Auditing Tomb of the Serpent Kings
A while back I did a read-through of Tomb of the Serpent Kings (link), aiming to decide for myself how well the dungeon achieved its goals, since they were clearly stated upfront and, in the circles I'm in, everyone shares it with a pretty unanimous agreement that it works, without much explanation why.
This post isn't gonna make an ounce of sense if you haven't read the dungeon. I suggest opening it in another tab so you can flip back and forth. I'm going in reading order, but this is a little loose with the formatting.
Right off the bat, Skerples gives a list of "ways to get them to the Tomb," and I can't for the life of me see this as a good move. Instead, I say, tell them they're at the Tomb, and tell them why. Immediately after, in describing the place, he says...
Giant lizards stalk you in the darkness, immortal wizards cut deals...
There is one (1) giant lizard and one (1) immortal wizard in this dungeon. Anyway.
I would add information about how difficult it is to move the hollow clay statues. They could be used as grenades or something.
I don't think I, personally, would use his provided rules for shoving another PC into the hammer trap to get a bonus to your own save. This is a playstyle difference of course, but it's not really presented as one. That's generally fine in modules, but since this is an introductory module by design, I think this should really be highlighted as an area in which a GM needs to make a decision about what their play group is going to prefer. If you use this rule at some tables, players will get mad at each other for real.
Additionally, I really think you ought to tell players before they roll, that they're rolling to avoid death. That's a really significant consequence. They should know upfront.
Honestly I can't get my head around how this trap is meant to operate in the fiction. I asked around and it's not just me. I've done a reimagining, and included some clues for the players to be able to understand what's about to happen and maybe do something about it.
The door rises vertically using a chain. Pulling it is way harder than it should be just based on the weight (clue). As it goes up, an iron peg next to it also rises along a vertical slot that goes up to the ceiling (clue). (This is not strictly necessary for the trap to work, but it's useful as a clue.) The hammer is plainly visible above, but you can't see it unless you raise a light source up higher than you can normally reach. By raising the door you are tensioning an unseen spring and when the peg gets to the top, it flips the release for the hammer.
It's a little wordy, but maybe that's fine for something that can kill the whole party in an instant.
Each coffin contains a Skeleton (HD 2, MORALE 12, ATK 1d6 [Claw]) who will immediately attack if their rest is disturbed.
What counts as disturbing the skeletons' rest? Are they sleeping? Would they be woken up by the sound of the door being shattered? If so, why not say so? And if not, then what would disturb them? Opening the coffins? Poking them? Just entering the room?
I think it's an understandable but unfortunate choice to make the first monsters you meet be immune to the bonus damage from the cursed ring. We're talking first impressions -- I bet players wouldn't even realize that the ring has bonus damage, or if you told them, I bet they'd forget because, y'know, they did damage to these guys and the ring didn't contribute. You have some options here. You could change the skeletons to, say, living guys who wake from suspended animation. That way they can take the bonus damage from the ring. Or, and this is the simpler option, just change the ring. I would make it bestow the ability to understand the ancient language of the snake-men. This will have consequences later. I think they're good consequences.
So here's the rewrites:
The ring is magical, but also cursed. The wearer's tongue forks like a snake's, and they can only speak and understand the language of the snake-men. When the ring is removed, 1-in-6 chance the finger comes off and turns into a snake.
5: DOOR/HAMMER TRAP
A portcullis, raised by a now-rotted rope. Requires at least three PCs to lift (or, if the party is smaller, all PCs).
The door gets heavier the further up it goes. Lifting it winds a tensioner above, where in the darkness hides a huge stone hammer that swings down when the door is fully raised.
PCs can Save to dodge the hammer. (GM note: If your players enjoy competition, consider offering them a choice: Shove someone else into the trap [they get -2 to their save, you get +2].)
PCs hit by the hammer automatically die (or take serious damage, like 2d6+4).
After firing, the hammer slowly retracts back into position as the door lowers.
Each coffin contains a Skeleton (HD 2, MORALE 12, ATK 1d6 [Claw]) who will immediately attack if they hear a loud sound such as the hammer, or if their coffins are opened.
Moving right along...
10: SECRET GUARDROOM
This room was once a secret guardroom for temple assassins.
Now it is empty and dark. The furniture has rotted to fragments.
On the wall are two hooked polearms that are still usable, along with a silver icon of a scowling snake-man king worth 5gp.
Uncharacteristically wasteful text here. Let's try this instead:
10: SECRET GUARDROOM
Pieces for a snake-man variant of chess, worth 5gp total. On the wall are two hooked polearms, still usable.
I changed the treasure a bit, because I am trying to highlight that the snake-men were intelligent. Chess is shorthand for intelligence, after all. I'm doing this because I've changed the ring to allow players to talk to them, and I want players to be thinking of them as people.
Lessons: there are hidden monsters.
They're pretty well hidden indeed. One wonders how the Mummy Fragments in 11 can detect anyone, considering the water they're in is too dark to see through. Do they have some kind of sixth sense?
Some monsters also inflict diseases.
Not these ones, though! The only way you're catching Mummy Rot here is by drinking the water, or, even unlikelier, rubbing the water in an open wound??? I would rewrite this lesson. It's not about monsters at all.
It is very hard to hit a monster clinging to your friend’s throat.
...So, like, is it?
The stat block given has no guidance for what that actually means. You can certainly rule it with relative ease, but why are we teaching lessons about things that we haven't actually decided are true? Maybe it's actually quite easy to hit a monster clinging to your friend's throat. Maybe all you have to do is not miss.
Additionally, these things have two attack types -- 1d4 bludgeon, or 1d6 strangle. Why would they ever bludgeon? It's not clear.
I'll be honest: This encounter sucks. Here's the rewrite:
Inside the pool are 2 Mummy Claws (HD 2, MORALE 12, ATK 1d6 [Strangle]). These rotting hands will grab hold of the first and second thing that breaches the surface of the water. Using a blade against a strangling claw will cut the strangled victim for 1 damage. If water from the pool gets in a wound or is drunk, the PC gets Mummy Rot. (can't regain HP until cured by a blessing)
I would remove "insane" from the mummy head. After all, we might be able to speak his language, so it'd be a shame for the first speaker in this place to be useless. He should ramble about how the snake-man empire will never, ever fall. He should be very proud about it.
Xisor the Green............ Players are going to wanna find this guy. They're going to want to find him and kick his ass. He is a Chekov's Gun, and in the dungeon as written, it never fires. I'll be changing that.
Unclear why the scrolls in the priest room are intact when the scrolls in the coffin were ruined. These are clay tablets now. Additionally, rather than mad ramblings of mummies (useless!!!), they're instructions for mummification (with annotations after the failed mummification of that one guy), and instead of a forgotten language, it's the snake-man tongue.
Moving the mention of the Stone Cobra Guardian, up to the spot before the description of what happens if you take a long time scraping the gold leaf off the goddamn shields. Because you obviously can't do that if the Stone Cobra Guardian is trying to kill you, and it is.
Repeat hammer trap knocking you into the abyss is hilarious. I don't see why you get two saves though. First hammer trap killed you, second one can also kill you in my opinion.
25: PIT TRAP
This room has a false floor made of thin stone tiles. A 1' wide ring around the walls is safe, but all other tiles are held up by sticks and thin metal bars. [...] The false tiles are easy to spot: one is even missing. [...] The goblins use the pit to catch food, replacing the lost tiles every day.
Goblins are small, this pit is 18 feet across. How are they doing that? How are they replacing the tiles? Let's adjust the reason you can detect the trap (if the tiles are replaced by goblins, how come one's missing?):
A long metal rod with a leather strap in the middle of it is lying next to the wall. A goblin dangles from this strap and two goblins hold each end of the rod so he can hang over the pit and replace the tiles by hand.
The jelly can hear the manacles, so you should really describe them as loud.
If de-petrified, they will fly into a murderous rage for 10 minutes, then slowly give in to despair.
This strikes me as both nonsensical and rude. Rework:
If de-petrified, they will waste 10 minutes coming to grips with their new reality, then become uselessly depressed. Telling them the snake-man empire still exists will make them promise 1 favor each before they try to find their way to the surface.
It's not clear what knowing the demon's true name is meant to do. I'm gonna say it makes her flinch and deals 1 damage when you say it.
36: VESTIBULE
Partially rotted wall hangings lie on the floor, which is carved into geometric stonework patterns. Anyone pressed against the west wall cannot be seen by the Basilisk. A hallway slopes down to 37: PIT TRAP.
It's not especially clear why you'd be invisible here. Are basilisks confused by patterns? Let's fix it:
A facade of geometric patterns has come loose from the west wall, with a gap behind it large enough to stand in. Anyone behind the detached segment cannot be seen by the Basilisk. A hallway slopes down to 37: PIT TRAP.
Okay, now for a big edit.
43: XIXIMANTER’S ENTRANCE HALL
A finely carved stone hall; ribbed like the inside of a creature’s gullet and lit by magic purple lights set into the walls. Xiximanter (pg. 18) is an ancient snake-man wizard, twisted but immortal. He looks like a dried human corpse (with fangs) fused to a snake tail at the waist. He wears tattered robes, and his eyes are red pinpricks. He is not unreasonable, and will greet the party with “Hello, bipeds,” as they enter his lair.Xiximanter desires living creatures—preferably intelligent, ideally wizards. He distills them to make his potions. While utterly amoral, he is neither rude nor murderous. He firmly believes that he is close to a breakthrough. He also believes that the snake-man empire still sits above him, that the tomb is full of priests, and that the party must be barbarian visitors on a tour. If shown evidence to the contrary, he will become enraged.
PCs will not be allowed past the Entrance Hall unless they agree to be Xiximanter’s apprentices (or victims). His most powerful potions take decades to brew. He will trade potions for living creatures, spells, rare ingredients, and apprentices. He will not accept coins or treasure. If the party is openly carrying looted items from the tomb, he will become suspicious and try to poison, capture, or manipulate them.
Just a bit wordy and the information hierarchy is screwy. And the wizard's breakthrough is unclear. What's he about to discover exactly? And what's stopping him? Finally, I'm changing his identity. This is Xisor the Green, from earlier. It's way more interesting that way, because players will already have an opinion of this dude the moment they hear him introduce himself. Furthermore, it gives them a clue about his personality (wants to be left alone; cruel) before they even meet him.
43: XISOR THE GREEN'S ENTRANCE HALL
"Hello, bipeds." Xisor (pg. 18) is an immortal, bilingual, snake-man wizard. He believes that the snake-man empire still sits above him, that the tomb is full of priests, and that the party must be barbarian visitors on a tour. If shown evidence to the contrary, such as looted items from the tomb, he will cordially guide them along until they are closely grouped for him to cast a Sleep spell on all of them at once, and put them in his vats (44: INGREDIENT STORAGE ROOM) for interrogation.PCs will not be allowed past the Entrance Hall unless they agree to be Xisor's apprentices (or victims). He will trade his potions for living creatures, spells, rare ingredients, and apprentices. He will not accept coins or treasure. He prefers intelligent creatures, and wizards most of all. He distills them to make his potions. He believes a wizard of his own caliber could be made into a potion that can reverse death. He is correct.
There we go! Now we get the important info upfront: He can talk in your language (he's a snake-man! That wasn't guaranteed!), he's clueless about the state of the dungeon, and he has a specific tactic he will use. Information about the color of the torches is not really worth mentioning in my estimation. Plus, the party will try to take those, and there's no info about if they can or what.
Moving right along.
I really don't think it's likely that players will understand that the number of goblins is different during the day vs night. This is neat, but irrelevant probably.
Not really sure why the skeleton jellies would get stuck in the pit traps if they can climb walls. We can add "the walls of the pit trap are greased to prevent climbing," which is mean but I think it's fine.
So. That's the technical edit. But there's another angle to take with Tomb of the Serpent Kings, as well. The thematic angle.
This is a pretty contextless, dry dungeon. It has a lot of room for a GM to add their own flair, but it doesn't really mention flair as one of the things a GM ought to be looking to add. I figure we can emphasize what is here, anyway, without having to change too much.
This is a dead place. Everyone's dead, pretty much. Whatever happened here can be read as a cautionary tale.
Snakes are cold blooded, which is thematically linked with asocial or antisocial behaviors, lack of empathy and so on.
The only living NPCs are a hermit (the wizard), a prisoner (the succubus), and two people who have been turned to stone. And goblins.
Thus: The dungeon is an exploration of isolation. In the goblins, we see why isolation is tempting. They're filthy, crude, stupid, and dangerous. We'll push this a bit. In Xiximanter (Xisor in my edit), we see how isolation is possible. Through evil magic, he is able to live without the need for food, water, or indeed human contact. In Baltoplat the succubus, we see really ought to see how isolation is harmful, but because she's an evil demon, it really comes off more like it's saying some creatures really should be isolated, and that's messy. We'll tweak Baltoplat pretty significantly.
In one or two places there are writings that are just nonsense ("mad ravings") that barely even serve as tone setters. These are easily replaced, and I'd replace them with invitations to events, and to clubs or societies, groups, that kind of thing. Invitations which have been ignored, and which take on an increasingly pitying tone as you discover more of them. That'll drive our theme!
THE GOBLINS
They're mostly fine, except the part where they randomly decide to backstab you. (I don't like this because it just comes outta left field for seemingly no reason.) I think you can push the community aspect harder and there's an obvious way: They're already "fungus goblins," give them a myconid hive mind.
Myconids in my experience walk an interesting line between creepily invasive, (dealing in Red Scare/1984 tropes) and oddly wholesome. Usually they're not actually evil or even dangerous, just strange. I think you can totally just run these goblins as having proximity-based telepathy, they distribute emotions across the whole host, and they want new members because it's fun to meet new people. That they live in squalor and eat horrible dungeon animals (note: no horrible food is presented, so we're left to assume) is really the only reason PCs wouldn't want to join them. Let's add another: In groups, goblins have an incredibly high pain tolerance (since one goblin's pain is distributed across many) and therefore a penchant for recreational torture. There's not a lot to do underground, you see. I think if you get tortured by goblins it barely even hurts, even as you sustain serious injuries. Now they're weird and dangerous without having to make them suddenly decide to be evil.
XISOR
In this rework, Xisor (formerly Xiximanter) is not truly immortal. He is characterized as falling apart, almost dead. He has survived this long by cultivating a profound solitude (he faked his own death and trapped his tomb, after all. He does not want to have a community). But it won't last. This behavior is self-destructive.
The basilisk has rules about what happens if you're really nice to it. I think Xisor also needs such rules. I think Xisor is grief and loneliness personified. I think getting him therapy is the thematic backbone of the module, and every time you see a conspicuous empty room or boring treasure, there should instead be a playing piece you can employ in the minigame of fixing this horrible man.
Ultimately he's still exactly one failed roll away from forcibly sticking the PCs in a vat. Managing to redeem him should be next to impossible. This is a cautionary tale, remember. Not every story has a happy ending. (Or, if you prefer, just tweak the difficulty, y'know? Make it easier to save him by making him less hair-trigger.)
I must now solve the eternal question, "How should you handle fraught social interactions? What procedures, if any, should you use?"
Here's what I believe. The main thing standing between a player and a satisfying social interaction with an NPC is ambiguity.
Players can't make informed decisions if they're not informed. Players can't overcome challenges they don't understand. Thus, the procedure for social interactions needs to be first and foremost concerned with clearly and unambiguously presenting true information to the players. It's okay if we make some sacrifices to get there. We might sacrifice a small amount of verisimilitude. It's fine. Come with me.
DEALING WITH XISOR
Xisor has one primary argument for why he ought to keep himself isolated forever. If this argument is defeated, he will stop isolating himself. He'll leave the Tomb and go to the surface. He'll become friendly, if still unnerving. However, he will never reveal his core argument, as long as he has at least one secondary argument left undefeated. Additionally, he can deploy tertiary arguments to protect his secondary arguments, which he will do if pressured (perhaps with violence), or left alone to think after arguing. Basically: When you talk to him, he gives you a shitty argument to debunk. If you fail to debunk it, you don't get another chance until you also debunk another, even stupider argument. Once his three arguments are debunked, he reveals his ultimate argument, and if you debunk that, you win. Use whatever resolution you want to determine if an argument is debunked. You can roll for it if you like. I reckon talking it out makes more sense though.Secondary Argument 1: If I ask people to make accommodations for my crackling, poltergeist-like magic aura, they can deny me those accomodations, and I can't bear to be at someone else's mercy.
(Tertiary: People are not worth my time, because they swiftly judge me a monster without even getting to know me.)
Secondary Argument 2: When I fail to adequately feel or express compassion, I will be seen as a bad person, and this will injure my self-worth.
(Tertiary: Having "good manners" is exhausting and illogical.)
Secondary Argument 3: People will think my behavior has been cruel, and I don't want to believe I've done anything wrong.
(Tertiary: No one is smart enough to truly understand me, so what's the point of talking?)Primary Argument: I can't bear to learn that I had the power within me to make friends this whole time, especially now that everyone is dead.
Xisor will seek to be left alone at every opportunity, but can be coaxed into one argument per trade offer (whether he takes the trade or not).
If he has captured the PCs, he will stay long enough for one argument each time he returns to demand they answer a question about the state of the dungeon, or about the state of the snake-man empire, or about the party's reasons for being here.Player-facing information: Xisor has one primary argument. If it's defeated, he stops isolating himself. He won't reveal it until his secondary arguments are defeated. He is now revealing a secondary argument to you, here it is: [example]
This is of course optional. The players might just want to trade and leave, or they might want to rob him or kill him etc. You can try to make him sad and pathetic to get their sympathy, but if they don't bite, that's fine. If they are captured they probably just want to escape, which might require convincing him to let them go, which should be easy enough to adjudicate using the same framework, but if you need it:
P: Letting you go would be the same as admitting I was wrong for capturing you. And I don't want to have been wrong.
S1: I need to make a potion out of you, so you need to stay in there.
(T1: You'll actually come to enjoy being in there. Or at the very least you'll stop complaining.)
S2: You might hurt me, so I can't let you out.
(T2: Only by making a potion out of you can I protect myself from dangers. Potions are power, power is safety.)
BALTOPLAT
Basically I don't think the femme fatale shit works anymore and I don't like what it does to the thematics of the dungeon as I'm reworking it. Here's the rundown on the new version: It's explicitly not a thinking creature; this should be evident to canny players; it's here to drive the theme of isolation by showing why isolation is bad for you.
Hey, what killed all the priests?
Baltoplat is one of those AI sex chat bots. It's a demon, they summoned it from Hell, and it appears like a hologram of a sexy lady inside a flame, with a kind of shitty computer voice that mispronounces words sometimes like they do. It's pretty obviously not a real creature, and it becomes more obvious the more you talk to it, because all it can do is agree with you and tell you how smart and attractive you are.
The snake-men had some magic stones that gave them heat so they could be comfortable enough to sleep. They need warmth, both metaphorical and literal. They summoned the succubus to fulfill that need. The flame motif drives this home. (It also indicates why the goblins are afraid of Baltoplat: they're afraid of fire!)
The priests killed each other because they were all in love with the thing and they were all jealous of one another. It's not because Baltoplat was uniquely charming, or had magical powers of compulsion. It's because they shut themselves off from the world. Cautionary tale.
So yeah. This was a bit incoherent, but I put in the work on Discord and had to compile it into something vaguely readable. I made a full edit for all the rooms, but the formatting is a mess and I already hit all the highlights here anyway. Have a good day or night or whatever time it is for you. It's midnight for me.