Friday Fantasy: EM1 – Eastern Spark

EM1 – Eastern Spark is a classic fantasy roleplaying scenario, set on the edge of an empire where the frontier promises work, adventure, and danger. The region is ‘The March’, a province of Mertannic Empire far from the capital. It is beset by brigands, pirates, dangerous creatures of all types, a bear beset by lightning, and more. It is specifically written for use with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition and its retroclones, such as OSRIC, but there is also a version available for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. It is published by Tarichan Games and designed to be played by five Player Characters of First Level. To get the best out of the scenario, at least one Player Character should be a Druid or have the capacity to speak to animals. The scenario offers some eight mini-adventures or extended encounters, across sixteen different locations, which all together should offer roughly ten to twelve sessions’ worth of play.

EM1 – Eastern Spark begins with the Player Characters on the road to the village of Hadd, the main settlement in the region. As they make way past a horse ranch, they see a trio of men dismantling the fence, enter the ranch, and approach the horses, who shy away. Clearly an act of horse theft is about to be carried out. It is not an unreasonable start to the scenario, as it drops the Player Characters straight into the action. However, there is no payoff to the encounter. There is no discussion of what happens next or how the sisters who run the farm react. It would be the perfect situation to get the Player Characters invested in the region, if only a little at this stage, and then an opportunity for the Dungeon Master to impart some information via the sisters. This lack of information compounds the lack of reasons why the Player Characters might want to travel to ‘The March’. There are no hooks to pull them towards the village of Hadd, no rumours to entice them to visit. Nor does it help that instead of going on to Hadd, the Player Characters could wander off to the nearby fishing hamlet of Fry, where the brawny inhabitants might hire the Player Characters to help them fish because they no longer have the manpower to do as much as they did, or they might attempt to drown the Player Characters because it turns out that the fisherfolk of Fry are evil cultists. What cult they belong to and what its aims are, is not explained, and certainly, there is no suggestion that the sisters at the horse ranch might hint that the people of Fry are a strange lot…

Things do pick up once the Player Characters reach Hadd. There are more NPCs to interact with and there are rumours that the Player Characters can pick up. There is a visiting herald who will spread the news and there are potential employers to be found. Jobs available include finding work as fishermen in the nearby hamlet of Fry, that an agent of the Guilds’ Bank wants someone to visit a nearby hidden village of Gnomes and collect a message from them, and even someone wanting some ‘night work’ done. In terms of presentation, these individual employment opportunities are the highlight of EM1 – Eastern Spark as they are neatly organised and easy to use with sections for each job’s ‘Origin’, ‘Destination’, ‘Description’, ‘Trigger’, ‘Engagement Opportunities’, ‘Successful Consequence’, and ‘Consequence if incomplete’, all handily encapsulated in half a page. What is interesting with many of these jobs is that some of them do not have any positive outcomes. For example, in the ‘Light Work’ plot, the Player Characters are hired for some ‘night work’, which actually involves their signalling with a lantern to a boat out to sea at the mouth of a nearby river. If the Player Characters get involved and successfully signal to the boat over successive nights, they will have alerted some pirates who on subsequent days will come ashore and either sell slaves and/or raid farms. However, even if the Dungeon Master and her players do accept slavery as an aspect of the scenario, the scenario does not say who might want to buy them, if at all. If the Player Characters decline this task, the scenario suggests that others will be recruited in their stead, but the scenario does not say who they are. Potentially, they could be a trio of amoral, selfish adventurers that appear in the scenario’s climax, but again, the scenario does not say whether this is the case. Potentially, this is an interesting situation that can play out in several ways and have different consequences for the Player Characters. Is their involvement discovered and if so, are they blamed, and who by? If not involved, will they discover the involvement of the other NPCs? However, again, the ramifications are not fully explored.

The scenario’s two major plot strands include a druid under a curse and the Gnomes at their hidden village of Opus. Hadd’s druid Nehira has been struck with a curse that renders her unable to communicate because her links to a radical sect of primitive druids. Initially, the Player Characters’ involvement with this is peripheral, encountering an NPC who sets up Nehira’s assassination. In the meantime, the Player Characters are expected to visit the Gnome village and collect a letter. However, the Gnomes do not trust them and ask the Player Characters to deal with a problem that they have—an attack by a ‘Lightning-infused Black Bear’! This encounter with the strange bear takes place in a grove, the nearest that EM1 – Eastern Spark has to a dungeon.

When the Player Characters return to Hadd after revisiting the Gnomes of Opus, the scenario kicks into a higher gear with the penultimate encounter, ‘Savage Hadd’. All of the animals in the village are enraged and have gone berserk and not only are the villagers terrified, but they also blame the druid, Nehira! Here the scenario does bring the villagers to life, detailing the different ways in which the various households are under attack and what their inhabitants will do if the Player Characters saves them. There is a nice mix here. The likelihood is that the scenario will end with the Player Characters confronting Nehira. They may kill her, they may save her from whatever is affecting her—though that is likely to be through more luck than skill, since there is little in the way of clues as to the cause of her condition and how it might be relieved. Certainly, there are no clues as to who might have done it and why. Perhaps these and the other questions raised in EM1 – Eastern Spark might be answered in EM2 –Prelude to The March?

There are three primary issues with EM1 – Eastern Spark. One is that it raises more questions than it answers, such as the nature of the cult in Fry and who might purchase slaves from the pirates? The second is that the scenario is too often threadbare when it comes to making connections between people and places and plots and fleshing it out with smaller details that might arouse the interest of the players and their characters and so motivate them to act. The scenario looks like a hexcrawl, but it really is not given the main plot around Nehira’s madness. Arguably, it would have been better if that had been brought to the fore as the scenario’s spine and the other plots presented as side encounters.

Physically, EM1 – Eastern Spark is perfunctorily presented at best. The artwork is variable in quality and the cartography is serviceably done using a software mapping program.

EM1 – Eastern Spark is underwritten and underdeveloped and rarely clearly explained. There is the basis of a decent adventure within its pages, but the Dungeon Master will need to do some deconstruction and redevelopment, adding some much needed details of her own before it really fully works.

Friday Fantasy: The Raven Stone

MontiDots Ltd. is best known as a British Old School Renaissance publisher of scenarios steeped in British folklore, such as MD2 The Curse of Harken Hall: A MontiDots Adventure for early versions Fantasy Role-playing games and Limbus Infernum. The latest scenario designed for this general fantasy setting is The Raven Stone – A first level adventure of old school fantasy. This is an adventure designed for beginning characters using which uses Knights & Knaves’ OSRIC™ System (Old School Reference and Index Compilation), although with some alterations it can be used with the retroclone of the Referee’s choice. It takes the all but clichéd set-up of a village in peril and gives it a nice twist upon the other cliché of the rising dead. The set-up is fuelled by greed—not once, but twice, and will see the Player Characters dealing with the corpse cavalcade and tracing the cause back to its origins, a storyline which will see them protecting the village, dealing with the village ne’er-do-wells, either negotiating or combating a tribe of Kobolds, and ultimately exploring the dungeon below their tower home. Note that due to the extensive presence of the undead in the scenario, a Cleric is very much required when playing The Raven Stone.

The Raven Stone is set in and around Siquanna Falls, a fishing village sat on the confluence of the Ure and Undine Rivers in a narrow, heavily wooded valley. It lies some two days’ travel from the nearest town and supports a nearby iron mine. A merchant caravan run by Muskan Ganto, regularly delivers a variety of trade, luxury, and special request goods to both the mine and the village, protected by hired mercenaries. The Player Characters are visiting Siquanna Falls—and one of them should ideally be a native who has returned home—when odd things begin to happen… First the Gurney brothers, whom the Siquanna Falls-born native Player Character will remember as a pair of lazy thieves and thugs from a family of lazy thieves and thugs, turn up at the local inn, The Laughing Carp, with luxury goods to sell. Second, Muskan Ganto is late in making his deliveries. Third, several corpses slither out of the lake and begin attacking the villagers, followed by corpses clawing their way out of the ground and attempting to escape the village cemetery. Could all of this be connected?

Initially, the Player Characters are asked by the innkeeper to find out what has happened to Muskan Ganto and then find out what is causing the dead to rise in the village. The starting point for the former is probably going to be to question the Gurney brothers, but the Player Characters are specifically told that they cannot use force and they cannot come to harm otherwise the authorities will act against them. This sets up a fun challenge for the players and their characters, but other means of getting out of the brothers are perfectly viable, whether that is through persuasion, intimidation, guile, or stealth. In fact, the Gurney brothers—or least the Gurney family—are likely to be grateful to the Player Characters when they come to their rescue as the dead seem to be flocking to their shack… Which of course begs the question, what is attracting the walking dead to them? It turns out to be an artefact that the brothers found (the Raven Stone of the title) and if the Player Characters take it—and the likelihood is that they will—it will begin attracting the undead to them. So, where did the artefact come from and why has it only begun working in the last twenty-four hours…?

Backtracking into the plot to The Raven Stone should eventually see the Player Characters find Muskan Ganto and his caravan, visit the iron mine, and eventually the Chimmekins, the local Kobold clan. The Player Characters are free to approach the Kobolds however they want, but they are told to be careful as the Kobolds can be dangerous, but in general they keep to themselves, not wanting to arouse the ire or attention of any local authorities. So the Player Characters can muscle in and attack the Kobolds if they want, but the Kobold king is willing to negotiate. He will allow the Player Characters to explore the dungeon below the tower where much of the clan lives and which has recently been beset by attacks by the undead.

The Raven Stone consists of two parts—the sandbox mystery above ground followed by the exploration of the Kobolds’ tower and the dungeon and below. Its strong plot hook should keep the players and their characters busy for multiple sessions, but the plotting is not as strong as it should be nor as easy to purvey to the players and their characters as it should be. The connections to the Gurney brothers and back to Muskan Ganto and his caravan are easy enough to follow, but the connection to the iron mine and then the Kobolds are not as obvious as they should be, and the Dungeon Master needs to take the time to go through the scenario and develop them herself. Perhaps by having Siquanna Falls’ two leading NPCs—the innkeeper and the local priest being ready sources of information should the Player Characters have questions, and definitely by preparing a briefing for the player whose character is native to the village about what he knows. The latter would certainly prime both player and character. In addition, this could include information and history about the immediate region, since once the Player Characters get into the dungeon, there is background information which will seem unrelated to either the plot or the region.

Except for the background to the region, there is a lot of detail given in The Raven Stone, from the descriptions of Siquanna Falls and the Gurney family home to the location of Muskan Ganto and his caravan and the Kobolds’ tower and dungeon. The latter two areas are very nicely described with a good amount of flavour and explanation, the dungeon itself divided between areas occupied by the Kobolds and those not. It should become clear that the dungeon was once an extension of the tower and that it was home to a ruling noble sometime in the past. This gives it the feel of a long-abandoned home rather than a random dungeon, so a stronger theme than it might otherwise have had. It is a pity that this aspect of the dungeon and tower is supported by background and history for the Player Characters to discover. 

One issue with the dungeon and tower, and probably the scenario as a whole, is that it contains a lot of treasure, especially magical treasure, right up to an artefact that in essence is a mini-Deck of Many Things. The Dungeon Master may want to scale back some of the rewards to be found, especially if she does not want her Player Characters to become too powerful, too quickly. Another issue is that unless the Player Characters push to explore them, and in all likelihood anger the Kobolds in doing so, some of the areas of the dungeon and tower are out of bounds for the Player Characters, so that certain secrets may never be discovered. Only by being aggressive will the Player Characters be potentially rewarded, and perhaps it would have been appropriate for the scenario to have presented another way around this, especially after giving the option for the Kobolds to be open to negotiation earlier in the scenario. Lastly, the absolute need for a Cleric and the ability to turn undead—and potentially there are a lot of the undead, probably very attracted to the Player Characters later in the scenario—does suggest that The Raven Stone might be too challenging a scenario for First Level characters. Perhaps Second Level might be more appropriate, at least?

In addition to the dungeon, The Raven Stone includes an appendix describing the pantheon of gods used by MontiDots Ltd. and a guide to ‘Prentice Potions’, that is, potion brewing by Wizards who are less than Seventh Level. This requires a liquid known as Aqua Conjurum and if included, increases the versatility of the Wizard at lower Levels. Further, the scenario lists some house rules that the author uses for his campaigns and thus The Raven Stone. This includes polytheistic and dedicated Clerics, the turning of the undead, and starting spells for Magic-Users. Again, all to make both Classes more versatile at low Level.

Physically, The Raven Stone is nicely presented. Both the artwork and the cartography are as good as you would expect from MontiDots Ltd. It does feel cramped in places and does need a stronger edit in places.

The Raven Stone is a likeable scenario. The idea of the Player Characters getting hold of an artefact which attracts the undead and their not knowing what to do with it is a fun idea, and the fact that the scenario is driven by greed and foolishness rather than anything evil is refreshing—especially when it comes to the undead. Yet, the scenario is not as clearly developed as it could have been, leaving the Dungeon Master with more preparation than is really necessary. Overall, The Raven Stone is an entertainingly detailed and fun adventure—once the Dungeon Master has put a bit of work into it.

Friday Fantasy: Tantalus

Tantalus is a scenario designed by MontiDots Limited for use with the OSRIC™ System (Old School Reference and Index Compilation) for a good sized party of Fourth and Fifth Level characters. It can be run as a sequel to the scenarios, MD2 The Curse of Harken Hall and MD3 Necromancer’s Bane, but as the first part of the ‘Typhon Cycle’, it can also be run on its own. It presents a mini dungeon which introduces the player characters to a whole new setting which takes on first Science Fantasy and anime elements as well as providing an introduction to that setting. The scenario should take two or three lengthy sessions to play through and the introduction provides the background for what is to come in the other parts of the Typhon Cycle.

By their end, if the player characters have played through MD2 The Curse of Harken Hall and MD3 Necromancer’s Bane, they should learned that for centuries, the Harken family has been under a curse—no male may live to see his fortieth year. Tasked to investigate the cause of the cause by Lady Karlina, the current lord’s wife, the player characters will have discovered that an ancestor was cursed for his poor treatment of the Erle Folk—the equivalent of the fey. They will have also learned that in order to lift the curse, some will need to pass through into another realm known as The Blessed Isles, and there find—or bargain—a way to have the curse lifted. This is the situation at the start of Tantalus, with the player characters ready to visit The Blessed Isles.

Alternatively, if the Dungeon Master has not run either MD2 The Curse of Harken Hall or MD3 Necromancer’s Bane, then she can still run Tantalus. It has a specific set-up in that the player characters need to be travelling from one plane to another via a portal. Then the Dungeon Master can slip this into her ongoing campaign because it does not necessarily matter where the player characters are planning to go when they slip through the portal—only the final destination matters. This is because wherever the player characters intend the portal to take them—whether that is The Blessed Isles or not—they will find themselves elsewhere…

The Blessed Isles suggests a bucolic idyll and is described as a cluster of beautiful islands in a sea of viridian blue. The player characters are to find King Lorx and seek his help in lifting the curse on the Harken family. Although this objective remains, what the player characters find on the other side of the portal is far from what they expect. It is a hellish complex of underground passageways, caverns, and worked rooms that seem to be littered with mounds of bones raked over by mini-demons and picked over by scavengers, whilst leviathan creatures slumber… Working through the relatively linear complex, the player characters will find their way to a set of docks. Docks which do not sit on a vibrant blue sea, but a vast open sky between layers of racing clouds, out of which sail ships floating in the air…

Initially, the player characters will find themselves thrown by their surroundings, which suggest somewhere dark and evil, but will ultimately require them to question some of the NPCs they encounter to find out more. What this means is that the adventure is prone to serving up the player characters with dollops of exposition rather than providing them with the clues and means to confirm where they are. The other upsetting issue for the player characters is a hangover effect from their intended destination—The Blessed Isle—and that is the confiscation of all ferrous items in their possession. Tantalus does not give any advice as to how the player characters might adapt to this.

Tonally, Tantalus feels slightly similar to the author’s Limbus Infernum, both having a weird Science Fantasy feel with elements of horror. This shifts though, in the final few pages of the scenario as the player characters come across their means of exiting the cave complex and the art shifts from the author’s more classic pen and pencils to the Manga stylings of his daughter. The shift is somewhat jarring, but that is not to say the new illustrations are bad, but rather that they are different. How far this new styling goes though, will have to wait until the publication of the sequel to Tantalus.

Roughly the second half of Tantalus is dedicated to two things. First is a full description of the cloudship The Goodship Carceron and its crew, essentially providing the Game Master with some NPCs to roleplay and help impart further information to her player characters. The second is a guide to the region that Tantalus is in and the means of travel between the various floating islands that the player characters might wants to get to aboard The Goodship Carceron. There are some notes on the deities worshipped in Tantlaus, as well as a history of the region, plus how are some of the items that the player characters are likely to have brought with them from MD2 The Curse of Harken Hall and MD3 Necromancer’s Bane will work in Tantalus.

Physically, Tantalus is a decently presented book. The artwork is excellent and it is well written. If there is an issue, it is perhaps what to do if a player character is lost or killed and that the links between the levels on the maps could have been a bit more obvious. The maps are clear and usable, but there are no deck plans of The Goodship Carceron. Hopefully they will be included in the next scenario.

Tantalus is a transitionary adventure, really lasting no more than a couple of sessions’ worth of play, and it shows. It is designed to get the player characters from the mortal realms to the other realm beyond the portal—but not too far. What stops the player characters going any further is the relatively short length of the scenario, which only brings them to the shores of what should hopefully be the next adventure. Instead of taking them further, it provides the Dungeon Master with a lot of background material that at this point is not really relevant to the scenario, but is likely to be relevant to the next. Now there is scope for the Dungeon Master to expand the scenario, but there is only a little advice on how to do so.

If the Dungeon Master has run MD2 The Curse of Harken Hall and MD3 Necromancer’s Bane, then the likelihood is that she will want to run Tantalus, even though it only continues the campaign so far and does so in an unexpected direction. As a standalone scenario, Tantalus is less useful, providing a short scenario plus background that will not be all that useful or relevant until the next part.

B2 Series: B2.5 Blizzard on the Borderland

The reputation of B2 Keep on the Borderlands and its influence on fantasy roleplaying is such that publishers keep returning to it. TSR, Inc. of course published the original as well as including it in the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, which is where many gamers encountered it. The publisher would also revisit it with Return to the Keep on the Borderlands for its twenty-fifth anniversary, and the module would serve as the basis for Keep on the Borderlands, part of Wizards of the Coast’s ‘Encounters Program’ for Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition. Yet until the advent of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and then Goodman Games with Original Adventures Reincarnated #1: Into the Borderlands, which covered both B1 In Search of the Unknown and B2 Keep on the Borderlands, it would be other publishers who would revisit B2 Keep on the Borderlands. Kenzer & Company visited it not once, but twice. First with B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands: An Introductory Module for Characters Level 1–4 in 2002, and then again in 2009 with Frandor’s Keep: An immersive setting for adventure. Another publisher to revisit B2 Keep on the Borderlands was Chris Gonnerman, with the scenario, JN1 The Chaotic Caves, written for the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game. 

Much B1 In Search of the Unknown, few publishers have explored what happened next after B2 Keep on the Borderlands. The exception is Pacesetter Games & Simulations. For B1 In Search of the Unknown, it has published two sequels, first B0.5 Secrets of the Unknown and then B1 Legacy of the Unknown. Similarly, it has also published a pair of sequels to B2 Keep on the Borderlands—B2 Beyond the Caves of Chaos and B2.5 Blizzard on the Borderland.

In the classic set-up of B2 Keep on the Borderlands, the various Demi-Human races being marshalled at the Caves of Chaos by the evil priests of the Shrine of Evil Chaos, ready to strike at the nearby Keep and bring disorder and destruction that one step closer to the frontiers of civilisation. Except of course, the player characters intervene, making a name for themselves as they discover the Caves of Chaos, strike at the various tribes one-by-one, and ultimately disrupt the plans of the evil priests. So the evil priests and the Bugbears, Gnolls, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Kobolds, and Orcs never get to attack the Keep, but in B2.5 Blizzard on the Borderland, somebody else does!

Designed for eight characters of Second to Third Levels, B2.5 Blizzard on the Borderland is written for use with the ‘First Edition’ game rules of your choice. So of course, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, but more recently, OSRIC, short for Old School Reference and Index Compilation and Advanced Labyrinth Lord. Just sixteen pages in length, it comes as a 6.65 MB PDF with a full-colour cover, and comes with everything needed to run the adventure.

B2.5 Blizzard on the Borderland is a direct sequel to B2 Keep on the Borderlands. The player characters are resting at the Keep after their forays in the Caves of Chaos and their ultimate victory when a blizzard strikes and the Keep is enveloped in snow. Everyone is sheltering from the weather when disaster strikes and part of the wall of the Keep shatters. Fortunately, a quartet of Dwarven stonesmiths are staying at the Keep and can repair the wall, but the stone has to be quarried. For that, the stonesmiths and labourers will require guards, which is where the player characters come in. The castellan of the Keep hires them to escort the Dwarven stonesmiths and the labourers and so make the very cold and snowy trip to the quarry. Of course, the quarry is occupied, and here the player characters may find clues to the fact that something is going on. Fortunately, their charges will be able to cut the stones necessary and so everyone can return to the Keep. Yet even as the repairs are affected, the Keep comes under attack and the player characters are forced into helping defend some very frosty attacks on the frontier fort. If they are successful, then they may be able to track the villain of the piece back to his lair.

Physically, B2.5 Blizzard on the Borderland is well presented. The writing is good and if the cartography is somewhat rough, the cover is excellent. The map simply plugs into the wilderness map in B2 Keep on the Borderlands, but much like the scenario, is easily relocated to the castle and wilderness setting of the Dungeon Master’s choosing.

B2.5 Blizzard on the Borderland is a short and punchy scenario. It throws the player characters into perilous situation after perilous situation and allows the Dungeon Master to make the weather a danger as much as the enemy threats to the Keep. It also very nicely put the evil threat to the Keep and its inhabitants on the front foot, making it much more active—a very welcome change from the original B2 Keep on the Borderlands. If the Dungeon Master was looking for good sequel to B2 Keep on the Borderlands, then B2.5 Blizzard on the Borderland is highly recommended.

B2 Series: B2 Beyond the Caves of Chaos

The reputation of B2 Keep on the Borderlands and its influence on fantasy roleplaying is such that publishers keep returning to it. TSR, Inc. of course published the original as well as including it in the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, which is where many gamers encountered it. The publisher would also revisit it with Return to the Keep on the Borderlands for its twenty-fifth anniversary, and the module would serve as the basis for Keep on the Borderlands, part of Wizards of the Coast’s ‘Encounters Program’ for Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition. Yet until the advent of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and then Goodman Games with Original Adventures Reincarnated #1: Into the Borderlands, which covered both B1 In Search of the Unknown and B2 Keep on the Borderlands, it would be other publishers who would revisit B2 Keep on the Borderlands. Kenzer & Company visited it not once, but twice. First with B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands: An Introductory Module for Characters Level 1–4 in 2002, and then again in 2009 with Frandor’s Keep: An immersive setting for adventure. Another publisher to revisit B2 Keep on the Borderlands was Chris Gonnerman, with the scenario, JN1 The Chaotic Caves, written for the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game. 

Much B1 In Search of the Unknown, few publishers have explored what happened next after B2 Keep on the Borderlands. The exception is Pacesetter Games & Simulations. For B1 In Search of the Unknown, it has published two sequels, first B0.5 Secrets of the Unknown and then B1 Legacy of the Unknown. Similarly, it has also published a pair of sequels to B2 Keep on the Borderlands—B2 Beyond the Caves of Chaos and B2.5 Blizzard on the Borderland.

One of the elements in B2 Keep on the Borderlands that has vexed and intrigued Dungeon Masters and players alike over the decades is the boulder-filled passenger to be found leading off the Shrine of Evil Chaos. Where did it go? What was at the end of it? The option given in the B2 Keep on the Borderlands is that might eventually lead to the Caverns of the Unknown, that is, B1 In Search of the Unknown. Pacesetter Games & Simulations provides a solution of its own with B2 Beyond the Caves of Chaos. Published in 2015 and designed for four to eight characters of Fourth to Sixth Level using both Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and OSRIC, short for Old School Reference and Index Compilation, B2 Beyond the Caves of Chaos is set in the publisher’s Misty Isles campaign setting and specifically on the Isle of the Star Witch. That said, a Dungeon Master can easily add it to the campaign of her choice, plus there are potential links to a classic Advanced Dungeons & Dragons scenarios as well.

Having cleared the barricaded tunnel, the player characters discover a black, marble obelisk rests in the middle of the passage. It is marked with a single rune—the sign of the dread arch-mage Hilgdred, a renowned storm wizard—warning them not to proceed further. Of course, this will not impede the player characters and after three days they will reach the end of the tunnel where they will find an enormous cavern all but filled by a cold lake. By this time, the player characters will be far underground, in the ‘Deep’ as B2 Beyond the Caves of Chaos terms it and from a second pillar, have discovered from a second pillar that the ice prison of Harkafael lies beyond. It comes with an obligatory and deadly warning to anyone wanting to free him.

The banks around the lake are inhabited and there are some interesting features. The main inhabitants include an outpost from the Lake Legion tribe of Hobgoblins and an Ogre shrine to their god. The outpost for the most part is a run-of-the-mill den of Demi-Humans, but the shrine is a nasty encounter with devout Ogres and their divine magics. This is a nice little twist to the reputation of Ogres as being more brawn than brain. Where B2 Beyond the Caves of Chaos gets slightly more interesting is simply another tunnel. Now although the player characters will not know it, this leads into the underground territory of the Drow and there is a chance that the player characters might meet them should they meddle unnecessarily—which is likely to happen given that they are player characters.

The focus of B2 Beyond the Caves of Chaos is not so much the ice prison of the Frost Giant, Harkafel, as getting into it. This is not immediately obvious, or indeed obvious at all. This is in part because the means to get into the prison is actually in the lake, but the structures in the lake are similarly not obvious. So this may lead to a frustrating experience for the players as their characters are not able to locate the means or clues that they need. There is a solution though in the form of a wizard’s telescope which everything viewed through quite close. The Dungeon Master may want to add that if looked at through the telescope, that the contents of the lake are visible. 

Yet for their efforts, exploring the lake will not yield very much in terms of reward or necessarily game play. B2 Beyond the Caves of Chaos is just not that exciting an expansion to B2 Keep on the Borderlands, but surprisingly, it is an interesting one, and that is because of two denizens that the player characters might encounter. One is the Frost Giant, Harkafel, the other are the Drow. Now it is possible to run B2 Beyond the Caves of Chaos as a possible prequel to Pacesetter Games & Simulations’ G3 A Cold Day in Hell, but the inclusion of Frost Giants and Drow suggests links to TSR, Inc.’s classic G1–3 Against the Giants or even JN3 Saga of the Giants for the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game. Were the Dungeon Master to run B2 Beyond the Caves of Chaos prior to either of those, then the player characters may well find themselves with an interesting ally when it comes to playing them.

Physically, B2 Beyond the Caves of Chaos is reasonably well written and laid out. The artwork all feels a bit familiar, and some of it is not all that good, and the cartography is pedestrian at best. The cover is fantastically striking though.

As a direct sequel to B2 Keep on the Borderlands, the truth is that B2 Beyond the Caves of Chaos is not that interesting or exciting. Part of the issue is that it does not necessarily link back to B2 Keep on the Borderlands and it does not answer why there is a long tunnel leading from the Shrine of Evil Chaos to the lake cavern or why the tunnel was collapsed. Part of the issue is that there is no hook beyond curiosity to explore the area. As an interlude, B2 Beyond the Caves of Chaos has potential to link to other scenarios, but as a sequel, it underwhelms.

'B1' Series: B1 Legacy of the Unknown

The ‘B’ series, the series of modules published by TSR, Inc. for Basic Dungeons & Dragons did not begin with B2 Keep on the Borderlands. That much is obvious, but there is no denying that it feels that way. This is not surprising given that it was packaged with the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set between 1979 and 1983, it is estimated that more than a million copies of B2 Keep on the Borderlands were printed, and for a great many gamers in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it was their introduction to Dungeons & Dragons. Yet before this, there was another scenario, also part of the ‘B’ series, and also packaged with Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set until it was replaced with B2 Keep on the Borderlands. That module was B1 In Search of the Unknown.

First published in 1979 as an introductory adventure for the first Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set that had appeared the year before, B1 In Search of the Unknown set out to provide an adventure that could be run by the novice Dungeon Master and played by novice roleplayers, both just setting out on their first foray into the world of dungeoneering. Thus it is designed to challenge Dungeon Master and players alike and to be instructive for both, but it is not designed to be particularly deadly as a dungeon for experienced players might be. Yet where in the decades since its original publication B2 Keep on the Borderlands has been visited and revisited, from Return to the Keep on the Borderlands to the Keep on the Borderlands series for the Encounters Program for Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition, the fact is that B1 In Search of the Unknown has been all but ignored by both TSR, Inc. and Wizards of the Coast. Instead it has been third party publishers who have revisited the first entry in the ‘B’ series. Most notably and recently, of course, by Goodman Games with Original Adventures Reincarnated #1: Into the Borderlands, which covered both B1 In Search of the Unknown and B2 Keep on the Borderlands, but before that though, in 2002, Kenzer & Company published B1 Quest for the Unknown. What few publishers have done though, is visit the aftermath of either B1 In Search of the Unknown or B2 Keep on the Borderlands, though it could easily be argued that Kenzer & Company’s B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands is a sequel to B1 Quest for the Unknown. The exception though, is Pacesetter Games & Simulations.

Published in 2012, B1 Legacy of the Unknown specifically explores what happened the two men who constructed Quasqueton as their home, Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown. According to B1 In Search of the Unknown, they left for the north on a great quest, but were never heard from again, leaving their home under what turned out to be poor supervision. Exactly how long ago is not quite clear, but definitely years rather than months. In B1 Legacy of the Unknown, both Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown, along with the former’s girlfriend, Melissa, disappeared some thirty years ago. Having played through B1 In Search of the Unknown, the player characters will have discovered a map and several vague references in Zelligar the Unknown’s journal, all clues pointing to the direction in which the trio travelled and why—a barbarian treasure horde that lay hidden within a ruined city, home to the god which the barbarians worshipped. Except of course, that there are no such clues in B1 In Search of the Unknown, which until its inclusion in B1-9 In Search of Adventure, the collation of the first nine modules in the ‘B’ series, was very much a self-contained module. Those clues, at least hinting to the location of where Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown went, if not why, are to be found in B0.5 Secrets of the Unknown, which is designed to be run as part of B1 In Search of the Unknown and before B1 Legacy of the Unknown.

Both B0.5 Secrets of the Unknown and B1 Legacy of the Unknown are designed to be run with the ‘First Edition’ game rules of your choice. So of course, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, but more recently, OSRIC, short for Old School Reference and Index Compilation and Advanced Labyrinth Lord. B0.5 Secrets of the Unknown is designed for eight characters First to Second Level, and as well as bridging the story between B1 In Search of the Unknown and B1 Legacy of the Unknown, is designed to ensure that the player characters are of at least Second Level. That said, B1 Legacy of the Unknown is a challenging adventure, and perhaps may even be too tough for characters of Second Level in the numbers suggested, which is between four and eight. That said, B1 Legacy of the Unknown includes several encounters on the trail of Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown, which the Dungeon Master can use to bolster her player characters from First to Second Level. Further, there is no reason why the Dungeon Master cannot add further encounters to the player character’s journey from Quasqueton to the final fate of both Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown.

The encounters along the way include one with a rabid hill giant, some giant snakes, a group of ‘friendly’ Dwarves with their own agenda, and an ancient outpost which is now home to a nest of spiders. Of these, the encounter with the Dwarves is the most detailed and the most challenging, involving a nasty trap. In fact, it might be too tough a trap so early on in the scenario, and the Dungeon Master might want to tone down its lethality. Otherwise, this is a fun encounter, which is actually illustrated on the scenario’s front cover. Hopefully, by the time the adventurers have completed these, the player characters will have accrued enough Experience Points to achieve another Level.

Following the journal and map found in Quasqueton and B1 In Search of the Unknown will get to the ruined city of Shard—also known as the ‘Ruined City’, the focus of the scenario rather than the journey to it. Several millennia old, Shard is actually a satellite of the City of Spire, as detailed in the publisher’s ‘C’ series of modules. Shard is octagonal in shape, divided into eight roughly triangular, walled  sections all the same size, around a central location in which stands a single spire. Although of the same size and shape, each of these eight walled-off sections—or zones—is of a very different character. Some of the zones are occupied, in turn by tribes of Goblins, Gnolls, and Orcs and a band of cultists, whilst others have been left to be taken over by wilderness. Each of the eight zones is discrete physically and in terms of its character, so the Orcs reside in a network of residential towers, the cultists in a repaired and maintained temple, another zone consists of warren after warren of giant rats, and so on. Further, the Demi-Humans are well-organised and disciplined, almost constrained in their actions—unless, that is, they are invaded, and who on earth would do that?

Now there is good reason for this discipline and the constraints upon the various city factions, and that is a Druid—whose name the player characters are likely to recognise—who has imposed order upon Shard through fear. She has also forced them to co-operate to some degree, especially over guarding access to the city of Shard. Interestingly, there is the option here for the player characters to join this set-up, take over one of the empty zones and use it as a base of operations. This though, this is not the point of B1 Legacy of the Unknown, which is to follow in the footsteps of Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown and get into the ninth, central area. To do that though, the player characters will need to explore the various surrounding zones, gathering information and the means to get into the central location. The discrete nature of the zones means that the player characters can strike at each, relatively unhindered, each one essentially working as mini-dungeons in their own right. Overall, the city of Shard, its set-up and its various denizens should provide the player characters opportunities aplenty for combat, stealth, roleplaying, and more.

The finale for B1 Legacy of the Unknown will come once the player characters find their way into the central zone and get into the Great Tower that stands there. Inside they can make their way down—somehow—to the Forgotten City and the Dead Temple where the player characters will learn the final fates of Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown. The Forgotten City itself feels somewhat superfluous as it does not really add much to the adventure, being more of a transition location. The Dead Temple though offers a grand climax, the player characters being offered the chance to fight alongside the mighty heroes against the villain that brought them low thirty years before...

Physically, B1 Legacy of the Unknown comes as a seventy-two page, 23.92 MB black and white PDF with a colour cover. The scenario needs another edit and the artwork varies in quality. Some are a little cartoonish, but there are some really nice illustrations too, for example, an encounter with a pair of Carrien Crawlers and another with a Naga are both well done pieces. The cartography is excellent though. One issue with the writing is the degree of reputation between the area descriptions, so there are an awful lot of barracks, for example, which have the same description, repeated over and over. Much of this could have been edited for clarity and repetition.

As written, the primary issue with B1 Legacy of the Unknown is its hook, what gets the player characters involved in its events, to go on the trail to the lost city and discover what happened to Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown. As a standalone adventure, B1 Legacy of the Unknown lacks a sufficiently strong enough hook to pull the player characters along said trail and into the adventure. It needs the Dungeon Master to really write one. Yet even if B1 Legacy of the Unknown is run as a sequel to B1 In Search of the Unknown with B0.5 Secrets of the Unknown between, then the Dungeon Master may still need to do so as there really is insufficient sufficient information here in terms of a hook given. 

Although the journey to adventure’s main area may need additional content in order to provide the player characters with sufficient Experience Points and be of strong enough Level to face some of the challenges it presents, B1 Legacy of the Unknown is a solid adventure, unique in what it offers. B1 Legacy of the Unknown stands out because it is no mere reiteration or adaptation of B1 In Search of the Unknown, but a genuine sequel, one that explores what happened to the NPCs at the heart of the backstory to B1 In Search of the Unknown. 

'B1' Series: B0.5 Secrets of the Unknown

The ‘B’ series, the series of modules published by TSR, Inc. for Basic Dungeons & Dragons did not begin with B2 Keep on the Borderlands. That much is obvious, but there is no denying that it feels that way. This is not surprising given that it was packaged with the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set between 1979 and 1983, it is estimated that more than a million copies of B2 Keep on the Borderlands were printed, and for a great many gamers in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it was their introduction to Dungeons & Dragons. Yet before this, there was another scenario, also part of the ‘B’ series, and also packaged with Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set until it was replaced with B2 Keep on the Borderlands. That module was B1 In Search of the Unknown.

First published in 1979 as an introductory adventure for the first Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set that had appeared the year before, B1 In Search of the Unknown set out to provide an adventure that could be run by the novice Dungeon Master and played by novice roleplayers, both just setting out on their first foray into the world of dungeoneering. Thus it is designed to challenge Dungeon Master and players alike and to be instructive for both, but it is not designed to be particularly deadly as a dungeon for experienced players might be. Yet where in the decades since its original publication B2 Keep on the Borderlands has been visited and revisited, from Return to the Keep on the Borderlands to the Keep on the Borderlands series for the Encounters Program for Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition, the fact is that B1 In Search of the Unknown has been all but ignored by both TSR, Inc. and Wizards of the Coast. Instead it has been third party publishers who have revisited the first entry in the ‘B’ series. Most notably and recently, of course, by Goodman Games with Original Adventures Reincarnated #1: Into the Borderlands, which covered both B1 In Search of the Unknown and B2 Keep on the Borderlands, but before that though, in 2002, Kenzer & Company published B1 Quest for the Unknown. What few publishers have done though, is visit the aftermath of either B1 In Search of the Unknown or B2 Keep on the Borderlands, though it could easily be argued that Kenzer & Company’s B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands is a sequel to B1 Quest for the Unknown. The exception though, is Pacesetter Games & Simulations.

Published in 2015, B0.5 Secrets of the Unknown is a sequel of sorts designed to be run prior to B1 Legacy of the Unknown, from the same publisher. The latter specifically explores what happened the two men who constructed Quasqueton as their home, Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown, and why they did not return home. According to B1 In Search of the Unknown, they left for the north on a great quest, but were never heard from again, leaving their home under what turned out to be poor supervision. The Dungeon Master will probably need to provide the clues needed in the form of a map and Zelligar the Unknown’s journal, which will point the player characters to the destination as detailed in B1 Legacy of the Unknown. 

Both B0.5 Secrets of the Unknown and B1 Legacy of the Unknown are designed to be run with the ‘First Edition’ game rules of your choice. So of course, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, but more recently, OSRIC, short for Old School Reference and Index Compilation and Advanced Labyrinth Lord. B0.5 Secrets of the Unknown is designed to be played by eight characters of First and Second Levels and presents a small encounter which takes place after the events of B1 In Search of the Unknown. The player characters are expected to have returned from their sojourn inside Quasqueton and been hailed heroes for their exploits. News of their doings brings out an old soldier who regales them with what happened at the great battle which won Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown their fame and garnered them riches enough to construct Quasqueton. He will also tell the player characters of how he saw some barbarians escape the battle and disappear behind a waterfall. He assumed that they drowned, but did they?

If the player characters decide to explore the waterfall, they will find an underwater tunnel which leads into a small complex of caves. Inside, they will find some artefacts from Shard, the ruined city where Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown headed some thirty years ago, including one which will provide them with the means to get to the centre of the city as detailed B1 Legacy of the Unknown. This will require some experimentation upon the part of the player characters, but if successful, the player characters will also know where Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown. The other major location provides some hints as to why the two decided to go there, but no more than that. It also foreshadows what happened to Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown, though that will only become apparent if the player characters get to the finale of B1 Legacy of the Unknown.

What B0.5 Secrets of the Unknown is designed to do is bridge the gap between B1 In Search of the Unknown and B1 Legacy of the Unknown and whilst it does that, it really is only a corollary. It provides further Experience Points to ensure that the player characters get from First Level to Second Level, and therefore sufficiently capable to play through B1 Legacy of the Unknown. It also hints at where Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown have gone and possibly why…? And yet…

What B0.5 Secrets of the Unknown completely fails to do is provide motive for the player characters. First it fails to provide motive—other than simple curiosity—for the player characters to go and look behind the waterfall. How about the old soldier not only seeing the barbarians going behind the waterfall, but Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown following them and returning with some of the artefacts to be found in the caves? Second, it fails to provide a motive for the player characters to follow the path that Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown took thirty years ago. No map, no journal, both of which are mentioned, but not given in B1 Legacy of the Unknown. This is just so frustrating and disappointing.

Physically, B0.5 Secrets of the Unknown is a 2.83 MB, eight page, full colour PDF. It is reasonably well written, the cover is okay, and the map is serviceable. In addition to the six locations described, the mini-supplement includes a new spell, six new magic items—one of which will be important in B1 Legacy of the Unknown, and two new monsters. Of these, just the one magic item plays an important in B1 Legacy of the Unknown, but the others can be added to a Dungeon Master’s without any difficulty.

B0.5 Secrets of the Unknown hints at some of the secrets of Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown and that is fine. It provides further Experience Points for the player characters and that is fine. It fails to provide motivation or hook for the player characters and that is not fine. Ultimately, B0.5 Secrets of the Unknown fails to bridge the gap between B1 In Search of the Unknown and B1 Legacy of the Unknown because it still leaves unnecessary work for the Dungeon Master to do, and that provide a hook or a motivation for her player characters.

Lost in Limbo

There have been roleplaying games and scenarios where the player characters start off in the grave and go to explore their lives after their deaths—such as James Wallis’ Alas Vegas: Flashbacks, Blackjack and Payback—but Limbus Infernum ups the ante by leaving each character bereft of name, identity, skill, memory, or any vestigial legacy of they once were… Instead of climbing out of their shallow graves and going somewhere to find out what happened to them, who they are, what they did, and so on, as in most such set-ups, they are instead climbing out of their shallow graves and going somewhere to find out they are. They may find out what they were—and what they were is player characters in traditional Dungeons & Dragons-style. They may be the players’ own characters or just adventurers who died and ended up in Limbus Infernum. They may recover memories of what they were, but more likely they will recover memories of others—and whilst they may not be their own memories—such memories will profoundly influence who they will become and what they are capable of.

Limbus Infernum is published by Montidots Limited, a publisher best known for its Old School Renaissance scenarios for use with OSRIC™ System (Old School Reference and Index Compilation), starting with MD2 The Curse of Harken Hall: A MontiDots Adventure for early versions Fantasy Role-playing games and its Lovecraftian investigative horror scenarios using the GORE™ Open Game Content Rules, being with The Fenworthy Inheritance. Written for use with the OSRIC™ System, the set-up in Limbus Infernum is so stripped back and bare—intentionally so—and the succeeding story purposefully constructive, that the choice of retroclone to run it under is all but irrelevant. With some adjustment Limbus Infernum could be run using Swords & Wizardry as much as it could be run using Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition.

Like many another supplement, Limbus Infernum begins with character generation, or rather character building. The difference is important because every player begins with the same character, a grey, dessicated husk with a value of seven in each ability, no Class, and no skills or features, called a Seeker. They are still Dungeons & Dragons-style characters, but not competent ones. In fact, a Dungeons & Dragons peasant might be more preferable to play, a la the ‘Character Funnel’ of Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Yet character abilities begin fixed in Limbus Infernum and where in Dungeon Crawl Classics there is a definite objective for the players and their Seekers, that is, survive the adventure and acquire the ten Experience Points necessary to attain First Level. In Limbus Infernum, players characters start play not even knowing what they need to do to survive or what their objectives are.

What the Seekers are looking for is Essence, a vaporous radiance which can be consumed and which comes in several different colours and comes from different sources, but ultimately from actual corpses… When consumed, it can grant a character Experience Points, a one-off spell to cast, an ability increase, a skill or proficiency, a memory, and so on. There are numerous ways in which Essence can be found and consumed, but what is interesting here is that what a player character is gaining when consuming Essence, is not his own Experience Points, spells, ability scores, skills, proficiencies, et cetera, but those of the corpses he scavenges the Essence from.

Against all of this gain, there is the danger of a Seeker being forced from the situation too soon. As a character acquires Experience Points, his skin will lose its grey pallor and begin to flesh itself out, he will improve his Charisma ability, but acquire too many and a character is likely to be reincarnated. This though is being reincarnated in a body that matches the ability values of the character currently has, so he may not necessarily be much more capable than the starting point for Limbus Infernum. So in effect, a player needs to stave this off for his Seeker, trying to improve his Seeker in other ways as well as exploring the grey and ashen, overcast and dreary world in which he finds himself.

At the same time, there is an option for the Game Master to track the Seekers’ Alignments. A grid is provided for this as well as list of actions that a character might do, starting at the center Neutral square. So aiding or serving a demon will shift a character’s Alignment to Evil on the Evil-Good axis and to Chaos on the Chaos-Law axis, whilst aiding someone selflessly shifts it towards Good on the Evil-Good axis. Nicely, this grid is included on the character sheet for Seekers in Limbus Infernum. Its inclusion on the sheet though, really pushes for its inclusion in play.

What the Seekers can find is listed in a set of extensive tables. Numerous items, both magical and mundane, are described which can help the Seekers find and harvest Essence and interact with the strange environment they find themselves in. Even the mundane ones are weird though, but is down to the nature of said environment. New spells like Detect Essence will help the Seekers, whilst there are numerous types of flora and fauna to be found, fought, and scavenged, from Dead Man’s Fingers and Soul’s Tear fungi to Hivers and Penitent Bugs. One particular type of creature of interest to the Seekers is the Vermus, a flying maggot-like creature which feeds on Essence and which can be harvested by the Seekers. Another threat are the demons of Limbus Infernum, many of which seek out the souls of humans and other mortals as playthings and possessions. This has lead to souls being enslaved or traded by soul traders, often in return for protection or power.

Roughly half of Limbus Infernum is dedicated to ‘Surviving Limbus Infernum’, the campaign proper which opens with the Seekers waking up and exploring their grey, sunless, moonless world. This is a world beyond their understanding—the Game Master is encouraged to describe everything in terms that take into account the Seekers’ ignorance—but ‘born of the grave’, the Seekers will eventually come to apply meaning to and gain a grasping understanding of the world around you. Initially, there are towers, tombs, settlements, and more to be found, but then the campaign set-up takes a swerve to the left… The Seekers encounter not something born of the fantasy genre or medieval period, straight out of classic Americana, and the scenario drives forward—quite literally if the Seekers manage to learn to drive the 1957 Chevrolet—into the modern genre, and beyond… All without magic of course, since there is none of that in 1950s America.

Physically, Limbus Infernum is decently presented. Black and white throughout, like all Montidots Limited titles, it benefits hugely from the author’s fantastic artwork, whilst its maps benefit feel just a little tighter than in previous books. The writing is also decent, really only requiring a slight edit here or there.

Limbus Infernum presents a fascinating set-up to a survival horror fantasy campaign which rewards careful play. Where it misses an opportunity is later in the campaign where its encounters ramp up through successive modern periods, ignoring earlier time frames which would be just as alien to the Seekers as a midwest main street or an Ancient Greek agora. The finale of the campaign also feels slightly rushed and not always quite clear what it is that the Seekers should be doing, so the Game Master will need to make a close read of this. Another question is, what happens after the campaign and what the Seekers now that they are characters with knowledge of a possible future—a future without magic which they currently possess—and an array of abilities, features, and skills that may reflect multiple Classes.

Another issue with Limbus Infernum is that it is not freely available. Montidots Limited does not have a website, which is a shame because as a publisher, it releases some interesting titles. Montidots Limited does need a website, but in the meantime, Limbus Infernum is available at DrivethruRPG.com.

As much as Limbus Infernum begins with a cliché, it takes that cliché and drives it in an expected direction, a fresh, hellish take upon both survival horror and character generation. It is in effect, character generation as campaign play, clever and original, also weird and alien in the way it undoes character generation and has the whole process played out across an unforgiving, post-death, post-apocalyptic world.