The Speaker in Dreams

[IronWolf]

This adventure has a good balance of combat and roleplaying, and isn't a seemingly generic dungeon crawl like so many others out there. The adventure takes place in a large town, and there are ample roleplaying opportunities. There is a decent plot that requires investigative work by the PCs (although it's very much sherlock-by-numbers). It's also an interesting attempt to create an events based adventure rather than a location based one, and the game runs from a flowchart of events. It doesn't quite pull it off, but it's a good effort.

It has its problems, though. The NPCs are underdeveloped and the main villain is simply incongrous - he just doesn't fit in and his motivations are fairly vague. There is a pointless new monster and some redundant additions of other monsters that merely serve to provide combat encounters for the PCs with no real logic behind them. Unless the DM is creative, the game relies too much on info gathering rolls - high rolls meaning you get the info that leads you to the next encounter.

With adequate work by the DM, this can be made into a very good adventure. As it is, though, it is fairly average with a few high points.

 

[Lars Frehse]

I found the speaker in Dreams to be disappointing.
While running the adventure it was almost impossible for me to build up the necessary motivation for my players to investigate. The course of events can hardly be considered logical. The motivations of the villains are hardly understandable, to say the least, and the whole plot is rather lacking.
Worst of all, it is absolutely deadly for a group of fifth level characters. A lot of the villains are CR6 to CR8- and they are appearing in groups. So, as a DM I had to change those villains or let them act stupid just so that my group could survive.
The only reason that I didn´t rate this adventure as "appaling" is that I liked the town described in the adventure. It is a nice setting and I will use it in the future.

 

[Simon Collins]

Beware! This review contains major spoilers.

This is the 3rd core adventure for D&D3e by WotC. It is designed for four 5th-level characters. It costs $9.95.

Presentation: The front cover features average artwork of a giant purple worm plunging through a fairground. The back cover has a short introduction to and overview of the adventure. The internal art is black & white, of mediocre quality. The page count is 32. 9/10 of the page is text, the rest a runic border. The text is clear and readable. The inside front cover has three good top-down maps – an overview map of the town of Brindinford, and the sets of rooms linked to The Reality Wrinkle and The Bell Tower in the module, whilst the back inside cover has five maps of the same quality showing The Manor House, The Temple Of Pelor, the Shrine of Heironeous, the Maze of Alleys and the Abandoned Warehouse. The maps of the rooms are laid out in 5’-square mode. The first page contains credits and contents.

The Story: An illithid plans to take over a human town as a precursor to world domination. He has already infiltrated the town when the PCs arrive. He controls various gangs in the town and plans to take over the baron’s court. The module begins with an adventure synopsis and some character hooks to get the PCs to Brindinford. Next is an overview of the town itself, broken down into districts (with information on guard detail in the area), with a sidebar on attracting followers when the PCs reach 6th level. The module purports to be an event-based adventure (as per the DMs Handbook) and the rest of the module is set out with events and encounters, reflecting this style. The PCs enter Brindinford in time for the annual fair. A group of wererats causes a disturbance (drawing attention away from the illithid’s infiltration of the baron’s court) – the PCs can get involved in apprehending them. The PCs then need to gather information, either from a captured wererat or from the town populace. The PCs may follow a number of possible clues from this information, during which time they may: be stalked by more wererat thugs, attacked by a band of grimlocks, investigate a bell tower which is the wererats’ lair, or be attacked by giant purple worms summoned by an evil human sorceress. After discovering further information about the evil plots of Brindinford, the PCs come across an attempted kidnapping of paladins by mad alien-worshipping sorcerous cabalists. The PCs may follow them back to a bookshop, ‘The Reality Wrinkle’ which is their base. The cabal is led by the evil sorceress (see above). She is contacted in her dreams by the illithid (who uses her to sow chaos in the town). The PCs can explore the shrine fronted by the bookshop, discovering insane cabalists, gibbering mothers and more giant purple worms. At this point the players can be encouraged to believe it is the end of the adventure by the townspeople holding a congratulatory feast for the PCs. However, as the PCs emerge from the feast, they are attacked by assassins (including an ogre mage, a Grimlock, an infernal cleric and a lemure). The PCs are then visited in their dreams by the illithid. The next day they can attend a speech given by the baron who is now under the mental control of the illithid, who instigates martial law in the town and the outlawing of good-aligned priests. Infernal creatures then begin to take up posts within the town and exert the force of martial law. The infernal creatures are coming through a gate opened in the Temple of Pelor, now taken over by the illithid’s minions – the temple now burns with hellfire and should draw the PCs towards it. Various infernal clerics and creatures now inhabit the desecrated temple. The final confrontation comes when the PCs head towards the baron’s keep, where the illithid resides with an ogre mage and the dominated baron. The module concludes with some future adventure hooks, and statistics for the townsfolk, creatures and villains of the module, including an entry for the new monster – that giant purple worm (called a Wyste by the way). On the final page is an adventure flowchart showing the possible alternative paths the PCs can follow through the module.

The High Points: I liked the fact that this adventure was event-based rather than site-based per se, with alternative routes through the module. There was plenty of information about tactics of the villains and creatures in the module, with sidebars highlighting relevant rules throughout the module. There was also good explanation of the information that could be gained by PCs (though see below), which could be used to encourage roleplaying to slowly uncover the mysterious plot.

The Low Points: The first time I skim-read the explanation of ‘event-based’ adventures in the DMG, I felt sure that this slant would automatically create a more fascinating and open-ended adventure than the site-based adventure. The Speaker In Dreams proved that this is not necessarily the case. The module fell into WotC’s normal trap of providing a plethora of seemingly unrelated monsters, this time in a series of smaller combat scenarios that the PCs may or may not come across, depending on the luck of a Gather Information skill check. My advice to DMs is to ignore the Gather Information rolls and get your players to roleplay finding the information instead. However, the NPCs were two-dimensional and would need to be fleshed out considerably for this to work. My last gripe is that the opponents were sometimes too powerful for the PCs’ level (EL’s were mostly 6-8, but up to 12 at one point).

Conclusion: I was very tempted to give this a Poor rating due to my disappointment at the content of this event-driven module. However, there are the bones of a very good adventure here. If you care to put in a fair amount of time to build these bones into an adventure with more depth and believability, I feel it would be worth your while. For the basic plot idea, the explanation of tactics and rules within the text and the seed of several good roleplaying opportunities to unravel the plot, The Speaker in Dreams scrapes an Average rating from me.

 

[Elrith]

Following the boring debacle that was the Forge of Fury, Speaker in Dreams over compensates with almost too much plot. The story is excellent and the "layers of onion-intrigue" played out quite nicely when I ran it. My only concern is that inexperienced DMs or inattentive players may not be able to bring all the threads to fruition. I would recommend a lot of preparation for this adventure.
Experience DMs, who are used to seen-it-all players should be quite pleased with the mix of villians. The conspiracy neatly transforms from a bug hunt against lycanthropes to a dark cult to a vast infernal assualt to a frightening finale. Several characters were about die when a well placed (and well played) Quall's feather token saved the party!
Quite fun and worth the work Speaker in Dreams is a decent introduction to non-linear, non-dungeon adventures.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Reading the other reviews on this site I can see the frustration from other DM's who did not enjoy this adventure as much as they should have.

A non-site based adventure is a tough nut to crack and to pull this difficult challenge off all in one medium sized city is even tougher to sell to a DM or group of adventurers looking for a dungeon crawl with monsters galore and traps a plenty!

But, when examining this city based adventure in more detail, I believe the designers found exactly what it takes to try this idea and make it into a great game for mid to low level adventurers. What do you need? You need a city filled with interesting NPC's, a governing body or force of law, a religious sect or chuch presence, an evil black market thieves guild presence, a super scary dark villain pulling the strings in the background, and a great twist at the end or climax of the adventure. This adventure has all that and more!

Without getting longwinded or giving away every single detail, here is the long and short of the adventure. Players come to a small village where they enter into the middle of a great fair that happens once or so a year. The town is run by a local Baron and his militia, the perfect town with the perfect day at the fair. The fair is busted up by ratmen and dire rats just as the players arrive . . . the hook to get the characters back in the groove of adventuring (even in a town).

The ratmen lead the players to eventually find their lair and defeat them, in the meantime, the players begin suspecting the ratmen are just foot soldiers to a strange cabal of sorcerers who are fascinated with alientology (outer planar madness and such). The players hunt down the source of the cabal back to a twisted bookstore and finally confront a summoning sorcerer who is the head of the cartel. Before the climax here against the sorcerers, the players have an opportunity to get to know the town, local militia, some NPC's, stop some evil humanoids, and help some local paladins get rescued from being kidnapped.

As the players believe they have dug deep enough and fought back the evil sorcerers, the other shoe drops and all hell breaks lose in this once quiet little town. An evil sect of infernal clerics have allied themselves with the Baron, who is in turn, being maniuplated by a Mind Flayer (the true Speaker in Dreams). Add this to a outer planar gate that has corrupted the local church and is ltting in demons and such to rome free in the town, as well as a bouty hunting Orge Mage henchmen, and you have a heck of an adventure with tons of opportunities in it!

I found the game exciting but it was complicated to put together. The ending is very important and the build up and timing is all critical to the pacing of the story. Overall, my players enjoyed an adventure in town where they walked away heroes of a whole community. If you as a MD or player are ready for a challenge, then this adventure is recommended. If something new or town adventuring is not to the likings of you as a DM or player, then stick with the dungeon crawl stuff and avoid this, as it may only cause boredom and confusing frustration. Hope this helps in your decision about purchasing this product!

 

[Messageboard Golem]

This, weakest of the WotC adventures so far, still has some redeeming features.

First of all it should be said that as an event based module it fails dismally. It also goes to show how pointless the advice in DMG about running the event based adventures is. Trying to simulate an event based adventure by an algorithmic flow-chart is kind of like trying to simulate mass battle by scaling up the skirmish game - it just does not feel right. As a matter of fact the invisible walls of the algorithm can be much more annoying to the players then the brick and mortar ones of the dungeon.
In addition, motivations of the NPC's in this adventure are improbable in extreme, destroying the human factor - the most important element of the event based adventures.

All that said why do I give this book a 3 ?
I guess i do because it can be profitably mined for a decent amount of useful material to be plugged in other adventures. First of all the city itself is a quite a nice place and is imminently insertable in most campaigns while maintaining its distinctive feel. Secondly, several combat encounters in this adventure are very interesting tactical challenges - one of them almost deadly but well thought off. Thirdly, nicely drawn maps and interior art.

In conclusion I would never run this adventure as written but it is not money I begrudge spending either. An average work after all.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

I was slightly disappointed with this first city based senario once I read through it. After running it I was even more disappointed.

The key to a good mystery is to dangle the clues in front of the players for them to chase, like leaving a trail of bread crumbs to the main protagonist. Its best if you leave a few trails in fact so their are alternative routes to the same conclusion, stops the players being rail-roaded and allows the game to continue if they happen to miss a clue.

The problem I found with Speaker is it sets itself up to be a conspiracy mystery senario but then falls down flat in the execution and ends up being a series of seemingly random encounters with what ever creature James Wyatt's Monster Manual fell open on.

There is a flowchart in the back to help link the encounters together, unfortunately the arrows are misleading as there is no real link between the Grimlock encounter and the central plot. The main plot can only be discovered by questioning a creature that is much more likely to be quickly dispatched by the party than spoken to, or by succeeding a differcult Gather Information roll.

There is little motivation for the party to get involved until Part II, so you could find half the senario passes by without the players even noticing.

I'm not sure why the main villian is what it is considering when this adventure was published the Psionics Handbook wasn't even available, and also many gamers don't like Psionics in D&D anyway.

The city itself and some of the inhabitants on the other hand are well written and it would make a good base of operations once the evil is defeated. Production quality is good although the Appendix is incomplete not listing all the stat blocks of some of the monsters included.

Also one of the main villians has a Prestige Class he shouldn't really be able to have access to at the level he began it. This make her a bit more challenging than this supposed CR 7 and since she is met with friend in a tactical situation which is to the bad guys advantage it could easily end up being a party killer.

If I had the money to spend again I probably wouldn't buy it.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

This is the 3rd adventure in a series of 8, strategically designed to hit the "highlights" of the D&D rules and move characters from the 1st to the 20th level.

 

[Lazybones]

(Spoilers included)

First off, let me state my general bias regarding the new D&D 3e module designs created to form a sequence from levels 1-20. I think that the new modules are inferior to the old 1e modules in a variety of ways, including art, value, and content. For example, WotC has said repeatedly that they cannot include stat blocks for all monsters in the new modules due to cost issues, yet this didn't seem to be a barrier in the old days.

That being said, I thought that The Sunless Citadel and The Forge of Fury were interesting adventures, although I read them in the bookstore and did not purchase them. I bought TSiD for $3 at a clearance sale, but again, would probably not have spent $10 for this module. For $10 you get 32 pages of text (including several pages that are mostly blank), maps on the inside covers, and six illustrations (not counting the cover) that are fairly mediocre.

TSiD is an event-based adventure set in the city of Brindenford, involving a plot by a mind flayer to take over the city. The city has been described only very sketchily within the module, and only a few of the important NPCs in the plot have been detailed (and a few, including two paladins that the PCs are called upon to rescue, and who might very well end up helping the party, aren't given stats at all). Even the major bad guys are often reduced to the level of a huge stat block and a few comments under the "tactics" section in each encounter. In particular, I thought that the mind flayer adversary was not very well developed in the adventure. Neither the cabal of sorcerers nor the followers of Hextor are given much background detail (in most cases, they don't even get names) and end up seeming pretty generic.

While TSiD contains some interesting ideas, most DMs will find themselves having to add a great deal of substance to fill out the outlines presented here. I recommend Dungeon magazine as a far better value.

 

[trancejeremy]

One of the great things about these WOTC adventures is that you can pick them up really really cheap used on Ebay. The downside is, you can end up buying them out of order. As is the case with this and me. So this review comes long after it came out (and since there are so many reviews, I'll make mine fairly short).

Anyway, this is one of the adventure path modules from WOTC. Unlike most of them, it's not really a dungeon crawl. It's set in a town, and it involves something of a mystery. Really, it's a bunch of mini-dungeon crawls within a greater framework of events happening to a town.

Basically, the PCs visit the town for a fair, and a bunch of weird things happen. Handily, the PCs are right by, and end up solving all the problems. Yet despite this, the town gets taken over by the evil bad guy. And he then opens up a portal to hell. So you then end up with devils walking all over, and the PCs on the run. Until they have a show down with the evil bad guy.

My summation was a bit silly, but is fairly accurate. It also illustrates the main problem with this module - the overall plot is just plain stupid. Not only that, it doesn't make much sense.

Basically, the evil bad guy has a lot of little nasty plots in order to make the people want martial law. (As a way of showing the town needs it). Yet I don't see why he would want that. Ultimately the evil bad guy uses his mind control powers over the ruler of the town, but I don't understand why wouldn't just do that in the first place, rather than try to enforce martial law with devils running around. I mean, isn't that like a beacon to any good character within miles that hey, maybe something is wrong with the ruler? I mean, suddenly he's a kind good, virtuous man, then suddenly he allows devils free run of the city? I don't think so. In the real world, that would be a sign that the guy went nuts (er, if you replace devils with really mean people). In a fantasy world, that would be a sign that someone is either controlling him magically, or has killed him and taken his place. So the bad guy would just kill the ruler, and then quietly take his place. Or quietly guide him behind the scenes. Evil does not mean stupid.

There's also some other problems with it. For once, some of the guidelines are just silly. For instance, when entering the town, all wizards & sorcerers have their fingers 'peace-bonded', so they can't cast spells. That is one of the dumbest things I've read. For another, only 1 npc in the whole module is really given any sort of personality. And she rather resembles Yoda in both appearance and personality. Details of the city are fairly sparse, especially the fair the PCs attend. What's at the fair? It doesn't say, it just basically describes it like any generic old fair. The DM is left to come up with descriptions of all the booths, merchants, entertainment, etc.

Still, the module is not without merit. The nasty plots are decent mini-adventure in their own right. The name of the modules takes the title from one of them - "The Speaker In Dreams" is the villain controlling a cthulhu mythos style cult. Another reminds me of Lankhmar - a wererat criminal gang.

The most obvious thing to me, and apparently to many others, is to set the thing in Freeport. You can then change the mind-flayer bad guy to give him a tie to the Cthulhu-esque cult (which exists in Freeport), and then tie the devil/portal to hell plot in with Jalie Squarefoot, the villain of Hell in Freeport.

So, I actually found this module to be pretty useful. But I can't recommend this unless you're a Freeport fan and want to use it for Freeport, and want to do some work adapting it. And it's certainly not worth the cover price.