In which I critique a thirty-three-year-old puzzle dungeon and try to fix her.
Deep dive into “The Mud Sorcerer’s Tomb”
“The Mud Sorcerer’s Tomb” is an AD&D 2e adventure for 6-8 characters of levels 10-14. It’s written by Mike Shel and made its first appearance in Dungeon Magazine #37. This adventure has been recommended when looking for a puzzle dungeon. I was very curious what this Dungeon from 1992 had to bring to the table back then and if it still holds up today.
Below I'll point out what I like and dislike about the rooms and the adventure overall, as well as provide examples of how it could be improved. I won't be addressing all 33 dungeon areas, but a good chunk of them. Finally, I have some mud related ideas of my own that I shall loose from my skull.
TL;DR: There are very fun ideas in “The Mud Sorcerer’s Tomb,” but as written, it doesn’t make for a satisfying puzzle dungeon. Skip to the end for some mud magic and musings.
Introduction
To start, we get some inspiration sources listed from the author: S1 Tomb of Horrors, S2 White Plume Mountain, C1 Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan. Solid line up and at this point he had my interest.
We get a similar note as in ToH about this being a “thinking players” adventure and swinging your sword won’t solve your problems.
Theme
We're given an affirmation that the theme of the day is mud. The module directly states that ancillary themes are Water and Earth. There’s lots you can do with mud. Dungeon remodeling with stone to mud and mud to stone, quickmud, sticky mud, mud armor, mud rivers, mud geysers, mud steam saunas, shapeshifting mud golems named “Clayface”. The list goes on. Unfortunately, none of those are in the module.
Background
There’s a cult of magic users who think mud magic and their two elements (water and earth) are the bees knees and the one true way. Things transpire and mud is no longer in vogue. Important people are killing the magic users and the mud mages are scared. The site of the adventure is a dungeon tomb that is actually the hideaway of a stasis-bound mud wizard.
We get some fluff about how the cult wants to toy with would-be grave robbers by giving them “clues” because everyone knows that tomb robbers are stupid and don't really understand this whole mud magic religion thing anyway. Only legitimate followers of the muddy way could possibly unravel the secrets within the tomb and wake their mud mage master when the witch hunt finally ends.
“To test one’s mettle” is the weakest reason for a puzzle dungeon to exist. I like puzzle dungeons that are how they are because it just makes sense for the people that live there. If there’s a blind cult, they don’t even think about setting up their den for sighted people. Didn’t feel that breeze and fell to your death off an unlit ledge? Well you should have closed your eyes and followed the embossed markings on the wall that guide you on the safe path. Did the humanoid-looking mound of dirt suck all the moisture out of your juicy pores and leave you a desiccated husk? Well you should have fed the mud golem water like the dungeon denizens did three rooms back.
All that jazz about dungeon purpose being said, I could see a fun way to keep this fresh. The prominent mud mage wants to make sure that whoever finds their “tomb” is inclined to wake them up and restore them to power. So keep the premise of “smite the looters and those too weak for the awesome power of mud.” Let’s put the PCs in a race against true believers already inside the dungeon. The cultists have hired some sell-swords to help them out and promised them whatever loot they find. The mercenaries don’t like sharing treasure, and will thus be less inclined to allow PCs free reign, but might be negotiated with for the right split. The cultists don’t care who helps them as long as they get to revive their leader. Now we’re bristling with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade vibes. We’ll probably be looking at a bunch of already solved puzzles left in an awkward state, or traps disarmed and rearmed with PCs at first trying to work backwards. Unexplored branches with chalk promising “good plunder this way”. I’d play that game.
Spell restrictions
Eventually we get to the “Magic Use in the Tomb” section which lists off the spells and magic that will not function normally within this dungeon. The magic catchall for forcing PCs to not solve these puzzles “the easy way”. A problem with any version of Dungeons & Dragons is magic that lets players break barriers (often literally) and get through gates. These magics make designing a puzzle dungeon a daunting task. You know the ones: fly, underwater breathing, passwall, stone shape, super strength, teleport, mist-form, etc.). There are ways to design around it, but it’s not easy. One of the best ways is to make sure the strength of your adventure doesn’t depend on every stone block, 100’ chasm, or electric fence that gates the PCs. Your adventure is the sum of the parts of your challenges that should weave together a cohesive whole.
Taking away these problem solving spells and items sucks for players who have earned them over 10-14 levels of play.
The lower the level of the PC, the better chance they don’t have access to these kind of puzzle-side-stepping magics. A lot of these restrictions could have been avoided if the recommended PC levels were set lower (1-3).
Honestly though, odds are that the whole party won’t be able to cheese every challenge or get every PC through every gate at the same time. So don’t sweat the special powers that much. Let them use the pocket watch of teleport ego to trade consciousness with the goblin on the other side of the impassable adamantine wall. It’ll be fine.
Side note: The module specifies that some spells have a possibility of summoning a Mud Grue. A kind of mud elemental bipedal crocodile that attempts to drown you by vomiting mud down your throat. So if you run this, make sure to keep them because that’s fucking metal.
Information gating
Next we get info for the players which is gated behind a sage paywall. I’d probably just treat these as rumors if I were to run it today. Unfortunately, the “hints” are required to solve puzzles within the dungeon. I’m down with dealing out hints through rumors or hired wisdom, but they should be optional.
At the end of this section, unassumingly, the module suggests offering a Rosetta stone to players for translating inscriptions in the dungeon. “At a rate of one line per turn”, which actually sounds like a pretty solid tradeoff for a hint mechanic. Instead of requiring a sage info dump, give the players all the information they need to solve the challenge through mastering the rules of their environment, but have some inscriptions which might offer an optional clue for when they are truly stuck. They just trade in their precious in-game time for it.
Wandering Encounters
This module has none. This isn’t a deal breaker for a puzzle dungeon, but it is a deal breaker when time is a resource. There are some traps and rooms that seem to be designed to waste time as a resource. That’s great when time matters, but as written, this module has no consequences for expended time. I might be missing something specific to AD&D 2e though.
Dungeon Areas
1. Granite Block Set in Cavern wall
The first keyed entry is a granite block that slides away when the correct sequence of buttons are pressed. The correct button sequence is the English word “welcome” hidden amongst some Dwarvish words which are intended to confuse the players. Not a great start.
As a general rule, it's not good to lock up a required path through the dungeon behind a puzzle with a single solution. But let’s say we wanted to do it anyway.
How about instead of an unrelated puzzle, we start hammering in the themes of the dungeon right here at the entrance. The module talks about a bunch of special symbols representing mud and water and earth. Let’s throw those symbols on the granite instead. “You’re in the right place, grave robbers!” Put in some muddy footprints leading up to the granite that seem to continue in through the solid rock. Actually, is that a muddy discarded glove sticking halfway out of the wall? Further investigation shows the footprints originate from that nearby pit of stanky, viscous mud.
Only mud may pass through this enchanted rock, or anything (anyone) completely covered in mud.
This could open up some interesting knock-on puzzles later on in the dungeon where you need to be covered in mud to pass through a similar rock “door”, but there's a waterfall or river you need to get past first which might wash you of your muddy exterior.
You could flip it and have a version where you want to avoid moving through the magic mud rock which covers the entire floor of a room.
PCs might not want to be sopping covered in mud either. There should be creatures and magic that control mud inside this tomb. You don’t want to become the next mud puppet because you couldn't keep clean.
In the module, the stone block resets, trapping the PCs inside. This has the practical effect of limiting character resources by preventing them from returning to town. Trapping PCs is a trick that's hard to pull off at the table satisfactorily for several reasons, but we can flip the script and keep the resource crunch.
Let's say the entire dungeon has been temporarily risen from a mudflat and will sink back into oblivion after tonight. That puts the power in the PCs hands on when and if they want to cut their losses and head home. It adds time pressure and turns the game into “push your luck”.
2. Entry chamber
It’s a very large room filled with pools. Great! A place to wash up.
This gets the water theme going, cool. There’s a bell that drains and fills a pool and there’s a key at the bottom. The key is an optional reward for exploration. Solid.
The water draining and refilling mechanism would be interesting to use again elsewhere in the dungeon. Introduce it here and have it show up later to assist in shenanigans such as draining a flooded room, flooding a dirt filled room to create mud, redirecting water or mud to another area where it's needed.
3. Crying eye chamber
I love me some eyeballs. This wall has a door that cannot be accessed due to all the massive staring eyes that are crying acid. Whatcha gonna do? This is a pretty cool challenge, but a far cry from the established themes of the dungeon. Maybe water? I'd save this instead for another fun eyeball themed dungeon. ;-)
4. Statuary
There's a bunch of statues here, but not a lot of rewarding interactivity. There's a mandatory ancient language hint scroll that can be found but it's hidden among a ton of gotcha traps and cursed treasure.
There is one part that’s decent. One of the statues holds an actual shovel. It's a subtle prod toward digging up a burial mound in the adjacent room. Unfortunately, there isn’t much of interest down there.
How about instead, we DIG further into the earth theme here. Petrification. Let's put a preserved servant or general here as a statue. Sent to aid the mudmancers of the future when this place is rediscovered. Surely, true worshipers would come bearing magic that turns stone to flesh (Or would find it in the dungeon). The statue holds a key which was petrified with them. The key can be carefully chiseled away from the stone but will shatter if used in a lock. The preserved servant can even speak the ancient language of mudmancy but will require some strong convincing to part with the key or aid the party.
6. Great Stone face
It's a big old face with nostrils you can look through! The face is a “one-way” door that you could circumvent if only you were tiny enough. This is a fun challenge, and a neat clue to the layout of the dungeon, but not at all related to established themes. Yoink this for a different dungeon.
8. Another stone face
This face has a fun clue in an ancient language that the PCs probably can't read. It says “listen”.
These stone faces keep showing up in the dungeon. Repetition is great in puzzle dungeons. They help establish mechanics of the dungeon and cue the players to think how similar challenges worked before. How might this time be the same or different? Repetition narrows the scope of the mental load of the players. The players already have an idea of what to expect and, as a designer, you can play with that by adding new complications to the challenge or subverting expectations completely.
This particular challenge has a nasty gotcha with no hints to help players out. The left ear has something good in it (a key), the right ear triggers a trap. If the left versus right thing is also repeated elsewhere in the dungeon, but it’s not done in a clear way. “Left good, right bad” could be a valuable payoff for observant players, but like the stone face itself, it doesn’t really fit with the theme of the dungeon..
9. Hidden coffin
There’s a pillar in the middle of the room with a keyhole in it. The key from the second great stone face can be inserted into the keyhole and turned left or right. Observant players might now say “Aha! My moment has come.” But they would be only half right. Turn the key left, a cavity opens, but it is also accompanied by a blast of stone debris that acts as a trap. Turning the key to the right does nothing. All this really teaches the players is that this dungeon doesn't follow rules—which doesn’t make it a very good puzzle dungeon..
10. Long pillared hall
There is a sweet robot here and all clues in this area point to getting a fun mechanical buddy, but player dreams are doomed to be dashed. There's a hidden key that fits the robot. The key can be turned left or right. Turn the key to the right and the robot explodes, dealing damage. Turn the key to the left and the robot activates and attacks. I have the same sentiments as before with the false clues. Where did the mud-themed dungeon go?
11. Ctenixil's Lair
A spirit Naga lives here hidden among the snake statues. Cool, but not on theme. Interesting enough to inquire further though. Too bad it attacks first and only offers lies if its life is spared.
Optional cheats are good to have in puzzle dungeons. NPCs with info they'll dish out for a little something in case PCs get hopelessly stuck. Players still get to choose their own difficulty level since it's an optional interaction that might cost them more than they are comfortable with. This Naga seemed like a good opportunity for that.
Dice-off with the Naga? Valuable information goes to the players who succeed, but a quarter of their lifespan goes to the Naga if they fail. Snake eyes turn the thrower to stone.
12. Ceremonial chamber
Lots of stuff to interact with here. Not much of it good. The rug is trapped, the tapestries are trapped, the altar is trapped but can be disabled if you speak “mud” in the ancient language the PCs probably don't know. There's fun stuff on the altar that is mostly trapped or tricky-trapped. There's a cute little snake you can ask hints of, but only 2 of them are true and the third is a lie and a bite to the face.
All of this discourages player interaction and that is not our goal in a puzzle dungeon. Lots of this stuff has PCs questioning even the true hints and mechanics of the dungeon. No bueno.
There is one really cool item you MIGHT obtain here. Mud ring, baby! This thing has a bunch of mud related spells. There's also a chance that with each use, an entity from another plane captures you and blinks you away. Seems like a fun opportunity for further adventures. Even though this ring is so cool and so on-theme, it is still soured by the module’s own spell restrictions. This prevents PCs from using the mud spells on this ring to help solve our (alleged) mud-themed dungeon!
14. Two pools and stone face
There are two pools here. One has psychedelic fish and the other has a bunch of loose change and a copper key but the copper key only appears if every single coin is removed. This seems overly tedious to me. Players might think there’s a hidden key in the water because there was one in the earlier area. It seems arbitrary to make them remove every coin from the pool first though.
Ditch the fish. Instead of water in the pools, there’s mud-cracked earth at the bottom, as well as a hidden key. The water refill mechanism in this room is broken. Further investigation reveals the mechanism was disabled on purpose. Will the PCs attempt to fix the mechanism? Use their own wine or water skins to clear out the pools? Or just start digging in the earth looking for a key that might be there? Using water revitalizes the lifeless mud grues in the pools who attack.
15. Mosaic Symbol
There's a teleport trap connected to an illusion attempting to make it seem like anyone entering is killed. It's complicated and doesn't pay off as there's no practical way to keep this secret at the game table. In all likelihood, the teleported PC will have to engage in combat immediately after arriving at their destination and might just die anyway.
Illusion magic becomes a staple in the dungeon from this point on and I don't know why. It's not on-theme and it just further encourages players not to interact with anything. There's even some spots where it seems like what PC are seeing should be an illusion (due to repetition) but it’s a real threat that punishes observant players.
25. Mummified Corpse and Water-way
There’s a false clue here. I can’t think of a fun reason to ever use false clues in a puzzle dungeon. There’s so many better ways to challenge your players. False clues will make your players feel like what they do has no bearing on the world. Why experiment with the environment at all?
There are some disguised Water Weirds here which could be really interesting. They are supposed to look like marble I think to confuse players who might know how to deal with Water Weirds already. If you haven’t read the AD&D entry for Water Weirds, it is bonkers. It’s a very fun puzzle fight in its own right. Along the vein of fire and acid for trolls but way weirder (heh). Forget the marble disguise, these should be Mud Weirds! Honestly, I’d keep the stat blocks exactly the same. If the players don’t know how to deal with a water weird, now is their time to learn. If they do know how to deal with it, well they’ll still get a kick out of figuring out what they really are anyway.
28. Pool and Golem Plots
There is a very cool scene here with plots of clay and a ladle. Dip the ladle in the pool and water the plots to grow your own clay golems! Of course, all but one of them will attack you. There is a hint as to which golem will help you, but there’s no way to tell the clay apart from one another until after they grow into golems. I'd just change this to give each plot a melty face to distinguish them.
31. “Her weapons lose their magic when she dies.”
Sigh. Just let them have their toys.
34. Hair Strangulation
“Majalor attacks with two raking claws and his hair, which fills the coffin like that of the corpses found at areas 19 and 32, though it is carefully braided into six long locks. The hair animates like snaky appendages. Only one braid may strike at a time, strangling for 1-4 hp damage. After the first successful hit with a braid, all future damage from this lock is automatic. A victim held by a braid can only struggle to free himself, and there is a 10% chance per round that he will be rendered unconscious by the throttling. To sever an attacking braid (treat as AC6), the PCs must inflict 4 hp damage from an edged weapon.”
YES. I didn’t know I needed this in the game so badly. This hair literally has more hit points than many first level adventurers. How far can we push this? Would you call me mad if I were to challenge a party with level 10 hair braids? Sadly, there’s no detail about magic hair bands which transform your own luscious locks into deadly weapons, but we can change that.
Closing Thoughts
This brew has spice. Too much for me not to longingly imagine making a muddy puzzle dungeon of my own one day with…
Stone pieces you put together like the silver monkey in Legends of the Hidden Temple. Turn the stone to mud, now you’ve got a mud monkey friend.
Flesh golem -> “flesh to stone” golem -> “rock to mud” golem.
Those mud grues spitting mud in the PC’s eyes (save or blind until action to wipe away).
Get. Dirt. Wet.
Do it. I dare you. Know what you get? Mud. Water once flowed through this area. The same magical runes only allowing mud covered PCs to pass. Mud completes the circuit. Get that water in here and get this mud flowing. Cue whirlpools carrying all loyal to the ways of the mud majesty.
Additional Thoughts in the form of Spells and Items
Deadlocks of Majalor
Weave these severed locks into your own hair to become their new master. 1d6+1 braids of your own hair animate so that you may strangle your enemies after they pass out from disbelief.
Mud bubble
Blocks all mud from the occupant. Let's everything else in. Can roll around inside like a hamster ball. Mud river challenge. What’s inside a mud river? Mudfish, of course.
Mud staff
+1 staff
Once per day:
Command word sprays mud from tip as a garden hose (jet, shower, and mist settings). Produces 5 gallons of mud per day.
Rings of the Earth King and the Sea Witch
Control mud creatures with a total combined HD of 10.
Mud conch
The harder you blow, the harder the waves in any target body of mud. Hang ten.
Mud dagger
+1 dagger
Turns to mud anywhere but the owner's hands. Forms solid and sharp in the hand of its master.
Shielding mud
Nearby mud rises in sheets to strike down would-be attacks. Grants an addition +1 to AC.
Mud bucket
Medium sized bucket that can hold up to 10’ cubed of mud (up to 1000lbs). Always weighs 10 lbs.
Mud glass
A sheet of mud up to 10’ square and 1’ thick is made transparent and hard as glass. The images viewed through it are distorted in a way the caster chooses.
Instant terracotta soldier
Forms a molded and fired terracotta soldier statue from clay.
