Allies & Arrakis

In an alternate timeline of the Known Universe, House Nagara was awarded the fiefdom of Arrakis and not House Atreides. It thus gained both the right to mine the Spice melange that can only be found on that one world and which powers the Known Universe and the greater enmity of the previous holder of the fiefdom, House Harkonnen. This is a giant ‘What if?’ scenario explored in the massive boxed set, Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Agents of Dune, published by Modiphius Entertainment for use with Dune – Adventures in the Imperium, the roleplaying game based on the novels by Frank Herbert. Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Agents of Dune also asked several other questions. What if the transfer of power was peaceful rather than necessarily fractious and partially contested as seen between House Atreides and House Harkonnen? What if the reason for this is the fact that House Harkonnen and House Nagara are allies? What if, despite losing control of Arrakis, it was in the best interests of House Harkonnen to help House Nagara gain and keep control of the fiefdom? Of course, despite Agents of Dune actually depicting House Harkonnen in a more sympathetic light, House Harkonnen being House Harkonnen, ultimately the transfer or at least its aftermath will not go as planned for the Player Characters and House Nagara, but ideally, at the end of Agents of Dune, they will be control of the Spice mining on Arrakis and masters, at least for the moment, of their destiny. This is where Masters of Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Agents of Dune begins.

Masters of Dune – Adventures in the Imperium is a complete campaign for Dune – Adventures in the Imperium. It is a sequel to Agents of Dune which put the Player Characters and House Nagara in charge of the most important substance in the Known Universe and sees them plot, intrigue, entreat, and investigate potential allies and enemies in an ongoing effort to maintain their control of the Spice flow. Fail, and House Nagara will lose wealth, reputation, and honour—at best. At worst, the House might be disposed and broken, its peoples and former holdings the possessions of House Harkonnen. At best, the House will rise in estimation of one or all of the Emperor, the Landsraad, the Bene Gesserit, the Spacing Guild, and the Fremen. There is even the possibility that House Nagara could build enough status, power, and most important of all, allies to challenge the Emperor himself! That though is a possibility only explored in a sidebar in Agents of Dune and would send the campaign off in a very different direction. Although Masters of Dune is written as a sequel to Agents of Dune and thus for use with House Nagara and its pre-generated Player Characters, it need not be. Masters of Dune can be run without a playing group having roleplayed its way through and with a playing group creating a Great House and Player Characters of its own and substituting both for House Nagara and its members. However, to get the most out of Masters of Dune, the group should ideally have played through Agents of Dune, either using House Nagara or one of their own creation. This is not just because of the emotional investment that the players will have in their characters and their characters’ House after playing Agents of Dune, but also because Agents of Dune will prepare them for the plots within plots of the story of Masters of Dune. One lesson learned from Agents of Dune is ‘trust no-one’ and that is going to be true of Masters of Dune also. The other important lessons for a playing group preparing to play Masters of Dune is that the players and their characters need to be proactive, they need to look for motives beyond what is obvious, and they need to look for allies.

Masters of Dune does not need anything more to play than Dune – Adventures in the Imperium. It is even suggested that it could be run using just Dune: Adventures in the Imperium: Wormsign Quick-start Guide, but this is not really recommended given the amount of detail and extra rules needed to help the campaign flow. That said, Sand and Dust: The Arrakis Sourcebook will be useful for extra detail, especially the scenes involving the Fremen.

At the heart of Masters of Dune is a set of Influence Indices. These are Honour, Imperial Support, Landsraad Support, Military Power, Ruthlessness, Spice Production, Wealth, and Sietch Korba Trust. The latter is important in one particular scenario of the campaign, whilst the rest are important throughout. Each Index runs from -5 through 0 to +5. These mix reputation and other factors, and will rise and fall depending upon the actions and decisions of the Player Characters. For example, Wealth might fall because the Player Characters need to purchase a particular item to present to a potential ally and so gain a favour and improve their House’s standing with them. In addition, a sperate chart tracks Spice production over the course of the campaign and there are checkboxes to indicate that the Player Characters have gained the favour of the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild. The latter two indicate possession of one-off favours owed by either faction. Either the Player Characters have it, and if they do, once used, they will need to do something else to regain that favour. These Influence Indices need to be tracked throughout the course of the campaign, the current state of Spice Harvesting especially at the end of each chapter of the campaign, so that there is an ongoing need for some bookkeeping throughout Masters of Dune. Not complex bookkeeping by any means, but it is necessary.

The structure of Masters of Dune is not linear. It consists of nine chapters and begin with the first chapter and end with the ninth. In between, the other seven chapters can be played in any order or in some cases, not at all. As newly appointed fief holders of Arrakis, House Nagara and thus the Player Characters have been placed in a position of great trust by the Emperor and to some extent the Landsraad and the Spacing Guild. Yet it is also a precarious position, most notably because House Harkonnen covets the wealth and the position itself and wants the fiefdom back, but also because no other faction truly knows if the Player Characters can ensure that the Spice can flow. So, as well as working to prove that House Nagara can do so, the Player Characters will often find themselves looking for allies. This means visiting other worlds—Geidi Prime in an attempt to parley with House Harkonnen, Kaitain to win the favour of the Emperor or those of the other Great Houses, and even to Wallach IX to court favour with the Bene Gesserit or simply into space itself to deal with the Spacing Guild. These two encounters are interesting in themselves because both the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild are notoriously neutral when it comes to the power politics of the Known Universe. Except, of course, when Spice production is threatened.

Other chapters are more reactive in nature, for example, if the Player Characters have weakened themselves and their House too much, their enemies will attack the House’s facilities on Arrakis, and if successful, could lead to the destruction of House Nagara, or more likely, drive it off Arrakis and out of control of Spice production. It is possible to continue the campaign if this happens, but it becomes all the more challenging for both the players and their characters. If it comes to pass, it will probably signal—or at least hasten—the end of the campaign. Another takes the Player Characters offstage and puts them in direct contact with the Fremen, shrinking the scale of the story down to just one location rather than encompassing the whole of the Known Universe. If it seems to the players that this story—at least on the campaign’s grand scale—is not as relevant, its events and those of the Player Characters do have the potential to influence the course of the campaign and its outcome, although in small ways.

The scope and scale of Masters of Dune telescopes in and out over the course of the campaign. The Player Characters will find themselves attending a lot of formal events, most frequently dinner parties, but there are audiences with the Emperor and operas to attend, but also targeting criminal gangs on Arrakis and hunting for saboteurs. The Player Characters will find themselves questioned as to their actions and having to justify themselves as well. Just as there are many factions that they cannot trust, there are factions who do not trust them and whose trust they have to earn. For example, the encounter with the Spacing Guild includes a scene which echoes that between the Emperor and the Third Stage Guild Navigator in the David Lynch version of the film from 1984, which then leads to a completely unexpected set-up and means of gaining the Spacing Guild’s favour. For the most part, all of the individual chapters are well done, with clear explanations of the situation at the start and possible outcomes at the end. Only the final chapter feels slightly rushed it climaxes in a confrontation between House Nagara, House Harkonnen, and the Emperor. Ultimately, even it does feel as if the authors are taking the Game Master and her players on a grand tour of the Known Universe, Masters of Dune presents a set of plot threads that the Game Master can weave in response to the directions and actions of the players and their characters.

Physically, Masters of Dune is very well presented. The writing is good and it is easy to read and for the Game Master to run. The artwork is also very good. However, the cartography is more relational than representative, showing connections to areas rather than mapping them out, so making them very bland. Worse still is the editing. Too many ‘page XX’ references and in one case, a whole page being printed twice.

As a sequel to Agents of Dune, Masters of Dune is exactly what the Game Master wants. It picks up where Agents of Dune left off, opening up the linear plot of the massive starter set to give greater agency to the players and their characters in interacting with the great and the good of the factions of the Known Universe, whilst still providing the Game Master with numerous means by which those factions can react to the actions of the Player Characters and act accordingly. Agents of Dune takes the Player Characters to places both expected and unexpected, has them face challenges major and minor, and ultimately confirm their place and the place of their House in the Known Universe. Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Masters of Dune is a great sequel to Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Agents of Dune and a campaign worthy of the setting.