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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2010753" data-attributes="member: 1129">Fiery Dragon does two things right in my book. The first is that the provide an inexpensive, time saving alternative to unpainted metal miniatures in the form of their counters. The second, something not seen in a while, is fantasy adventures. With Plague of Dreams, an introductory adventure for Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed, I hope that's changed for the better.Broken up into five chapters, Plague of Dreams provides the GM a good taste of what the world is like in a setting that doesn't use alignments. While some ideas, maps, magic items and monsters can be taken into any d20 setting, the book really needs Arcana Unearthed to be fully used for those wondering how 3.0/3.5 it is. This is especially true with the NPC's who are using Monte's alternative magic system.The adventure starts off in Gahanis, a small town that's mapped with important locations noted. The interesting thing is it's not far away from the Ebonring Keep. Most of these are standard places adventurers are going to head in to get new equipment and trade up their material, but some of it, like the sibeccai area, shows that the setting is indeed different as they have large houses to accommodate their giant guests. The backgrounds of the races aren't highly showcased, but all of them are present and different, allowing the players to select any race as a native to the area. After the players gather information about the town, they're contacted via dreams by the merchant guild, the Jaren.The Jaren want some bandits captured and an item that was taken from a caravan brought back to them. Because these bandits were members of Gahanis, it's best to avoid a scandal and keep it quite right? On the way out, the players may hunt down rumors of where the bandits are and Battlehome, a fortress used by the giants to fight the dramojh in the past, looks like the most likely place. Once again, Fiery Dragon gives MEG a nod with a rumor of the Ebonring being held at Battlehome once. A nice touch.At Battlehome, the players will get an idea of what the dungeon crawls in this setting are like. If evidenced only by this adventure, while the architecture has changed, not a lot else has. 1st level players are still fighting and chopping their way through warriors, goblins and dire rats but hey, it's not a new d20 system, it's an alternative one. The good news is that there are several new and unique creatures to keep the party on their toes and several lose ends are provided for GMs who wish to expand upon the adventure, like returning the body of a dead noble to his far away home.After the party battles the bandits, they'll learn that not everything is as it seems and that the item they're looking for is actually at another location. This is the standard point A, B, C adventure where the party has to move forward in order to achieve their mission. As such, it's fairly linear and provides a good starting ground for GMs who've never sat behind the shield before.Once the party gets to their new destination, they have to battle the bandit forces and in doing so, discover that there is an item of great power involved at the heart of their travels thus far. The real problem though, is that those who've hired the party have other ideas for this item and have sent out one of their own, the feared Blue Knight, a champion of death, to retrieve the Malus Morphaera from the corpses of the players.The adventure ends in an open fashion and allows the players to pick which path they'll follow as regards to the destruction or care of the Malus Morphaera allowing the GM a high level of control over which direction he'll take his campaign.The first thing I thought useful was that it's set in the same area as Mystic Eye Game's Siege of Ebonring Keep adventure. While no notes are provided on how to link the two adventures, there are many notes on the rivalries between the two towns. There are some inside jokes too like a drink with an oily coating that is set on fire called the Flaming Lip, a tribute to the Simpson's and the Flaming Moe.The art is generally good, but the styles don't mesh well. Parts of it are almost comic book like while others appear to be charcoal drawings. I wasn't too crazy about the layout as often the first column looked liked it was bowed to the right. The page numbers have part of the border surrounding them that cuts the text away in a semi-circle. The light gray background wasn't murder on my eyes but the faded symbols occasionally distracted me. Editing was fair with no obvious issues creeping up on a first reading and the price, at $14.95 for 64 pages, is industry average, is not a little lower.Plague of Dreams is probably a little easier to run than Siege on EbonRing Keep as it's smaller and less expensive, requiring a bit less work to customize and prepare. If you want the full AU experience, I suggest getting both but for brand new GMs, Plague of Dreams is probably you're better bet.</blockquote>

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