2003: Book of Erotic Fantasy

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—

It is curious to note that in 2003, two supplements were published which addressed the subject of romance, sex, sexuality, pregnancy, and more in roleplaying games—or rather, fantasy roleplaying games. One would pass by almost unnoticed, was written under the terms of the Open Gaming Licence, and was one that I was able to review. The other caused no little controversy, forced Wizards of the Coast to rewrite the terms of the d20 STL forcing publishers to comply with ‘community standards of decency’, has since passed into legend as one of the most notorious books of the roleplaying hobby, and was one that I was not able to review at the time. Indeed, it would take over a decade before a copy could be found and imported into this country—thank you Brendan LaSalle—to enable me to not only own a copy, but review. The one that I could and did review was Naughty And Dice: An Adult Gamer’s Guide to Sexual Situations, published by Sabledrake Enterprises. The one I could not review was the Book of Erotic Fantasy, published by Valar Project. Having forced a rewrite of the d20 STL to prevent Wizards of the Coast from being directly connected to the project and so tarnish its image and reputation, the Book of Erotic Fantasy would eventually published without the d20 System trademark of the Open Gaming Licence, but with the words at the top of the front cover, “This product is compliant with the Open Gaming Licence and is compatible with the world’s best selling Fantasy Roleplaying Game”. Thus, it arrived ready for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, but was not specifically written for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition.

The Book of Erotic Fantasy does not only cover sex and sexuality, but also conception, marriage, love, relationships, and more. That more includes relationships between different species, new Classes and new Prestige Classes, monsters, and organisations. It begins though, by discussing sex. The authors advise that, “Believing it acceptable to expose our audience to a variety of lifestyle choices, we did our best to include the broadest possible array of sexual choices, including celibacy, in the book.” But warn that, “At times, we found it a challenge to keep our own preconceived ideas from creeping in.” As a consequence of this, there is an open attitude to the subject that runs throughout the book, one reflected in a lot of the new mechanics and in some of the choices made by the authors. Further, despite the authors stating that “The world has changed and it is time for fantasy roleplaying to change and mature.”, theirs is not an attitude or outlook that was shared by all, even by their own society. Criticism from those what did not share that outlook was certainly one motivating Wizards of the Coast to rewrite the terms of the d20 STL, despite the authors warning over and over that the Book of Erotic Fantasy is aimed at mature adult audiences.

The supplement really gets underway with a discussion of why sex should be included in the game, how to handle it and roleplaying, and covering subjects such as romance, sex, seduction, sex and humour, and a lot more. It states that the point is not necessarily the sex itself, but rather that sex and romance can be used as means to add spice or flavour to campaign, to help create memorable plots and NPCs, to make it part of the story, and so on. Acknowledged here is that the bawdiness of sexual humour is okay, as it helps keep everyone relaxed, but it has its place. It suggests using the Motion Picture Association film rating system (of 2003) to measure the amount of sex in a campaign, and acknowledges the difficulties of bringing the subject into a game, clearly stating that, “Just as in real life, no means no.” and that relationships between Player Characters can become as fraught as those between adults. It means clear also, that mechanically, sexual orientation has no bearing on game, but like prostitution and marriage, it can have a cultural bearing. How a culture views sexual orientation, prostitution, and marriage varies from one to the next. So, one, two, or more of them might be venerated in one country, even sacred, whereas they might be reviled and even outlawed in another. Again, such attitudes can be used to enforce the cultural outlook of different countries, to bring the world to life, and be the basis of a plot or storyline.

Also worth noting is that any emphasis placed upon sex in a campaign is likely to affect the design of Player Characters and NPCs and that the contents of the Book of Erotic Fantasy are not aimed at the combat veteran or highly skilled wizard. Instead, the need to optimise the Player Character in Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition will require a campaign of its own, a campaign focused more on social (and now sexual) interaction. In general, the advice and discussion here is decent and mature.

Where the Book of Erotic Fantasy goes slightly awry is in illustrating the views on sex according to the Alignments of Dungeons & Dragons. So, a Lawful Good values honesty and respect and can be celibate or chaste, but when an adherent does have sex outside out of marriage, he is clear in what he expects and is offering, whereas a Lawful Evil simply uses as a means to accrue power. So, the paladin in the accompanying text engages in a romantic encounter, but leaves room for the other participant to withdraw, whereas for Lawful Evil, the character is bloody tyrant engaging sadomasochistic torture. It feels such a shame to have decent advice followed by such clichés. Chaotic Evil does not even get any accompanying text, but then the included quote sums the Alignment up nicely: “Fuck You! No, Fuck You! Fuck You All!” Similarly, though the attitudes of the various Races of Dungeons & Dragons follow expected patterns—Dwarves are conservative, but enduring; Elves are bisexual, adventurous in that they like to share, and have transitory relations over their long lives; Gnomes are even more adventurous, using self-built toys, and writing manuals like the Gnomish Kama Sutra(!); Half-Elves have problems because they mature too early for Elves and too late for Humans; Half-Orcs like it rough; and Halflings view sex like a party. Other Races are covered too, along with how pregnancy and childbirth occurs for each Race, even the Undead and Dragons. These are a bit more inventive though than the sexual backgrounds to the standard Player Character Races.

In terms of new rules, the Book of Erotic Fantasy starts with the addition of Appearance, a new attribute for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, at least, including adding it to all of the Races and species discussed so far. There are rules for sustaining sex, with a rising Constitution Difficulty Check after every ten minutes, and a list of new skills. There is the alternate use of Appraise and Bluff, along with new Knowledge skills and Perform (Sexual Techniques), complete with a table of possible results. Having already looked at the social and biological consequences of sex—marriage and pregnancy—another consequence, the possibility of disease is also discussed, along with a list of fantasy sample diseases. Included among them are Ghoul Fever, Lycanthropy, and Mummy Rot, essentially providing new vectors for old diseases. The others are equally unpleasant, such as Whore’s Delight, which causes the sufferer to excrete a paralysing poison and so freeze the other partner in place (obviously having acquired immunity to it in the meantime), allowing them to be robbed or taken advantage of… Here also, is a table indicating which Race can interbreed with which Race and a variety of new Feats. These are mix of Sexual Feats, such as Dominating Demeanour, Limber, and Quick Recovery; General Feats, like Chaste Life, Seductive, and True Submissive; and Background Feats, for example, Sexually Open Society and Sexually Private Society.

The Classes in the Book of Erotic Fantasy begin with the Imagist, a spellcaster who is both beautiful and reveres beauty itself, wanting to make the world a more beautiful place. The Class casts spells like a Sorcerer, but instead of Charisma, uses Appearance as the spellcasting characteristic. The Class’ spells are a mix of the arcane and the divine. The Kundala Class is similar to the Monk, but with spellcasting abilities derived from its sexual practices. Again, these are a mix of arcane and divine spells, but they can only be cast by a Kundala on others with great difficulty. Where it is not exactly clear how the sexual practices of the Kundala Class affect its spellcasting ability except being presumably lost if not engaged in, the Tantrist Class is more obvious. An arcane spellcaster, the Tantrist inscribes spells as runes on the practitioner’s body and must engage in sex to renew its magical ability, at least for an hour. Which of course, requires a willing partner and a ‘Sustain Sex’ endurance check. The Perform (Sexual Techniques) skill and Endurance Feat add bonuses of course, to the check, as does a high Constitution. Of the three, the Imagist feels underwritten, if not slightly flat; the Kundala Class underwhelming and too similar to the Monk; and the Tantrist, the best explained and possibly the most interesting to play as a flashy spellcaster.

The supplement’s Prestige Classes are the Disciple of Aaluran, the Divine Celibate, the Dominator, the Fey Enticer, Frenzied Disciple, Harem Protector, Knot Binder of Kaladis, Metaphysical Spellshaper, the Pierced Mystic (complete with a eyewatering list of piercing locations), Rake, Sacred Prostitute, and Voyeuristic Seer. The mix manages to be interesting in places as well as both good and bad. It is even unintentionally amusing in places, such as the box of text labelled ‘The Divine Celibate’s Mount’ (which of course, is the unicorn). However, the bad includes the Dominator and the Voyeuristic Seer, both of which are as clichéd and as distasteful as their names suggest. The Voyeuristic Seer is described as “Profoundly visionary or merely prurient, voyeuristic seers might be either or both.”, but definitely feels like the latter and is essentially a specialist in divining and scrying spells, so not that much different to a Wizard that specialises in either. The good includes the Frenzied Disciple, essentially a whirling Dervish-type which uses dance to enhance magical and combat abilities, and the Rake, a classic figure with plenty of roleplaying potential. Most though feel as they are better suited to NPC rather than Player Character use. This includes the Dominator and the Voyeuristic Seer, but is joined by the Harem Protector, which not only needs the Sterile Feat, but be castrated as a eunuch. This is not to say that none of the Prestige Classes in the Book of Erotic Fantasy can be taken by a Player Characters, but rather that some of them cross that line from tasteful to distasteful.

Magic in the Book of Erotic Fantasy includes new Domains, new spells, and new uses for old spells. The Body Domain and the Pleasure Domain are obvious, whereas the Perversion and Voyeur Domains, again, like some of the Prestige Classes seemed suited to NPCs rather than Player Characters. And there are the spells, some of which are amazing, though not in a good way, because this is where the Book of Erotic Fantasy goes awry, not badly awry, but seriously awry. Command can be used to force someone to masturbate or have an orgasm; Cursed Orgasm inflicts damage on the target whenever he has one; Disrobe undresses the target; Grope works in way that Mage Hand does not; Infestation inflicts a sexually transmitted disease on the victim and is accompanied by a ‘delightful’ image of a crotch infested with lover’s lice; Orgasmic Vibrations that can daze a target and force him to miss an action; and Wet Dreams… The problem with all of these spells is that they run counter to the supplement’s opening advice that “Just as in real life, no means no.” as the levels of consent required to include them in a game make their inclusion beggar belief. As does the fact that they are even included in the supplement since without that consent, they all have the potential to amount to sexual assault in one form or another. That potential would vary according to the context and degree of consent, but as written all of these spells are cringeworthily unpleasant. Yet there are spells in the selection which avoid any of this and would even be useful in a standard Dungeons & Dragons game not using the Book of Erotic Fantasy. Mirror Talk and Mirror Walk, for example, as well as Pleasant Dreams to give the target a restful and safe night’s sleep.

The equipment section covers everything from sex toys and aphrodisiacs to birth control devices and services. There are magical items too, including a Ring of Disease Detection, Staff of Holy Pleasure, Ghost Sheath (so you have intercourse with the incorporeal!), and more. It even lists the Book of Erotic Fantasy as an artifact in its own right! The Book of Erotic Fantasy should perhaps, have been on surer ground when it comes sex and deities, since the sexual activities of the gods have always provide fertile grounds for good storytelling, except that the book goes its decided way. Some of the gods, or versions of them, would have a place in many a campaign. For example, Alilial the Childbringer, Midwife to the Gods, Cevelis the Chaste One, Lady of Denial, and Kaladis the Binder, Guardian of the Sacred Vow, all of which are nicely done, but then there is Zanbos the Defiler, the Abusive One, who is the “[D]eity of wanton rape, brutality, and sexual cruelty.” Now it is stated that he is rarely worshipped, but that does not excuse his inclusion because again, it crashes into the supplement’s opening advice that “Just as in real life, no means no.” In a sex-based campaign, like the one that the Book of Erotic Fantasy, there is undoubtedly going to be a need for a dark or villainous or evil god, but the inclusion of Zanbos in this role so obviously, is horrifying.

The bestiary also adds creatures of passion such as Bliss Motes, Cherrubs—both Celestial and Fallen, and templates for variants such as Demonbreed, Devilblooded, Felids (essentially cat people), Feykissed, and more. Some of these do feel more developed than others. Penultimately, the book includes a list of one hundred adventures, all no more than a sentence and all very much in need of development by the Dungeon Master, followed by a handful of sample organisations, such as ‘Damio’s Companionship Service’, an escort service dealing in the exotic, ‘The Velvet Room’, a sample brothel complete with floorplans, and the ‘Seekers of the Eternal Sensation’, a cult of hedonists. All are quite well developed and include NPCs too. The Book of Erotic Fantasy is rounded out with a list of Appearance values for the creatures found in the Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition core rules, and a ‘What’s New with Phil & Dixie’ comic strip by Phil Foglio, which turns the opinions of games rules lawyers to the subject in hand…

Physically, the Book of Erotic Fantasy is cleanly and tidily presented. Then of course, there is the artwork, which includes photography, much of photo-manipulated, and which does involve a lot of nudity. Whether or not any of its is erotic is in the eye of the beholder, but none of it would have been regarded as being extreme in 2003, though not exactly tasteful, perhaps even a little boring and a little creepy in places, is the worst that can be said of it. Today it all looks a bit tame.

The Book of Erotic Fantasy is definitely a curate’s egg. The advice, given at the beginning of the book, is good. The rest varies wildly in tone and content, but ultimately it comes down to the spells in the book. All too many are distinctly unpleasant in their use and connotations, and indicative of how times have changed where those spells might have been acceptable then, they would not be in the here and now.

In the twenty years since the Book of Erotic Fantasy was published, there can be no doubt that attitudes towards sex and sexuality have changed—both in general and in the gaming hobby. In general, there is a wider acceptance of both and within the hobby, numerous roleplaying games, such as Green Ronin Publishing’s Blue Rose: The Roleplaying Game of Romantic Fantasy and Bully Pulpit Games’ Star Crossed have explored romance and accepted LGBTQ+ characters into the hobby. Yet there really has been no other supplement like the Book of Erotic Fantasy or Naughty And Dice that has reached a wider gaming audience, for the subject of sex—especially in roleplaying—still remains a taboo subject, a subject matter or activity that we rarely want to cross over into and bring into our games. So, in that regard, little has changed. What it would take is a brave group of players—Dungeon Master and players alike—to want to explore and fully embrace what the Book of Erotic Fantasy presents, and it would mean all of the players and the Dungeon Master. After all, the Book of Erotic Fantasy is an ‘all-in, or none in’ kind of supplement. How many such groups there were prepared for what the Book of Erotic Fantasy offered at the time of its publication is debatable, and the same can be said of today. Which leaves the reader to wonder how many actually bought the Book of Erotic Fantasy to use and how many simply bought it for its notoriety? And then to hope that they never learn the answer to that question.

Ultimately, the Book of Erotic Fantasy has three problems. One is its subject matter, which not everyone is comfortable with, which in places is exacerbated by the second, that some of the content is more than enough make the reader recoil in distaste, let alone think about bringing it into play. The third is that its subject matter is very personal, even if the personal is via the construct of a Player Character in a roleplaying game. Not everyone, arguably very few, are willing to engage in the kind of intimacies that the Book of Erotic Fantasy calls for, even if they are the kind of intimacies involving a Player Character rather than the player, in the semi-public sphere of a roleplaying group. So, in 2003 the Book of Erotic Fantasy presented a final frontier that few were prepared to cross, which is understandable given that although it did include a basically mature treatment of sex and sexuality that for the most part belies its reputation, elsewhere its content crossed over into the unpleasant and distasteful for which the supplement fully deserved its reputation for tawdriness and unsavoriness. Ultimately, whilst some of its writing is mature and helpful, the Book of Erotic Fantasy is as unpleasant a book and as useless a book in 2023 as it was in 2003. It was a supplement that whilst fantasy, was very few gamers’ idea of erotic, and that nobody wanted in 2003 and nobody would want in 2023.

2003: Idylls 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—

Published in 2003, Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King was the first adventure to ask the question, “Remember the golden days of role playing, when adventures were underground, NPCs were there to be killed, and the finale of every dungeon was the dragon on the 20th level? Well, those days are back. Dungeon Crawl Classics feature bloody combat, intriguing dungeons, and no NPCs who aren't meant to be killed. Each adventure is 100% good, solid dungeon crawl, with the monsters you know, the traps you fear, and the secret doors you know must be there somewhere.” In doing so, it launched the Dungeon Crawl Classics line from Goodman Games that in the twenty years since has seen the publication of over one hundred titles for three different roleplaying games. It began with Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition in 2003, before moving on to Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition in 2008 and finally finding a home with Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying and the release of Dungeon Crawl Classics #66.5: Doom of the Savage Kings and the classic Dungeon Crawl Classics #67: Sailors on the Starless Sea.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King is designed to ape the appearance of early adventures for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. Thus, the blurb is on the front cover rather than the rear, the rear being saved for a list of other products, and the maps inside the card cover are done in white on blue to thwart photocopying. The scenario itself is set in and around the town of Silverton, known for its silver mines. In recent months, goblins have been raiding the caravans carrying the silver and so hindering the town’s primary trade and means of income. The scenario begins with the Player Characters at the entrance to an abandoned mine whose silver has long been worked out and where the tracks of the raiders on the last caravan lead back to. The Player Characters have been hired to deal with the raiders and end their menace once and for all. Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King is designed for a party of Player Characters of First to Third Level. It is recommended that a Rogue, a Good-aligned Cleric, and a strong Fighter, preferably one armed with a silver sword be amongst their number. That said, an Elf, which his ability to spot secret doors will also be very handy.

The bulk of the scenario consists of a four-level ‘Abandoned Silver Mine’ infested with goblins and worse. The rooms of the played-out mine are all decently described, and where the Player Characters do encounter opposition, the location descriptions do include their tactics upon seeing intruders. Initially, the Player Characters will face a fair bit of opposition. The goblins are on guard and prepared to defend their home. The first level of the mine appears to be quite lightly populated, but an encounter with the Goblin Chief reveals that there is something else going on in the mine. Patience upon the part of the players and their characters will pay off if they find the secret vaults scattered across this level. The secret vaults and chambers on this level and the levels below contain not just treasure, but also useful, silvered or magical weapons and clues to the secrets of the mine.

Notably, although the Goblins are Neutral Evil, and signs of their nasty, vicious ways are found throughout the mine complex, the scenario specifically states that Good-aligned Player Characters suffer an Experience Point penalty should they put the females and young of the tribe to the sword. There are several nurseries and day-care rooms where they may be found, but there are also several temples dedicated to the rat gods, Narrimunth and Nimlurun, as well. The lower levels—three and four—are smaller, with the third actually being worked by miners still. Zombie miners, including zombie badgers, but miners, nonetheless. The nature of the encounters down here changes too, and whilst there no dragon in the final room, there is a definite sense of something much bigger on the fourth level. In comparison to the upper levels, there is scope on the lower for more than combat. The important NPCs will at least initiate or engage in conversation before they turn on the Player Characters and attempt to kill them. Some of the encounters on the lower levels are tough.

So what is going in the mine and Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King? The back story explains that century ago, one Jasper Gannu discovered the first silver mine outside what would become Silverton. However, the miners uncovered a great evil which had been buried there in ages past—a vampire named Serrenna. She was only stopped and locked away once again after twenty miners were killed. The survivors turned on him, lynched him, and drove his wife and child out with a curse. This curse turned them both into wererats, and now, Jasper’s grandson, Lawrence, has returned to the area to enact his revenge. Not only is he directing the goblins in the raids on the caravans, but he has also turned some of them in Wererats too! This is the reason why the Fighter needs to come armed with a silver weapon. The other is the vampire, Serrenna. If the Player Characters do not discover the clues to the ’ancient evil’ buried in the mine or ignore the warnings when they do, they may well free her from her prison and that would be a bad thing to do. Of course, she is evil, but Serrenna is very tough opponent too. That said, the Dungeon Master should have fun roleplaying her should the Player Characters encounter her.

In addition, Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King includes two appendices. One describes the Silverton Area and its inhabitants. Lawrence Gannu can be encountered here, performing as a Bard, and spying on the townsfolk and anyone who passes through the town. The handouts hint at the great evil in the mine as well as give the Player Characters a map. The start of the scenario provides three possible employers who would pay well for the Player Characters to investigate the abandoned mine.

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King is a mixed bag. The layout is clean and tidy. The artwork is decent. However, the handouts are plain, just handwriting founts and whilst the map of Silverton is clearly done using Campaign Cartographer, so is decent enough, the map of the four levels of the mine is dull. To be fair, we have all been spoiled by the fully featured and illustrated maps of the scenarios for Dungeon Crawl Classics, but here they are all but featureless. The maps primarily consist of straight corridors and rectangular rooms, so all of the detail comes from the room descriptions. Trying to describe the route through the mine can only be challenging for the Dungeon Master because the maps are so bland.

One issue with Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King lies in the presentation of the monster stats and that comes from the d20 System and Dungeons & Dragons, 3.5. NPCs, including monsters, in Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition and Dungeons & Dragons, 3.5 can have Classes and that leads to extended, detailed stat blocks. In addition, there are lots of Wererat Goblins in the scenario, so for every encounter there are three sets of stat blocks—one for Goblin form, one for Dire Rat form, and one for Hybrid form. There is a lot of detail for the Dungeon Master to handle in terms of game stats in the scenario. Also, placing the town details in appendix makes it feel like an afterthought, but at the same time, it means that the Dungeon Master can get straight into the adventure without having to flip to the back of the scenario if it is not required.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King received an Honourable Mention for Best Adventure, at the ENnies in 2003. It would be followed by a sequel in 2006. This was Dungeon Crawl Classics #27: Revenge of the Rat King designed for Player Characters of Fourth to Sixth Level. Then in 2008, the two modules were compiled for release at Gen Con 2008, but not for Dungeons & Dragons, 3.5. Rather it was written for use with the version of the roleplaying game whose style for its scenarios the two scenarios were aping—Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First edition. In addition, Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King included a third adventure, ‘The Scourge of Silverton’, which bridged the two. Although titles for the Dungeon Crawl Classics line for previous iterations have since been updated for use with Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying is not one of them. Perhaps on its twentieth anniversary, it deserves the Dungeon Crawl Classics treatment? Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King would also be the subject of several reviews at the time of its release—one of which is here.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King is twenty years old and was even a nostalgia piece back then. There is much to like. The choice of monsters is a surprising combination, and with its mixture of the Undead, Vampire femme fatale, and Wererat Goblins, there is an element of horror to the scenario which adds to both its atmosphere and mystery. Yet this is undone in part by the maps, which are featureless and uninteresting, adding nothing to the adventure and barely even supporting it. The scenario is primarily combat and exploration focused, but it does have the mystery of the unspeakable evil and a few roleplaying opportunities here and there. For a twenty-year-old, nostalgia focused scenario, that is not bad. Indeed, Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King is not perfect, but definitely not bad, and it definitely got the Dungeon Crawl Classics line off to a solid start.

2001: The Witchfire Trilogy Book One: The Longest Night

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—

The Witchfire Trilogy Book One: The Longest Night was published in 2001 by Privateer Press and introduced the Iron Kingdoms, the Steampunk and high fantasy setting best known for its miniatures combat game, Warmachine: Prime. In 2001 though, the Iron Kingdoms was very much a roleplaying setting, The Witchfire Trilogy being written for the d20 System and thus compatible with Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition. The trilogy would be completed by The Witchfire Trilogy Book Two: Shadow of the Exile and The Witchfire Trilogy Book Three: The Legion of the Lost, all before being collected as The Witchfire Trilogy in 2005. The Iron Kingdoms is notable for three things. First, its interesting mix of races—Gobbers, Ogrun, and Trollkin alongside the traditional Humans, Elves, and Dwarves. There are no Halflings or Gnomes, and even the Elves are different to those of more traditional Dungeons & Dragons-style fantasy. Second, the prevalence of technology, in particular, the use of firearms and Steamjacks and Warjacks, steam-driven robots with magical brains, used in heavy industry and on the field of battle. Third, the tone of the setting is fairly grim, there being an island to the west, Cryx, where the sorcerers have long experimented with combining the undead with Steamjacks and Warjacks, and have long planned to invade the Iron Kingdoms. Some, but all of this would be introduced in The Witchfire Trilogy Book One: The Longest Night.

What strikes you first about The Witchfire Trilogy Book One: The Longest Night is the cover. It is an incredible piece by Matt Wilson, depicting a young woman wielding a black two-handed sword crackling with energy whilst she is surrounded by the undead. The cover promised much, and whilst the scenario would deliver in terms of story and plot to match the cover, the cover also revealed the villainess of the piece. But then, so did the back cover blurb! What strikes you second about The Witchfire Trilogy Book One: The Longest Night are its internal illustrations, heavy pen and ink pieces by Matt Wilson and Brian Snoddy which brought the industrial gothic of the Iron Kingdoms to life. It gave The Witchfire Trilogy Book One: The Longest Night and the Iron Kingdoms a singularly recognisable look and that cover would win the ‘Best Cover Art Gold ENnie Award’ in 2001.

The Witchfire Trilogy Book One: The Longest Night though, has something of a split personality. This is because it has to do two things. One of which is to introduce the setting and the other is to give the first part of the scenario. Although it introduces the Iron Kingdoms, the bulk of the setting material is devoted to Corvis, the City of Ghosts, in and around where the scenario itself is set. Boxed sections cover elements of the setting as the scenario goes along, such as how firearms work and what skills are relevant to their use and manufacture in the d20 System; how steam power and steamjacks work, again with the appropriate skills; Human religion in the Iron Kingdoms; and more. Only a tenth or so of The Witchfire Trilogy Book One: The Longest Night is devoted to this setting’s background, and it is both enough and not enough. It is enough with which to run the scenario, but not enough to do more than that. Notably, there are no notes on what Player Characters are like in the Iron Kingdoms. In fact, that information would not be available until the Lock & Load: Iron Kingdoms Character Primer was published in 2002. This introduced all of the new Races and Classes particular to the setting, all of which were different to that of standard Dungeons & Dragons and contributed very much to the feel and flavour of playing in the Iron Kingdoms. Without them, The Witchfire Trilogy Book One: The Longest Night and the Iron Kingdoms feel like a very different setting for Dungeons & Dragons, but one still played using the standard Races and Classes of Dungeons & Dragons, even down to the Halfling, a Race actually mentioned in the scenario.

The Witchfire Trilogy Book One: The Longest Night is designed for Player Characters of First to third Level. As the scenario and the first act opens, the Player Characters are on their way to Corvis as guards on a merchant caravan, when the caravan is attacked by Swamp Gobbers raiders including one with a device capable of creating heavy mist! Unless the Swamp Gobbers manage to run off with one of the chests, the Player Characters will be able to progress into the city fairly quickly. There they will encounter Father Dumas, High Priest of Corvis, who will hire them to investigate a series of grave robberies that he has been unable to persuade the city Watch to look into. After visiting gravesites both in and out of the city, the Player Characters learn that the bodies stolen were all connected to a witchcraft trial which took place ten years ago. Further, one of the witches put on trial and executed was Father Dumas’ sister-in-law and he himself, is the guardian of her daughter and his niece, Alexia Ciannor. By this point, the Player Characters may also have suspicions that she is behind the grave robberies.

In the second act, Father Dumas suggests that the Player Characters investigate the site where the witches were interred after their execution. This is in a former army outpost, deep in Widower’s Wood, the first of the two mini-dungeons in the scenario. It consists of a mix of caves and worked rooms and passages, there are obvious signs that the complex has been broken into and that once the chain-bound coffins are found, that not all of the witches were entombed there… The tomb is also a chance to have the Player Characters encounter more of the Iron Kingdoms’ strange creatures. There is a chance too, for the Dungeon Master to roleplay one of these and there is good advice to that end. By this time, the Player Characters’ suspicions about Alexia Ciannor will have grown and grown, and nobody will believe them if they voice such concerns. Their best course of action is to keep tabs on her and that will lead the Player Characters via the sewers—in very Shadows of Bogenhafen fashion—into her lair where she captures them, explains her plans, and temporarily traps them before making her getaway. Getting out of her lair and its surrounding tunnels ends the second act.

The third act begins with the Player Characters climbing out of the sewers and into the arms of the law. Or rather, Captain Julian Helstrom of the Watch. He more or less press gangs the Player Characters into working for him, revealing his own concerns over Alexia Ciannor, and sends them out on her trail to an old, abandoned fortress beyond Widower’s Wood. It was here that a century ago the army slaughtered a bandit army and it is their hundred year old bones that will form the bulk of Alexia Ciannor’s undead army. With this news in hand, the Player Characters must race back to Corvis to inform Captain Helstrom of the attack, which is just in time for the ‘Longest Night’, the annual celebration which takes place during a lunar eclipse. This is the setting for the climax of the scenario, the celebrations disrupted by the attack of the undead army and a showdown between Alexia Ciannor and the actual villain of the piece. There are some fun moments to throw at the Player Characters and get them involved, including a runaway coach, costumed undead using the dead as a raft, a merchant ship under attack by undead, and more. Alexia Ciannor will appear and attempt to bring her plans to fruition, and ultimately although she will be thwarted, she will get away. Of course, she will return in The Witchfire Trilogy Book Two: Shadow of the Exile.

In addition to the setting content and the scenario, The Witchfire Trilogy Book One: The Longest Night provides stats for all of its monsters and NPCs. The monsters in particular are all interesting creatures with a different feel to those presented in the Monster Manual. These would also go on to appear in the bestiary for the Iron Kingdoms, the excellent Monsternomicon.

Physically, The Witchfire Trilogy Book One: The Longest Night is a great looking book with wonderfully atmospheric artwork. However, that artwork is not always best placed. For example, the illustration depicting an attack upon a boat by a swamp squid, is placed several pages away from where it is described. The map of Corvis could have been larger and had more locations marked on it, whilst the individual dungeon and fortress maps are just a little too dark to read with ease. The writing feels rushed in places, the rules are poorly utilised in others, and the combination of mini-sourcebook and scenario means that the author has a lot to pack into the scenario, making it feel cramped in places.

There is no denying that The Witchfire Trilogy Book One: The Longest Night has a great setting and a great story, but the way in which it implements that story is often heavy-handed. There are scenes where the Dungeon Master is advised to try and have her players and their characters avoid certain actions and then push them back onto the plot. There is a scene where the Player Characters are captured by Alexia Ciannor so that she can explain her plans to them and she uses multiple Hold Person spells to do it. Then at the climax of the scenario where she appears, Alexia Ciannor is confronted by another NPC rather than by the Player Characters, and although they do have some influence over the outcome of the scenario, they cannot stop her escaping. Now some of this is understandable, as the author wants to tell a good story and if the Player Characters capture her or even kill her, it derails the plot. Mechanically, this is unlikely though, as the Player Characters are going to be Third Level at most and Alexia Ciannor is a Tenth Level Sorcerer! The result is that there are moments where the players and their characters lack agency even as they are on the periphery of Alexia Ciannor’s story and plot. Doubtless, a Dungeon Master would be able to fix some of these issues, much as the author did in the later The Witchfire Trilogy Collected Edition.

Yet despite its flaws, The Witchfire Trilogy Book One: The Longest Night is still playable and far from being a bad scenario. It is though a scenario which comes its own with the addition of Lock & Load: Iron Kingdoms Character Primer or the Iron Kingdoms Character Guide: Full Metal Fantasy Volume 1 because it brings in Player Character options. Then of course, The Witchfire Trilogy Book Two: Shadow of the Exile and The Witchfire Trilogy Book Three: The Legion of the Lost build on it in epic fashion.

The Witchfire Trilogy Book One: The Longest Night is a hugely atmospheric scenario, full of flavour and detail that is worth experiencing even if the plot in places is heavy-handed. The full potential of The Witchfire Trilogy Book One: The Longest Night might not be realised until later books, but in 2001 it stood out as a well-received scenario offering something different from the growing array of d20 System third-party content which was then beginning to flood the market.

Broken and Brilliant

Redfield Valley is so utterly bucolic and idyllic that there is almost no reason for anyone to go there. Unless of course, you grew up there or you have recently come into property there or you are returning the ashes of a friend to his home there or a fugitive you are hunting for is said to have taken refuge there or you are investigating rumours that the valley might actually be full of treasure or… Or whatever the reason, you and your fellow Player Characters are visiting Redfield Valley, best known for its rich, red soil, Vakefort—the dullest outpost in the Imperial Army, and that is it. Redfield Valley really is nothing to write home about. Oh perhaps after visiting the villages of Crownhill and Appleton, the inhabitants might come to you with some help dealing with some Goblins who have kidnapped several of the locals, but that is about as much excitement as you would expect to find in Redfield Valley…

And then KABOOM! And fazacck! And fire and really sharp, eye-stinging glitter (not kidding) and… the sky falls on Redfield Valley.

Now, the green, bucolic landscape of Redfield Valley has been turned into a blood red mud churned hellhole, littered with debris that crackles with strange energy from a city, whilst the Old Tusk promontory to the south is a steaming caldera, towers lie on their side, cracked and open, roads in the sky appear to climb to nowhere, and a dungeon appears to spiral into the sky. None of this was there before the fall… What has happened in Redfield Valley? Who unleashed the devastation and what secrets will it reveal?

This is the set-up for Shards of the Broken Sky, a campaign for 13th Age, the roleplaying game from Pelgrane Press which combines the best elements of both Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition and Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition to give high action combat, strong narrative ties, and exciting play. Designed to take Player Characters from First Level to Seventh Level, it is a sandbox campaign set in 13th Age’s Dragon Empire. It supports different motivations and play styles, is designed to support Player Character relationships to the setting, and which really could be played more than once—though with different Player Characters—and each time their motivations would make the campaign very different in tone and flavour. It is also both brilliant and broken.

What is going on in Shards of the Broken Sky—and this explanation is clearer and more straightforward than any given in the book, and something that the authors should have led with, but failed to do so—is that Redfield Valley hides an incredible secret. It is actually the cover for an ancient prison and repository for all of the ancient secrets and dangers that Dragon Empire—and in particular the Emperor and the Archmage do not want anyone to know about or to get hold of. In Ages past, the Archmage hid these secrets behind wards which prevented access to them and built Vantage, a flying city-fortress-prison, to monitor, control, and protect the wards. Neither the wards, Vantage, or the roads that led up to it could be seen from the ground unless you had permission and knew the way. Now, something or someone has caused Vantage to come crashing down to earth, depositing an apocalypse upon Redfield Valley, causing death and devastation, weakening the wards it was built to maintain, and over the course of Shards of the Broken Sky, failing and so unleashing and revealing all of the secrets and threats Vantage was intended to hide.

Over the course of the campaign, the Player Characters will constantly find themselves delving into dungeons that are not dungeons and dungeons that are not dungeons which play with perspective and geometry and time. They are almost bookended by a pair of tombs, one full of traps inspired by Grimtooth’s Book of Traps, the other full of the deadliest of traps that the Old School Renaissance has to offer, and which would ordinarily never ever otherwise appear in an adventure for 13th Age, but also include an Area 51-like bunker which served as a repository of magic; the Shattered Spine, a wizard’s tower fallen and broken on its side; a valley of dinosaurs, all ready for the Orcs to raid and die in order to grab the gargantuan beasts as mounts; Magaheim, a golden city suspended over a volcano inhabited by demons and Dwarfs and their offspring, where the Game Master can play all of the noir storylines amongst its corruption and bureaucracy; the Winding Gyre, a floating maze which spirals into the sky and will see the Player Characters leaping up and down from one lump of rubble to ruin, again and again; and a living dungeon where the Oozes which may not be what they seem.

There are amongst them some incredibly inventive scenes. They include the Corpse of Kroon, dead and falling, but frozen in time, which the Player Characters can scale again and again in order to steal the magical items he implanted in his body; a wizard’s sanctum frozen at the moment of its destruction, its fixtures and features flung into the air around which the Player Characters must manoeuvre to fight; and a warded and party-frozen battlefield with the feel of the trenches of the Great War. All of this is fantastic and it is where Shards of the Broken Sky shines—and shines brilliantly. Not just because of these scenes and the inventiveness of these dungeons, but also because the campaign can be played in different ways. It is a mystery in which the Player Characters investigate dungeon after dungeon to determine who attacked Vantage and brought it down on Redfield Valley? Is it a heroic rescue mission in the Player Characters work to save the inhabitants of Redfield Valley and prevent the dangers warded by Vantage being unleashed upon the wider Dragon Empire? It is a campaign of survival horror, in which the Player Characters must survive and fight the dangers unleashed by the fall of Vantage? Is it a classic heist, in which the Player Characters raid the aftermath of the fall of Vantage for loot and glory? Is the new landscape of Redfield Valley simply somewhere to explore and delve into its newly revealed secrets? Shards of the Broken Sky can be played as any one of those or even combined.

However, to get to this brilliance, it takes a lot of effort upon the part of the Game Master—and that is where Shards of the Broken Sky is broken. And intentionally so. As a campaign, it is not just a sandbox, but a toolkit which the Game Master has to take the parts of and put together, taking dungeon after dungeon and encounter after encounter, and plugging them into the character Levels which the Player Characters are at. Shards of the Broken Sky provides numerous dungeons and encounters with which to do that. The Game Master also needs to work hard in order to bring Player Character motivations into play. This will primarily be done through their relationships with the thirteen Icons of the Dragon Empire—the Archmage, the Crusader, the Diabolist, the Dwarf King, the Elf Queen, the Emperor, the Great Gold Wyrm, the High Druid, the Lich King, the Orc Lord, the Priestess, the Prince of Shadows, and the ancient evil Dragons known as the Three—each of which has their own reasons for taking an interesting in Redfield Valley and the fall of Vantage. To support that, Shards of the Broken Sky provides adversary group after adversary group for the various factions and Icons with an interest in the remnants of Vantage, which the Game Master can plug into the campaign depending upon which the Icons the Player Characters have relationships with and which may or may not have been responsible for what has happened. Primarily these will appear as random encounters which the Game Master will work into the dungeons throughout the campaign, with the forces of the various Icons often appearing and working against the efforts of the Player Characters. These random encounters are in addition to the various monsters and encounters given for each location, as well as the Tension tables for each dungeon which ramp up the pressure on the Player Characters as they delve deeper—or even sometimes higher—into the dungeon.

As well as providing numerous adversary groups, Shards of the Broken Sky includes new monsters, new Icon-specific monster abilities to customise agents of the Prince of Shadows, new treasures, and new optional Player Character Races. The latter includes the Lava Dwarves, who can deliver a blistering heat at attack once per battle; Oozefolk, whose melee attacks do acidic damage when they are Staggered and whose touch might be acidic—an interesting defence if swallowed; and the Ophidians, legless, four-armed serpent folk with poison fangs. All make an appearance in the campaign as NPCs, and could then appear as replacement Player Characters or in the ongoing campaign once Shards of the Broken Sky has been completed. The new magical items include fading items whose power drain away from one scene to the next and various items derived from the crystals that were built into the walls of Vantage, whilst the monsters range from Pie Mimics and Kroon’s Foot Lice to Wicker Golems and Rainbow Puddings!

To fully run Shards of the Broken Sky, will need more than a few books. Not just the core 13th Age rules and 13 True Ways, but also the 13th Age Bestiary and 13th Age Bestiary 2 and the Book of Loot and Book of Loot 2. Other books, such as The Crown Commands, Fire and Faith, and High Magic & Low Cunning will be useful, but are likely optional. The excellent Book of Ages may be useful as a reference in certain dungeons of the campaign.

Physically, is in general well-presented. It needs an edit in places, and whilst relatively lightly illustrated, there is some great artwork throughout. However, of the maps that there are, many are too dark to read with ease, whilst others are comprised of icons that indicate the relationship and links between various locations. These are not often easy to read. Enjoyably throughout though are the authors’ advice and playtest feedback which provide a commentary throughout. That said, the authors could have been more upfront about the plot to the campaign and what is going on, rather than leaving it for the Game Master to discover as she reads through the book. Lastly, Shards of the Broken Sky is not actually an easy read, but that is due to it being written as a toolkit rather than as a linear dungeon which would be the case with almost any other mega-dungeon or campaign for the fantasy roleplaying game of your choice.

Anyone going into Shards of the Broken Sky expecting a more traditional, even linear campaign, even as a sandbox, is likely to be disappointed. It is simply not built that way, and in comparison to such a campaign, Shards of the Broken Sky is broken. However, Shards of the Broken Sky is designed in that way by intent because it is a toolkit, a book of parts—each of which could be extracted from the book and used on their own in a Game Master’s own campaign—that are designed to be used by the Game Master to build around her Player Characters and their Icon relationships to create her own version of the campaign. Which of course does more work upon the part of the Game Master, but if done right will make the campaign more personal to the Player Characters. Neither the Game Master nor her players are going to be able to put the Shards of the Broken Sky back together, but they are going to be able to take its brilliant brokenness and build a great campaign together.

2000: Death in Freeport

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—and so on, as the anniversaries come up. 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—

The year 2000 is significant in the gaming hobby because it marked the beginning of the ‘d20 Era’, a period of unparalleled creativity by publishers large and small—and tiny, as they used the d20 System to power game after game, scenario after scenario, supplement after supplement, genre after genre. Some new, some old, some simple reskins. And there are publishers twenty or so years later who are still writing using the d20 System. As much as publishers explored different worlds and settings using the d20 System and its System Reference Document, at its heart was one roleplaying game, launched in the year 2000—Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition. Just as Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition is the top roleplaying game today, Dungeons  Dragons, Third Edition was the top roleplaying game of its day, and the advent of the d20 System let other publishers play in the Dungeons & Dragons sandpit, just as many had back in the early days of the hobby. The aim of this series of reviews is not to review Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition itself, for that would not necessarily make for an interesting review. Rather it is to look at some of the interesting titles which came out of the d20 System boom that started twenty years ago.

From the off, the d20 System allowed publishers to ride the wave of popularity that was Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, and that started at Gen Con 2000 with adventures from publishers such as Atlas Games and Green Ronin Publishing. The former was an established publisher, best known for roleplaying games such as Over the Edge and Feng Shui: Action Movie Roleplaying, and it would launch its Penumbra line of d20 System supplements with one of the first adventures for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition—Three Days to Kill. The latter was new publisher with just Ork! The Roleplaying Game to its name, but with its own scenario for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, would not only launch its own line of d20 System supplements and scenarios, it would also launch the first setting for the d20 System and the first genres for the d20 System. The title from Green Ronin Publishing was, of course, Death in Freeport.

Death in Freeport is a short adventure for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, released on August 10th, 2000 at Gen Con, the same day ass the new Player’s Handbook. Designed to be played by four or so Player Characters of First to Third Level, it did exactly the same thing as The Wizard’s Amulet from Necromancer Games and Three Days to Kill from Atlas Games—also released at the same time, and that is provide something which a purchaser of the Player’s Handbook could run with a minimum of preparation. Death in Freeport did more though. It presented a setting in the form of Freeport, a pirate city with elements of Lovecraftian horror, which Green Ronin would revisit in numerous supplements over the next decade, not just for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, but also for other game systems, such as the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, FATE, and Shadow of the Demon Lord. It also promised sequels and within a year, two sequels, Terror in Freeport and Madness in Freeport, would follow, which together with Death in Freeport would form the Freeport Trilogy.

The setting for the trilogy and Death in Freeport is the Freeport of the title, a pirate city built around a safe harbour in the Serpent’s Teeth islands. Millennia ago, the islands were part of the continent ruled by the Serpent People Empire of Valossa. A religious schism between the worshippers of Yig, Father of Serpents, and the Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign would fester until the Brotherhood summoned their own dark god, a Great Old One known as the Unspeakable One. This would shatter both the scientifically and magically advanced Empire of Valossa and the continent it stood—leaving only the islands of the Serpent’s Teeth. The survivors would be scattered, leaving room for the rise of humanity and other races. Today, Freeport is a ruled by a pirate captain known as the Sea Lord and it has become a powerful force rivalling many nations, but currently seems concerned more with its own affairs rather than those of the continental powers.

The scenario itself opens with four protagonists—a Gnome Fighter, a Half-Elf Sorcerer, a Human Rogue, and a Dwarf Cleric—arrive on the docks in Freeport. They are quickly set upon by a press gang looking to take them back to sea, but will be quickly driven off by determined action upon the part of the Player Characters. Consequently, they are asked by Brother Egil, a cleric of the Brotherhood of Knowledge, to look for a colleague, Lucius, who has gone missing. Curiously, Lucius has form here, having suffered a personality change, begun asking strange questions, and then disappearing some six years previously. He reappeared two years ago, much like his old self, but Brother Egil fears that his friend has suffered another relapse.

As an investigative plot, Death in Freeport is quite straightforward. It will lead the Player Characters—or Investigators—from the docks to Lucius’ house to an all-Orc crewed ship whose captain has information about Lucius’ past, and then to the Temple of Knowledge and beyond. There are a number of confrontations along the way, effectively highlighting the lawless nature of Freeport, but ultimately the Player Characters will find themselves underneath the city in the headquarters of a secret eldritch cult where they will confront a number of Lovecraftian horrors. This is quite a tough confrontation, the scenario’s antagonist being several Levels higher than the Player Characters, so having more than the four pre-generated Player Characters is probably a good idea.

At its heart, Death in Freeport is a Call of Cthulhu scenario in a fantasy setting. It shows in the choice of antagonists and the power behind them—Serpent People and the Great Old One known as the Unspeakable One, and in the investigative style plot complete with its handout clues. As a Call of Cthulhu scenario in a fantasy setting, Death in Freeport is undeniably a fantastical, slightly pulpy combination. That said, for Call of Cthulhu veterans, it may not offer a strong investigative plot, but will provide for a more-action orientated adventure in the style of Dungeons & Dragons, even perhaps as a Dreamlands-set adventure…? Whereas, for Dungeons & Dragons players it offers an investigative style of play that may be new to them, and less of the dungeoneering style of play. Dungeons & Dragons players may also be disappointed by the relative lack of loot or treasure to be found throughout the scenario, but that seems fitting given that Death in Freeport is not a traditional Dungeons & Dragons scenario.

One issue with the scenario is its brevity. It is quite short, offering perhaps just a couple of session’s worth of play. However, this makes it quite easy to bring Death in Freeport to the table and with a minimum of preparation, the point being that it is designed to showcase what Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition can do and provide something that can be played straight after the Player’s Handbook has been purchased. The scenario is not only supported with the four pre-generated adventurers, but also a good history of Freeport, a short overview of the city, full stats for all of the NPCs, and a monster in the form of the Serpent People. The scenario has a couple of handouts and there is also a map of Freeport, which in combination with the short description is enough for the Dungeon Master to work with until the release of more background. The relative lack of information about Freeport also gives Death in Freeport plenty of flexibility when it comes to the Dungeon Master adding it to her own campaign world—as does not naming the gods and temples in Freeport, which are instead kept generic, like the Temple of Knowledge.

Physically, Death in Freeport is handily presented. If the front cover by Brom is not exactly relevant to the scenario, there is no denying its impact. The interior artwork is excellent though and nicely depicts the grim, sometimes eldritch feel to both plot and city. The maps are also decent.

—oOo—

Death in Freeport would go on to win the Origins Awards for Best Roleplaying Adventure in 2001 and the 2001 ENnie Award for ‘Best Adventure’. It was reviewed in Polyhedron 147 (Vol. 21, No, 2 July 2001) in The Polyhedron Review by Stephen Radney-MacFarland. He wrote, that a successful d20 product,  “...[H]as to present enough fun to be contagious to as many imaginations as possible while giving enough slack to allow it to fit into almost everyone's vision of the ideal fantasy game setting.” before concluding that. “Almost no d20 adventure. thus far, has been able to do that as well as Death in Freeport.” He also awarded the scenario high scores for its accessibility, art, design, and value.

—oOo—

Death in Freeport is a Pulpy ‘B’ movie of a scenario, one which wears its influences on its sleeve, but it showcased the fact that Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition could do more than just generic fantasy and that fantasy could very much be fun. The simple plot and themes to Death in Freeport mean it is still easy to run the scenario thirty years on and just as easily adapt to the rules system of your choice. Better, more detailed, and more involving scenarios and settings would follow for the d20 System—including a great deal of support for Freeport—but Death in Freeport was there at the start with adventure that was both eldritch and exciting, and hinted at what was to come.

—oOo—

To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the release of Death in Freeport, Green Ronin Publishing is releasing an updated version for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. You can Return to Freeport with new edition here.

2000: Three Days to Kill

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—and so on, as the anniversaries come up. 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—

The year 2000 is significant in the gaming hobby because it marked the beginning of the ‘d20 Era’, a period of unparalleled creativity by publishers large and small—and tiny, as they used the d20 System to power game after game, scenario after scenario, supplement after supplement, genre after genre. Some new, some old, some simple reskins. And there are publishers twenty or so years later who are still writing using the d20 System. As much as publishers explored different worlds and settings using the d20 System and its System Reference Document, at its heart was one roleplaying game, launched in the year 2000—Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition. Just as Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition is the top roleplaying game today, Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition was the top roleplaying game of its day, and the advent of the d20 System let other publishers play in the Dungeons & Dragons sandpit, just as many had back in the early days of the hobby. The aim of this series of reviews is not to review Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition itself, for that would not necessarily make for an interesting review. Rather it is to look at some of the interesting titles which came out of the d20 System boom that started twenty years ago.

From the off, the d20 System allowed publishers to ride the wave of popularity that was Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, and that started at Gen Con 2000 with adventures from publishers such as Atlas Games. Better known for roleplaying games such as Over the Edge and Feng Shui: Action Movie Roleplaying, Atlas Games would launch its Penumbra line of d20 System supplements with one of the very first adventures for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition—Three Days to Kill. What is notable about Three Days to Kill—beyond the fact that it was the first scenario published for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, it that it was written by John Tynes, then better known as co-designer of Unknown Armies and the Delta Green setting for Call of Cthulhu. So what you had was a horror writer designing a fantasy adventure and that is evident in certain ‘Grim Dark’ tone to Three Days to Kill. The other notable fact about Three Days to Kill is that it sees me as a reviewer returning to where I started, having reviewed the scenario in 2001 at RPG.net. Of course this will be a more likely occurrence as we proceed into the next decade, but this does not mean that such titles are not worth reviewing or revisiting.

Designed for a party of player characters of First Level to Third Level, Three Days to Kill takes place in what is intended to be an isolated area in the Dungeon Master’s campaign. This is in and around the valley known as the Deeps, at the heart of which is Deeptown, a major stop along a long east-west trade route through a range of  mountains. The town’s primary interest is trade and supporting the constant movement of caravans which travel east and west along the trade road. The town council—as well as the Trade Circle, made up of Deeptown’s most important businessmen and which has a strong, if subtle grip on the town—are particularly concerned about maintaining the flow of goods and money through Deeptown. This includes accepting the presence of religions and faiths which would not be accepted elsewhere, such as the Sect of Sixty, which seeks to deceive and seduce through pleasure and hedonism. As long as no one temple or faith upsets the balance of trade through the town, they are allowed to continue ministering to their flocks. Upset or threaten that balance and the Town Council will see to it that the priests are driven from the town, the faith’s temple burned to the ground, and the faith banned in Deep Town. That is until the faith can renegotiate terms more favourable to the Town Council for the return of their priests to Deep Town.

Whilst there is an obvious balance being maintained in Deeptown, there is a more subtle counterpart beyond the earthen ramparts of the town. This is not maintained by the town council or the Trade Circle, but by a half dozen bandit ‘lords’ who prey upon the merchant caravans travelling in and out of Deeptown and the Deeps. They have learned to carry out well-executed assaults on the richer caravans, perhaps killing a few guards, but leaving travellers and merchants alive, in the case of the latter, perhaps to target them again on the way out of the valley or on a return journey. What they avoid is committing massacres. That only attracts the attention of the authorities in Deeptown and increases the likelihood of their retaliating.

As Three Days to Kill opens, neither of the top two bandit lords are happy with this balance of power. One has learned that his rival is seeking an alliance with outsiders to crush his forces and so take control of bandit operations in the valley. In order to counter this, he plans to hire a team of outside thugs, equip them, and have them assault the location where the rival is meeting his potential new allies. Not necessarily to kill, but to disrupt the meeting and in the process, undermine the alliance before it gets off the ground. Enter the player characters…

The player characters arrive in Deeptown almost like everyone else—accompanying or guarding a merchant caravan. They arrive just in time for the Festival of Plenty, an annual event put on by the Sect of Sixty. This is a pageant of wine, song, and ribald debauchery culminating in a performance of Passion of Arimbo, a popular folk tale about a farmer who follows a jolly devil into the rings of Hell. The player characters are free to participate in the festival or even work it as guards, and the scenario caters for either option. There is opportunity here for plenty of roleplaying for both the Dungeon Master and her players, enough for a session before the main plot comes into play. Alternatively, if the Dungeon Master wanted to run a shorter session, she could ignore the Festival of Plenty entirely and cut to the main plot. That though would be to miss a certain plot payoff if any of the player characters do get involved in the event’s debauchery, especially given who and what the Sect of Sixty actually worship.

The main plot to Three Days to Kill sees the player characters armed and equipped by one bandit lord to strike at another. The arming and equipping includes magical items as well as mundane ones, but the magical ones are very specific and for a specific purpose, all to be used during the assault. They consist of a Wand of Fireballs—with a single charge; an Orb of Sight—which provides low light, telescopic, and even X-ray vision; twenty Flare Pebbles; and a Sleep Arrow. A Wand of Fireballs with one charge rather than a Fireball Scroll because it models a rocket launcher; the Orb of Sight because it models low-light or IR Goggles; the Flare Pebbles because they model flashbang grenades; and the Sleep Arrow because it models a stun grenade or knockout dart. What this all models and what the climax of Three Days to Kill models—as it clearly states—is a Tom Clancy-style special ops mission in a fantasy setting. So the player characters will need to reconnoitre the villa where the meeting is taking place and plan how to carry out the assault. To that end the author includes advice on the strategies the player characters can use and their players can make skill rolls for their preparations as necessary.

Only on the journey to the villa will the player characters begin to learn that there is something amiss. There are others, priests of the Temple of the Holy Order from Deeptown, who were aware of the meeting between the bandit lord and his prospective allies—and they paid for it with their lives. However, this should not stop the party from continuing with its mission. And ideally, this mission should go as clockwork up until the point where it does not and all hell breaks loose—literally. For the truth of the matter is that the bandit lord is seeking an alliance with diabalists and when the player characters attack, they bring allies of their own. Ones that the player characters will not be expecting and are probably ill-equipped to deal with. And then there is the issue of just who killed the priests of the Temple of the Holy Order from Deeptown…

As written, Three Days to Kill consists of a simple background and a straightforward plot—at least as far as the player characters are concerned. In fact, the plot is quite complex and this will come out in play as it complications will disrupt the plans of the player characters, the bandit lord, and the Sect of Sixty. The background is detailed, covering the Deeptown and some of the surrounding Deeps valley, but is not specific, which has a couple of ramifications. One ramification is that Three Days to Kill is easily adapted to the setting of the Dungeon Master’s choice, or indeed the fantasy roleplaying game of the Game Master’s choice. This is because the author leaves plenty of scope for the Dungeon Master to supply that flavour, whether that is renaming the Sect of Sixty and the Temple of the Holy Order or relocating Deeptown to fit her own campaign world. The other ramification is that beyond a certain grim tone to the situation and plot, Three Days to Kill is lacking in flavour.

For the players, Three Days to Kill presents an interesting challenge, especially with low Level player characters. The instinct for players and thus their characters is to kill, after all, it goes to the heart of dungeoneering and thus Dungeons & Dragons. Now should the player characters decide not to obey their instructions and rush in, events are likely to backfire on them. Once they attack and events escalate, should they stay and fight, then again events are likely to backfire on them. Three Days to Kill is very much a get in, perform the strike, and get out again mission, just like the special forces missions it is modelling.

Physically, Three Days to Kill is well written and nicely illustrated. The artwork of  Toren Atkinson, Scott Reeves, and David White gives the book a gritty, grainy feel which hints at the dirty nature of the situation in and around Deeptown. Yet the layout does feel cramped and the maps—obviously done using Pro Fantasy Software’s Campaign Cartographer 2—do not match that style. Some of them do feel too clean and unfussy in comparison to the artwork and sometimes feel too big for what they are depicting. The rest of the maps are more detailed and convey more information.

At the time of its release, Three Days to Kill, looked rather sparse in comparison to other adventures. After all, there is not a lot of plot and what there is takes up barely a third of the scenario. Nor is there much in the way of flavour beyond the grim, dark tone. And yet there is both adaptability and utility in Three Days to Kill, it is easier to use because of it, and not only is both plot and assault on the summit well-handled, they are supported with further plot hooks and consequences which make the setting of Deeptown and the Deeps  easier to add to a campaign. Although Three Days to Kill might be more memorable for being the first scenario published for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, than for its adventure, it does mean that adventure is not handily serviceable.

—oOo—

John Tynes was kind enough to respond to my review when I tagged him on Twitter. He gave his recollections about how the scenario came about and thoughts about it since.

Reviews from R’lyeh thoughtfully reviews my #DnD adventure Three Days to Kill, the very first one published for 3rd Edition under the OGL twenty years ago this summer.

A short thread about this adventure. #WOTCstaff https://t.co/sq3jgzxIS2

— John Scott Tynes (@JohnScottTynes) March 23, 2020