One-page dungeon reviews: Skyblind Spire, Brittlestone Parapets, Under the Tree, based on actual play
tldr; Skyblind Spire: Believe the hype! This one page puzzle dungeon is as good as everyone says. The Brittlestone Parapets: Felt too “hack ‘n slash.” Under the Tree: Short. Fun, but also turned out a little too hack ‘n slash.
One-page dungeons are a quick and low-prep way to run an adventure on short notice. Thanks to the One-Page Dungeon contest and the “Pamphlet Dungeon” trend, there are gobs of them out there. Michael Prescott published a whole book of his one-page “Trilemma Adventures,” and there are multiple collections from the One-Page Dungeon contest. There’s also a whole subreddit dedicated to the format. But which ones are worth running? A few often come up in discussions of “the best.” Skyblind Spire is one of them. The other two I review here are ones by well known creators that caught my eye but haven’t really been discussed extensively.
So let’s take a look at a few one-page dungeons that I’ve run.
Skyblind Spire
- System: Into the Odd
- PCs: 3
- Time to complete: 3 hours
This is one of the internet’s very favorite one-page dungeons. It’s a great adventure. One of the best I’ve run or played of any length.
Summary: A wizard’s tower has been recently abandoned. The wizard has been tapping the power of some water elementals who very much want to be free. There’s an altar in the tower that can be used to either free the elementals, or grant the PCs wishes. Each room has a number painted on the floor. Finding the altar requires the PCs to move through each room in the numbered order, then find a hidden final room. Also, a bunch of goblins and some giants are in the process of looting it when the party gets there.
I used the free version. The version in the Trilemma Compendium is actually two pages. It’s more detailed and a bit more clear, but the two versions are ultimately the same adventure. It’s system neutral, so no stats are provided. I used Jason Tocci’s Into the Odd conversion, which does have some notes from the Compendium version.
Let’s see how it does on my criteria for a good dungeon:
Someone to Talk To: Check. There are a few different possibilities: The water elementals, the wizard’s “spectral mentor,” the giants, and possibly the goblins. A big caveat here: The elementals and the spectral mentor get only passing mentions, so you’ll need to flesh them out. The spectre is only supposed to appear if the PCs pray in a specific room, but I had him show up anyway. The goblins are likely hostile, and my PCs attacked the giants on sight. So you might need to do some work to get some conversation going. (More on this below.)
Something to Experiment With: Check. The whole tower is basically one big thing to experiment with!
Consequential, non-arbitrary, non-binary decisions: Check. Many choices presented themselves as the adventure unfolded.
The puzzle wasn’t quite so obvious that the PCs got it right away, but it also wasn’t so hard that they needed hints. Figuring out how to solve the puzzle is the easy part. Actually following the steps to successfully complete it proved more of a challenge, with more problem solving for the players. In other words, it’s not a one-trick pony. Obviously this gives PCs something to do and to experiment with.
It’s often tricky to impart background story and lore to PCs. Ie, to explain to them what is actually happening. This module has two NPCs that can potentially explain some of what’s going on: The water elementals and the wizard’s “spectral mentor.” I had the elementals explain to the PCs that the wizard had trapped them and that there was an altar somewhere that they needed to find, and the spectre appear briefly and implore the PCs to “finish the ritual” and then disappear before he could answer any more questions. Neither of them gave them the full story and I’m not sure they quite got what was going on til I explained it after. If I ran this again I’d have the elementals give a little more information. Still, this one-pager gives more of an opportunity for exposition than a lot of much longer dungeons provide. It’s really impressive how much Prescott was able to pack into this.
Question: Are the giants and dire pelicans just regular people and pelicans who climbed up the garbage heap? Seems like you could definitely play it this way if you wanted to run this in a more reality-based setting.
Brittlestone Parapets
- System: Mork Borg
- PCs: Initially two, then four
- Time to complete: ???
Note: I combined this with Under the Tree by Skull Fungus, reviewed in the next section, so the PCs didn’t end up playing all the way through this before they moved on to the other dungeon (which resulted in a TPK).
Summary: A point crawl in and around a valley scorched by a war between two wizards, some years ago. It includes a cave full of owlbears, a tower occupied by undead soldiers, and a swamp location.
To be fair, Gus did say of this one “Honestly I’m not especially happy with it, even though it has Owlbears and killer swamp hillbillies,” but I ran it anyway.
How it stacks up:
Someone to Talk To: Maybe. There are NPCs you could potentially talk with: Some undead soldiers guarding a tower and a tribe of robbers who live in the swamp. As written, the undead are available for hire as mercenaries on a successful reaction roll. The robbers will try to imprison you, so if they’re successful you could probably talk to their leader while you’re captive.
Something to Experiment With: Not much, but there are some ballistas the PCs could try to use on the undead soldiers.
Meaningful, consequential, non-binary decisions: I’d say yes, though my PCs spent most of their time just running from stuff. A stronger and luckier party than they might have had more opportunities to forge alliances and experiment with some of the artillery lying around to really make something of the location.
There’s no level recommendation on this, but it’s a rather punishing location. One of the first likely encounters is a crate of 30 floating skulls that pop out when the crate is opened. Each skull has only .5 HD, but 30 opponents is a lot to take on, especially since it started as only two PCs with no hirelings. The PCs fled and their next random encounter was a violet fungus that killed one PC. That’s when I handed them some additional pregens, so each of the two players had two characters to play. Also, one of the PCs had two monkeys that also got their own attacks, so they had a considerably larger party. They fled into the valley and into the owl bear cave, which housed seven owlbears. The PCs wisely ran from this also, eventually ending up at the tree, where they moved on from this adventure to Under the Tree.
This feels like something that would really need to be further expanded by any GM planning to run it, which kind of defeats the purpose of running a one-page dungeon.
Question: By my quick count there’s less than 2,000 GP worth of treasure available in this module. Does that seem a little low for an adventure this dangerous?
Under the Tree by Skull Fungus
Note: I placed this in the swamp area of Brittlestone Parapets, so the PCs had already been through an ordeal by the time they reached this location. I’m glad I didn’t try to run this as a stand-alone one-shot because once the PCs reached this dungeon, it only took them another hour or so to almost completely explore the dungeon before TPKing during the boss fight at the end.
- System: Mork Borg
- Players: Two, controlling two characters each (See above)
- Time to complete: About one hour (See above)
Summary: There’s a big hole in a tree leading to an underground cave full of tentacle-like roots, the remains of a bandit gang who got there before the PCs, and the bandits’ lost treasure.
Someone to Talk To: Not really. There’s a bandit in the beginning who “attacks anyone who gets too close to her.” There are some undead bandits in a pond who are “waiting to strike.” Throwing in another adventuring party who arrived earlier (but haven’t been corrupted yet like the bandits) and nearly died fighting The Man Tree could be an interesting addition. Or maybe some cultists live in the large hole in the floor?
Something to Experiment With: Kinda. There are two “warp pools” that teleport people from one location in the dungeon to another. But they’re of limited utility in such a small space. There’s a room that’s just full of roots that move around. There’s a dead body in the center of the room that appears to have been whipped to death. It seems like this room could be turned into more of an obstacle rather than just a harbinger.
Meaningful, consequential, non-binary decisions: Few if any. If you bypass the room with the boss monster, you can go straight to the treasure without a fight. But that’s a fairly arbitrary decision: A choice between door number one and door number two.
Ultimately, this was a pretty fun environment. But the lack of payoff for the warp pools and the dearth of non-combat activities left it a little flat. It’s only $2, so I’m not too disappointed with my purchase. An hour’s fun for three people for two bucks ain’t bad.
Question: Roots seal the entrance to the dungeon after the PCs enter. How are they supposed to get out?