While my usual topics of the Wizards Watch blogs are the recently released articles in Dragon and Dungeon Magazines, as well as other official Announcements, I am doing a little retro-reporting this time around.   As I recently discussed in my EN World Review of Marauders of the Dune Sea, I have been looking at getting together some content to launch my own Dark Sun Campaign with, and sadly, the “official” resale adventure was an unfortunate mess.

So looking back to last month, there was an adventure released in late August for the Dark Sun Campaign Setting in Dungeon Magazine, entitled “The Vault of Darom Madar”, which is designed for 1st Level Characters.  Penned by freelancer Aeryn “Blackdirge” Rudel, this adventure picks up where the Sand Raiders mini-adventure in the Dark Sun Campaign Setting leaves off, setting the Characters on a search for a lost treasure vault.  But here’s the real question: Is this adventure the “lost treasure” of Dark Sun content I have been looking for to launch my campaign?

“The Vault of Darom Madar”

• Author:  Aeryn “Blackdirge” Rudel
• Cover Illustrator: Daarken and Eric Belisle
• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
• Year: 2010
• Media: Dungeon Magazine Article (34 pages)
• Retail Cost: FREE (with a DDI Subscription)

Production Quality
The production quality of “The Vault of Darom Madar” is very good, with good plot development and writing, as well as some interesting encounters.  The cover art is fresh and original, and is evocative of the final encounter which takes place during the adventure.  The maps are drawn from the tile set released along with the Dark Sun Campaign Setting, and are adequate for the task, although I am frankly getting a little tired of WotC pushing the tile sets with every adventure, whether retail release or Dungeon Magazine content.  [Editor’s Note:  Thanks guys, I get it – I bought them all – you do not need to keep nagging me to buy dungeon tiles!]

I truly feel sorry for all the artists who used to create some awesome adventure maps found in the older adventures (i.e. 3.5), and I hope that they get to flex their cartography muscles again someday for something other than a Photoshop’d montage of dungeon tiles.

Introduction
The adventure leads off from Sand Raiders, the adventure in the Dark Sun Campaign Setting, which Marauders of the Dune Sea claims to do, but fails to logically bridge the gap between the adventures.  However, in The Vault of Darom Madar, the author actually makes sure to include a logical hook from the earlier adventure, and adds a few more as minor quests to entice the heroes to undertake the mission.  The storyline makes a lot more sense for “The Vault”, as the Characters are already in Altaruk for “Sand Raiders”, and do not have to mysteriously appear back at Tyr to start their next mission.

Plot Hooks
The major quest is to find the lost treasure of a long dead merchant house, which is pretty straight-forward, and likely to be readily enticing to the Characters.  The same merchant house from Sand Raiders is again hiring the heroes for a task and offering a share of the riches for finding the vault.  The heroes must blaze their way across the wasteland, a day ahead of the caravan which will help carry the riches back to civilization, as well as find the lost vault itself.  A solid storyline here, and one which will agree with most Characters.

But although the major quest to find the lost vault of treasure makes good sense, regretfully, there is a minor quest involving the delivery of a coded message sent from an elf to her tribal chieftain.  While it is not outside the realm of possibility for the wild desert elves to be literate, it is unlikely for the Characters coming from a city-state to view the coded message as on oddity impossible to decipher, yet there is a skill challenge written specifically to handle breaking the code.  One would imagine the reason the elf approached the Characters in the first place is in assuming that literacy among them would be lacking, and her message would be unread.  The skill challenge to decipher the code is nicely written, however, and assuming at least one Character is literate, makes it a good adventure hook.  The final minor quest involves a bounty on some bandits wearing a particular type of red sash, and is definitely a reasonable adventure-within-the-adventure.

The Encounters
[Spoiler Warning: Encounter information is revealed beyond this point!  Skip to the end of the review to avoid spoilers.]

The adventure begins with a structured skill challenge to represent a journey across the Tablelands to the valley where the lost treasure is hidden.  Failures in the course of the skill challenge can lead “random” encounters, and the author provide some nicely balanced low level monster packs for the Characters to face – although one encounter does involve dealing with a couple of 4th Level monsters, they are skirmishers without too many hit points for 1st level Characters to have to cut through.

As the adventurers travel across the wasteland, they stop at two oases.  The first oasis is unprotected and is the ambush site for the bandits mentioned in one of the minor quests.  This is a rough encounter, as the leader of the bandits is a 5th Level Artillery and has a Leader-type power to heal a comrade.  His hit points and defenses, however, are low enough that a party concentrating firepower on him should take his down fairly well, but he is highly dangerous if left active too long.

Another encounter during the trek involves a pack of assassins sent from a rival merchant also vying to reach the lost treasure.  Aside from the assassins getting the drop on the adventurers, and possibly felling one of them during the opening ranged volley from stealth, the heroes should find this encounter challenging, but fairly well balanced.

The other minor quest, involving the message delivery to the elven chieftain, is handled as another skill challenge encounter.  The outcome of this skill challenge can grant a bonus to the subsequent skill challenge when the Characters are searching for the exact location of the lost treasure.  The author definitely understands the use of skill challenges, and presenting one to get clues which will help in the next challenge is some very nice design work.

Searching the valley for the lost tomb can lead to three more “random” encounters, depending on the success or failure of the skill challenge.   These can be fairly harsh for adventurers to deal with if they have difficulties with the skill challenge and cannot find the hidden entrance to the treasure vault, as they will be losing healing surges fairly readily against the encounters.  Only one of the encounters is particularly challenging, involving a showdown against a 5th Level Brute and some 4th Level Artillery, but if the heroes do well in the skill challenge, they will not have to worry about this “random” encounter.

Finding the hidden treasure vault is only the first obstacle, for then the Characters must face two fairly tough encounters inside the vault, as well as a skill challenge to open the vault without being blown away by the complex mechanical and arcane traps guarding it.  And once inside, the heroes still must face a nasty 4th Level Solo undead left to rot among the treasure it now guards.

Sadly, there is one encounter is potentially problematical, involving a pack of insubstantial undead which are 3-4 levels higher than the adventurers.  This could lead to a long and quite frustrating slugfest for the Characters, and coupled with a hazard on the encounter map, might actually lead to a TPK situation.  Dungeon Masters might want to consider tuning down the hit points on these wispy foes to make the challenge more reasonable.

Gaining the treasure is but the first step to this adventure, and I really like that the author added this next part.  Too often, adventures end fairly quickly after the “dungeon delve”, with the Characters back at the inn swilling homebrew and showing off their loot.  In this case, the Characters are only getting a share of the treasure, and the merchant that hired them shows up with a caravan and sand skiffs to help the heroes haul the booty to Tyr to sell it off.  There are some “random” encounters based upon the success of yet more survival-style skill challenges, and a couple set encounters, including a nasty silkworm solo encounter, and more assassins sent from the other merchant house trying to steal the lost treasure before it gets to Tyr.

From here, the encounters take on a greater significance, because the heroes must now keep the crew of the sand skiffs safe in order to get their share of the treasure.  The author uses skill checks at the end of each combat round to determine how well the adventurers keep the crew out of harm’s way.  Each Character makes a check and an abstract system is used to determine if a monster chooses to rip into a caravan crew member instead of a hero.

Unfortunately, the idea is an interesting one in the abstract, but does not make real sense in execution.  If all the monsters in the encounter are being engaged by the Player-Characters, then how can the crewmembers be attacked?  By bad dice rolls, it is possible for the crew and the heroes to be attacked in the same round, essentially giving the attacking monsters multiple standard actions.  This mechanic just makes no sense as written.

What would make more sense is to have any monster that is not engaged and attacking a hero to choose to expend its attack on a crew member.  The skill checks could then be used as intended, to get the crew out of the way of the attacks not aimed at the Characters.  Admittedly, this means that few attacks will be aimed at the crew, so long as all the monsters are “locked down”, but this can be offset by increasing the number of minions in the encounter.  Inventive Dungeon Masters can modify encounters accordingly, and still use this mechanic to threaten the treasure – remember, a dead crew means a dead sand skiff, meaning less loot getting to Tyr and a smaller share for the heroes!

The final climax of the adventure is the rival merchant finally showing up and trying to steal the treasure for himself.  This is a 6th Level Encounter, and is going to be a VERY difficult challenge for the Characters, with a 5th Level Elite Lurker leading his pack of 3rd and 4th Level henchmen against the heroes.  However, one must assume that the author expects the Dungeon Master to be giving out experience points on the fly, and allowing the Characters to “level up” mid-adventure.  If this is the case, the heroes will be Level 3 by the final encounter, and should have a decent chance of successfully killing the enemy who has been sending assassins after them in order to get the treasure.

And getting the treasure back to Tyr means not only a share of the substantial loot, but also another major quest reward, and the fame of finding and plundering the Lost Vault of Darom Madar!

Overall Grade: A-

This adventure is really well written, and with the exception of a couple of the encounters, and the unwieldy game mechanic to protect the sand skiff crew, is definitely a better adventure than Marauders of the Dune Sea could ever hope to be.  “Blackdirge”, a freelance author, seems to have a solid grasp of what a Dark Sun adventure should be – brutally challenging but richly rewarding, and some surprising twists thrown in – which is more than I can say for the team of WotC designers and editors who slapped Marauders together to release with the Dark Sun Campaign Setting to grab a few extra (and undeserved) bucks.  This is definitely a fun and usable adventure, which given a few minor tweaks, can be readily employed to launch a Dark Sun Campaign.  And on a personal note, one really hopes that Dungeon Magazine continues to tap freelancers and WotC staff to continue to release Dark Sun modules like this as part of its content on a regular basis.

So until next blog… I wish you Happy Gaming!

Grade Card

• Presentation: B+
• - Design: B
• - Illustrations: A
• Content: A-
• - Crunch: B+
• - Fluff: A
• Value: A+

Tags: adventure, blackdirge, D&D 4e, dungeon magazine, review, Wizards of the Coast

This entry was posted by Editor-in-Chief on Friday, September 24th, 2010 at 10:53 am and is filed under Dungeonmasters' Insider, RPG News & Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.