The Jeweler's Sanctum - Play Review
With Up Chaos River behind us my crew moved on to the next adventure, The Jeweler's Sanctum. Written by Giuseppe Rotondo, with art by Mark Lyons. It is one of four adventures within Old-School Essentials Anthology I and takes up 12 of it's statement sized pages. I've seeded several different adventures through my campaign and this one was chosen by sheer convenience by my players.
What is this?
The Jeweler's Sanctum takes place in the trapped, haunted, and infested basement of the jeweler Draxas's mansion, famous but deceased. Draxas's grandson hires you to go investigate screams, humming, squeaking and scratching beneath the mansion. Within you'll find the abandoned workshop of a talented magical craftsman and the new inhabitants that have found a home here in the last 80 years. There are several mysteries to solve while exploring to halt the various noises filtering up through the floorboards.
Spoilers abound ahead, you have been warned.
At the table
The Jeweler's Sanctum has an excellent start. You begin in a narrow corridor composed of right angles spiraling out. There is no danger but large faces, two black and then a white, are carved into the wall. They're weird and ominous. This leads to a straight corridor with two sections of checkerboard tiles in black and white. Even oblivious players should be having second thoughts about just walking onto these tiles but they are further sign-posted with blood splattered all around on the first checkerboard, a charred rat on a white tile on checkerboard 2 and the smell of vinegar with green dust on the checkerboard 3. Those faces on the wall? The clues to the traps. You should walk on black tiles, then black tiles and then white tiles for the three checkerboards.
What a great introduction to traps! Even though I had experienced players these traps proved dangerous. One curious player poked Checkerboard 2 in an attempt to discern its nature and electrocuted himself into unconsciousness. In a later combat another player triggered Checkerboard 3 and doused himself, 2 party members and the enemy in knock-out gas.
Exploring this dungeon was engaging. There are secrets, treasures, dangers and mysteries aplenty and nearly all of it makes sense to the players and leads to problem solving.
Maybe the best example of this is a room full of dead rats, broken alchemy equipment and a moldy cloak on a coat rack. Did the rats die of spilled reagents? Quite possibly but then you notice that each rat has yellow froth around their muzzles. The moldy cloak has a not-dissimilar yellow tinge to it. Leading a clever player to understand that the cloak was infested with yellow mould.
The sanctum has many of these mysteries. My players unraveled some, cleaved the Gordian Knot of others, and left a few more tied. And that's a pleasant mix to watch unfold as a referee.
For some knots sliced through, I'm not sure if many players understand what's going on with the tarantula. It hums, so singing back to it makes some sense but moving the statues in the four corners seems like a much bigger leap. I had it talk about how hungry it is but they decided to strike first.
For knots left undisturbed, there's a mage trapped in a mirror. I think I flubbed the description around this as I made him silent, when other random encounters make him able to speak. There was also the rogue doomed to repeat her death. These were a little bit more complex mysteries, but I feel like an interested party would have delved into them and could have unpicked the secrets.
In my playthrough, Skiks the Rat Queen has turned into a nemesis. A note from Draxas has been reclaimed and returned to his grandson. But two other loose threads remain. If you're one of my players reading this, you'll find out which ones eventually!
Final thoughts
The Jeweler's Sanctum is a fantastic dungeon and would make a great first experience to an OSR style dungeoncrawl. Everything is well sign-posted, feels internally consistent, and really emphasizes problem solving. It's chock full of things to play with and while it doesn't have faction play it does have NPCs that you can interact with in interesting ways.
I also want to celebrate the entrance to this dungeon again. It feels like a "Mario 1-1" of design with how it guides and sets expectations. I'll definitely run this one again for newer players.