When I review different titles in the same line, I try to spread them out. It keeps me from burning out and also gives you, the reader, a little bit of variety. However, Bundle of Holding is currently hosting a deal that includes both Old School Adventure Anthology titles, so I decided to bump this review of Old School Essentials Adventure Anthology 2 to talk about the adventures included in this book before that deal disappeared. It also has a lot of the seminal titles with longer dungeons included. Is this a case where two is better than one? Let’s play to find out.
The four adventures in this anthology follow the same format as before. They are meant to be drop-in dungeons in any game, whether it be a one shot night or as a location discovered during a bigger hex crawl. Each one features numbered rooms and short, punchy bullet point presentations. Rather than the last dungeon as hexcrawl, the final entry here opts for a more exotic location and villain to make it feel like a worthy challenge for higher level characters.
The remaining part of the review contains SPOILERS for the adventures. Bottom line: Old School Essentials Adventure Anthology 2 offers four more fantastic adventures that highlight the joys of the old school dungeon crawling experience.
While I enjoyed all the dungeons in this volume, Chance Duinack’s “Barrow Of The Bone Blaggards” was the standout one in this volume. It takes a pretty standard premise, a barrow full of undead bandits and brings it to life (sorry) with some great character work. The zombie bandits are more like the skeletons in Army of Darkness than spooky shadows. They want to do all the stuff they used to do when they were alive like eat, drink and be merry. The twist comes when the players run into the necromancer that raised these creatures. Turns out he’s a crappy necromancer and has been lying to the undead legion about working on a ritual to complete their resurrection. If the players figure out a way to help him escape, he’ll give them a very expensive treasure once he’s free and clear. Whose side, if any, will the players take? I’m curious to hear how groups answered this question in the comments.
“Shrine of the Oozing Serpent” from Nate Treme leans into the gnome as tinkers aspect of their recent portrayals to deliver a dungeon with a steampunk feel. There’s a rival with an adorable clockwork hunting dog, a gross grease dragon that’s terrifying and disgusting and a rival crew of frogmen about to give this one a unique flavor. It’s important to note that this has a lot of treasure between the dragon’s hoard and the clockwork artifacts, so this might be a good one to run when the players are strapped for cash.
Diogo Nogueira changes the pace with “Cathedral of the Crimson Death” and its fortress of demon corrupted knights. Most of the adventures in these books have stuck pretty closely to the old school style of sneaking around and only fighting when you have to, but this dungeon feels like it’s more of an action setup where the players are itching to kick the asses of some bad, bad guys. That doesn’t make the creatures here pushovers, nor does it mean there aren’t innocents to be rescued, but it makes this a good choice for when the players come to the table ready to throw down.
The main villain of Brian Yaksha’s “The Ravener’s Ghat” is a rakshasa. That give this dungeon a unique flavor full of rival treasure hunters, intelligent animals, corrupted monk spirits and the rakshasa itself all moving around a haunted temple to a moon god. This high level dungeon can stand out on its own, but I think it would function best as a final battle against The Ravener as a long standing campaign antagonist. It would take a little word to seed this storyline through a campaign but using this adventure to pay it off would be worth it.
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