The Hypogean Oracle

There's witches about

This is another ACKS II entry, from The Phoenix Tome. It describes a hag lair set atop a an Edifice of Elemental Earth, with some various and sundry hag-related sights and points of interested scattered around. Let’s get into it.

So, on first blush this adventure is pretty bland. A group of hags are in a cottage, no surprises there. The map is fine, with two guarded entrances into the actual lair portion, which is located underground. Both the guards can be convinced to turn on the hags, but with some conditions. I’m not sure how useful they would be as help though. One is a Galdrtree (think Old Man Willow) and the other a level 4 Explorer who have been magically enslaved and permanently poly-morphed into a Cave Bear. The Galdrtree will require Speak with Plants and doesn’t really like the hags to begin with. The Cave Bear is a little trickier, and I imagine most players just slaughter him and his mate. However if you do manage to recruit him, I’m not entirely sure he doesn’t immediately get killed by a hag. For reference, hags are level 9 spell casters, with a very nasty spell list to boot. They will either simply Turn to Dust, or Dismember or Bewitch Beast the new cave bear, and the tree isn’t going to be able to walk into the hovel. So recruiting help on site is of limited use.

However, blandness goes away as you read the loot on offer there. The main item up for grabs is the titular Hypogean Oracle which is a device capable of searching out underground lairs in a region, provided the caster concentrates long enough. Players can also loot around 4000 GP worth of emeralds from it and go. It’s a cool item, and a way to use magical materials to boot, since it eats spell components to restore charges. There is also a massive geode below the hut that grows a crystal which can be used as a spell components for Earth spells, or creating magic armors. This stuff has a harvesting time and is worth a fair bit. A decent little bit of utility if a group is able to capture this place.

I have a major issue with this site though, and that is expected level and treasure range. I have no idea when or where players are supposed to actually encounter this place. As I said the hags are each a 9th level spell caster (a Witch specifically). But they are guarded by very mundane threats such as Cave Bears and Cave Locusts. The Galdrtree is cool, but easily bypassed. If I’ve done my math right, this site has around ~16,500 GP worth of treasure (if they don’t sell the Oracle without using it). This seems wildly mismatched. A party capable of dealing with three hags is going to look at that as chump change. Meanwhile, a party which sees that as a big haul is going to get rolled unless the Judge bails them out with some sort of deal with the hags. I am all for player’s being conniving and cutting deals, or sneaking around big threats. Sneaking probably isn’t going to happen, as this site is small. That leaves cutting a deal, which with proper flattery is likely doable. This just means that actually looting the site will happen at later sessions (and higher levels). I’m not a huge fan of Adventure Sites which need to be returned to later instead of being able to be dealt with in a few linear nights of gaming, especially in the context of this contest.

This level mismatch also follows with the Oracle itself. Its purpose is scouting hexes, which tells me it’s for around the level 4-6 range, when players should be wandering around and looking for a good location to start a base. While a level 4 party could handle this site, I’m not sure it’s really worth the risk unless they know about the Oracle already and are going to get it specifically. Sadly none of the suggested Story Thread Webs point to the existence of this item at all. The site also states that this site it to be used “to conveniently drop it in when a random wilderness encounter is rolled. If you’ve rolled a hag or cave bear lair, a galdrtre or an elemental place of power […].” Which again tells me that this is intended for use during the Wilderness Travel levels. But man does this feel like a whammy

This sort of lopsided feeling dragged this site down a fair bit for me overall. I like the concept, but I think it I would have rather seen 1 hag with some more minions. I’ll probably make that edit and use this site to introduce the Oracle though, that’s a cool item and there’s a place for it in my campaign as is.

ACKSman’s Opinion

(As before, this section is not part of the overall contest ranking, feel free to ignore as you see fit).

Now is this a good adventure for ACKS II? Bearing in mind my overall opinions of the adventure, I have to say this is a good ACKS adventure as well. This site does a few important ACKS specific things that I like. I particularly like the Story Web Trheads section as opposed to just Rumors. One of the more difficult aspects of ACKS prep is setting up a regions Story Threads, which are the existing connections and pointers between prepped areas. These are a little different than a normal rumor table, as they are set up during campaign prep and may include things affects on other sites. The suggested threads include both traditional rumors and these sorts of effects which is a huge boon for any Judge. I would go as far as to say this site functions much better as a prepped one rather than being dropped into a random wilderness roll. Three Hags becomes a folklore feature that players can prep for ahead of time and walk into knowingly, instead of blundering into it after killing a Cave Bear. Is this sort of longstanding regional feature still an “Adventure Site?” For how I read the intent of the contest, no; but it is a really good regional monster lair. One that can cause problems for several sessions and has the potential to become a campaign centerpiece.

This site also provides access to Magical Components. I don’t know how most judge’s would feel about a constantly re-spawning source of components for all Earth spells, but I really like it. The site is an Elemental Place of Power (earth) so it makes sense, and the growth rate is positively glacial. Anyone relying on this for their only source of components is going to be burning their most important resource, time. There are a a few quibbles I have with this site. This first is a few missing apparent values on magic items such as the Oracle itself (We have the base cost, but not apparent value). Also, the Hag’s do not have Rune of Warding or Illumination, Perpetual in their repertoires but they should as they are maintaining those spells. Other than that, this is another good entry into the ACKS canon.