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"The Elven wizard eventually recovered from the charm and, powerless to escape, watched in horror as a path of fiery death and destruction traveled towards his home."

MetalMan's Review of "Dead Fire" by Dark Portal Games.

Dead Fire is an introductory adventure as well as the initial release from Dark Portal Games. It is available for download in the Adobe Acrobat format from their website: www.darkportalgames.com. Dead Fire uses the D20 mechanics of the Open Gaming License and is billed as being suitable for four to six adventurers of levels one to two.

The Premise:

A large forest fire is threatening the human settlement of Foresthall. After some investigation, the adventurers believe that the fire is not from natural causes and sets out to solve the mystery as well as save Foresthall from burning to a cinder.

SPOILER WARNING: Many plot points and suprises of the adventure will be discussed in this review. If you plan on playing in this adventure or, if your GM is using the Dark Portal Games world of Arekoz, It is suggested that you stop reading now. Nobody likes having their fun spoiled by knowing things in advance (most people don't anyway).

What Ya Get:

Check your ink or toner cartridges. Dead Fire is a total of 31 pages for a complete printout of the entire file. Dead Fire is only available in PDF format with a black & white cover and interior illustrations.

Cost:

Nada. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Gratis. Free.

The appearance of Dead Fire is a mixed bag. It has the standard border image off to the side - in this case a solid block of dragon scales. All text (with the exception of tables) is in two columns. The illustrations on the inside range from very good (the zombie ambush platform) to poor (the fire zombie). The cover illo was a bit disappointing as I felt that something more dynamic could have been used. A group of adventurers approaching a tower with three indistinct figures as adversaries doesn't convey the same energy as a piece such as the ambush platform that really shows menace. The two maps included aren't anything special but do serve their purpose. My one real point of contention is that the name of both the burning forest as well as the nearby elven village are never named. The text says this is on purpose for the GM to flesh out if needed. Personally, this is a cop-out to me. I realize that this is susposed to be a generic adventure but it is set in Arekoz. You would think that Dark Portal would want to interest people in their setting by way of this initial free offering. I suspect that we will see this information in the Arekoz book when it comes out but this information could have been useful here - especially if characters want to set up a base of operations in Foresthall.

The Dead Fire "book" itself starts off with the background of the adventure. Eldolan Darkbough came to Foresthall over twenty years ago and settled in an abandoned tower. One day while trying to get a spell component, the heart of an old oak tree, he angered six dryads when he lightning bolted a tree in their grove. He turned them all to stone and put them in the gardens of his tower and forgot about them as he became involved in spell research. A young mage from nearby Foresthall found one of the statues years later in the wizard's neglected gardens and took it. He cast Stone to Flesh on it later in an attempt to release the magic that he sensed within it. The dryad escaped and returned to her now diseased and dying grove and found no sign of her sisters. She went mad and charmed an elf wizard and forced him to cast the most powerful spell he knew against the tower. He summoned a massive fire elemental that destroyed the tower and killed Eldolan. The dyrad now keeps the elf wizard captive to make sure that the elemental remains destroying the forest because she now wants to punish the local elves for their "neglegence" of not helping her and her sisters. However, not everything that lived in the tower was destroyed...

What follows next is a section of notes for the GM that gives a brief overview of the political tensions in the surrounding areas as well as the note that this adventure is the prelude that will lead into Dark Portal Games series of "White Robes - Black Hearts" modules. Following this is a section of how to scale the adventure to higher level parties and a few pointers on possible reasons that you can use to have the party near Foresthall to begin with considering how it isn't on any of the main maps as we are told. Pretty generic things here and one that most veteran GMs will have seen many times before.

Foresthall itself is detailed next in general terms. Nothing spectacular here but Foresthall does have enough variety to be used as a base of many adventures as it has both a standing militia as well as a magic school and temple. Various rumors that the PCs can pick up around town are detailed after this and some of these are absolutely hilarious. My hat is off to whoever thought up some of these... ElfRoast 23! Booyah! ... and watch out for that flaming chicken. Trust me - you'll need to see these yourself. The important locales and NPCs in Foresthall are detailed next. Information is given on Belar Anvilsplitter and his smithy, Laucimos and The Cracked Mug, Dotta and Valgard's Golden Hoof Horse Breeding, Darius and Larissa Brandenburg's Estate, The School of Magic, The Swaying Merchant Tavern, Ardruar Desmid, The Temple of Maransol, and The White Wood Inn.

The real meat of the adventure is covered now. Detailed information and motivations are given for two encounters in the burning forest between a group of gold elves and Niederial the mad dryad. Assuming the party survives and rescues Ancarohir the captive elf wizard, they should be led to investigate the burnt ruins of Eldolan's tower. In the tower, they will have to fight their way to the top of the tower through some of Eldolan's remaining "experiments" - the fire zombies. Once at the top, they will have to face a flesh golem as their final foe. They should then discover a Flesh to Stone wand that will allow them to free Niederial's sisters who can deal with the fire elemental that is burning down the forest. Information is then given on wrapping up the adventure and ways that the GM can continue the adventure until the next module is published.

The final section of Dead Fire details the two new monsters: the Fire Zombie and the Flame Hive Queen.

Overall Impression:

Dead Fire is a mix of good ideas and ones that we've seen countless times before. I especially enjoyed the hook of using a forest fire. I've never seen a hook that uses a natural (even though it isn't) disaster to engage low level characters before - most are kill the goblins/kobolds terrorizing the village or a FedEx mission for some wizard. The dryad angle was a nice one as well. Unfortunately, it all boils down to getting the PCs into a tower and killing everything that moves in it. Depending on the PCs playing styles, the GM may want to flesh out the time in the forest some more and play up on some of the more interesting roleplaying aspects... or you may want to get the the head-lopping as soon as possible.

All said, Dead Fire is a good adventure that might serve to shake up your campaign some and the price is certainly right. I'm looking forward to seeing what Dark Portal Games has in store for Arekoz.

MetalMan signing off.