Restormel is an Old School Judges Guild adventure. This one is not written specifically for Dungeons and Dragons or Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. This was a “Universal” supplement for role playing. In other words…….it was like OSRIC without the legal language at the end of it.
Anyway….it was written by Scottt Fulton and Published in 1981. It is thirty two pages long including the covers and maps. It has several maps included. This adventure has a dungeon, a castle and a village. There is also a new monster.
Ostensibly this adventure is written for 1st level play or close to it. Nothing is specifically said to indicate this but given the relative ease of the dungeon areas that would be my guess. Most of the dungeon is left empty and up for the Dungeon Master to fill in the blanks. In fact…there are blanks. Specifically after each encounter. Again nothing is specifically stated but it is clear that this is the intent.
The basic gist of the storyline, from what I can piece together, is that some barbarians once invaded this region and some of the locals went into hiding underground. The area has more recently repopulated and now the descendants of these underground dwellers have returned to the surface and begun raiding the area. The dungeon is the home of these descendants. They are referred to in the adventure as “Lurkers” and “Deep Lurkers.”
What I like about Restormel
It is fairly short by Judges Guild standards. The dungeon itself is only a handful of pages long. I like the fact that it introduces a new monster and that it includes several maps and a complete area to adventure in including a local village and castle. I also like the fact that there are not six pages of history or background to read before running the adventure like many other Judges Guild products.
What I do not like about Restormel
There needs to be a bit more background than is provided. For example…on the first page of the dungeon key in the second room it states “Prison Room: If Kuvqut is alive…….” At this point….we have no idea who Kuvqut is or if we even want her to still be alive. A little background would have been nice.
The castle and village are nice additions but do we really need them? Many Judges Guild adventures are written this way. And I get it…..they are basically expanding upon the entire “Wilderlands” campaign with each installment. But I really do not care about the history of the towns or castles in the Wilderlands. That is a lot of reading that I really do not need to do in order to run the adventure.
The description of the Lurkers is very sparse. There is very little detail about them. And that makes them seem kind of hollow as a villain.
Would I recommend this adventure to others?
Probably not. I think the adventure seems kind of flawed in too many ways. There is no depth to this new creature or why it is raiding the surface of plaguing the locals. The adventure could be fleshed out by a dungeon master willing to spend some time on it. But I do not recommend adventures where the DM has to do all the work to get it ready.
Would I run Restormel with my own players?
No. I would not. There are better low level adventures to run with players than this one.
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