What Do I Know?This anthology is interesting in that these aren’t brand-new adventures, so they bring with them some expectation of consistency with the original adventures. While we know that WotC is looking for potentially problematic content to address, the adventure itself carries an expectation of unfolding the same way that the original did.
While looking at this chapter, I pulled out my handy copy of OAR4 The Lost City that Goodman Games produced a few years ago. However, I was looking at it as much to reference the older adventure as I was looking for differences in the 5e conversion.
Original Credits for The Lost City (1982)
Design: Tom Moldvay
Development: Tom Moldvay, Jon Pickens
Editing: Harold Johnson, Jon Pickens
Art: Jim Holloway, Harry Quinn, Stephen D. Sullivan
Playtesting: Dave Cook, Helen Cook, Clint Johnson, Steve Kaszar, Bill Wilkerson, Jeff Wyndham, and the Kent State University Gamer’s Guild
What’s Different
Other than the 5e statistics, not a lot changes in this adventure, although I didn’t do an in-depth reread. At least not until we get into the Extending the Adventure section. There is a Raiders of the Lost Ark homage in one of the hallways that gets removed, and some of the factions that were more gender-specific become more egalitarian. That does make the factions feel a little less dogmatic than in the original. There are some creatures that the original adventure notes are good ways for the DM to impart information to the PCs if the DM wants, and this adventure makes some of that adventure sharing a little more explicit.
Both the original adventure and the adaptation contain an “Extending the Adventure” section, but the original adventure has some additional example dungeon levels that aren’t completely fleshed out, not unlike In Search of the Unknown, an early D&D adventure that was more about presenting dungeon levels and conjecturing on what might be located in different sections. This conversion adds two potential extensions, one leading to the underground Cynidecean city itself, and one leading to a temple of Zargon that may involve Zargon the Returner . . . returning. Considering he’s a CR 17 creature, you probably don’t want to spring this on 1st level characters.
What’s Different, Part Two
I didn’t do a strict reread of OAR 4 The Lost City, the license D&D 5e conversion done by Goodman Games back in 2020. If you haven’t heard of them the OAR series (Original Adventures Reincarnated) were books done by Goodman Games that featured interviews with TSR staff, essays about the adventure featured in the book, pages reproducing the original adventure (sometimes more than once if there were different printings with changes), and a D&D 5e conversion. While most of the body of the adventure was the same, but with 5e statistics or presentation, there were often expansions of the material in addition to the conversion. For example, OAR 1 Into the Borderlands populated the dungeon levels that were left partially undefined in Into the Unknown, and it does something similar with the example dungeon levels in The Lost City.
Beyond being a lot more literal in its conversion, meaning that some of the factions retain their gender restrictions, NPCs aren’t expressly depicted as sharing information that isn’t asked of them, etc., OAR 4 The Lost City has its own version of Zargon.
Measuring Zargons
The Zargon that appears in OAR 4 is a CR 13 creature, while the Zargon presented in Quests from the Infinite Staircase is CR 17. Some of the highlights of this disparity include the following:
- Zargon’s CR 13 version actually as an armor class one higher than CR 17 Zargon
- CR 17 Zargon has 78 more hit points than CR 13 Zargon
- Both Zargons have Legendary Resistance
- CR 13 Zargon regenerates 5 more hit points per round than CR 17 Zargon
- Both Zargons have multi-attack, but CR 13 Zargon has more attacks
- The damage potential (i.e. the average damage if all attacks hit, of CR 13 Zargon is 133 hp, versus CR 17 Zargon’s 71 hp
- Both Zargons are +12 to hit
- Both Zargons have a slime-based area attack that recharges on a 5-6, but CR 13 Zargon averages 18 points of damage and blinds targets, while CR 17 Zargon averages 38 points of damage and inflicts the poisoned condition
- CR 13 Zargon has Legendary Actions which let it do 10 points of damage without an attack roll, make three tentacle attacks, or cast a spell (for 1, 2, or 3 actions)
- CR 17 Zargon has three reactions per round, which allow him to counter a spell and cause 6 points of damage to the caster, or to make a save-based attack to do 7 points of poison damage
Some of the creatures that first appeared in the OAR series, and later appeared in D&D 5e products, had the same stats that they had in the OAR product, which I’m assuming is a case of editorial approval and oversight. That’s why this Zargon being different is interesting to me, because that’s not the case here. It’s also a reminder that I have no idea what the magic spreadsheet of monster design actually weighs in monster design for WotC, because the CR 13 Zargon hits just as consistently for more damage than the version that’s 5 CR higher.
I’m also not a fan of the move from Legendary Actions to additional reactions for some creatures. I guess there is concern that people don’t remember to take Legendary Actions, but I’m not sure that giving something multiple reactions fixes that problem, because I think I’m more likely to forget that something has more than one reaction per round than to forget it’s Legendary Actions.
Artwork
We’ve got 18 pieces of art in this chapter, including a picture of the door in the Infinite Staircase that leads to this adventure, various locations, the masks worn by the Cynidiceans, and five maps, including an underground cityscape. There is an interesting mosaic showing the rise of Zargon, as well as an image of Zargon rising from the lake of slime. While these suitably creepy images of our Returning mono-horned, mono-eyed monster, the best image of Zargon is in the appendix with his stats.
The Framing Device
The setup connecting this adventure to the story framework of Quests from the Infinite Staircase is pretty brief, about on par with the connections we got with Keys from the Golden Vault. There is a paragraph detailing the wish that Nafas has received, from people asking for deliverance from the creature that destroyed their society. This is specifically framed as “scout this location out and let me know what’s going on there.”
There are also some notes on where you could place the ziggurat in Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, and Mystara. The most intriguing placement to me is setting it in Anauroch in the Forgotten Realms, because it probably takes less effort to frame this as a Netherese enclave that fell early in the empires history than it does trying to determine how the gods and Zargon fit into Dragonlance, or reconciling the difference between gods and immortals in Mystara.
Nafas’ directive works with the original premise of the adventure, i.e. try to find a way out once you get locked in, because it just requires the PCs to lean something to report back, and not the destruction of Zargon or his cult. That said, I wouldn’t have minded a more specific goal within Nafas’ request that gave the PCs a reason to keep looking around even once they find the exit.
Adventure Overview
There will be some spoilers going on in here, so if you want to be surprised, this may be the time to find another corridor to explore.
This may not be the first time you hear this setup in this book, but you run into a pyramid in the desert. In this case, it’s a ziggurat, a stepped pyramid. As soon as you enter, the door closes behind you, and you need to find an exit. As you are looking for that exit, you run into four different factions, three of which don’t work well with one another, and another one actively working against everyone else.
This is an adventure for 1st level characters, and if you’re using story-based advancement, you get your levels when you first run into a faction, when you first enter the fourth tier of the ziggurat, and when you escape.
Deep underneath the ziggurat is the remains of Cynidicea, a city that fell long ago when the inhabitants encountered an aberration exiled from the Nine Hells, Zargon the Returner. In the time since the city fell, everyone has adopted the custom of wearing masks. While everyone from Cynidicea wears a mask, all of the members of a faction wear matching masks. Three of the factions want to help Cynidicea return to its former glory, but each faction is beholden to a different god of their old pantheon. While not enemies, the factions are all rivals due to their affiliation with different deities. The fourth faction is the cult of Zargon, which is dominating the descendants of the Cynidiceans, and occasionally sacrificing them to their deity.
One thing you may notice is that for an adventure called The Lost City, the adventure doesn’t actually take place in a city. The people are present in the ziggurat because there are important locations with meaning to the fallen city. This includes holy sites for all three of the gods, as well as the crypts of the fallen king and queen of Cynidicea. There is also a whole level that is dominated by the cult of Zargon.
When the PCs meet the three factions not aligned with Zargon, they are given the opportunity to join them. Joining them makes them friendlier. Not joining them makes them a little more aloof, and if they join a different faction, the other factions become wary of them, not fully trusting them or wanting to share resources.
There are several places where the PCs run into ghosts and other undead. It behooves the PCs not to attack undead on sight, not just because they might lose, but because more than one ghost in the ruins provides information, either providing additional context for what’s going on, or telling the PCs where the exit is. On the other hand, there are still skeletons, zombies, and ghouls that are less than friendly to people enamored of breathing.
There are several places where the PCs can find evidence of what happened to Cynidicea, including a mural that shows the rise of Zargon and the fall of the city. It’s actually pretty noteworthy to look at how many set ups and pay offs there are when it comes to story. You can find out about the relationship of the king and queen, a priest and his brother, and some of the events that led to Cynidicea’s demise. Assuming your players are willing to talk to some of the undead in the ruins, it’s actually pretty easy to provide them enough information to point them at these mysteries. In fact, there are a number of people willing to share information in the adventure, which I appreciate, given that some older adventures provide a lot of hoops to jump through before the PCs get actionable intelligence.
Extending the Adventure
There are two places in the ziggurat where the PCs can either find a passage to a new location, or, if you don’t want to explore more of Cynidiciea story, they find some collapsed passages. The new underground version of Cynidicea has a nice map, various locations, and notes on how the factions are operating within this city. If you want to adventure here, you’ll be making up your own information based on the location information provided.
If you wander down the passage that leads to The Mouth of Zargon, the encounter area could give the PCs whiplash, depending on when they explore this section of the ziggurat. If the PCs have already picked up a level, they might be able to handle most of this section of the ziggurat, since the range of creatures is from CR ⅛ to CR 4 . . . until you get to the primary altar of Zargon, which includes a CR 7 aberration in service to Zargon, and even worse, if the cultists of Zargon manage to sacrifice someone, the CR 17 Zargon shows up to make his presence known. A party that can take on Zargon is going to steamroll most of this section of the ziggurat, but there is a wide gap between 2nd level and “can take on a CR 17 aberration.”
Thoughts on Chapter 2: The Lost City
Given some of the adventures I ran into when I started my D&D career, I think I would have absorbed this a little better than Keep on the Borderlands, if only because it’s pretty clear that the PCs have a goal, find the exit, and if they are curious about any of the mysteries they run into, that’s on them to explore beyond finding the exit. While I already mentioned that “you find a mysterious pyramid in the desert” is a pretty common starting point for earlier adventures, it does strike me that at least some of the setup of this adventure echoes Jenell Jaquay’s Dark Tower, although that adventure has two very stratified factions rather than a collection of opposed factions suffering at the hands of a fourth.
I mentioned this above, but I wish there was an additional objective to tie this into Nafas’ request. Maybe describing a specific item in Darius’ office that is needed for summoning Zargon, meaning that the PCs would have done a measurable good for the Cynidicean descendants, instead of just doing a reconnaissance run through the ziggurat that may not gather than much information depending on how focused the PCs are on just finding the exit and using it.
If you would like to check out The Lost City in its original form, or do some more research on Zargon the Returner, and you don’t mind sending game-buying funds my way, you can use the affiliate link below. Thanks!
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