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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8818945" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dungeon Issue 62: Nov/Dec 1996part 4/5Wild in the Streets: Another short adventure that's a variant on a familiar theme. In issue 30 you had to catch escaped baby dinosaurs, preferably retrieving them non-lethally if you wanted the full financial reward. This time your targets are even more varied, as you have to retrieve a baby displacer beast, anklyosaurus and rust monster released when the wagon containing them crashed. Now they're wandering around the town making a nuisance of themselves and the PC's are the only adventurers in the immediate vicinity. You'd better apply your brains to figure out how to trap them, particularly that rust monster, which could get very expensive in property damage if left alone too long. A lighthearted trio of encounters that shouldn't last more than a session. Then just when you think it's over, it gets much more interesting, because it turns out the owner of the monsters is a grifter who'll pay the PC's in fool's gold and get out of town. You'll probably want to chase him down and get revenge, in the process possibly finding out the dubious way he got hold of his menagerie in the first place. (then if you kill him, having to figure out what to do with them a second time) As with the previous adventure, this loses a little for being repeated concept, particularly as comparing them demonstrates how the average adventure has become shorter, less map focussed and more talky in the intervening 5 years, but is still in the usable range overall quality-wise. Both of these concepts are still less overdone than vampire counts or trap setting kobolds.Esmerelda's Bodyguard: Paul Culotta returns once again with a short swashbuckling scenario that would be particularly well suited in a Red Steel campaign. When walking through civilised terrain, they come across a villa guarded by a particularly obnoxious dandy of a swashbuckler who'll insult all the male PC's and hit on the female ones. When things inevitably descend into violence, he'll seem weirdly unaffected by any hits the PC's land upon him for several rounds, before just freezing in place. Turns out he's actually a highly lifelike clockwork swordsman who's just wound down. He was created by a wizard to protect his daughter, who is now thoroughly sick of his ludicrous antics driving any potential suitors away. She'll come out and explain the situation, offering you the pick of stuff from dad's old laboratory if you'll just take him away for good. (whether you then wind him up again and persuade him that the adventuring life is better than guarding her or just have him disassembled for parts is up to you) Of course, there are some things down there which can be pretty dangerous as well, keeping the adventure from being too short and easy. Yet another one in which the external threats aren't particularly threatening, but are designed to encourage interesting roleplaying from the players as they decide how to respond to them, whether they'll lean towards being merciful heroes or ruthless murderhobos, quite possibly leading towards the characters introduced here becoming recurring NPC's if allowed to survive. Also usable, but probably not all in the same campaign at once.</blockquote>

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