Shadowdark Thracia 15
Players: Yipblot Zema-Zafat Snubrash
Recap:
Rainy morning meant the jungle would be a slog. The party decided to cut through the desert to reach the Lost Citadel on the coast, but they made a stop by a cave on the shore where the beach was black sand.
Inside the cave they encountered the Crab Seer, who offered them knowledge in exchange for 100gp worth of treasure. He also said he could offer them a boon in exchange for the head of the Blonde Medusa. No further information was given. The Crab Seer's cave was filled with humanoids who had headcrabs sucking on their brains, so the party decided not to rest inside.
While resting overnight the party encountered the Manta Ray again. Snubrash gave it some rations and it really wanted them to jump on its back but they feared it would drown them if they rode it. The party continued their rest til morning. The rain persisted, making travel slow but they pushed on to make it to the cliffs north of them. The manta appeared again overnight but Yipblot did not care for interacting with it.
The next morning also had rain, but the party decided to push to the Lost Citadel. They entered through the main hall, investigating the murals. ZZ saw that the cult of Thanatos must have had some presence here as the murals depicted them in the shadows.
They explored westward within the halls and found a room full of jars. The jars smelled sulfuric as though something were fermenting within. They carefully opened the jars and found them stuffed with long-rotten wheat. However, ZZ cast detect magic and discovered a cockatrice egg within one of the jars. Snubrash took the egg and now plans to incubate it at the roost.
In the south hallway they found the body of an adventurer named Orwyn, freshly killed by the bull statue. They discovered the bull was animated when it killed Orwyn but now is not active. They looted Orwyn's corpse, took his gear and found his locket which had a painting of a red head woman. They recognized her as a seamstress from town.
ZZ also looted the cracked gem on the bull's head. He learned it used to contain magic that likely animated the bull, but lost it's value and power when it was shattered.
When they moved further west they found a room with two halls separated by a 10' thick wall. At the end of each hall was a large bowl. As the party entered the room they were greeted by Giuseppe the herbalist, who was Orwyn's comrade. He camped behind one of the large bowls. While talking with him the party were attacked by a cave creeper that was drawn to ZZ's lantern. It managed to destroy the lantern in its attack. Snubrash and Yip couldn't get their lanterns lit in time, but thankfully ZZ altered himself to glow in the dark.
This gave Yip and Snubrash a window to attack the cave creeper. ZZ webbed it which sealed its fate. Yip tried extracting its poison but couldn't quite do it, even with Snubrash's help. The party and Giuseppe fled the citadel and rushed back to Minos.
3XP gained.
. Cockatrice Egg (40gp - but can also be incubated)
Silver Locket (worth 5gp - has a painting of red haired woman you know from town) Cracked Emerald (20gp)
You also found Giuseppe the herbalist. He was grateful for the rescue. His services usually cost 20gp per month but he is willing to be on retainer for 10gp per month for you guys. He would set up at the roost as a personal herbalist.
Thoughts:
Another session that felt more like a scout. It made sense that they would want to encounter the Crab Seer. I think the imagery landed well with them. I'm glad they saw him and learned of his deal. I hope they get to explore his cave more, but I'm happy they at least got to meet him. He was fun to come up with.
Lost Citadel is a very easy dungeon to run. It's a Shadowdark classic for a reason, but like a lot of modern OSR, it feels a bit too stripped back. There isn't anything bonkers happening in here. The factions are pretty tame (I replaced beastmen with Gnolls to keep it Thracia consistent) and I don't get that sense that this dungeon could really pop off the way Thracia can. Granted, Thracia is a megadungeon. This is much more of an adventure site.
Not having the Scarlet Minotaur make an appearance is a bit anti-climactic, but I also don't want to force it on my players. It can easily show up, as they learned last time. The rest of the dungeon is good, if not particularly transcendant. It is incredibly easy to run it on the fly. However, I think that the design of leaving treasure to a cumulative roll in order to abstract the specific positioning feels like a cop-out.
It feels cheap to me. I would rather the placement of treasure be fixed. It's the sort of thing that further leads me to believe that Shadowdark does not really commit to Gold for XP as a meaningful system for players to engage with. Gold for XP exists to allow players to make informed decisions on what value they want to extract from a delve. The XP system Shadowdark employs does not care about that specificity. So Gold for XP here feels hollow. More of a flavoring system. If the player and GM don't know the specific placements of treasure, then it's quantum treasure. Thracia would have told me which jar that cockatrice egg was in.
This overall felt like another perfectly ok session. At least some things were gleaned from it that could be useful in the long-term. The cockatrice egg could be incubated. Giuseppe could be put to work. The locket can be returned to the woman in town. This is what makes Lost Citadel very good, in my opinion. It plants threads for the table to pick up on and run with.