2008: Saga of the Rat King

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—

In 2003, Goodman Games launched its long running Dungeon Crawl Classics series, which combined old style play with modern rules, with Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King. In that scenario, the Player Characters’ investigations into raids by Goblin bandits on caravans carrying silver ore lead to the nearby Gannu Silver Mine which turned out to be infested by not just Goblins, but rats and Wererats. The final confrontation in the mine is with Lawrence Gannu, cursed by the villagers of Silverton to be a Wererat after they blamed his father for a dangerous discovery in the mines, returned to take his revenge upon the villagers. This scenario was more recently republished as Fifth Edition Fantasy #31: Idylls of the Rat King, for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. In 2006, the publisher released a sequel, Dungeon Crawl Classics #27: Revenge of the Rat King. The Player Characters have an opportunity to confront Aaron Gannu, father of Lawrence, in this sequel. However, he has other designs on the Player Characters and they are tested sorely as he lures them into his lair, weakens them and depletes their resources, before capturing them. Fortunately, the Player Characters, only armed with luck and wits, do have the opportunity to escape, find their possessions, and fully arm themselves once again before the final showdown. Both Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King and Dungeon Crawl Classics #27: Revenge of the Rat King were written for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, rather than the publisher’s own (not yet published) Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game.

Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King is not written for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition or Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Published in 2008 for sale at Gen Con Indy in 2008, it is instead a special module in more ways than one, First, it is written for use with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, rare in 2008 as it would be for today. second, it combined both Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King and Dungeon Crawl Classics #27: Revenge of the Rat King. Third, it not only compiles the previously published scenarios, but includes a third new part, ‘The Scourge of Silverton’. This connects the two scenarios and it means that together, all three parts can be played as a single campaign taking the Player Characters from First Level all the way up to Sixth Level.

The plot to both Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King and Dungeon Crawl Classics #27: Revenge of the Rat King remain the same. In the former, the Player Characters explored the apparently abandoned Gannu Silver Mine and find it crawling with Goblins and Wererats, one level of the mine being reworked with zombie slaves, and Lawrence Gannu the Wererat overseeing it all as well as something else hidden deep in the bowels of the mine. In the latter, the Player Characters are in the city of Soulgrave tracking down a ring of slavers and are lured in one big dungeon trap by Aaron Gannu, father of Lawrence, who will have his revenge! Divided over three acts, the Player Characters will be tested in each. First, with a series of challenging dungeon encounters designed to wear them down; second by capturing them and stripping them of all their equipment; and third, with dangerous battle against Aaron Gannu’s minions and finally, Aaron Gannu himself. It remains an evil dungeon. However, there are changes to both because, understandably, this is a compilation for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, not Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition.

The most obvious change is from a roleplaying game with intrinsic rules for skills, skill checks, and other activities to a roleplaying game without those. Here we are in classic ‘rulings not rules’ territory, Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King leaving it very much up to the Dungeon Master to decide upon the specifics of how resolve a Player Character action. Unfortunately, this is not consistently applied throughout the adventure anthology, giving it slightly unbalanced feel. Without the suggested mechanic solution for each and every situation, it feels authentic to the design and play of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, but where they are included, they intrude rather than feel natural.

However, the adaptation from Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition has been less consistently applied to the ‘Idylls of the Rat King’ part of the campaign. One of these is narrative in that as a section of boxed text explains whilst Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King had Goblin Wererats as its main monsters, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition restricts lycanthropy to Humans only. Thus, there are no Goblin Wererats in Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King, only Human ones. Neither are there any Goblin Clerics in Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King, these also having been changed to Human Clerics, though still devoted to the rat gods Narrimunth and Nimlurun. Similarly, the Goblin Wizard of the original has been changed to Human Wizard, but in this his illustration is that of the Goblin in the original, and whilst the bandit chief and his guards are now described as Human, their illustration still shows them to be Goblins. Lastly, Half-Orc slavers have been added to the scenario. These effectively replace the Goblins who would fight to the death to protect the young Goblins in the tribe’s nursery. So now the Half-Orc slavers will fight to the death to protect their slaves, which though ties in with the slave ring theme found in ‘Revenge of the Rat King’, it still does not make sense narratively.

It should be noted that ‘Revenge of the Rat King’ still retains the story element of the Player Characters being captured by the Rat King. As problematic as this in terms of storytelling and player agency, it is very difficult to change this because it is pivotal to the events of the scenario.

In between ‘Idylls of the Rat King’ and ‘Revenge of the Rat King’ is ‘The Scourge of Silverton’. This is designed for Player Characters of Third and Fourth Level. It is designed as a short bridging affair between the two scenarios, but it is not a full enough adventure to provide sufficient Experience Points to take the Player Characters from ‘Idylls of the Rat King’ to ‘Revenge of the Rat King’, so the Dungeon Master will want to run other content before it as ‘The Scourge of Silverton’ is a direct prequel to ‘Revenge of the Rat King’. It provides a specific reason for the Player Characters to travel from Silverton to Soulgrave. The scenario draws the Player Characters back to Silverton, which has been restored to its fortunes with the death of Lawrence Gannu and the driving out of his bandits at their hands. Lawrence’s younger half-brother, Marcus, equally as evil, has heard of his brother’s death and working with their father, has concocted a plan to take revenge upon the Player Characters. This will play out in ‘Revenge of the Rat King’, but to set this up and draw the Player Characters in, Marcus kidnaps several of the villagers from Silverton and holds them to ransom. The villagers of Silverton ask the Player Characters to deliver the ransom to the Deveraux Silver Mine and ensure the safe return of the hostages.

The Player Characters have the choice of handing over the ransom or fighting their way into the mine. Either way, they will have a fight to get to the hostages as the situation is not simply a ransom and hostage exchange, but of course, a trap! Marcus has seeded the mine with traps and groups of his men, who will snipe and harass the Player Characters as they work their way to where the hostages are being held. Ultimately, there will be a confrontation with Marcus, but he and his chief henchman will escape the mine in Indiana and the Temple of Doom style in a mine cart with the Player Characters in hot pursuit.

‘The Scourge of Silverton’ is a set-up and also a set-up to a set-up, that of ‘Revenge of the Rat King’. It is short and serviceable, playable in a single session or so, and primarily combat focused. The addition of Marcus Gannu is the main addition to the trilogy in terms of its storytelling, but the main problem with ‘The Scourge of Silverton’ is that it sets up Marcus Gannu as a villain, but then lets him exit the trilogy of scenarios as he does not appear in the updated version of ‘Revenge of the Rat King’.

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King is done in the then style of the Dungeon Crawl Classics line. The artwork is decent, though not always befitting the text, and the cartography varies in style and quality. This is from the very plain, even dull, maps of ‘Idylls of the Rat King’ to the detailed maps for ‘Revenge of the Rat King’ and ‘The Scourge of Silverton’. Unfortunately, Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King is not let down by its adaptation to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, but rather by its lack of consistency when it comes to terminology and phrasing. Errors are strewn throughout the book. Not necessarily to make Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King unplayable, but more than enough to irk the veteran of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition and potentially confuse the Dungeon Master who has less experience of playing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition.

Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King provides three different styes of dungeons. ‘Idylls of the Rat King’ is a dungeon crawl; ‘The Scourge of Silverton’ is an extended combat encounter, a game of cat-and-mouse through the mines; and ‘Revenge of the Rat King’ is a challenging, even evil, obstacle course that will test the players’ lateral thinking and dungeoneering skills perhaps more than those of their characters. This gives it variety that is neatly tied to its theme of revenge that runs through all three parts.

Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King is really a trilogy in two parts because ‘The Scourge of Silverton’ is not enough to bridge the gap between the events of ‘Idylls of the Rat King’ and ‘Revenge of the Rat King’. It does, however, provide a reason for the Player Characters to play through ‘Revenge of the Rat King’, so very much a mini-prequel. Which means that Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King is not really a mini-campaign either, since it has a beginning and an end, but no real middle. The Dungeon Master will have to provide that, and perhaps one way of doing it, is to use Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King as a precursor to the classic campaign, Against the Slave Lords, since there are elements in ‘Revenge of the Rat King’ inspired by that campaign.