In 2025 I’m reviewing zungeon zines. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques, just like Bathtub Reviews, but they’ll be a little briefer. The goal here is a little different: I want to spotlight what a craft-based, just-do-it approach to module writing can do.

Lost Ruins of the Tiger-men is a 6 page zungeon for Old School Essentials by Katt Kirsch. In it, large catlike beasts have begun invading a local village, and you must infiltrate the temple of the Tiger cult to get to the bottom of it. It’s unpublished, at this stage, but I hope it gets put up on their itch.io page soon (update: it’s available here!).

The first page is hooks and rumours, and while they don’t all fit the criteria I prefer in terms of juiciness, I quite like them anyway. “Why would a young, pretty girl like her spend all that time in the jungle, just staring?”, is lovely to me, although I’d attach it to a character, especially given the village gets some description later in the module. I think the best way to reconcile this, though, is that they’re often repeated; the above rumour is tied to the hook “Barnabus the brandymaker’s odd cousin Genevieve vanished last year. She would often quietly stare into the jungle, as if hypnotised. Now, he fears the worst.”. Combining these double ups into a single item might make them a little punchier and more effective.

The map follows, 18 rooms, bold and rendered as a set of nodes. The relevance of the colours isn’t immediately apparent to me, and neither was the labels on the connections (although they became clear when reading the key). A legend would be helpful, I think. It’s an intensely looped space, but some of those loops are hidden well, I just fear some of the more connected rooms might lead to analysis paralysis.

The bestiary, random encounter table and all other encounters are cleverly folded together, and rely on the Old School Essentials bestiary to keep things brief. It works really well, it would just benefit from a variation of a mien table or some baseline disposition or agenda to help with interpreting the reaction rolls. A section on the Tiger Priestess comes at the end of the zine, which details her motivations, and perhaps that’s intended to cover this gap.

All 19 room descriptions fit into two pages, which gives you an idea about what to expect — low complexity. But to make up for that you need to be super evocative, and Kirsch manages this — “…lemon trees curl and wind upon each other, lunging towards sunlight trickling through the stone latticework above. Bronze keys jangle around the neck of a Cat-Baboon high in the canopy. He will not give up his bounty easily.”

For an unpublished zungeon, the layout on this is banging. Bold headings, colour coding to match rooms to contents, bold art, and complex details differentiated with colour highlights. It’s really good stuff, although it could be made more explicit.

Overall, Lost Ruins of the Tiger-men is a banger, and better than plenty of published modules of its’ size. It will make an excellent night or two of play, and the writing is vibrant and memorable. If Kirsch chooses to publish it, I’d encourage you to check it out.

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