The Tomb of Black Sand: OSR Dungeon Adventure Review

[@QuestingBeast]

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[@andrewmiller407]

I love the old TSR artwork. 2nd edition had the best artwork of any edition.

[@cmleibenguth]

Definitely Same for a lot of the novels that came out at that time

[@toolsheddown]

I highly recommend the cold start suggested at the front of the book where players awake as victims of the ritual and work to find their way out. I think this setup solves several of the problems pointed out here. I got the PDF, but I'm excited enough to run this for more groups that I'm planning to pick up a hardcover.

[@mattprice516]

I ran the cold start for my players since we were doing it as a one-shot, and it worked out well. The only issue I ran into was that the locations for all of the "cold start" special amulet items are on a page separate from the rest of the room descriptions, which made it a bit difficult for me to remember they were there at times. The "cold start" scenario also isn't super clear on how the werewolves get in/out, which is fairly easily handwaved but still a bit confusing.

[@IVIaskerade]

A tomb where the objective *isn't* to fight the boss? I'm sold!

[@SmileyTrilobite]

3:25 The three brothers, played by Pecos Bill, John Henry, and Johnny Appleseed!

[@DerekKinsman]

My only complaint is that the book uses a monospaced slab-serif throughout. I find that super hard to read. Otherwise it is fantastically laid out, the production is great - Friesens did a great job, they probably couldn't have done a smyth sewn binding on the under 100 pages of booklet, that would've helped it lay flat. And as an adventure it's amazing.

[@nicklarocco4178]

God that's a sweet cover.

[@Wesley_Youre_a_Rabbit]

Will most definitely be running this with Knave

[@Redbeardblondie]

Wesley Bivens Book shiny

[@Wesley_Youre_a_Rabbit]

Redbeardblondie tis.

[@greysky1252]

I love that typewriter font. It makes it feel more authentic. And that art is on point.

[@mikegould6590]

Inspiring. Just from your descriptions, I have ideas to throw into my own campaign. I may yet buy this gem.

[@Uatemysoul]

I have reason to believe that The adventure hooks page being in the front was a very last min change brought on by my D&D group. We had a hard time getting the characters to the adventure and I was on the Swordfish island discord. I mentioned that getting characters to actually go to the tomb while in the middle of a campaign was tricky business and while he didn't write it to have kill the lich as a goal. I felt like that could be a reason why the players went in. Things got a little heated and if I remember correctly Donny said he would come up with some adventure hooks to add to the finished book. I can't remember exactly what qualms I had with running the mod but I was looking at it from a 5e perspective and I felt like running Tomb of black sands puts a lot on the dungeon master to come up with some things on the spot. It's fairly bare bones as descriptions go and 5e is mechanically heavy and kind of begs for mechanical answers to everything. I plan to run it again someday with a OSR system most likely Five torches Deep, or Mork Borg

[@francoiscolin6692]

Hello, I love your work, please, keep doing it, it's amazing! My question since i'm kind of lost with OSR products. Can i use this one and basically any other OSR dungeon or mega dungeon either for my 5th or 3.5 games?

[@cmleibenguth]

Would require some adapting, but yes

[@RPGGamer]

Absolutely lovely presentation in that book, reminds me of the Eden Studios style of books, which is no bad thing.

[@notdeadandnotforsale]

Beautifull looking book and great production values, but I feel its a bit overdoing it for such a small dungeon.

[@andysimmons2648]

Thank you for this. I was toying with the idea of picking the game up on PDF and this review has been extremely useful.

[@davidharper238]

Sounds super rad! Maybe I'll buy it...

[@beaudoran]

thanks for the great review, reminded me to go check my backer kit and get it shipped out

[@Dertro]

For anyone who has run this, about how long does it take to get through? Only 21 rooms is making me think 3-4 sessions, not accounting for out-of-dungeon activity and roleplay.

[@gebatron604]

i started playing this one but i didn't have time to read it properly beforehand, and i think i may have skipped the most important part of the quest - that is, the party seeing that people are disappearing and finding out why, I basically played it like the town already knew about the tomb and i fear i may have ruined the entire quest -.-

[@afourthfool]

You might change your KS name to "Questing Beast" or "Ben Questing Beast Milton" so ppl can find your work from that page 🎶

[@jakebruce11]

Room 21: Mountain of black sand. :)

[@rangereric18]

For the gold jewelry in the beginning, I'd just call it fools gold. Decorative jewelry the lich had his victims dressed up in for the ritual.

[@ShaneKennedy-gt8nl]

Thank you

[@jmhimara]

Frankly, the dungeon itself didn't sound that interesting to me, but damn this book is beautiful. I am considering buying it for the production design alone.

[@BrooksSligh]

I keep missing the restocks of this thing on Exalted Funeral and it is really becoming a thing for me. It will be mine... oh yes.

[@diogenesstudent5585]

Did u get it

[@davidgrider4302]

Don't mess with the Lich. Players: Hold our Ale...🤣🤣🤣

[@joshdav37]

My rule of d&d, the more you say something is dangerous and a bad idea, the more the players will want to do it. I once described something as "a hellish landscape with death everywhere you turn, where no survivors have returned in living memory". Players: "We are 100% going there."

[@vojtechpribyl7386]

Read the cat description in the bestiary part. It answers your question to what it's going to do when someone tries to move out of it's reach ;)

[@chrislundgren182]

Is there a link where to actually buy this in print

[@QuestingBeast]

It's in the video description.

[@lizardhinzlemann8339]

>werewolves >stuck in a loop(loup) ...was this on purpose?

[@Gamarishi]

Is the artist of the maps skullfungus?

[@jimparkin2345]

Gamarishi Yep.

[@jamesalexhowlett]

I’m really new to dnd, is this for any specific version of dnd?

[@donnieg.6976]

It borrows from the Dungeons and Dragons 5 Ed rules but it can be adapted to any version with some tweaking.

[@carlosschaafygarcia884]

The cat doesn’t leave the room. The tiger definitley does. And it kills you, and then it drags you and the gold back into the room. And after eating you it transforms back into the cat.

[@mykediemart]

Thank you for sharing another gem.

[@christopherpatterson4084]

How do I get this in the UK?! Such a gorgeous book!

[@theophrastusbombastus1359]

shop.swordfishislands.com/the-tomb-of-black-sand/ Not sure if they deliver to UK though

[@TheNiall666]

@@theophrastusbombastus1359 I would love to get it, but shipping cost to the UK is so expensive.

[@WarDogMadness]

awesome book and adventure but had to rewrite and get rid of some of the npcs as they didn't fit the dark medieval fantasy of the setting great enemy artwork.

[@HoundofOdin]

Last time I was this early, it was still called AD&D.

[@JohnEternal]

bought

[@politeghost6214]

hey

[@wbbartlett]

That interior font is dreadful. Bad enough that I don't think I'll bother dropping $30 on a printed copy.

[@UmekCrafter]

Vincent's stats are... not that impressive. Definitely killable target

[@honeymaker3055]

@@Akeche I'm a fan of max damage lol but I doubt he would need it