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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8241765" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dungeon Issue 21: Jan/Feb 1990part 4/5Jammin': We had a co-ordinated tie-in with Dragon a few months ago. Now we have one with both Polyhedron, (as this adventure's default location is near Raven's Bluff, so anyone buying both will get more out of it) and Spelljammer. Jim Ward gives us an adventure designed as a bridge to get earthbound adventurers up into wildspace, explaining the basics of the setting to everyone who hasn't bought the core set yet. A spaceship has crashlanded recently, and the PC's either see it happen, or get hired to investigate by someone who did. It turns out to be a ghostship, crewed by customised skeletons and led by a spectre, who will obviously try and separate their spirits from their bodies & add both to the crew in a permanent capacity, (waste not want not) then use their magical items to get the ship flying again. If they win, they obviously have a spaceship to play with, although it's not the most well-equipped or efficient example, so they'll soon realise they're noobs in dire need of an upgrade after an adventure or two up there. Given Jim's usual tendencies towards monty haulism, this adventure is actually a model of restraint, taking care to point out the dangers and expenses of owning a spaceship, and give the GM plenty of outs if they want to make it just another adventure rather than something that'll completely change the entire campaign. It fills the adventure with flavour bits and hints that will become significant later on if they do head for the stars, so it works well as an introduction to the themes of Spelljammer as well as the rules. It makes for a pretty interesting change of pace, even if it is obviously a thinly veiled advert encouraging you to collect all their settings. The big question is if they'll do enough spacebound adventures to sustain a campaign, or it'll suffer the usual fate of niche markets despite offering more room than every other terrain put together, forcing DM's to make it up themselves if they want to keep a game going? Yeah, you already know the answer to that. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" /> Back to regular pseudo-medieval fantasy we go then. Incident at Strathern Point: As usual, we have a short adventure in amongst the longer ones that probably won't last you a full session, but is handy to keep players busy while travelling between bigger plots and makes sure the page count lines up neatly. The PC's come across a recently abandoned trading station, and need to clear the monsters out to get the proper exchange of money for goods and services moving again. They're not just facing a bunch of generic humanoids though, but monsters from the Abyss, led by a man who was banished there and returned, forever changed. Once again, they're going for the gothic melodrama of gradually revealing the monster and their tragic backstory, albeit on a smaller scale than the last few. It's fairly interesting, although it is a good reminder that Hordlings are one of the worst named monsters ever, as their extreme variation makes it difficult to actually use them in hordes and retain said variety, since you have to pregenerate every single one individually. It's reasonably flexible in use, and can be expanded out into a bigger plot if the PC's ignore the initial hook or run away. I can definitely see myself throwing it into a campaign.</blockquote>

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