Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely. I’m doing them to critique a wide range of modules from the perspective of my own table and to learn for my own module design. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath.

Oubliette is a serial megadungeon for B/X, written and with interior illustrations by Casey Garske. As it stands, the 0 and 1st issues have been released, and I’m looking at those 2 releases. In it (so far, at least), you’re trapped in a town on a rock in an endless grey void, and the only way out is by using raven statues to teleport into a deadly, endless dungeon. I bought this one on Drive Thru RPG.

Oubliette (n.) 0 is only 12 pages long, and covers the campaign rules and the village of Oubliville where the party will spend their downtime. The Rules: The Oubliette appears to be some kind of hellish afterlife, where you can collect Obols for more power. Raven statues act as fast-travel points that might reach deeper into the Oubliette or might return you to Oubliville. These two additions (as well as the additions of a supply die and equipment slots), effectively gamify this megadungeon, something I’ve been interested in in the past. There’s not much to it, but what’s there has a purpose. Oubliville is effectively 9 locations, their character, each with a specific purpose. Again, very videogamey, but in a neat way. A bunch of these introduce collectibles that need to be brought back to Oubliville — tomes and ingredients for potions, and the others all serve specific purposes. Obols being expended for all of these things as well as for experience, means that tough choices abound in the Oubliette. Overall, the rules included here are great, and make me excited to dig into Oubliette proper. Oubliette (n.) #0 is free, so if you’re not sure about this project, I’d look at this, and see if it guides your decision either way.

Oubliette (n.) 1 covers the first level of the dungeon, and packs 31 rooms into less than 20 pages. This runs a little differently: There are sewers linking most of the rooms if you choose to venture down there, and you don’t roll regular random encounters, but rather only when you enter an encounter room or “linger too long“. The event roll is loaded, and consists up to 12 unique random encounters, some of which are related to specific locations (as good random encounters should be). There are also environmental encounter tables (“gutteral voices from room 11“) as well as a level lockdown where you can be instantly locked up. Good stuff, pulling from popular OSR blogosphere innovations. The room descriptions also pull from Anne Hunter’s Landmark, Hidden, Secret in their keying, just as many other OSR authors such as Miranda Elkins, Yochai Gal and myself all do. I’d prefer the bestiary at the back have clearer descriptions, and potentially behaviours or goals. There are collectibles here — an ingredient and a tome, although I think the ingredient is unclear enough in the description that you might get players picking random stuff off the shelves — Yex the Apothecary might be a better source for something like the trading sequence in the Ruins of Castle Gygar to help with direction here. The room descriptions are terse, but rely quite heavily on hyperdiegesis. I’m not sure if Garske has deep lore planned for this megadungeon, but certainly I’d like to know as someone running this if there’s going to be, as the implications might grow in the absence of any canon here — I had similar struggles with episodic megadungeon, Through Ultan’s Door.

However, I struggled with some aspects. I cannot grasp the sewer layout at all: “Below the main floor of the dungeon is a sewer […] Dashed lines in the sewer indicate higher dry ground. The tunnels of the sewer pass beneath the upper rooms in straight lines[…]” Looking at the main map, I can see dashed lines, but otherwise I just don’t follow. I think this may be an issue with using Dungeon Scrawl as a mapping tool — maybe some lines are running beneath the main level, but it’s not at all clear. Certainly I could map out the sewer rooms (19 to 21, 25 and 27 at a glance) and figure out what they could connect to. This would be easily fixed though, simply by shading the lower sewer level or hand-drawing this map, which isn’t particularly complex. I recently read Cryo-Siq, which used a method of mapping which allowed for connections like sewers between rooms by using a secondary keying code (i.e. 13A might indicate all the As are connected). Something like this would work far better for me. I want more information for a lot of this stuff.

One interesting little impact of some of the keying choices is that the Oubliette feels like it might be some kind of time loop, with the players continuously turning up in a room with a jailer recently killed in it, for example. The dungeon also has no restocking method — given the author appears to be familiar with the OSR broadly, and given the keying choices, this also feels intentional, perhaps that the recurring monsters are supposed to be reborn each time you re-enter the Oubliette. Is it supposed to be a grim, violent, Groundhog-day like jail? It’s not clear. The mystery in this dungeon is plenty intriguing, but the lack of, for example, any information on what the Ghostly Preacher might preach, and things like it, concern me. It appears the Warden is chaining the Duke, and that the Duke guards the exit from the Oubliette, but that too isn’t clear. It might be that things will be revealed in future issues (certainly, at least, the Eagle Talisman doesn’t appear in issue #1), and I like that the exit is here on the first level, as it creates a pleasing loop, particularly if the Eagle Talisman is far deeper, but it’s disappointing that the tome titled “On the Nature of the Oubliette” gives you special magical powers, but no revelation about the nature of the Oubliette. Now, I am making these judgements based on an incomplete dungeon — more issues I’m assured will follow — but perhaps these zines would benefit from some kind of reassurance regarding what will follow and what the referee is expected to improvise herself, because because as it is it leaves me in a limbo where I’m not sure what’s planned and whether I’m undermining it and hence my players’ decisionmaking.

Oubliette (n.) 0 and 1 are both illustrated by hand, and are laid out in Google Docs. The layout suffers accordingly — I think you could do more with Google Docs, but Garske appears to be more interested in just getting this out there, which is super valid for a megadungeon project. I think the big thing I’d change, though, is some variable spacing, as I struggle to read the individual room entries, in the context of the only paragraph breaks being the ones between rooms.

There are a bunch of criticisms here, but I’d like to point out that many of them are similar to the criticisms I posed towards another incomplete megadungeon, Through Ultan’s Door, over a year ago. This suggests these criticisms are one of experiencing an incomplete part of a whole, and perhaps not a valid criticism of that whole once it exists. But, alas, it does not exist as yet. What Oubliette at this stage is, is a very compelling first floor or so of a megadungeon, filled with mystery, written tersely and with great flavour, with suggested house rules that are reminiscent of videogames. At this stage, it conjures the impression that this megadungeon is a hell of some kind, either a time loop or some kind of purgatory that you’re all trapped in along with these characters that may or may not regenerate each time you enter. But I’m not sure if those impressions are me reading too deeply into what’s here, or intent of the author. Irregardless, while I’d wait to run Oubliette, what is here so far is an incredibly compelling start to megadungeon, that I’ll be keeping a close eye on as future issues release. If you’re looking for a megadungeon that’ll kindle your imagination, Oubliette (n.) is the megadungeon for you.

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.