Dungeons & Dragons – Page 3

Mystara Monday: Module X1 – The Isle of Dread

November 10, 2015October 12, 2015 by Thalen

It's time to explore one of the most famous D&D adventure modules of all time, and very likely the single most played adventure module ever, Module X1: The Isle of Dread.

Mystara Monday: Module X1 - The Isle of Dread

Originally published in 1981, The Isle of Dread was included in every Expert Rules boxed set as an introductory wilderness adventure. The copy I have is the second version, revised to match up with the Mentzer revision of the Expert Rules. Mostly this involves a number of monsters being replaced due to being left out of the new rules (giant squids were replaced with water termites, a sea dragon with a hydra, and so forth.)

At its core, The Isle of Dread is an adventure inspired by Skull Island from King Kong. The party come into possession of pages from a ship's log describing the discovery of a mysterious island, the natives of which live on a small peninsula separated from the main island by a massive protective wall. The natives claim an ancient city in the center of the island holds great treasure, and the adventure assumes the lure of both exploration and profit will be enough to get the players hooked (a reasonable assumption.)

I suspect every D&D player above a certain age
recognizes this map.

On reaching the island the party finds an island of jungles and hills populated primarily by giant animals and dinosaurs (no giant apes, however.) The adventure itself consists of exploring the island, fighting monsters for their treasure, and ultimately reaching the island's central plateau where a temple ruin provides a short dungeon delve. It's less about the individual encounters on the island and more about the overall feel of exploration in uncharted wilderness far from civilization.

The Isle of Dread is also the adventure module that first provides a map of Mystara (though it's not called that yet, the map is simply of 'The Continent') and details each of the major countries shown on the map. One full page at the front of the adventure consists of a paragraph or two for each country, and is where things are established such as Glantri being a magocracy, Darokin's status as a merchant republic, or the Heldann Freeholds' resemblance to ancient Ireland. All of this information would be expanded on in later adventures and in the Gazetteers, but this is where it all started.

It's not even the Known World yet at this point.

A number of important creatures are introduced in this module as well, including nearly a dozen dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures, including giant ground sloths and giant elk. There's a definite 'land that time forgot' feel to the whole thing. Also, a few new sentient races make their debut here, such as the aranea (giant spell-casting spiders), the phanaton (halfling-sized racoon / flying squirrel people), and the kopru (evil amphibious beings with mind control powers). This is also where the rakasta, a race of cat people, first appear; they go on to become an important race in Mystara, with other rakasta tribes showing up elsewhere in the world, as well as on the moon. Not the one you can see, the invisible moon. The moon rakasta ride flying sabertooth tigers and are patterned on feudal Japan. Rakasta are awesome, is what I'm saying.

I'm pretty sure this is the adventure I've run more than any other over the years; I can think of at least four separate campaigns that have visited it. I actually made a point of not using The Isle of Dread at level in one campaign since I knew many of the players had experienced it already. Instead I planned to have the party visit it much later, well after it had been discovered and explored by others. In more than one campaign players have planned to claim the island and make it their domain once their characters were high enough level and sufficiently wealthy to build strongholds.

Next week we'll move on to Module X2: Castle Amber, one of the weirdest adventure modules you'll ever see, and another that turns out be important to the development of Mystara. Also, part of it is set in France.

Mystara Monday: Expert Rules

November 10, 2015October 6, 2015 by Thalen

I had originally intended to continue on to the next of the B modules this week with a look at Module B6: The Veiled Society. As I worked on the post, however, it became clear that I was going to be talking about a very important step in the creation of Mystara out of order, and that we really needed to start moving chronologically if things are going to make sense. So instead we'll be looking at the Expert Rules Set this week, and the establishment of Karameikos as the core of the Known World setting that would become Mystara.

We've already seen that the Basic Rules went through three major revisions in its history. The Expert Rules similarly have two distinct versions; the differences between them are mostly minor, though very important when it comes to the history of Mystara. The original Expert Rules were written by David "Zeb" Cook as an extension of Tom Moldvay's revision of the Basic Rules in 1981. In 1983, Frank Mentzer revised both rules sets and then continued into the Companion, Master, and Immortal rules (all of which we'll get to eventually). As with the Basic Rules, the Mentzer revision is what I have.

With more beautiful Elmore art.

Instead of separate player and DM books, the Expert Rulebook is a single 64 page book. The first 20 pages are the player's section, including character advancement information up to level 14, new spells, and some new information related to wilderness adventures. The remainder of the book is the Dungeon Master's Section, and that's where the real magic is. The Expert rulebook is where rules for wilderness travel were introduced, along with rules for player strongholds and more in depth guidelines for running an ongoing campaign.

Strongholds were a major fascination for me when I got my hands on this book. Each class could build a stronghold of an appropriate type once they could afford it (and in most cases once they were a high enough level.) Fighters and clerics could build a castle, mages could build a tower, and thieves could build a hideout. Rules for construction times and costs were included in the DMs section, and I spent hours sketching out strongholds and figuring the costs involved in building them. Yes, even in the early days of tabletop gaming, player housing was absolutely a thing.

Wilderness travel was a huge addition to the rules, as the Basic Set and B module adventures tended to gloss over how the party went about getting to the dungeon they were invading. The Expert Rules introduce detailed rules for travel times, random encounters in the wilderness, and two and a half pages focused entirely on ocean travel. The X series modules took great advantage of that, as we'll see in coming weeks.

Most importantly, however, at least where Mystara is concerned is the map of the Grand Duchy of Karameikos and associated 'Sample Wilderness and Human Town' section. This section, added in the Mentzer revision, gives us our first look at Karameikos and a basic rundown of its towns and important persons. It's here that we first learn of Duke Stefan Karameikos, ruler of the Grand Duchy. It's here that we are introduced to the evil Baron Ludwig von Hendriks and his Black Eagle Barony (though it's not yet explained why Duke Stefan allows such a villain to prosper). And it's here that we are given details about the small town of Threshold, where adventurers come from.

Also, it's ruled by a name level cleric. Don't mess with Threshold.

Among other things, the information about Threshold reveals that Bargle the Infamous took control of the ruins from the adventure in the Basic Rules while spying for the Black Eagle Barony. A page and a half of various interesting adventure hooks are also provided. For example, Ian, the blacksmith's son, has opened a museum where he displays taxidermied monster heads. "Many interesting bits of information can be found at the Museum of the Smith's son, Ian."

Along with the Expert Rulebook, the Expert Rules set also came with another set of dice (again, stolen from me twenty years ago) and a copy of the other contender for best known D&D adventure of all time, X1: The Isle of Dread. That's what we'll be looking at next week, where we'll visit the D&D equivalent of Skull Island and encounter so many dinosaurs. Also, evil mind control salamander guys. Seriously, they're the worst.

Mystara Monday: Module B5 – Horror on the Hill

November 10, 2015September 28, 2015 by Thalen

This week we're taking a look at Dungeons & Dragons adventure module B5: Horror on the Hill, written by Douglas Niles and published in 1983.

Mystara Monday: Module B5 - Horror on the Hill

Douglas Niles is probably best known as a novelist who has written quite a number of books set in the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms campaign worlds. Early in his career with TSR he also wrote a few adventure modules for the Basic ruleset, one of which we have here. Horror on the Hill seems transitional in a number of ways. Most obviously it's the first of the B modules that uses the updated trade dress that I grew up with. It's a minor thing, but this is the design that immediately screams 'Basic D&D' to me.

This is also a module that attempts to be more logical in it's progression and throws a twist in midway that the players might not expect. We're still looking at a situation where the party's reason for going on the adventure is mostly 'there's loot in there', but the DM could easily have a minor lord or the like send the party to investigate rumors of a massing hobgoblin army and deal with the problem.

The adventure claims to be for 5-10 characters of level 1-3. In all honesty, I wouldn't run this adventure for level 1 characters. Entirely apart from the logistics of having 10 players at the table, an encounter that challenges 5 level 3 characters might be defeatable by 10 at level 1, but some of them will almost certainly die. One encounter fairly early in the adventure is with a pair of ogres. Ogres! It'll likely take a party a couple of rounds minimum to take them down, and one hit from an ogre can kill any level 1 character with a good roll. I may speak from experience on this point.

The adventure has the party hiking up 'The Hill' to find the ruins of an abandoned monastery which has been taken over by a band of humanoids led by a hogoblin king. After defeating the king, the party is intended to fall victim to a trap door which drops them a few hundred feet (via a chute, so no falling damage) into caverns beneath the monastery where they have to find their way out. The only escape ultimately leads through a red dragon's lair.

The Hill is an overgrown wilderness with a few caves inhabited by various creatures (giant bats, ogres, Neanderthals) and some outdoor encounters with killer bees, giant ants and the like. There are also a pair of old women living in a little shack that is much larger on the inside than outside.

We're just innocent old grandmothers, dearies.

The players might expect evil witches, and the women are in fact level 6 spellcasters, but they're only interested in making bargains. If you have players who like to rob or kill non-hostiles, this may be the end of the party right here, these old women don't mess around. Trying to cheat them after a deal is made will also have them chasing the party wherever they go to get what's owed them. As long as the party deals square though, they can be a good source of intelligence and resources.

The monastery is a good adventuring location with an aboveground area and a dungeon below where the hobgoblin king resides. There are enough goblin, bugbear, and hobgoblin forces throughout that clever play or multiple sorties will probably be needed for the party to make their way through. Once the party starts to make their way out, they fall through a trap triggered by the king's empty throne. Or at least they're meant to; this seems like the sort of thing that requires a DM caveat to make everybody fall victim, and could result in cranky players since they didn't have a chance to avoid the trap.

The caves below the monastery are a fairly typical cave type dungeon, with the more random sorts of monsters that those tend to have. The adventure does make note of the fact that creatures here are mostly ones that have become trapped there over time and that they are all in a state of crazed hunger, having survived mostly on rats. No options for diplomacy here.

At the end, the party has to make their way through the lair of a young red dragon to escape. This encounter would absolutely murder a level 1 party; I just don't see any way around it. Even a higher level party would have trouble. There's no option as written to avoid combat either. The dragon is willing to talk for a while, but will attack if the party tries to leave or when he gets bored with them. If the players remember the dragon subdual rules though, and manage to do so they'll have a dragon to take with them. And those old ladies they met would sure love to have their own pet dragon...

On the whole, Horror on the Hill is a pretty good module as long as the DM is either okay with some character death or can tweak things a bit to be a little more fair. It's a step in the evolution towards more logical adventures where things fit together in a sensible way. We still haven't reached the truly story-driven adventures of later years, but we're getting there.

Next week we'll be having a look at a truly different adventure module, B6: The Veiled Society. Not only is this the first city adventure we've seen, it's a city adventure set entirely in Specularum, capital of the Grand Duchy of Karameikos. Political intrigue and secret societies await!

Mystara Monday: Module B4 – The Lost City

November 10, 2015September 21, 2015 by Thalen

This week we'll be taking a look at Dungeons & Dragons adventure module B4: The Lost City. Written by Tom Moldvay (also responsible for first revision of the D&D Basic rules) and published in 1982, B4 is a bit more ambitious than the previous B modules. The pyramid is a multi-level dungeon much like those previously seen but this adventure also presents a fairly detailed backstory for the pyramid and the underground city below it, NPC factions for players to ally with (or come into conflict with), ideas for further adventures using the setting, and an evil false god to serve as a challenging final fight.

Mystara Monday: Module B4 - The Lost City

The adventure takes place inside an ancient step pyramid found when the player characters become lost in a forbidding desert. The module doesn't concern itself much with how the characters come to the desert, simply stating in the background that they had joined a desert caravan that became lost in a sandstorm. Lost and desperate, the characters enter the pyramid in the hope of finding a means of survival.

The pyramid is all that remains intact of the city of Cynidicea, once the capital of a desert kingdom. While building the pyramid, workers uncovered the lair of a hideous monster, Zargon. Unable to kill the monster, the rulers of the city began sending criminals into the pyramid to appease it. Over time a cult arose around the monster, supplanting worship of the city's three traditional gods. The civilization decayed and eventually, when barbarians overran the city, fled underground below the pyramid. There the descendants of those Cynidiceans still live, now adapted to underground life and spending most of their days in a hallucinatory state.

It's possible for an adventurer to be transformed into a three foot tall
mini-Zargon. Yay cursed magic items.

Possible antics of the Cynidiceans the adventurers encounter can include trying to warn the adventurers of the invisible snakes on the floor and showing them where to walk to avoid them, 'recognizing' an adventurer as the lost ruler of Cynidicea and smothering him or her with attention, or following the adventurers around carrying boards until something is killed and then building a coffin for it and demanding payment for the service.

Some relatively normal Cynidiceans make up three factions each dedicated to one of the old gods of the city. Each faction is devoted to trying to restore the worship of their patron god and to save their society from its decay. None of the three trusts the others however, so they fight much more than they cooperate, even in the face of Zargon's evil. The adventurers can ally with these factions and try to assist them in their goals.

The adventure as written is a 10 tier dungeon, though only the first 5 tiers are fully detailed. Quite a lot of the encounters in this part of the pyramid are with undead or vermin as you might expect. From tier 6 on the rooms are less detailed and the encounters are more difficult, honestly rising above what's reasonable for even a level 3 party. It's clearly intended that the party have reached the Expert levels (4 and up) and by the last few levels they're encountering creatures such as vampires, a chimera, and a 9 hit die blue dragon. These levels also seem less planned with monsters seemingly chosen at random to populate the various rooms, each with their own individual treasure hoard.

This dwarf is way too excited about being
stuck in an ancient pyramid.

The Lost City continues the shift we saw begin in Palace of the Silver Princess towards adventures that are more than just a dungeon full of monsters and treasure for the adventurers to kill and loot respectively. Where the story was mostly just on the surface in Silver Princess, here it's worked more directly into the adventure, with ways for the players to learn more about the past of Cynidicea and become involved in long term efforts to halt its decline and even attempt to restore it. Adventure ideas are even provided for after the pyramid is fully explored and Zargon is defeated dealing with such matters as cure the Cynidiceans permanent hallucinatory state, wiping out Zargon's cult followers and ensuring he doesn't rise again, and attempting to restore the royal line. This one module could easily be made the basis for an entire campaign set in and below the pyramid.

Next week we'll keep on going with a look at adventure module B5: Horror on the Hill. Find out just what's so horrific, and why bargaining with kindly old grandmothers can be perilous indeed.