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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8701186" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dungeon Issue 55: Sep/Oct 1995part 3/5Umbra: Chris Perkins has had a hell of a year, getting an adventure published in every single issue so far. Now they're trusting him enough to let him write their longest single-part adventure yet, a full 31 pages long and probably higher word count than some actual 32 page modules. (although Tortles of the Purple Sage still beats it out in both total page count and density of useful info per page, making it considerably longer in actual play.) It's our first Planescape adventure in here, which means it has a lot riding on it, as while I love the setting, they sure did produce some sucky metaplot heavy railroads for it. Thankfully, while this is pretty plot heavy, which also means it's quite linear at the beginning, it is one where there are lots of potential solutions, some better and more supported than others. (as even in an adventure this size they can't account for every decision the PC's make. ) The PC's are hired by a Yagnoloth to rescue a child who apparently bears the Mark of Zactar, which means it could be the chosen one prophesied to be the most important being in the multiverse. It's being held by a Harmonium high-up who would keep it from ever knowing about this or fulfilling it's destiny. Even if the yugoloth is playing you somehow (which any adventurer worth their salt will know it is, even if what it says to them is proven technically true using lie-detection) a heroic group should want to intervene. There are indeed many catches he's not telling you about. The guy holding the baby is actually it's father, so despite being distant and mildly abusive to his kid he's in the legal right here when it comes to custody and pursuing this adventure will get you in trouble with Sigil's lawful factions. The second is that the mum is actually a succubus, and wants to get her kid back just to sell it to a Balor as a sex slave. (details mildly bowdlerised by the code of conduct, but it's pretty damn obvious what they're getting at) This then means said kid is actually an alu-fiend, growing way faster than a regular child in an unpredictable way and gradually developing a suite of spell-like powers that make her increasingly hard to discipline the way you could a normal human child. She's not chaotic evil yet, but it would take very little to push her in that direction and a lot of delicate work to do the opposite. In a way that makes this similar to the previous adventure, only on a larger scale, as they're both about what to do with kids of monsters who don't deserve death now, but might in the future, (but it'd be much harder to wait and fight them then) and how wandering adventurers aren't really equipped to handle all the complexities of rearing a child. So while there are a decent number of combat setpieces and some irritating bits where fiends use their teleportation powers to escape so you can have multiple encounters with the same enemy, this does mostly live up to the potential of Planescape as a place where the battles are less about dungeon delving & treasure hunting, and more about complex moral questions where your choices can have unpredictable long-term ramifications, and you have to unravel a web of manipulation and half-truths to have the information to make an informed decision. It has a default "best" ending, but you could well choose another one and then have to deal with the consequences of that in a future adventure. As the letters page showed, there are more than a few groups that simply wouldn't be sophisticated enough to handle an adventure like this, but if you have the right set of players and DM it could be as memorably debate-provoking as intended. Just keep the clubs part of the philosophising IC no matter how heated the discussion gets. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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