The River Ruins by Joseph Mohr is a role playing game supplement published by Old School Role Playing for use with OSRIC. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result.
The supplement is available as a 17 page Pay What You Want PDF from DriveThruRPG. Two pages are the front and rear covers, three the front matter and three the Open Game License.
The opening paragraphs explain that about a mile from the village of Grey Rock are some ancient ruins where there are rumours of valuable treasure.
For the Game Master explains that this is an adventure for 4-6 characters of 1st to 2nd level. It explains that the village of Gray Rock itself will be released in an upcoming supplement, and will be the base for several adventures, including this and the Tower of Xyloz, all set in the Ravaged Realms setting. The ruins are also within easy walking distance of the village.
Rumors has a table for determining if someone knows a rumour and a d12 table of rumours, some true, some false and one a bit of both.
Encounters Traveling to the Ruins has some encounters for near the village.
Encounters in and Around the Ruins has some for that area.
The Ruins covers the ruins themselves, with some monsters and treasure.
New Magic Items has a single new item.
New Monsters has a single monster.
Adventure Completion explains that there are no specific requirements; it ends when the characters decide they have explored the ruins enough.
Most of the final page is a map of the ruins.
The River Ruins in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and is long enough with enough different sections that these would have been useful. Navigation is okay. The text maintains a single column format and some minor errors were noticed. Bar the map and covers, there are no illustrations. Presentation is okay.
Both sets of random encounters are perhaps a little too close to the village to have dangerous ones; with the ruins only being a mile away, many of these creatures would be closer to the village than comfortable, and given most villages have outlying farms, some would probably be preying on those. The adventure itself is a fairly simple sandbox exploration of some minor ruins. The GM could always decide to expand the ruins by adding some underworkings to find and explore. The River Ruins can be found by clicking here.
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