Covers of Folio's 1-6 by Jim Roslof & Travis Hanson, Jim Holloway, Todd Lockwood, Daniel Horne, Jeff Dee, David Martin
There is a common structure to all these - nice art work, with a declared mission statement of recreating the old school feel of "adventure through the eyes of artists like Jeff Dee, Erol Otus, Bill Willingham, and Jim Roslof" and giving a framework for running your own sandbox like such classics as The Village of Hommlet and Keep on the Borderlands. I see a lot of the same artists that used to appear in Dragon magazine in the 90s and it definitely brings back that feel for me. Apart from the art we get double-column writing on most pages, mostly good editing with a few typos here and there. Everything is statted for 1e and 5e. We also get some nice maps - both in old school white-on-blue which is fine and also great 3D isometric maps.
Going through the actual content of each of the sections, what do we get?
1. Beneath Roslof Keep: Intro to the whole thing and a dungeon level for characters level 1-3.
- neat set up with competing companies who can access the dungeon only because of their magical standards
- starter town shopkeepers
- outline of factions
- constants of the dungeon, persistent villains
- new critter the delving orc
- 10 room mini dungeon as a campaign starter, party builder in Welcome to House Aldenmier
- Main module - 23 room dungeon with art, old school white-on-blue map and new-school isometric version. For this one we get a nice mix of traps, terrain and monsters that fit together into a coherent whole combined with good notes on what can be found where.
2. Tremors in the Machine - continues with more of the setting and another dungeon level for levels 3-5
- Expands the starter town from the immediate 'dungeon head' above the entry to the whole surrounding town with a bunch of new locations to paint the world and burn off coin from successful delvers
- description of the major background event threads
- a new recurring named monster to be encountered
- background to the art in the issue
- a new critter, the vulpine Lowl
- Main module - 33 rooms - with good detail on the rooms, a nice variety of hazards and evocative art. There are some parts to this that are very 'old school' like the need to muscle through some unavoidable traps to 'clear' the dungeon but this is supposed to be and old school dungeon.
3. Curse of the Violet Corruption - expands out to the surrounding region and adds to the core dungeon.
- gives typical tactics of rival companies exploring the dungeon and faction updates
- details the magical plague now spreading out from the dungeon and guidance on how to run plague sessions
- an new monster, the earth-elemental Jai-ruk
- 34 more rooms in the main module for players of level 5-7 - a little more 'monster in a room' than previous issues, though the wandering NPCs should provide the 'living dungeon' aspect.
4. Secrets of the Wildlands - a blockage in the dungeon prompts a jaunt to the wilderness to another entrance to continue down into the depths
- some more detail on the regions and updates on the active factions activities
- a rival party generator that the foe at the center of the dungeon will set on the players
- a new monster, another earth elemental, the Kin
- a wilderness location - the Glade of the Burning Dead (18 rooms, levels 6-9) - getting increasingly brutal with the monsters to be found and the lack of respite between them.
- further dungeon content in the Halls of Anarchy Hill (10 rooms, levels 6-9) - similarly, room after room with increasingly dangerous monsters lairing.
I am less of a fan of this level - recognising that there is a puppet-master intelligence behind the whole dungeon, I would have a hard time selling to my tables that yes, there was a powerful monster just twiddling their thumbs in the previous 15 x 15 room and now there is another one in this one, that was next door.
5. Deep Dive in the Flooded Halls - explores the challenges of a fully flooded, submerged dungon -
- we start with notes on how to run underwater dungeons and on driving home the miserable environment
- wizards are introduced as a monster type
- we get the Flooded Halls themselves, 21 rooms of underwater challenges for levels 8-10 characters. I like this level quite a lot, with lots of environmental hazards and variety in traps, monsters and other things to deal with.
- here we get our first isometric map so big it is a double-page spread
6. Realms of Madness and Despair - the sixth dungeon level comprising four pocket planes
- we get swarm rules, adapted from 3e/3.5e/Pathfinder for 1e
- intro notes on the mechanics of the dungeon and how to pace it
- a new monster, an aquatic lizardfolk, the Candon
- the first pocket realm - Lair of the Psionic Devourer, 6 rooms for Level 10-12
- the second pocket realm - Temple of the Dark Fey Priestess, 10 rooms for Level 10-12
- the third pocket realm - Hall of the Frost Giant Jarl, 4 rooms for Level 10-12
- the fourth pocket realm - Chaotic Abode of the Mad Jester, 8 rooms for Level 10-12
- the Chamber of the Infernal Machine, the dungeon core, where portentous decision awaits
I like the tight theme of each of the pocket planes - here the proximity of various dangerous monsters makes sense because they are all part of a given faction for each pocket realm. Clearing each pocket realm will be a tough challenge.
All told, tons of content, an interesting dungeon of the old school with lots of traps and monsters lurking in every shadowy corner along with significant treasures. I like the overall meta of dungeon-raiding regiments and the way players will need to figure out the background to these regiments if they want to complete this.
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