The Analog Dungeon Podcast

Dust off your magnifying glass because Russell and Jeramy are back to untangle the bloody knot at the center of B6: The Veiled Society. In part three, the guys follow the trail from the murder of Lucia Vorloi to a string of suspicious gingers that lead all the way to the front door of the mysterious Veiled Society itself. Or, like the players, they just wait long enough for the module to send someone along to give them all the answers and point them in the right direction.In this final chapter, all of Specularum’s murderous chickens come home to roost. The boys navigate the tangled web of competing factions, drop in on a shadowy gathering where inaction might be the best action, and get a front row seat to some straight up familicide. That is, if they back the right horse and don’t just end up as an example of what happens to people who annoy the Duke.

The questions are in and Russell and Jeramy are finally opening the mailbag! In this special episode, the guys answer listener questions, respond to your comments, and pull back the curtain on the making of Analog Dungeon. Analog Dungeon Patrons received early access to this special episode!

Just when you thought B6: The Veiled Society was all politics, sneaky nobles, and clandestine meetings, part two drops Russell and Jeramy into a surprise (and inexplicable) dungeon crawl that leads not to a dragon, but to a surprise episode of CSI: Specularum! With their pipes and deerstalker hats firmly affixed, they weigh the evidence, consider the carefully laid clues, and ultimately give in to the module’s increasingly desperate efforts to force the players where they need to be. But getting caught up in local Specularum politics has consequences: namely, trapping the players between an angry mob, thirty of the Duke’s horsemen, and a whole lot of ways to get themselves executed.

Put on your cloak and polish up your favorite dagger as Russell and Jeramy dive into the world of intrigue and awkward city names contained inside B6: The Veiled Society. Zeb Cook’s 1984 attempt to bridge the gap between Gary Gygax and Agatha Christie is a module brave enough to ask the question: what if your players actually have to talk to people?In part one, the guys meet the scheming Radu, the embattled Toranescu, and the ambitious Vorloi, each family with their own plans, petty grudges, and reasons to ruin everyone else’s day. Along the way, they discuss the difficulties of running an intrigue-heavy adventure (especially during the height of the “kill monsters, take their treasure” days of the early 80s), examine the module’s reputation for railroading, and investigate why a book about shadowy conspiracies needs so many little cardboard buildings.

Three episodes and eight parts in the making, Russell and Jeramy finally reach the end of the vaunted G series and come face to face with the namesake of a whole different set of modules: D for Drow. And Gary Gygax isn’t going to limp across the G3: Hall of the Fire Giant King finish line: he’s mixing in a healthy dose of tentacles and madness with all the fire, doubling up on the ways to get insta-killed in lava, dropping what appear to be FOUR dragons, and perhaps most importantly, ending with an unmistakable invitation to descend into the depths of the earth.

The second part of G3: Hall of the Fire Giant King is notable not for fire giants, though there are plenty. It’s notable as the first chance most parties will encounter the problem behind the problem… the mysterious (and brand new to 1978) Drow! Along the way they encounter the prototypical lava-powered smithy with a very tempting magical weapon, a collection of increasingly unpleasant prison and torture rooms, and Russell plays several rounds of everyone’s new favorite game: Do You Trust That NPC? Spoiler alert: Elves are out. Centaurs are in.

The flaming finale of the G-series starts off by immediately subverting expectations. Where the previous modules chose to hide their titular leaders near the end of the book, G3: Hall of the Fire Giant King puts you face-to-shin with the big man right out of the gate! And things don’t get any easier from there. As they roam the obsidian halls, Russell and Jeramy encounter a seemingly never ending supply of fire giants, some more exotic foes come to pay their respects to the fire king, and an infamously terrible dwarf that even Gary Gygax is on record as hating.

The adventure reaches its finale as Russell and Jeramy push into the ancient mausoleum beneath the monastery and finally confront the evil lurking at the heart of B5: Horror on the Hill. And by confront, we mean potentially adopt it out to two old ladies in lieu of payment for services rendered. But before that can happen, the boys have to survive a killer king, get the lowdown on two berserker roommates, try to recruit a gelatinous cube to join the party, join the kobold lava throw Olympics, and then actually survive an encounter with the south end of a north bound red dragon.

It’s into the evil… err… chaotic monastery in part 2 of B5: Horror on the Hill and Jeramy and Russell have a classic old school dungeon crawl on their hands, packed with goblinoids, secret doors, strange cults, and a magical fountain that lets you gamble with your ability scores. As they seek the hobgoblin king, they encounter some valuable allies, including a few very good boys and a stereotypical “dwarf imprisoned to work as a blacksmith” as well as a veritable boatload of gear and treasure. It’s almost as if the module is setting the party up for some kind of massive threat at the end…

Like every great adventure, B5: Horror on the Hill starts with an old man, a boat, and the specter of crippling financial ruin. In part one, Russell and Jeramy set sail from the oddly named and poorly developed Fort Guido for a wilderness jaunt featuring killer bees, flesh eating birds, and some suspiciously generous old ladies. Along the way they try to figure out whether the hill is actually a hill at all and marvel at the possible birth of the goodberry. All the while, more and more evidence piles up that the real issue with the hill isn’t the horrors on top of it… but whatever is making all that heat and steam bubble up from below.