Product Review: Caverns of Thracia

Note: I will be giving as much of a spoiler-free review of this dungeon as possible, for both my players and readers who may want to play in the future.

Caverns of Thracia is a dungeon written by Paul Jaquay in 1978. It uses the ruleset for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and contains a veritable zoo of monsters, traps, and secrets. The dungeon contains multiple complex levels and has a degree of foresight and planning not seen in many of the dungeons designed today.

The design going into this dungeon does not begin with the first floor, but instead begins with the surface. There are bits of story, an encounter, and multiple entrances all located within 100 square feet of each other, already giving the players the sense of something extraordinary.

After the players choose an entrance, they could end up on the first, second, or even third floor. There is a great deal of vertical design, with level one alone containing multiple chasms dropping to the next level, or with large multi-room sub-levels creating secret passageways to explore and get lost in.

The dungeon contains about 150 total rooms, almost every single one describing some history, creatures, traps, treasure, or tricks. As the players delve deeper, they may begin to understand the politics between the various races within the dungeon, or pick up on the hints dropped by simple decorations or room descriptions. Or they might just try to kill every living thing inside, any play style works.

Perhaps one of the most important details missing from today's dungeons: wandering monster tables. While simple, these tables allow the Dungeon Master to tell a story effortlessly, and bring this dungeon to life. Running into a hunting foray of lizardmen can be interesting, but add into the mix a minotaur, armed tribesmen, a pack of gnolls with human slaves, or a living stone statue and you have questions. Add in relationships and have them fight and suddenly you have a story.

This dungeon is not only for those wanting a nostalgia trip or to break out the AD&D books again. After updating the entire book to 5th edition, my party and I have sallied forth and challenged the darkness. There are hiccups here and there, but overall the conversion was mostly painless and the constituted the entirety of preparation required for the dungeon.

Caverns of Thracia is a sprawling dungeon with dozens of sessions of content. Every single party I bring to the dungeon ends in an exciting experience, as the players take new routes, encounter different monsters, and come up with bizarre ideas. Caverns gives you a superb base upon which your dungeoncrawl can flourish, giving something for every D&D player to enjoy.