A single room from one level of the Dungeon Under the Mountain, with inhabitants and backstory. The inhabitants are detailed with stats for several different encounter levels.

I like the idea of having "drop-in" modules for the DUTM like this, that I can buy or not. This one didn't really gel for me, but that probably won't stop me getting some of the others.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: The idea of treating DUTM rooms this way.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Encounter didn't suit my group.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br>

This product is the first in a line designed to populate selected rooms in the mammoth 'Dungeon Under the Mountain' series (or any suitable room in your own dungeon, of course), but more importantly it marks a new height of technological innovation in its presentation.

This advance is in concept simple but in implementation fascinating: you can choose the level of encounter that you require (low, medium or high) and the monsters, trap DCs and even the behaviour of the bad guys will be amended to suit your needs. You can even play around at a lower level, setting the chosen challenge not for the whole room but for each monster, trap, etc. If that was not enough, there is a space to type in your own notes, which can be saved for later. Ingenious in the extreme, and very useful when you need that encounter in a hurry!

Maps, too, are customizable. There's a small one for the DM and a larger one that could be used with miniatures. You can open or close doors, choose whether the place is furnished or empty and so on.

Situated on the first level of the Dungeon Under the Mountain, this crypt holds the mortal remains of the servants of a long-gone deity who attempted to destroy life on the world by sending out plague-carriers. Their task done, or so the deity thought, they were laid to rest, bound by the usual curses of coming back when needed, along with all their worldly goods. And so, perhaps, your adventurers may find them...

The descriptions of what you'll find there are straightforward, detailed enough to enable you to set your challenge level and run the game, but with plenty of scope for you to add and amend as necessary to make the whole thing fit in with what you want to do. It's basically descriptions of the 10 Plague-Bringers who were resting peacefully until your players lumbered in, and what may be found around them, but overall it's an innovative and interesting product which makes extreme use of technology to enable you to customize, well, just about everything!

You can read information & reviews about product from 0one Games and many other publishers at http://www.rpg-resource.org.uk/

This 10 page PDF (13 with OGL declaration & Credits, Front & Back covers) presents a single ?room? encounter from the The Dungeon under the Mountain adventure module series, available from 0one games (A self-confessed nigh-endless dungeon full of innumerable monsters. why? no one knows.). The Crypt of the Plague-Bringers, Room 40 of level 1, is presented in this PDF. However, it can easily be adapted for use in other adventures by the GM.

The PDF itself includes some introductory text explaining the ?Rule the Dungeon? features of the document, which I?ll cover in the next paragraph, a brief history of the Dungeon under the Mountain of which this ?room? is part, a bit of history on the ?Plague-Bringers? that make up the encounter, a room description, followed by a section detailing the ?Plague-Bringers? and the traps & puzzles associated with the sarcophagi in which they are entombed, as well as descriptions, stat-blocks & play info for each. Finally, a GM?s map and two page battle map is included. The map isn?t very interesting as the room is basically a long hall-like room featuring the 10 sarcophagi overlooked by a large Vrusk statue, entered via a trap-door in the eastern corner.

The room, trap/puzzle, & encounter information?s utility is greatly increased by the ?Rule the Dungeon? feature of the PDF. Taking advantage of the layer feature of PDFs, a GM can scale the encounter to be low, mid, or high level, which makes the encounters roughly CR3, CR 8, and CR 15 respectively. By selecting which level of challenge they want from a drop down list accessed via the ?Rule the Dungeon? button image, the encounter stats automatically change to scale to that level. This feature can be used on the encounter as a whole using the ?master Rule the Dungeon? button, or on individual elements, such as traps/puzzles, skill checks, and monsters, using the small ?Rule the Dungeon? buttons by each section. This is great feature which really increases the value of the product, making it more attractive for GM?s not using the The Dungeon under the Mountain adventure. As in other 0one products, the map features on the GM Map & battle map can be individually toggled on or off as well, further increasing the usefulness of the product for GMs. Finally, there is a notes page in which the GM can record his own notes for the adventure, notes that will be saved with the PDF and thus can be reloaded and reprinted with ease.

As stated the room consists of 10 sarcophagi, 8 of which are currently occupied, as two of the occupants died after the temporal stasis spell keeping them preserved failed. Each sarcophagus has some sort of inscription hinting at how it can be opened, most of which require some sort of activating agent to be present, though on some there are locks that can be picked. This provides a bit of puzzle solving for the PC?s. One of the sarcophagi, holding Rzundar, Bringer of Undeath, an undead Wight sorcerer opens as soon as the PC?s enter the room.

All of the ?Plague-Bringers? are rather flavorful and unique opponents, including three awakened skeletons, two wights, two undead dwarves, and a crazy half-fiend gibbering mouther, Ildolgoggla, Bringer of Madness. The high level versions of the ?Plague-Bringers? are quite formidable, it should be noted that the CR 15 version of Ildolgoggla is illegal, as Gibbering Mouthers can only be advanced via Hit Dice, not with class levels, such as the 9 fighter levels used to advance Ildolgoggla. However, GM?s can assume the god that raised him up as one of his minions was able to break the rules, being a god and all.

The PDF is laid out in 3 columns, using a blue font for section headings, bold fonts in black for text headings, with a nice readable serif font for the body. Each page also features a nice page header with the title of the product. There are various bits of pencil sketch style ?filler? art within the document, which are used dynamically to fill in empty text created when the ?Rule the Dungeon? features are used, all of which is decent. Overall the layout is clean and readable, and adjusts to the dynamic features of the text without problems.

Overall this is a pretty good product that even GM?s without the The Dungeon under the Mountain adventure can find useful, even if they don?t use the ?tomb? in which they are found. The ?Plague-Bringers? all are flavorful villains which can provide more story hooks with their back-story as well. The use of the layer feature puts this product a cut above the offerings of other publishers, and makes it useful for GM?s who don?t have the adventure on which it is based. So if you have the The Dungeon under the Mountain adventure this is a definite buy. If you don?t have the adventure, but are looking for a collection of flavorful, unique monsters with some interesting story hooks to spring on your players, and an interesting place to make their lair, this would be a good purchase as well.

<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Ildolgoggla is creepy. Rule the Dungeon feature rules. <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Some grammar mistakes here and there, room itself is kind of boring, illegal monster stats. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br><BR>[THIS REVIEW WAS EDITED]<BR>

?The Dungeon Under the Mountain Rooms & Encounters: The Crypt of the Plague Bringers? has got to be the longest title of any pdf I own. This 13 page pdf from 0one Games is a d20 product that details a single room (Room 40) from the massive ?Dungeon Under the Mountain Level 1? product. Now let?s be up front, when I grabbed this product for review I thought I would be disappointed by a product contain only a single encounter even for the price of $1.85 but let?s have a look inside.

The product breaks down like this: 1 page title page, 1 page for OGL and OGC declaration, 7 pages of encounter information, 1 page DM reference map, 2 pages of battlemap and a 1 page advertisement for The Dungeon Under the Mountain.

The encounter in question deals with a crypt filled with the beings chosen by an ancient god to be his champions of disease. These champions were laid to rest in this crypt when their god had decided their purpose had been served entombed them here in the ?The Dungeon Under the Mountain? to be recalled to service later. There were 10 Plague Bringers originally but only 8 remain preserved. The encounter essentially details the resurrection of the 8 remain Plague Bringers as a party stumbles onto their lair and decides to investigate the sarcophagi.

0one Games has been known for some time now to use the layers function of Adobe pdfs to bring customers an enhanced product experience. This product like the ?Dungeon Under the Mountain? series features a Rule My Dungeon button in this product is does to main things. It controls the difficulty of the encounter and the layout of the DM?s reference map and the battlemap.

In the encounter you can set the difficulty to low, medium or high for the combat tactics of the Plague Bringers, relevant skill checks, hazards and traps, treasure, and monster statistics (low CR3, medium Cr 7ish, high CR 14ish). On the reference map and battlemap you can toggle the fill, grid, sarcophagi, sarcophagi carvings, hole, and map text.

The monster stat blocks are all done in the new format featured in Dungeon Magazine and Dungeon Master?s Guide II. The encounter with the plague lords should be challenging and memorable even at the low level. The monsters statistics look complete and varied with 5 unique villains at each challenge setting, these are not typical villains many of them being advanced creatures or templated creatures. One of the creatures, the half-fiend gibbering mouther has 9 levels of fighter, which is contrary to the advancement rules for gibbering mouthers, but for the most part the monster though unique are consistent with the rules.

Part puzzle, part legion of villains (might be fun to just have some loose in the dungeon as well) and portents of dark times ahead, the Crypts of the Plague Bringers should provide for an enjoyable encounter Under the Mountain or in a dungeon all your own. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Scalable with a mouse click Unique opponents (Variations on traditional monsters) An area that allows me to type an save text (thanks) Interesting encounter Puzzles (how to open the sacrophagi), traps, opponents and treasure all in one room.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: When printed my pages had a light grey backgrounds. (except the battle map which was fine). The OGC declaration is incomplete because there are many items that are SRD related in this encounter (spells names, skills, traps, hazards) that are not designated as OGC properly. I would have like a completely new monster in this product.

<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>