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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Burnside" data-source="post: 9694944" data-attributes="member: 6910340">The sixth adventure is The Forbidden Vale, for Level 9 characters. This is also the second adventure in which those darn ancient githyanki have left their problematic headquarters behind for the rest of us to deal with.In this case, a red dragon (born "from the ashes" of a previous red dragon) has awoken from its cyclical multi-century slumber in an ancient githyanki ziggurat to immolate the surrounding countryside, as this red dragon and its predecessor have done every 200 years. The situation is problematic for the nearby settlement of Aborean Springs (whose townsfolk don't offer any tangible reward for dealing with the dragon, but isn't virtue its own reward?)The GoodI really, really love the old-school pen-and ink monochrome art used for this adventure. It's something I'd expect to find in a Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure, and I mean that in the best way. Unfortunately, this art style isn't really the right choice for this particular adventure, so see Complaints for more on that.Arborean Springs has three NPC factions, each of which wants  the dragon dealt with in a different way:- The Traditionalists want the dragon dead, but want the players to kill it while it is outside the ziggurat, because it's taboo to go in there. Although the adventure really doesn't provide a ton of material supporting luring the dragon into a fight in the countryside, it's a valid strategy. But it would mean skipping the best part of the adventure.- The Merchants just want you to kill the dragon. They don't care where you do it.- The Nature Lovers point out that the dragon's rampage is actually now a burn cycle that has become a key part of the local ecosystem. They have a ritual that will enable the adventurers to induce the dragon to return to its slumber for another 200 years, when it will be time for the fires to begin again. Components must be collected from various locations inside the ziggurat's magical gardens, and then the dragon must be confronted by adventurers who have brewed and then treated their weapons with the magical sleeping potion. Needless to say, this is the most interesting route to pursue, mainly because it prompts the adventurers to explore the 4-level ziggurat which represents the bulk of the adventure's text; the other two options above make doing that totally optional or even unlikely.The bulk of this adventure is a GREAT monster hotel-style dungeon. It's 1E style, but has a bit more internal logic and ecosystem than a 1E dungeon typically would (but not THAT much more - a spirit naga and a behir are still like two doors down from each other), and some fun innovations like two "danger room" areas where githyanki warriors once trained to fight githzerai in the Plane of Limbo or mind flayers. If you love something like Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth but wish it made like 20% more sense, you'll probably like this adventure a LOT. This is a place where a coven of green hags, a spirit naga with yuan ti followers, a behir, a treant, a marid, three manticores, a chimera, and a red dragon are living together in a githyanki tomb/magical garden. Oh and there's a Mirror of Life Trapping with a hydra, hill giant, and plenty of other stuff that might also get released. AND there's an invisible githyanki knight in suspended animation. You can get on board with it or not.Lots of good magic items here, but it's a 9th level monster hotel so that works just fine.The epilogue section contains the phrase "But at what cost?"The ComplaintsAgain, I love the art on its own merits. But this is an adventure filled with colorful magical gardens and a countryside filled with forest fires and magical flame-colored flowers (this stuff gets pretty vivid - and strong - descriptions in the text). It's begging for color art and color maps. I do like the art, as I said, but I wish this artist had been assigned to a different adventure in this book.There is an overland journey from Arborean Springs to the ziggurat. It's fine. It has some choices, some combat, some exploration challenges, and maybe one roleplaying encounter. I hesitate to even list it under Complaints. There's nothing wrong with it. It's aggressively fine. But nothing very memorable or innovative.The ziggurat's layout has a decent chance of prompting the adventurers to beeline - accidentally or deliberately - right into the dragon's lair and boss fight pretty early in their exploration of the ziggurat. For some groups, this is fine. And groups using the Nature Lovers strategy will realize they'll need to explore more of the ziggurat anyway to get the components, so they will back out of the lair if they stumble into it - if they can. I'm just flagging here that this adventure has a chance of climaxing really quickly and unexpectedly due to the map layout - some DMs may want to adjust things to prevent that.There's no reason this red dragon needs to be the virgin birth offspring of a previous red dragon - it might as well just be the original dragon that once lived here with the githyanki and keeps going into suspended animation.The townsfolk should be offering a reward of some sort.Verdict There's no way this is less than a B+ and for a lot of groups it's probably an A-. With the caveat that this style is not for everyone, and for some groups this dungeon will absolutely overstay its welcome. But it is a very good example of this style of dungeon, and I'm glad this book has one like this.</blockquote>

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