Description
For countless years, the Tomb of Xulthas-Ka has eluded even the most intrepid of explorers. The only things known about the sorcerer king interred within the tomb are that he owed allegiance to unholy powers and that he possesed an unparalleled collection of arcane secrets. The name Xulthas-Ka is a legend among scholars and graverobbers alike, who whisper tales of items of unfathomable power that rest in a black sarcophagus in the lightless depths of his profane vault. The tomb is recognized by the massive ebony slab that marks its entrance. This solitary doorway is cut into the side of a sheer cliff face and has remained sealed since the tomb was constructed.
But the vault has finally been breached. An industrious and foolhardy adventuring trio thwarted the barriers protecting the crypt with a
large alchemical explosion in the side of the cliff face, opening one of the tomb’s internal passages. Their success, however, was short-lived. One-by-one they perished at the hands of Xulthas-Ka’s immortal protectors and their own unsound decisions…. Can others do better?
This tomb-crawling adventure for the 5th Edition of the world’s first RPG is meant for four 6th-level characters. Designed by Chris Lockey, it features cartography by Dyson Logos and art by M. Wayne Miller.
Gaetan Voyer-Perrault –
As always, the art is nice. There’s a small Dyson logos dungeon with 9 rooms and links to the original map.
The lair references a bunch of monsters from the Tome of Beasts & SRD. There’s a short back story and a couple of themed rooms in the dungeon. There’s also some use of the Void magic concept from the Midgard setting.
I love the layout of the text. Good use of box text, separate treasure sub-headings, good format for traps.
However, the contents are a little bland. There are no real NPCs, all of the encounters are either traps or monsters that will kill you, no questions asked. The dungeon has 2 deadly, 1 hard and 1 medium encounter, but there’s no mechanism to really “lock in” the PCs, so they can just walk out and take rests after every encounter.
The loot is also totally out of hand. A short dungeon for level 6 should have like 1 rare or maybe a couple of uncommon items. This dungeon has 1 uncommon, 4 rares and 1 very rare… in a 9 room dungeon… you’re clearly going to want to trim this down.