Gems for Death and Brotherhood of the Bolt

[Gurubabaramalamaswami]

I remember reading reviews for these adventures back in the day (somewhere is the #70s to #80s or so). I'm trying to find out if anyone has them on pdf or something. DrivethruRPG doesn't have them according to its search engine and I'm not even sure who the publisher was. Roger Moore or Kim Mohan was the reviewer I think.

I appreciate any help any of you can lend me.

[Quel]

Gurubabaramalamaswami wrote:

I remember reading reviews for these adventures back in the day (somewhere is the #70s to #80s or so). I'm trying to find out if anyone has them on pdf or something. DrivethruRPG doesn't have them according to its search engine and I'm not even sure who the publisher was. Roger Moore or Kim Mohan was the reviewer I think.

I appreciate any help any of you can lend me.

Publisher was a company call Companions. I have not seen a pdf for any of their products.

[Gurubabaramalamaswami]

Thank you very much. To further pester you (or others)...anyone know who the authors were?

[JRM]

Gurubabaramalamaswami wrote:

Thank you very much. To further pester you (or others)...anyone know who the authors were?

I own all four of the Companion adventures that saw print - A Curse on Hareth (Author: Wm John Wheeler), Brotherhood of the Bolt (Wm John Wheeler & Peter L Rice), Plague of Terror (Wm John Wheeler) and Street of Gems (Peter L Rice). If you point your browser here you can see the covers of the Companion products. None are available as pdfs, as far as I'm aware.

"Gems for Death" was the name of one of the plotlines ("gems" being a codeword for slaves being smuggled for use as human sacrifice), the module series was called "The Islandian Campaign Series".

There were another two adventures planned - a temple of a poison-god and and an orc fortress containing a death shrine, but they never got published.

I can tell you more about the plots/contents if you like but you'd need to wait, I'm supposed to be working!

[Gurubabaramalamaswami]

Ahhh...seeing the covers refreshes my memory. Street of Gems is actually the one I'm really looking for. I can remember the Dragon Magazine review making a big deal about its mature themes. I think its scenario would fit well into a Ptolus campaign.

Anyone know how I can get a copy or a pdf?

[JRM]

Gurubabaramalamaswami wrote:

Ahhh...seeing the covers refreshes my memory. Street of Gems is actually the one I'm really looking for. I can remember the Dragon Magazine review making a big deal about its mature themes. I think its scenario would fit well into a Ptolus campaign.

Anyone know how I can get a copy or a pdf?

As far as I know they're not available as pdfs. I think your best bet is to check ebay periodically, plus trawl the internet for second-hand RPG vendors like Noble Knight Games.

Hmm, here's an ebay vendor offering Street of Gems at this moment, but they're demanding $39.95 for it, plus P&P. That seems way too much.

It looks like I've misled you, there was an adventure called Gems for Death (it's the fifth Companions module I referred to earlier, the one with the evil temple of the poison-god). (See here for the covers)

Dang it, I asked several UK vendors back in the late 80s & early 90s whether parts 5 & 6 ever saw print and they said they hadn't. Now I'm going to have to worry about tracking it down!

I'm pretty sure that the sixth adventure planned, Sacrifices to the Orc Lord, which concluded the 'Gems for Death' story arc, never saw print.

By the way, there's an interesting thread discussing the Islandia campaign series here.

Anyhows, I should be starting work now so I need to sign off. Hope that's of help.

[Scott Thompson 78]

Wm John Wheeler, one of the authors in question, honored me with his close friendship for the past 12 years. He recently died from complications of diabetes.

I have a great deal of his source material on Islandia, as well as a good deal of material he worked on afterwards. I am in the process of completing a module he and Peter started called "The Black Riders".

I am in touch with Peter Rice occasionally, and will float to him the idea of publishing some of the material in pdf form. I'm not sure what the legalities are, though, as the older works were sold to various publishers.

-Scott Thompson

[Pathfinder Way]

Scott Thompson 78 wrote:

Wm John Wheeler, one of the authors in question, honored me with his close friendship for the past 12 years. He recently died from complications of diabetes.

I have a great deal of his source material on Islandia, as well as a good deal of material he worked on afterwards. I am in the process of completing a module he and Peter started called "The Black Riders".

I am in touch with Peter Rice occasionally, and will float to him the idea of publishing some of the material in pdf form. I'm not sure what the legalities are, though, as the older works were sold to various publishers.

-Scott Thompson

Hi Scott - I do interviews for the official Classic D&D / Known World of Mystara website. Awhile back, I interviewed "Lance", one of the original players in John Wheeler's Islandian Campaign. http://pandius.com/lance.html

(It's relevant to the Known World setting since TSR planned to publish Wheeler's Islandia as a new continent in the Known World setting - but BX1: The Islandia Campaign was canceled as TSR management changed its mind and decided to convert the Known World to AD&D 2E.)

Any chance I could also chat with you about Islandia? I have a number of questions - the foremost of which is: is there a map of Islandia? My understanding is that the campaign map was based on a real-world topographic map of Maine, which Wheeler then modified by elevating the water level so that its hilly landscape became an array of islands. Is this right?

-Travis (traversetravis at protonmail dot com)