JG 114 The Maltese Clue Review

The Maltese Clue is an adventure published by Judges Guild. It was written for use with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons by Paul Karczag. It was published in 1979. From cover to cover the adventure is 52 pages long inclusive of maps and illustrations.

This is another Judges Guild adventure written originally for tournament play. This particular scenario is made for play in one session. Pre-generated characters are provided for this purpose.

Long ago a wizard named Casta built a castle and ran a school for magic with his wife. When she died from an unfortunate disease he closed the school and retreated from public life. Recently a sailor brings a package to Sam Spade. Spade is a thief and is one of the pre-generated characters. The package is a magical book. The owner does not have the “key” to opening this book. The key can be found in the castle. The owner of the book offers 75000 gold pieces for the adventurers to obtain this key. It must be brought back before the next evening’s tide.

This adventure is basically set up as if it is an old Detective novel (or movie) such as the Maltese Falcon. The only problem is this mystery comes with some really dangerous characters. For Casta and his wife have become Lich.

In typical Judges Guild fashion no mention is made of specific levels of experience needed for play. The pre-generated characters, however, seem to be in the 6th to 8th level range.

What I like about The Maltese Clue

Mystery stories are fun if done well. The background on this story is a bit longer than some of the most recent Judges Guild adventures that I have reviewed. But it is not overly long.

There are some interesting tricks sprinkled in this adventure. By tricks I am referring to those little magical things one might encounter in the dungeon which are unexplained and confound the adventurers trying to understand them. I am stealing a few of those ideas for my own campaigns.

It has Liches. I love Liches. And these ones may, or may not, choose to attack the party. It depends upon the party’s actions. And this is interesting. Because these Liches are really not all that evil. One other point I should mention. In AD&D there is a debate about who exactly can become a Lich. Most authorities insist that it must be a magic user or a magic user/cleric. I have mentioned before in other articles and forum threads something which this adventure clearly points out. While necromantic magic is necessary in order to become a Lich there is no requirement that the Lich be the one who casts these spells. This could potentially allow just about any class to become a Lich. In this case one of the Lich is a Cleric and not a Magic User.

There are some pretty interesting maps in this adventure. Most are small. But there are lots of them. Some are caverns and some are stone castle levels. Some player maps are even provided (assuming that they are found).

It invents a couple of new monsters and a couple of new magic items. This is always a welcome thing my book.

What I do not like about The Maltese Clue

The Sam Spade, Humphrey Bogart, allusions really do not work in this module. Using movies and real life personalities in a fantasy adventure really does not fit well. Also…where is the mystery here? There is not much in the way of mystery or clues or anything of that sort. There is a book. There is a poem (riddle). And there is the key to it. That is pretty much it.

Many of the creatures in this castle do not seem to belong together in the same place. Granted….the Lich Casta was studying many creatures. This pretense is barely sufficient to justify the inclusion of many of these creatures in the same place.

I do not like adventures which basically railroad the players into accepting a mission. That is how this one begins. I realize….it is a tournament module. So obviously you do not want the players choosing their own mission instead.

For a tournament module no mention of scoring or how to score are offered. In fact….there is no real talk about objectives met or solutions to individual rooms or encounters. The only mission is to get the key on time and get out.

There are a whole lot of encounters and areas to explore. Normally this would be a good thing. But for a timed adventure not so much. There is little chance that anyone is going to complete this in the four hours allotted for the tournament play. There are far too many dungeon levels and monster encounters. This would be ok for campaign play. But for a tournament I do not see it succeeding.

Would I recommend this adventure to others?

I would certainly not recommend it as a tournament module. For campaign play it would probably be fine. For a one shot adventure it might also be fun to play but it would likely be a long one. It was designed for four hours but it will play much longer than that. The author even admits in the text that none of the parties that he ran managed to finish it in that time.

Would I run The Maltese Clue with my own party?

I am totally not sure. I do like adventures with Liches. And my players hate them. Which makes me want to run it just to piss them off. But these Liches are not really the enemy. They may be the boss of the dungeon but they are not out to get anyone. They are actually kind of bored and looking to find out what is going on in the outside world around them.

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