Demons & Devils is a D20 fantasy adventure module published by Necromancer Games, and it’s intended for use with
Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition. It’s the first module in their “L” series of modules, all of which are focused upon lairs of one sort or another. This module contains three such lairs, all of which hold powerful treasures at their ends. In turn, those treasures stand behind fiends who—willingly or not—guard those treasures from interlopers. (Hence the title.)
As is common practice with Necromancer Games products, it is assumed that the GM will take the time necessary to alter the contents of the module so it fits seamlessly into the campaign. Therefore the plot, monsters, treasures, etc. are explicitly laid out as defaults for use if the GM has nothing else to use in that position. Gamers who are not accustomed to this approach may well find all three adventures woefully incomplete, as they will have to insert their own contextual information before they can make use of it.
Demons & Devils conforms to the usual aesthetic that many know now as typical of Necromancer Games products. The module’s cover resembles the classic adventure modules of AD&D’s First Edition; the stripe across the top left corner that declares what books are necessary to make use of the product is a cute touch. There’s a Marilith on the cover engaged in combat with a party of adventurers. The picture has a scimitar blade strategically place over the Marilith’s nipples. (No, I will not attempt to explain this decision.) Again, this is a cute homage to those old First Edition pieces of artwork that often appeared in manuals and modules of the day. As such, it’s fine. The interior art is all black-and-white, and there’s just enough to illuminate the key points of each module. Overall, the artwork is competently done and used. By the same token, the layout makes following the two-column text easy to use and follow. The site maps, published on the inside covers, are adequate but I would prefer that the maps be directly applicable; the scale of 1 inch to 10 feet is not the scale used in D&D today, which is 1 inch to 5 feet. In Necromancer’s defense, this is an early product and thus has several errors stemming from the legacies of the previous editions.
The adventures, as mentioned above, center around the search for a potent magical item guarded by fiends that sits at the heart of each lair. These adventures aren’t entry-level modules; the first adventure requires a party of 9th level characters, the second requires a party of 11th level characters and the third requires a party of 13th level characters. None of these are easy adventures, so character death is an ever-present threat. A party should make full use of their resources if they wish to overcome all challenges and come away with the treasure.
The first adventure is The Sorcerer’s Citadel. The titular spell-caster is Crane, a long-dead sorcerer who built his tower in the middle of nowhere and left within it a terrible item of great power. Unless the GM says otherwise, this item is assumed to be a sphere of annihilation. The PCs are there to recover it for some reason or another—again, this is left for the GM to determine—and then move on, ostensibly. The adventure is somewhat short, but the way is brutal. The approach alone will kill the unwary, and the denizens within are no less dangerous. Unfortunately, this site prevents the PCs from escaping via teleportation spells so opportunities to retreat and regroup are limited. There's some puzzle-work to do in order to retrieve the item, in the form of recovering the pieces to an amulet that Crane left behind, but that’s just a MacGuffin to get the PCs from one part of the dungeon to the next. In total, it looks so old-school that it hurts; given Necromancer’s motto is “Third Edition Rules, First Edition Feel”, this is a good thing indeed.
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