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Slave Pits of the Goblin King is the third in a series of D20 System adventure modules based in the world of Elara, Fast Forward Entertainment’s fantasy world of BronzeMen, DragonElves, and the many Green Races of trolls, ogres, goblins, orcs and their ilk. As in the previous two modules, Fortress of the Ogre Chieftain and Temple of the Troll Gods, there is a nefarious plot being hatched during the events transpiring in Slave Pits. Strange, mutant goblinoids are turning up at the fringes of the Troll Lands, and they’re not only tougher than regular goblins, but with an odd, scaly appearance as well. They seem to be capturing young dragons for some reason….

One down side to this adventure is that it doesn’t really provide readily accessible hooks to draw the PCs into the action, but if the players have seen action in either Fortress or Temple, then they’re already in the area. However, I had no trouble convincing adventurers to take up the challenge; the siren call of magic and treasure is usually enough to lure any self-respecting party into unspeakable dangers with hardly a backward glance, and Slave Pits features plenty of both. Additionally, this adventure happens to be populated with a wide variety of NPCs, most of whom will come in handy later in the adventure or perhaps at another time. Most of these NPCs are interesting in their own right, and represent an excellent opportunity for role-playing interaction as well. As source material, I found Slave Pits to be an extremely valuable resource for running a fantasy-based campaign.

Slave Pits will also be rewarding for the thinking player; there are numerous interesting conundrums to be worked out over the course of the adventure, some of which may well carry over to future scenarios. As usual, a balanced party is extremely useful for this adventure. Slave Pits has a wide variety of encounters to deal with, and is designed for four to six characters of levels five to nine. Also useful is the fact that, like the previous two adventures in this series, a prequel adventure and full-color versions of all maps presented within Slave Pits of the Goblin King can be downloaded at Fast Forward’s web site. (www.fastforwardgames.com)

Fast Forward’s adventure modules, solid and of good quality to begin with, have been improving steadily. Slave Pits of the Goblin King, written by industry veteran James M. Ward, is arguably Fast Forward’s finest RPG offering to date, and would mesh easily and well with any existing D20 campaign.