Whoa!
You know, to this day, I regard "The Sunless Citadel" to be the best introductory module ever.
And I used to spend long periods of time converting 2E adventures to 3.0, so I generally did so with only short adventures. One of the biggest exceptions was "The Shattered Circle". It took me forever to convert, but it was worth it! The depiction of those Chitine creatures and their culture was fascinating! And I've never seen Chitines outside that particular module.
And although I've never run any dungeon crawl longer than 32 pages, I found "The Gates of Firestorm Peak" to be interesting enough to use PARTS of it, at least.
Best of luck to him.
Is he fully retiring or simply moving somewhere new?
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I wish him well and I'm sure he'll keep turning up.
Maybe he'll even write some stuff for PF. ^_^
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IMHO Bruce is one of the five best adventure writers in the business (possibly top two or three), so I hope he'll give his novels a break long enough to contribute an occasional AP installment or Pathfinder module.
IMHO Bruce is one of the five best adventure writers in the business (possibly top two or three), so I hope he'll give his novels a break long enough to contribute an occasional AP installment or Pathfinder module.
Yup. Bruce Cordell module = Yay! Bruce Cordell novel = Nay.
I liked his work on 3.0 and 3.5 psionics....but his work on FR was a little too much sci-fi for that setting.
Though I do think he would do a great job with Numeria...if Pazio could get him.
Publisher, Chief Creative Officer
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We would love to have him write something for us. Bruce is one of the best adventure writers since the beginning of the business, in my book, and a pal going back to the Ptolus campaign.
Good for Bruce. It's exciting to me to think about what we might get from him next.
- Gates of Firestorm Peak
- Sahuagin trilogy
- Illithid trilogy
- Return to the Tomb of Horrors
- The Sunless Citadel
Awww, yeah.
(Unfortunately, he hit a bit of a rough patch after those and hasn't been the same since, IMO.)
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We would love to have him write something for us. Bruce is one of the best adventure writers since the beginning of the business, in my book, and a pal going back to the Ptolus campaign.
Good for Bruce. It's exciting to me to think about what we might get from him next.
Perhaps the inevitable Pathfinder take on psionics / psychic magic? He is available now after all ... :)
- Gates of Firestorm Peak
- Sahuagin trilogy
- Illithid trilogy
- Return to the Tomb of Horrors
- The Sunless Citadel(Unfortunately, he hit a bit of a rough patch after those and hasn't been the same since, IMO.)
RttToH was a tour-de-force. Anyone who can not only successfully build off the original, but actually trump it in the process, is nothing short of a genius.
Return to White Plume Mountain was a lot of fun, too, especially because it allowed Bruce to work off of Lawrence Schick's original -- which was itself a masterpiece of "it doesn't have to make any sense because it's so damned cool" adventure design.
I never got to see GoFP, but I've heard good things about it.
P.S. What are the "trilogies" you listed?
What are the "trilogies" you listed?
Back in 1996-98, there were a few AD&D accessories called "Monstrous Arcana" describing certain monsters. One was called "The Sea Devils" by Skip Williams. It took a look at sahuagin, and Bruce Cordell wrote a trilogy of modules ("Evil Tide", "Night of the Shark", and "Sea of Blood") supporting that book. Cordell also wrote another Monstrous Arcana book called "The Illithiad" and a mind-flayer-focused module trilogy supporting that book ("A Darkness Gathering", "Masters of Eternal Night", and "Dawn of the Overmind").
(Before all these, there was a similar series about beholders, but those weren't by Cordell.)
Dude, I totally missed those! Ten more Cordell modules to find, convert, and play? WIN!
Thanks for the info.
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On the subject of sahuagin source material ...
This is a trivial piece of information, but does this leave 4 or 5 employees left at WotC who made the move from the old TSR?
Wow, hate to see him go, but he must've had a good reason. I'm a big fan of a lot of his 3.5 works(not as familiar with his 2e and 4e ones). Wish him the best of luck!
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IMHO Bruce is one of the five best adventure writers in the business (possibly top two or three), so I hope he'll give his novels a break long enough to contribute an occasional AP installment or Pathfinder module.Yup. Bruce Cordell module = Yay! Bruce Cordell novel = Nay.
Well, 'Darkvision' is still one of my favorite FR novels. The rest of his aren't nearly as good, though.
Dude, I totally missed those! Ten more Cordell modules to find, convert, and play? WIN!
Thanks for the info.
Just out of curiosity, what are the "ten" to which you refer? My post, to which you responded, mentioned six modules (and one accessory) by Cordell. The other accessory, and the four books to which I briefly referred, weren't by Cordell. You also mentioned that you never got to see "The Gates of Firestorm Peak" so if we expand the meaning of the word "module" to include the accessory, that might account for eight.
So what are the other two? "The Sunless Citadel" and "The Shattered Circle", perhaps?
So what are the other two? "The Sunless Citadel" and "The Shattered Circle", perhaps?
I've got Sunless Citadel, but wasn't it part of a trilogy? If so, I missed the others.
Also, never did Die, Vecna, Die! just because of the stupid title -- but if it's a Cordell adventure, I might re-think that.
So, the 6 you mentioned + GoFP + 2 Sunless sequels + DVD = 10.
I've got Sunless Citadel, but wasn't it part of a trilogy?
Well... sort of.
Actually, "The Sunless Citadel" was the first module of an eight-module series written to introduce D&D 3.0. I believe, although others might correct me on this point, that this eight-part series, designed to take a party from 1st level to beyond 20th, was the first set of modules ever to be called "the Adventure Path" (although it wouldn't qualify as an adventure path by today's standards).
But yes, Cordell did indeed write three of those eight: #1 ("The Sunless Citadel"), #5 ("Heart of Nightfang Spire") and #8 ("Bastion of Broken Souls"). Those three happen to be loosely linked...
Aren't Heart of Nightfang Spire and Bastion of Broken Souls also Cordell?
Lady of Poison was so-so. Darkvision and Stardep were good, partly thanks to the technological style. Abolethic Sovereignty was imaginative. All told, he is one of two designers whose name makes me buy unseen. The other is Nicholas Logue.
Best wishes and a sincere hope for getting some PF out of him.
Anyone know if the character Ucec Ordel from PS monstrous compendium refers to him?
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I've got Sunless Citadel, but wasn't it part of a trilogy?Well... sort of.
Actually, "The Sunless Citadel" was the first module of an eight-module series written to introduce D&D 3.0. I believe, although others might correct me on this point, that this eight-part series, designed to take a party from 1st level to beyond 20th, was the first set of modules ever to be called "the Adventure Path" (although it wouldn't qualify as an adventure path by today's standards).
But yes, Cordell did indeed write three of those eight: #1 ("The Sunless Citadel"), #5 ("Heart of Nightfang Spire") and #8 ("Bastion of Broken Souls"). Those three happen to be loosely linked...
** spoiler omitted **
A story dear to my twisted black, orange, and magenta hearts, yeeesssss.
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I was going to leave this thread all extolling Bruce, but if we're mentioning other awesome adventure writers:
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I can't remember if Chris Perkins titled the first ever separately published yet connected-in-a-campaign an "Adventure Path" -- I think he did; anyway, that was The Mere of Dead Men series from Dungeon #69-73.
That was the beginning.
Readers of Dungeon had been asking for years while the editors, from Barbara Young to Dave Gross to Wolfgang Baur, always said Dungeon couldn't risk publishing linked adventures (it was still bi-monthly, remember).
Chris Perkins as EiC finally said yes and Adventure Paths were born. The Mere of Dead Men Series was so popular it convinced Chris Perkins, through his protege and successor, Chris Thomasson (Youngs), to start The Shackled City Adventure Path a few years later when the magazine (thanks to Chris Perkins) was healthy again (and now monthly and in full color).
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You'll have to list some of the stuff he did, then. I'm not familiar with him.
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Ah, sunless citadel. I played that one, and it was fun, but re-reading the story now (years after I first played it) it's actually so far below the level of Paizo's adventure modules it was almost painful to read. Just a collection way too many repetitive, hard to map rooms. Maybe that was more out of a policy of WotC, but the adventure and it's format are just not what I'm used to expect.
Never got to read anything else by him.
I was really underwhelmed with Sunless Citadel, but to be fair, IIRC it was intended as a vehicle to get people quickly used to the mechanics of the 3.0 ruleset, more than as a straight-up adventure.
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Sunless Citadel was great because of the Kobold "helper" and the Underdark apple tree that grew from the wooden stake that slew a vampire & grew a black apple.
But honestly, the Kobold was just an homage (or a rip-off) of Tracy Hickman's Gully Dwarf, Bupu. And the evil apple tree story may not appeal to everyone.
The actual encounters were banal.
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I don't know about connected modules.
Slavers were tournament modules, and they had to add backstory to link them, but they were definitely linked...and fed into Against the Giants.
the whole Hommlet-Temple of Elemental Evil - Slavers-GDQ series is the very first long AP. It has dungeons, caves, intro'd the drow, Sandbox elements with that awesome map of Deepearth, the Vault and incredible random encounters, and you go get to kill a demon lord on another plane! (say, hasn't that last been imitated 3-4 times now?)
==Aelryinth
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@Orthos & Kirth,
(since you asked)
Like James Jacobs, Chris Perkins got published as a kid in Dungeon way early in its run (Perkins in #11, Jacobs in #12). But Perkins' adventure is better than Jacobs' Choose-Your-Own-Adventure module.
Perkins' module ("Wards of Witching Ways") is a clever little adventure where the PCs get shipwrecked on a small island w/ castle and the castle's Wizard and his Familiar make a friendly bet about the PCs surviving the Wizard's castle as they explore it. So the whole time the PCs are falling for the Wizard's tricksy encounters while the Familiar is mysteriously helping them from afar -- and the PCs have no idea what's going on. Considering it came from a teenager in 1988...
Later, Chris Perkins became Associate Editor under Wolfgang Baur and then Editor in Chief. He is easily the greatest editor in Dungeon's run. Roger was great but overworked. Barbara did a billion years but not many great things were written. Baur was SUPER awesome but Perkins made Dungeon great. It was about to be cancelled around issue 61, 62 -- and it even went 6 months without publishing anything before #63. Chris Perkins saved the magazine. Then he made it full color. Then he made it monthly. And the adventures started getting really good. Only the adventures in Erik Mona's run as EiC are better.
But even that isn't all. Every issue from about 50 to about 80 has a Chris Perkins adventure. And, honest to god, they are all good. A handful are downright brilliant. (Others are solid, well written) "Umbra" is the best Planescape adventure ever and that's saying something when you consider Monte Cook's Dead Gods among others. You could easily put over a dozen of his adventures in a top 100 of all time list and you'd have to put a good 10 of his in a top 20 2E adventures.
In issue 100 he wrote "Lich Queen's Beloved" as the "special 100th issue" adventure which is incredibly unoriginal and uninspired -- but still plays incredibly well.
When Paizo did their top 10 list, two of Chris Perkins, adventures were listed.
Unfortunately, Chris Perkins is also the guy that, when WotC killed the magazines and ended the Dungeons & Dragons game, stepped forward at GenCon like an idiot saying 4E was gonna be so great and we should be profuse in our thanks to WotC for ruin gaming.
He's still the top cheese in WotC as far as design and such.
WotC's equivalent to Jacobs.
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@Aelryinth,
A1-A4, Like G1-G3,D1-D3,Q1 were GenCon tourneys, like you said, that later got published as modules. This was a decade before Dungeon came along, though. I think a better example is Tracy Hickman's I3, I4, I5, Desert of Desolation which were not tourney modules, just related.
I guess I'm only talking about Dungeon, and later, Pathfinder Adventure Paths.
I wouldn't count T1 and T4, partly because there are technically no T2 or T3 and they were published 5 years apart. They both stand completely alone. And Frank Mentzer co-wrote T4 with Gygax. Sure, 4 different guys wrote the A Series, but still, I wouldn't count T1 & T4. Maybe that's just me.
Can you list a few more of his adventures so I can track them down? That's a lot of info about him but not really what I asked for except for the small handful listed there =)
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@Orthos,
Gimme 'til Monday afternoon -- I'm getting ready to get away from the computer and won't have time to get back for a few days.
Meanwhile look for Dungeon 50-80. I think the Noble Knight Games website is a good place to look.
Check out
"Umbra"
"Nemesis" (my personal fav though it's not a good technically as some others)
"Seeking Bloodsilver"
"Bzallin's Blacksphere"
"Uzaglu of the Underdark"
"The Ice Tyrant"
"Lich Queen's Beloved"
All great.
There's also a spectacular Dwarven adventure I can't remember the name of and a hysterical Crystal Dragon adventure.
Cool, thanks =) And no rush. It's not as if I'm going to be able to jump at the drop of a hat and run these =D
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Hommlet-Temple of Elemental Evil - Slavers-GDQ series
Just reread this...
You know that that is not one series, right? They're not connected.
A1-A4 have nothing to do with T4 and neither have anything to do with GDQ. Well, except they all take place on the same Campaign world.
20 years after they were first published when the Return To... idea was really popular came Against the Giants: The Liberation of Geoff and Slavers. Both of those are really bad attempts at connecting the various classics.
Stick with
Return to ToH -- AWESOME!!!!
Return to Keep on the Borderlands -- The BEST of the 25th Anniversaries
Return to White Plume Mountain -- 3rd Place but still GREAT
Return to ToEE is 3.0 (unlike the 2E Returns) and, LOL, it doesn't even take place in the Temple of Elemental Evil. It takes place in a new location, the Temple of All Consumption a few miles away. Still Great -- one of Monte Cook's best.
Temple of Elemental Evil is about Elemental Evil. There's a Lolth connection there with the 'favored of the temple' thing going on, and when Eclavdra rebels against Lolth, the elemental evil is the force she is serving.
So Hommlet was the starter, Temple was the finisher.
Yes, the slaver series is shoe-horned together from a bunch of independent railroad modules. The drow connection is still there, and the drow slavelord is one of Eclvadra's minions, and thus of Elemental Evil.
Which sets up the main power play as Eclavdra spurs the giants into invading to gain power in the G series, and then you follow her back home, get confused on exactly who to hack down, take out the Temple of Lolth instead, and then head into the Demonweb to take her out.
The revised, compiled module tried to justify this by Lolth invading Geoff(?) and trying to connect her Demonweb to Oerth, and your fighting back against the giants becomes the strike back against the demon goddess, too.
So, yes, they are all connected at least as well as some of the AP sections out here have been. And it can take you from a 1st level character all the way to 20+ (as I played through that whole mess, I know it. Let me tell you about my grey elf f/mu/druid sometime...!)
==Aelryinth
I can't remember if Chris Perkins titled the first ever separately published yet connected-in-a-campaign an "Adventure Path" -- I think he did; anyway, that was The Mere of Dead Men series from Dungeon #69-73.
I just looked through some of the issues printing "Mere of Dead Men". I saw it called "story arc" and "series", but when was it ever called "Adventure Path"?
The actual encounters were banal.
For an introductory adventure, banal can sometimes be good.
Every issue from about 50 to about 80 has a Chris Perkins adventure.
Well... not quite every issue. I'm looking through some of my old issues, and I don't see any in 50, 56, 57, 61, and 69-71. (In fact, Perkins explicitly pointed out that 69 didn't include one... although he said that it was the first issue in 2 years that didn't, yet I see none in 61, so I don't know what's up with that.) I stopped getting "Dungeon" after 71, but I recently got an old copy of 78, and I don't see one by Perkins in there either.
But although I refuse to acknowledge any adventure writer as the greatest, I will confess that Chris Perkins is the first name that comes to mind. Some of my favorites are Rudwilla's Stew from Dungeon issue 45, Bandits of Bunglewood from 51, and the two Planescape ones - Umbra from 55 and Nemesis from 60.
Now I'm looking at a Dungeon magazine index here and I see no Perkins for 69-73 nor 75-81.
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Thanks Aaron!
Looks like that run of every issue of Dungeon w/ a Perkins adventure was a couple years earlier -- from late 30s to mid 60s (when he became Editor in Chief and saved the magazine). But like you said, 2 years of a run with EVERY issue -- wow.
And your point is well made about banal encounters being great for newbies (regarding Sunless Citadel). I not only strongly agree, I would argue they are at least appropriate, if not necessary.
I was pretty sure Perkins called the Mere of Dead Men an "Adventure Path" but obviously I was misremembering. In any case it is the first time Dungeon strung together adventures in a series and published them as a series (a few homage sequels over the years were always spread apart: "Into the Fire" from #1 and it's "homage sequel" in #17; "Leopard Men," & "Land of the Men with Tails" a couple years apart (and by the same great new author trying to get published again); "Lady of the Mists" in #42 and its "homage sequel” about a year later (by Perkins, no less).)
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I played through that whole mess, I know it. Let me tell you about my grey elf f/mu/druid sometime...!)
Awesome.
I love to hear those old stories.
About 2 years ago my group ran through the A Series again -- updated for Pathfinder, of course. It was great. I got to play a PC (first time not behind a DM screen for more than a couple sessions in a good 12 years).
And just before that the group had played ToEE. I joined the group at the end of that campaign but it was for the better anyway; I had recently run a ToEE & Return to ToEE campaign about a year earlier. (I hadn't DMed the A Series in probably 15-20 years so it wasn't exactly fresh in my memory.)
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So, yes, (A Series, GDQ, T4) are all connected at least as well as some of the AP sections out here have been.
I know what you're saying; I think we'll just have to agree to disagree, no biggie.
I had mentioned they only had the same Campaign World in common (at least until Against the Giants: The Liberation of Geoff and Slavers! came out in the 25th Anniversary of D&D era and BADLY tried to connect them). And I stick to that.
Yes one of the Drow in the A Series (pretty sure A3) has a sentence or two that says he's with Eclevdra -- but that's entirely outside of the PCs' adventure. It's more an easter egg for people to smile at. The A Series is in no way at all part of GDQ. GDQ was the GenCon tourney in '78 that got published as separate modules in a series for a campaign; the A series was the GenCon tourney in '80 that got published as separate modules in a series for a campaign.
T1 ('79) doesn't have anything at all to do with GDQ and when T4 (or, T1-T4 all-in-one) was published in '84, the minor "Lolth thing" was more about her spat with Zuggtmoy (outside of any part of the PCs' adventure) for the ToEE than any kind of connection with GDQ. Just another easter egg for Players (not PCs) to smile at.
For me, at least, I'd consider those "connections" more like what happens in Frank Brunner's "Strike on the Rabid Dawn" in Dungeon 111 where the BBEG is an old member of The Horned Society that was kicked out -- but this is HIS adventure. The Horned Society is just a sentence in the background Fluff that helps the campaign world come alive more.
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I’ll put out some of the great Chris Perkins adventures next post (couple people asked) but first, since this is supposed to be a Bruce Cordell Thread, after all, I thought I’d chime in on Bruce Cordell first:
I only own 7 of his but since I usually only buy the ones with the great reviews, I’d say they’re probably his best works. Also, I don’t compare campaigns with adventures. I don’t feel a 60-150 page book can be compared to a 20-30 page pamphlet.
1) Return to Tomb of Horrors Not only is it great for its updated and fleshed-out treatment of the actual dungeon crawl from GenCon #1 in 1975 – and the module it created in 1978 – Return to ToH has a whole campaign book about a creepy little evil town just outside Acererak’s dungeon that didn’t exist in Gygax’s original. And it is awesome! If you love Rappan Athuk (and who doesn’t?!) you know that as good as it is, it’s a poor rip-off of Cordell’s masterpiece – just with a bigger dungeon, obviously.
2) Gates of Firestorm Peaks This was his first and it came out in a time where creative torpor had settled in strongly in D&D adventures. Except for Carl Sergent (one of the ALL-Time Greats), only a couple names from Dungeon (notably Randy Maxwell, David Howery, Willie Walsh & Ted Zuvich)were putting out anything at all worth something other than kindling. Gates of Firestorm Peaks brought Cthulhu-esque adventures to D&D for real! Yes, some of us had the Deities & Demigods with the chapter on Lovecraft’s Far Realm but only a few of us – and no adventures or modules had really included them. You know how nowadays the Far Realm stuff in adventures is an old bag of banal offal?... well when Cordell did it it was fresh, new, raw and completely unexpected. When you first start it it just feels like a great homage to Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. When you start encountering things from the Far Realm for the first time in you D&D life… Well, it’s awesome. Sure, Chris Pramas’s Death in Freeport in 2000 is better and is the beginning of the lets-put-all-adventures-in-Lovecraft glut started. And it’s even not as creepy as Matthew Hope’s “And Madness Follows” but it is SPECTACULAR.
3) Die Vecna, Die! I admit I could never get enough of the Vecna campaigns. Even the first one 10 years earlier that is one of the most horrible campaigns EVER because of its Railroading, I loved – because of the backstory and history. But Cordell’s version of it doesn’t just take place in Greyhawk; we also play Sigil really well, too. But that’s only a tiny bit of what makes this one great. Cuz Vecna goes to Ravenloft. I know others may not rate this as high as I – and I can see why – but for me, this is all awesome.
1) “Return to White Plume Mountain” Don’t get me wrong, I like the original S2 reasonably well but face it, it is cheesy as hell. Cordell’s has all the same cool encounters as Schick’s original in ’79 but it actually has a fully dynamic dungeon. We’re not just looking for the 3 artifact weapons – were in a war between the three dungeon-denizen armies and their ties to the weapons. Admittedly, any adventure with Blackrazor is great and when you throw in Blackwhelm and Blackwave….
2) “The Sunless Citadel” Fine, Meepo is just a rip off (or tribute) to Bupo from Hickman’s Dragonlance novel. But man he is a cool Kobold. Heck, the last issue of Dragon has him as the #20 “villain” of all time – a pretty pathetic choice for #20 in my opinion but still, how can Erik Mona and James Jacobs be completely wrong, right? And when you throw in a great and completely novel tale about an apple tree that grows up in the underdark where a vampire was staked a gazillion years ago – and now produces an evil black apple and is tended by an evil druid making evil Plant-Type monsters to terrorize the countryside!!! Throw in a foreshadowing taste of Ashardolon and a pretty cool Bugbear King and this is a GREAT adventure. Not just for newbies.
3) “Bastion of Broken Souls” Demogorgan cultists, the final fight between the PCs and Ashardalon – one of the greatest BBEGs (not just Dragon BBEGs), a fight with a bad ass Marilith and an all-around super tough intro to high level 3E gaming – solid adventure.
4) “The Heart of Nightfang Spire” Well, I loved the story of the vampire in “The Sunless Citadel” enough to at least like an adventure where he miraculously returns to fight the PCs. But except for that, barely an average adventure.
All in all, Bruce Cordell is a GREAT adventure designer. Monte Cook’s protégé has done his mentor proud.
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Chris Perkins – the greatest adventure writer of all time.
Here’s a good list of most of his adventures with a bit of info on and my rankings for some of his best.
1) “Umbra” The best adventure in the 2E era, ahead of Baur’s “Kingdom of the Ghouls” because Baur wasn’t able to expand that adventure to the size it really needed to be. And no other adventures in 2E come close – not Dead Gods, not “Lady of the Mists,” not “Spirits of the Tempest” nor even “The Mud Sorcerers’ Tomb.” Umbra is a destined daughter in Sigil and her parents and a whole bunch of other powerful Evil Outsiders in the Planescape game setting are fighting to control her. The PCs have to protect or kill or something Umbra but before that they have to figure what in the world is going on. Great intro to Planescape and great lead in to a Dead Gods campaign.
2) “The Ice Tyrant” Even those not so in love with Dragonlance can love this adventure. Gelid the White is an awesome Dragon BBEG – made all the better when we look up the word “gelid.” (Actually I think Perkins named the dragon Gelidis or something but it’s clearly a play on “gelid.” This is the first adventure published in a “drama method” to showcase what Dragonlance was trying to do for what Monte Cook would later call Event Based adventures. Act 1 was for this, Act 2 for that. Really you’re just helping some elf PCs track down the Dragon in the wilderness to its lair but, man it’s awesome. One of the greatest, if not THE greatest wilderness adventure ever.
3) “Dragon’s Delve” So some dwarves are marching along a snow-filled track to sell some arms or something when a bored Crystal Dragon toddler! decides to have some fun and start a snowball fight. The dwarves, not sure who’s attacking them with a thundering storm of snow, flee and get the PCs to find out what monster is in the woods. That quickly turns into the greatest dungeon-crawl puzzle map EVER published after the PCs make friends with the dragon’s apologetic parents who offer the PCs a confusing treasure map puzzle. All of the Player Handouts in this adventure are super fun to puzzle out and each one leads deeper into an underdark dungeon-crawl adventure.
4) “Seeking Bloodsilver” The great Birthright adventure: An ancient artifact weapon that acts (like the Birthright system is designed to) as a “Highlander-like” weapon that steals a victim’s powers if you kill him (“There can be only one” Birthright) has been lost for a gazillion years, but now someone thinks that a possible final resting place may in fact be some old fortress -- even though it’s been searched a million times over the ages. Turns out this NPC has learned that the Fortress was built on a thin membrane between the Prime Material and the Shadow Plane and the artifact may actually be in the Shadow Plane version of the crumbling Fortress. But what makes the adventure Awesome is the chase to get there first as this new idea about the artifact weapon doesn’t stay secret – and of course a dungeon crawl that feels like two, one the Fortress and the other the Shadow-Fortress. This is the first adventure I think in D&D’s history where another group of PCs – DMPCs – are racing the PCs to try and win.
5) “Redcap’s Rampage” The first ever adventure with a “Rumors in Town” aspect, the townspeople believe a Goblin Army is soon to attack so they immediately go to the old Keep a mile outside town to refurbish it and get it ready – but it’s HAUNTED so they ask the PCs to clean it of ghosts IN A HURRY so they can prepare for the goblins. Only, it’s not haunted, just the lair of a Red Cap (first time a Red Cap was introduced in D&D) who’s playing evil tricks on the stonemason interlopers. But this adventure quickly turns into a “what evil is going on in town” adventure, first as groups of alley cats are mysteriously showing up on the streets and looking evil, and then as a wererat infestation is discovered. And there are some definitely evil NPCs in town, too. So between the Keep & the Red Cap, the wererats and intrigue in town, the creepy cats (who are just searching out a Red Cap they smell is near) and a goblin raiding threat – OMG this is a GREAT adventure.
6) “Life’s Bazaar” This one is the first adventure in the Shackled City Adventure Path and is truly spectacular. Missing orphans, underdark slavers, a thief with keys to the whole town and a glorious poster map of Cauldron – SCAP has a number of good adventures and this is perhaps the best. (I place “Zenith Trajectory” #1 ahead of this Perkins one because of the Heart of Darkness motif. But many will put this Perkins adventure first.)
7) “Lich Queen’s Beloved” I give this one quite a bit of grief because Dave Noonan had just published a GREAT Githyanki adventure a few issues earlier in Dungeon. And in truth, this is an unoriginal, uninspired bag of industry-cobbled trope-encounters. But if it ain’t broke… And if you hadn’t been gaming for years and years, this adventure would seem super awesome – like Baur’s Expedition to the Demonweb Pits and James Wyatt’s City of the Spider Queen. Yes, “Lich Queen’s Beloved” is an unoriginal and uninspired piece of industry-created “lets-do-something-“special”-for-the-100th-issue-by-cobbling-together-aweso me-stuff” adventure but I admit, if you aren’t a jaded grognard who’s seen it all, this one is GREAT.
8) “Horror’s Harvest” Ravenloft stuff is certainly hit or miss. Tons of it is offal. This Perkins adventure is not. While it’s certainly not I6 – what is?!; that’s the greatest adventure ever written – “Horror’s Harvest” is a great, creepy adventure where the PCs are in Ravenloft, not dealing with Strahd or Barovians, but still trying to cope with a village mystery and horror.
9) “Asylum” It’s the final adventure in the Shackled City Adventure Path and it’s really only the second half of one adventure that was so grand and so awesome that they had to split it into two adventures; “Strike on the Shatterhorn” is the penultimate adventure in SCAP. The PCs go plane-hopping to Carceri where they have to finish of the Campaign. Awesome all ‘round.
10) “My Lady’s Mirror” A sequel of sorts to Peter Aberg’s masterpiece “Lady of the Mists,” this adventure revolves around the Lady’s estranged sister who stole one of the original Lady’s Elixirs of Life centuries ago and is now an evil old Lady herself – unlike her sister who is good in Aberg’s adventure. But this adventure doesn’t begin until a servant accidently breaks her lady’s beautiful mirror which – oops – is actually a Mirror of Life Trapping, releasing a bunch of men the Lady kidnapped over the years. And the adventure doesn’t end until the PCs uncover all of the evil Lady’s secrets – Demon worship and devil summoning and necromantic research – not just the poor men from the Mirror.
11) “Gnome Droppings” Too Cool. A flying gnome “ship” crashes and the PCs are in a race to retrieve it and find out just what those crazy gnomes are up to.
12) “Scourge of Scalabar” A Gnome U-Boat shaped like a giant great-white shark is menacing the town and the PCs have to stop it. It’s got pirates, guns & gunpowder, gnome constructs & gizmos, an incredible dungeon crawl in the belly of a mechanical shark against evil gnomes, and an evil merchant trying to gain a monopoly on shipping business by scaring off all the other merchant ships.
13) “Nemesis” My favorite Chris Perkins adventure! It’s a spiritual sequel to “Umbra” but you don’t have to have played the first – “Nemesis” stands alone. The PCs have to go to a Layer of the Abyss and hunt down a powerful Marilith who has stolen (I think 6) super powerful weapons from Sigil. The adventure takes place on the 507th Layer and the setting is great – and so are the combats. Best completely Abyss adventure ever.
14) “Ludwilla’s Stew” The PCs have to hunt down some hard-to-find ingredients for some Duke as a gift for a good witch but when the PCs learn the good witch is under attack by a Hag trying to steal the recipe – and later that the ingredients they had to find were for a potion that’s part of protection money for a badass bugbear… It’s like three cool adventures in one, each one a surprise.
15) “Strike on the Shatterhorn” The aforementioned penultimate adventure in SCAP is one giant BBEG fight with all the NPCs that the PCs have met during the campaign as they get ready to race off to another Plane to finish the campaign. Some GREAT NPC villains make an appearance for this ultimate fight.
16) “Wards of Witching Ways” is a clever little adventure where the PCs get shipwrecked on a small island w/ a creepy castle. The castle's Wizard and his Familiar make a friendly bet about the PCs surviving the Wizard's castle as they explore it. But the wizard can’t do anything “too” lethal and the Familiar can’t reveal itself to the PCs. So the whole time the PCs are falling for the Wizard's tricksy encounters, the Familiar is mysteriously helping them from afar -- and the PCs have no idea what's going on.
17) “Them Apples” Help a Halfling Shire find out who’s poisoning their world famous apple orchard! An adventure with no fighting but an evil Drake prankster, anti-social druids, a dumb and mean Hill giant, and a jealous & angry apple merchant who wants nothing more than to ruin the halflings’ apple orchard.
18) “Quelkin’s Quandary” There’s an evil wizard in his dark tower just outside of town. And he comes bursting in town one night begging for help! Turns out he’s not evil, just misunderstood – but the wizard and his hirelings who are attacking the misunderstood wizard’s tower certainly are evil. The dungeon crawl in a cool wizard’s tower is cool but how the PCs handle the opening scene with the “evil” wizard begging for help makes this a memorable adventure.
19) “Uzaglu of the Underdark” is a spectacular encounter in a cave near the underdark. Uzaglu is a giant undead Myconid whose spores turn you into a unique type of undead with what we would now call the “Plant Subtype.” Have fun fighting in a tight space against Undead Plants who spew area-of-affect spores. And watch out for the pool of slime-acid or whatever that evil-looking puddle is on the middle of the floor. Too great!
20) “The Menacing Malady” A Hospital has an outbreak of a mysterious disease that makes the patients want to kill everyone – including the PCs. And the disease makes them much tougher than mere commoners should be. And should you really be fighting them and no saving them?!
“The Bandits of Bunglewood” is also solid. As is
“Lords of Obilvion” – a reasonably good adventure in SCAP, along with
“North of Narbondale,”
“Avenging Murik” (actually, here you just see a crying Dwarf on the road and agree to avenge his brother),
“A Wizard’s Fate”
“Bzallin’s Blacksphere” (Fun with Spheres of Annihilation, right?!)
. . . . 26 adventures from good to great to the greatest