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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2011904" data-attributes="member: 18387">The Grey Citadel as a module is a kind of three-in-one. It comprises a town setting, a mystery to solve and a good old dungeon crawl. In that, it's good value for the money.The adventure takes place in the small walled town called the Citadel of Dun Eamon, a rather damp and dismal place, situated in the middle of a river. Apart from the river the module is extremely adaptable and can be used in any campaign. The adventure is suitable for any mix of characters, and all kinds of skills will be useful. Even bards and druids will have opportunity to shine.This town is plagued by a demonic infestation, which the party will be invited to try to remedy. In the course of their investigation, they will uncover clues that will eventually lead them to explore the sewers under the city to find a missing wizard and save the town from a horrible evil. But the heroes are not alone. There is an evil party trying to accomplish the same thing, and they don't like competition.While the plot isn't strikingly original, it, like the whole module is lovingly crafted. There is a wealth of different approaches available to the characters. They can gather rumors about town, investigate a mystery, solve a puzzle, search for clues or - if your party doesn't relish problem-solving and wants action instead - just go dungeon-delving.The module feature a mix of encounters, some happening at a definite time (adaptable to the DM:s plan), others keyed to specific locations. The NPCs are also interesting and there is a wealth of little details even about minor merchants, that make the town useful as a campaign supplement beyond the actual adventure. There are rather few powerful NPC:s though, so the town would perhaps be better suited for low-level play.The ambience of the module is very nicely captured. The town is drenched in a steady drizzle, and there is a sense of melancholy pervading it all (there is even a wistful story of unrequited love). Many of the NPCs are quite memorable in a low-key way. The set scenes add to the sense of mild horror (The Hound of Baskerville springs to mind) and are enhanced by the drab environment.I always appreciate a good mystery, and this one is very well crafted. The players can approach and solve it in a number of different ways, and they will be rewarded later if they manage to put the clues together. That eliminates the problem that the players might get frustrated. In this adventure you simply can't get stuck, because there are various ways of approaching the problem. I found the difficulty adequate. My players figured of part of the puzzles and were gratified when finally things started to make sense.As for the dungeon it is well thought out and logical, with a number of memorable and inventive encounters. The difficulty of the encounters varies widely, which is a good way of keeping players on their toes. Like in many Necromancer Games modules some encounters can be outright deadly for a party of the recommended level, and call for good play or there will be fatalities.One thing I particularly appreciated as 1st edition feel was the corny titles of many of the rooms (including some abominable puns, like "Just a fun guy" as the title of a room containing a single violet fungus). The light-hearted-ness of the descriptions contrasted nicely against the rather gloomy dungeon. There were a few elements of outright horror, too, and some instances of really twisted humor (I loved that).Some of the natural menaces were a little hard to adjudicate, but they presented a wide variety of challenges for all kinds of characters. The only complaint that I might have is that the final encounter might be a bit easy, especially when compared to some of the earlier encounters, and might come as a bit of an anti-climax.While written for 3.0 the adventure was easy to convert to 3.5. We had fun playing it, and I'm impressed with the sheer craftmanship that went into it. It is rock solid down to little details, and offers a lot of opportunities for DMs who love intrigue and role-playing. Me, I'm more of a dungeon crawler, and while the dungeon was very well constructed and definitely enjoyable, the experience was somehow a little bland.So, based on the enjoyment playing it I'll rate this as a 4, but arguably it could be a 5 star adventure. There is nothing wrong about it but it didn't quite match my style. Anyway, this is a strong 4, verging on 4.5.</blockquote>

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