2026 Reviews - Perilous Path of the Cursed Camel
Convention season is coming up for me, so the next adventure that I'm going to talk about is one that I think is absolutely perfect for a convention game! Here is The Perilous Path of the Cursed Camel, by Joseph R. Lewis, with art by Oleg Khachkovskiy and Joe himself. The adventure is written for three systems simultaneously (Shadowdark, Old School Essentials, and Cairn) with a pretty clever conversion method (more on that later). I've run it with Cairn a few times, one of them at GameHole con last year.
This adventure is a self-described one-shot which throws PCs into a strange journey through time and space at the behest of a tired and ancient talking camel named Iris. Essentially, the PCs are approached and then whisked along through rifts that bring them to random locations-- ostensibly they are being taken to their doom, as they have been cursed by the mysterious "Witches of Grome", but they have a chance to bargain for their souls by offering the witches valuable relics which they can find along the way.
Getting it to the Table
There are two main features that make this adventure absolutely perfect for a convention. The first is that it is entirely modular; there are twelve potential locations that Iris will bring the PCs to on their way to the witches, and the GM is encouraged to either roll on the list or choose which one to visit. Then, after 30 minutes of real time elapse at the table, Iris will teleport to the next location, bringing the PCs along with her. The allows the GM complete control over the length of the game, and it can easily be tailored to fit any time slot.
The other feature is the conversion method. At the beginning of the booklet there are three pages that contain the stat blocks for every foe or NPC that can be found in the adventure, presented for each system. The way this works is that in every location, foes and NPCs are described as being one of five basic categories: Beast, Champion, Fighter, Swarm, or Witch. What constitutes a Fighter will change from location to location; in the Feymire you will encounter goblins which use the Fighter stat block while in the Diamond Peaks you will encounter mountaineers that use the same stat block. Additional differentiation like equipment and special features are listed in each location, so it ends up being pretty seamless at the table. When I played this adventure it felt like I was fighting a new type of creature each time, and it wasn't until I read it that I realized how it was organized. It's really a very intuitive and efficient way of statting an adventure for multiple systems, which can very easily get clumsy and cumbersome if you're constantly reprinting multiple stat blocks.
As far as actually prepping the adventure, it's exceedingly simple. Every single location that Iris will bring the PCs to is presented on a single page with ample yet concise detail about what they can see, hear, smell, touch, and taste. All of the interactive elements have further detail that unfolds into challenging (but brief) situations that the PCs have to navigate in order to find relics and survive until Iris teleports them away. This is definitely something that you could pick up and run straight from the book.
What Worked?
- Supremely modular. You can take your time and explore all 12 locations, or keep it tight and zip through just a few before the final showdown.
- Lots of interactivity. Some places will throw you into a straight-up fight, some will require negotiation, some will let you gamble with ghosts (complete with a bespoke gambling mechanic)
- D66 relics! Lots of great stuff in here that can be used creatively and make players reluctant to give them up in exchange for their PC's soul.
What Didn't Work?
- Not enough things that didn't work for me to populate this section of my template. Psh.
Final Thoughts
This is a fun little adventure that should go into any GM's go-bag in case adventure gaming suddenly erupts.
You can get Perilous Path of the Cursed Camel from Joe's itch page and I highly recommend it! Thanks for reading!