A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Dungeon Crawl Classics #82.5: Dragora’s Dungeon

Dungeon Crawl Classics #82.5: Dragora’s Dungeon by Harley Stroh is a role playing game supplement published by Goodman Games for use with Dungeon Crawl Classics. 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 an adventure for level 1 characters and is converted from the original Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition supplement.

The supplement is available as a 28-page PDF from DriveThruRPG for $6.99 but was purchased at a reduced price as part of a special bundle. Two pages are the front and rear covers, one is the front matter, one is an ad and about a quarter of a page is the Open Game License.

The Introduction explains that the adventure can be scaled for more powerful characters, but it isn’t recommended for first time judges or players, nor is using force to try and get through every obstacle a good idea. The Adventure Summary does what it says.

Background explains that the city of Parhok died, and some of the wizards who lived there created an intelligent ape slave race, the zain-kin, one that proved to be too intelligent and rebelled. Recently, a warrior and her dragon arrived in the lost city, and the inhabitants had prior to that started worshipping dragons, allowing the two to set up as rulers.

Player Beginning has the characters in an inn – of course – when a zain-kin assassin attacks, intending to kill everyone there and loot the place. Investigating allows the characters to track the assassin back through a rift and find the lost city.

Encounter Area 1: Trek to the Rift is the journey itself. The longer the characters wait before starting, the harder this is.

Encounter Area 2: The Forgotten Jungles of Parhok are the former farmlands of the city. A sidebar gives some details on what will happen if and when the characters decide to try to talk with the zain-kin.

Encounter Are 3: The Forgotten City of Parhok starts by giving details on the three zain-kin factions. The city has thousands of zain-kin, so an encounter with them is highly likely. A sidebar has stats for different zain-kin.

Adventures Within the City explains that the lost city is too vast to be fully detailed, but more can be added. This section has encounters, secrets, lairs and special, before describing various important locations.

Encounter Area 4: The Fane of Baphotet Kor is the place where the characters can encounter the city’s current rulers.

Further Adventures has three brief adventure hooks.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #82.5: Dragora’s Dungeon in Review

The PDF is bookmarked but only the major sections are linked. Navigation is okay. The text maintains, except for the single column sidebars, a two-column black and white format and appeared to be free of errors. There are a number of black and white illustrations, up to full page in size, including maps, most if not all of which appear to be custom. Presentation is good.

This adventure covers a small part of what is a fairly large location. A GM could spend a lot more time on this, building it up into an entire campaign, though this would not be a minor task. As-is, this is a potentially dangerous adventure. The characters are going to be vastly outnumbered in places; those who automatically revert to combat are definitely going to come off badly in a city with thousands of foes to face. However, even if a GM doesn’t fully develop the city, it might still be an idea to have materials on hand that would allow parts of it to be expanded on if needed. Essentially, this is a lightly described setting that really merits far more detail. Dungeon Crawl Classics #82.5: Dragora’s Dungeon can be found by clicking here.