Barrowmaze: Hacking Barrow Mound #16

I recently encountered barrow mound #16 from Barrowmaze, titled “The Sword-Mound of the Ancients.” In this sealed tomb, six skeletal warriors stand in alcoves surrounding an altar. A bejeweled magic longsword lies there and, predictably, attack anyone who tries to take the sword. This is pretty much all the detail Barrowmaze provides about the tomb.

Barrowmaze’s brevity is one of its strengths. As Greg Gillespie’s instructions state at the beginning of the game, “Barrowmaze uses a shortened entry style. This approach encourages the Referee to read the entry and then convey the scene while making eye contact with the players. This style allows the Referee to play the dungeon with minimal preparation time. This approach also encourages you to play with your players rather than reading aloud to them.”
 

And I get it. Having short, concise descriptions can be a good thing. However, there are also times when I think the paucity of text hinders Barrowmaze. I think this tomb is one of those times. As an RPG player who looks for fantasy and narrative engagements, this tomb temptingly raises several questions that have no answer, such as:

·         Who are the skeletal warriors around this sword?

·         Why are the skeletal warriors protecting this sword?

·         What’s special about this sword?

·         Why did the barrow’s creators entomb this sword, rather than use it themselves?

Furthermore, the tomb itself feels logically inconsistent. Those who buried the sword here obviously intended to keep people from using it, as they sealed the tomb and surrounded the sword with six skeletons that attack anyone who tries to take it.

However, despite their intention, the trap the tomb’s designers made is woefully easy to spot. What could anyone expect to happen, if you see a tantalizing enchanted sword lying on an altar surrounded by six skeletons in a necromantic dungeon? What’s to keep a tomb robber from “yoink-ing” the sword and quickly running from the tomb before the skeletons can shake the dust off their bones? What’s to keep tomb robbers from murdering the helpless skeletons before they animate, crushing their skulls or whatever?

To be clear, I’m not against letting the party circumvent challenges with clever solutions. But the trap here feels uninspired, and the solutions to it feel “too easy” and unearned. The party can simply get a Generic Sword of +1 Banality “for free” by grabbing it and running away. That solution hardly seems clever, just obvious.

So, I took it upon myself to “flesh out” this scenario a bit. This comes at the expense of adding more words to its description, but I think it “pays off” in terms of depth, and originality.

PART 1: THE STORY OF BARROW MOUND #16

Gann was a simple farmer until he witnessed a giant eat his wife and infant son whole. In a rage, Gann threw a spear through the giant’s eye and, when the giant knelt in pain, slit its neck. From the giant’s bones, Gann carved the baneful sword Splinter and set upon a rampage against the giants, eventually killing their chief Senach and halting their incursions against the humans (for a while).

Gann eventually died. His surviving shield-mates, none of whom possessed Gann’s strength and wisdom, carved a tomb for him and laid his sword there - as none of them were able to use it. For a while, pilgrims ventured to his burial site and attempted to lift his sword, but none succeeded. With time, his remaining shield-mates died and were interred there. The barrow-builders sealed his tomb with the sword inside.

PART 2: THE GREATSWORD OF BONE, KNOWN AS “SPLINTER”

Splinter is a two-handed greatsword constructed of giants’ bones. Its handle and blade are carved of a single bone. A cross-guard fashioned from a second piece of bone fits over it. Blood from ages past stains its tallow-colored blade. Runes decorate it and imbue it with magic.

The runes say, “Strength and wisdom bring justice to those who prey on those smaller than themselves.” As a result, only a character with a Strength score of 16 or higher and a Wisdom score of 13 or higher can effectively wield Splinter. The sword feels impossibly heavy for any other creature.

Human-sized creatures wield Splinter as a two-handed sword. When fighting giants, Splinter has a magical +3 bonus. When fighting other creatures, Splinter has a magical +1 bonus. When fighting creatures smaller than oneself (ex. halflings), Splinter instead attacks the wielder as a +3 weapon.

Splinter, being constructed of bone, weighs half as much as a metal two-handed sword. It feels surprisingly light in its wielder’s hands. However, it is also fragile. At the referee’s discretion (ex. when used against metal armor or subject to a sundering attempt), Splinter begins to fracture and may eventually break. Clerical magic can repair it (ex. the cure light wounds or restoration spells) but not traditional smithing.

PART 3: BARROW MOUND #16 (HACKED)

“You descend a short flight of stairs into a tomb sixty feet long and thirty feet wide. Six upright sarcophagi line the walls, three on each side. Unlit braziers and wall carvings decorate the space between each. A seventh sarcophagus lies horizontally at the opposite end of the room, atop a small flight of stairs. An altar sits in front of the sarcophagus, a rune-covered sword lying atop it on a dusty crimson cloth.”

·         Six Upright Sarcophagi: Made of mortared giants’ bones. Five have names carved on them, each containing the remains of Gann’s shield-mates. Breaching the lid of any named sarcophagus causes the all the skeletons to animate and attack the tomb-robbers. They pursue the desecrators with supernatural persistence until either the tomb-robbers or they themselves are defeated. Should they defeat the tomb-robbers, the skeletons hunt giants once more with the fragments of memory they still possess. The one sarcophagus without a name on it has an open back leading to #81.

·         Braziers: made of hollowed-out giants’ skulls. Filled with cold coals.

·         Decorative Wall Carvings: Four in total (one between each pair of the shield-mates’ sarcophagi)

1. Depicting Gann throwing a spear through a giant’s eye with a house burning in the background
2. Depicting Gann carving a bone into the shape of a sword, a light from heaven shining down on him
3. Depicting Gann and his five shield-mates slaying an army of giants while wielding Splinter
4. Depicting Gann boarding a ship with no sails (representing death), taking the hands of a woman and boy (his wife and son) who reside there. His sword lies behind him on an altar, surrounded by a throng of people.

·         Seventh Sarcophagus: Made of mortared giants’ bones. The graven image on its lid depicts Gann in repose. Opening the lid reveals Gann inside and causes Gann and his shield-mates to animate. Two urns on either side of the sarcophagus bear the names of his wife and son, as well as a prayer that they find peace in the afterlife despite their physical remains being destroyed. An inscription from Gann on each says he loves them.

·         Altar: Here Splinter lies on a crimson cloth, surrounded by candles long unlit. A carving on the altar says, "May one as strong and wise as Gann wield this blade once more."