Lord of the Iron Fortress
I have to come straight out and admit that I have pretty much steered clear of Wizards of the Coast modules to date. Most of them seemed a bit too formulaic to me, and the one that didn't seemed pretty poorly executed.
When I heard about Lord of the Iron Fortress, though, I knew I had to get it. Not only am I an unabashed Planescape fan, but the plane that the adventure is set on is one of my favorite spots to run an adventure on the great wheel.
Lord of the Iron Fortress is an adventure for 4 15th-level characters.
A First Look
Lord of the Iron Fortress is a 48-page, staple-bound soft cover booklet. The book is priced at $9.95 US. This is actually fairly good for products of a similar size or price by other d20 publishers.
The cover has the blue-rimmed styling similar to many GM-oriented 3e D&D books. The front cover by Todd Lockwood depicts adventurers under attack by some metallic monstrosities in front of a harsh looking fortress.
The interior is black-and-white. Most of the illustrations are by David Day (whose work you may have been exposed to in Masters of the Wild), though there is some recycled work by Wayne Reynolds. Day is a decent artist, but I don't find his work quite as interesting as that of Wayne Reynolds. The cartography is by Todd Gamble, and all of the maps are clear and attractive.
As with most WotC products, the typeface is fairly small. The margins are actually a little large by my eyes, but there is not much wasted whitespace or overly gratuitously sized artwork. Given the text density and price, this adventure delivers a fairly good value.
A Deeper Look
(Warning: This section contains spoilers.)
There are a number of ways that the characters can get involved in this adventure. Essentially, the hooks and lead-in boil down to one simple observance: many great smiths are being murdered, and for some reason, some of them cannot be raised from the dead.
The essential premise is that there is a powerful and ambitious half-dragon dwarf by the name of Imperagon who wishes to reforge a sword known as the blade of fiery might, a blade once wielded by a powerful lord of the efreet. This dwarf dwells in a fortress on one of many huge iron cubes that fill the void on the plane of Acheron, and he has a devil friend who is helping him abduct the souls of great smiths to labor away on restoring the blade of fiery might.
The supposed track that the characters are supposed to take is to plane shift or use some other means of transit to travel to Rigus, a gate-town on the neutral plane known as the Concordant Domain of the Outlands that leads to Acheron. I found this lead-in a little weak. Only one clue points the PCs to Rigus, plus there is the assumption that somehow the players are going to find it desirable to go to Rigus before they go to Acheron.
Assuming the party ever makes it to Rigus, it might get in a scrap with some mercykillers (overly judicious law-enforcers from the Planescape setting) or track down some of Imperagon's servants. The PCs might, if they decide to be friendly, be able to get a scroll and some information from an efreet merchant.
Once it is done in Rigus and finds the gate, the party can make its way to Acheron. The first encounter once the party reaches the plane is to bump into a drow riding a giant spider. Assuming the PCs don't immediately engage the drow, she has some useful information she might be able to offer the players about their final destination. Of course, if the players confront the drow, it is not too certain how they will find the cube for which they are searching.
Assuming they can locate the right cube, PCs must fly or teleport there. Once on the cube containing the fortress, a number of encounters are laid out for the party to deal with. If the PCs flew there, however, I am at a loss to why they wouldn't just scout out the cube by air and fly to the fortress.
Once at the fortress, the party must deal with it inhabitants, discover what is going on with the smiths, an confront the owner of the keep. The keep is populated by creatures such as the blade golem (a variation on the iron golem), as well as a number of new creatures such as the weapon eating steel predator. There are also a good number of classed monsters that should provide a challenge to the party, such as a kyton rogue and a mephit assassin.
In addition to the adventure itself, there are a number of new creatures and magic items, including the already mentioned steel predator, the axiomatic template (reproduced from Manual of the Planes), and the bladeling, a classic Planescape creature.
Conclusion
As is often the case with WotC products, the characters and statistics are impeccably done, and some of the custom creatures I found quite interesting. Overall, the power level seemed appropriate. I was so fascinated by some of the creature characters in the book, much as with the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil.
That said, I was a little disappointed in this adventure. First, it seems like the motivation to go to Rigus is rather weak. Further, though the premise is interesting, the adventure itself seemed a little dry. This just isn't the type of thought intensive planar adventuring that I am used to, much to my chagrin. I expected some dungeon bashing, but some more meaningful character interaction would have been welcome.
-Alan D. Kohler
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