REVIEW??: Burrow of the Weremole by Grimoire Games [2/5]
Nice concept with nearly no value in the execution.
The REVIEW?? series is for free or pay what you want (PWYW) materials.
“Burrow of the Weremole” is a 4-page dungeon by Grimoire Games. It’s also available in a one-page dungeon format. It is available on DTRPG on a PWYW basis.
The high concept idea on this is fucking cool. I read it and instantly started getting ideas on how I’d actually build and play an encounter with a giant monstrous, but intelligent, mole in its domain.
And then I started reading it, and the enthusiasm fell off a fucking cliff.
The backstory in the 4-page version talks about a druid called Brunhilde, who is stealing livestock to feed her flesh-eating worms, and “just wants to be left alone”.
I bet the peasants she’s stealing the cows off want to be left alone too.
This is the first stumbling block.
Instead of it being a monstrous or brutal creature, you get a twee druid living a moronic cottagecore fantasy out in the wilderness. This isn’t engaging on a DM or player level. It’s the sort of docile nonsense you’d expect from a 5e module, with villains that are just misunderstood or misguided and can be redeemed by rolling an appropriate Diplomacy check.
The second failure is the size of Brunhilde’s burrow itself.
There are eight locations, and they are compacted together. It’s designed for the one-page dungeon format and therefore there’s no scale, just an absolute fucking useless isometric map.
There is advice in the 4-page dungeon version for using the weremole to ambush and dig through walls, but the space looks so small that I can’t see any GM managing it.
This whole place could be increased in size massively. The 5th location alone (Mushroom Cave) could be a full large and mapped area, allowing players to trumble around a mushroom cave and get murdered by an evil mole-monster.
Finally, there’s barely any gameable detail listed!
There’s no loot, and the weremole herself doesn’t have any stats. The module doesn’t have a level range at all.
The Druidic Laboratory is the perfect example of a swing and a miss. Brunhilde “concocts potions and fertilizers [here]” and then there’s “any sort of ingredient, some old potions and a couple of rotten spell books”.
It’s a bizarre contrast. Does she not use her spell books anymore? Why is she still maintaining the laboratory?
There is so much gameable stuff that could be added, some random ideas:
Potion of Talpathropy: Gives players the weremole curse.
Potion of Wild Growth: Makes plants grow rapidly when thrown.
Furred Spellbook: Loads of really specific self-polymorph spells that turn you into a cute animal.
There are some redeeming features that make me think Grimoire Games could be a good adventure designer. The areas link together nicely and there are some indicators of what is going in a given location, like this:
The deep claw marks indicate to players something pretty clear, and the notes for the GM are going to be useful. I just wish the rest of it was on the same level.
If Grimoire Games moves away from the one-page format, I think there is a lot more room for development. I hope to see it in the future.
If you wish to obtain or pay for “Burrow of the Weremole”, you can do so on DTRPG: