(un)reason
Legend
Dungeon Issue 25: Sep/Oct 1990
part 5/5
A Rose for Talakara: As the cover indicated, this adventure does indeed go full gothic, but in a slightly different way than I expected. An extremely powerful wizardess and her skeleton warrior lieutenant have ruled a secluded volcanic valley from a crumbling castle for over a century. Like all skeleton warriors, he loathes his undead existence and wants to get his hands on the circlet that holds his soul so he can finally rest in peace. He has to obey her every command, but has been serving reliably long enough that he gets a fair bit of leeway on the day-to-day operations of running the place. So he subtly seeds clues for adventuring parties in the surrounding kingdoms using his retinue of Shadows that will hopefully lead one of them to come there and engage in killing & taking of stuff, as they do best. In the meantime he cultivates black roses and leaves one at the site of every person he kills, because even if he's stuck as an undead monstrosity, he's still a chivalrous gentleman. So this is an adventure that's all about style, as both the main characters are melodramatic drama queens who's personal foibles, combined with considerable power warp the surrounding area to make things all about them. It would fit into Ravenloft seamlessly, but still works outside it as well. Some of the encounters are pretty tricky, but because one of them secretly wants the players to succeed, there's also several weak spots that'll make the adventure much easier to get through for observant players who use stealth and roleplaying rather than just charging in the front gate. Another one that's probably not for starting DM's, as building the descriptive detail and atmosphere between fights is definitely more important than the hacky bits. But if that is your thing, here's one you can really shine with.
Another set of adventures that are interesting because they're definitely not intended for every campaign, particularly with the addition of a Marvel one to the familiar D&D scenarios, but that makes them all the better to read collectively. Hopefully at least one of them will suit the game of any particular buyer. Time once again to see if they have anything particularly festive in the oven next issue.
part 5/5
A Rose for Talakara: As the cover indicated, this adventure does indeed go full gothic, but in a slightly different way than I expected. An extremely powerful wizardess and her skeleton warrior lieutenant have ruled a secluded volcanic valley from a crumbling castle for over a century. Like all skeleton warriors, he loathes his undead existence and wants to get his hands on the circlet that holds his soul so he can finally rest in peace. He has to obey her every command, but has been serving reliably long enough that he gets a fair bit of leeway on the day-to-day operations of running the place. So he subtly seeds clues for adventuring parties in the surrounding kingdoms using his retinue of Shadows that will hopefully lead one of them to come there and engage in killing & taking of stuff, as they do best. In the meantime he cultivates black roses and leaves one at the site of every person he kills, because even if he's stuck as an undead monstrosity, he's still a chivalrous gentleman. So this is an adventure that's all about style, as both the main characters are melodramatic drama queens who's personal foibles, combined with considerable power warp the surrounding area to make things all about them. It would fit into Ravenloft seamlessly, but still works outside it as well. Some of the encounters are pretty tricky, but because one of them secretly wants the players to succeed, there's also several weak spots that'll make the adventure much easier to get through for observant players who use stealth and roleplaying rather than just charging in the front gate. Another one that's probably not for starting DM's, as building the descriptive detail and atmosphere between fights is definitely more important than the hacky bits. But if that is your thing, here's one you can really shine with.
Another set of adventures that are interesting because they're definitely not intended for every campaign, particularly with the addition of a Marvel one to the familiar D&D scenarios, but that makes them all the better to read collectively. Hopefully at least one of them will suit the game of any particular buyer. Time once again to see if they have anything particularly festive in the oven next issue.