By John Grigsby, Staff Reviewer, d20 Magazine Rack
Where Dark Elves Rule (by Bastion Press) is an adventure designed for five to seven characters between 13th and 18th level. During the course of the adventure, the characters will enter an alternate world on a quest for a sorcerer. But on this world, the surface is ruled by the drow. There are a few other surprises in store for the adventurers, but in the name of surprise, I’ll just keep them to myself. One thing is for sure, it won’t be an easy quest.
From the very start, the action picks up fairly quickly and doesn’t slack off. There is no shortage of adventure here and you get plenty of action for your money. There is a lot of danger here for the unwary and even high-level adventurers will need to be on their toes and keep their wits about them. The mix of encounters is a good one, with familiar monsters, enhanced monsters, and even a couple of brand new beasties (at least they’re brand new to me). But monsters alone don’t comprise an adventure and there’s plenty of traps here as well. Puzzle-solving seems to be short in this adventure, save that some careful thought can sometimes spare the party a bit of trouble. Role-playing takes a back seat to hack-and-slash in this one, but there are presented a few opportunities for the diplomats in your party to shine.
My biggest grievance is in the presentation of the encounters. I like the fact that everything is right there, so I don’t have to reference any other works (I hate cracking open the Monster Manual during an adventure because the characters’ hands immediately slide to their weapons), but I would have prefered that the encounters be presented in the standardized “stat-block” format used by Wizards of the Coast. As they are presented here, they read more like a Monster Manual entry, taking up space that could have been used for something else.
Likewise, even though there is no established precedent for encounter format, I like the one used by Dungeon magazine and most Wizards of the Coast scenarios. It’s clean, easy to reference at a glance, and consistent and I wish that more d20 publishers would use it. I use it when creating my own adventures for my group.
The dark elves are given excellent detailing, from the drow children all the way up to the highest-level priestesses, with solid examples of each being provided in the appendix, to save the DM from having to adapt on the fly. I did notice that the monsters that I didn’t recognize were not given any additional write up in the module and I found this lacking.
It could be that they aren’t new, but that I simply don’t own whatever reference they are taken from, but I like to see complete Monster Manual entries on new monsters, particularly those I may consider adding into my own campaign. Even if they are covered elsewhere, it might be nice to reference whence they originate so that I can check it out.
A nice touch are the player maps. The area in which the adventure takes place is no small arena and the folks at Bastion Press have provided two copies of each map. The DM’s copy shows the location of each keyed encounter and secret door, while the player’s map provides a map of the adventure without the keys or secret entrances. Some may feel that this takes some of the fun out of it (since the players can simply point to the map and say, “We’re going here.”), but others may find it helpful since they don’t have to describe each corridor the players go down.
The adventure is almost completely Open Content, save the artwork and graphic elements and with the exception of the presentation fo the encounters, remains true to the d20 license. I was struck by the originality of this adventure, especially given that drow are an almost overused foe, but Bastion has managed to put a fresh spin on the clichéd dark elves. Where Dark Elves Rule gets high marks for playability because I can easily see where it could be expanded into a new campaign ripe for adventure. Not to mention, as a challenge for high-level adventuring parties who are jaded by their immense power, this can offer a wake-up call.
To see the graded evaluation of this product, go to The Critic's Corner at www.d20zines.com.
