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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2008611" data-attributes="member: 18387">This small gem from Atlas is one of the most original d20 adventures so far. It is also one of the most pleasureable ones to read, DM and, according to my players, participate in.The adventure has a feel of a fairy tale, both in its premise (court of a good king cursed to an eternal dance) and in the fact that, like all good fairy tales, it has its own rules and that learning and accepting those rules is pivotal for the sucess and well-being of the heros. In this case the rules are that of a peculliar formal dance. All the important events of the adventure take place on the dance floor, where dead courtiers relieve their centuries old fete, and all you can do on the dance floor is dance. Learning which partucular combinations of twirls, leaps, turns, advances and retreats conforms to the strict rules of Davosian formal dance will have a life and death significance to the PC's in this adventure. Even the obligatory final combat is on the floor with both PC's and their enemies dancing and all their tactical genius honed in their years of adventuring will not save them if their dancing skills are not up to it. Besides this truly original constaint, what makes the adventure so enjoyable is that it demonstrates how much atmosphere can be built by the ways other then simple DM naration. The tone is set at the very begining when PCs are "hired" by the (unvoluntary) mime. His unfortunate condition (slit throat and total lack of understanding of common) force the DM to try to pass as much inforamtion about the upcoming adventure as possible to PC's through miming, gestures and grimaces. My jadded players who would have nodded through any sort of narated story about the poisoned king as something they have heard dozens of times were paying the full attention as I was miming the whole thing out. Demonstrating the dance moves to them and having them later demonstrate their own dances to me, all to the music of the Johaness Brahms, made playing this adventure rather unforgettable. In addition to the main dancing plot, adventure contains a detective story that can be played up or played down as it suits the mood and the pace of the particular group and a few auxilary combats that can be used at will.The prose of the adventure is very good but what makes it a remarkably good read, as well as helping the DM to get into the atmosphere of the place are small introductions at the begining of each chapter describing the upcoming part of the adventure from the point of view of the adventuring party that lived through it. These are somewhat reminiscent of the flavour text in Mongoose products but are even more usefull in the actual adventure as they almost instantly set the mood for the DM - something much more important in my oppinion then giving the all the details of furniture ar even all the statistics of every henchman. I firmly hope that more adventure writers start using those and that at they become a staple, at least for future Penumbra games.The layout is better then in the early Atlas games and there is no obvious padding. Art has something of a first eddition DnD to it: conveys atmosphere very vividly while being technicaly imperfect, and at times outright ugly. The adventure is very adaptible as its main premise - the unending dance - can be dropped into practicaly any setting and campaign; even the non fantasy ones.All in all this adventure was so far the most enjoyable of all published adventures my party has actualy played. It is probably not the best choice for absoulte novice DMs but for those with sme experience, particularily those who want to throw something truly novel at their characters without damaging their campaign integrity it is a true treasure; one of the best there are.</blockquote>

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