paizo.com - Dungeon Crawl Classics Flip Book (1E) PDF

Dungeon Crawl Classics: The Golden Auroch/Tower of the Black Pearl: Two Adventures for Level 1 Characters

This "flip book" features The Golden Auroch on one side and Tower of the Black Pearl on the other! It was originally produced exclusively for Gen Con 2008.

The Golden Auroch:
Evil has always blown upon the hot winds of Sumer, but never has there been a land as oppressive and intent on discord than Ur. For decades the people of this city-state were held prisoner by their mage-queen, Nicrotis, and neighboring lands quivered whenever her armies marched. Central to Nicrotis' power, both at home and afar, was her possession of a holy statue called the Golden Auroch. In time, the gods took notice and intervened, reducing the entire city of Ur to dust in a fierce sandstorm that lasted forty years. Now, a century later, the city-state of Akkad is in the midst of a drought of unimaginable length and intensity. Not a single drop of rain has fallen for three years. The only hope for salvation lies in traveling to the cursed ruins of Ur, braving the Tomb of Nicrotis located below them, and returning with the Golden Auroch.

Tower of the Black Pearl:
Once every decade, the tides of the Empyrean Ocean recede far enough to reveal the highest eaves of a mysterious undersea tower. Long ago this was the eldritch fastness of a powerful mage, but now the tower is known simply as the final resting place of the fabled Black Pearl—an artifact rumored to bring doom upon all who dare to posses it. Tonight the moon nearly fills the sky, and the tides have already begun to recede. The heroes have eight short hours to explore the tower before the dark waters return...

Rules Set: 1E
Writers: Andrew Hind, Harley Stroh
1E Rules Conversion: Jon Hershberger
Cover Art: Brad McDevitt
GMGGC08-2, 24 pages

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An RPG Resource Review
Reviewer: Megan Robertson
Sat, Aug 1, 2009, 08:07 AM

Whether you think the 'flip book' concept is an amusing conceit or a bit fiddly in 'dead tree' product, in PDF it plain doesn't work. What is the point of half a book being upside down on my screen? Especially when the ability to edit has been disabled so it cannot be split into the 2 components and the pages resequenced to be viewed normally.... Grrr.

Rant over, let's have a look at the adventures. First up is The Tower of the Black Pearl a first-level adventure involving the exploration of a tower only revealed at extremely low tide - something that happens once a decade, so grab your chance while you may. Good background material is provided for the DM along with several hooks to get the characters involved. Once in, it's a neat adventure, challenging without being overwhelming, and nicely time-limited... after all, you go there at extreme low tide!

And now to t'other adventure (once the entire PDF is rotated and you start paging backwards!). The Golden Auroch is again a 1st-level adventure concerning the exploration of a tomb in a lost city in a desert. There's a relic to be retrieved... but a neat and compact underground complex to be negotiated if you want it. Another good low-level adventure with some interesting opposition to challenge the characters.

Overall, two excellent 1st-level adventures, either suitable as a campaign-starter, marred only by the construction of the PDF, you'd have to print it to render it usable. I'd have given 4 stars for the adventures...