HELLSPIKE PRISON
By Matthew Sernett
Wizards of the Coast product number 950047400
16 pages, $14.95
Hellspike Prison is the second in the Fantastic Locations series of short adventures suitable for use with both the D&D RPG and the D&D Miniatures game. Although it's the second in the series, it's the first one that I've seen, so I won't be comparing it to its predecessor but rather just giving my impressions of it on its own merits.
The cover artwork is by Francis Tsai, whose work I've noticed (and praised) in other recent WotC books. This piece isn't bad, but it isn't representative of Francis' best work; here, what purports to be a barbed devil (although its head is rather triangular and its tail looks somewhat mechanical; altogether, it looks significantly different than the depiction in the Monster Manual) stands in front of a trio of cowering humanoids, while the eponymous Hellspike juts out from the ground in the background. Some sort of winged devil is hanging on to one of the spikes - maybe it's an imp; to tell the truth, imps aren't very distinctive anymore in 3E/3.0, so it's hard to say for sure. In any case, the color palette is an appropriate one, with everything done in shades of red, orange, and brown, much as you'd expect when the light source is a pool of molten lava at the bottom of the panel.
Wayne England provides the three bits of interior artwork, and these are moody pieces with gloomy shadows throughout: a pair of chain devils, a pair of barghests standing in front of the Hellspike, and a beholder. This last piece is the weakest of the three; I disliked the too-long, narrow teeth and the way the eyestalks are so much fatter at the base than they are at the eye. (It makes them look less like eyestalks and more like tentacles.)
The other artwork in Hellspike Prison are the two double-sided maps, each unfolding until it's eight times the size of the product. As you'd expect, each of these four adventuring locales have been marked with 1-inch grids so they can be used as battleboards, and each has the appropriate symbols (like "rough terrain" and such) marked somewhat unobtrusively so the D&D Miniatures fans can get the most use out of the product. (I suppose now would be a good time to point out that I don't collect D&D Miniatures and am unfamiliar with the game beyond what I've read in the pages of Dragon.) The maps were all done by Jason Engle and are very nice, given that he was stuck with the exact same dimensions for each of the four locations (Magma Keep, Hellspike Grotto, Mushroom Cavern, and Temple of the Prismatic Flame). My biggest problem with the maps is that the paper they're printed on is very thin; one of the two-sided maps was already halfway separated down its middle fold when I opened the shrink-wrap, so I doubt that these will hold up to much use, despite the fact that three of them are "official" maps for D&D Miniatures Skirmish battles, and as such are intended for further use beyond this adventure.
However, the thing I like best about the maps is that each map is reprinted (in full color) on the inside covers of the book. This is where all of the DM's notes go, from where the pit traps are located to the room numbers of each chamber. This was an excellent idea, keeping the big, foldout maps as uncluttered as possible and keeping as much information away from the players until they need to know it. (For example, there are three "room 24: Broken Galleries" in the Temple of the Prismatic Flame; were all three rooms labeled "24" on the foldout map, the players would know after hitting one room that they needn't bother checking out the other two.) On the down side, there are supposed to be two areas marked "23" and there's only one (I suspect the missing "23" is the room just north of the northernmost "24"), and area 34 isn't marked at all (it should be the room just north of area 33).
As for the adventure itself, it's really rather plain-vanilla: Ferrule Keep is taken over by a barbed devil and sinks into the earth (shades of The Sunless Citadel, anyone?). The barbed devil and his minions capture the population of a small human village and are sacrificing them to gain power (in this case, to summon more and more devils to the Prime Material Plane with the hopes of eventually creating a permanent gate between the Prime Material Plane and Baator). The PCs, naturally, must put a stop to this.
As you'd expect of an adventure that's also geared as a D&D Miniatures game, Hellspike Prison is a dungeon crawl - and there's nothing wrong with that. However, part of what made this so ho-hum for me was the fact that almost all of the creatures encountered are straight from the Monster Manual - nothing's been advanced, nobody's got any class levels, it's all just "Monster: hp; Monster Manual page number." And then it suggests what D&D Miniature to use to represent that creature, and which accessory pack it came from (example: vargouilles are from the Angelfire collection). By the way, good luck trying to collect all of the correct miniatures needed for this adventure; not only do you need a beholder (somewhat rare, or so I've heard), but also 8 vargouilles and 7 barghests (there are three more later on, but the first 7 will probably be dead by then, so you can reuse those miniatures), 6 salamanders, 12 lemures, and 16 derro, all of which could conceivably be encountered at the same time (not all of the monsters together, but all of the same creature at the same time). I think it would be a rare collector indeed who has such quantities of the correct miniatures on hand.
Incidentally, I said "almost" above because there is one exception, a female chain devil who was given 4 fighter levels and "cursed" to have her lower body transformed into a giant chain that's bolted to the floor of the room she's in. As such, Zencelada the female chain devil has the only stat block in the entire adventure. You'd think that a product with only one stat block wouldn't have any stat block errors in it...and you'd be right.
Oh, it's also worth mentioning that the adventure is intended for four 9th-level PCs. I'm really surprised that isn't listed anywhere on the front or back covers; most adventures I've seen make a point of listing what levels they're written for, so the DM can be sure ahead of time that what he's purchasing is appropriate for his group. A more cynical individual might assign a devious reason as to why this information is missing; I'll give WotC the benefit of the doubt and assume it was an oversight.
Overall, Hellspike Prison strikes me as very much an average product, with an average plotline, pretty average monsters, and average artwork. It's small wonder that I'm going to give it a rating of "3 (Average)." At $14.95, the price does seem a bit high for what you get (note, however, that I received mine free as a review copy), although I suppose D&D Miniatures players are liable to get more for their money than D&D roleplayers, as they'll possibly be reusing the maps over and over.
The proofreading/editing job was spot-on, though! Kudos to editor Jennifer Clarke Wilkes for a nice job on those fronts. (No proofreader was credited.)
