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Since 2000 Necromancer Games has been publishing a lot of D&D3 adventures, often in collaboration with other companies like Kenzer & Co. Their motto is Third Edition Rules, First Edition Feel, a very good one although a little misleading, since many of their modules are (luckily) more complex and much better than the (completely overrated) First Edition ones.

Necromancer Games released The Vault of Larin Karr in 2002, the fourth in the “Guest Author” series, and it won the Silver ENnie for Best Adventure the following year. The adventure is written for levels 4th to 9th, although it can be easily adapted.

The Vault of Larin Karr describes a standard fantasy valley. It has three villages, a large forest, a hill area, a complex underground system and many dungeons and places to explore. There is no linear plot. The characters will be hired to clean a hobgoblin keep and their final destination is the Vault itself, but the Valley is a place full of life, and there are many events happening at almost all times. It's the players' choice to get involved or not.

Adventure overview (WITH SPOILERS)

Larin Karr is a powerful rogue-wizard drow that created a vault to keep his large amount of treasure. He left for more adventures, but created three keys to open it. Obviously they must be used simultaneously, and are now scattered across the Valley. So the adventure's ultimate goal is to recover the keys, open the vault and plunder it.

Fortunately the adventure is not only about the vault, and maybe the players won't even know about it. There are plenty of other things to do in the Valley.

The characters will be hired by a local noble to clean a hobgoblin keep. Unbeknownst to them, the hobgoblins are negotiating with a band of orcs to help them, and be strong enough to raid the human villages.

Hiding in the forest there is also a group of renegade elves. They think that the humans stole a sacred statue and they want to recover it, so they start a campaign of terror, burning one barn every week. When it's clear that the fires are not accidents, the PCs will most probably get involved.

The elves can be killed in the usual way, but they can become a great help, since half of the statue lies in the treasure of a young adult green dragon. Dealing with him is another of the adventure's focuses.

Beyond these four main story-lines there are dozens of small ones. In the Valley you can find: a diamond (which the PCs need) used to fix a broken marriage and then stolen, a recently bought inn with a strange door, a boring bard, two nasty burglars, a ruined village, a ranger gnoll who blackmails an important person, a cruel halfling cleric and a witch protected by charmed ogres, just to name a few.

Maybe the adventure's best touch is the Underdark, a network of tunnels and passages that connect many places in the Valley. For example, the PCs can enter it from the hobgoblins keep and finish under a hollow tree in the middle of the forest.

Conclusions

I run The Vault of Larin Karr three years ago, a wonderful experience. My players really felt at home in the Valley, and liked dealing with its characters and mysteries. The adventure gave them the just dose of investigation, diplomacy, wilderness exploration and dungeon crawling.

The book is very friendly: very well organised, with nice maps, a detailed monster appendix, a good plot overview and few encounter tables (I don't like them at all).

Since it was published in 2002 the statistics are written for D&D3, but I hope this won't be a reason to skip it: it's an excellent adventure, a wonderful mini-setting and I'm sure all groups will really enjoy it.

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