Click here to download “The Hidden Tomb of Slaggoth the Necromancer,” by Adrian Stone and LS
So, I wrote a small dungeon adventure module.
It started early this year when I stumbled on to the website of fellow D&D blogger, Stonewerks. Stonewerks primarily makes maps, and his work has heavily influenced the way I’ve drawn the Deadly Dungeons maps over the last few months. At the time, his newest post was “The Hidden Tomb of Slaggoth the Necromancer,” a map which caught my eye, both for its lovely design, and compelling description:
“The long lost Tomb of the evil necromancer Slaggoth, is buried deep with in a cavern complex. The caves have become the home of a trio of ogres and their band of goblin henchmen. The goblins guard the entrance by watching through a small crack in the rock above the entrance, alerting the other goblins when anyone approaches the entrance. The goblins will then unleash a small pack of wolves that they have chained in the front caves against the intruders. If the wolves are not enough to repel the intruders, the goblins will send a runner across the wooden rope bridge to the ogre lair to warn their masters and will use ambush and retreat tactics to slow down the intruders. In the ogre cave is a massive steel door that leads to the hidden tome of the evil Necromancer Slaggoth. They have never been able to breach the door, so the tomb has remained untouched. Rumors of a key to the steel door is hidden somewhere in the caves, but has yet to be found. What horrers lie within Slaggoth’s tomb? Who is brave enough or foolhardy enough to find out?” -Stonewerks
Stonewerks and I got to talking in the comments, and then via email. What started as me filling a lazy evening by keying an empty dungeon turned into a full-fledged attempt to write my first module based on Stonewerks’ seed idea. I dragged several people through playtests and proof readings, and even got cbMorrie and Jacob Rain (both of whom have been featured on P&P before) to provide some free art for it.
The module proper has actually been done for several months now. The work of getting everything written, tested, re-written, and edited only took a few weeks. The art took a few weeks more than that. The hard part, as it turns out, was making a PDF. It’s not something I’d done before, and I found it a frustrating process to start with. One which I procrastinated over and over again. I’ve got a pretty fair handle on how to do it now, though, so hopefully future attempts won’t take quite so ridiculously long!
So please, download it! Let me know what you like or what you hate. Run it for your group if you are so inclined, and if you do, let me know how it goes! This is an experiment for me. One which will hopefully pave the way to future products.
Reviews:
“a real nice 1st effort that is far better than my first couple years of adventure writing for sure.” -The Frugal GM
Kharl tried sliding the lid off the sarcophagus. This caused the six stone skeleton golems to animate, just as Slaughto fears. The golems all toppled over due to the ropes.” – A full play report from Buttmonkey on the Troll Lord Games forums.
“I’ve run Slaggoth’s a few times for people as an intro to OSR. I put it up there (with minor alterations) with Finch’s Tomb of the Iron God and Raggi’s Tower of the Star Gazer as awesome starting adventures.” -LBriar of Reddit, sent to me in a private message.