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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2123583" data-attributes="member: 143">A great product that apparently skipped editingFirst off, let me say that The Caverns of Thracia was my favorite Judges Guild products, and one of my all-time great mods from the 1st ed days.  Paul Jaquays's creation was one of the first "supermodules" that fit together logically and had a cohesive backstory. I ran the mod for three separate campaign groups back in the late 80s and early 90s, which I can't say for any other published scenario during my AD&D years. Thus I was quite excited when I saw that Necromancer was doing a re-release of this classic. This edition is very loyal to the original source material. New content has been added to the original dungeon, including a larger above-ground ruin, a more detailed underground city, and an entirely new cavern-realm occupied by a creative new villain-race that can become the site of an extended campaign. There's easily enough material here to take characters from 3rd-4th level all the way up to 20th. The plot involves a decadent civilization that collapsed centuries ago, finally overcome from within by the humanoid creatures that they'd enslaved. There are Grecian themes throughout, in particular the deities and history of old Thracia. I found little difficulty tailoring the original to my own campaigns. The bulk of the adventure is a sprawling, multilevel dungeon that is heavily interconnected. I don't have the original module in front of me (sadly), but I recall a cross-sectional view of the entire dungeon that better indicates the relationships between the levels (which are often intertwined physically with each other, with various sublevels and side areas), and which is absent here. There are, however, copies of the maps in the back of the booklet, which is a nice feature. One of the module's stronger points is the diversity of factions within the dungeon, which creates opportunities for players to exploit the existing conflicts between them. Unlike some dungeons, the ecology is logical and works, and the desciptions do cite how monster populations interact with each other. The interior art is decent is a bit sparse. A lot of it has the style of pencil sketches rather than finished art, but they do successfully highlight the content of the module. I agree with the earlier reviewer who critiqued the cover art; it's mediocre and doesn't capture the menace that should be conveyed by the beastman leaders. The minotaur chief looks more like a stuffed animal than a fierce bad guy. My primary complaints are with the extremely poor editing. This is a big module, but within five minutes I'd found a dozen simple errors that even a basic proofreading should have caught. In the entire module, I found several dozen typos and basic errors. In the Table of Contents, for example, the word "tribes" is rendered as "tribels." Throughout, the terms "Reptillion" and "Reptillon" are used interchangably. Some search-and-replaces were obviously done without following up: see for instance p.3, "Note: as in most Judges Guild products, the term 'Judge' is used in place of the word 'Judge.'" I found numerous errors in stat blocks (example: p.41, lizardfolk mercenary Ftr 1s have 4 HD). On page 43, a shaft is described that changes depth within the same paragraph. See if you can figure this out: "It [the shaft] is circular and 120 feet deep. The shaft is 70 feet deep with a final drop of 30 feet. The smooth walled shaft leads to Level 3A, Room 83. The midpoint of the shaft (the 40-foot mark) contains a crawl space leading to Area 72, Sublevel 2B."This passage also highlights a problem with the module in that the different levels and sublevels are so interconnected that it is easy to get confused. A cut-view vertical map of the complex would help the DM to visualize the overall layout of the place. Fortunately the map contains area links so the DM can move to the appropriate new map when players pass through a transition. A few editing mistakes are inevitable in any product, especially one of this size. But Caverns of Thracia has so many it seems rushed and careless. That's unfortunate, for the module is a true classic, and can serve as the basis for a long and detailed campaign.</blockquote>

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