Daniel (@dungeondive) opens a three-part solo playthrough of The Hidden Shrine of Umugatu, the first small expansion for Secret Unknown Stuff: Escape From Dulce — presented, gloriously, as a late-70s D&D module complete with fold-out paper map. The setup: the escape route has collapsed, stranding the party in lizardman-infested caverns beneath the base, where the lizard god Umugatu waits on his throne. Three keys open his shrine; four crystals hold back his horde.
The party is Amelia Earhart, a middling all-rounder with a once-per-encounter dodge, and Sir Reginald the Cleaver, the expansion’s own hero — strength four, mental one, a heavy mace and chainmail, and a habit of speaking in mangled Middle English. The module awards a full XP for reading his dialogue aloud with sufficient gusto and accent, which Daniel duly claims.
Two rooms in, the episode establishes the game’s rhythm: nominate an explorer, flip the room chit, draw an encounter card with its flavour vignette, place enemies on the initiative track, fight, then search for loot. Amelia turns up a riot shield that pairs with a pistol; Reginald’s dismal mental stat makes searching a near-hopeless prospect until both characters spend their first level-up on it. The first iron key surfaces behind a pillar of luminous prehistoric plants.
Do you want narrative flavour text in a dungeon crawl, or does reading vignettes aloud break the flow of a combat-driven game?