Mystara Monday

Mystara Monday: Module B5 – Horror on the Hill

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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.

Mystara Monday: Module B5 - Horror on the Hill
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

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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.

Mystara Monday: Module B4 - The Lost City
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.

Mystara Monday: Module B4 - The Lost City
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.

Mystara Monday: Module B3 – Palace of the Silver Princess

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This week we continue our look at the B series of adventure modules with the infamous module B3: Palace of the Silver Princess, published in 1981. There are actually two versions of this module although very few physical copies of the original version, which can be recognized by its orange cover, exist. A few years back though, Wizards of the Coast decided to make that original version freely available in digital form on their website. Wizards no longer hosts a copy but plenty of other locations on the internet do.

Mystara Monday: Module B3 - Palace of the Silver Princess

What I have here, however, is the second version, which credits both Tom Moldvay and Jean Wells as writers. Stories differ as to why the original edition was immediately recalled, but blame is usually placed on both the quality of the adventure itself, disturbing elements regarding a couple of the new monsters presented in the adventure, and 'questionable art'. One of those disturbing monsters is the decapus, shown above on the cover of the adventure. In the second version of the adventure it's simply a sort of forest dwelling tree-octopus. In the original version, however, it's capable of producing an illusion of itself as a beautiful woman being taunted by nine ugly men.

Whatever the reason for the recall, Tom Moldvay heavily rewrote the module to create the version that was eventually released. Where the original was a typical for the time delve into a castle simply to hunt treasure, the new version had the adventurers summoned shortly after the castle has fallen victim to some sort of curse so that they can try to break the curse and rescue the eponymous Silver Princess.

According to the backstory a giant ruby was recently found by dwarves while mining, and they presented it to the princess as a gift. Shortly thereafter, the entire palace was imprisioned within a ruby glow, and the valley over which the princess ruled was struck with disease and decay. The players are tasked with entering the palace and finding a way to save the kingdom. The ruby, it turns out, is linked to an evil extradimensional being called Arik and is being used by him to forge a passage between dimensions. Arik's power has driven some of the palace's residents insane, attracted many monsters, and imprisoned the princess within the ruby.

The adventure itself is presented in three parts. The first is a 'programmed adventure' intended to introduce new dungeon masters and players to the game. It's basically a choose your own adventure covering the first few rooms of the palace. Past that, the module shifts to a more typical room by room breakdown of a two level dungeon. Like a lot of early dungeon crawls, the monsters and rooms seem kind of random, with little connecting one room to the next. White apes in the jail cells? Three foot long cobra in the linen closet? Why? Who knows? Don't question it, just kill them and take the treasure they're guarding.

Mystara Monday: Module B3 - Palace of the Silver Princess
Also, there's a guy named Travis. He's a real jerk.
That said, there are some memorable rooms and encounters like a bathroom with magic gems to fill the bathtub, a garden overgrown with carnivorous plants, and a pair of thieves who got caught in the palace when the curse befell it and just want to steal what they can and get out. The backstory of the module also alludes to a heroic order of dragon riding knights that could be used in further adventures or as a group the party might attempt to ally with or join in the future.

Palace of the Silver Princess is a step forward in the evolution of the D&D adventure module; it provides a reason beyond pure greed for the player characters to be adventuring and presents a goal beyond simply killing all the monsters and taking their loot. We've still got a ways to go before we see modules that truly tell a story though. That said, at the age of 10 I thought it was pretty great. It was probably my second favorite of the B modules, behind Rahasia.

Next week we continue with a look at module B4: The Lost City. Join me for drug addled mask wearing pyramid dwellers, an evil cthulhoid monstrosity, and invisible snakes.

Mystara Monday: Module B2 – The Keep on the Borderlands

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Here it is, arguably the most well-known adventure module in D&D history. Today we're taking a look at Dungeons & Dragons adventure module B2: The Keep on the Borderlands.

Mystara Monday: Module B2 - The Keep on the Borderlands

The Keep on the Borderlands was written by Gary Gygax as a new introductory module to go with the D&D Basic Rules. It replaced In Search of the Unknown in the original Basic Rules set and was included with the Moldvay edition of the Basic Rules throughout its publication run. The Mentzer revision of the Basic Rules did away with module B2 in favor of the castle adventure included in the Dungeon Masters Rulebook. If I had to guess, I'd bet that it was decided that a simpler adventure should be included due to the younger audience that edition was aimed at.

Being an introductory module, the first few pages consist of much the same information that was provided at the beginning of module B1; advice for the dungeon master, information on tracking time, how to divide treasure and compute experience, and so forth. Of particular note, it's stated that the module is designed for 6 to 9 players, and is intended to require multiple sessions to complete. B2 has a reputation as a challenging adventure and I'd bet that more than a few under-manned parties found themselves in way over their heads. The adventure adamantly states that smaller parties must have the services of several men-at-arms made available to them and should be advised to keep to the lower caves.

The eponymous Keep is presented as a base of operations for the players situated near the border of 'The Realm' where the forces of Chaos are forever trying to invade. Shops, temples and so on are detailed with NPCs to interact with (although not a single one is given an actual name, titles only here). The intention is clearly that the players can use the keep as a staging point to first clear out the nearby Caves of Chaos and then go further afield to whatever dungeons the DM comes up with next. In practice, I suspect a lot of parties began murdering their way through the keep for all the nifty magical loot within.

The actual adventure area is made up of nearly a dozen caves scattered in a sort of box canyon area not far from the keep. Most of the caves are populated with humanoid tribes of various types who have ongoing alliances and enmities with each other that the players can take advantage of if they're particularly clever. It's easy for the players to get in over their heads here since a lot of the tribes will call others to their aid if given a chance; in particular the goblin tribe has an agreement with a nearby ogre who is entirely capable of making some level 1 characters exceptionally dead. There's also one cave populated by an owlbear and three grey oozes.

Mystara Monday: Module B2 - The Keep on the Borderlands
You'd be cranky too if you looked like that.
We're still very much in the old school of D&D here; the players are sent out to kill monsters and take their stuff without any real plot beyond 'they're monsters, they have cool stuff'. B2 is a step up from B1 though in that it sets up opportunities for some memorable encounters (the aforementioned mercenary ogre, an evil priest with a veritable army of undead, an imprisoned medusa, and so on).

We're still quite a few years away from Mystara coming into existence at this point, but it's worth noting that the Keep was given an official location in the Mystara campaign world. Like most low level adventures it's placed in the Grand Duchy of Karameikos, in this case in the mountainous region in the far north of the Duchy.

Unlike module B1, I've run Keep on the Borderlands a few times. Not many, as I tend to prefer to either use more plot-driven modules or write my own for early play, but I've definitely made use of the Caves of Chaos. Curiously enough, the parties I ran it for were actually pretty competent so I don't have any stories of utter PC failure in the face of overwhelming odds. Knowing when to retreat is, I think, the most important lesson this module teaches; there's no way an adventuring party will clear the entire cave complex in a single attempt and some encounters really require the players to be prepared ahead of time to realistically handle them.

Next week we'll continue our trek through the B-series modules with a rather infamous one. Join me for a look at Adventure Module B3 - Palace of the Silver Princess and learn why the terrifying decapus is a whole lot creepier than you might have thought.