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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8371114" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dungeon Issue 32: Nov/Dec 1991part 5/5Ghost Dance: A second adventure that uses the BATTLESYSTEM mass combat rules in the same issue? Now that is interesting to see. I wonder if those bits were originally in the submissions, or they're adding them in in editing as part of their promotional efforts. Iuz is being diabolically evil as usual and wants to expand his territory, but the Rovers currently living there are proving considerably harder to exterminate or subjugate than the native american cultures they're heavily inspired by. Tiring of taking considerably heavier losses than their opponents in the face of asymmetric warfare, one of his priests hits upon the plan of infiltrating a tribe with an artifact that turns everyone exposed to it lawful evil, and then using them to fight the other tribes, while disguised as yet other tribes in the hope of turning everyone against everyone else, leaving them all weakened and easy pickings when the conventional armies finally come in again to mop things up. And he would have got away with it if it weren't for those pesky PC's and their little god too! Since en masse magical alignment conversions are one of the biggest threats to godly power structures, that's a huge faux pas on Iuz's part (not that he gives a naughty word), and the PC's will have powerful, if subtle forces helping them on their way if they take this mission. If they pay attention to the clues, they'll realise this isn't a mission where they should be killing everyone and taking their stuff, and go for the magical artifact responsible for all the mindfucking. Destroying that will free them, and then you get a nicely climactic final battle where all the Rover tribes unite against the Horned Society forces. If you don't, the adventure will be much longer and messier, probably turning once again into an extended guerilla campaign. So there is a definite intended story here where the PC's act like proper heroes and get suitably rewarded for it, but there's also enough worldbuilding that you can go off the rails and play a very different kind of adventure if you like. It's all pretty interesting philosophically, as it shows how chaotic evil gods can value lawful evil followers, but also that lawful evil does not have to mean you respect anyone else's rules. (Iuz doing things that are just completely out of bounds for other gods, yet not being directly stopped because they can't bring themselves to break the bounds of civility no matter how blatant his rule breaking and how much normal people suffer as a consequence has new resonance after 4 years of Trump presidency.) Like the other mass combat adventure this issue, pursuing it could have long term effects on the geopolitics of your campaign, and lead into more Greyhawk Wars adventures where things go quite differently to the canon metaplot. Like most of the other adventures this issue, this won't be for everyone, but for those it is, it could add a fair bit to your campaign long-term. A lot of adventures in here with relatively short page count, that are also quite heavy on the worldbuilding and potential for long-term campaign consequences. If you're a DM that's good at extrapolating and extending existing adventures to make them more significant, this could be one of the most useful issues they've ever done. So it's with with vague trepidation that I head back to Polyhedron, where they worldbuilding isn't nearly as prioritised or well though out. Let's see what presents we get for christmas this year.</blockquote>

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