Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely. I’m doing them to critique a wide range of modules from the perspective of my own table and to learn for my own module design. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath.
Tomb of the Primate Priest is a 5 page module for Cairn written and illustrated by Joseph R Lewis. It’s really just 3 pages, as 2 of those pages are additional stat blocks for running in OSE or 5e. It’s PWYW, and part of a series of mini- modules in the Dungeon Age setting.
Layout is a simple, 3 column affair, with decent padding, clear headings and bullets. The art is simple and screams Primate-Priest vibes. It’s no frills, but it’s also intended to be a cheap and easy one-shot, so it works well.
The dungeon itself, while having 10 points of interest, is a 5 room dungeon, having taken to heart Anne’s suggestion to number doors and halls. It comes with 3 hooks. Each are colourful and interesting, as hooks and rumours should be, and change how the player characters will interact with the space.
The simple structure here is that there’s a descriptive paragraph with highlighted points of interest. Those points receive a bullet point each for deeper examination, unless they’re a monster in which case they get a stat block instead. All of the keyed areas (door, hall or room) are pretty compelling. It’s a very dense dungeon, full of dangerous but compelling challenges. There’s no expectation of a reaction roll here: Everyone is hostile to varying degrees (they may “eject intruders” rather than “mindlessly rage”). The dungeon is small and busy enough that there is no real need for random encounters, which makes it simple to run; most things which would usually be keyed to them are in the key itself “noise alerts monkey monks”.
The writing itself is workmanlike, geared entirely to the purpose of brevity and playability. It has its moments, but doesn’t linger in lyricism but rather relies on its imagery for heft. The imagery is excellent though. The vibes here are shockingly strong for such simple layout, art and writing.
I actually really like this mini dungeon. There’s a startling amount packed into it. Because of its size, there’s very little to criticise in its lack of random encounters, factions or detailed NPCs. It’s a short module that knows its goals and sets out to achieve them.
I haven’t reviewed too many tiny modules such as this one as a part of Bathtub Reviews — maybe 2 or 3 at most, although I’ve reviewed a few anthologies. Tomb of the Primate Priest, however, is the first time I’ve read a tiny module and thought “I want to write something like that”. My heart usually lies with mid-sized modules, 20-40 pages in length, for 3-5 sessions of play, because I adore the social play possibilities there, but I like their conciseness. This conciseness, however, feels like it could be a template for something bigger. Harkening back to my Megadungeon July series, it’s obvious that you can create a megadungeon out of 20 room dungeons, but the idea of creating one out of incredibly dense 5 room dungeons is a whole other level of conceptual wildness. As a model for tiny dungeons, you could do far worse than this, and as a component of larger picture modules, it has a heap of potential. Key, though, to the success and applicability is the extreme density: 10 keys to 5 rooms is obscenely dense conceptually, denser I think than anything I’ve read. If you want to reproduce this model, you’re treating each door and hall as if they’re a room deserving of the same treatment as any hazard or monster room. Similarly, if you string this in a chain of other tiny dungeons of similar density, you’ll quickly hit concerns of resource drain. But gosh, this is compelling and inspiring work.
What it isn’t, though, is groundbreaking. Next week, I’m going to review another tiny module, and rather than take this hyper-dense approach to the tiny dungeon, with about the same sized key, it takes a more coherent, complex approach. Also a very compelling concept for the tiny dungeon. But this is still very good.
Tomb of the Primate Priest is absolutely perfect for a Cairn (or OSE or 5e) 1-shot, if you’re looking for small dungeons to drop into your campaign, or if you’re looking for a simple funnel. The main provisos are that it’ll most definitely be no more than 2 sessions worth of play; layout and art are minimal but functional; and it’s incredibly dangerous. If you’re happy with these caveats, Tomb of the Primate Priest is well worth picking up.
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