Mini-Dungeon #015: Torment at Torni Tower
$0.99
For 4–5 Characters Level 5–6
Somervel’s autumn rains lasted longer than usual, and the resulting winter floods impacted more than expected. Some distant pale-forts haven’t been heard from in months, being cut off by the linking of frozen rice paddies, flood meadows, leas usually inhabited by cattle, and rivers that run though Somervel’s territory. Parties are charged with taking supplies to these border posts and bringing anyone severely injured home.
Somervel’s pale-forts are like beaver lodges; earthen mounds on islands in the marshlands. Each covers a wide area, is surrounded by a wooden palisade, has quarters below ground, and has a single central watchtower. Torni’ s tower fell in the recent storms, and the guards missed Akka, who infiltrated the fort and killed them all. Now this is her home, and she is recruiting…
Mini-Dungeons are single page, double sided adventures for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game which are setting agnostic and are easily inserted anywhere in your campaign.
Thilo Graf (verified owner) –
An Endzeitgeist.com review
This pdf clocks in at 2 pages and is a mini-dungeon. This means we get 2 pages content, including a solid map (alas, sans player-friendly version) and all item/monster-stats hyperlinked to d20pfsrd.com’s shop and thus, absent from the pdf.
Since this product line’s goal is providing short diversions, side-quest dungeons etc., I will not expect mind-shattering revelations, massive plots or particularly smart or detailed depictions, instead tackling the line for what it is. Got that? Great!
This being an adventure-review, the following contains SPOILERS. Potential players may wish to jump to the conclusion.
Still here?
All right!
Somervel has not been treated kindly by the seasons – its pale forts, somewhat akin to beaver lodges, earthen mounds on islands in the marshlands, have been isolated for quite a while – most of the complex is below ground, with one tower jutting forth from the mound. Torni’s tower has fallen to the seasons and when he PCs are sent to investigate the place, they are greeted by a haggard female – but that’s just the beginning of the trouble. Turns out the female is a disguised annis hag who not only single-handedly (or better clawedly) took the fortress and slaughtered its inhabitants, she also makes off to rouse her ogre minions, some of which in states of drunkenness (which is accounted for by the mini-dungeon!) and prepare her detailed and rather awesome tactics – she for example collects stirges in a bag to throw at the PCs. What about speaking tubes? Yeah, smart! So, the presentation provides the roster of inhabitants, the rooms and the tactics of the annis hag – all in all, providing a surprisingly awesome and best of all, organic mini-dungeon against foes with unique tactics and in a distinct backdrop.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good, I noticed no significant glitches. Layout adheres to a beautiful 2-column full-color standard and the pdf comes sans bookmarks, but needs none at this length. Cartography is full color and surprisingly good for such an inexpensive pdf, but there is no key-less version of the map to print out and hand to your players. The pdf provides a nice piece of full-color artwork.
Stephen Yeardley does it again – this mini-dungeon is inspired, cool and does everything right: From an awesome, unique locale to smart adversaries and a surprising amount of fluff crammed into the scant few pages, this mini-dungeon is concise, logical ad downright awesome – no complaints and one of the high points of the series – well worth 5 stars + seal of approval!
Endzeitgeist out.