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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Napftor" data-source="post: 2008402" data-attributes="member: 617">As stated by the staff reviewers, this 39-pg production houses 2 distinct modules with an "icy" theme.  I think that 1) having a theme like this is a pretty nice feature and 2) getting 2 modules for the price of 1 (in this case $8.95) is quite agreeable to a gamer's wallet.  If you want to know the plots of these, then please refer to the above reviews as I am not going to take space repeating them here.  Suffice it to say, both modules are imaginative and hold the interest of players and DM's alike.  Mearls and Bell know their stuff and I think they'll be contributing quality products for a long time.  Added bonuses include Claidio Pozas's adequately rendered counters (while Pozas himself is a superb artist, I think the art greatly loses something in the scaling down process) and the handy Challenge Tables et. al. inside the front cover.  The cover and interior art is top-notch and gets no complaints from me.  Now, onto the actual modules themselves:SPOILERS BELOWSwords Through the Ice Gate:  The idea of taking the protagonists to another world is one that never loses appeal for me.  Here, the normal concerns of character-action repercussions do not have to be weighed as carefully-->"Want to upset the balance of power in the bugbear village?  Go for it!  You're going back through the gate to your safe home.  Nothing you do will directly affect your campaign world (unless your DM decides to follow-up with another gate module, this one where vindictive refugees from your actions in the other world come for your hides!)"  But, I digress.The rules for dealing with the cold are simple and the possible combat on the ice to determine tribe leadership is quite exciting.  This whole module was the best I've read yet and I really can't find fault with it.  Hopefully, we'll see more like this in the future.The Crystal Tower:  It's double trouble as the PC's must complete their objective on a melting iceberg while at the same time outwit evil adventurers out for the same objective!  Sound good?  It is.  The backstory is explained well (as it is for Swords...) and the evil wizard's tower has traps both devious and deadly.  The tumbler mechanism for the traps is ingenious and it is more than believable that the ogre left behind by the wizard was killed by his own stupidity.  There are, however, a few items that the DM must watch out for when preparing to run this module...<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Area #36 is not listed on the map</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">When Lannora sets off the "massive" ram trap in Area #37, wouldn't the PC's hear this from just the 20 feet away that they are?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The compactor in Area 39 is not correctly described.  It states that the compacting wall is "the entire twenty-foot eastern wall" and "will advance at a rate of five feet per minute, taking four minutes total to reach the western wall...".  But according to the map, this area is 10 feet wide and 20 feet long.  And while there is no compass point, it would not help anyway.  Either the compacting wall is 10 ft. and will take 4 minutes to squish the PC's or it is 20 ft. and will take 2 minutes to do its job.  I'd have to go with the former</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">On page 33, Area #54 should actually be #53</li> </ul>There are also a couple of pet peeves that surface in this module.  First, I don't really like the inclusion of real-world names in products.  This is usually either a bad joke or a lack of creative juices.  Possible tomes to be uncovered here have such names as Arcana Unearthed and A Study on the Ancient Island of Atlantis. 8)  Second, I find the need to page back and forth between the map and the text that goes with it (separated by 12 pages at the beginning) rather tedious.  Perhaps a detachable map is the best option here.Back to the good, there is a subtle hook to get the PC's from The Crystal Tower to Swords....  I had wondered why a dual module would have both so close in level and this explained it nicely.  Well done.So despite the minute errata I have listed, Nature's Fury is a solid buy in every category.  Another winner from Fiery Dragon.</blockquote>

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