The Sunless Citadel

A few weeks ago I ran The Sunless Citadel, a 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons adventure out of Tales from the Yawning Portal (TftYP). TftYP is a collection of dungeons from throughout D&D's history, ported into 5th edition and given some polish. Sunless Citadel, specifically, was the 3rd edition starter set adventure, so I thought it'd be a fun exploration into the system's history.

The original Sunless Citadel was written by Bruce R. Cordell and published in 2000, and apparently was well-liked at the time. I'd never heard of it, but reading the premise got me interested. The adventure centres around exploring a fortress once ruled by dragon-worshipping cultists, now sunken deep into the earth under mysterious circumstances. I'll avoid summarising how the adventure played out, but let me communicate some of my thoughts on it.¹

First of all, I've developed a love for running dungeon crawls. Maybe not rigourous, plot-less meat grinders, but setting an adventure in a dungeon grants a number of desirable advantages. I enjoyed getting to describe one room at a time, throw unusual traps and circumstances at the players without explanation, and vary the environment wildly from room to room.