Isle of Dread - your experiences?

[DarrenGMiller]

X1 "The Isle of Dread" was the second adventure I ever DM'ed. This was back in early 1983. I really didn't know what I was doing and only had two players. They actually made it through the adventure with a Magic-User and a Fighter and were there for 3rd and 4th level.

A year or so later, I was a much more experienced DM (playing almost every day will do that I guess) and ran it again with my new group (this was late 1984). There was a TPK in the common room of the temple. It was ugly.

After Dungeon #114 with the poster map and the adventure "Torrents of Dread" came out recently, I ran it again. I was having some player issues at the time (that's another thread entirely). It actually took several months to get through the tandem of Torrents and Isle, but I thought it went fairly well (though the players thought it dragged out horribly, which it did...). Torrents was rough on characters and I think we lost 5 in that adventure (I had 8 players plus myself). We actually ended the campaign with the party underground in the temple in Isle. The character concepts were not very compatible with dungeon survival and there was a lot of player conflict. There were some great moments in the adventures though, such as the sharks and poisnonous snakes in isle and the sudden arrival of the shambling mound in Torrents. The shambling mound encounter was the deadly one. Here is the synopsis:

The party is exploring the water-filled tunnel. One of the two advance scouts is a gnome swashbuckling sea captain who has a staff that has several powerful effects, including the earthquake spell once per week, though it gradually drains Str and turns the user into a shadow eventually. The shambling mound rises suddenly from beneath the water and strikes the other advance scout, knocking him into the negative HP and unconscious. The gnome then activates the staff, since he knows it is a do or die situation. At this point, a huge earthquake shakes the island and collapses the tunnel, both cieling and floor. The main party is caught in a mudslide as the tunnel collapses into the cave system beneath, which contains the 2 kopru causing the storms. The gnome dies heroically in a struggle with the shambling mound in a spectacular shower of water and mud and the party Channeller (modified Wizard variant from Midnight) kills off the kopru. We really were thinking TPK, but the party pulled it out.

Overall, this is a fun adventure.

DM

 

[frankthedm]

Five years have passed IMC. The extra-hexed hexblade made it to the island with the accursed chaos sphere of monster attraction. The villiagers great wall has fallen, due to unforseen calamity. A gargantuan half fiend T-rex was accidently Called to the island. New volcanic islands have sprung up in the nearby sea. The children of Leviathan [Dune sized sea worms] have been spotted near the island fairly often.

The party has a druid amound thier midst now and may head to the island. One party member knows the sphere got to the island, another would love to go there to feed the animals the other characters, the rest would prefer to not feed the animals and find a garreenteed source of phat loot.

 

[zoroaster100]

I DM'ed this one for my brother and cousin. We were all pretty young and somewhat immature at the time. My brother was playing a paladin for the first time. My cousin, playing a chaotic neutral elf fighter/magic-user. On the long sea journey to the Isle of Dread, my brother decided he didn't want to go there after all. My cousin decided to join forces with the buccaneers manning the ship to capture and hold the paladin prisoner until they got to the Isle.

The paladin, during his long days in the ship's hold, abandoned faith and turned to sheer lust for vengeance against the other player character. He ended up calling on the demon prince Pazuzeus and making a pact with him to set him free from his captivity in the hold in exchange for his eternal soul.

So much for paladinhood!

Once the now ex-paladin was free from the ship's hold, he negotiated a truce with the other player character until the got to the Isle, where with Pazuzeus's help, he led the whole crew into an ambush by demon-worshipping headhunters and himself turned on the elf who had imprisoned him and riduled him during his captivity. The ex-paladin was killed in the battle, and my brother had to roll up a new character to continue the adventure. I think we stopped playing after they had just finally started exploring the dungeon in the center of the Isle.

This is the first (and last) time I had to deal with players that turned on each other in the game, which of course generated much aggravation for all involved. I wasn't sure what to do with the situation and let it proceed, in part out of an immature "let's see what happens" attitude. We were probably in our mid-teens at the time. Anyway, I think it's a cool adventure as written, but our own issues obviously distracted us from enjoying the adventure the way it was meant to be played.