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.

Bloodmoon Crypt is a 6 page zungeon for Black Sword Hack, by Elizabeth Brasell. In it, werewolves have used dark magic to return to Silvershaft, and you must delve into the crypt of their greatest foe to reclaim the sword Wolfsbane.

Bloodmoon Crypt’s description cleverly hides its hooks in the text, which is really smart for such a short module. It features 2 unique creatures, one of which our random encounter, occurring in 1/3 of all rooms. The other lurks in two rooms, as set encounters. It’s very neat, and it results in around 5 combat encounters in this small dungeon.

The map is small — 10 rooms — but has some fun loops in it, and some dead ends. It’s packed full of cool encounters — the ghost anchorite, the organ of the mountain, and the former priest. It’s all keyed in a max of 3 sentences. It sticks to the dungeon itself — this means that it’s implied that you’re seeding some werewolves into the campaign world, to use Wolfsbane on! If I were the author, I’d use this gap as an opportunity to write a little werewolf centric zungeon sequel, of roughly the same size.

The main improvement I think I’d make to improve Bloodmoon Crypt without complicating things, would be adding a little bit to each of these encounters in terms of character — the chaos zombies are clearly retaining their past memories for example. said you’re going to encounter 2-3 of them, write up 3 zombies after the style of the former priest. Give the ghost anchorite an agenda or how she might be “of use” as the hook suggests. Tell me why the mountain has a heart! This stuff is fire and would be excellent to expand a little.

I love the simplicity of Bloodmoon Crypt. As is, this is a really fun module. If you’re looking for a small module to throw into into your campaign, you won’t regret it.

Idle Cartulary

Playful Void is a production of Idle Cartulary. If you liked this article, please consider liking, sharing, and subscribing to the Idle Digest Newsletter. If you want to support Idle Cartulary continuing to provide Bathtub Reviews, I Read Reviews, and Dungeon Regular, please consider a one-off donation or becoming a regular supporter of Idle Cartulary on Ko-fi.