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.

Remembrance of a Holy War is an 8 page system-agnostic zungeon by Theodore L Rivera. In it, you delve into the catacombs of a family with a storied history.

It starts with a single page history of the family, as well as a brief politic of the local city. Then it breezes over the truth of the matter — I don’t mind letting the referee figure things out at all, but making a title called “The Truth” then saying “figure it out” feels a little disingenuous to me. I really enjoy that the random encounter table is packed equally with NPCs and nameless fights, although in a 12 room dungeon, 14 encounters is going to water down your chances of encountering any single one, meaning you’ll miss out on the cool ones if you’re on a bell curve like you are here. The key itself is terse, the rooms are interesting, and the vibe is decidedly creepy.

What doesn’t sit right with this zungeon is that the context reaches halfway there and never finishes. You get some political context, but why are you in the catacombs? Why are the undead Patricia and Leticia there? Or are they immortal? Why are both of the men vying for the throne here? It says the seeds are here to figure out the truth, but I don’t think that’s the case. It feels unfinished to me. It’s pretty easy to expand to fill these gaps, even if you wanted to leave some room for improvisation — it’s just in dire need of some hooks, and of some one or two sentence descriptions of these characters. All of the history and politics is kind of wasted, when you have no real clue who the characters are or what they want. Make these clear, not the politics of the local town. I’m more likely to place this in an existing campaign, so making the dungeon concrete and the exterior more generic (although it can still be there!) would work far better. It’s just going for subtle and shoots too far, landing in obtuse

That said, if you’re willing to put in the time or enjoy improvising characterisations, there’s a fun spooky zungeon here. Remembrance of a Holy War will give you a neat session or 2 of play, and introduce some politics to your region.

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