In the recent few weeks, I have had the chance to read through many of my old issues of Dungeon Magazine and decided to go through the large Adventure Paths and see how they stack up.
Now disclaimer: I never ran these adventures as a DM or player. My little reviews are purely from the Greyhawk lore aspect. Some of them had better Greyhawk connection than others, some seemed just shoehorned in.
I will start with the first one - The Shackled City.
The Shackled City Adventure Path was the first of an ambitious series from Dungeon Magazine. There were eleven adventures spread out starting at Issue 97 and ending at Issue 116. Now there had been multi part adventures in Dungeon before, but none so large as this.
In 2005, there was a compilation of this adventure path with some additional materials. I did a review for that hardcover compilation here:
Now, I re-read my review and the adventures and want to modify things a bit. One: the Greyhawk connection is not particularly strong as written, but in the passing of years, the Greyhawk community has retrofit the City of Cauldron as being an independent city in what was once an empty part of Oerth. That can make the adventure path mesh in more with established campaigns - which brings me to the next point.
This adventure path is very dungeon heavy. The path is, from a practical standpoint, more of a setting - the fantastic city and the area around it, rather than a cohesive story from start to end. The connections to the overarching plot, especially early on, are very subtle and likely only the DM will appreciate the path until the PCs get to the higher levels. A better way to view the Adventure Path may well be to use it as more of a gazetteer of this area, where a party can come to it and go exploring as needed.
With some editing, a DM can condense the plots of Cagewrights to a high level party (i.e. come in at the middle of this path) and still have a good adventure with it.
Overall, I think this is still a good purchase. Once I saw what came after it though, I think the other adventure paths had more meat for a Greyhawk campaign.
If anyone here has played the path, what are your thoughts behind this one?
The Oerth connections were more explicit in the hardcover version. That, and the maps provided in the Flanaess map inserts and Savage Tide path later on, are why the fan community associates Cauldron with the Amedio.
The Oerth connections were more explicit in the hardcover version. That, and the maps provided in the Flanaess map inserts and Savage Tide path later on, are why the fan community associates Cauldron with the Amedio.
Savage Tide, now there's the ultimate Adventure Path (once you get past Sasserine), but you'll get to that ...
This is going to take some time to go over, so I will break up my thoughts in a couple threads. I will do a pros, a cons, and an overall post to this thread later. Before I get to more of the review, I will make some general points.
This adventure path is a large one, with 12 adventures, a couple gazetteer type articles, follow ups in Dragon Magazine and downloadable extras. By this time, Erik Mona was the editor-in-chief of Dungeon Magazine and you can see his love for Greyhawk come through in a lot of the materials Dungeon put out at that point. He himself kicks off the first adventure for the Age of Worms in Issue 124.
The main villain is the mysterious demigod Kyuss. I remember having seen the first appearance of his Sons in the 1e Fiend Folio. The gruesome illustration of these baddies was absolute nightmare fuel. So a campaign to fight against these creatures is bound to be a grim, doom laden affair.
While the setting is pretty clearly Greyhawk, there were a few instances where, due to some technicalities, the proper names were modified (i.e. the City of Greyhawk is just referred to as "the Free City", Tenser and Bucknard make appearances under different names). This does not detract from the adventure but I will discuss later some of the name dropping just for the sake of it later on.
My first overall impressions are to say - great work on having a Greyhawk specific adventure path! I mentioned before that as originally run, The Shackled City was a generic setting. This one starts out in an established part of Oerth near the hub of the Free City of Greyhawk. This is something the GH fan can sink their teeth into.
Let me end on that general note before I move to specifics. I will be back later with the Pros and cons.
Age of Worms has one of its adventure components set in the Cauldron region, further tying it to Greyhawk prior to the Savage Tide.
IIRC, WOTC mandated that the city of Greyhawk had to be the generic "Free City" (along with some other changes) because they didn't want it 'tied down' to a single setting.
Ok, I am back and will go over the positives and negatives that I found when reading through the Age of Worms Adventure Path. First - the Pros!
Couple caveats: this is all from me just reading the materials, I have not played them, so I will not comment on the mechanics of the game. Also, there may be spoilers in my review - so SPOILER ALERT!
Pros: Very good Greyhawk lore comes through most of the adventures. This path was set up with Greyhawk, not a generic setting in mind. Though some of the names were fuzzed up a bit, to the Greyhawk fan it is very easy to just make the names fit. That, by itself, makes this Adventure Path worth perusing.
In the course of the adventures, a couple locations were given full gazetteer style treatment (Diamond Lake in Dungeon 124 and the City of Alhaster in Dungeon 131) complete with maps. I am a sucker for detailed Greyhawk gazetteers and these were both very well done. In particular, I liked the idea of how the Bandit Kingdoms came to have a port city. This tidbit of history can be meshed into a Shield Lands campaign to reclaim the area.
Next positive is the villains: Kyuss to this point was not overly used, so made for a perfect nemesis. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, the Sons of Kyuss were one of the scariest creatures in the first edition monster books. Giving them center stage was a real treat. Another notable villain is the undead dragon Dragotha, who is an epic level foe and calls back to the first edition adventures as well (he was first mentioned in a map handout from the adventure S2 White Plume Mountain).
Prince Zeech is a foe that is supposed to be handled with social graces and charisma as opposed to fighting skills. That makes the Adventure "Prince of Redhand" unique. Made a nice change of pace to the dungeoneering that is very common to the Dungeon Adventures.
All in all, with good homages to old school Greyhawk, new Greyhawk details, memorable epic level villains, and appropriately high stakes for your heroes, this is a great Adventure Path.
Next I will go into what, in my opinion are the Cons.
Cons: While I did like the Greyhawk references, there comes a point when all it becomes is name dropping. Case in point - the first adventure in Dungeon 124 has a cairn that dates back to the Battle of Pesh. It is nice to have some more lore on the Winds Dukes of Aaqa, but there is a tease about the Rod of Seven Parts. The first part of the Rod can be found in one of the cairns, with potentially two parts of the Rod directly mentioned in the adventure path.
But the Rod of Seven Parts is to only be a minor part of this adventure as written. There is even a sidebar that states that while artifacts have a way of turning up in major events, they are minor roles in this adventure.
I appreciate the concept, but in my opinion, dropping an artifact with all the backstory like the Rod of Seven Parts as a side quest is too much of a tease/distraction. There was a whole boxed set in the 2nd Edition that centered around a campaign to find the Rod, so I think that just to add in this artifact in passing is a bridge too far. To compound matters, later in the Adventure Path you come across a villain with the Hand of Vecna. That is just too much adding in other side bars that makes what you are doing seem less by comparison.
"Too much" is also a theme with regards to some of the encounters. They seem hideously difficult to survive as presented in the adventures. That is a critique I have on a lot of high level adventuring, in order to make it level appropriate, the complexity of the encounters and levels of the challenges gets way out of hand.
Lastly, this may be mostly a matter of taste, but I would have preferred a more dark and grim theme with the Sons of Kyuss. While the style of adventures was broken up with a wilderness trek and a social party scenario, I wanted more "backs against the wall fighting hordes of undead" played out.
The "Giants of the Rift" adventure featured a large scale battle between giants and living dragons. In my Greyhawk, dragons are more rare and that just smacked to me of being too much high level action. Now an invasion of undead dragons is more on the theme and with some work can be modified to reflect that. Still, I would have preferred that maybe the numbers of adventures be lessened rather than constantly upping the ante.
There was another name drop in that scenario, the dragon Brazzemal from G3 was plopped in for no real reason other than to have the name. Too much of the name dropping from old school modules just made me want to play them over slogging on through this Adventure Path.
So that is my take on the basics - I will do an overall assessment shortly.
Last edited by Osmund-Davizid on Tue Sep 15, 2020 9:11 am; edited 1 time in total
On a similar note, I appreciate that Age of Worms contains the Crimson Octych of Maure Castle… which also saddens me because that particular quest will likely never be complete!
(I recall the Deep Blue Octych is found in the "Ghost Tower of Inverness," the Orange Octych is found in "[the Expedition to the Ruins of] Castle Greyhawk," the Yellowish-Gold Octych is found in the "Warlock's Walk" of Maure Castle [via the Oerth Journal], and an Octych of unknown color is/was held by one "Barrat Roshan" of Molag ["As He Lay Dying"]).
This is truly a Greyhawk adventure. As discussed earlier, notwithstanding some mild name changes, this is made for the Greyhawk fan. The bulk of the action takes place in the middle of the Flanaess, you get to interact with some famous Greyhawk NPCs, and it adds to the lore of some old school D&D monsters and artifacts. The big bad guys are very cool, not overdone - Kyuss is kept just enough in the background in the lower level adventures to build up the sense of menace and is a very good choice for a villain.
Some aspects of the Adventure Path did not appeal, but largely that is a matter of taste. For example, I did not like the "Ebon Triad" cult as written, mainly because the religions used were (in my opinion) too well established to make that a credible plot. Maybe if the three gods were more obscure it would make more sense to me, that is something that can easily be edited.
As a whole, it is also a very difficult adventure for PCs to survive. The finale in Dungeon 135 flat out states that the Worm God must die. I do not like setting my PCs up to kill deities (the concept is too overly powered IMO), but that can be also edited to taste. There is a lot of lore dropping of various artifacts throughout the Path, and a little of that is a good thing, I think it was a bit overdone.
Taking everything into consideration - this is a fine series of adventures and the whole series is worthy of any Greyhawk fan to mine for its lore and send a few adventurers down the path.
I give it four stars out of five, mostly because for all that, I enjoyed the next Adventure Path even more.
On a similar note, I appreciate that Age of Worms contains the Crimson Octych of Maure Castle… which also saddens me because that particular quest will likely never be complete!
Never say never ;)
Amesang wrote:
(I recall the Deep Blue Octych is found in the "Ghost Tower of Inverness," the Orange Octych is found in "[the Expedition to the Ruins of] Castle Greyhawk," the Yellowish-Gold Octych is found in the "Warlock's Walk" of Maure Castle [via the Oerth Journal], and an Octych of unknown color is/was held by one "Barrat Roshan" of Molag ["As He Lay Dying"]).
The next Adventure Path was bound to be a big one.
The Savage Tide was previewed in Dungeon 138 and properly began in Dungeon 139 and went to issue 150. There was a series of supporting articles - "Savage Tidings" - in Dragon Magazine from issue 348 to 359. These are both notable as they mark the end of the print run for both these periodicals - making this adventure path a "last hoorah" of sorts.
And what a series it is! Like the previous adventure path, it is firmly set in the World of Greyhawk. Beginning in the city of Sasserine, it takes adventurers to the Isle of Dread (retrofit to Greyhawk from the D&D module X1), the vile city of Scuttlecove, and to the Abyss. The big, bad, evil guy is none other than the Prince of Demons - Demogorgon.
It is altogether fitting to have these elements come together as the last of Dragon and Dungeon's printed support. Module X1 The Isle of Dread was a classic module that many a player and DM cut their teeth on in the earliest days of the hobby. Demogorgon was the original biggest and baddest of First Edition, having the toughest stats in the Monster Manual (he had 200 hit points!).
The overall theme is largely swashbuckling adventuring, with the players having to take to the seas and fight pirates almost every step of the way. The players uncover a plot to seed the coastal cities of Oerth with demonically powered pearls which, when activated, will cause a "savage tide" to wash over the immediate area, turning people into hideous monsters in the thrall of Demogorgon. The adventurers must face down the perils of the seas, the Isle of Dread, and the Abyss in order to stop this nefarious plot.
As before, I will list my positive points and negative points in separate entries. Suffice to say, this is a true epic not only for Greyhawkers, but for an era of players and DMs that have memories of the 1st edition and want to harken back to those days. I believe that it delivers!
O-D
Last edited by Osmund-Davizid on Tue Sep 15, 2020 8:40 am; edited 1 time in total
So we start with the positives for the Savage Tide.
Pros: Again, this is a very Greyhawk Adventure Path. While the action takes place in corners of the world that are off the beaten path (and indeed, off the original maps) this is part of the theme of exploration and discovery that makes this a more unique adventure style than the typical dungeon trek.
Next, the settings. Sasserine, Scuttlecove, and the Isle of Dread are the main locations for this Adenture Path (on Oerth - there is a lot of Abyssal plane hopping in the highest levels). Sasserine was described in a backdrop article in Issue 139. Scuttlecove and the Isle itself were not originally introduced in this Adventure Path - but this series of adventures truly fleshes each of them out. The Isle of Dread came from Basic D&D and had a short updated adventure in Dungeon (Issue 114) before coming into full glory in this series. Scuttlecove was first introduced in Dungeon # 95 and retrofit into Greyhawk.
Each of these locations has tremendous atmosphere and character. The colony of Farshore is the exact type of frontier town that an adventurer can make their mark in. Sasserine is a good addition to the overall Greyhawk canon that an enterprising DM can incorporate with or without using this AP. Scuttlecove may vie with Dorakaa, Rauxes, and Erelhei-Cinlu as the most evil city on Oerth! That is the stuff of adventures!
There is a recurring villain that bedevils your players from the earliest adventures to the very end. A rogue turned pirate turned death knight! If you can make his appearance be memorable without being forced, this is a good running battle throughout the series.
Finally, the use of Demogorgon was a good choice. As I mentioned earlier, this is a throw back to the earliest days of D&D - with the Isle of Dread and the Prince of Demons, this adventure at once feels familiar and brand new.
I absolutely loved the expanded information on the Amedio Jungle, the inclusion of Scuttlecove and the Isle of Dread, and the way the adventures on the outer planes played out. I appreciated that they didn't rewrite the Isle of Dread, but added new adventures to areas that had been unused in the original adventure and advanced the timeline so that the few areas they reused did not contradict the original module. I thought the inclusion of a new portion of the Lost Shrine of Tomoacan was a fantastic inspiration, as well.
There were only a couple of things I did not particularly like. First, I find bullywugs to be an uninspiring opponent. They are just boring. Plus, for grognards like me, the D&D cartoon completely confused me regarding them, since in that media they were shown to be neutrally-aligned at worst, maybe even good! I would have been happier if they had found a different low-level opponent for the first part of the adventure.
Second, Sasserine seemed a bit too large of a city to be positioned on the southern coast of Jeklea Bay. I like it being there, I just think it should be far smaller. Especially since Cauldron is fairly close to the southwest. That is two very large cities that are presented as typically Medieval European. If they had been described as having a more Central American culture, I would have been more willing to accept them at the size they are presented as being.
As far as mechanics go, I was concerned about the Bar-Igura encounters on the Isle of Dread. These creatures have the ability to Teleport at will anywhere they want, even to other planes like the Abyss, while taking an unwilling victim along. This encounter is for mid-level PCs. Sure, a careful party may defeat them before any party member fails a saving throw, but that is a serious threat, especially since the Bar-Igura are supposed to attack by surprise. There is practically no way for the party to detect their presence before they attack. Again, for 8th - 12th level PCs, being teleported to the Abyss and left there alone is an automatic death sentence. I read through the AP twice, but never got to run it that far, so I am uncertain if my concern is valid or not.
To end on a positive note (because this AP really is awesome!), I will say that the piratey adventures including Scuttlecove, the adventures on, and under, the Isle of Dread, and the plane-hopping adventures building to the battle for an entire layer of the Abyss against the Prince of Demons himself, is wonderfully inspiring.
Cons: The tone of the series is very swashbuckling, with a lot of sea travel and action involved. That is not everyone's cup of tea. If your game style is more invested in the civilized areas of Greyhawk, the gameplay is now in a very isolated part of the world. With some modification to the timeline, you may be able to get the party back to civilized lands for a break. Otherwise, they are committed to adventuring on the far side of the Oerth for a long time.
Very high level stuff is involved in this AP. In order for the players to have a chance against Demogorgon in his own plane, the players will need high level help. They get it in kind of a weird shoehorned way in which a trap by Demogorgon results in a branch of the River Styx getting diverted, earning the ire of Charon. Who then directs the players to have a meeting with the Witch-Queen Iggwilv herself! She gives the players a list of Demogorgon's available enemies that the PCs can try to ally with. Then its off to other planes of existence to try to cobble together an army. Whew!
To be fair, the modules actually make the process of building up this force of otherplanars by a bunch of mere mortals to be relatively plausible. Orcus needs no special urging to march on Demogorgon, and the other entities have their own agendas as well. The PC's mission to stop the Savage Tide is a side show to the main fight. Too much of this and it may appear that the PCs are no longer in charge of their own adventure.
The best way to look at it is that the PCs are presenting these other entities the opportunity to do what they already want. The grand final battle may start with all these other entities, but it results in a face to face confrontation with Demogorgon in the end. The Savage Tide is personally important for Demogorgon to complete, so he has to come after them at some time. The PCs are at one point of the battle minor mortals among all these demons and then they are on the center stage at the very end. Handled properly, this can work.
Still, some of the actions the PCs need to do to make some of the alliances work may be out of character for some of the more LG aligned folk (i.e. paladins are going to have a rough go of it dealing with the demons). I think that the overall tone makes this an AP more suited to the free-wheeling adventure types rather than the more orthodox. That may be a matter of taste but good to keep in mind.
Final nitpick - one high level name drop that I did not like was the treatment of Saint Kargoth. He is stuck in the final battle as (more or less) just a guard in a room. I think the first of the death knights should have some more involvement, especially seeing his Greyhawk connections.
Just like the Age of Worms before it, this AP is a solid entry to any Greyhawk fan's module collection. It is a positive to set the action set in a remote part of Oerth, as it is unlikely that these adventures would interfere with anyone's campaign. There are enough Greyhawk and classic references throughout the series without it becoming awkward.
Once things get to the Outer Planes, the difficulty ratchets up exponentially. There is a big challenge to refereeing all the high level demons and other planar personages, and the risk becomes whether the players can hold their own among all these greater powers.
But the negatives are far outweighed by the many positive features. I give this a five star out of five treatment. If you can collect the magazines and give this a try, do so. It is well worth the effort.
Reading them all together and looking at them both on their own merits and as part of Greyhawk lore, here is where I think these Adventure Paths stack up against each other.
The Shackled City is my least favorite. I originally reviewed it a long time ago and now looking at it, some of its flaws come out more then they did on my first read. Especially in the early adventures, the AP is more of a sandbox for the city of Cauldron than an advancing plot, but that is OK. Lots of dungeon crawls, but again that is fine. I give it three and a half stars out of five, but I add a half star for the hard back book of the AP. It not only consolidates the many modules into one book, but it gives more information and bonus adventures to boot. Would that the other APs get the same treatment!
Age of Worms gets four stars out of five. Better Greyhawk connections, a better Big Bad Evil Guy in Kyuss, lots of doom-and-gloom villainy, what's not to like? Some parts of the adventure seem overly complex and difficult for players to survive as written. I also do not like it when the PCs have to slay a deity. But this was one great AP!
Savage Tide though is my favorite and I think merits a full five star evaluation. I think it struck a good balance with some nods to classic D&D with the Isle of Dread setting and Demogorgon as the main foe, but it also made good use of new concepts such as the city of Scuttlecove and added them into Greyhawk lore. Again, some parts were extremely difficult as written, but then any adventure that prominently features demons as enemies is going to have epic level challenges. So it is my favorite and I think if you are a Greyhawk fan you should check it out.
With over 30 modules' worth of adventures, that is a lot of material to read through, and some points were better than others. But taken as a whole, all three of these APs are great additions to collective Greyhawk lore. All are worth your time to read through, and hopefully have a chance to play.
This ends the APs that were made during the print run of Dungeon Magazine. There was another AP that was done in the electronic run of Dungeon, the Scales of War. I understand that this AP was done in more of a generic setting. The BBEG in this setting was Tiamat, which is nice for the old school types.
Having said that, there were additions in the pages of Dungeon Magazine that essentially add in more details to existing Greyhawk adventures or else consist of mini-campaigns all their own.
Dungeon Issues 117, 118, and 119 had a short series on the City of Istivin after the Greyhawk Wars. Maure Castle was given more levels in Issues 112, 124 and 139, essentially making the module WG5 Modenkainen's Fantastic Adventure more of an epic quest than a prowl through mostly empty dungeon rooms.
There were other tidbits of lore and Greyhawk adventures in Dungeon Magazine that are worth tracking down. There is a fine index of Dungeon materials right here on Canonfire so I suggest that (if you haven't already) you download that index and do some hunting for Greyhawk materials in the old magazine sources. It is often worth your time.
I haven’t looked at Istivin or Savage Tide in years, and seem to recall another adventure or two tied to Demogorgon via the revised X1, perhaps?
I still think that a collected AoW or ST hardcover would make a wonderful licensed product!—perhaps that’s a good one to suggest for one of Goodman’s reprints too (I’ve already suggested WG5/Maure Castle).
Allan. _________________ Allan Grohe<br />https://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html<br />https://grodog.blogspot.com/
You reminded me of a couple of additional adventures that could be added to the Savage Tide series.
One of the things that I did not like in Savage Tide was the treatment of St Kargoth, the first of the Death Knights. In the adventure, he is just one of the last guards the PCs have to fight. No story or plot points related to him.
There was a Dungeon Adventure in Issue 120, "The Lost Temple of Demogorgon" by Sean Reynolds, that not only has the temple to the big D but introduces a Death Knight with Greyhawk connections. Lord Khayven of Rax, one of the original Death Knights, is the main villain (he was introduced in the Dragon Magazine articles on Death Knights from Issues 290 and 291).
The setting of the adventure is supposed to take place near Irongate, but that can be modified. Lord Khayven is seeking to return to life and wants to try to reverse his condition by performing some ceremony in a temple of Demogorgon. I think that you can add this adventure in as a side quest in the Savage Tide series, working it in as a way to weaken Demogorgon. If successful, the PCs come to the attention of St Kargoth and can thus work him into the overall plot.
Alternatively, you can use this adventure as a different springboard to enter the Savage Tide series from another direction. If your PCs are of higher levels and you do not want to run the low level modules in Savage Tide, this adventure may work to get your people involved in opposing Demogorgon with clues taking them to the Isle of Dread from the Irongate area as opposed to the Sasserine area. Just a thought.
Another Dungeon adventure that can be used as a side quest in Savage Tide is from Issue 114, it takes place on the Isle of Dread and was based on an adventure hook from the original X1 module.
With creative work a lot of additional adventures can be added into any of the APs. Same can be said of any adventure really. So if you plan on tackling the Savage Tide, here are a couple more add-ons that may assist.
O-D
Last edited by Osmund-Davizid on Fri Oct 09, 2020 8:57 am; edited 1 time in total
I mentioned before that there were some other adventures in Dungeon that can be considered small adventure paths all their own. One of them was a mini campaign that was published in the time between the Shackled City and the Age of Worms paths. It was a three part series set in Sterich and dealing with the remnants of the "Bubble of Lolth" that covered Istivin (as per the GDQ Queen of the Spiders Supermodule).
So, I will give this series of adventures my review treatment. For one, I am a big fan of the GDQ series and liked to see the background materials presented therein given some more attention. Also, I liked the setting of Sterich, you could include the gruesome adventure "Headless" from Dungeon Issue 89 in with these three from 117 -119 to make a nice mid to high level adventure series.
I will do the pros, cons, and overall assessment in future posts. Spoilers to follow. Hope you find it helpful.
This adventure series takes place 18 years after the events of GDQ Queen of the Spiders. Back then, Lolth wished to add Sterich to her list of conquests. To facilitate that, she erected a black energy bubble around the capital city - starting with the castle and seat of government and slowly expanding to engulf the whole city. An intrepid group of adventurers set out against the giants who were conducting raids on the land, eventually discovering that the bubble was the demon queen of spider's plot and upon her defeat the bubble dissipated. But a bit of the Abyss was left behind in the city of Istivin.
A little while later, the Greyhawk Wars kick off and Sterich becomes lost to a humanoid and giant invasion. Eventually the forces of Sterich reclaimed their capital city, but that lingering residual demonic presence left under the streets of Istivin begins to manifest itself and influences the Earl of Sterich to do its bidding.
I think this was a good set up for an adventure - if you read up on the Erik Mona's editorials in Dungeon you can see the reasoning behind the publications - taking little snippets of details from other published sources and making a unique adventure out of them.
So I will post shortly my pros and cons of the series.
I look forward to your review of these adventures O-D: they constituted the basis for the last 3.5e campaign that I ran before my long hiatus from the hobby.
Pros: I have said before that I love the adventures that also give us a gazetteer, and this one has a map and location key for the city of Istivin as well as for the land of Sterich. The latter is of lesser use, as the time setting of the adventure has most of the towns and locations of Sterich being destroyed from the giant occupation. I would have liked some more locations described but it is good for what it gives you.
I also liked the connections to the GDQ Supermodule Queen of the Spiders. Adding in references and characters from that work helps with maintaining continuity and is a nice shout out to those of us who played that adventure.
The best part of the adventure is the atmosphere it invokes. You really get a sense of despair and dread with the attitudes of the townsfolk and the grim locales. Nice invocation of what it would be like to return to an occupied land, with its paranoia and the alien nature of the demonic presence.
All in all, good material to base an adventure path.
Cons: I did not like the way the adventure was set out. Specifically the middle portion. Your PCs are given clues that a renegade giant priest is the key to dispelling the evil presence in Istivin and they follow the clues to an occupied border fort. Where they discover that the giant in question was recently overthrown and given to the drow. Now the party must hunt them down to find the giant.
That smacks me of too much railroading to bring the PCs out of the city of Istivin only to have them return again. I will grant you that many adventures feature just such a plot twist, but in my opinion this was simply filler. I think this could have been a better two part adventure than a more bloated three part adventure. There just was nothing memorable about the second module that adds to the plot, making it seem more like busy work.
Now, I suggest that you can rework the adventures a bit as written to make that second module more of a side trek/loose end type mission and leave the first and third parts intact. Indeed, clearing out the border fort can be a good follow up mission after liberating Istivin (maybe link with the "Headless" adventure as well). So it is not without merit.
Another issue is that of Malgoth, the Abyssal entity that is the source of all the problems. It is not really given a background. That could be the point, to make the creature a mysterious demonic presence, rather than a known entity. But having the BBEG be something that Lolth left behind as revenge against Sterich would make the adventure more personal to the players. Opinions may differ on that, and Lolth as a villain may be overused, so making the chief villain an unknown may work for you. But I would re-do it to be some sort of a Lolth contingency plan or perhaps some servant or ally of Lolth.
I recall disliking the adventure's assertion that people had abandoned part of Istivin inside the city walls and changing the situation so that abandoned parts of the city were outside the city walls (or limited to a handful of buildings within the walled part of the city.
Regarding the Malgoth, riffing off Paul Stormberg's interview of Gary Gygax in Oerth Journal #12, I imagined it was a fragment of Vilp-akf ’cho Rentaq, the Elder Elemental God. See OJ #12, at 9-10.
While the PCs didn't have the chance to confront it prior to the campaign's end, I imagined that the "Malgoth fragment" didn't understand itself as (part of) the EEG but instead had developed a new, confused, egoism. IIRC, IMC, its fragment was buried deep below Istivin in prehistory, but Lolth's "bubble" catalyzed (and distorted) its consciousness. Finally, a different plot line featured kaorti that sought to obtain the Malgoth for nefarious ends.
In my re-reading of old Dungeon magazines, I came across another mini adventure path from near the end of the print run of Dungeon. It was "The Seeds of Sehan" and it ran in three parts In Dungeon 145-147. There was also a map and write up for the City of Exag as part of the adventure.
So in the interests of completeness, I will go through these adventures and do a write up review of them, for your use and enjoyment.
See this thread a little later for my take on this series of Greyhawk adventures.
Here is a summary of the Seeds of Sehan mini adventure path. Spoilers to follow!
Just outside of the city of Exag is a burial tomb that lies over a pool of sentient evil slime. Kinda Lovecraftian in that this matter can bend people to its will, which is what happened to an unfortunate explorer. After some time, the slime took over enough people to start up a cult of drug dealers who prey upon the downtrodden of Exag. The drug in question leads its victims to become pawns of the slime as well. There is a twist towards the end with some larger scale ramifications should the enterprising adventurers fail to stop this unearthly slime.
This is a 3.5 edition series of adventures that takes place in the far northwest corner of the world. The adventure began in Dungeon Issue # 145 and ran for three installments. Also included was a map and gazetteer of the city of Exag. The starting recommended level for the party is about 8th level.
I will post my thoughts on the pros can cons of this series in the next post.
OK, here are the positive points for the Seeds of Sehan:
Pros: The setting takes place in a far flung corner of Oerth that has not seen a lot of action - the Yatil Mountains in the far northwest. This is a nice springboard to adventuring in this area that is not usually covered.
Next, I love getting another city gazetteer, with a map and background. Exag is not fleshed out as much as some of the other city examples, being somewhat small and isolated. But there are many little hooks for further exploration by a DM willing to add their spin on this locale.
Finally, the twist at the third adventure in the series is very nice, introducing the malevolent race of yak folk to Oerth. There are a couple of good points with this, it creates a mini empire in this part of the Yatils that can be a set up for long term exploration, the race itself are foes worth fighting and the yak folk's special ability to possess the bodies of humans complements the slime of Sehan, making the danger from this being all the greater.
So those are my thoughts on the positives, next post, the cons.
The cons: The first two adventures in this mini path are really just dungeon crawls. Nothing wrong with a good dungeon crawl, but there was nothing that really stood out with these ones.
The introduction to the adventure treats the Sehan infestation as a drug, and its cultists act as drug dealers. That may not be everyone's cup of tea, having a real life issue like drug addiction and dealing in a fantasy campaign.
I thought that the best part of this path was the third part, and even that seemed a little too vaguely detailed for me.
But in all fairness, there is an addendum that I found online that adds more details that I thought were lacking. See the link below.
Looking at this mini Adventure Path as a whole, I am of the opinion of "take it or leave it". Two parts are really just dungeon crawls and the only part that gave the World of Greyhawk something different was the third part.
If you want to move the direction of your campaign to the nortwest, this series gives you something set in that locale. Maybe if your campaign is doing the Caverns of Tsojcanth or the Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, then this can be used another series of adventures in this corner of the world.
This adventure path has the potential to be larger than any of these other ones, at least in terms of sheer number of modules. This castle (it can be more classified as a megadungeon) has at least 18 levels, with the possibility of more, along with access to demiplanes and alternate realities. The adventure path in Dungeon began in Issue 112, and they did something unusual in this issue - the whole magazine was devoted to this one module. There were two follow ups in Dungeon, each describing another level of Maure Castle in Issues 124 and 139. There was also a follow up in Oerth Journal 23 that gave more background and another level of the castle.
But to start describing this adventure, it would be best to discuss module WG5 - Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure - first. In the light of what has been published since, WG5 can be viewed as a historical background for the adventure path. The module in Dungeon 112 references what Mordenkainen and company did in WG5 as canonical. That is the way I would approach these adventures, start with Dungeon 112, and use WG5 as designer notes.
WG5 did not really catch on to be one of the very classic 1e modules the same way as the U series, or Giant series. I think it is because the tone was a little different. It was more mysterious, with a lot of unknown, empty places to explore. The villain of the module, Eli Tomorast, has no illustration in the module and is barely described, not making him very memorable the same manner as the most infamous Greyhawk foes.
That changed with Dungeon magazine's portrayal. The same designer, Robert J. Kuntz, designed these adventures and he gave old Eli his due this time. The pictures of him in Dungeon 112 and descriptions of his motivations and actions puts him as a top tier Greyhawk villain. That fact alone makes this adventure path worth following. With that, I will dig into the pros and cons of this adventure path/megadungeon.
As I said above, Maure Castle represents perhaps the biggest megadungeon in Greyhawk, with at least 18 levels to the castle's lower levels, access to other planes, and the WG5 levels that are not even part of the Castle proper. The Dungeon magazines covered the 6th, 7th, and 8th levels of the castle. There is room to expand at every point. This is the biggest strength of this series: it has room for you to make it your own. Most of the mysteries are left open ended, for you to develop as you want.
Another great part is the villain: Eli is intriguing, a tough combatant, has his own motivations, and with this series, moves to a much higher level of Greyhawk infamy with this series. He is motivated to study the mysteries of the Maure family and the castle, making him a little more relatable as a character.
Overall, what more do you need in a published adventure? Good hooks for further development, strong NPC adversaries, excellent utilization of the setting, it is all here. This is a most worthy epic for any Greyhawk fan.
There is not really a lot to say negatively about this AP/megadungeon.
Except it can be a matter of taste. The things that make this adventure a positive can also be a negative: the mystery and room to develop. There are a lot of things left to the DMs to flesh out and develop. This can be a little frustrating in that we were given glimpses of some of these mysteries in the first adventure, but only to have them not answered in the later ones.
Who was/is Uncle? What are Yeenoghu's plans for the area? Who/what is "Y"? How to locate all the Maure family marurids in order to stop the Id storm? There is a lot to figure out and with there being three published adventures, having a few more answers or hints may have been in order.
Otherwise, these are good solid dungeon crawls. A critique could be is that this is really a "sleeping evil" as opposed to an active evil. Eli and his gnoll associates have big plans regarding the Lost City of the Elders, but without some more information, the world can go on while these villains conduct their research in this location without the need to interrupt. Some gaming styles would prefer the "world is at stake" scenarios than this exploration style.
But these, I think, are minor quibbles. This is a solid AP!
Maure Castle offers a lot to the Greyhawk fan. Updates a 1e module, gives you loads of adventure hooks, creates a top tier villain, has room for expansion, and leaves a lot of mysteries open to your own interpretation. While some of these may be critiques in that there is too much left open, I think the positives far outweigh that.
In the description of one of the adventures, it was suggested that these levels in Maure Castle be treated like unexplored wilderness, there for the intrepid adventurer to explore, leave as they need, and free to come back again as desired. That is probably a good approach to this adventure series.
It is high level adventuring that you should consider adding to your Greyhawk campaigns.
Recently, I have been on a kick buying and going through third party Greyhawk products. One of the publishers has a proposed series of adventures set in the (name fuzzed up) Maure Castle area. Casl entertainment has a module C16 To the City of the Elder Gods that represents another add on to this already very large setting. This module is advertised to be the first of a proposed series.
The module is actually set in a demi-plane that is the gateway to the mysterious City of the Elders referred to throughout the adventure path. It seems that Eli and his cohorts found one of the triangular keys to the eight pointed star teleportation device and has used it to travel to this demi-plane which leads to the city. This adventure takes a party on the chase after Eli and having to deal with his followers and the weird influence of the evil plane itself.
So, check it out if you want to expand on the Maure Castle and solve the mysteries of the lost city!
In the recent few weeks, I have had the chance to read through many of my old issues of Dungeon Magazine and decided to go through the large Adventure Paths and see how they stack up.
Now disclaimer: I never ran these adventures as a DM or player. My little reviews are purely from the Greyhawk lore aspect. Some of them had better Greyhawk connection than others, some seemed just shoehorned in.
I will start with the first one - The Shackled City.
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That's fantastic that you've been revisiting your old issues of Dungeon Magazine and exploring the Adventure Paths. It's always interesting to see how they stack up, especially from a Greyhawk lore perspective. Your reviews, even if focused on the Greyhawk connection, provide valuable insights into how these adventures fit into the rich tapestry of the Greyhawk setting. It's stronger that some adventures may have a connection to Greyhawk lore, while others may feel more forced or unrelated. Starting with "The Shackled City" is a great choice. This Adventure Path holds a special place in many players' and DMs' hearts, as it was one of the first serialized adventures published in Dungeon Magazine. It takes adventurers on a thrilling journey through the city of Cauldron, uncovering a web of intrigue, danger, and ancient evils. The connection to Greyhawk lore in "The Shackled City" is well-established, with ties to the iconic Temple of Elemental Evil and the sinister Scarlet Brotherhood. I look forward to hearing more about your thoughts on other Adventure Paths and their Greyhawk connections. It's a wonderful opportunity to delve deeper into the lore and immerse ourselves in the ever-evolving world of Greyhawk. Keep sharing your reviews and insights![/url]
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