ASC Review: Foundry Ovens of the Bitter Paramore [sic]

Foundry Ovens of the Bitter Paramore (Nick Alexander)

AD&D for PCs of 5th-7th level

This one is gross. But whatever.

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.

Some people dig horror and stuff that pushes (or crosses) the boundaries of "good taste." House of 1,000 Corpses. The Human Centipede. Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Whatever. That's not my bag, and I don't have to watch it, listen to it, play it. But today I'm reviewing it. It's not the most egregious adventure I've read, but it's not pleasant. So we'll see how much my bias colors my review.

The "Bitter Paramore" [sic] of the title (note to the author: "Paramour" is not spelled like that, unless you mean the emo band) is a fire giant (or is he?) that runs a hellish factory of smoke and fire, kidnapping women from around the territory in order to exercise his depredations before burning them alive and stuffing them in metal statues. That's the "PG" summary. Everyone in the "Foundry" (a five-story dungeon site of some 19-20 encounters) is despicable, insane, or both and well-worth putting to the sword. If killing shit without moral quandary is your thing, feel free to go hog wild in this place.

Skipping past the lovingly described scenes of torture and mayhem, let's look at the "dungeon-y stuff" in this hellscape: denizens of the Foundry include a fire giant, a deranged leprechaun, an imprisoned efreeti, a bitter ghost, some 15 verbeeg (half-giants) and their leader, 50 hobgoblins, a flesh golem, and a doppleganger. However, the majority of these (including the main antagonist) have no set locations but instead only appear on a 2-in-6 chance here, or a 1-in-6 chance there. It is possible that PCs will wander around encountering great batches of nothing (or very small encounters), given the random rolling. An actual timeline (as is done with the 1st floor sentries) would have been more advisable.

We also have additional random encounters that include firebats, hargrin, magmen, and para-elementals of magma (although no hit dice are given for those last ones...a bit of an oversight). No order of battle given or discussion of what happens if an alarm is raised and how the scores of guardsmen, etc. react when the PCs begin butchering people. This would have been good information to include.

Challenge level for monsters is thus 'all over the place.' Will a fight with a 16 HD elemental attract attention? How fast do verbeeg patrols react to sounds of mayhem? Will the hobgoblins shrug and look away or will the "paramore" whip them into a fighting frenzy? It's all DM discretion whether various groups are apathetic or whether they swarm PCs en masse. It is even possible to "blow the tank" of the foundry, filling the place with the equivalent of an incendiary cloud, releasing 2d6 magma elementals (again: no hit dice given), and having a 25% chance of collapsing the whole structure, killing everyone inside...including the PCs. Ouch!

Expected treasure take for an adventure this size  should be around the 160K-170K mark. Total monetary treasure barely clears 43K. If you sell every magic item found (don't drink those potions!) you can push that up to 130K. Eh...a little short, but close.

The new spell, Stir Bride of Chlimbia, is too powerful for a 7th level spell. Fortunately, using it in this adventure is likely to kill all the PCs. Probably should make it 9th level and/or place a limit on just how many 12 HD golems (3-30 damage, +2 weapons o hit, and breath weapon equal to current HPs!) the caster can animate with the spell. Used on the rooftop, it'll give you a dozen of these destroyers; again, ouch.

This is (probably) an exceptionally dangerous dungeon with fairly low reward, and a new spell that can have hugely bad ramifications in a campaign. I also find much of it to be excessively distasteful. Taste, however, doesn't factor into my rating, and it's still rather playable. Three stars (out of five) with a "-" for the problems mentioned. It should probably kill a lot of PCs.

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