Friday Fantasy: DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack

As well as contributing to Free RPG Day every year Goodman Games also has its own ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day’, which sadly, is a very North American event. The day is notable not only for the events and the range of adventures being played for Goodman Games’ roleplaying games, but also for the scenarios it releases specifically to be played on the day. For ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day 2023’, which takes place on Saturday, July 22nd, 2023, the publisher is releasing not one, not two, but three scenarios, plus a limited edition printing of Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic. Two of the scenarios, ‘The Rift of the Seeping Night’ and ‘Grave of the Gearwright’, are written for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and appear in the duology, the DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack. The third, Crash of the Titans, is a scenario for Mutant Crawl Classics notable for sharing the same cover as that for the limited edition printing of the rulebook. It is the DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack which is being reviewed here as a preview of ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day 2023’.

The first adventure in the DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack is ‘The Rift of the Seeping Night’. Designed for a party of between five and seven First Level Player Characters, it is notable for being the winner of the of the ‘2022 Mystery Map Contest. The scenario begins with the Player Characters summoned to the normally sunlit city of Sphyre high in the Torrith Mountains. Here the people have worshipped the sun for centuries, but now the pattern of day and night has changed, the latter longer, the former shorter. Normally, the city is protected by the immortal wizard, Baltothume, but something must have happened to him for the light of the sun to have begun failing, so the Player Characters are expected to enter the and explore the outpost when he has lived for thousands of years. The outpost is quite small, consisting of just nineteen locations divided between two halves. The first half is where Baltothume lived and worked and feels quite tight and worked to be liveable, whereas the second half is darker and has rougher-hewn, natural feel to it, of a far wider space than the Player Characters can see.

To progress beyond the first half, the Player Characters will need to explore the facility and solve several puzzles, all possessing a solar nature, requiring either light or shadow. There are a few encounters here, but in the main they are just about enough of a threat to First Level Player Characters. The scenario is puzzle-orientated—so much so that they require their own notes—their being solved opens the way into the dungeon’s second half and then back again for its dénouement after that. Surprisingly, for a scenario of this size, it does includes more than the route between the two, preventing the scenario from stalling when the Player Characters cannot make any further progress. That said, the players and their characters may find themselves stalling when attempting to solve the scenario’s puzzles. Careful attention to detail is required and the Judge should definitely make notes as part of her preparation to run ‘The Rift of the Seeping Night’, both to help her understanding and to help her players and their characters come to understand how it works.

‘The Rift of the Seeping Night’ is a neat, nicely self-contained—of course, decently detailed, dungeon which can played through in a session or two. The detail extends to a pair of entertainingly memorable magical items that will help the Player Characters in the exploration of the dungeon. The combination of its puzzles and theme of night and day that split the dungeon should engage players who like to think their way through a situation and the Judge should definitely prepare for that.

The second adventure in the DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack is ‘Grave of the Gearwright’. Designed for a party of between four and six Second Level Player Characters, it is actually inspired by DragonMech, the fantasy-steampunk-mecha setting published by Goodman Games in 2004. (Perhaps the scenario is a precursor to it being re-released, this time for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game? Who knows? Watch this space in 2024 on the roleplaying game’s twentieth anniversary.) That said, the scenario is not specifically designed to be run using that setting, but rather as an adventure for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game which combines magic and machinery. The scenario definitely requires a Thief, whilst Player Characters with a mechanical or engineering inclination will also be useful. Clerics or Wizards with mind or nature-affecting spells will find their spells to be less effective in the scenario given the nature of the dangers that the Player Characters will face.

Master Gearwright Alia Coppermantle has not been from in weeks. Perhaps they are tasked with checking on her well-being by a friend or stealing some of her secrets by a rival, but in whatever way they get involved, the Player Characters begin the scenario outside her tower, about to break in. That is quickly achieved and once inside, they will find the tower and its workshops below to be occupied by creatures that resemble weird balls of spiked tentacles and Dwarves very mechanically going about their work. If the Player Characters can defeat one of the constantly working Dwarves, they should learn some of what has been going on at the workshop (the Judge will need to prepare exactly what each Dwarf can remember as it will be different for each one), but not quite the true nature of the threat. That is invasion! From the Moon, no less! Ultimately, whether they sneak their way through the complex via its ventilation shafts—because ‘Grave of the Gearwright’ is as much Science Fiction as it is Fantasy and technological as much as it is magical, and therefore really, really needs ventilation shafts—the Player Characters can locate the missing Gearwright and learn what has happened in the workshop. Here the Judge will need to be a little inventive as Master Gearwright Alia Coppermantle has lost her voice. Nevertheless, that is not going to stop her and the scenario will climax with a battle for possession of the mecha that she was constructing.

‘Grave of the Gearwright’ is definitely more Science Fiction than fantasy in its feel and trappings. It does offer the opportunity for a Player Character to begin to learn engineering as a skill and even take the Great Machine as a Patron. What it does not do is let the Player Characters take control of the mecha, which would have been fun for the final scenes in the scenario. The fight up and down the giant robot, as well as atop it, is a great stage upon which to have a battle though. Otherwise, ‘Grave of the Gearwright’ is the more straightforward of the two scenarios in DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack with an emphasis on combat and stealth. It also pushes the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game slightly in a direction that the roleplaying game as a whole is not quite compatible with as written, but this will vary from one Judge to the next.

Physically, the DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack is decently done. The artwork is fun and the maps clear, and both scenarios are well written and easy to read.

Of the two scenarios in the DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack, ‘The Rift of the Seeping Night’ is both more interesting and more challenging, as well as easier to add to campaign. Otherwise, with two different scenarios in terms of tone and mystery for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, the DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack contains two entertaining scenarios as you would expect from Goodman Games.