Review: Barrow of the Bone Blaggards

Barrow of the Bone Blaggards

By Chance Dudinack; art by Letty Wilson; cartography by Glynn Seal
OSE, levels 1−3
14 pages; 22-room dungeon

Included in the Old School Essentials Adventure Anthology 2, Barrow of the Bone Blaggards is available in print for $20 (PDF included) and as a PDF for $10. The entire anthology consists of four adventures across 63 pages. This review contains spoilers. I have played through this adventure but not refereed it.

The opening page provides a rumor for the players as well as a brief overview of the situation for the referee’s benefit. The next page features the map and a d6 random encounter table, and the following page features write-ups on the dungeon’s denizens and its construction—a pattern consistent with the other adventures in anthologies 1 & 2.

Thanks to Chance Dudinack’s efficient text and the OSE house style, Barrow of the Bone Blaggards proves easy to parse. I expect one would face no difficulty in running this adventure straight from the page, though reading the briefs on its denizens ahead of time may be advisable. I have one quibble regarding usability. Under “General Notes”, the “Lighting” section reads: “All areas except 10, 12–14, and 16–19 are kept lit […].” Including a simple icon alongside each room description to indicate the presence or absence of light would have improved ease of use without a material increase in information density.

Broadly speaking, I observed many parallels between this adventure and Curse of the Maggot God: both have room descriptions that are highly functional but not inspiring; both lack a “clock,” time pressure beyond a random encounter table; both feature primarily generic D&D monsters in a familiar locale; and both are a bit lacking in sheer wonder and originality. (It’s worth noting that Barrow of the Bone Blaggards also has a source of implied time pressure; PCs are likely to learn of the captive merchants. However, the adventure includes no explicit consequences should the party take their sweet time in staging a rescue.)

Despite some shortcomings, Barrow of the Bone Blaggards is a strong adventure with several standout elements. It particularly excels in its characters and the situation it presents. The necromancer Quintius, imprisoned by the titular bone blaggards he reanimated, has convinced these raucous undead that he can restore them to life through a ritual. The undead, meanwhile, utterly beyond Quintius’ control, covet flesh, and the skeletons among them “often remove skin, limbs, and other parts from victims in misguided attempts to apply them to their own body and hasten the ‘progress’ of Quintius’s ritual.” This delightfully horrifying scenario affords plenty of opportunities for faction play, and, to top it all off, there’s a pixie, an undead treant, and human prisoners all with goals of their own.

Each of these factions is well characterized through concise embellishments to the dungeon key. For example: “In combat, the skeletons call dibs on which body parts they’ll take from the PCs after they kill them.” This adds a new layer of horror to the ubiquitous undead. In Quintius, Barrow of the Bone Blaggards presents a repugnant yet human villain, one willing to condemn his fellow prisoners to a gruesome fate in order to forestall a doom of his own making.

Other highlights include a trapped tapestry—that will see players either congratulating themselves on their cleverness or slapping their foreheads after falling prey to it—and the spatial organization of the dungeon itself. In my own playthrough of the adventure, my party opted for the dungeon’s less obvious entrance, which appeared to be the path of least resistance. That entrance led us straight to the amassed bone blaggards, and upon overhearing talk of prisoners, we realized that reaching those prisoners would require us to fight our way through the bulk of the undead or take the long way around through unexplored sections of the barrow.

I had a fantastic time playing this adventure, and I’d highly recommend despite its minor flaws. Those who appreciate OSE-style keying and somewhat vanilla D&D fantasy will find that Barrow of the Bone Blaggards has a great deal to offer them. And even those whose tastes skew towards rich prose and weirdness are bound to have a good time.