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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 9083301" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dungeon Issue 82: Sep/Oct 2000part 5/6Eye for an Eye: Having made it up to 3rd level already, this adventure raises the possibility that you might go up multiple levels during the course of it, which definitely never happened in previous editions with their training requirements and rule that you lose excess XP if you somehow did gain too much in one go without a chance for that downtime. So the first part of this is aimed at 3rd level characters, but it definitely escalates by the end. A deformed young man got his hands on a magical artifact with mind-controlling powers and promptly set out to destroy his home village and everyone in it who bullied him over the years. He’s already mind-controlled a bunch of people and set them to damming the swamp, which will then be released in one big burst to flood the place. Your basic school shooter scenario, only made more fantastical and convoluted by the subtraction of guns and addition of magic. To top things off, he’s also trying to get hold of a nice false eye, which of course he doesn’t intend to pay for legitimately. This turns out to be his downfall, as the PC’s happen to be passing by when his minions kill the merchant and take the eye. Hopefully curiosity or a sense of justice will lead them to investigate. If not, they can still be sucked in by being framed for the grave-robbing that got hold of the eye in the first place, or being asked for help by the family of intelligent wolves that protect the balance of nature around here. So this is all quite pleasingly open-ended, with lots of optional encounters over a fairly detailed wilderness area, then a short linear dungeon at the end. Lots of the encounters can be resolved in a noncombat way, particularly if you realise many of your opponents are mind-controlled and dispel it instead of attacking them. It’s a pretty good adventure even if it does feel like it was written in 2e and then converted to 3e by the editors, and some of the symbolism (drain the swamp!) feels even more on the nose now with the rise of incels as a cultural subgroup rather than just individual frustrated young men. Another thing we can thank the internet for, I guess. Bringing people with similar interests from around the world together whether that’s a good idea or not. You could definitely get a strong emotional response out of running this adventure for the right group of players even now.</blockquote>

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