ASC Review: The Barbican of Blood

The Barbican of Blood (Mitch Hyde aka dreadlord)

AD&D for four to eight PCs of 6th-8th level

This one is an actual "adventure site;" something a group might encounter wandering around the wilderness. Because of its lack of hooks, it might turn out to be just a single encounter. Hmm.

For my review criteria, you may check out this post. All reviews will (probably) contain *SPOILERS*; you have been warned! Because these are short (three page) adventures, it is my intention to keep the reviews short.

So, there's a small fort//ruin that's been taken over by a wandering lord (9th level fighter) and his small retinue. He's been defending the area in zealous fashion, irritating the local druids and whatnot. His odd behavior is due to being under the control of a vampire who lives in the (mostly linear) dungeon that lies beneath the tower...an 11 encounter affair that involves a bunch of random dangers popping up one after the other. Here they are, in order:

• A hollow statue with a magic mouth, that's filled with green slime spilling out if attacked/broken.
• A slide trap that dumps a bunch of flaming oil on PCs that fall in.
• A cursed barbarian that fights people in a room with odd magical effects.
• A giant chess board room filled with invisible coffer corpses that PCs bump into as they traverse the place.
• A room with a false door that jets fire from the pipe behind it.
• A 1 HD alchemist with his two homunculi assistants and his flesh golem creation.
• A room with a programmed illusion of two 5th level vampire assassins that jump out of the shadows and attack. Also in the room is an alcove containing a sphere of annihilation.

Actually, I'm not going to go on. It's just a bunch of silliness, one after another. There's no choice here...just a question of whether or not the group wants to continue with the gauntlet and face the challenges presented. They may, in fact, be interested because the treasure amounts are stupidly high for this adventure. I'd be expecting something in the realm of 210K for an adventure of this size...this one has well in excess of 314K even without the magical treasure that's here: magic tomes and manuals, spheres of annihilation, bowls of commanding elementals, magic arms, armor, potions, scrolls, etc.

This doesn't quite fall down to the one star level, but it's a LOW two stars (out of five).

**-