Review And Commentary On The 'Pay What You'd Like' OSR Adventure Resource - The Tomb Of Gardag The Strange From 3 Toadstools For Your Old School Campaigns

There are times when a party of adventurers needs a simple and excellently done crawl, this is one of those crawls for OD&D, Labyrinth Lord and the rest of the swords and sorcery clones. Yes Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea I'm looking straight at you. This is the straight up sixteen pages of awesomeness that can be used to run a pay what you want adventure in every sense of the old school.

GRAB IT RIGHT 

HERE

This is a solidly sixteen pages of packed wall to wall crawl that does exactly what's advertised on the tin with gusto and vinegar. Here the adventure is built along the lines of solid and well though out adventure with weird monsters, strange bits & pieces, and all of the old school style of dungeon crawling that one expects from an outfit like 3 toad stools publishing. The background of the adventure is weird enough. 

The Tomb Of Gardag Background

A long time ago lived an evil and very eccentric warlord named Gardag.  Over the years he built up a cult following, many flocked to him and worshiped.  He sent out his cultists to pillage and burn the surrounding lands.  Eventually he amassed a huge stock pile of treasure. 

His demise came when a cultist named Zalish Hargih finally saw the evil that was being inflicted on the land and vowed to put a stop to it.  Late in the evening when Gardag was resting peacefully after a large meal, Zalish snuck into his bedroom and murdered the cult leader with a poison tipped dagger.  Shortly thereafter the remaining cultists took their own lives, proclaiming they would rather be with their leader, than face the awfulness of the world without him.  A tomb was erected in the underworld for Gardag by the last of his stalwart followers.  They eventually hung themselves within.  It is said that the skulls of the cultists line the tombs, stacked neatly. 

The great great grand daughter of Zalish Hargih, Hamona Hargih seeks to find the lost poisoned dagger that ended Gardag’s reign of terror.  She believes that Zalish’s remains may also be imprisoned within the tomb, and would like them retrieved for a proper burial. 

There are  few twist and turns to challenge adventurers and give a solid background of dungeon crawling to your favorite game. This crawl could easily be set right into the background of your favorite sword and sorcery adventure. Here I'm thinking of this adventure as a part of the blood soaked and Green Plague stained history of Hyperborea with gusto. The maps echo the old school ethos and the weirdness that rumbles through this crawl like a cheap ticket to a Saturday 80's matinee. All in all this is the type of crawl that has a ton of little bits and pieces that make it easily adaptable to your favorite old school retro clone system. Given the way that module even includes a few add ons this is an adventure to throw at your favorite crew of old school PC's and one that has some very weird variation on some very familiar tropes. There are even a few pre generated PC's that can easily be thrown into the back drop to run this for your friends who want to try Tomb of Gardag without the full hassle of a whole campaign. This adventure makes a nice weekend convention style run through and I can honestly say that this is a nice and solid download for the weekend or Saturday evening game. So grab some brews, some friends, and travel back in time like its '83.