Masters of the Eternal Night is the second installment in the Illithid trilogy, meant to
support the Monstrous Arcana supplement The Illithid. At 32 pages, the adventure is
anything but meaty, yet somehow manages to convey an epic feel; characters must travel
across a freezing earth to stop the mind flayers in their sinister attempt to extinguish the
sun.
I have to admit, I've somehow always managed to hate the mind flayers. Maybe it wa
their psionic ability (which I don't believe have any place in fantasy), or maybe they were
just to alien to allow me to find a home for them in my campaigns. Well, I now love these
thoroughly vile buggers. This adventure depict them as never before. Bruce Cordell
actually manages to sicken me with his graphic depiction of how the mind flayers harvest
the brains of their human victims.
The adventure begins with a trek across a slowly freezing landscape, with accurate
encounters for such a situation--refugees, starving beasts, infestations of ice trolls, etc. A
town entirely controlled by the mind flayers is stumbled upon, and herein the pc's discover
just how vile the enemy truly is--humans penned like cattle, processing plants meant to
separate humans destined for thralldom from those meant as dietary staples. From here,
the characters make their way towards an ancient crater and uncover an illithid craft
capable of travelling between worlds!
The artwork throughout is sparse and of average quality, but the maps are superb.
Most importantly, the adventure is well written, exciting, and runs almost flawlessly.
Author Bruce Cordell manages to provide simple methods to play this adventure as a
stand alone, so the entire trilogy is certainly not needed to enjoy this fine adventure.
Perhaps most pleasing was the dark feel of the adventure; sort of Tolkien meets the X-
Files. Definetly AD+D for the '90's, and well worth a look.
Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 3 (Average)
