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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8580080" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dungeon Issue 47: MayJun 1994part 2/5Shades of Darkness: One of the joys of Dungeon's massive range of adventures to choose from is when you find one that puts the spotlight on an otherwise neglected creature from a more obscure supplement. This time it's Dark creepers & stalkers from the Fiend Folio that are getting a rare airing. Since they're just as obscure IC as OOC, when they kill most of the people in a noble's manor and kidnap his son, the survivors think it was a bunch of dwarves. Will the PC's fall for that red herring and fight the unconnected group of dwarves they passed on the road a little while ago, or investigate the crime scene before jumping to conclusions and find the (not very well) hidden tunnel down to the underdark? Groups that have means of seeing in the dark that don't involve making yourself a target with obvious, easily extinguished torches will have a definite advantage. A short, fairly old school one that's mainly for reminding you how much of a penalty you face if the DM tracks illumination levels strictly. Like encumbrance, it's one of the big limiters to our exploration ability in real life, but can easily be forgotten when you're used to staying at home or in cities that remain well-lit even at night. When you have to actively choose how much of your limited resources you spend not only on weapons & armor, but also food and lighting, it forces a more cautious approach to adventuring. So this is good if you want to encourage that grim & gritty playstyle, and not so much if you want a more wahoo, high action swashbuckling one. Fair enough. At least you can make that informed choice now.Quelkin's Quandary: In the letters page they had to deal with a complaint about too many superficially fair but treacherous quest-givers causing player paranoia. Here they muddy the waters further by having an obviously suspicious quest-giver turn out to actually be trustworthy. Quelkin is your typical mysterious and eccentric wizard living on the edge of town. The townsfolk think he's evil because bad things have happened when he's around, but he was actually the one trying to prevent tragedy rather than causing it, then not explaining what was actually going on because even supersmart wizards can be surprisingly dumb when it comes to that. Another group of adventurers decided it would be a good idea to kill him & take his stuff. He narrowly escaped without any of his spellbooks, turns up at the nearby pub in a panic and asks the PC's for help. Do you a: ignore him, go look for a different adventure from a less suspicious quest-giver, b: take the case and try to apprehend the other adventurers in a lawful fashion, c: take the case and kill the other adventurers & take their stuff in return d: kill the wizard, then go kill the adventurers and take all the stuff in his manor regardless of original ownership. If your DM has been a dick in the past I'm not going to blame you at all for taking option a or d. If you do go to fight them, it's mainly interesting because the other group is built as a fully detailed adventuring party with kits, nonweapon proficiencies and lots of magic items they'll actually use properly so each one feels significant, and hopefully the DM will have them work together like a proper adventuring party rather than mindless marauders, which involves a lot more bookkeeping than the average enemy. Dumb PC's who just charge in the front door will probably not fare well. So this one isn't exactly bad, but will only work properly with a fairly limited subset of groups & DMs. If you aren't at the right level of playing smartly, but not TOO paranoid, it'll cause more trouble than it's worth.</blockquote>

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