Mystara Monday

Mystara Monday: Module X1 – The Isle of Dread

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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.

Mystara Monday: Expert Rules

by
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.

Mystara Monday: Expert Rules

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.

Mystara Monday: Expert Rules
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.

Mystara Monday: Expert Rules
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: Expert Rules

by
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.