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Author Topic: Charnel Crypt of the Sightless Serpent  (Read 2492 times)

Benoist

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Charnel Crypt of the Sightless Serpent
« on: May 21, 2010, 02:49:42 PM »
Charnel Crypt of the Sightless Serpent (CCotSS) is an adventure "compatible with most traditional fantasy role-playing games (c. 1974 - 1999)", i.e. Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced up to 2nd edition, though it was designed with Jeff Talanian's upcoming role playing game in mind, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea which, by the sounds of it, is a tweaked Advanced D&D with a strong Howardian/Pulp fantasy flavor to it.

It is published by North Wind Adventures and written by the man behind its wheel, Jeffrey P. Talanian, otherwise known to have developed several projects with E. Gary Gygax, such Castle Zagyg - The East Mark Gazetteer, Castle Zagyg vol. 2 - The Upper Works, as well as four Yggsburgh supplements among which The Storehouse District and The Town Hall District, the other two not having been released by the publisher.

Disclaimer

This review contains spoilers. If you intend on playing this adventure, do not read any further. You have been warned.

Overview

Charnel Crypt of the Sightless Serpent is a bare bones vintage adventure set in J. Talanian's take on Hyperborea, the setting of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. It can be used with pretty much any setting, published or otherwise, since the adventure itself starts in the City State of Khromarium, which could be replaced for any city of your choice, and actually unfolds in a tundra-like, muddy wilderness outside its gates.

The basic premise is pretty straightforward: the PCs hear about the final resting place of a rich family of Khromarium lost in the wilderness. The family members were entombed there long ago by a mad sorcerer along with their wealth and belongings. The crypt's surrounding area is now haunted by the Sightless Serpent, a creature of legend, which emerges from the crypts every quarter of a century, to engorge itself on the flesh of both men and beasts it encounters. The PCs meet a person who actually saw the Serpent, and can take them to the Crypts' location. From there, they can explore the area, the crypts, get read of the menace the Serpent represents, and/or plunder at their leisure.  

Appearance and Layout

CCotSS is a 16-page, saddle-stitched, softcover adventure. The cover itself uses a smooth cardboard thicker than its interior pages. It is black and white, very clean and simple, featuring a piece of art showing Ian Baggley's rendition of the Sightless Serpent.



The interior itself, likewise, uses a simple, unpretentious and clear layout, with a normal, 12 points or so Garamond (or similar, judging by the italics) font. The maps are nice, black and white, and to the point. The whole thing seems very usable at a game table. Simple to lay down on the game table, easy to follow, et cetera. No complaint there, as I rather like simple layouts.



The Adventure

The introduction of the module is very flavorful. It includes a handout for the Players basically conveying the basics about the "Legend of the Sightless Serpent", how the Xavadar family tried to escape the Green Death, a black plague of its time, by fleeing Khromarium to find refuge below the earth, in the ancestral burial grounds the family owned at the time, and trusting its protection to necromancer who was their ultimate undoing. How from there, the Sighless Serpent came, and haunted the surrounding area for ages.

The PCs encounter a guy in a tavern who survived a meeting with the Sightless Serpent. He tells he knows where to find the beast and can lead them there if he gets a cut of the profits. The feel of it is very pulpy, and reminded me of some Elric stories where you see the Melnibonéan getting drunk in some shady tavern on dangerous wines. It feels dark, and somewhat decadent. "Grim" would be another word coming to mind.

And it's a feeling that runs throughout the module, a feeling greatly emphasized by Ian Baggley's wonderful art in shades of grey you can see on North Wind Adventure's website as well.

After the PCs get their invitation to the adventure, possibly researching a bit elements pertaining to the Legend of the Sightless Serpent or not, they are led by this knave through the tundra-like wilderness, the "Lug Wasteland", surrounding Khromarium, which at this time of the year turns into a massive wetland full of giant insects, frogs, deers and all sorts of wildlife. One can't just reach the Charnel Crypts on horse back. It's a long, tiring walk through mud covered land that awaits the PCs.

After some time wandering through the wilderness, and possibly making a few random encounters in the process, the PCs reach the area surrounding the Crypts themselves. It's basically the first set-piece of the adventure, with a first map attached to it, which is constituted of a massive, treacherous field of mud, with a few landmarks the PCs can check out here and there, including a sinkhole leading straight to the Crypts, another, previous, entrance to the complex, a nest of Stirges nearby, a hawk nest, and other features, with a thin path dry land linking them. I find it to be a very inspiring tactical area, with choices for the PCs to either walk through the mud, possibly getting stuck, or attacked by giant leeches and such, or sticking to the dry path, which basically forces them to go through the hawks' nest. But here's my first issue here: I would have liked the Stirges' Nest to be right in the middle of the PCs' path. To basically make the choice between mud or dry land interesting. But the Stirges' Nest is like, way off course, and I do not see any compulsion for the PCs to even go there. It's a detail really, and you can very easily switch the landmarks to make the area suit your needs, but I think that, as written, it could have been better.

Once the PCs get to the Sinkhole, or the old entrance to the Crypts hidden to them in the wilderness, they get to the Crypts either via a bunch of tunnels the Sightless Serpent uses to get outside once every 25 years (via Sinkhole), or just by walking down a flight of stairs (old entrance).

Now, for the dungeon itself, what is really great about it is the ambiance. Swarms of bats sleeping on the ceiling of an underground lake. Old study with pages of parchment on the floor. Traps galore. White marble statues illuminated by fluorescent, greenish moss creeping on the walls, tapestries that lost their colors and almost fall apart at a touch from the rot of many, many years... it all feels absolutely great.

In terms of tactical choices and challenges, I found that a few areas were really cool, like fighting rust monsters in a tunnel with a 5 foot ceiling, which can prove to be a problem in terms of movement, maneuvers with weapons and so on, or the trap that basically has an hexagonal room filling with poison gaz, and the PCs attempting to figure out what the heck's going on by manipulating the hands of statues around them, trying to open doors for find secret ones or what not.

The Sightless Serpent itself, which is basically a variant Basilisk with hollow eyes crying tears in the forms of pure gems, is the greatest pure combat threat in this dungeon, since it turns its victims to stone by touch, though Ivgah the Necromancer and his female zombie slaves, or the Ghouls and skeletons of the False Xavadar Family Crypt ain't bad either.

There's a bit of everything. A trap here and there, a cool tactical situation or two, straightforward combat, a chance to redeem the family with their ghosts appearing to you for a bit of role play, or the Necromancer mocking your characters... I find the mix very satisfying.

What I find a bit less satisfying is the global dungeon layout, which doesn't really allow for a lot of different paths of exploration, and feels a tad linear in nature. Here's a flowchart of the different paths available for the PCs in the dungeon, with "1" and "8" representing the dungeon's entrances. You'll instantly see what I mean:



Note that area 9 is where the Sightless Serpent is nesting. As you can see, it's "the" bottleneck in the dungeon's layout. I guess it would suck to explore the Charnel Crypt of the Sightless Serpent without any chance to actually meet the darn beast. So there it is. The contact point with the monster.

Conclusion

Overall, it's a good module for the old editions of the D&D game, with a "bare bones" traditional design that didn't stop the author from infusing the whole adventure with a pulpy, Howardian, Dark fantasy flavor that really shines through. It will be great for a couple evenings of adventuring, would function very well as a one-shot or a set piece in a larger campaign, and can be adapted to pretty much any homebrew without much work.

Thumbs up.
« Last Edit: May 22, 2010, 01:30:29 AM by Benoist »

Akrasia

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Charnel Crypt of the Sightless Serpent
« Reply #1 on: May 21, 2010, 10:32:05 PM »
Thanks for the review, Benoist.  I ordered this a few days ago.

Based on your review, though, it sounds like the original adventure (published in Knockspell #1) was not expanded much, if at all, for the module version.  This is mildly disappointing (at least for those who already own KS#1).  Nonetheless, it should be worth it for the art alone.
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Contributor to: Crypts & Things (old school 'swords & sorcery'), Knockspell, and Fight On!

Benoist

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Charnel Crypt of the Sightless Serpent
« Reply #2 on: May 21, 2010, 10:46:32 PM »
Happy to be of service. :)

I actually didn't compare the two versions of the module. I intended to, but somehow forgot! I'll check it out and let everyone know. Thanks for the heads up!

Benoist

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Charnel Crypt of the Sightless Serpent
« Reply #3 on: May 22, 2010, 02:31:46 AM »
So, looking into it a bit, I didn't see any major difference between the two works (i.e. CCotSS in Knockspell #1 vs. the module here). It seems that the text might have been a bit fleshed out and/or rephrased here and there, but there's no glaring difference to me.

FASERIP

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Charnel Crypt of the Sightless Serpent
« Reply #4 on: May 31, 2010, 01:47:32 PM »
So it features a serpent with legs?
Don't forget rule no. 2, noobs. Seriously, just don't post there. Those guys are nuts.

Speak your mind here without fear! They'll just lock the thread anyway.

Benoist

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Charnel Crypt of the Sightless Serpent
« Reply #5 on: May 31, 2010, 02:18:15 PM »
Quote from: FASERIP;384935
So it features a serpent with legs?
The Sightless Serpent itself is actually a blind basilisk which cries jewels instead of tears. Part of the original plans of the necromancer who entombed the Xavadar family was to basically kill them all, stay in the tomb, summon the Sightless Serpent and gather very rare gems from its tears to later use in some ritual to reanimate the whole family as slave liches under his control. Didn't quite work out that way over time, since the necromancer basically became mad over time and pretty much forgot what he had in mind when he entombed himself with the rest of the family.