Mystara

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: AC1 – The Shady Dragon Inn

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This week we've got a little change of pace from adventure modules. Starting in 1983 TSR published a series of 'Game Accessories' that ran the gamut from character sheets and Dungeon Master screens to collections of spells and magic items. Today we've got the first of these, AC1: The Shady Dragon Inn, written by Carl Smith.

Mystara Monday: AC1 - The Shady Dragon Inn
Adventurers in their natural habitat

As the cover advertises, this is primarily a collection of pregenerated characters for use in your campaign. 73 of the characters are humans, divided between the four human character classes and another 32 are split up between the demihuman classes (remember, this is the D&D ruleset, so dwarf, halfling, and elf are classes as well as races). Each character is presented with a name, stat block including attribute scores, alignment, level, saving throws, and hit points, height and weight, armor and weapons, spells known (if applicable), and a short biography. There's also a lineup for each character class drawn by Jim Holloway. Of note, the dwarf lineup includes two dwarf women, both of whom have short beards. So as of this product, dwarven women in Basic D&D are bearded.

Mystara Monday: AC1 - The Shady Dragon Inn
Handwritten notes courtesy of the previous owner

Characters range in level from 1 to 14, which was the limit of what the rules supported at this point. Each one only gets a paragraph of description, but that generally includes a couple of interesting personality traits or bits of history to make them stand out. For instance the dwarf Leo Leopard-Bait "hates wealthy men" and "kicks cats when he gets the chance." Zarkon the Blue "brags too much, and sometimes makes promises he cannot keep." It's enough to make each character distinct and to give a good DM something to build on when using them as NPCs.

The Shady Dragon Inn itself is also presented as a foldout map sized for use with miniatures. Handy if you plan to use the inn as a base of operations for the PCs, especially if the odd tavern brawl breaks out on occasion. A short description gives a rundown of the owner and employees (all drawn from the pregens), prices, and the general state of the inn. Again, it's fairly terse but enough to serve as a base to build on.

Finally, there are a few more characters presented here that I haven't mentioned yet, under the heading 'Special Characters.' In 1983 a licensed line of action figures hit the shelves; although the figures were marketed as Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, D&D stats for them (including a few characters whose figures were never produced) are presented here. Most importantly this means we have D&D stats for the evil WARDUKE.

Mystara Monday: AC1 - The Shady Dragon Inn
WARDUKE's contract requires that WARDUKE's
name always be printed in all caps.

As far as the development of Mystara, nothing here really contributes to the setting. Some of the characters do show up as pregens in future adventure modules; I know that X6: Quagmire! is one of those. Apart from that none of them enter into the ongoing setting that I know of. The Shady Dragon Inn does make an appearance in the Tower of Doom arcade game in a town in Darokin. That's as close as it comes to being made canon in the setting.

This is an accessory I really wish I had had when I was running D&D regularly. Coming up with NPCs on the fly, especially good names for NPCs, has always given trouble so a list of ready made characters to fall back on would have been useful. There are quite a few in here that I'd love to use in a game some time in the future. 

Mystara Monday: AC1 – The Shady Dragon Inn

by
This week we've got a little change of pace from adventure modules. Starting in 1983 TSR published a series of 'Game Accessories' that ran the gamut from character sheets and Dungeon Master screens to collections of spells and magic items. Today we've got the first of these, AC1: The Shady Dragon Inn, written by Carl Smith.

Adventurers in their natural habitat

As the cover advertises, this is primarily a collection of pregenerated characters for use in your campaign. 73 of the characters are humans, divided between the four human character classes and another 32 are split up between the demihuman classes (remember, this is the D&D ruleset, so dwarf, halfling, and elf are classes as well as races). Each character is presented with a name, stat block including attribute scores, alignment, level, saving throws, and hit points, height and weight, armor and weapons, spells known (if applicable), and a short biography. There's also a lineup for each character class drawn by Jim Holloway. Of note, the dwarf lineup includes two dwarf women, both of whom have short beards. So as of this product, dwarven women in Basic D&D are bearded.

Handwritten notes courtesy of the previous owner

Characters range in level from 1 to 14, which was the limit of what the rules supported at this point. Each one only gets a paragraph of description, but that generally includes a couple of interesting personality traits or bits of history to make them stand out. For instance the dwarf Leo Leopard-Bait "hates wealthy men" and "kicks cats when he gets the chance." Zarkon the Blue "brags too much, and sometimes makes promises he cannot keep." It's enough to make each character distinct and to give a good DM something to build on when using them as NPCs.

The Shady Dragon Inn itself is also presented as a foldout map sized for use with miniatures. Handy if you plan to use the inn as a base of operations for the PCs, especially if the odd tavern brawl breaks out on occasion. A short description gives a rundown of the owner and employees (all drawn from the pregens), prices, and the general state of the inn. Again, it's fairly terse but enough to serve as a base to build on.

Finally, there are a few more characters presented here that I haven't mentioned yet, under the heading 'Special Characters.' In 1983 a licensed line of action figures hit the shelves; although the figures were marketed as Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, D&D stats for them (including a few characters whose figures were never produced) are presented here. Most importantly this means we have D&D stats for the evil WARDUKE.

WARDUKE's contract requires that WARDUKE's
name always be printed in all caps.

As far as the development of Mystara, nothing here really contributes to the setting. Some of the characters do show up as pregens in future adventure modules; I know that X6: Quagmire! is one of those. Apart from that none of them enter into the ongoing setting that I know of. The Shady Dragon Inn does make an appearance in the Tower of Doom arcade game in a town in Darokin. That's as close as it comes to being made canon in the setting.

This is an accessory I really wish I had had when I was running D&D regularly. Coming up with NPCs on the fly, especially good names for NPCs, has always given trouble so a list of ready made characters to fall back on would have been useful. There are quite a few in here that I'd love to use in a game some time in the future.