Adventure Site Contest - Lost Vault of Kadish

ad&d enjoyers unite

The Lost Vault of Kadish, by Jonathan Becker. This is an offering from a man known for having perfected the art form of reviewing a module by reviewing the reviews of others. Truly a zealous warrior of the ad&d clan, he presents here a module for 3rd - 5th level characters of that system. Does it stand up? We shall see!

This module presents a desert oasis, held sacred by a tribe of centaurs. This oasis conceals a sinkhole which leads to the titular lost vault. One thing I immediately noted about this adventure is it doesn’t cram a lot of information into a tiny space. This is both a good and a bad thing. It’s good in that the information that is there is highly gamable and evocative. The downside is that much of what is evoked is never elaborated on. I do not believe that modules are required to answer every possible question a group might have, but this one is very bare bones. Who is Kadish? Never explained. Why do the centauri hold this oasis to be sacred? Who knows. But, that is curved some by the context clues given. One, the direction to find the sinkhole into the vault is given by inspecting a statue that looks like a centaur, but is actually a man on a horse (the horses head is gone). Kadish’s body is a turbaned skeleton in finery, so we can assume some things. Most likely Kadish was an old Horse-lord of some variety, and the centaurs claimed his vault because of a misunderstanding of the statue. That’s a fine solution, but it’s not “canon”; per the module. In a situation like this contest is probably for the best, it ups the ability for it to be placed into any campaign. That is a plus. It is worth noting that this module is going to be part of a larger book at some point, which will likely answer this and other questions. It’s clear that there is more authorial vision about this oasis and vault than actually gets translated.

And onto the vault itself. This place is neat. One entrance, and a hidden one at that, so easy to miss by inattentive or slightly drunk players, but it’s not a major issue. The interior of the vault is fairly linear, presenting more of a series of challenges than a lot of exploration, but most of the rooms are highly interactive to make up for that. There is a room full of anti-magic so strong magical items don’t work, which would be a nightmare if some of the nastier wandering monsters in ad&d show up (there is a way to turn this off, and smart players will likely find it). That being said, there is no wanderer table given, so I guess the generic one is used (or one from the future bigger book previously mentioned). However there is one big issue I see in the design, and that is the door to room 10.

```The door to #10 is locked; the key lost long ago.```

So, if I understand ad&d correctly, a thief gets one shot per level to open this door. Which means you likely are not getting past this door first try, or ever (scrolls of Knock aside, because you can’t use them in this room. It’s in the anti-magic room). That’s fine in locations that are meant to be returned to, which there is no reason this area cannot be returned too. But it seems out of place for a short adventure site to have the main treasure vault, which is behind this door a, be so easy to simple not access. Any party worth their salt are going to start asking about hinge placement, door material etc. This is part of a larger axe I have ground with the thief class in general, so I’ll leave it be, just with a disapproving look.

I might have been coming off of dismissive, so let’s same something positive. Mr. Becker as I said is a well known ad&d enjoyer, and often derides, in a good natured manner, B/X and games on its chassis. This module is a brilliant gem of what ad&d brings to the table, especially when it comes to official support for non-standard settings. Dunestalkers, Djinni, Huecuvas all sorts of things that B/X simply does not have true access too without porting and such, and they really do add to the flavor of a place. You can tell just from the encounters that this is a desert location. It’s much harder to do that in B/X. Magic items and challenges are also much more varied than the equivalent B/X module would be, at least in my opinion as a basicman.

In conclusion, I think that this is a serviceable ad&d module. It’s got a few quibbles that come from the ad&d design ethos, but I would be happy to run it.

Sail on,

-ShockTohp