A Light in the Belfry

[Daniel Knight]

Another thread got me thinking about the what the most enjoyable published adventure I played through back in 2nd Ed. days was – and it was A Light in the Belfry. I’ve never heard of this adventure being discussed by other people though (for good or for worse), and seems to be forgotten in some bleak hole at the back of peoples subconscious.

So I guess the question is – does anyone else remember DMing or playing through this? Is it loved or is it generally despised. Discuss!

 

[Daniel Knight]

~B*MP~

C'mon! Someone must have played it!

 

[JRRNeiklot]

I remember that one. It was one of the few modules I liked from 2nd edition. The only part I didn't like was the fact that if the pcs made a mistake, the parts of the artifact flew apart and were repositioned throughout the house and they had to start over. That was a lot of impromptu work on the dm, and I had to grasp at straws on the fly. Blech. Overall, it was a pretty good adventure, and the cd tracks make for a great halloween one shot.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

I remember playing that one. First Ravenloft adventure to scare me (must be the CD of sounds and stuff). However, the whole thing with the shards was bulls***. How in the HELL were you supposed to figure any of it out? Gaaaaah!

 

[MDSnowman]

I thought as an adventure it was pretty good, as a Ravenloft Adventure... it was just plain silly. My players began laughing at those stupid CD tracks... back in the day you coukld download the transcripts from that CD on the old Kargatane site.

 

[hopeless]

Reg: A Light in the Belfry

Just started playing this scenario for 3rd edition!
Playing a cleric/sorceror who thanks to a Halfling Ranger was sent into the Abyss along with the rest of the group where they ended up fighting a pair of powerful demons who had just drained the life from one of the other characters (whose player wasn't there) and this portal popped up.
The other cleric (a one handed dwarf) using a detect evil spell to locate the now invisible demons discovered the portal was "slightly" less evil than the plane we were on (LE) so the others decided to bundle straight through.
I was trying to summon at least a pair of celestial eagles to pluck our fallen comrade to safety but had to fall the last 5' of a 20' roped climb to allow the dwarf the space to get to the ground breaking my character's ankle.
Hobbling to the portal as all bar the dwarf bundled through the dwarf bundled me through still pointing out we were leaving a comrade behind.
We reappeared on the crossroad of a road that was overgrown and apparently nighttime (the first we'd seen since entering the planes of hell) so finally we decided to camp (whilst I was openly praying for the memories of our fallen comrades) and given first watch we heard a horse approaching so I cast a Consecrate spell just in case and with the one handed dwarf's help (name of D'rel) woke up everyone except the wizard.
The horse came to a stop revealing its rider was an armoured knight who asked to approach and I in return saidd he could if he bore us no ill will.
The knight then proceeded to explain he was going to feast on our flesh and before I could turn him the group's rogue, D'rel and other dwarf (this one a fighter named Ralf) effectively mullered the apparition which promptly disappeared please note it never entered the area that had been consecrated.
Once we had fully rested please note we were told upon entry that all our wounds were healed (including a certain broken ankle) which left me wondering if this merely meant there was some kind of curse that allowed such things to be ignored.
It was still nighttime by the way and the only real detail the knight revealed was that he was Avonlea which I had heard somewhere before (and confirmed it was a sample from a freed cd from dragon detailing some of the music and audio cds they produced with games like this.)
Going the way the knight had come we reached a croosroads with a milestone and road marker, the way we had come led to Avonlea city and the roadsign pointed to Teregon Manor.
I argued we needed to visit the city to get info on what was going on, whilst the others pointed out the Manor was closer.
Our elvish Wizard (Laniel) levitated upwards to have a look and revealed that there was somekind of strange distortion effect between us and Avonlea City.
So we went to the manor cue music...
Used a comprehend languages spell on the plaque on the gate just as the thief deicded to reveal he had decipher script...
The thief opened the gate and we entered revealing the manor grounds so we checked out the burned down stable and found a number of still upright horse skeletons, I misheard what he said but still planned to demolish the skeletons which I did revealing one of them still had a useable saddle that was apparently magical with the word "zephyr" upon it.
Adding that to the stuff we found so far (on Faerun mind you) and checked out the graveyeard which were full of unmarked headstones (cue eerie music) and then moved to the topiary after looking at the pond (made initiative roll in preparation but nada) then Ralf entered the topiary and we witnessed an ancient battle from one sides point of view.
The others were ready to turn tail sorry go to the manor, I entered the topiary and got the point of view from the other end of the fight, a wizard named Morgoroth had fled his homeland because he was a necromancer, a paladin namedm Lambert pursued him and ended up dying in a fight with the wizard who acknowledged the rest of the circle he had been friends with would be following to finish what Lambert couldn't and from the looks of things neither did they...
More next week.

 

[hopeless]

Reg: A Light in the Belfry session 2

Once clear of the topiary and past the "pond" we headed to the mansion and our elvish wizard was forced to cast Knock on the door after the "locksmith" couldn't pick the lock due apparently to a "Hold Portal" spell (even though he should have been able to bypass it) inside was a massive audience chamber with the remains of a shattered chandelier in the centre within which was a single shard of an obviously had been part of an enchanted mirror.
Door to the far left and right with ahead of us were two staircases leading upstairs and another door directly ahead between these two staircases (with another pair of doors built into the side of the staircases hidden initially from view).
We took the door to the far left and found ourselves in a chamber holding a number of crates and about a half dozen coffins...
They were empty save for some dirt inside of each of them so they were emptied and some wine casks were used to make them unuseable should we run into their "owners". There were two exits from this room, one led up to atrapdoor in the ceiling and the other opened into a greenhouse...
One of the coffins held another part of the mirror but after using some of the cloth recovered from the crates to wrap it up we proceeded to the greenhouse.
The area was apparently colder than outside so after Ralf our dwarven fighter decided to use a stick to poke one of the nearest long dead plant pots which casued a whirring to start so I went back to grab something to throw into the room thinking it was some creature about to pounce.
It was actually a mechanical trap that shot a plant pod into the air and it released a pollen attack that struck everyone still in the room (ie: not me) but had no visible effect.
The locksmith double checked the room and I assisted and he found the trap was now no longer working possibly intended as a red herring.
We now headed back to the main room and checked the door to the far right and found it led into a corridor with two doors opposing each other on the left and right.
The right led to a dining room and the left the kitchen.
Moving back to the main room after checking both these rooms we headed for the doors previously hidden from view when we first entered.
The dwarf ended up trying to tug open the door on the left hand side which blew open having a detect magic up and running I looked in after a halo of light swirled around the room and was promptly bundeled by all of the lights and knocked out (no save and it was a divine spell by the way) left comatose the other opened the other door which apparently released a burst of heat instead of cold but no other effect happened.
After waking up and proving otherwise uneffected (this is not the first time the GM has deliberately targetted me the last time he used the ghost of a dragon to age my character from 21 to 81 claiming he was using some 2nd edition rules (in a 3rd edition game) which I only recently found out they're only supposed to effect 1d4x10 years not 2d4x10 years so if he finally manages to kill off this character I won't be bothering to create another character) we searched the rooms ahead and found one was the scene of what seemed the release of a fireball spell with only the frame of a shattered mirror being the only furniture left.
In case you're wondering there was another shard of the mirro on the floor and enough evidence to make us realise the frame was where the mirror was to be rebuilt.
Checking the other door we found a room full of statues and evidence that these were Morgoroth's former comrades or "circle" twelve knights and one wizard eerily mirroring the candles we found in the dining room which consisted of twelve white and one black candle.
One of the statues had another shard of the mirror imbeded in its neck, even though I offered to stone shape the fragment free in the hopes of reducing the risk of damage to the statue but the GM pretty much indicated this wasn't going to happen.
Returning to the main room having left the shard until we found the rest we went up the nearest staircase and ventured upstairs...
More in 2 weeks.

 

[Warden]

I remember playing it back in the day when it was quite the gimic. We set up in my buddy's basement with the big stereo set up and played the sound effects like madmen. The adventure was so-so, but augmented by the CD.

The funniest part was when we heard the door at the top of the stairs open and someone start walking down. Figuring it was his mom, he all turned to look because we knew she would come down and say "So, who's winning?" When no one arrived, we looked at each other and someone went to the stairs to look...no one was there. When we heard the chimes at the end of the track, we realised we had the stereo up so high, the track of a creaking door and descending footsteps sounded as if it was actually happening in the room.

 

[Crothian]

I played this back in second edition, it was a lot of fun. The shards were frustrating but well done by the DM. Its one adventure I'd love to have again.

 

[sabrinathecat]

Another thread got me thinking about the what the most enjoyable published adventure I played through back in 2nd Ed. days was – and it was A Light in the Belfry. I’ve never heard of this adventure being discussed by other people though (for good or for worse), and seems to be forgotten in some bleak hole at the back of peoples subconscious.

So I guess the question is – does anyone else remember DMing or playing through this? Is it loved or is it generally despised. Discuss!

Bought it way back when, and ran it for the first time last year as a 4e mod. I'm currently running it in a play-by-post game. The party just got into the grounds and found the stables (for some reason, both parties entered near the side gate instead of the main gate).