Brave Halfling Publishing
Written for OSRIC, Character Levels 5-7, 42 pages + maps
The People of the Pit is a handsome piece, with an evocative cover and featuring art on the rear cover as well. It curiously has no publication date anywhere within it, but I believe it was published within the last two years. It features excellent interior B&W art by John Bingham.
The Skinny:
The module is based upon the short story, "The People of the Pit" by pulp fantasy writer A. Merritt. In short, the PCs experience the story first hand. The module places them in a village due south of said vast subterranean city where they encounter a survivor of that dread place, who describes his ordeal.Several millennia back, the peoples of the mighty Kingdom of Merritt entered into an all-out war with their long-time nemesis, the People of the Pit, a nefarious race of slug-like creatures hailing from a vast subterranean city lying on ntheir northern border. Though the battle was hard fought, with both sides initially incurring heavy losses, the Merritians in due course gained the upper hand, almost wholly eliminating their foe. Even the very god of the People of the Pit was banished to the lower planes by a cabal of Merritian magic-users and clerics, or so they thought. Recently, the evil within the city of the People of the Pit has surged yet again, and it is up to you to see that it doesn’t spill out into the surrounding lands.
The module itself has only the briefest of outdoor excursions; the meat of the adventure deals with the city of the things. The author makes copious use of boxed text, quoting from the story, giving the entire module a creepy Lovecraftian vibe. The titular 'People are, no kidding, giant evil floating ghost mollusks. Generally speaking, the party will either be captured and re-live the short story, seeking to escape the city, or they will not be and they will sojourn down into the haunted city to encounter all manner of nasty things and most likely seek to flee.
The encounters are tough, indeed nigh-impossible at times, and the odds of being captured and/or horribly destroyed are virtually certain. I would recommend a large party of 5-7th level PCs or a doughty party of 7th level heroes. This would appear to be capable of being run in one sitting. By its nature, it lends itself to DM expansion and one can easily envision further adventures against the plotting fiends. As detailed below, said expansions should probably be a "prequel" to this module.
The Good:Atmosphere and a lot of it. The players will instantly know that this is not a standard dungeon crawl. Since Merritt's writing is not as well known as, say, Lovecraft's, there is little danger that the players will be familiar with the story and the DM therefore gets to spring a fully fleshed-out Weird Tales exploit on his players. The encounters and enemies are bizarre and disturbing, just different enough that the adventure truly isn't like anything else that has been attempted before. Did I mention that the PCs are pitted against giant evil floating ghost snails?!
The City and its inhabitants are just begging to be fleshed out by a cruel and enterprising DM. As mentioned below, a party seeking to actually explore the city as if it were any other dungeon will be quickly snuffed out. However, with a bit of expansion (and more experience levels for the PCs), the city could be used as the culmination of a mini-campaign against the plots of the nefarious gastropods. The 'People are weird and unique enough that they could be a good long-running enemy.
This adventure appears to run like a CoC scenario. That has its drawbacks (certain death), but also its advantages. Brute force will result in the PCs being dragged off howling to their doom. Stealth and reconnaissance are rewarded. Given fireballs, the Turn Undead table and a 7th level fighter's 60 hit points, horror is usually hard to come by in an AD&D game. This scenario has it in spades.
The Bad:The author clearly intends the PCs to relive the storyline. I myself have done this with Lovecraftian short stories/CoC adventures, but never with AD&D. DMs and players who eschew railroads should be forewarned that the opening of the adventure virtually guarantees the party's capture. The opening to the City is just far enough away that the party arrives at night. A scheduled event occurs at night to the environs surrounding said entrance that will result in the party continuing on, down into the city despite the late hour (a save versus spells at -3, to be precise). Descending into the city at night guarantees that the party faces 20-30 of the horrific things, who can each cast charm monster and, even if that fails, they each have six attacks, each of which drains 25% of the victim's strength. Those reduced to 1 or 2 Strength fall into a coma; those reduced to 0 Strength are permanently slain and cannot be raised or resurrected. In other words, the party really has no fair chance. Those who survive (and this will probably require some fudged rolls by the DM) are stripped naked. Luckily the lone survivor in the module's opening paragraph has already told them how to escape. The larger question is whether or not they can or whether that's sheer folly. This DM isn't so certain. I would have to think long and hard before I ran the module as written.
The City itself is one giant death trap. Every pool of bubbling filth is occupied by giant crayfish and water weirds; every copse of "trees" is actually a monster. The party is pretty clearly intended to escape from bondage and flee for their lives, perhaps to attempt an assault during the day, but more likely to "enjoy" the rare experience of horror in an AD&D game. Although the High Temple of the Things can be located on a island in the underground sea, the DM would probably have to compose a really good reason to persuade the players to have their PCs go back. The Temple itself is even more over-the-job PC-unfriendly, with several unavoidable traps (the players open a door and are smitten by a symbol of discord; another doorway is a sphere of annihilation, a floor is electrified, take 24 points of damage; that sort of thing) and one nigh-unavoidable trap in the very first encounter area that will result in a TPK. There's a way of crafting nasty traps (and I did enjoy the "slug shower"), and the temple encounter areas seem one-dimensional (that dimension being death).
The Ruling: Despite the items in "The Bad" above, indeed perhaps because of them, I enjoyed reading this adventure and will, I think, enjoy running it even more. This is a one-night adventure, perhaps best run as a one-shot with pregenerated PCs, but perhaps not, if only to see the dawning horror on the players' faces. Not for everyone, to be sure, but certainly worth picking up. One more time: The PCs are set again giant evil floating ghost snails, for Gygax's sake!
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