JG 0210 Inferno Review

Inferno is an Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st Edition module written for Judges Guild by Geoffry O. Dale. This is a 68 page old school adventure involving the planes of hell itself. It was first published in 1980.

Judges Guild produced many early Dungeons and Dragons and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons adventures. Some of these modules are classics. Inferno is one of these. Not because it so spectacularly written. It isn’t. And not because of the artwork. The artwork was okay for it’s time but by today’s standards is extremely low budget. But it is classic for it’s very subject matter.

At a time when Dungeons and Dragons was being attacked by religious leaders and parents about some ridiculous ideas of the game involving devil worship Judges Guild produces a module for the game involving……the Nine Hells…..

The adventure basically adapts the ancient poem “Dante’s Inferno.” It takes that poem’s descriptions of hell and makes them into a Dungeons and Dragons module. It attempts to faithfully follow the road map set out by Dante. The adventurers find themselves on the road to hell and must find their way out in this module.

Things that I liked about this adventure

It is hard. Following the path to hell and back is not going to be easy. Low level characters need not apply. There are lots of devils and arch-devils to be found in this adventure. Some of the devils described in this adventure were not even in the AD&D Monster Manual.

The module adds many new monsters. It adds a few new spells. And it adds new magic items and even artifacts.

There are few long descriptions of areas in this adventure. In typical Judges Guild fashion most of the encounters are not described in length. Instead they are set out in a manner that lets the Dungeon Master do the rest.

It is a fairly long adventure. Inferno is nearly 70 pages long. But little of this material is wasted space. Most of the text gets right to the point.

Things that I did not like about Inferno

It is incomplete. The story ends at the 5th circle of hell.

While I like the fact that Judges Guild adventures often get right to the point it would be nice, sometimes, if they gave us a little more description than they do.

Many of the new monsters are really just duplicate versions of ones already in the Monster Manual and add nothing new.

In one part of the adventure there is a demon. In Hell? Demons belong in the Abyss.

Sometimes the writer seems to ramble a bit. The text is not nearly as clean and clear as it could be.

Would I recommend this adventure?

Yes. I would. I think it would be fun to run a high level party through hell. I have considered doing so many times with my own players. And this module would greatly reduce the amount of work involved. But as I said….it is incomplete.

Would I run Inferno with my own players?

Probably not as is. It would require a great deal of revision and extra work before I would feel comfortable running it with my own group.

Unfortunately I do not have a link for you to purchase this module at this time. Should this change I will update this review. Thanks to a couple of the readers of this article I now have an active link for you:

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