that although the notes
do suggest links to get to ‘The Crypt in Cadaver Canyon’ from the previous two
scenarios, there are none on what to do in-between. There is advice too on how
to make the scenario a four-hour or convention game, but ‘The Crypt in Cadaver
Canyon’ really needs more than the single session to play through.
Roughly a third of The Sullenlands Adventure Omnibus & Guide is devoted to the setting’s background. This includes a map with empty
spots and name tags for the Judge to add her own content, a history of the
region and description of its current situation, a discussion of its themes, a gazetteer—paying
particular attention to the Sullenlands capital of Eldercliff and adding more
detail to the City in the Cliff, and more. Bar the inclusion of the gods who
play a role in the scenarios and the Dwarven gods, the Judge and her players are
left to decide what other gods are worshipped, but there are tables for how the
God Mist affects spellcasters and non-spellcasters. The Dwarven Cleric is added
as a new Class to accompany the description of the Dwarven gods, and for the
Judge, there is a toolbox of extra details including festivals, thieves’
guilds, herbs, treasures (such as a Holy Hornet’s Nest and a fire-resistant Weeping
Cloak), and a list of random place names for when the players decide their characters
go exploring. There is also a ‘Character Death Table’ which give a Player Character
one last hurrah, a short bestiary complete with encounter suggestions for each
entry, various encounter tables, and even a set of tables entitled ‘The Judge’s
Retort!’ to make misses in combat a bit more interesting. Here at last is ‘Tips
on Tying the Adventures Together’, a useful section which could have been
placed much earlier in the book and made more obvious given how there are notes
earlier on linking the scenarios, if only loosely, together.
Rounding out The Sullenlands Adventure Omnibus & Guide is the fourth
adventure in the supplement. ‘The Bellows of Bromforge’ is a mini-adventure
designed for four to eight Second Level Player Characters which takes in place
in the great dwarven fortress of Bromforge, where something has affected the great
furnaces in the city of Glimmervault. It is again short and linear, and has
more the feel of a traditional dungeon adventure than the other adventures in
the supplement. It is decent little adventure, nicely illustrated, which brings
the Player Characters into contact with a new interpretation of a traditional
Dungeons & Dragons foe.
Physically, The Sullenlands Adventure Omnibus & Guide is solid, digest-sized
hardback. Although it needs a slight edit in places, the cartography and
artwork are decent. The main problem though, is the organisation. Having the background
information and advice on running the three scenarios in the supplement at the
back of the book is unhelpful and counterintuitive, making the content not as
easy to prepare or even run as it should be.
The Sullenlands Adventure Omnibus & Guide has the makings of a good
mini-campaign for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, but needs no
little effort upon the part of the Judge. The individual scenarios are
relatively easy to prepare and run, but linking the four scenarios in the
supplement and then running them will take extra effort. All down to the poor
organisation and the extra content which such a campaign would need to flesh it
out. This fleshing out is necessary because the scenarios never get as far as
fully exploring the background to the Sullenlands and further linking scenarios
would help with that—as would further scenarios designed for Player Characters
of higher Levels. Hopefully, there will be an anthology of further scenarios to
help flesh out the campaign.
Overall, The Sullenlands Adventure Omnibus & Guide is full of entertaining,
playable content, but it just lacks the organisation and development to really
help the Judge to prepare it and bring it to the table for her players.
