Game Title: Dungeon Crawl Classics – Doom of the Savage Kings
Publisher: Goodman Games
Author: Harley Stroh
Artist: Doug Kovacs
Genre: Pulp fantasy adventure for the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG
Year: 2012
Pages: 20 pages
MSRP: $9.99 for the softcover and PDF or $6.99 for the PDF alone at DriveThruRPG
Doom of the Savage Kings tells the tale of an ancient entity, soon to be referred to as The Hound, awoken by grave robbers. Seeking the glory days of it’s bloody past the entity has taken to roaming the streets of the small village of Hirot populated by around 200 people (which once was about 300 people prior to the return of The Hound) who are now in a state of panic. Enter our intrepid adventurers.
The adventure is designed for six to twelve 1st level characters and consists of a trio of major locations where much of the action will take place and, more than likely, to be visited multiple times before the tale concludes. While this seems to be an obvious murderhobo situation in which the adventurers simply need to kill The Hound, the proceedings are complicated by the fact the entity will rise once again every time it’s killed unless it’s dispatched by a particular artifacts the protagonists must discover.
The short adventure will mostly take place at the scene of the Alter Stones where the villagers are just about to sacrifice some of their neighbors to hopefully placate The Hound, then on the Tomb of Ulfheonar where further clues and possibly that aforementioned weapon are to found, and finally the lair of The Hound for what the players will hope is a final confrontation.
Tips on how to portray key NPCs and a random table of rumors are also included. Throw in deadly traps, environmental dangers, betrayal and multiple ways to defeat The Hound and what you have a rather entertaining scenario.
There’s a lot going on in this adventure but, thankfully, most is easily spelled out for the GM and the layout is relatively clear. Three striking maps are provided for the GM but there are strangely no player versions; unusual for a Dungeon Crawl Classics product.
All in all, Doom of the Savage Kings is a short adventure your players can sink their teeth into. Or perhaps it will sink its teeth into them.