The Perfect Dungeon

For various reasons, we've lacked quorum (defined as "half the total players plus one," which is five in this case) in my weekly House of Worms campaign. That's fairly unusual, but Real Life™ has intruded on everyone during 2020, so we do our best to roll with the punches. One of the joys of a long campaign like this one is that it has years of momentum behind it; there is no danger that, even if we somehow didn't meet for more than a month, the campaign would fall into desuetude. 

Those of us who have been available have used our regular meeting time simply to socialize, talking about matters of interest to us all. Though not limited to gaming, that's naturally a common topic, particularly our memories of games past. During one such chat, the Moathouse from Gary Gygax's The Village of Hommlet came up, where it was generally agreed that it's a truly great low-level dungeon. One of my players is Dyson Logos, who plays Grujúng hiZnáyu, a mighty warrior who enjoys direct solutions to problems, which sometimes means Grujúng is often left out of conversations among his more nuanced clan mates. Anyway, Dyson put forward the notion that the Moathouse is near perfect, for a variety of reasons, and I am inclined to agree with him, as I said on this blog some time ago:

Then there's the moathouse, which has everything I crave from a low-level old school dungeon: a plausble backstory, lots of vermin, and several encounters that might, if the PCs are foolhardy, lead to deaths. To my mind, the moathouse ruins provide a superb template which other referees might use in creating their own starting dungeons. It's a great example of Gygaxian naturalism in action, which is itself a reminder that, while the campaign may be set in a fantasy world, that doesn't mean the world exists solely to fulfill the players' fantasies. There are many encounters – such as the giant crayfish – that will kill low-level PCs if they are stupid enough to charge in until they are ready to do so. I like that a lot and it's something that D&D has slowly lost over the years, much to my disappointment.

I don't think I'd change a word of what I wrote above. If anything, I'd probably wax even more lyrical about the things I adore in the dungeon – and by "dungeon," I also mean the upper level on the surface as well. In fact, that upper level is just as important to the feel of the place as the dungeon proper. The foes on the surface consist of dangerous but mundane creatures, like giant frogs, snakes, spiders, and rats. There are also lots of brigands – underutilized opponents in my opinion. There's an "extraordinary ordinary" vibe to the upper levels that, I now realize, has probably influenced my conception of Urheim's own surface ruins more than I had realized. They're just great in my opinion, striking the perfect balance between being too mundane and too unnatural. I prefer my adventure locales to start out relatively "normal" and slowly build toward weirdness. That's why I like lots of empty rooms filled with seemingly random and inexplicable debris: they keep things understated and allow the tension to build, since the characters and, by extension, their players start to feel lulled into false sense of security.

The lower levels are just as good, with a solid selection of monsters, ranging from various Chaotic humanoids (bugbears, gnolls, ogres) to weak undead and soldiers in the employ of Lareth the Beautiful, "the dark hope of chaotic evil," as Gygax so memorably calls him. Say what you will about Gary but he certainly knew how to turn a phrase. I'd wager that no module written since first edition AD&D has ever had a single line of text worthy of memory, let alone quotation. All in all, it's a perfect package worthy of continued study and emulation.