Good morning kids your uncle Eric is back with another OSR goodie that has plenty of potential at your table. I'm speaking of RL1 - The Craft Dungeon of Reynaldo Lazendry From Jeremy Reaban.
This is a great thirty page dungeon adventure complete with maps, NPC's,etc. all boiled into an adventure location that you could drop into any existing D&D or AD&D style campaign world. And its very good at what it does. The set up is nice and classic adventure plotline that works on a number of levels to click the emotional buttons of the DM and players;"Approximately 230 years ago the magic-user
Reynaldo Lazendry retired after a twenty year adventuring career, building a wizard's tower atop a
hill. Shortly after retirement he become very bored. Having mastered magic to his satisfaction (he was
an archmage), he decided that the world needed hisgenius applied to the arts.
Realizing that his tower lacked the room to pursue the arts, he began expanding the cellars below his tower into a domain suitable for his endeavors.
After 30 years of retirement, the top of the tower exploded, as wizard tower's are apt to do. The rest
of the tower collapsed into rubble, and Reynaldo was presumed dead. Eventually the local villagers investigated and sifted through the rubble (and looting anything of value), but any entrance to the cellar below was under tons of rock.Years of weathering and recent, massive storm have finally displaced enough rubble to make the cellars accessible again."
Here's the thing that makes this such a great adventure; Reynaldo Lazendry was an adventurer himself there are all kinds of possible plot and adventure hooks scattered throughout the adventure if the DM wants to use the wizard as a recurring but unseen NPC for his own party. There are so many possible uses for this line of thinking that its one of the reasons I started looking into the RL1 once again. Then there's the tower itself, you've got a completely worked up adventure location that you can DYI yourself as needed.
So the set up for this is a classic D&D style but here's the thing this adventure it has plenty of room to make this adventure into either a sword and sorcery scenario ala Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea or it could easily be given a horror slant with more of the background details about the wizard being revealed through play making this a perfect vehicle to introduce some or make this adventure a possible Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventure. Could the The Craft Dungeon of Reynaldo Lazendry work for say Dark Albion? Possibly but it might have to be modified with some of the details and background ironed out a bit more and a change or two with some of the NPC's. Don't mistake this for an easy low level scenario or adventure; it isn't and can be very deadly if PC's make unwise decisions.
There are new spells, new monsters, and some other bits & pieces that reek of Professor Barker's infamous Saturday night specials school of adventure design ala Empire of the Petal Throne. The idea of several unexpected and highly dangerous things or events lurking in the background of play. This isn't a bad thing in my humble opinion. Then there's a six page appendix featuring Cowford. The matter of Cowford is interesting. The backwater town of Cowford has it's own appendix; the details of the town are very well done but suggest that place is off the beaten path and could be used with Labyrinth Lord or even (sic) Mutant Future. In point of fact the whole adventure could be dropped straight into some sleepy backwater Gamma World style town location and it would still work quite well for the PC's to explore a retired wizard's tower! This town could serve as a fantastic base of operations from which to adventure from.
And that's part of the beauty of RL1 - The Craft Dungeon of Reynaldo Lazendry From Jeremy Reaban; its easy to drop into an existing campaign and modify it as the dungeon master needs. Think that the level between completeness and leaving the details to the DM is a fine balance and that the author does an excellent job with this adventure A four out of five adventure to say the least! I highly recommend this title!
Reynaldo Lazendry retired after a twenty year adventuring career, building a wizard's tower atop a
hill. Shortly after retirement he become very bored. Having mastered magic to his satisfaction (he was
an archmage), he decided that the world needed hisgenius applied to the arts.
Realizing that his tower lacked the room to pursue the arts, he began expanding the cellars below his tower into a domain suitable for his endeavors.
After 30 years of retirement, the top of the tower exploded, as wizard tower's are apt to do. The rest
of the tower collapsed into rubble, and Reynaldo was presumed dead. Eventually the local villagers investigated and sifted through the rubble (and looting anything of value), but any entrance to the cellar below was under tons of rock.Years of weathering and recent, massive storm have finally displaced enough rubble to make the cellars accessible again."
Here's the thing that makes this such a great adventure; Reynaldo Lazendry was an adventurer himself there are all kinds of possible plot and adventure hooks scattered throughout the adventure if the DM wants to use the wizard as a recurring but unseen NPC for his own party. There are so many possible uses for this line of thinking that its one of the reasons I started looking into the RL1 once again. Then there's the tower itself, you've got a completely worked up adventure location that you can DYI yourself as needed.
So the set up for this is a classic D&D style but here's the thing this adventure it has plenty of room to make this adventure into either a sword and sorcery scenario ala Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea or it could easily be given a horror slant with more of the background details about the wizard being revealed through play making this a perfect vehicle to introduce some or make this adventure a possible Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventure. Could the The Craft Dungeon of Reynaldo Lazendry work for say Dark Albion? Possibly but it might have to be modified with some of the details and background ironed out a bit more and a change or two with some of the NPC's. Don't mistake this for an easy low level scenario or adventure; it isn't and can be very deadly if PC's make unwise decisions.
There are new spells, new monsters, and some other bits & pieces that reek of Professor Barker's infamous Saturday night specials school of adventure design ala Empire of the Petal Throne. The idea of several unexpected and highly dangerous things or events lurking in the background of play. This isn't a bad thing in my humble opinion. Then there's a six page appendix featuring Cowford. The matter of Cowford is interesting. The backwater town of Cowford has it's own appendix; the details of the town are very well done but suggest that place is off the beaten path and could be used with Labyrinth Lord or even (sic) Mutant Future. In point of fact the whole adventure could be dropped straight into some sleepy backwater Gamma World style town location and it would still work quite well for the PC's to explore a retired wizard's tower! This town could serve as a fantastic base of operations from which to adventure from.
And that's part of the beauty of RL1 - The Craft Dungeon of Reynaldo Lazendry From Jeremy Reaban; its easy to drop into an existing campaign and modify it as the dungeon master needs. Think that the level between completeness and leaving the details to the DM is a fine balance and that the author does an excellent job with this adventure A four out of five adventure to say the least! I highly recommend this title!
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