This adventure is notable as it is a direct sequel to an earlier one, The Blackguard's Revenge, which told the tale of a bunch of undead attacking the headquarters of an order of paladins. Whether or not your party was involved in that adventure, which (hopefully) saw the undead sent packing, they may be called upon to seal a further crypt to prevent even viler evil powers from getting loose. Trouble is, the crypt in question was designed by the best thieves and wizards money could hire to be impenatrable, and to seal it securely, first they must get inside!

There's a dire warning: the traps in the dungeon are not designed to be survived! So the party needs to take care, there are no convenient escape routes built in. The DM's notes also cover such things as wandering monsters and scaling the adventure for tougher or weaker parties than the 4-6 characters of 11th-13th level envisaged; and provides some suggestions for involving the party particularly if they haven't played The Blackguard's Revenge.

The background explains that the Iron Crypt of the Heretics was built with a three-fold purpose: to house the bodies of the heretical blackguards, to serve as a library for the religious tracts declared by the Church to be false beliefs, and as a storehouse for evil artifacts and cursed magic items brought back by questing paladins. In The Blackguard's Revenge, the first section was breached and the deceased blackguards raised as wights. The other two vaults remain, but the aggregation of evil stuff down there is fermenting and brewing a nexus of great evil... and something needs to be done before it erupts to scatter and cause problems across the land.

As usual, the adventure opens with the party standing outside the Crypt (and despite the dangers probably quite eager to get in, seeing as there's a blizzard howling around them). The whole place, excellently described, is full of traps for even the wary, never mind the unwary, and clear thought as well as strong sword-arms and ready spell books will be required to win through. There's quite a lot of reliance on doing the right thing in the right place... it's often not obvious, and the text suggests the use of appropriate Knowledge checks to 'remember' something about the situation that will provide the necessary information. You may find it necessary to drop hints when rolls are flubbed.

If you like well-described dungeons that are jam-packed with ingeneous and deadly traps, then this one awaits. Everything hangs together well, with the traps being well designed in a mix of clockwork and magic that - if magic existed - could work if you went and built them. Five pregenerated characters are provided, although the layout is messy and to make them usable it's best to copy them out onto a character sheet before use. Good handouts, including a few 'this is what you see' illustrations, and clear detailed maps complete this adventure.

Iron Crypt of the Heretics is a sequel to the module the Blackguard?s Revenge. It is not necessary though to have that module or to even have run to get a lot of use and a lot of fun out of the Iron Crypt of the Heretics. This is another module I ran and so the review will reflect things that happened as we played through the module. The re view will also contain many spoilers so if you are going to be a player in the module or think that reading this might ruin your own fun or the fun of others; please do not read it. All you would need to know is the module is tricky, deadly, and there are some placed that the group could easily not get past.

Iron Crypt of the Heretics is number 12.5 in the dungeon crawl classic product line. It is written by Harley Stroh and the module is not all that big at only twenty four pages long. The book is well laid out with great art and maps. It like most of the modules in the series also has some very cool player handouts. The module does have pre generated characters in it and that is something I do not see all that often in the new modules. The PDF of the adventure is nicely book marked and has the same quality as the printed version.

The adventure is site based and very deadly. It is for character of eleventh through thirteenth level has a very old school feel to it. The players can just come across it as a place they discover, be lead here by the Paladins from the Dungeon Crawl Classic 12: Blackguard?s Revenge, or learn about it through rumor, story, or one of many other ways. There is great evil kept in the crypt and it quite possibly will have turned into something the players will not expect.

The players come to the place in winter. The first miner obstacle is a semi frozen river that comes out of the mountain the crypt is built into. Getting across for players of this level should be really easy but if they try to walk across they could be swimming in near freezing water. On the other side is the door to the crypt flanked by two large stone statues that everyone knows will come alive at some point. To the left is an old destroyed abbey that was really small maybe a room at the most. There they can find a dead body and a partially obscured in blood note that foreshadows something really bad is going on. There is a concealed door that leads to some treasure and a written hint. If the group can decipher it they will have a really easy time with one of the obstacles. If not they could easily never get by it. There will be more on that later.

The doors to the crypt are locked and someone picking the lock could get their hand stuck as the statues do of course come to life. It turned out to be a harder battle though the party did wonder with the door open they just didn?t go in the crypt where the statues could not follow. The first set of obstacles involves some statues and weapons. These do not come above but the weapons need to be removed and place in their proper spots on other statues. The statues can be recognized with a knowledge religion check and it would be a great time to have famous knights from the past be honored and part of the puzzle. Basically two statues of famous knights known to sue a certain type of weapon have to be found and the weapon placed in their hand. It is not quite that easy. First there is a bridge to a center platform that has to be navigated. Once at the center platform the PCs need to be able to move the bridge using gears to have the bridge connect to places they want to go. Of course a fly spell makes this really easy. There are also wights in the room that can drop down on the PCs but once again a fly spell could have the wights dropping 300ft to their doom and the PCs will have little to worry about there. The two statues the PCs need to find are beyond some deadly traps though not the worst the dungeon has to offer.

Once that potential log jam is gotten by the players have their second one to deal with. A Statue with a magic mouth asks them what they pray for. There are two archways exiting the room each with an answer and each of them wrong. They lead to even more deadly room traps. The right answer is in the concealed room of the abbey. If they found and deciphered that this will be really erasy and if not like my players they could try guessing for a very long time.

This takes them to the main complex of the crypt. There is a library with an animated spell book that lops spells at them, and some other books and carpets that will cause them all sorts of problems. There is a prison with on lone dead dude that can easily lead to further adventures but has little use in the module. There is a room of five skulls that looks more complex then it really is. The tough part of that room is there is a sixth skull behind a secret door elsewhere and if they don?t find that they can not unlock the actual crypt. The main area also seems to have been hit by an earth quake. There is a ravine leading out of the place the players can explore. On way takes them to gigantic ooze in an anti magic field that can really be super tough. But it is easily avoidable. The other ways has them fight some driders and leads them to the river. Now while the map does not actually connect this river with the river out front is seems to me one leads to the other. A smart party could then have just gone up the river and arrived using the back door and skipped many of the traps and heart ache. The driders have slaves that are digging into the actual crypt so if the group just finishes that and it is not hard to do so they can also by pass the skull room and never need to figure that out.

In the crypt are more Driders and a great black egg like thing of nothing. It is pure concentrated evil and it is growing with ever bit of violent act that goes on around it. There are books in the library that warn of such a thing being created with too much evil and also the idea the violence even for the sake of good only causes more violence. I found the ideas of those and a few other things in the library some of the best parts of the module. To destroy the Ebon Egg, as that is what the thing is called, one can be destroyed with a extra dimensional space or a warhammer of cancellation. There is an item of each in the module though the warhammer is not easy to find.

The module can leave the group scratching their head as to what this is especially if they do not take the time to read books. Even with the knowledge they might not put it all together. The river entrance seems like something that the module should have addressed. There are a few points that the party can easily be defeated though not through a TPK. I can see that being frustrating to some players. It is a harder module and not one that everyone will survive.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

In the course of breaking into a legendary vault that was meant to be sealed for all time (with magical wards and deathtraps, in the most literal sense, to match) the PCs must also contend with what's left of others who tried to enter and a unique entity of corrupted magic.

This is high-stakes puzzle-solving and trap-dodging, and not short of combat either, in a truly impressive location. The sole complaint I might make is about the number of "completely indestructible", that is, plot-cheese devices. It would be more impressive if the designers had taken a short time to devise some items that by the rules are beyond destruction by a party of this level.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>