The Tower of Faces

DCC #96: The Tower of Faces is a 6th level adventure written by Nick Judson. Art is by Sanjulian (cover), Stefan Poag (including cartography), Tom Galambos, Doug Kovacs, Cliff Kurowski, and Peter Mullen.

This adventure won the 2017 Rodneys Award (OSR Track) for adventure design at Gamehole Con IV.

Most adventures have you exploring a location where you are basically the invader. There are at least two other DCC adventures where you are trying to protect an area from outside forces, but this is the first. You know all those lengthy rituals that wizards become involved in? 

Well, in this adventure just such a wizard would like you to protect his home while he is sequestered!

This is a cool adventure, where role-playing is balanced well with combat and puzzle-solving. I haven't often heard this adventure discussed, and that is a pity, because it is a good one, with both whimsy and deadly seriousness. If Lord Dunsany was not an influence, I would be surprised. The city of Naos, the Necropolis of the Chaos Kings, is also worthy of revisiting!

I can easily see a party going through Enter the Dagon, which attracts the attention of the wizard, Yonaxis, who pulls them into this adventure. Their actions here, for good or ill, draw the attention of the 998th Conclave of Wizards. 

While we are here, we might also wish to examine the Vizier's Views. 

The Rodney Award-winning adventure from Gamehole Con IV, now an adventure for DCC RPG!

The adventurers have been summoned to a mysterious black tower made of glass. They are given a simple mission: protect the mage’s estate while he is distracted weaving a mighty spell. Surviving the five days of his spellcasting requires quick wits and sharp blades, for the estate has mischievous guests and strange visitors. In the end, the mage demands one final task: stand by his side as he binds a great horror from beyond!

This really is a great, and under-appreciated adventure.

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Tongues of the Screaming Toad

Tongues of the Screaming Toad is a 3rd level adventure by “Weird Dave” Coulson. Art is by Matt Morrow (cover), Johnathan L Bingham, and Glynn Seal (cartography). The publisher is Cut to the Chase Games.

This is the third of four modules in the Memories of the Toad God series. This adventure is converted to Dungeon Crawl Classics, and is simultaneously available for Swords & Wizardry, Pathfinder, Castles & Crusades, and 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. 

If you have read my comments on the other parts of this series, you will not be surprised now. The adventure is certainly usable with DCC, but, while the conversion is more complete than with some other Cut to the Chase adventures, the judge will still have some work to do. In particular, the squamous Ibholtheg could use a full patron write-up. I am also not a big fan of sticking all the monster stats in the back of an adventure, away from where they appear, which is an artifact of systems that use much larger statblocks than DCC does.

That said, this conversion is definitely a marked improvement over the Wrath of the Kobolds series, and if you ignore minor glitches, you won't encounter any serious problems. I wrote once that the author didn't "get" DCC; he has definitely taken strides in the right direction. Few adventures written for multiple systems can capture the "feel" of each of those systems, and this is not the exception to that rule, but in actual play it should do fine.

This adventure starts with an investigation, with the PCs being deputized to deal with something beyond the abilities of the local constabulary. If you have read or played through Night of the Mad Kobold, you will recognize this setup. It's not a new one to gaming, and the author does a decent job of presenting an investigation where the links line up to form a chain of events that the players can unravel. 

One of the problems you may have, in running this series, is that DCC character leveling slows down as the PCs become more powerful. You may, therefore, wish to intersperse "chapters" of this series with other jungle-based adventures. Luckily, you have several to choose from.

Buried secrets have a way of finding a path back to the surface to reveal themselves to the world again. Sometimes it may take a long time, and during that time it’s likely that the world has forgotten about the secret. But if the secret is the loathsome Ibholtheg the Squamous Toad, an outer power of ancient evil, it certainly hasn’t forgotten about the world.

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The Tome of Debasement

The Tome of Debasement is a DCC supplement by Nick Baran. Art is by Jamie Jordan (including cover) and Mike Tommyrot. The publisher is Beaker Press Games.

Disclaimer: I was a backer for the successful Kickstarter for this product.

It is going a bit hard to look at the Beaker Press Games material individually, as the titles are inter-related. This link will take whatever entries I have completed for the publisher, so that you can decide what you might be interested in to support your campaigns.

In this case, we are looking at a full write-up for Herlezzect, the Debased God. When I say a full write-up, I mean that this thing is complete. There are rules for clerics, including unique disapproval, level titles, special traits, bloodletting, and canticles (as per the DCC Annual Volume I). In addition, there are eight unique spells for those who follow the Debased God, and a magic item with religious significance to the cult.

There are campaigns out there where a party are adherents of Herlezzect, but for most of us, this is an example of a cult which the PCs will vehemently oppose. In either case, I believe that this is the most completely detailed god designed for DCC to date.

Behold the Inglorious Bottom Feeder, the Lord of Twisted Faces, the Sovereign of the Forgotten, Herlezzect the Debased God!

This DCC RPG compatible zine details the followers of Herlezzect, the Debased God, in the same format as those in the DCC Annual Vol. 1 (from Goodman Games). The zine covers the unique traits, disapproval results, and canticles for evil cultists who pledge themselves to the debased one. The bulk of the zine is taken up by a collection of spells geared for use by the evil clerics in your games, with evocative titles like: Deceiving Visage, Putrescent Bog, Rotting Stench, Halo of Flies, Lash, Twisted Form, Radiant Corruption, and Uncontrollable Urge.  You're probably thinking those would make a great tracklisting for a metal album, and you'd probably be right.

This gaming zine is designed to make your evil priests on your tabletop more sinister and terrifying to face, channeling otherworldly horror and cinematic imagery.

Get It Here!