Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is an adventure written by Gary Gygax for use with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. The module is intended for use with characters of 8th to 12 levels of experience. The module is 76 pages long but more than half of that is maps and illustrations. The adventure was published in 1980 by TSR.
This was the first module that I ever participated in as a player. When I began playing Dungeons and Dragons in the summer of 1979 we had two dungeon masters. Both were friends of my older brother who had come back home from college for the summer. Each had played Dungeons and Dragons at their respective colleges and had come home intending to start a group with friends from high school. As the tag along little brother I came to the group with my older brother. The better of our two dungeon masters chose this module to run. By better I mean more skilled. The other DM was far more eager to run adventures on a regular basis so he tended to run most of the games. But this was one hell of a fun adventure at the time.
Mysterious attacks from creatures never seen before have devastated the lands in the Grand Duchy of Geoff. The Grand Duke has summoned the greatest adventurers in the land to go explore the source of these raiders and put an end to the raids.
This adventure involves a space ship that has landed on the World of Greyhawk. But it easily could have landed in your own campaign world. It is a multi-leveled ship with aliens, altered or mutated creatures from D&D and even robots. There are futuristic weapons and all kinds of futuristic technology.
One thing that is very well done in this module is the limits on this high tech stuff. Gary clearly understood how this kind of thing could blow up a campaign. Allowing characters unlimited access to laser guns and blaster rifles and grenades might make them overpowered and ruin any later fun. But these items all have limited charges. And they will soon deplete and be worthless.
The module does a great job of giving you illustrations to show the players. These illustrations allow the dungeon master to create the flavor of this future star ship without the need for boxed text.
The ship has six levels. Each level has a different theme. Each of these themes introduces different elements of the far future to the story.
There is no one big bad guy in this adventure. It is up to the players to explore and figure out how to complete their mission here.
Lots of new creatures and lots of new items fill the pages of this adventure. Granted….most of these will not be really useful for other adventures. But it is all new and different.
This adventure has lots to explore and plenty of combat challenges. But this is not a hack and slash type adventure. The place itself is a mystery. And the players must solve the mysteries in order to complete their mission.
This module is fun for everyone!
What I do not like about Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
There is a bit of repetition in monster encounters. There are a lot of robots. They can be encountered on several levels. There are a lot of vegepygmies. They can be encountered in many places.
There is not a lot of history given about the aliens or why they are on this world. That is left for the players and dungeon master to guess.
A lot of high tech gear is introduced in this adventure
Would I recommend this adventure to others?
Absolutely. This one is a classic. Once players are in this level range this is a great adventure to play or run. One could hardly go wrong running this with a group. It is fun to play and provides hours of entertainment.
Would I run Expedition to the Barrier Peaks with my own players?
I intend to once my group gets to these levels. I think this is one of the very best adventures written for this game.
New friends await you in this ship from the stars
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The Treasure Vaults of Lindoran is a Judges Guild adventure written for use with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. It is thirty four pages long. The adventure was written by Geoffry O. Dale and was published in 1980.
Long ago the Elf king saw that his kingdom was being overrun by a vast army of undead and demonic warriors. To protect the treasures of his kingdom he sealed his vault forever with magic. The king went off to defend his kingdom and then fell in battle.
Great treasures are said to be buried in this vault. The scepter and signet ring of the king along with a ring of power were lost here. The magical seals protecting this place from intrusion are wearing off now. It might be possible to break into the vaults. But now a new problem has arisen. An ancient red dragon sits beside the only entrance into the place. And he wants a piece of the action!
What I like about the Treasure Vaults of Lindoran
While it never specifically states a suggested level range it is clear that this adventure is intended for characters in the 8th to 10th level range. Characters of a little higher or lower level might still enjoy this adventure.
This was the first Judges Guild product I ever owned. I bought it around ’80 or ’81 from a store in Houston that sold a variety of in print and out of print RPG material along with quite a few boxed war games. And this store still exists!
This adventure contains a lot of magical tricks. I love these things and I just about never fail to point this out when I see it in other published work. This particular adventure uses this device to keep characters from teleporting in and out of the dungeon at will. The magical seals protecting this place along with the lead walls and other things prevent any such transportation.
The Treasure Vaults of Lindoran has lots of undead in it. Most of these are modified skeletons and zombies. They are just about everywhere and are intended to slowly grind down the resources (magic and hit points) of the players. There is a time limit, more or less, built into this adventure. For the doors open at specific intervals. Other than at these times the only way out is to find the magical items that will open the doors and allow exit. And then there will be that nasty red dragon waiting to greet the adventurers as they leave! Will he live up to any bargain that he makes?
The red dragon is a nice little touch. It is a role playing encounter right off the bat. Or the players could fight it. But then they will enter this place with a few dead characters or badly depleted on resources.
There are quite a few traps in this adventure. Many of them are pit traps. This is important. Because some of these pit traps have secret doors in them which lead to important areas of the dungeon. Should they be bypassed the adventurers might never find their way out or find the treasures.
The maps are simple. These were not even drawn on graph paper which most of the old Judges Guild Modules were.
Two new monsters are introduced. Neither is all that unusual but new monsters are always welcome. There are a couple of new magic items as well.
There are a whole lot of keys ans special locks in this adventure. This is an interesting thing to have if done correctly.
It has a false treasure room. I like false entrances and false treasure rooms. There is nothing like it for psyching out the players. They won’t know whether they have found what they are looking for until they get to the top again and discover that they still cannot get out.
There is no big bad boss here. There is treasure. There are monsters. And then it is all up to the adventurers to decide what they are going to do. It is not a good versus evil story. There certainly is evil here. But that is not the purpose of the adventurers. They are not here to save the kingdom. They are here to find treasure.
What I do not like about the Treasure Vaults of Lindoran
The zombies and skeletons are kind of repetitive. They literally are everywhere in the dungeon. They cannot be turned. And they are greatly enhanced. This makes them a fight every time they are encountered. It would not be a difficult fight though. It is more of a deplete the resources type of encounter.
While I like using keys in a dungeon the use of them in this one is kind of random. There is no real rhyme or reason on whether a key will work or not. On one door a silver key might be placed in a silver lock in order to open it. On the next one it might need to be placed in the gold lock. choosing wrong causes shock damage each time. I like the use of special locks that are the only means of opening doors or passages. But there needs to be some way for the adventurers to reason how to choose which key to use in a lock. Trial and error (causing damage each time) is not a great way to do it in my opinion.
Would I recommend this adventure to others?
Of course! It is a decent adventure for characters in the appropriate level range. And it is highly unlikely that your players would have read it already. I certainly did. But I suspect it was not all that widely distributed. There are a few decent challenges in this adventure and I think it will be very entertaining.
Would I run the Treasure Vaults of Lindoran with my own group?
I very well might. When my players get their characters to the right level range this one would be an interesting one to run.
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The Temple of Elemental Evil is a megadungeon. It is 145 pages long from cover to cover. It consists of four installments. This module was written by Gary Gygax and Frank Mentzer. It is set in the Wold of Greyhawk. The adventure was published by TSR in 1985.
Long ago a powerful demon was trapped and bound deep in a dungeon far beneath the earth. That demon is working it’s way free again. Two villages stand in close proximity to the ruins of this evil and desolate place. But the ruins are not uninhabited. New forces of evil, and good, have moved into these ruins.
In the summer of 1980 I was visiting my grandparents in the Biloxi, Mississpi area when I came across part of this module for the first time. It was at a KB toy store in a nearby mall. Up to this point all I had seen from TSR were the various giant modules and the Tomb of Horrors. I had not yet read any of the others. But I stumbled on T1 Village of Hommlet at this mall in a place I really never expected to find any Dungeons and Dragons stuff. Village of Hommlet was a stand alone product at the time. There was no “Temple of Elemental Evil” yet. None of the other T series installments had yet been published. Nor would they be for five more years. When I first bought this module I did not not what to expect. Or what to do with it. It seemed as if it was just intended to be a starting village for low level adventurers. And that is what I used it for.
At this point I was just starting High School. The Dungeons and Dragons group that I began with in 1979 only lasted until about ’81 or ’82. I started a couple of groups of my own with others from high school. But nothing really consistent was formed. After a few years I was off to college and more or less forgot about D&D for a while. The other installments of the series came out during that time I was not really into the game all that much any more. It was not until after I was done with school that I came back to the game and really began playing regularly again. And then I found this module again along with the additional portions that were not available for me when I first read it.
This is a mega dungeon. It is, more or less, an entire campaign from first to about eighth level. There are two separate villages presented. And one very large set of ruins with dungeons beneath it as well as portals to other planes. There are lots of magical “tricks” in this adventure which are a staple of Gygax adventures. If you have read any of my own adventures then you know how much I love these as well.
With such a large inhabited place a small low level group is not going to storm the place and kill everything in sight and then walk away with all of the loot. Instead they are going to have to make allies. They are going to have to play enemies off of each other. They are going to have to pick their enemies wisely. And they are going to have to use more than just their swords and spells to win the day.
This adventure has a big bad demon meanie and as the adventure progresses it becomes stronger and a little freer than it was when the game begins. Ultimately this demon is the boss of the dungeon but not in a specific sense. The demon does not run things here. It is just the baddest thing in town. There are other factions that vie for control of this place. And those each have their own designs for this demon which, of course, has plans of it’s own.
In addition to different factions in the dungeon there are also many prisoners here. Some can provide useful information. Some can become allies or even party members.
The different elemental planes come into play in this adventure. There are temples to each of these four planes of water, fire, earth and air. In different places in this dungeon there are portals to each of these planes and a little mini version of these planes provided in the form of elemental nodes.
This adventure is very much about Greyhawk. Back in the early 80s I was very interested in Greyhawk. But there was little published about it yet. There was this Greyhawk Folio thing that came out about then. I bought a copy back then. But it was really just a bunch of maps and a very terse description of each of the many lands in that world. It did not really do much for a budding young dungeon master that wanted to run games in that world. This adventure is an entire campaign within that world. Including a pair of demigods who are involved in what is happening in this temple.
Unlike some of the other early TSR adventures this one is not a giveaway fest. One problem that I had with the giant series is that it seems to just hand away magical goodies in every room despite Gygax specific admonitions against doing this in the DMG. But Temple of Elemental Evil does not really do this. Yes. There are magical items to find here. There are, in fact, many of them. But few are overly powerful. Most are really mundane items. Magical weapons with a +1 or +2 bonus. A few potions and scrolls. There is plenty of treasure of course. But much of it would be extremely difficult to extract. If you are playing by the book and are giving experience points on a one gold piece per one experience point basis for treasure extracted it is highly likely that taking treasure will be the backbone of the experience levels obtained here. And that is fine by me. I think that is how it was intended and that is how I run my own games. But killing this is fun too. And there will be plenty of that here.
The villages here are kind of complex. They are more than just a list of places one could visit. Some of the NPCs in those villages are involved in what is happening in the temple. Many of the NPCs are evil. I found that quite interesting when I first read T1 Village of Homlet. Because I had no idea of what was to follow.
The ruined moathouse from T1 Village of Hommlet
What I do not like about the Temple of Elemental Evil
One aspect of this adventure that I don’t especially like is actually a criticism of how many TSR adventures were written. If the author is going to tell us specifically how a room is laid out and what creatures are present in a room then why do they always tell us treasures in terms of random rolling? If we know there are six trolls in a room then why are we told that there is 2-8 pieces of jewelry in a room worth 2000-12000 each? This makes little sense to me. Why not just save the space (and our time) and tell us there are three pieces worth 1000 each or there is a brooch worth 1500, a ring worth 1200 and a necklace worth 2500? Wouldn’t that make more sense?
There are a whole lot of repetitive encounters here. There may be twenty rooms each with gnolls, trolls and bugbears. I realize that this makes for a sense of realism. But is there ever really a sense of realism in a dungeon adventure anyway? A bit of ignoring disbelief is kind of required for both players and dungeon masters in order to make the game work.
And I know this is a minor point. And I have mentioned it before in other reviews. But is it really necessary to tell us the room dimensions for every room in the heading when we have a map that clearly shows us all of the room dimensions? That seems like wasted text to me.
Would I recommend this adventure to others?
Absolutely. If you want to start a campaign for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons this module would give you many weeks (months or even years) of play. And it is set in Greyhawk which sets you up for using the giant series or one of the other myriad of TSR products later on.
Would I run the Temple of Elemental Evil with my own players?
If I were starting up again at first level I probably would. This would make it easy for me to run a campaign for quite a long time with minimal effort. There are extensive maps here and a whole lot of things for the adventurers to do. I think that it is a wonderful introduction in the Greyhawk world.
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The Mines of Custalcon is an adventure from Judges Guild for Original Dungeons and Dragons. It is 52 pages long. This adventure is actually part of the Judges Guild Wilderness series. It is the first installment. It is written by Bryan Hinnen. There is a short mini adventure included with this campaign book.
The Judges Guild Wilderness campaign is a series of modules which detail and map the areas around the City State. Much of this book are hex maps from that campaign world. This series, more or less, adds to the Wilderlands campaign. Most, if not all, of the Judges Guild Dungeons and Dragons products are set in this campaign world. This installment was published in 1979.
The wilderlands campaign of Judges Guild is really just an open world for the dungeon master to run a campaign in. It is pretty much the first published one. Yes….Greyhawk and Blackmoor existed before the Judges Guild one was published. But neither of those were published that early. TSR really did not understand the need to publish campaign settings or modules until they realized how popular the Judges Guild ones were becoming. And then they jumped in with both feet.
The Wilderlands setting sets up a detailed history and a whole lot of maps. There are descriptions of some interesting places in the individual hexes on those maps. But those are not detailed. That is left to the dungeon master to do. Many if the later installments in the series add detail to individual maps and hexes. Some of the later modules place themselves in specific places on these maps.
There are detailed random encounter tables and an extensive history set out. The local town has a description of all of the shops and the primary NPCs that might be met there.
The mini dungeon is three levels deep. It is fairly low level in terms of challenges.
What I do not like about the Mines of Custalcon
For the most part this is just a bunch of maps. There is a detailed village or two. And a small mini dungeon. But there is no real “adventure” here other than a couple of pages of the mini dungeon.
A lot of the Judges Guild wilderness installments are really kind of boring. So is this one. Yes….if you are going to run a campaign in this game world then you probably do want to own the products that give you the maps and overviews. But it is not exciting reading.
The mini dungeon is kind of dry. There is little in the way of magical tricks. There are a few monsters to fight and some treasures to loot. But that is about it.
Would I recommend this product to others?
If you intend to run a campaign in the Wilderness campaign then you probably would want to have this installment. If you are not going to run one there then I probably would not bother with it.
Would I use the Mines of Custalcon with my own party?
I have considered running a campaign in the Wilderness Campaign of Judges Guild. But I have always run things in my home brewed world which allows me to place just about any module in it anyway. So no. I probably won’t.
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Lich Lords is an adventure from Mayfair Games written by Lynn Sellers. It was published in 1985. It is part of their “Role Aids” series of adventures and products. This is the first of the Mayfair Games adventures that I have reviewed. These are written a bit differently that the TSR adventures or the Judges Guild ones. It takes a little getting used to when you read through it the first time. It is written for use with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. It does not specify which edition. My guess would be second given that it came out in that time frame. But it could easily be used with either.
This is a high level adventure. You could probably figure that out just by reading the name. But given that there are five Lich in this adventure….you might want to consider this before putting your players through this adventure. It states that it is for characters of 12th to 16th levels of experience. This is probably an accurate range. How difficult this adventure becomes depends greatly upon how quickly the adventurers get to the villains and face them. The more time it takes the stronger these villains become. For this reason it might be advisable to use the pre-generated characters provided with the adventure.
The general story line is this: ages ago five wizards were given golden crowns by the gods and nearly became gods themselves. The gods feared that they had made these wizards too powerful and then chose to destroy them. But the city that these wizards lived in survived. It was badly damaged. But the wizard kings recovered over the years and now have possession of their crowns again. They are becoming more powerful by the day. And soon they will be back to full strength again. The adventurers are summoned by the king and sent on a mission to destroy these Wizard Kings and their crowns so that the land can return to peace again.
What I like about Lich Lords
This adventure comes with a few creative ideas. The Lich getting more powerful over time is an interesting twist. Five Lich is scary. But five weakened ones isn’t nearly so. There are a few new rules provided (optional) that might make this adventure more interesting. These new rules cover the use of wishes. Naturally these Lich all have access to wishes. And they would use them for their own defense. The module offers some suggestions of specific wishes and the outcomes of them.
The adventure involves an ancient city. Basically it is a city of the dead. Naturally these Lich are the leaders of this place. And each of the Lich controls a different part of the city.
To succeed the adventurers need to play the Lich off of each other. As powerful wizards these guys all have huge egos. And rivalries. They will aid those who might make their own positions better. And this is their weakness which can be exploited. One who just goes crashing in and expects to kill all five without help will likely be rolling up new characters shortly afterwards.
Each of these Lich have different defensive setups. They have chosen different wishes to defend themselves. They have contingency spells set up to protect them. And each is still recovering power after regaining their crowns. Each has a unique spell list and will use these spells differently than the other Lich.
The adventure shows two versions of each Lich. One is the before the deadline version and the other is the fully recovered version. The players who get to the city quickly can meet the weakened versions of the Lich. Those who waste time will find them fully recovered.
Time is a critical factor in this adventure. To win…one must get to the city quickly and them go to work. Keeping track of time is essential. Providing the adventurers with side quests and delaying tactics is part of the job of the DM in this one.
There are parts of this adventure that are wilderness. And other parts are in a city. It is an old ruined city. So it is more or less just a dungeon. Parts of the wilderness adventure offer some key weapons that the adventurers might need in order to defeat these Lich.
Normally I am not a big fan of “read aloud” text. This is the boxed test that some adventures have for the DM to read to the players. In this case, however, the read aloud text is short and to the point. And it is not stilted language that no one would ever choose to use. In this adventure it should work just fine.
What I do not like about Lich Lords
The story line itself leaves a bit to be desired. Why do the adventurers choose to take this mission in the first place. What, exactly, is their motivation. If your players are anything like mine they are going to be asking exactly that. Why would I want to go up against five Lich. What is in it for me?
Five powerful Lich could easily make this a total party kill. It will be challenging….to say the least.
Would I recommend this adventure to others?
If your players have characters in the right level range for this adventure then I would recommend this one. It is a high level adventure. It will be challenging. You might want to consider using the pre-gens….if your players are really attached to those characters. And by the time characters are that high in level most people are really attached to them. But if you cannot find challenges for such characters then even the players will be thrilled to have one for a change.
Would I run this adventure with my own players?
I might. But I would probably use the pre-gens. Or I would wait until the characters are so high in level that they are getting bored with what I am putting in front of them on a regular basis. Groups do get like that. I have had a couple that have gotten to that point. When your characters start getting into the 12-14 level range there is not that much in the game that is really dangerous to them any more. Instead of one beholder to challenge them you might need six or seven. You can always throw more monsters at them but even that gets boring after a while. This adventure has some creative ideas on how to make these Lich more challenging. I think it would be interesting enough to run and I think my players would enjoy it.
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Zienteck is an adventure from Judges Guild written for use with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Unlike many of the adventures from Judges Guild this one specifies a level range for the characters who explore these dungeons. In this case the range of levels if 5th to 9th.
The Adventure is written by Mark Harmon (presumably not the guy from NCIS). The adventure is 32 pages long. About a third of these pages are maps. Both DM and player maps are provided. It was published in 1981.
This adventure takes place in the Black Angel Woods. Within those woods lies the stronghold of the wizard Zienteck. This stronghold was destroyed by dragons that were angered by the wizard. The wizard, himself, was killed during this attack. But his treasures have never been recovered. Many brave adventurers have tried to explore these ruins but none, as yet, have returned alive.
What I like about Zienteck
This is a basic greed adventure. There are no lofty goals here. This is strictly players trying to enrich their characters by exploring a place where treasures are known to exist. There are no railroads here. The adventurers are free to do as they will.
There are dragons here. Several of them. And some are quite powerful. And some are not so much. A bunch of valuable treasure can be taken from these dragons. But no magic will be obtained from them. For that the adventurers will need to explore the dungeon levels underground. But defeating all these dragons is no easy feat. Especially for characters in this level range.
At least two new creatures are provided in this adventure….the Black Angel….and the Fire Chameleon.
The adventure offers a few interesting tricks and traps. And there are several challenging monster encounters within the dungeon.
A few hints and clues are left in places around the dungeon that may allow the adventures to avoid some of the more dangerous hazards….if they pay attention to them…..
The maps are more detailed than most Judges Guild products. This is especially true of the overland maps which are excellently done.
What I do not like about Zienteck
There is very little magic to be found anywhere in the adventure. That is not necessarily a bad thing but it will likely disappoint players running through this adventure. There is, however, plenty of gold and jewels which is still a good thing to find.
At times the author thinks he is particularly funny in places where he really isn’t. I have seen that kind of thing before in some of the Judges Guild modules where the author is talking to the DM in the text of the dungeon in places but probably should not be doing so. It is not really necessary and takes away from the seriousness of the writing.
Would I recommend this adventure to others?
Yes, I would. This is a solid adventure for characters of this level range. Characters attempting to fight the dragons will find that this encounter kicks their ass. It should. But the rewards are great and this might be just a bit too tempting for some. A total party kill there is easily possible. But this is a risk that is up to the adventurers. The dungeon beneath the ruins is quite within the abilities of adventurers in this level range.
Would I run Zienteck with my own group?
I would. And I might. My current group is working through the Caverns of Thracia so they are not currently in the right level range for this one yet. But six months from now……who knows….
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Spies of Lightelf is the second installment of the Wilderness series published by Judges Guild. Basically these are more detailed portions of the much larger maps already provided in previous installments. These additions fill in the blanks of this much larger world. Many of the later supplements published by Judges Guild add a little bit more on to this evolving campaign world as well as adding specific adventures within it.
Spies of Lightelf was written by Bryan Hinnen and was published in 1980. It is 48 pages long and adds another 25 maps to the world. This module provides descriptions for two villages or towns. One is primarily gnomes with a few humans. The other is entirely elves. It is written for Original Dungeons and Dragons.
Evil gnomes? What is there not to like about that? The gnomes and humans that live in the village are mostly chaotic evil. All of the humans are. About 70% of the gnomes are evil as well. The rest are mostly neutral except for the king of the gnomes which is lawful good.
The gnomes have, more or less, been conquered by an evil kingdom of humans. And now they provide lumber to this much larger kingdom of conquerors.
What I do not like about Spies of Lightelf
The first thing that I would point out is that there is no adventure at all in this module. It is merely a description of the towns and the wider lands around them. There are no dungeons or places of exploration provided other than this.
About half of this entire booklet are hex maps of the larger lands around these two villages. The product is basically just an add on to this bigger world.
Would I recommend this module to others?
Probably not. If one wants to run a campaign in the Judges Guild game world then this probably would be useful to have. Otherwise…probably not…..
Would I run Spies of Lightelf with my own group?
No. I would not. If I ran a campaign in the Judges Guild game world then perhaps I might use this supplement but otherwise I probably would not.
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Portals of Twilight is an adventure from Judges Guild written for use with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. This is one of three adventures in a series involving magical portals to other worlds. Technically, this is the third such adventure, in the series. It is written by Rudy Kraft. The adventure is forty eight pages long including the covers and maps. Portals of Twilight was published in 1981.
This product is related to Portals of Torsh and Portals of Irontooth. In this adventure the explorers are taken to a different kind of world than the other two in the series.
The world of Twilight is different than our own. The planet rotates so slowly that it always faces it’s sun with the same side of the planet. As a result the half of the planet in sunlight is incredibly hot and uninhabitable. The half of the planet facing away from the sun is incredibly cold. It can be survived but the vast majority of the inhabitants live on the edges between darkness and full view of the sun. This area is the Twilight. This area is about 900 miles wide across the planet surface.
There are many portals on this world. The adventurers will need to find the correct one if they ever wish to return home. The inhabitants of this world are not much different than those of the home world in which the adventurers come.
These portals are iron archways with colored mist in between. These colors change from minute to minute. Some of these portals are a two way variety. Others are one way only. And a third type are totally random in nature.
I like that this is a very unique world for the adventurers to explore. And the adventurers can romp around a while in this world and then move on to the next one (if the series is being run) or return to their normal campaign if they wish to.
Magical portals are an interesting “trick” that the players may enjoy for a while. Different worlds are always interesting to the players. This particular world has some hostile places in it. Wandering far from the Twilight area of the planet can reveal vastly different and hostile places. There are many important points of interest to visit on this world. And they are mapped and detailed in the text.
This adventure provides a place to explore and then says “go.” There is no fixed story line (that I can see anyway). So the players are on their own to decide what they intend to go explore here. Or they could just make their mission to find a way home. It is up to them.
A couple of new monsters are introduced including a new dragon with a creative breath weapon. There are also a couple of new magic items related to the world and the portals.
What I do not like about Portals of Twilight
There is no real motivational purpose for the explorers here. Why do they go through the portal at all? Is their only goal to get home? Or is there something else on this world worth finding? If so I didn’t when I read through it. There are some lairs and big encounters to find. And treasures.
If the adventurers cannot find the right portal home they might be stuck here a while. And that could spell doom for a campaign if the players find it boring. However, if the characters find it, there is a way to buy knowledge about the portals on the black market in one of the cities. This might be the key to finding one’s way home.
Would I recommend this adventure to others?
I think that this adventure is interesting enough that it would merit consideration. If a Dungeon Master is looking for something different to shake up a campaign this might be it. Sending the players to a new world might keep the interest going. So, yes, I would recommend it if that sounds like something that would interest you and your players.
Would I run Portals of Twilight with my own adventurers?
I might. I intend to run my own players through a few low level adventure modules. After that who knows? Something like this might just be the ticket.
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Portals of Irontooth is the second installment of the Portals series from Judges Guild This adventure, like the others in the series, is written for use with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. It was written by Rudy Craft. And it was published in 1981. The module is 48 pages long.
The three installments of this series include:
Portals of Torsh
Portals of Irontooth
Portals of Twilight
Each of these portal adventures takes the adventurers to a new and unique world. In this installment the adventurers land on a world where iron is the most common element. Iron is in the plants and wildlife. Many of the creatures even have iron teeth.
Portals to a new world are always welcome. Players like exploring places that are different than anything that they expect. A world where iron is in everything that they encounter is a pretty unusual place.
It offers us a new dragon. The iron dragon. It also offers us iron variants of several familiar foes.
What I do not like about Portals of Irontooth
Other than the Iron everywhere there is nothing particularly interesting about this adventure. There is not even a dungeon provided here which is highly unusual for a Judges Guild product. It is merely a place with a few set encounter areas and a lot of wandering monster tables. The premise for this one is kind of weak. Sending the adventurers to a new and alien world is great if they have something specific to do there. When they do not…..things get a little confusing.
Would I recommend this adventure to others?
Probably not. I see no valid reason for this product to have been written. Without a specific goal on this new world why would the adventurers want to go there? And what are they supposed to do when they are there? Just wander and look around?
Would I run Portals of Irontooth with my own party?
No. I think I would have to choose a better adventure to run than this one. This one left me kind of wondering why it even exists. There is no real adventure in it. There is no dungeon. There is a town or two. But so what? That alone is not worth the trouble of breaking this out. I liked the Portals of Twilight product much better and that is coming in a later review.
This adventure is 48 pages of maps, area descriptions and random encounter tables without much else. It is more like a setting than an adventure. Maybe that was the point? I really do not know.
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Sword of Hope is an adventure from Judges Guild written for use with Original Dungeons and Dragons. It is written by Dave Emigh and was published in 1980. It is thirty six pages from cover to cover. This adventure was written to be the sequel to the adventure Tower of Ulission.
Unfortunately, I could not get a copy of Tower of Ulission to read, before reviewing this adventure. So it is entirely possible that my lack of understanding of this module may have a great deal to do with that.
This adventure requires the adventurers to solve a number of riddles in order to reach the conclusion. These riddles involve the sword wars of over a thousand years ago. In order to complete this mission the adventurers will have to visit two very dangerous places while avoiding a confrontation with the ultimate villain. In order to avoid the early confrontation they will have to leave their magic items behind and take only those provided. These items have certain protections on them to prevent them from being noticed. These items are special. Some are even intelligent.
What I like about Sword of Hope
I love a lot of the hold Judges Guild adventures. So I expected to love this one too. I was mistaken. It is, however, short. Thirty six pages is not long for a Judges Guild adventure. And much of this one is spent on the background. really only about 20 pages are the details of the two dungeons.
There are tons of riddles and poems here. That adds a bit of flavor to the place.
There are a few magical tricks which are always interesting to me. I am always looking to add to my collection.
What I do not like about Sword of Hope
Without reading the preceding adventure I needed a little background. But there is far too much of it in this adventure. The first ten pages are pretty much the set up for the next twenty five. That is a lot. And it is kind of boring too. To make matters worse there is more background later in the module and player read only text as well. That being said there is almost one half of the module devoted to background.
Most of the combat here is the same two or three creatures over and over again. In fact the writer tells you up front what each of these three types of bad guys are and then just says ok two of these and one of those in each of the room descriptions.
This is set up so that the adventurers really cannot back out or retire from the dungeons. If they do they will find that the rooms behind them have been filled with more bad guys. This is not necessarily bad but it might well lead to a total party kill if the adventurers use too many resources too early.
The riddles and poems here are long and nearly impossible to understand or solve. Without solving them the players will ultimately fail in the quest.
Some of the tricks and traps are just gotcha things. They are not really fair and are lethal. For example in one place there is a room in which the adventurers walk by a symbol of death. They all must save or die. There is a cryptic warning somewhere else in the dungeon about this room but still….
In another area it is really hot. The players must save versus the heat or lose one half of their hit points immediately. Even if they save they lose one quarter of them. I do not really like that kind of thing.
Would I recommend this adventure to others?
Overall…..this was not one of Judges Guild’s more impressive efforts. I would not recommend this one. Granted. I have not read the preceding module. And that might well change my opinion. Perhaps I would understand more about the entire adventure if I did. If I can get a copy I may revisit this review at a later time.
Would I run Sword of Hope with my own players?
Probably not. I did not especially like the repetitive nature of the encounters. I do not think my players would either.
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