Tree Maze of the Twisted Druid by Chris Kutalik is a free role playing game supplement published by Hydra Cooperative.
The supplement is available for free as a nine-page PDF from DriveThruRPG. One page is the front cover.
This is a very early adventure written by the creator of the Hill Cantons, and has been added to What Ho, Frog Demons! as one of the encounters on that hex crawl.
The Introduction gives some background as to how the druid became twisted, by an old pecan tree. This is followed by several adventure hooks to get characters involved. If the adventure is used with What Ho, Frog Demons! these are not needed and, indeed, don’t really fit. Next is a list of 12 rumours, some true, some false. Another d12 table has wandering monsters and then details on the maze’s opening where Stumpy the Entrance Gnome sits.
Most of the rest of the supplement coves the various numbered locations in the tree maze itself, followed by a hand-drawn coloured and labelled map of the maze.
Tree Maze of the Twisted Druid in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and, though they would have been appreciated, they are not essential. Navigation is okay. The text maintains a single column format, and is written as if on a typewriter, which sometimes can be hard to read but is in keeping with the feel of the supplement. There are several hand-drawn illustrations scanned from the original document, as is the front cover and the map. Presentation is okay.
According to the cover, the supplement is aimed at Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, which seems logical given how old it is. Adapting it to the Labyrinth Lord of the rest of the Hill Cantons supplements should therefore be easy enough.
This is, essentially, a bit of a joke module now. It’s a very early example of the author’s work and, for good or ill, some of his signature writing shows up in it. Perhaps suggesting he hasn’t matured that much since then. It is perhaps most interesting for being incorporated in What Ho, Frog Demons! as a mini-dungeon and can be adapted to fit that. Tree Maze of the Twisted Druid can be downloaded for free by clicking here.
Leave a Reply