Demons & Devils
There's something about demons and devils that old school DMs can't help but love. Amidst seas of games packed with moral ambiguity, a demon is a refreshingly clear icon of absolute evil. Questions about the moral implications of doing away with orc babies abound, but when you fight a demon you know you are fighting the good fight.
Too bad for the players that demons and devils are so nasty in a fight...
Given my adoration for these icons of evils as foes for the players, I of course ran out to buy Demons & Devils, a D20 System adventure by Necromancer games, as soon as it arrived in the store. But was it worth my dime? Well, let's take a look inside.
A First Look
Demons and Devils is a 32 page staple-bound booklet, the last two pages of which are the obligatory D20 System license and an ad for the upcoming releases in the Scarred Lands line. The cover is color, with artwork depicting a somewhat controversial picture of a Marilith (type V for you grognards) demon with a well placed scimitar covering the parts of the female portion of here anatomy that are taboo by modern standards.
The interior is black and white, with the standard Necromancer Games skull-themed flourish in the margins. Necromancer Games is hoping to emulate. The interior is decorated with art depicting creatures, locations, and situations depicted in the adventures.
This time around, Necromancer Games made good use of the inside covers of the book for the maps, a move that is both convenient for the DM and thematically correct for the old 1e AD&D adventures. The maps retain a somewhat hand-drawn look similar to that of Rappan Athuk—The Dungeon of Graves: The Upper Levels.
The text is mostly two column, in a moderate sized, readable font. Overall, the typesetting is similar to what was used in Necromancer Games' previous adventure, Rappan Athuk—The Dungeon of Graves: The Upper Levels ("R1"). Perhaps too similar, as it appears that Necromancer Games forgot to edit the header used in the 2nd and 3rd adventures, which still proclaim that your are still reading R1!
Also like prior efforts by Necromancer Games, Demons and Devils carries an alphanumeric label, L1, in homage to the old TSR 1st edition AD&D adventures. The back cover blurb announces that this product is the first in a series of lair adventure modules.
Demons and Devils is priced at $8.95 US.
I Give to Thee Adventures Three...
(Warning: the following material contains spoilers.)
Demons and Devils is an anthology of three adventures that (as you might guess) involve demons and/or devils in some fashion. The adventures are offered up as "treasure quests." Each site based adventure depicting the resting-place for a magic item of great power. The introductory text states that you can replace the item depicted in each adventure with one of your own choosing to fit your campaign. However, the third adventure centers on a particular type of item, and for the most part changing the nature of it too much would gut the adventure.
Adventure 1: The Sorcerer’s Citadel
(Yes, you are still in spoiler territory!)
The Sorcerer’s Citadel is intended for 9th level characters.
The first adventure depicts that most cliché of settings, a tower belonging to a mage. In this case, the tower belonged to a lawful sorcerer named Crane who many years ago grappled with a group of evil sorcerers and lost. However, he was wise enough to hide away his favorite powerful item (a sphere of annihilation, or whatever suits the DM’s fancy) so it didn’t fall into the wrong hands. Unfortunately for the PCs, Crane made sure to guard his homestead well.
The adventure wastes no time getting nasty. The only means of access to the tower is trapped and deadly. This is just a first indication of the shape of things to come, as traps involving magic, poison, and acid (old time DM favorites) are throughout the tower.
The tower itself contains the first instance of a creature that earns the adventure a place in this module. In this case a devil in disguise, with a very good explanation of why she is there, and her tactics are thoroughly spelled out.
Alas, once the PCs make their way up the tower, their sojourn is not over. It turns out that Crane made an underground lair for the express purpose of hiding his treasured magical goody. Amidst more traps and puzzles, the players will face more devils as well as one of Crane’s captured former rivals.
Adventure 2: Ra’s Evil Grin
(Yes, you are still in spoiler territory!)
Ra’s Evil Grin is an adventure intended for 11th level characters.
This adventure is the final resting place of (presuming you don’t alter it) an artifact that was once the eye of a destroyed sun god. The worshippers of the Frog-demon that defeated him hid away this artifact in this lair on a distant island.
Similar to the first adventure, this adventure is laden with traps and evil outsiders. However, Ra’s Evil Grin is heavier on puzzle type traps. To even get in, you have to solve a riddle, and ignoring the riddle will likely get the unwise PC killed. In addition to the puzzles, the players will have to deal with a mummified priest and a powerful demoness before they can claim their prize.
Adventure 3: The Pit of Despair
(Major spoilers this time!)
If you are like me, the title of this adventure reminds you of a pasty skinned fat guy uttering "the Pit… of Despaaaair…" in a raspy voice…
Anyway, the Pit of Despair is a designed for high level characters – level 13 .
The Pit of Despair, called the Temple of the Justicars in the backstory, is the final resting-place of a holy sword that once belonged to a great paladin. Unlike the first two adventures, this one probably won’t accommodate a major change in the item that you lock away here. The familiar demon lord Orcus didn’t like this item in the grasp of a paladin. They claimed the weapon after the great paladin’s demise, and used it to set a trap for future paladins.
The adventure has the players facing demons to get the sword, but it turns out to be a ruse. The sword they will get (assisted by a demon disguised as a celestial) is a false sword, an evil sword that has the power to dominate the paladin and make him perform heinous slayings, and then make him forget the whole affair.
Eventually, the paladin is afforded the opportunity to atone (or be tempted by the sword to become a blackguard) and return to the Temple of the Justicars and find the true holy sword, and put an end to the evil ruse.
I spilled the beans more on this adventure than the other two, but as I feel that some DMs will have a problem running this adventure as written, I thought it was worth pointing out. At the very least, I would add foreshadowing or some indication that something was amiss. As written, the story feels like it railroads the Paladin into performing evil deeds, something I am not too keen on. Not to mention that if you don’t give the players some chance, they are likely to be embittered.
But Wait, There's More!
(Okay, I’m done with the spoilers now…)
In addition to the material that you walk out of the game store with, Demons and Devils has a web enhancement that you can get to via the Necromancer Games website. You will need to use a password provided in the adventure to access the file.
That in itself is not unusual. Necromancer has been providing these for most of its products, providing things like an extra encounter or wilderness map. However, the web enhancement for Demons & Devils is considerable. The 21 page pdf download has the "wilderness segment" of the quest for each of the three adventures included in Demons and Devils, complete with encounter descriptions. If Necromancer continues enhancements of this magnitude, they could start something of a trend. Bypassing some of the publishing costs and getting more material to the end user is a "good thing" in my book.
Summary and Conclusions
Make no mistake about it. For good or ill, this adventure is written by the same people who brought you Rappan Athuk. These are, in essence, dungeon crawls laden with traps, puzzles, and opponents to challenge your players with. If you are looking for deep NPC motivations and far reaching plots, this book is not for you. In a way that disappointed me, because I always imagine Demons as the types of creatures who are always up to something.
However, I found the module much better than Rappan Athuk. Unlike Rappan Athuk, there are no unapologetic dismissals of ecology. Though they remain dungeon crawls, the serve a purpose and players have a reason to go there other than "to face danger and find treasure and glory." This makes working these adventures into a campaign much easier, and they will provide a good resource for a DM who wants to challenge PCs in search of some magic item or dingus.
By looking at these adventures, I have decided what Necromancer’s forte is: deception. In R1, one of the best encounters was a well described encounter with a Rakshasa, complete with tactics. They repeat this sort of ruse with the devil in the Sorcerer’s Citadel. I wouldn’t want to drop these sorts of encounters on players repeatedly, but one once in a while will keep the players on their toes.
My only major gripe about the way that the adventures were structured was the "railroaded" nature of the corruption in the Pit of Despair. It seemed like a bit much to me.
Ratings
Ready to use material – 4. The adventures are by and large complete and well done, and easily incorporated into an ongoing campaign. The downloadable pdf expands on the readily used material considerably.
Idea content – 3. Many good encounters and puzzles, but could use more variety in the adventure concepts. Not thrilled with the idea behind the third "corrupt the paladin" adventure.
Value for money – 4. As it sits on the shelf, about normal for a D20 system module, with good use of space and a modest page count. The addition of the downloadable web addition pushes this into the "good" territory.
Overall Substance Rating – 4.
Overall Style Rating – 3.
How I Rate D20 System Adventures
(standard blurb)
As far as I am concerned, canned adventures provide two primary points of value: ideas (adventure premises, interesting challenges, etc.) and ready to run game material (maps, useful and properly done encounter statistics, new creatures and items). The obvious third criteria is overall value for money, which includes page count for a given cost and use of space.
I use these three factors to holistically determine what "substance" rating I'll give the item on RPGnet. This is separate from the style consideration, which I use as stated on RPGnet.
-Alan D. Kohler
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