A Hero's Tale

[Hussar]

Been reading the resurrected Quasqueton's threads about classic modules and dug into my rather feeble collection of books that have survived my many moves over the years. One module that I've managed to keep a hold of is A Hero's Tale:

It's a module I've always liked. There are seven or eight linked short adventures that are not meant to be played one after the other. Instead, they're meant to be seeded in between other adventures, often while the PC's are traveling from one point to another. All the adventures are linked by a single thread, a powerful magic item known as the Waning Star.

In each adventure, you learn a bit more about this item and each scenario is characterized by the party hearing phantom bells tolling in the distance.

While I never played all the modules, and some of the adventures are very typically 2e heavy handed (one of the early ones features a forced capture of the PC's for example) the adventures are usually pretty well done.

I'm wondering if anyone else has any experience with this adventure. I've seen people talking about all sorts of modules here, but, I've never seen this one come up.

Anyone like it? Hate it? Heard of it?

 

[Jan van Leyden]

I have it and absolutely loved the concept.

I actually used the first (?) adventure with the kenku. The second one about the gnomes and their racing spiders was too silly for my tastes.

As the memory capacity of the players in that group was too lousy to recall hints, items and even persons from more than two sessions ago, the experiment was bound to fail anyway, and I dropped it.

A similar concept was used in an ancient Dungeon adventure; sometime around issue #16 or so. That thing featured towers in remote locations which were connected by magical portals. Not all of the portals worked anymore, so the players could not just hop around the network. Sadly, I don't recall the actual story of the scenario.

 

[Hussar]

Well, at least SOMEONE has heard of this one. I was feeling lonely.

 

[Derulbaskul]

I haven't used it, yet!, but I always loved the idea of the plot running the background while the campaign's main plot advances. I suppose that's where it has been the biggest influence for me: to consider including parallel multi-level mini-plots (maybe I'm just slow: I realise that a lot of DMs were doing this before this adventure was released).

 

[Crothian]

I remember it but never had a copy.

 

[Oryan77]

I remember someone mentioning this adventure a couple years ago and I got my hands on a copy of it. Reading this thread reminded me about the book so I got it off the shelf and skimmed through it again. It definitely looks like a good thing to use as fillers in a bigger adventure.

Is the beetle race adventure the exact same adventure as the beetle race adventure in one of the 3.5 dungeon magazines? I don't remember which issue that was but I do remember reading an adventure like that.

 

[Hussar]

Dunno if it's the exact same. But, racing on bugs has been a recurring adventure since Dragonlance. IIRC, one of the last two DL mods (DL 15 or 16) had a bug race with either kender or gully dwarves. Been a zillion years since I read those mods though, so I could be misrembering.

 

[u2622]

*casts Raise Thread*

I've just started integrating this into my new gaming group, and we ran the first adventure the other night. It was hilarious! The party avoided the broken window in the store for fear of being thought of as the perpetrators, but they did investigate the abbey. I let the thief climb in solo through a skylight window (I made it be an abbey to Lathander), and he found the charmed priest relaxing, alone in his room.

The priest was surprised, saying "No one is supposed to be in here! We're closed for renovations!", and the thief then knocked him out, tied him up and put him back in his room. He then snuck to the front entrance, and removed the bar blocking the door, but didn't do so quietly. The digging noises stopped, the party rushed in and ran down the stairs, just as the Kenku (one in human form) were readying their weapons.

They halted, giving the Kenku a chance to explain themselves. The Kenku claimed that they were merely here for the half-buried item (the Waning Star). They have permission from the priest to remove it, and will leave once they're done. The party was suspicious about the item's powers, but the Kenku said that it was a relic important to their history, and would help their race earn the respect they deserve.

And the party bought it! They left, and let the Kenku extract the Waning Star. Since they weren't around to watch the Waning Star disappear from the Kenku's hands, I had the ominous bell ring just as they were leaving town. Now the Kenku think that the party did some kind of trickery to take the Star from them, and will be pursuing them. They also won't be welcome in Haggash in the future! The priest will remember them, and witnesses saw them leaving the abbey. The people there likely think they're in league with the Kenku.

Way too much fun. The group consists of five people who have never played D&D (not even in computer form) before. Their actions are completely impossible for me to predict!

 

[Hussar]

Very cool. I always thought that the intro module in this book was pretty solid. Very open ended. Certainly one of the stronger modules. Some of them are not as good, but, then again, you can always skip the ones you don't like.

 

[TarionzCousin]

*casts Raise Thread*

I've just started integrating this into my new gaming group, and we ran the first adventure the other night. It was hilarious! The party avoided the broken window in the store for fear of being thought of as the perpetrators, but they did investigate the abbey. I let the thief climb in solo through a skylight window (I made it be an abbey to Lathander), and he found the charmed priest relaxing, alone in his room.

The priest was surprised, saying "No one is supposed to be in here! We're closed for renovations!", and the thief then knocked him out, tied him up and put him back in his room. He then snuck to the front entrance, and removed the bar blocking the door, but didn't do so quietly. The digging noises stopped, the party rushed in and ran down the stairs, just as the Kenku (one in human form) were readying their weapons.

They halted, giving the Kenku a chance to explain themselves. The Kenku claimed that they were merely here for the half-buried item (the Waning Star). They have permission from the priest to remove it, and will leave once they're done. The party was suspicious about the item's powers, but the Kenku said that it was a relic important to their history, and would help their race earn the respect they deserve.

And the party bought it! They left, and let the Kenku extract the Waning Star. Since they weren't around to watch the Waning Star disappear from the Kenku's hands, I had the ominous bell ring just as they were leaving town. Now the Kenku think that the party did some kind of trickery to take the Star from them, and will be pursuing them. They also won't be welcome in Haggash in the future! The priest will remember them, and witnesses saw them leaving the abbey. The people there likely think they're in league with the Kenku.

Way too much fun. The group consists of five people who have never played D&D (not even in computer form) before. Their actions are completely impossible for me to predict!

I'm intrigued. When is the next game session?