"Essence of Evil" - Dungeon 152

[Shroomy]

Dungeon 152 continues with "Essence of Evil" by Robert Schwalb. This is an adventure for 20th level characters. You can get it here:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/duad/20071221

I just skimmed it and it looks pretty deadly. Very interesting sidebar on how to put it in various campaign settings including Dark Sun, Mystara, and Birthright.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I'm surprised we're getting so much Dungeon lately.

ONe of the things I heard about Dragon having a lack of updates is they don't want to do crunch. All these adventures seem to have a lot of unique entitites so that thinking doesn't seem entirley right. After all, how hard would it be to do some Creature Catalog entries at this point?

 

[Shroomy]

Over on the WoTC boards, Chris Thomasson said that the content delay was due a backlog on the art and map orders (which is why we won't be seeing Dave Noonan's side treks until early January, but we will get one more full-length adventure sometime next week). Apparently, 4e is eating up a lot of their normal artists and cartographers.

He also said that they are having technical problems on the Dragon site, which is why you can't get into the archives and why the "Ecology of the Fire Archon" was pulled today; the web developer is out on holiday. Oh well...

I read "Essence of Evil," it kind of reminded me of "Roots of Evil" from Issue 120 with the high level encounters, hostile environment, extremely high stakes, and adventuring within a living being. I liked the adventure, but it didn't blow me away. There were some interesting encounters in there though. 152 is shaping up to be a high-level meatgrinder; I hope the last adventure is a low-level one.

 

[shilsen]

I read "Essence of Evil," it kind of reminded me of "Roots of Evil" from Issue 120 with the high level encounters, hostile environment, extremely high stakes, and adventuring within a living being. I liked the adventure, but it didn't blow me away. There were some interesting encounters in there though.

That's pretty much how I saw it, but it works so well for my purposes that I'm willing to overlook the flaws, which I can do easily enough. Right now in my Eberron campaign the PCs are heading to the Mournland to deal with a 'seed' which has been planted there, which will open up connections to Xoriat, the plane of madness, and let the daelkyr through into the world. The daelkyr, coincidentally, are the example from Eberron used in "Essence of Evil" and it's got a lot of stuff I can easily utilize. And "Moagim's Clone" is perfect for a one-off adventure when we're taking a break from the regular campaign or when a player or two can't make it, esp. since it's for 14th lvl PCs, which mine are. I never use modules, but Dungeon is working out very well for me.

 

[Shroomy]

I still think that the sidebar detailing how to fit the adventure into the various D&D settings, many of which are officially defunct, was a very interesting development.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

That Mystara conversion bit was especially interesting to me, as an active member of the Mystara community, as it specifically mentions the Outer Beings as a catalyst for the adventure- beings which were never mentioned in canon materials, but were completely developed by the Mystara online community for the setting.

Hopefully that's indicative that they're reaching out to embrace those Other Worlds communities that have long been supportive of the various WotC/TSR campaign settings, regardless of rules editions.

 

[megamania]

I still think that the sidebar detailing how to fit the adventure into the various D&D settings, many of which are officially defunct, was a very interesting development.

oooooooooww.... Darksun.......

 

[Lorthanoth]

I also liked that but it's interesting that whilst many people complain about being left behind by D&D, gems like this are over-looked.

 

[Arnwyn]

A somewhat interesting adventure, including:

[sblock]The return (and high level version) of Lareth the Beautiful![/sblock]

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

Essence of Evil sounds like a bizarre recipe ingredient to me, but maybe I’ve been doing too much baking lately. (…three eggs, a half tea spoon of lemon juice, a tea spoon of vanilla extract, a half tea spoon of essence of evil, a cup of sugar and vola, Cake of Doom)

I find just how productive both Dungeon and Dragon are – now that they are paperless – to be interesting. But I also think it is a mistake to read too much into that sidebar with the old settings.