By Maria Deltorre
What follows are my notes on the Return to Tamoachan side quest from the Savage Tide adventure path, which appeared in Dungeon magazine issue #141.
Savage Tide Spoiler Warning!
If you haven't played through this adventure yet, you might want to skip past this post!
1: Tchechiwhani's Nest
The basilisk is a decent choice for a monster here, my only complaint is its name. First off, why would a relatively unintelligent animal that lives in solitude have a name? Second, the name is gibberish, and not even loosely Nahuatl in construction. C1 established a trend of giving things and people in Tamoachan names that actually mean something and that are at least passable attempts at Nahuatl.
2: Xochiquetzal's chamber
If you're going to use a real Nahuatl word, look up the definition first, please. Xochiquetzal is the Aztec goddess of flowers, fertility and agriculture. If there is any connection between her and the Gibbering Mouther, it is not explained. Nor is the significance of the giant statue explained. An Olman mythological figure? A past victim of the basilisk? Another paragraph or two explaining these things a little would have helped immensely. The strength of C1, what sets it apart from a generic dungeon crawl is the detail and insight into the Olman it provides, allowing a DM to logically expand the material. The article gives us room to expand (if the PCs want to return with Urol later, or demand the ship wait for them , etc) with the caved in tunnels, that can assumably be dug out by a well equipped party, but no hooks to get any expansion along those lines are given.
3: Mictlan's Portal
Mictlan is the Aztec/Olman underworld, where the bones of the dead are collected. This is a fairly good area, nothing out of place.
4: Ancient Tamoachan
Very reminiscent of the maproom in Tanis(1). Not a bad idea, and a great tool for DMs wishing to further use Tamoachan in their games, giving the PCs hints on where to dig through rubble or hack through jungle to explore next. Only one gripe, "Time has taken its toll on the map-like carving". Really? But not on the mouldering stuffed jungle cats out front?(2) Tamoachan has been ruined for hundreds of years, those stuffed animals would be skeletal remains at best, and stone can take the passage of that amount of time with little or no show of wear. It's possible something else has ravaged the map carving, but that is not what is stated.
As for the will o' wisp, there's two mechanical errors in the encounter. First off, will o' wisps are temperate marshland creatures. Tamoachan is deep in a tropical jungle. Second, the will o' wisp here is invisible for the purpose of stalking the PCs? Will o' wisps have to be startled or scared to go invisible. (MM3.5 will o' wisp statistics) Bad encounter, plain and simple. If you have to break the rules to use your chosen creature in an encounter, it's time to consider the possibility you chose the wrong creature. Also, it's name, Tlanextli, in Nahuatl, means "splendor", and odd choice for a name.
5: The New Tunnel
Nothing of interest here, aside from the heavy deus ex machina. Why not just leave the original tunnels open? They collapsed, but an earthquake conveniently reconnected the chambers? Ok. Wink
6: Antechamber
The fluff description is agreeable, and the encounter acceptable. The only things worth noting here are the stated emotions of the Will o' wisp, rage and curious optimism. See area 4.
7. Tloquatcha's Crypt
The encounter with the Varrangoin is justified in the sidebars and serves the meta-plot of the adventure path more than this encounter specifically, so we'll ignore that, with one exception, why doesn't he use the bead of healing when fighting the PCs? Magic items in a treasure should be available to the foes that own them.
Now, there's no mention given of who or what Tloquatcha is, but it's another gibberish non-Nahuatl word anyway, so maybe that's for the better. Also, given the utter lack of knowledge about Tamoachan, there should really be no knowledge (history) check allowed here to describe what the map carving represents. Allow it to be puzzled out with hints and clues found in the room, or conversation with the Varragoin or the Will o' wisp, but don't allow a simple KH check. On the other hand, the map room can be a useful tool for a DM expanding the adventure, as I explained in area 4, above.
8: The Great Calendar Stone
The big fight here is once again driven more by the meta-plot of the campaign and has almost nothing to do with Tamoachan, but the calendar stone is an interesting stage for the fight. A little more detail or interesting hook for the stone would have been nice, but the encounter isn't offensive as is.
9: Guardians of the Well of Death
This is by far the best described area of the ruin, a nice amount of detail with no annoying pig-Nahuatl nonsensical names to ruin things. Pretty straight forward though, just eye candy for the PCs.
10: The Well of Death
This is an interesting idea for an Olman burial vault, and I have no issues with it. The idol of Camazotz is also acceptable, the only thing that hurts this encounter area is more of the deus ex machina the author seems forced to use to keep things tied into the overall campaign plot. "If you don't take the idol, some minion of the antagonist will come get it and force it upon you so that you're sure to have it when it becomes important at some point down the road"
All aboard the Savage Tide plot railroad!
Overall, I give the Tamoachan material here 3 out of 5 stars. The Olman info is scarce, and a little vague, but there's nothing outrageously wrong with the material and there are a couple of promising hooks for future development of the city ruin, though it's unclear whether the author intended them as such or not.
(1) Go watch Raiders of the Lost Ark again Smile
(2) The dusty skeletal remains of the Olman are inside, and C1 demonstrates that the Olman do use at least rudimentary emblaming techniques. The stuffed cats are outside, exposed to the weather, past explorers, and curious beasts.
And by the way, Nahuatl is the proper name for the language of the Aztecs, which still sees some use, though now heavily blended with Spanish, in lower Mexico and among those Mexican and Guatemalan Latinos with a strong sense of the Aztec half of their heritage.
No comments:
Post a Comment