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I decided this year to read all of those modules I saw in the store at a young age but never had the money to buy, luckily cheap PDF’s and my works high speed printer/copier provide a convenient way for this to happen. I decided I should pass on my thoughts as well.
This is a 32 page adventure for the Companion rules set for the Basic Dungeon and Dragons Game. This adventure is for characters level 15-20. This is a wilderness and dungeon adventure.
Appearance I printed my copy on a high-speed copier, this product is mostly printer friendly with few large ink wasters. The interior art is by Graham Nolan and is fairly sparse, there is very little wasted space in this adventure in terms of white space and margins. The Maps by Dennis Kauth are clear and easy to read, classic hex style for overland and grid one square equals 10 feet for interior.
Summary of Events Like all classic adventures this one starts in an inn. Why such high level characters have nothing better to do but wait in inns for random adventures to find them is a just one of the things that makes classic modules like this so endearing. While in the inn the characters discover that a doorway has appeared in an ancient standing stone and the person responsible for opening this door is dead. The characters are expected to want to investigate, and another mysterious murder lets them know there is more to this than magic doorways. Unluckily for characters, two ex apprentices of the wizard entombed within are also investigating. The ex-apprentices, both at level 20+, trying to recover a powerful artifact locked within the tomb. The dead man found at the standing stone is a third ex-apprentice, who found a way to uncover the secret to opening the door but didn’t survive long enough to do much about it. The ex-apprentices make for the bulk of the PC opposition in this adventures and have no fixed location but will attack the characters when they have been weakened by another encounter (possibly the Stirge ?) or if they make it to the artifact in question.
After investigating the tomb the characters discover that another ancient site, the endless stairs of the title, actually have an end, a extra dimensional space that holds an ancient artifact of great power, a magical throne. Traveling to the stairs the characters must defeat their curses to achieve entrance to this extra dimensional space. All the while the two apprentices will be harassing the party and trying to gain access to the magical throne first.
Conclusion Their is not much to this adventure, a couple of tombs and some high powered wizards. The stairs of the title are interesting but that’s about it, the plot is lackluster and I hope that when I am 15th to 20th level I have better things to do than wait for adventures to start in Inns.
A good DM could change the start of this adventure, possibly having the character in the area searching for the artifact themselves. Making the tombs more intriguing would also help. There is actually an encounter with one 6hp Stirge in the tomb. The adventure actual states that if the Strirge is badly wounded it will flee? I hope that a party of this level will be able to kill a 6hp Strirge in one round. The basic plot is passable, but a good DM could probably use the name and the cover illustration by Jack Fred as inspiration for a better adventure in the time it would take to convert this to 3.5. Spend your money and download something that’s worth converting.
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