What makes a good dungeon? On the internet, there are many think pieces about the elements that make a dungeon enjoyable. Does a dungeon need a good layout? A great theme? Surprising twists? Deadly traps? Desirable treasure? Iconic monsters? What if I told you that there is a dungeon that combines all of these elements?

After having played it with 5 different groups over 10 sessions, I feel safe to proclaim: The Shrine of the Jaguar Princess is the best dungeon I ever had the pleasure of running. It has set a gold standard (a golden jaguar, if you will) for future dungeons to come. It is baffling to me how there are not more people talking about this masterpiece. It is full of iconic moments, player driven decision making, it is extremely difficult and yet rewarding, it is... The Shrine of the Jaguar Princess.

Roleplay Mechanics

The first thing that differs the Shrine from many other dungeons comes before even starting to play. The dungeon asks you to pick a vice and greed for your characters in this dungeon from a preselected list. This immediately grabs the attention of the players with a simple promise: Their character creation choices will have consequences within the dungeon.

In addition, the dungeon will give every character a helpful rumor about the dungeon, that may help them in certain situations. The only downside of these rumors is that they might be complete lies. While these rumors do not have a great effect on gameplay, they do encourage some roleplaying between the players, trying to figure out the truth. In addition, they are great foreshadowing and built anticipation for the secrets within the dungeon.

Printed in 'The Shrine of the Jaguar: Special Edition'.

A deadly beginning

To this day I do not understand the first room of 'The Shrine of the Jaguar Princess'. This room will mercilessly massacre about half of the group if they dare to challenge it, and might even take out a character of a more careful or cowardly bunch. An unavoidable encounter with clay statues dealing unhealable damage seems antithetical to the otherwise so carefully crafted dungeon. Here, the system in which you play the Shrine becomes really important. It is written for Shadowdark, where character creation is fast and loose, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the first room.

Technically there is a riddle here: One of the statues is wearing a circlet that can transform clay, which would be quite helpful in an encounter. But with or without the circlet this encounter is ridiculously deadly, with most groups loosing about two characters here. The true value 'The Clay Warrior Gallery' is simple, but cruel. It sets the mood of the dungeon for the low price of some characters lives.

Mind-bending treasure

The beat down players are quick to be rewarded for their losses: This dungeon might have some of the best treasure that I have ever seen. Powerful items are plentiful and unique, from the unpronounceable Axe of Tlacaetica to the genre-bending Lycanthropy Totem. These items often seem to serve multiple purposes at once. They not only reward the players, but are often key to solve previous or upcoming puzzles within the dungeon. The Axe of Tlacaetica has multiple abilities that will be useful to open doors in 'Her City of Gold' later down the line, while the unassuming 'Deer leather armor' might contain the only hint on how to actually get to the final boss of the dungeon.

Not content with having the best items, this dungeon also has the option for some of the most unhinged body modifications I have ever seen in a fantasy adventure. This might be the only dungeon where you can mummify yourself, or where it is a good thing that your eyes exploded, because you can now implant the eyes of an extraplanar beholder god. The creativity in these items is absolutely iconic, which is also the best word to describe the monsters of this wonderful deathtrap.

The Most Iconic Monster

The Shrine of the Jaguar Princess is full of interesting and creative monsters, there is truly only one choice for the most iconic monster of this dungeon: Nahuatl the Revelator. This mix between a giant jaguar and a gibbering mouther makes for a terrifying and yet engaging encounter. First and foremost, the description is bone-chilling, with it's inside-out skin, jaguar features and hundreds of mouths, I always had a visceral reaction from my players when I described it. If you adhere to the level suggestions for the dungeon, this thing is tough to beat, sporting solid hit points and a ridicules amount of attacks. The confusion effect it's gibbering mouths create is pretty dangerous, especially for where your party is likely to encounter it (more on that later).

But all of this is just set-dressing for the real star of this encounter: The Revelation of Nahuatl. When the encounter starts, you choose one player who is unaffected by the confusion effect of the gibbering mouths. Instead, they are able to hear some cosmic truths if they would just come a little closer and actually listen. They are presented with a choice: Gain the Revelation of Nahuatl and suffer all of its attacks, or use their advantage of being unaffected by the confusion to help their group. The steep price to pay tempts many players to try to survive the Revelation and see what mysteries it beholds.

'Nahuatl the Revelator' as printed in 'The Shrine of the Jaguar: Special Edition'.

Unhinged Traps

Did you ever want to know what it is like to roll 100d6 of damage? Have you ever asked your players for their hit points, not to see if they survive, but only to calculate the worth of them once they have turned into gold (10gp x the maximum HP, if you are interested)?

If you want to see your players blissfully gamble their characters life's away, this is the dungeon for you. The dungeons insidious greed mechanics encourage the players to take increasing risks, knowing full well that each risk could be their end. There is a room that explicitly incorporates gambling mechanics and your players will voluntarily gamble for treasure, with their life as collateral.

On the other hand, the dungeon has some traps that do not seem to fit in completely. 'The Hall of Thunder' is a room that was never properly circumvented by any of my players - at least not in a way the book intended. Instead, it is its placement close to Nahuatl the Revelator that makes this trap work. Some groups used it to lure the big kitten into a trap and let 'The Hall of Thunder' do their dirty work. The massive amounts of damage emitted by these thundering stone faces is enough to even take the Revelator himself down... Sometimes.

To the horror of my players, the hit points of Nahuatl just so happen to be just high enough to survive the trap in some cases, leading to a desperate struggle right next to the deadly trap. Here, the confusion effect of the gibbering mouths shows its true intent - letting affected characters accidentally run into 'The Hall of Thunder'.

The 'Hall of Thunder' as printed in 'The Shrine of the Jaguar: Special Edition'.

A Premature Ending

The dungeon is separated into three layers, the first of which is 'The Poisonous Catacombs'. If the players manage to survive this deadly ordeal, they are rewarded with entry into 'Her City of Gold', the second layer of the dungeon. This layer is not only much more peaceful, with many optional routes to tackle, it also contains an exit to the dungeon. The characters should be quite beat up by this point and many groups decided to call it a day just there. It also helps that the average length of the mandatory parts of 'The Poisonous Catacombs' was 3-4 hours for me and my groups, making it the perfect ending to a one-shot.

While the players do often leave here, it is implied that they have only scratched the surface of what this dungeon has to offer. Many gold-sealed doors promise more and even if they never come back, they have this little ick in their mind that there are secrets yet to be uncovered. Though the dungeon does offer the option to open the doors by just chiseling away at them, I have withheld that information from some groups to make them more reliant on the knock spell, increasing the intrigue of a dungeon so uninterested in being explored. 

I had groups come back to this dungeon three or four sessions after their first encounter with the Shrine, sometimes up to three times. There is something alluring about the resistance this dungeon gives the players, almost like it does not want to be solved. It tells the players 'Don't do it, don't solve me!' and watches them come back to it with a devilish smile.

Subtle Worldbuilding

The storytelling of 'The Shrine of the Jaguar Princess' is vague and incomplete. You gain glimpses of a fallen empire fallen to rubble, strange creatures leaking from the stars and the brutal culture of the Jaguar Woman. A mixture of mechanics, room descriptions and item abilities imply a story without outright stating it. The dungeon refuses to be direct, it does not care for you do understand it. While it makes it a little harder to run, it increases the mystic and aura of this strange ziggurat. In the spirit of the dungeon, I will therefore not spoil anything about the illusive third layer of the dungeon, which only two out of the five groups ever reached, but instead get into the small nit-picks I have with this special pyramid.

Music

If you want to find fitting music for this dungeon, I have settled on 'Jungle Majesty' from 'Ziggurath':

• Character Creation: 05 - The Outpost of Lobo Gordo
• Poisonous Catacombs: 03 - Temple Cavern
• Her City of Gold: 04 - Friendly Heathens
• Devoured Star: 06 - Melancholy of the Tortoise King
• Combat: 07 - Dart Traps and Rolling Boulders

Small Caveats

Even the greatest pieces of media have some room for improvement. It is only natural to find the cracks in something that you love to dearly you have looked at it a lot. So here are my small caveats about 'The Shrine of the Jaguar Princess':

• The Poison Tracker: Every thirty minutes of real-time you are supposed to stack up another poison token, which you can use for various effects. This complements the real-life torch timer of Shadowdark well, but is also a lot of strain put onto the gamemaster. You have to decide to use the tokens yourself, meaning that you have to make cruel decisions or let the mechanic go to waste. This will not be for everyone, since it shifts the blame for the characters peril from the book onto the gamemasters decision making.
• The Wooden Jaguar Masks: There are many traps that could be circumvented by the Wooden Jaguar Masks of the first room, but no clues that this is the case (that my players picked up on). This makes a lot of the traps feel like without any method of circumvention. Since none of them are mandatory, it is not the worst thing in the world, but it can create an antagonistic relationship between the players and the dungeons traps.
• The First Room: 'The Clay Warrior Gallery' is iconic, but especially for players without previous OSR experience, it can be demotivating getting completely destroyed by an unavoidable encounter. More experienced players might revel in the excitement of the devastating challenge that awaits them, but it is a rough start.
• The Revelation of Nahuatl: While I did praise this encounter for the anticipation it builds, the actual benefit of surviving Nahuatl is a bit underwhelming. The sentence 'Benefit: Character’s eyes burst and they become blinded.' is iconic, but not what a player want to hear after they risked their life in a deadly encounter. Yes, this sets up the beholder eyes later, but something that is effectively foreshadowing does not feel worth the risk.
• The Dungeon is a little horny: There are a lot of powerful woman depicted in the dungeon. This is great, but their descriptions do tend to focus on their feet, loincloths and lips. I do not really mind this, I think that some sex-appeal enhances the primal experience of venturing through a dungeon, but it did get me some comments from my players.
• The Artwork: While the artwork for this book is good, I would not call it great. The original PDF is quite baron and mostly consists of well-chosen, but ultimately a little dull stock art. The premium edition does up the level a lot, with plenty of custom artworks. But even there, I do not think the artist actually played the dungeon or got good guidance on their artworks. There are many details that do not actually make sense, like the big entrance of the ziggurat or the many priestesses dancing around Mictlan the Star-eater. In addition, it feels a little too playful for me, considering the horror the players actually have to go through. Do not get me wrong, the art is really good, but still feels a little underwhelming in the context of this masterful adventure.

Conclusion

There is not a question in my mind on why 'The Shrine of the Jaguar Princess' won an ENNIE Award. For me, this dungeon is a modern classic, a masterpiece in TTRPG game design. It works great as a one-shot, it works as a short adventure, it works as part of a campaign and as a standalone. It contains great traps, treasure, monster and lore. And I have not even talked about the insane right half of 'The Poisonous Catacombs', which contains the same amount of content then the mandatory left, but is completely optional! 

The amount of non-essential areas, that still feel like they matter a lot, is staggering. This dungeon does not seem to care if you see all of it's content and it is glorious. Your players will never explore every room of this ziggurat, always leaving another secret unexplored in the dark, making this mid-sized dungeon appear much larger than it actually is. It does so much with a page-count of only 51 pages in the original edition (I assume it is more in the premium).

If you are interested in the dungeon, you should get the PDF (without the special artworks) or premium edition (Hardcover with special artworks). If you are interested in more TTRPG think pieces like this, stick around and take a look at the other blogs on this beautiful website!