Review: Star Gods Help Us

Sometimes, your gaming table just needs to take a break from the relentless grimdark.

Peter Spahn of Small Niche Games has released Star Gods Help Us, a collection of humorous new classes for the White Star science fiction companion to the Swords and Wizardry RPG.

Observers of pop culture from the 60s, 70s and 80s should recognize the inspiration for the twelve new classes contained within. Some of these go together thematically very well, like the zombie-like Zeddines and the butler like Gurches. For those players less concerned with achieving missions and more interested in silliness, a party of Radiobuddies, Gloops and Giltors will have trouble just getting organized to leave their own ship.

This collection strongly evokes a lot of the sci-fi silliness found in abundance within the pages of Dragon magazine and TSR's early catalog. The content and illustrations within this supplement are pitch-perfect. At $2.99, the PDF is a non-brainer. It would not be too much of stretch to adapt these classes into NPC monsters for fantasy settings, like Labyrinth Lord.

Don't wait for P/S-900 robot to make you do it; get a copy of Star Gods Help Us today.

Review: The Necromancer's Wish

Here is a good reason to support an artist through Patreon.

Michel Prescott's super-tasty 1+ page adventure The Necromancer's Wish is a stripped-down, location-based adventure that packs a substantial punch of characterful details in a system-neutral way that all content generators should envy. Here's what you get:

• a gorgeous, isometric map
• a rich, multi-textured backstore
• new creatures
• a rumor table
• new magic items

This adventure details the ritualistic happening occurring inside a multilevel cavern system. The caves are under the control of goblin-like creatures called the Ricalu who are lead by an aged necromancer named Nandoleeb. The great work of Nandoleeb will be discovered by clever players who do not tarry long in these storied caves. More details of what can be found within this adventure might spoil the surprises for players. The tone of the setting is dark and foreboding. The PCs will be at risk at all times while exploring this area, but not in an artificially hokey way.

As a short, self-contained location, this adventure can be easily dropped into an existing campaign, or even combined with other short cave-based adventures to create a multi-layered campaign setting that lasts many game nights.

As a free resource, it is well worth the time to download and read this surprisingly dense work. It is gems like this that make DIY publishing in the OSR community so exciting to be apart of. Since the adventure is not ruleset-specific, the game master will have to spend to some time providing appropriate stats to monsters, magic and traps. This is a small price to pay for the wonderful content contained within.

You can find more of Prescott's work (and become his patron) on Patreon

Review: The Cliff-Lair of Heeter

Small is beautiful.

Corey Ryan Walden's twelve page The Cliff-Lair of Heeter is small, location-based adventure written in a system-neutral way that demands to be dropped into an existing campaign at the first appropriate moment. As the title implies, this adventure details the working home of the curious entity named Heeter, who is of a species apart from those traditionally found in Old School rules. Part tyrant, part child, Heeter is surrounded by "manlings" that recall the Oompa Loompa's of Willie Wonka. And he has a weird, fanged cat-thing to boot.

The cliff-lair could be used a throw-away, low-level encounter, but that would be a waste of a good, characterful NPC. Heeter seems like a natural fit to be a source of adventure lore or a quest-giver. One could trim some of the friendlier eccentricities away from Heeter and his home to create a darker, more dangerous encounter with an alien thing, whose desires are quite unintelligible to the party.

It should be noted that this work is vague on game mechanics, so be prepared to fill in those blanks with specifics from your preferred ruleset.

At under $2, this PDF provides a solid value of RPG content and is a solid resource for those game masters who enjoy cobbling together adventures from various bits.

Review: Atarin's Delve.

Small Niche Games is fast becoming one of my favorite indie RPG publishers of tight, coherent adventures for Labyrinth Lord. Atarin's Delve provides a great example of its output.

This short fifteen room dungeon crawl written by Peter Spahn is designed for a smallish party (5 or so player characters) of experience levels 1-3. Normally, these low-level adventures are designed to hand-hold players new to RPGs. That does not describe this adventure. Spahn clearly feels that there is plenty of fun in to be had at these novice levels for experienced players and so do I.

The non-spoilerific adventure background is simply that a sage named Atarin is investigating subterranean ruins in a small town and has been getting veiled threats implying that his attentions are unwelcomed. The PCs are part of an Adventure Guild that sends them to assist Atarin. When the PCs arrive, the Atarin expedition has not been heard from in several days. An alternate adventure hook is suggested that the PCs merely stumble upon the abandoned campsite, which seems more mysterious and evocative to me.

Delve comprises many classic RPG tropes: a depraved cult; a hapless sage that awakens an ancient evil; a xenophobic alien species that just wants to be left alone. The heavies of this adventure are the Caltha, an amphibious intelligent species that, though in decline, can still cause trouble to those that interfere with them. I would love to see the Caltha appear in a higher-level adventure. Spahn gives just enough details about them to arouse the imagination, not unlike the Kuo-toa of Gygax or the Deep Ones of Lovecraft.

The meat of the adventure comes from the conflict inherent in the three well-detailed groups interacting in this adventure. Not only has Atarin's expedition angered some local humans, he has loosed a group of grumpy fishmen. The opportunities for role-play abound here.

The random encounters here are more detailed and varied than is typical in the classic TSR modules. Ten encounters are detailed with a setup that provides the game master with a sensible context for the events. Spahn has also been careful to refer to existing LL rules (like those covering blindness and opening doors) rather than recreate them. In one notable place, he relies on an ability check to provide the PCs with more plot information. I am a big fan of ability checks and wish that the classic run of TSR modules had used them more.

The production of this short adventure excellent. Great maps by Dyson Logos, a consistent layout and tight prose make this content easily digestible. All told, this product provides excellent value for the consumer and a yard stick for other publishers.

Review of The Stealer of Children

Small Niche Games has just released a short but excellent Labyrinth Lord adventure for novice characters called The Stealer of Children, written by Peter Spahn. The plot is inspired by grim fairy tales: a nightmare creature is kidnapping the youngsters of Leandras Row, a small vaguely European village. The PCs are to confront and end the menace causing the trouble, but to do so will take some small bit of investigation.

There are three main areas of exploration: the village proper, a ruined manor house and enchanted Tanglewood. Tanglewood is a particularly interesting location as it can easily support additional material from the DM. That Tanglewood is also the name of a real-life music venue is strictly a problem for my fellow Massholes.

Spahn provides plenty of support for novice DMs with suggestions on how to handle the plot when the players go "off book." The advice helps bring the players and plot together for a satisfying conclusion without ham-fisted railroading.

The production is excellent: great maps, effective illustrations, a classy layout and professional writing. The first time reader can be forgiven for thinking there is a staff of editors managing this manuscript. It reads like a TSR product. This is in no small part due to Spahn's work in Dungeon magazine.

I am a bit jealous and irked at this high quality as this raise the bar for my own work.

I would expect about 4 gaming sessions to be had from the stock adventure. This is not a megadungeon. As I mentioned, Leandras Row can, as fleshed out as it is, can host many other adventures.

This sort of product is exactly why I find the Old School Roleplaying movement so enjoyable. Spahn captures the spirit of the great TSR modules of yore.

Review: D1-2: Descent into the Depths of the Earth

At the end of G1-2-3: Against the Giants, author Gary Gygax had left clues about a shadowy force that was using the giants as cat's paws to further its own plans for domination. There was also a passageway to a deeper, darker place that the players could optionally follow. The details of that descent can be found in the D series of modules, the first two of which are collected in 1981's D1-2 Descent into the Depths of the Earth (although the inside cover says the title is "Descent to the Depths of the Earth", which suggests some of the sloppiness found throughout the text). This module presents a high-level dungeon hack that should challenge even experienced players.

But hold on, I thought that the land of Greyhawk (on which these events take place) was located on a planet of Oerth? Gary was making the world up as he went along. Who among us can throw stones?

There are a lot of caves, caverns and underground seas available for exploration in these modules, as you might expect from the title. This all suggests the wonderful "hollow earth" canard that would be explicitly explored in the Mystara gazetteers published in the following years. However, hollow "Oerths" fit wonderfully with the original pulp fiction roots of D&D, especially here.

Each of the component modules (Descent into the Depths of the Earth and Shrine of the Kuo-Toa) is very short. There is one major encounter in each supported by a few minor ones. A good deal of fun in these adventures comes from complex random encounter tables and the inherent dangers of spelunking. Gygax insists that each DM flesh out the bones of the module with original content. While it is generally module design to encourage new material from the DM, this module omnibus could have benefited from additional supporting material and better organization.

The PCs not given a clear mandate to explore these warrens. No railroading here, thank you. The exploration of these caves is purely driven by either the inquisitive nature of the players or by some genocidal yen to exterminate the evil black elves. Is genocidal too strong a word? Let me quote from the prolog:

«While it is voluntary, there is also possible co-operation from avenging elves eager to wipe out the Drow.»

My inclination is to discourage wholesale slaughter of fictional creatures even at the gaming table. I will note the obvious racial overtones of the Drow and let you, reader, draw your own conclusions.

Since both modules are dungeon crawls, you would expect some carefully articulated cave maps and perhaps a host of tables describing random events that might befall the PCs. There is a hex map that presents more than 1500 square miles of underground caves. Unfortunately, this hexmap is, by far, the most poorly designed information system I can recall seeing from TSR. There is no compass rosette (in itself, a forgivable omission). Each encounter hex is unlabeled. The starting location of the PCs is neither called out on the map nor explicitly named in the text of the module! It can be puzzled out by carefully reading the clues of the text and by understanding how hexes are numbered. This highlights the worst aspect of this map: the coordinate system for naming hexes is outré at best. Let me explain.

The vertical axis is labeled with letters starting at the bottom with A and incrementing to B3 at the top. The very first row is unlabeled. That is, the alphabet is restarted three times. As a programer, this does not particularly phase me. But I cannot believe that a 13 year old would easily accept this. Worse than the vertical axis is the horizontal, which is numbered, starting with 000. That's right, 000. And that column appears on the right-hand margin. For an English speaker, this map is labeled upside and backwards. But there is more.

Recall that this is a hex map. Each vertical hex column is slightly offset from its neighbor. You might, coming from square Cartesian-style maps, be tempted to read each column as being perpendicular to the vertical axis. You (and I) would be wrong to do so. With the help of kind folks on Google+, I was informed that the "columns" are read on a diagonal starting at the bottom of the map and read toward the northeast -- the way no other map I have ever seen anywhere works.

Even this weird map (which many folks I talk to now say that they never understood as kids) could have been useful to readers if only Gygax had explained his serial clown madness in the text. How to read this hex map is explained in none of the D series modules.

I guess Lake Geneva in the 70s was just bursting with cartographers.

Even without understanding how to read the map, it is possible, with effort, to puzzle out where the encounter hexes are since there are so few of them. Each module contains one detailed map of an encounter area, which looks like what you would expect from a module. However, there a serious of "reusable" cave maps the DM is encouraged to use when random encounters occur between these detailed sections. I cannot decide if this is a clever mechanic or a lazy hack to get out of providing some explicit maps. You will have to judge for yourself.

While I do not wish to be spoilerific here, I will note that I like the content in both modules. The lich, in particular, is intriguing as is the ghoul migration. I could have used a little more meat on the mind flayer encounter. The Shrine of the Kuo-Tua actually made me care about these inbred religious fish zealots and their priest-prince in a way I had not expected.

Still, the connection with the Drow in these modules is thin. Yes, the Drow are all over the place, but what are they doing? If they cannot dominate their immediate neighbors, how can the menace the surface world? It seems like the Drow are in a great defensive position. They do not seem to have the resources to launch any kind of serious military action. But that's the stuff for a different post. What I wanted to see in these modules was a little more Drow menace or politicking so that the PCs might care enough to investigate further. As it is, I can see the PCs becoming very interested in the lich or the mind flayers or the Kuo-Toa, all of which seem like more promising and rewarding adventures than pursuing the moody dark elves to their goth hangout "that's totally underground, dude."

One thing that this module does get right is its handling of the Kuo-Toa goddess. It is possible for the PCs to met Princess Bloopy Doop (whatevs), but no stats are given for her. Gygax isn't even going to entertain god-slaying PCs and frankly neither should you.

I cannot let this long post end without mentioning the excellent art assets contributed by my dream team of illustrators: Erol Otus, Jim Roslof, Bill Willingham, Jeff Dee and Timony Truman. Both Willingham and Truman went on to comic book fame. You see great stuff from all of them in this work.

D1-2 has some great ideas for an adventure, but requires a lot of elbow grease from the DM before hustling PCs through. It is worth a $5 download from dndclassics if you want to see what a high-level dungeon crawl might look like.

Review of Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits

David Sutherland III is well-known in Old School RPG circles. He contributed quite a few illustrations to first edition AD&D manuals and was the TSR cartographer for many of the early modules. Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits is his first and perhaps only credit as a module writer. And as a writer, well, he makes beautiful maps.

Q1 was supposed to be the conclusion to Gygax's great adventure cycle that begins with G1: The Steading of the Hill Giant Chief. Gygax even makes a lame excuse in the intro to Q1 about why he couldn't finish this one last module even though he had notes and everything.

Whatever, dude.

Sutherland takes a big swing at a high-level adventure. He attempts to bring in the high weirdness of astral travel and marry that to the brooding evil that one would expect from a dungeon on one layer of infernal Abyssal Planes. Heck, there are even some prototypical steampunk elements in the form of Lolth's insane spider ship.

And then there's that EGG...

All these elements are inventive, I grant you. However, some poor slob has to run this weak mess for a players. Does the module stand on its own?

Let's ask some basic questions about this adventure's quality. Is this a location-based adventure that can be fairly free-form? Is it a railroading exposition? Is there a clear objective for the PCs? Is that objective interesting? Does the module make getting to the objective interesting?

Q1 cannot be considered a location-based adventure. The previous module, D3: Vault of the Drow, certainly can be played in a variety of ways. The PCs can even visit the Drow city regularly, should they wish. But, dropping in on the Spider Queen for tea can only be done once. She is a minor god after all.

Which brings us to a big problem. The module's main objective seems to be implicitly: kill Lolth. I don't really think there is room for negotiation (but perhaps there is room for capitulation). Killing gods really is problematic for adventure play. If gods are weak, they become little more than "end bosses" in a campaign. If gods cannot be killed, then PCs have no hope of challenging them or their will. Gods are probably better handled as mute, magical mechanisms for plot.

Plot. There is a lot of whimsy in Q1, but not a lot of coherent action. Players sort of swing from one crazy location to the next without a lot of connective tissue. Not only will the party travel through the "demonweb pits" (which are more like inter-woven corridors), but the PCs may also visit various parallel worlds that Lolth is attempting to conquer.

She's a busy lady.

Sure, there are the nasty spiders, but they are kind of boring. Tolkien knew how to make spiders vile and fearsome. There are demons who are, like the spiders, fairly bland in their presentation. There are quite a few bugbears and gnolls. That Lolth must have a great recruiter on her staff.

What exactly does Lolth want? She wants to enslave all humans everywhere and then...I don't really know. She's a demon after all. I mean, she's a god. Or a mad steampunk scientist. OK. I really can't tell you what Lolth is, what she stands for, or what she wants for Christmas. She is just a big ball of sexy spider-evil who likes to leave the keys to her realm where high-level PCs can find them to kill her.

I may have seen her profile on Match.com once.

As much as I find Q1 nearly unplayable as module, it is an amazing source for getting the flavor of D&D in the late seventies. It's a bit more gonzo than S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.

If Sutherland failed to deliver a solid RPG adventure, he certainly crafted an iconic artifact for the hobby. I suppose that is exactly what we should expect from an artist.

Review: G1-2-3 Against the Giants

Let's get this out of the way first: Against the Giants (ATG) is the archetypical AD&D adventure. The three adventures comprised in this collected work were written during the period when Gary Gygax was putting together the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master's Guide. Reading through the module now is like reading the UR-manuascript which informs all future TSR adventures. Niether the composing adventures nor the compilation are flawless. However, the criticism presented below benefits from 30 years of hindsight and exposure to many products born from this work.

ATG is a high-level adventure for around 9 characters of 9th level. Given the monstrous challenges found in the halls of the giants, players can expect some attrition in their numbers. The setup is simple: giants have been raiding nearby human settlements. The rulers of these settlements wish this to stop. The mission presented to the players is straight-forward: hunt down the giants and, if possible, discover the reason for their incursions.

This setup is clean, without a cluttered backstory and provides sufficient motivation for the players. However, I am an unfrozen caveman dice chucker. More modern players may find the lack of backstory off-putting and the absence of a personal connection to the lives of the player characters to be a fatal defect. A crafty DM should be able to manufacture custom story hooks for those players who need a more personal stake in the giant raids.

There are three giant rulers responsible for these raids: the hill giant Nosnra, the frost giant Grugnur and the fire giant Snorre Iron Belly. Each has his own fastness which the characters must assault (in the order given above). Again, modern RPG sensibilities might be put off by the abrupt way in which the PCs are dumped more or less in front of each fortress. There is no wilderness component provided for in the text. There is no nearby town for supplies. The PCs are own their own.

As each chief is conquered, clues to the identity of a third party pushing the giants appears. If you do not know who this is, STOP READING NOW.

SPOILERS AHOY

A crafty (and according to Gygax's own fiction, busty) drow elf named Eclavdra has pushed the giants to war with the humans. Perhaps my reading comprehension skills are failing, but I cannot understand her motivations for warring (other than she is eee-vil!). Perhaps the follow-on modules, D1-2 and Q1 explain this a bit more. In any case, that mystery is not explored in ATG.

I believe that ATG is the module series that introduced the drow elves, which is Gygax's take on the traditional "svartalf" of Norse mythology. Throughout ATG, Gygax leans heavy on traditional Norse folktales. He goes as far as to say that the fire giants lair is "in effect" Muspelheim. This isn't to suggest that the PCs are hopping around the Outer Planes -- that's a concept that had not yet been developed, I suspect. That the fire giant king is named Snorre must be a knowing wink to the author of the Prose Edda, Snorri Sturlurson.

As a creature, the drow elves would go on to feature prominently other modules through out many editions of D&D and associated fiction. While I have yet to play ATG, I did play Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits and so was introduced to the drow very early in my RPG career.

The monster challenges that appear in ATG could not be more iconic of D&D, starting right with the giants themselves. I believe the only type of giant that does not appear in the series is the very power storm giant. Dragons also make strong appearances, including the a Smaug-like red dragon sitting on the largest treasure trove I can recall seeing detailed in any TSR module.

I also enjoy that the kinds of monsters that plagued low-level PCs, like orcs, trolls and hell hounds, appear as almost slaves of the giants. That's a wonderful display of power differential that adds verisimilitude to the monsters.

The treasure, strewn about the various fortresses, is remarkable too. There are several intelligent magic swords, which ordinarily are rare finds. Could it be that Gygax wanted to make all magic swords unique creations? Possibly. This idea that all magic items should have a unique character is a popular meme in the current Old School Renaissance.

So much of the content of the adventure. There are some troubling production qualities to ATG that require some airing.

Firstly, the maps are not labeled. That is to say, at first glance, you do not know which of the three sets of maps is that of the hill giant's fortress. When these modules were separately published, this confusion did not appear. However, when the maps were collected into one unit, this user interface issue was overlooked. Each section retains the original introduction, which adds distracting redundancies. Finally, there is a short-hand used in the monster stats (just giving the HP for each) that requires that the DM have the Monster Manual on hand. I suppose most of us have all the rulebooks on hand anyway, but this requires additional lookups that are unwelcome.

Despite some production issues, ATG is a strong product and likely to provide hours of entertainment even to modern players.

Review of X1: The Isle of Dread

TSR's blue-covered adventure module X1, the Isle of Dread, came with every box of the 1981's D&D Expert Set. Later, a reformatted orange-covered edition would be packaged with the Mentzer Expert Rules. Both editions are credited to David Cook (author of the 1981 Expert Rules) and Tom Moldvay (author of the 1981 Basic rules). This powerful authorial team should have produced a drop-dead awesome module, but somehow this module feels a little flat to me, even all these years later.

In its defense, X1 has a lot to do. It is meant to help novice DMs manage wilderness adventures (which is a mode of play that I have not yet engaged with as much as I would like). X1 also introduces some more details to the known world in the form of a short atlas of the classic Mystaran continental principalities. There is also a small "fiend folio" of new monsters introduced for the first time in this module. Finally, there is the small matter of detailing three adventure areas on the island.

I am sure I could not do as good a job as Cook and Moldvay with so long a task list and so short a page count (30-32 pages, depending on the edition).

If X1 comes across as a bit scattered, it can be forgiven. In just two years, TSR would introduce the Gazetteer format that focused more on settings than detailed adventures. Even now, X1 can be very easily thought of as a sort of proto-gazetteer of Thanegioth Archipelago.

X1 does lean a bit too heavily on some racial tropes as a kind of shorthand for the various native people the PCs encounter. Modern DMs will, I trust, do the good people of Tanaroa and Mantru right.

Let's have a brief word about the Kopru and the Phanatons. The Kopru are scheming, alien amphibians looking to remove the human riff-raff from their ancestral home. The phanatons are discount ewoks, but not as lovable [n.b. no one loves ewoks]. Seriously. Look at the graphic at the top of this entry. Makes you want to find a racoon to punch, doesn't it?

Unfortunately, I cannot talk very directly about the core adventure of X1, because I am not sure there is one. There are lots of interesting locations to explore, should the PCs wish to. There are sharks, dinosaurs, pirates, treants...

OK, we need to talk about Treants being on a tropical island.

If your Treants are informed by Tolkien as mine are, then Treants on Dread don't match up very well. But then neither do the hippogriffs, gargoles, or the green dragon. Oh well, this is a fantasy romp after all.

What isn't a fantasy romp are the layout changes between the two editions. Everyone loves tables. Let's have a table!

Blue versus Orange: BIG BATTEL!

Issue	Blue	Orange	Winner
Font	Souvenir	Garamond	BLUE!
Columns per page	2	3	BLUE!
Illustrators	Dee, Otis, DSL	Truman	BLUE!
Cartograph	Monochromatic	4 color	ORANGE!
Section Iconography	None	Six	ORANGE!

It looks like both editions are pretty evenly matched, but I am going to declare BLUE the winner because the 3 column layout is unreadable.

Whatever its faults, X1 is an important module. It introduces a much larger world to both DMs and players than B2: The Keep on the Borderland. It is certainly the prototype of wilderness adventures in general and seafaring hyjinx in particular for many aging D&D players.

To get the most bang out of this module, watch the 1930s version of King Kong followed by a reading of The Call of Cthulhu. That should nicely set the mood.

Review: B1-9 In Search of Adventure

There has been a lot of talk about "megadungeons" in the OSR community this past year. From Stonehell, Barrowmaze and Dwimmermount to those many creations that the public never will see, dungeon crawling is often the primary setting for D&D. So it isn't surprising that players want to continuing delving into the deepening mysteries of chthonic chaos. TSR understood this urge and tried to address this desire with, as has been noted before me, modules like B4: The Lost City. But I think that an overlooked gem in this vein is In Search of Adventure(ISOA), which is part clip show and part mega-adventure.

For those that missed it, ISOA was published in what Grognardia would call the Silver Age of role playing (1987). I certainly was not playing much at all by that time, being drawn into the fantasy world of rock and roll (which is like LARPing, but with no dice). However, this publication caught my eye since it seemed to package all of the B-series modules into one cheap package.

And cheap is the operative word. The paper is extremely light weight and easily torn. It is perfect bound, so that it does not lie up particularly well. The maps appear at the end of the manuscript on perforated paper for easy tear up, I mean, out. So the production value is pretty low, at least by my lights. Sure, the manuscript was typeset according to the "modern" standards of TSR in late 80s (i.e. boxed texts, gray background sections, garamond-ish font). I favored the crazier layouts of the late seventies, which used font faces like Souvenir and Futura to great effect.

Note that all nine modules (B1-B9) are not presented in their entirety. Key encounters were extracted from each and presented as isolated nuggets of adventure woven together with a broad adventure flow chart that suggests a few ways a DM can seamlessly move his party from one venue to the next.

Again, the analog of this product to a TV clip show is a close one.

I want to give the talented Jeff Grubb props for making a solid attempt to make the reader forget that all this material is a rehash. His prefatory remarks introduce the land of Karameikos and the major location of Threshold in a way that is more brief that Gazetteer 1 and more detailed than the Expert rulebook. For this alone, I would recommend this product to those who want to run an adventure in Karameikos over the gazetteer.

After the introduction, each module is presented in its own section with enough setup information for the DM to run it. At the end of each module section is a few paragraph that details the fallout of the previous adventure and sets up a connector to the next adventure.

There are a few new illustrations. The manuscript is densely committed to text. Illustrations cost money and cause page bloat. They also really help to set the atmosphere for the players. The cover does present a trio of fierce, warpainted hobgoblins, which is very welcome. That picture alone piques my interest in creating a hobgoblin-centric adventure!

I have never run a party through an entire adventure flow, but I would like to. The adventures in this product (it's not module, is it?) really do help bring Threshold to life and will help to springboard the party into further adventures in Mystara.

Get this module if you really want to explore Threshold and bring it to life.

However, if you are interested in running the individual adventures in a standalone fashion, B1-9 is likely to disappoint.

Review of N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God

WARNING: This review contains spoilers. The module is thirty years old, so I imagine the word has already gotten out about most of what I am about to write about.

Sometime between 1982 and 1984, I bought this fine module written by Douglas Niles. From notes in my copy, I can see that I used the NPCs listed in the back for other adventures. However, I never ran my party through it.

N1 is explicitly designed to be used for a game involving 4-7 novice adventures and a DM. The is a lot of great pulp action and tropes in this stuffed module: a troubled town fearful of strangers, an evil cult with deranged clerics, a mad hermit and a showdown in the moors.

The play consists of these bits: exploration of the Orlane village and the interrogation of its inhabitants, followed by a fairly contained wilderness exploration that concludes in an assault on the fortified lair of a very powerful, spell-wielding naga.

An interesting mechanism found in this module is that the players may be kidnapped at some point. Frankly, I don't think I could pull this off with my players. There isn't much chance of escape or rescue, so this seems like a total party kill. Perhaps readers will chime in with different experiences. However, the mechanism of kidnapping NPCs is will established and serves as a great plot mover.

In contrast to T1, the town of Orlane has many "feint" encounters that should be straight forward to DM and which are fun for the players. Hey, who doesn't like to bash troglodytes?

The final showdown with the Naga Explicatica Defilus (a faux latin name that perhaps might mean "the cause of filth") seems crazy hard for even 7 well-armed first level PCs. She is a 9 HD creature with serious fire power. Of course, the module hopes that the PCs befriend the mad hermit Ramne, a level seven mage who should provide enough cover for the PCs to contribute something to the demise of this Big Bad. Niles uses the old saw of rumors to set up player expectations in Orlane, which may be hokey, but it works.

The NPCs are particularly well drawn and engaging. I enjoy the bad crazy of Ambramo who scrawls on his bed room walls "snake mother" and "a crocodile has many teeth." Now that's what I call "pulp atmosphere."

This module has a fine selection of monsters from both the Monster Manual and Fiend Folio. The monsters are well integrated for me, but others might find the collection of beasties in the Naga's lair a little forced.

All told, I really like this module. It balances "community theatre" RPG stuff with solid combat situations. The final assault should prove challenging even for parties with some third level PCs. The motivations of the villagers is clear and easy for a DM to extrapolate.

Is it a little "railroady"? Perhaps. The party is mostly dumped on Orlane and expected to lend a hand. I am OK with this, but I know others want a more compelling backstory. The final showdown with the Naga is the most problematic for me. If the PCs do not have Ramne with them, this fight is going to be really short. However, if they win, they win big. The treasure is a small fortune and includes the excellent bag of holding, a boat load of spells and a few rings.

Review: T1 The Village of Hommlet

This venerable Gygax adventure comes from his famous Greyhawk setting. It is meant to introduce new players to the setting. It is a short book (16 pages of meat, followed by many maps) and features but one dungeon with two levels. Pretty thin gruel.

Or is it?

Most of this module is devoted to details about the village and its inhabitants. So much so, that I cannot find an explicit mandate from an NPC for the party to explore the moathouse at all!

Instead, Gygax presents a module thick with role playing. The players, it seems, are expected to interact with a good deal of the locals, getting hints of their intrigues and, if there's time, go have a Scooby-Doo adventure in the creepy old moathouse.

In the hands of a DM that enjoys community theatre roleplaying, the village is the adventure. With wonderfully evocative place names like the Church of St. "Square corners can be pounded smooth" Cuthbert and Inn of the Welcome Wench (good luck publishing an adventure with that kind of name now), it is hard not to want to explore this town.

But again, my complaint is that as a combat-oriented adventure, it is a bit lacking. The moathouse is far from a megadungeon. I would guess that a party would clear it out in 2-3 sessions. Some of the encounters seem a little overmatched for a first level group. It needs to noted that Gygax suggests mixing in a few second and third level PCs into the group. You may need to tweak the encounters in the moathouse for absolute beginners.

Of course, there is a 6th level fighter named Rufus and an 8th level magic-user named Burne that will adventure with your party for a crazy cut of the treasure. That seems nuts to me.

T1 was meant to be the first act of two act drama concluding in the The Temple of Elemental Evil, which promised to be mind blowing in its unfettered awesomeness. However, as a standalone adventure for those without inclinations toward acting, T1 has perhaps too much detail on the town and too little in the way of monster bashing.

One of the great things about OSR today is crowdsourced enhancements. Just look at this color rendered map of Hommlet or this 3D version of the moathouse. Great visual aids and you get it for free.

I know this module is much beloved, but frankly, it doesn't fit my temperament at all. I am old enough to drink real beer with real ladies. I don't need to pretend to that in a fantasy town to make imaginary friends.