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First Post
In the past week I've started digging into the E-series of epic-level adventures WotC has published for 4E:
(^ Links to Amazon that will make me rich if you click them.)
I'll be running a group through these starting this fall, after another player has finished running a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying adventure. The players will start with new 21st-level characters.
Have you played or read these? What are your thoughts?
Let me summarize each and give my take on these works by Bruce R. Cordell (all), Chris Sims (E1), Chris Tulach (E2), and Scott Fitzgerald Gray (E3).
Spoiler Alert!
E1 Death's Reach: [sblock]The players travel through Zvomarana, the Temple of Temples, to reach Letherna, Realm of the Raven Queen. There they speak face to face with the Raven Queen herself, who tasks them with finding out why souls due her are instead held by Death's Reach. Death's Reach was a central battleground in the Dawn War between primordials and gods. The players will have to find their way through this tainted core of the Shadowfell, which is strewn with the debris of the Dawn War and where the living were not meant to tred. During this journey they discover Orcus is attempting to raise the primordial Timesus from its Reliquary to become a weapon of Orcus. In the process he has threatened the stability of the entire planar order.
The players will encounter the Raven Queen herself, an Aspect of Orcus, liches and dracoliches, the Blackstar Host and Astral Warwings, a "Beholder Death Emperor", and Orcus's exarch Arantham. Several traps will test the players and there is an artifact to be found, along with several powerful magic items.
Speaking with the god of death face-to-face, journeying to a plane of the dead where the primordials fought the gods at the dawn of time, and combating an aspect of the god of undeath and his right-hand-human is epic.
[/sblock]
If there is anything to criticize in E1, it is a railroad and some of the encounters are populated by a motley assortment of creatures
.
E2 Kingdom of the Ghouls: [sblock]Orcus is close to holding the weapon--a primordial in stasis--he seeks, but has not yet woken it. The adventure begins with the adventurers traveling to Sigil as they attempt to intercept the primordial before it can be used. The Ghoul King is assisting Orcus in the transport in order to curry favor and hopefully elevate his status to the new god of death once the Raven Queen is deposed.
The players will encounter angels, devils, demons, and the undead. There's a death knight, a gibbering orb that gives me bad dreams, and so many ghouls the players may never want to watch a zombie movie ever again. Of course, if they get that far, the player's have their chance to take down the Ghoul King, his pet balor, flying skull guards, and lich minions.
The landscape is literally horrifying. I'm a particular fan of the Bridge of Bones, a trap whose flavor text says "The iron-hard bone doors slam shut, and the skull face in the floor begins to spray blood in fountains that scour the ceiling", and the Ghoul King's Court of Teeth which I won't spoil.
An artifact will enable the players to easily jump between planes.
On paper this doesn't sound as epic as E1. But keep in mind that every battle is not only for the players' souls, but the souls of the entire world.[/sblock]
This adventure corrects the two major flaws of the first: there are several side quests written into the adventure so it is not as much of a railroad (and it starts in Sigil--railroad that!); and the encounters all feature creatures that make sense and are awesome.
This might be the best undead adventure ever.
E3 Prince of Undeath: [sblock]The players take control of a spelljammer, invade the palace of Orcus, travel to the bottom of the universe, and fight him to the death in the court of the Raven Queen with the fate of all souls and the existence of the world and planes as we know it hanging in the balance.
Oh, and they have to get past a primordial on the way there.
[/sblock]
That is not epic. That is
ing epic. If you don't have Metallica's "Master of Puppets" or Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" blasting on a loop during the final battle I think you are doing it wrong.
This module makes it worth pre-ordering the gargantuan Orcus mini.
If I have a problem with this adventure, it's only that some of the Abyssal creatures are too abstract and horrifying and don't have a description, picture, or mini to do them justice.
Not only do I think these published 4E adventures are cool and not only do I think they take advantage of the other published 4E materials and not only do I look forward to running them, but I think the E-series are some of the most epic first-party adventures ever released for any edition of D&D.
A bold claim, I know. But I honestly think these thing are great: worth your money, worth your time, and worth making 21st-level 4E characters just to run them.
(Note: This was originally a response to "The Plane Above - the Glorantha-fication of D&D?" that I spent enough time on to think it deserved it's own thread.)
(^ Links to Amazon that will make me rich if you click them.)
I'll be running a group through these starting this fall, after another player has finished running a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying adventure. The players will start with new 21st-level characters.
Have you played or read these? What are your thoughts?
Let me summarize each and give my take on these works by Bruce R. Cordell (all), Chris Sims (E1), Chris Tulach (E2), and Scott Fitzgerald Gray (E3).
Spoiler Alert!
E1 Death's Reach: [sblock]The players travel through Zvomarana, the Temple of Temples, to reach Letherna, Realm of the Raven Queen. There they speak face to face with the Raven Queen herself, who tasks them with finding out why souls due her are instead held by Death's Reach. Death's Reach was a central battleground in the Dawn War between primordials and gods. The players will have to find their way through this tainted core of the Shadowfell, which is strewn with the debris of the Dawn War and where the living were not meant to tred. During this journey they discover Orcus is attempting to raise the primordial Timesus from its Reliquary to become a weapon of Orcus. In the process he has threatened the stability of the entire planar order.
The players will encounter the Raven Queen herself, an Aspect of Orcus, liches and dracoliches, the Blackstar Host and Astral Warwings, a "Beholder Death Emperor", and Orcus's exarch Arantham. Several traps will test the players and there is an artifact to be found, along with several powerful magic items.
Speaking with the god of death face-to-face, journeying to a plane of the dead where the primordials fought the gods at the dawn of time, and combating an aspect of the god of undeath and his right-hand-human is epic.
[/sblock]
If there is anything to criticize in E1, it is a railroad and some of the encounters are populated by a motley assortment of creatures
(Rakshasas in Death's Reach?)
E2 Kingdom of the Ghouls: [sblock]Orcus is close to holding the weapon--a primordial in stasis--he seeks, but has not yet woken it. The adventure begins with the adventurers traveling to Sigil as they attempt to intercept the primordial before it can be used. The Ghoul King is assisting Orcus in the transport in order to curry favor and hopefully elevate his status to the new god of death once the Raven Queen is deposed.
The players will encounter angels, devils, demons, and the undead. There's a death knight, a gibbering orb that gives me bad dreams, and so many ghouls the players may never want to watch a zombie movie ever again. Of course, if they get that far, the player's have their chance to take down the Ghoul King, his pet balor, flying skull guards, and lich minions.
The landscape is literally horrifying. I'm a particular fan of the Bridge of Bones, a trap whose flavor text says "The iron-hard bone doors slam shut, and the skull face in the floor begins to spray blood in fountains that scour the ceiling", and the Ghoul King's Court of Teeth which I won't spoil.
An artifact will enable the players to easily jump between planes.
On paper this doesn't sound as epic as E1. But keep in mind that every battle is not only for the players' souls, but the souls of the entire world.[/sblock]
This adventure corrects the two major flaws of the first: there are several side quests written into the adventure so it is not as much of a railroad (and it starts in Sigil--railroad that!); and the encounters all feature creatures that make sense and are awesome.
This might be the best undead adventure ever.
E3 Prince of Undeath: [sblock]The players take control of a spelljammer, invade the palace of Orcus, travel to the bottom of the universe, and fight him to the death in the court of the Raven Queen with the fate of all souls and the existence of the world and planes as we know it hanging in the balance.
Oh, and they have to get past a primordial on the way there.
[/sblock]
That is not epic. That is
ing epic. If you don't have Metallica's "Master of Puppets" or Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" blasting on a loop during the final battle I think you are doing it wrong.This module makes it worth pre-ordering the gargantuan Orcus mini.
If I have a problem with this adventure, it's only that some of the Abyssal creatures are too abstract and horrifying and don't have a description, picture, or mini to do them justice.
Not only do I think these published 4E adventures are cool and not only do I think they take advantage of the other published 4E materials and not only do I look forward to running them, but I think the E-series are some of the most epic first-party adventures ever released for any edition of D&D.
A bold claim, I know. But I honestly think these thing are great: worth your money, worth your time, and worth making 21st-level 4E characters just to run them.
(Note: This was originally a response to "The Plane Above - the Glorantha-fication of D&D?" that I spent enough time on to think it deserved it's own thread.)
