A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Barrowmaze Complete

Barrowmaze Complete by Greg Gillespie is a role playing game supplement for use with Labyrinth Lord (a D&D 5E version is also available). As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result. This is a megadungeon that starts with 1st level characters and can continue through mid and high-level ones.

The supplement is available from DriveThruRPG as a PDF for $29, as a hardcover print on demand book for $65 or as both PDF and hardcover for $75. The PDF comes with two accompanying maps; the hardcover probably doesn’t. The PDF is the version reviewed and has 261 pages. Two pages are the front and rear covers, two pages are the front matter, one page is the Preface and Table of Contents, one page has the contributing artists and six pages are the Open Game License. There are also two separate PDFs with maps on the dungeon, one blue and one green, although these do not appear to come in player-friendly versions.

The Preface has a few paragraphs explaining how the supplement came to be and that it combines Barrowmaze I and II with new content.

The Introduction explains the Barrowmaze is intended to support a campaign lasting years, starting at first level. Unlike most megadungeons, which are constructed vertically, Barrowmaze is a horizontal dungeon, with the difficulty increasing when the PCs move from west to east, rather than down. There is also a history of the dungeon.

The Gazetteer describes the Duchy of Aerik, where the dungeon is located. There is a hex map of the duchy, with areas marked on it. The geography of the duchy is covered, which is then followed by a listing of the major gods. Next are the towns and settlements; there are three described, none of them huge. One is the main town, one is a lesser village that is home to the thieves’ guild and the final village is Helix, which will probably be the base of operations for the PCs. Helix has a map with the more important locations described, which is then followed by a description of the major NPCs in the village. Next are some adventure hooks to get the characters involved and a d20 table of rumours, both true and false.

Running Barrowmaze explains the dungeon keys and entries, random monsters and how the dungeon is silent, so noise can attract monsters. There are random tables at the back of the book, including some on restocking parts of the dungeon. There are also many dungeon alcoves, and there are rules on searching these and stocking them, bricked up walls, light and sight, stuck doors and mention of runic tablets. Turning undead also does not work as well. There are several types of new treasure than can be commonly found, and some of these are not only valuable but possess useful properties.

Barrowmaze: Factions has the different factions that can be found within the dungeon. Most of the factions are, naturally, hostile, but at least one possibly isn’t and some factions are enemies of others, making for potential, temporary, allies against a common enemy. There are different ways in which the campaign might end as well.

Next is The Barrow Mounds, which are the above-ground barrows, and an accompanying hex map. These barrows can be a source of loot, entrances into Barrowmaze itself and a source of lethal danger – this is an OSR adventure and “save or die” was a common original threat. Some of the barrows are mapped, if they have enough chambers to be worth doing so whilst others are single chambers or remains that lack such. Even though the barrows are not within the dungeon itself, this does not mean they are suitable for low-level parties; some are most definitely not and characters could easily end up overmatched.

The dungeon is then divided into ten different sections, starting with Area One: The Forbidden Antechamber, which is the area through which the PCs will most likely initially enter; if they try to find one of the other entrances, they will probably end up dead. Many, but not all, of these sections have a random monster table which can include dungeon dressing, a table which is found later in the supplement.

Following this are details on Ossithrax Pejorative and The Keeper of The Tablet, the two primary foes and the final things to defeat in the dungeon. The Tablet of Chaos is an artefact, and one that needs destroying.

New Magic Items, New Spells and New Monsters has those of each found or encountered. Many of them, especially the magic items and monsters, are reproduced from other sources; the Tome of Horrors and its different editions are a major source of monsters.

Next are six Pregenerated Characters to use followed by Rival Adventuring Parties, of which there are seven (even though the text states there are six).

Two pages are a Barrowmaze-themed character sheet.

The Barrowmaze Illustration Book is 23 pages long, including the title page, and has 36 different illustrations to show players. These illustrations and when to show them are referenced in the text.

Six pages have a map of Barrowmaze.

There are five pages of random tables, from random monsters to inn patrons to dungeon dressing to sarcophagus contents.

The Barrow Mound Random Crypt Generator is the final section of content and is seven pages long and has geomorphs and random tables to create new barrow mounds, together with a worksheet for assembling these.

Barrowmaze Complete in Review

The PDF has no bookmarks and the Table of Contents is not very thorough. Navigation is terrible for a book of this size in PDF. The text maintains a two-column black and white format and some minor errors were spotted (alignment is handled oddly; in some places the standard three from Labyrinth Lord are used whilst other places use the optional good and evil options from the Advanced Edition Companion). The New Spells are in no logical order, being neither ordered alphabetically, or by level. There are sidebars in some places that mention the author’s own campaign and what players did in certain locations. There are a number of black and white illustrations up to full page in size, and these appear to be custom. There are illustrations for every monster, in some cases two, and the aforementioned illustration book for showing players. Presentation is very good. The PDF had a tendency to crash when read in the Adobe reader on the Fire tablet, but that may have been a problem with the app rather than the PDF.

The primary foes in the dungeon and in the Barrow Mounds are undead, and there are a lot of them, albeit of many different types. The turning ability of clerics is hindered, which would otherwise give players more of an advantage. This is an old-school dungeon run with an old-school system and is therefore often extremely lethal. There are bottomless pits – and how do they work? – from which a character will never return – wishes are not mentioned, but none appear to be available in the book. There are also many, many save or die poisons, often linked to the numerous traps found. Players used to the more forgiving nature of poisons in more modern iterations of D&D are probably going to get a nasty shock. Additionally, the undead have the class level-draining ability rather than the more modern negative-levels ability.

Without actually seeing the print on demand book, it is impossible to be certain of this, but it looks as if the print book may be very difficult to run on its own without paying the extra for the PDF as well, due to the need to reproduce maps and illustrations. The lack of a player-friendly map is a bit of a minus, although in older games the players are supposed to do the mapping themselves.

This is a rather classic example of an old-school dungeon, in a megadungeon form (megadungeons were extremely rare when printing was the only way of publishing and usually had large areas that were incomplete). It is lethal, unforgiving and is totally unsuited to playing in D&D 3.x or higher or a Pathfinder manner (the D&D 5E version may be suitable to play that way; this version is definitely not). Characters will need to make repeated runs to the dungeon to complete it and are advised to get hirelings – likely not to survive – to help with this. The dungeon has a nice campaign area and is not just the dungeon; with a bit of tweaking, it should be possible to drop the region into a border area. Barrowmaze Complete is a lethal megadungeon and can be found by clicking here.