The Inside Scoop on Gaming

So, you just got your brand-spanking new Player's Handbook, and you want to give the new edition of D&D a shakedown cruise to see how it plays. Your options are many and varied, as the scores of D20 module reviews here and elsewhere make clear, but if you're short on cash (or a cheapskate) then look no further than the CD-ROM that came with the book. You'll find a module that was meant for Dungeon Magazine, but ended up on that disk instead.

The file is an adventure module called "The Dead of Winter", and it's designed for the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons. As the opening paragraph states, this adventure is meant for a party of four 2nd level PCs, but that doesn't mean that a crew of 1st level PCs are unable to hack this module's contents. The DM can scale things down, and the players can exercise some caution and forward thinking; either way, the effort required to make this appropriate for 1st level PCs is trivial. While I would prefer to have a module that doesn't require these tweaks to be on the disk, "The Dead of Winter" remains useful enough for me.

"The Dead of Winter" takes place on the northern foothills of a land called "Corum", beginning in Castle Dhunraven and ending in the second of two small cavern-style dungeons. Between the beginning and the end is one long wilderness trek during the middle of Corum's winter season and some touchy diplomacy with a fierce-but-fair tribe of orc barbarians. Before it's over the PCs will get their fill of action, intrigue, diplomacy, and exploration; another successful expression of what the D&D experience is suppossed to be.

Before the module begins in earnest, there is a brief background for the DM to read and consider. This piece includes the backstory that made the adventure's events possible, and what's likely to happen if the PCs succeed or fail with regard to this or that element of the module. Mr. Strohm recommends that one of the PCs be a retainer in the service of Cador's ruler, Lord Khulvan. As a jump-off module I do not find this to be an odious request; I think that this sort of hook is an excellent idea because it serves the DM both as a means to get the PCs into this adventure and to bring them back time and again into others that stem from this one. Good hooks are things to be embraced, not defied, by players and DMs alike.

Other warnings include the threat of PC fatality when the PCs undergo the orc tribe's ritual ordeal (see below), and in the final encounter with the villains behind this adventure's conflict. Do pay these some mind, and take the particulars of your group into account; if you're saddled with folks who launch a whine festival when their PCs die, I encourage you to either tone-down the opposition or choose another module. (What I'd actually say is outside the scope of this review, and that alone should be sufficient to discern what it is.) That said, the module itself isn't so much a wonder of innovation as it is a wonder of clean writing and competent execution.

"The Dead of Winter" begins with a meeting between the PCs and the patron. Instead of meeting the patron in a tavern, the meeting occurs in the patron's home; in this case, that patron is Lord Khulvan and the home is his seat of power- Castle Dhunraven. He needs them to go rescue his nephew from whatever snatched him, and they're the only folks he can send. In return for his services, he's willing to get them any mundane gear they'll need as well as a map. For payment, he will grant them a small parcel of land a minor title to go with it; he actually gets offended if a PC demands money instead, but pays 500 gp apiece anyway. If they really need it, Khulvan will supply one or two minor items such as a potion of a healing; more than this will really get him mad and he won't acceed to further demands.

The next step is to go from Dhunraven to Cador, a frontier town some ten days distant to the north. The trip is demanding and dangerous, no matter if they go by boat or overland. The DM has the option of using the included random encounter tables to make a harsh journey even worse, or to play it easy and stick to the environment factors until the PCs reach the first planned encounter in the module. I'd say "Go with the tables.", especially if the PCs have a ranger amongst them; this is meant to be an untamed wilderness, so all of the animal and roving bandit encounters are good to include even if it's for no reason other than verisimlitude.

As for that planned encounter, it's an attack by a hobgoblin band from the Irontooth tribe and it's keyed to the PCs travelling by boat up to Cador. At one point the river is unpassable, and that is when these monster attack from ambush; nine 1st level hobgoblin Warriors and a 4th level Adept named "Grath" are quite a fight for a group of PCs at either 1st or 2nd level. This is especially so if the DM has them employ cover, tactics, and Grath's magic- something that the Lawful alignment and average Intelligence of the hobgoblin race indicates. The module assumes this, and the plan is just mean: four grapple the boat while four fire at the PCs to cover their mates; once secured, they board and enter melee with the PCs. It's a big deal, because the combination of good enemy tactics and a hostile environment make any misstep impose serious consequences upon the PCs. (Hypothermia sucks.)

The result of this fight forces the PCs to complete the trip overland, which forces Random Encounter checks until the PCs arrive at Cador, but once there the PCs are safe until they start digging the nephew's disappearence. As one ought to expect by now, there's something more to this than just some moronic noble getting lost in the woods; some foreign power or domestic treason is afoot, and here is the first that the PCs may see of it.

Besides recovery and resupply, the other official reason for the PCs to be here is to gather information on the terrain ahead and hire a guide to take them there. The PCs should've received a royal writ to this effect when they talked to Lord Khulvan, but that's not to be assumed--players and their ability to shoot themselves in the foot and all that--and it isn't here. The writ makes things easier, but it's not impossible to get by without it; the PCs just have to convince the locals to assist them, which also tips off the villains in Cador that Khulvan is involved now.

The PCs shouldn't have a hard time getting a guide, especially if the villains provide the service--something that they are wont to do--in a show of good faith that deflects suspicion away long enough to figure out what to do next. Most likely, the villains will get their man in the group as the guide and that leads to another ambush once the PCs are well outside of town. (If any PC can level up before leaving town, I'd let them; they'll need it.) This time, it's another band of eight 1st level Warriors- only these mooks are humans, and there's no magical support to back them up. Hopefully, the PCs will have an easier time of this one than the hobgoblin ambush previous to this.

After that ambush, the PCs enter the orc lands and come to a scene of incredible slaughter. Humans and orcs alike lay dead across a grisly battlefiend, but further investigation reveals that these forces did not die fighting each other- someone planted the bodies here to make it look like they did. Shortly after this discover an orc patrol finds the PCs; if no one thinks before acting, the villains will win because the PCs and the orcs will fight and that will force the orcs to attack Khulvan's holdings in revenge. If the PCs keep their cool, they get a chance to prove themselves (and Khulvan) innocent before the orcs' gods. This involves a trip through the Path of the Dead, which is the module's first dungeon.

There's a time limit to this segment of the adventure; if the PCs do not return in three days, the orcs attack Khulvan's holdings in force. The dangers here are in the stirges and the darkmantles. Twelve tiny buzzers that do damage directly to a PC's Constitution score are mean things at any level, not just low-level characters, and monsters that cast Darkness as easily as breathing are just as nasty. The requiste undead and critter encounters are present, but nothing so bad as a ghoul, shadow, or other such creature exists. Along the way the PCs have the chance to snatch magic weapons and items from lairs and corpses; there's more XP to be had if the PCs don't do so, but I say that the benefits garnered from the items far outweight the lost XP. At the end is a local demigoddess who has the power to tell the PCs where they need to go next and teleports them back to the entrance where they can return to the orcs and tell them what's what.

From there, the PCs travel to the second dungeon--another set of caverns called "The Shaman's Crown"--and confront the villains who hold Khulvan's nephew. These forces include humans, gnolls, an orc barbarian, and a human priestess; the latter two are a 3rd Barbarian and a 5th level Cleric, respectively, so they pose a major threat to the PCs. The PCs won't have any orc allies due to another set of political realities--the Crown lies in another tribe's lands, and the orcs aren't looking for a fight--so they're on their own. The villains are 12 strong, including the leaders, but 10 of them are 1st level Warriors and all of them are somewhat dispersed. If the PCs go swiftly, as if they were a commando team, they can get by most of the enemy without casualties. The leaders are another story; these two will bring the fight to the PCs, and the PCs will need to work as a team to put them down without dropping themselves. Their objective, Khulvan's nephew, is present and lacking only some warm food and clothes. The definitive proof the mastermind behind all of this is also present, and the PCs would be wise to grab it and bring to Lord Khulvan when they return the nephew.

The denoument involves the usual feasting and merry-making, along with a chance to thumb their noses at the villains who escaped justice this time. After trudging through the snow for weeks on end, risking life and limb more than once, and facing off against several deadly foes on behalf of Lord Khulvan I would expect that some serious partying is in order for the survivors. If the DM is inclined, here is also the time to lay down the hooks for more adventures in Corum.

In conclusion, this is one damned good adventure to use to bring the rules for the new edition to life and show how the D&D game is meant to be played. Since you get a copy with the Player's Handbook you might as well check it out for yourself. Even if you don't use the given setting, adapting it to Greyhawk or the Realms (etc.) won't be difficult to achieve. I like it.