The Bruja, The Beast and The Barrow: Review & Play Report

I have been a big fan of Gus' dungeons & adventure modules for a long time. I introduced my little brother to old fashioned D&D with Hel's Crow's Final Rest. I've run Red Demon in the Swamp and Prison of the Hated Pretender 3+ times each (most recently using Mork Borg last May). 

I was pre-disposed to love this dungeon.

First Impression

At it's core, this is one pre-dungeon NPC encounter and a classic five room dungeon. The module is three pages long (plus a cover). The first page outlines the situation & the initial NPC encounter. The remaining two pages comprise the dungeon map and key. The map is an attractive isometric cutaway, easily referenced in play and evocative illustrations have been provided for both of the adventure's main NPCs.

Within this simple structure, Gus has packed in a lot of potential for negotiation and double-cross. As he explains, "This adventure isn’t only a simple tomb crawl. It seeks to add of factions and intrigue—to place a location and NPCs on the map that open the possibility of future complexity."

For my taste, the key demonstrate's an ideal level of detail and a good balance of enjoyable readability outside of play and easy accessibility at the table. After reading it over a couple times, I'd feel totally comfortable running this from my phone.

Delving Inside

I ran the adventure for three friends via Discord + whiteboard as a part of my ongoing Thurstle Island campaign using my own Ultra-Bastard rules (mostly B/X-ish with some Apocalypse powered bits).

Play report with extensive spoilers. 

I assume if you're reading this play report you've already perused the adventure:

• The island druids brought the adventurers to Pickbone Mound as a favor to Marble Eyes, who has helped them in the past. 
• My players enjoyed an extensive conversation with Marble Eyes, trying to understand the parameters and dangers of the mission into Pickbone Mound. They got along pretty well with the old warlock and eventually agreed to take a hog down into the barrow and refresh the wards.
• They descended down the shaft into the tomb and made short work of rototilling through the upper feast hall and false tomb, eagerly scooping up "Biter" a cursed spear.
• The Stone Guardian's proved a substantial obstacle. They recognized the glowing eyes as a likely weak point and targeted them eventually defeating each of the three active sentinels.
1. The first they immobilized with a Command spell and quickly chiseled out the eyes. Seeing that blinding the monster de-activated it gave them confidence for the others.
2. For the second, they used glue recovered on a previous adventure and pasted paper over it's face.
3. The third, they threw a blanket over it's head.
• Arriving in the altar chamber they came face to face with Rolling Calf. They took an immediate umbrage to his imperious demands and found his promises unconvincing. Nevertheless, they pressed him for information and offered many deals and counter-deals. 
• They learned that the Beast had been tasked with killing Marble Eyes by a distant Warlock King and that he is bound to this plane until his mission is completed.
• The Beast revealed that there were treasures in a vault only accessible via his warded prison. He offered free passage to let them go down and examine the treasures but the wary adventurers immediately noticed that he did not offer free passage out.
• The Beast offered to commit a murder for them in exchange for his freedom. 
• Eventually the negotiations hit a deadlock and so they left the pig and returned to Marble Eyes. 
• Further quizzing of Marble Eyes confirmed the enmity with Rolling Calf and reinforced the party's loyalty to the magic user. 
• The party realized that Marble Eyes memory has been badly corroded and that while the old sorcerer has powerful magic, they are terribly confused and disabled.
• Marble Eyes helped them identify that Biter was cursed. They now plan to gift it to a rival.
• The party still wanted the mound's treasures and went back down into the tomb with several more pigs (mostly to spite the unlikable Rolling Calf). 
• They accepted Rolling Calf's offer to examine the treasure but, after looting the crypt, instead of returning via the Beat's altar chamber, they used the spell tablet they received from Yog. 
• The tablet lets them cast Safe Portal: This spell will only work if the caster is in imminent danger, and will create a portal to somewhere familiar and safe (but not of the caster's choosing).
• To satisfy the requirement for imminent danger, they piled up all the corroded candles in the tomb and set the chamber on fire.
• The portal deposited them in the out house of the tavern back in Cove Town. Rather than allow the portal to persist, they promptly burned the out house down.
• In the end the players had a lot of fun and the characters recovered significant treasure. They will likely work with Marble Eyes in the future and they were delighted by their successful hoodwinking of the Beast. Figuring out how their Safe Portal spell worked was also a valuable result.

Concluding Thoughts

This is a great little adventure that was easy to run. I'd highly recommend it to other DMs.

I admire the concision of this dungeon. Over the last year, running my own dungeons, I have found that I tend to make dungeon's too big and they become unwieldy to finish. My own barrow dungeon is considerably more sprawling. BB&B accomplishes a lot in both a small page count and with a small number of rooms and encounters. I want to get better at this in my own adventures.