David Cook

Mystara Monday: Module X4 – Master of the Desert Nomads

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This week we're returning to adventure modules with a well-loved classic, David Cook's Module X4: Master of the Desert Nomads. This is actually the first half of a two-part adventure which is continued in module X5. There's also a sequel adventure, Red Arrow, Black Shield, which was written a couple of years later, albeit by a different author.

Mystara Monday: Module X4 - Master of the Desert Nomads
While the party can fight a juggernaut in this adventure,
it's a really terrible idea.

Master of the Desert Nomads was published in 1983 and adheres pretty well to the formula of previous Expert level modules; wilderness adventure punctuated by a few dungeon crawls. In this case the wilderness is the Sind Desert, a massive wasteland west of the nations shown in the world map included in The Isle of Dread. A great army has been making its way through Sind intent on attacking Darokin (here simply referred to as the Republic) and the PCs are assumed to have answered the call for mercenaries to help fight. After reaching a village near the front lines, the party are charged to find the Temple of Death far to the west and destroy it.

To reach the Temple of Death, the party first has to find the Great Pass; that's the focus of this module. The party must sail a raft up a river and through a swamp to reach the desert. There they have the option of joining a caravan to head west, or trying to go it alone. Eventually they should reach the monastery which guards the pass and will have to deal with the creatures which have taken over the monastery and masquerade as helpful monks to lure in travellers.

Mystara Monday: Module X4 - Master of the Desert Nomads
Also they will encounter a nagpa, which is totally
not a skeksis why would you even think that?

Unlike in The Isle of Dread, where each wilderness encounter was keyed to a specific hex, the encounters in this module are to be used when the party is in the appropriate terrain without concern for their specific location. Given the size of the wilderness map provided, this is pretty much necessary. The party isn't expected to exhaustively explore the area, instead they have a destination to reach and are expected to be focused on that.

Sind is a barren waste, but the adventure does imply that it was populated at some point in the past. Many monsters in the adventure are drawn from Hindu mythology such as the juggernaut, and the bhut (here a sort of were-undead that seems human during the day but sprouts fangs and claws at night and attempts to eat human flesh). The overall impression is that the culture that once existed here was based on that of India, but not a lot of detail is given. Eventually, nearly a decade later, Sind would be expanded on in the Champions of Mystara boxed set and established as being a current nation on the border of Darokin. For now though, we're not given any reason to believe that there's any civilization here.

This adventure was the one that taught me more than anything about the dangers of railroading your party. As written, the adventure states that an NPC near the beginning will cast the quest spell on a PC to have them seek and destroy the Temple of Death. The player of the PC in question was a bit annoyed by that and was adamant that, while they would go on the quest, they would then come back, find the NPC, and beat him senseless. Seriously, unless your players are just being contrary they'll probably go on the adventure. If they won't, trying to force them will not make things any better. It'll just make them ornery.

Next week we'll take a look a the second part of this adventure, Module X5: Temple of Death. We'll find out what's actually going on with the Master, explore the land of Hule and learn why it's not a nice place at all, and meet a few new monsters including what are bascially the Hounds of Tindalos by another name.

Mystara Monday: Module X4 – Master of the Desert Nomads

by
This week we're returning to adventure modules with a well-loved classic, David Cook's Module X4: Master of the Desert Nomads. This is actually the first half of a two-part adventure which is continued in module X5. There's also a sequel adventure, Red Arrow, Black Shield, which was written a couple of years later, albeit by a different author.

While the party can fight a juggernaut in this adventure,
it's a really terrible idea.

Master of the Desert Nomads was published in 1983 and adheres pretty well to the formula of previous Expert level modules; wilderness adventure punctuated by a few dungeon crawls. In this case the wilderness is the Sind Desert, a massive wasteland west of the nations shown in the world map included in The Isle of Dread. A great army has been making its way through Sind intent on attacking Darokin (here simply referred to as the Republic) and the PCs are assumed to have answered the call for mercenaries to help fight. After reaching a village near the front lines, the party are charged to find the Temple of Death far to the west and destroy it.

To reach the Temple of Death, the party first has to find the Great Pass; that's the focus of this module. The party must sail a raft up a river and through a swamp to reach the desert. There they have the option of joining a caravan to head west, or trying to go it alone. Eventually they should reach the monastery which guards the pass and will have to deal with the creatures which have taken over the monastery and masquerade as helpful monks to lure in travellers.

Also they will encounter a nagpa, which is totally
not a skeksis why would you even think that?

Unlike in The Isle of Dread, where each wilderness encounter was keyed to a specific hex, the encounters in this module are to be used when the party is in the appropriate terrain without concern for their specific location. Given the size of the wilderness map provided, this is pretty much necessary. The party isn't expected to exhaustively explore the area, instead they have a destination to reach and are expected to be focused on that.

Sind is a barren waste, but the adventure does imply that it was populated at some point in the past. Many monsters in the adventure are drawn from Hindu mythology such as the juggernaut, and the bhut (here a sort of were-undead that seems human during the day but sprouts fangs and claws at night and attempts to eat human flesh). The overall impression is that the culture that once existed here was based on that of India, but not a lot of detail is given. Eventually, nearly a decade later, Sind would be expanded on in the Champions of Mystara boxed set and established as being a current nation on the border of Darokin. For now though, we're not given any reason to believe that there's any civilization here.

This adventure was the one that taught me more than anything about the dangers of railroading your party. As written, the adventure states that an NPC near the beginning will cast the quest spell on a PC to have them seek and destroy the Temple of Death. The player of the PC in question was a bit annoyed by that and was adamant that, while they would go on the quest, they would then come back, find the NPC, and beat him senseless. Seriously, unless your players are just being contrary they'll probably go on the adventure. If they won't, trying to force them will not make things any better. It'll just make them ornery.

Next week we'll take a look a the second part of this adventure, Module X5: Temple of Death. We'll find out what's actually going on with the Master, explore the land of Hule and learn why it's not a nice place at all, and meet a few new monsters including what are bascially the Hounds of Tindalos by another name.

Mystara Monday: Module X1 – The Isle of Dread

by
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.)

Mystara Monday: Module X1 - The Isle of Dread
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.

Mystara Monday: Module X1 - The Isle of Dread
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: Module X1 – The Isle of Dread

by
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.

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.