The gaming magazine is dead. After all, when was the last time that you were able to purchase a gaming magazine at your nearest newsagent? Games Workshop’s White Dwarf is of course the exception, but it has been over a decade since Dragon appeared in print. However, in more recent times, the hobby has found other means to bring the magazine format to the market. Digitally, of course, but publishers have also created their own in-house titles and sold them direct or through distribution. Another vehicle has been Kickststarter.com, which has allowed amateurs to write, create, fund, and publish titles of their own, much like the fanzines of Kickstarter’s ZineQuest. The resulting titles are not fanzines though, being longer, tackling broader subject matters, and more professional in terms of their layout and design.
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Adventures—beginning, of course, with dungeons for Dungeons & Dragons—had long been a feature of roleplaying game magazines, such as the Dragon magazine and White Dwarf, but they had been included alongside other content such as news, reviews, and other supporting content. So, it was rare for any magazine to be devoted to entirely adventures and nothing. Of course, the long running Dungeon magazine from TSR, Inc. is the major exception, running for some two-hundred-and-twenty-one issues, in print and online between 1986 and 2013. Bootstrap Press published six issues of Adventures Unlimited in 1995 and 1996, but before both that and Dungeon, there was Tortured Souls!. Published by Beast Enterprises Limited—or ‘Beast Entz’—it ran for twelve issues between 1983 and 1988, providing support primarily for Advanced Dungeon & Dragons, First Edition and Dungeons & Dragons, but later RuneQuest.
Tortured Souls! stood out not just for its adventure-focused content, but also for its format. It was magazine-sized, but it was not quite professionally-presented enough to be a magazine like White Dwarf or Imagine, yet it was too professionally-presented to be a fanzine. Instead, it sat somewhere in between, a ‘pro-zine’ if you will. Part of this is due to the heavy look and feel of its style, unbroken by any advertising in the early issues, which at the same time gave it daunting appearance and acted as an impediment to actually reading it. The other oddity was Tortured Souls! was almost designed to be pulled apart, with its featured adventure often appearing the middle with coloured sections or on different-coloured paper more like an insert than a part of the magazine. This meant that adventures would often be split between before and after this ‘insert’ and that the magazine was not a linear read in that sense.
Tortured Souls! stood out not just for its adventure-focused content, but also for its format. It was magazine-sized, but it was not quite professionally-presented enough to be a magazine like White Dwarf or Imagine, yet it was too professionally-presented to be a fanzine. Instead, it sat somewhere in between, a ‘pro-zine’ if you will. Part of this is due to the heavy look and feel of its style, unbroken by any advertising in the early issues, which at the same time gave it daunting appearance and acted as an impediment to actually reading it. The other oddity was Tortured Souls! was almost designed to be pulled apart, with its featured adventure often appearing the middle with coloured sections or on different-coloured paper more like an insert than a part of the magazine. This meant that adventures would often be split between before and after this ‘insert’ and that the magazine was not a linear read in that sense.
Tortured Souls! Issue One launched with the following description: “TORTURED SOULS! is unique among fantasy publications, combing high quality module material with an inexpensive magazine format. Every issue contains solid gaming material, consisting solely of ready-to-play scenarios for the leading role-playing games systems, put together by some of the most experienced writers in the country.” That said, none of those writers are credited in the issue, but the editorial continued, “With four or more complete scenarios in every issue, we believe that TORTURED SOULS! gives you a much better deal than ordinary packaged modules.” In addition, issues of Tortured Souls! provided support for its Zhalindor Campaign, designed for experienced players.
Published in October/November 1983, Tortured Souls! Issue One contains three scenarios and one solo scenario, all for Advanced Dungeon & Dragons, First Edition. Two of these are for the Zhalindor Campaign. The first of the four adventures in the issue is ‘The Chevalier’s Shrine’. This is designed for a beginning party of six to seven First Level Player Characters, although not totally beginning players and the introduction to the module makes much of the fact that it is not designed for players inclined to “[M]indless ‘hack-and-slay”, but for players who want a more challenging test for their roleplaying skills. Similarly, the Dungeon Master is advised that the adventure will require some development to bring its description to life as this has been kept to a minimum. What the adventure does make use of is the Dungeon Floor Plans series published by Games Workshop and the Dungeon Master is encouraged to use them and lay them out as shown in map, together with 25 mm miniatures, in order to keep the players interested. There are notes too, on running the scenario with more experienced players and their characters, suggesting two players with a Fighter and a Thief, each of second Level, as well as notes on how to incorporate it into a campaign and possible endings to the scenario.
The setting for ‘The Chevalier’s Shrine’ is the market town of Greendale. It is notable as being besieged by a band of Orcs led by an Ogre some years, the siege being broken by a Chevalier challenging the Ogre to single combat and when he defeated the Ogre, the Orcs turned on him. The quietly conservative townsfolk repurposed an old temple to create a shrine for the fallen chevalier and forbid any townsfolk from entering the shrine or its garden whilst armed. However, as relayed to the Player Characters by a captain of the town watch after he takes them aside from their scandalous behaviour of drinking watered-down beer, something is amiss at the shrine. Since he cannot investigate armed, he asks the Player Characters to enter the shrine, determine what is going on and report back, promising to pay well. What is so delightful about ‘The Chevalier’s Shrine’ is that it has a joyously, grubby and British feel to it. Essentially, the two clerics assigned to look after the shrine have got bored, seen the lack of nightlife going on in Greendale, and decided to turn the shrine into a private members’ nightclub for the town’s wealthiest and most bored inhabitants. This though, has led to further exploration of the shrine beyond hitherto unknown secret doors, dealing with the local Thieves’ Guild with plans for expansion, and an Octopus which would not going back to being worshipped as a god! What this means is that the Player Characters are attempting to get into a medieval nightclub and depending on what they find out during their investigations and when they try to get in, they may actually be able to just waltz in, having arrived at the right time when the club is actually open and the guards thinking them to be new members! The temple is one half nightclub, one half temple to a hungry octopus with delusions of grandeur, and both run by a pair of greedy, petty clerics.
The accompanying map of the temple—done using tiles from Games Workshop’s Dungeon Floor Plans is surprisingly colourful, though very orthogonal in its layout. The secret doors are not as obvious as they could be. There are multiple ways in which ‘The Chevalier’s Shrine’ could end. The Player Characters could simply return with a report for the watch captain, they could end in a fight with the octopus, or they could find the membership for the ‘club’ and blackmail them! More altruistic Player Characters will doubtless want to free the dancing girls who are being kept prisoner in the temple. ‘The Chevalier’s Shrine’ is unexpectedly different to almost any Dungeons & Dragons adventure, almost over the top in its banality, but brilliant at the same time.
‘The Crystal Keys’ is the solo adventure in Tortured Souls! Issue One. Designed for a party of five to seven Player Characters of Second and Third Level, it can be played with a single player controlling all of the characters, with a player reading out the entries and handing the whilst the players control their characters, or with the included notes, it can be run as a standard adventure with an actual Dungeon Master. There is quite a bit of backstory to the scenario, but it boils down to the party having recently come into possession of a Red Crystal Key whilst on an expedition for their friend, the Archmage Rabellion and had it stolen by a Thief. The key is one of three necessary to open Zamgardrar’s tomb which is said to hold a great treasure. To prevent this from falling into the hands of the Thief, the Player Characters are chasing after him north into the Orc and Lizard Men-infested Badlands.
The set-up and the actual adventure are several pages apart in the issue of Tortured Souls! It consists of two parts. The first is descriptions of the two-hundred-and-thirty hex descriptions which make up the wilderness map. Each entry has numbers indicating which paragraph to turn to as you would expect for a solo adventure book—which were incredibly popular at the time given that The Warlock of Firetop Mountain was only published the year before—as the directions they lie in. If the hex has something of interest, an entry will also refer to a lettered hex type. There twenty-six of these, one for each letter in the alphabet, and each depicts an area of terrain that the player records on his hex map. There are a lot of brigands and the like preying on the locals and other travellers, as well as some annoying Orcs and Trolls, but despite the nonlinear fashion in which the information is presented, this half of the adventure is a decent hexcrawl in which the Player Characters may have the opportunity to find the other two Crystal Keys.
‘The Crystal Keys’ gets complex is the other six-hundred-and-sixty-seven entries which detail the forty or so locations of the adventure’s dungeon. Complex because the individual entries not only have to include a description, but all the possible outcomes to the actions that the Player Characters might take. The dungeon is quite detailed, built around puzzles involving the three Crystals and their different colours, but it is difficult to get a feel for, or an overview of, the dungeon because it is written in non-linear fashion. What this means is it is complex to play through because the player or players are acting as their own Dungeon Master, and even if run by a Dungeon Master, preparing the dungeon to be run means actually playing through it herself. Which is a time-consuming challenge all of its very own. ‘The Crystal Keys’ is cleverly done, but far more complex than most solo adventures were at the time or have been since.
The third adventure is ‘The Rising Tower’, which is the first of the two scenarios for the Zhalindor Campaign in the issue. It is intended for a party of three to eight Player Characters of Fifth to Eighth Level and takes place several hundred miles outside of the Empire in the Tumarian provinces in a valley in the Yagha-Tsorv foothills. (Unfortunately, neither the scenario nor Tortured Souls! Issue One as a whole give any further details as to the Zhalindor Campaign setting.) The tower was once the place of judgement and execution for a small kingdom, but has long since been abandoned, fallen into partial ruin, and ben occupied by a small tribe of Fire Giants. The tribe has intimidated several tribes of lesser humanoids in the area into paying tribute, but the area beyond the tower is not detailed. The tower is described in odd fashion—from the top down rather from the bottom up. The upper part of the ramshackle tower is home to the tribe of Bugbears that serve and fight for the Fire Giants, whilst the later live on the lower floors and sleep in the underground rooms, making the tower’s former gaol cells their individual sleeping quarters. Underneath are the rooms where judgement and sentence were carried out in the past, and if the Player Characters are too inquisitive, find themselves being judged and sentenced whether they are guilty or innocent.
Unlike both ‘The Chevalier’s Shrine’ and ‘The Crystal Keys’, what ‘The Rising Tower’ lacks is a hook to get the Player Characters involved, let alone anything in the way of plot. The dungeon, tower, and their inhabitants are highly detailed, the execution and judgement chambers in particular, such that the Dungeon Master would need to pay particular attention to how they work with the rest of the tower and how the Player Characters get to them. This is in addition to providing something in the way of plot or motivation for the Player Characters to want to explore the tower in what is otherwise is a big challenging situation rather than scenario.
The fourth and last scenario in Tortured Souls! Issue One—and the second for the Zhalindor Campaign—is ‘Tomb of Qadir’. It is written for a party of four to seven Player Characters of Second and Fourth Level and details the temple dedicated to the god, Ha’esha, which was turned into the tomb of its last priest, after which the cult he led died out. More recently, the tomb, which lies to the east of Eldenvaan on the edge of the desert, has been occupied by a band of Goblins. The Goblins have taken up residence following a failed uprising against their former chief in the Tsorv Mountains (as opposed to the Yagha-Tsorv foothills of ‘The Rising Tower’), but they are well organised and will put up a stiff defence against any attackers. The temple is ruined and run down, but been fortified by the Goblins. They have also moved into the rooms under the temple, but have not explored the furthest extent of the tomb. There are some nice touches here, such as zombies that have a chance to overcome being Turned by a Cleric, who can then attempt to Turn them again, and so on… and a couple of nasty traps. Again, the adventure is nicely detailed, but much like ‘The Rising Tower’, there are no hooks or motivations given for the Player Characters to want to come to the tomb.
Physically, Tortured Souls! Issue One looks decent enough for a fanzine, but amateurish for a professional magazine. It does need an edit in places and the artwork varies in quality. The cartography is plain in places, but otherwise decent.
Physically, Tortured Souls! Issue One looks decent enough for a fanzine, but amateurish for a professional magazine. It does need an edit in places and the artwork varies in quality. The cartography is plain in places, but otherwise decent.
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Doug Cowie reviewed Tortured Souls! Issue One in ‘Games Reviews’ in Imagine No. 12 (March 1984). He said, “Tortured Souls represents amazing value. The quantity of material for the money makes it a recommended purchase. The quality of that material makes it an essential purchase. My only worry is — can they possibly keep it up issue after issue?” In answer to that question, he added the following postscript: “(PS: I have just seen issue 2, and I must say that the quality seems to have been maintained and the physical components are improved in that the covers are now thin card rather than thick paper. Issue 2 contains four ref’s scenarios and one solo — all for the AD&D game. After a quick scan, I would say that it looks like another good issue.)”
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Tortured Souls! Issue One contains a mix of the potentially good and the excellent. ‘The Rising Tower’ and ‘Tomb of Qadir’ are potentially good because in each case, the Dungeon Master needs to supply the hooks and the motivation. ‘The Crystal Keys’ is an excellent, if complex, solo adventure, possibly the most complex solo adventure then published given it was written for a party of Player Characters for Advanced Dungeon & Dragons, First Edition! Given the complexity of ‘The Crystal Keys’ and its format, it would be very challenging to run it as a standard scenario. That leaves ‘The Chevalier’s Shrine’, which is undoubtedly the highlight of the issue. It comes with both plot and hooks and is not just an excellent scenario, but a fun one too. The overall quality of Tortured Souls! Issue One is good, providing the Dungeon Master with solid material to work with, but with ‘The Chevalier’s Shrine’, the Dungeon Master is really going to want to run.
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