Rick Swan's "Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games" was not very high on the High Fantasy rpg rules, but made mention that the included solo scenario was one of the best he had read. Adventures in High Fantasy is a companion book (in hard and soft cover versions) containing three excellent adventures and the mass combat rules for the High Fantasy rpg.
I received the hard cover version in a large exchange with another gamer. It is approximately 5.5"x8.5", with a color painting of a warrior charging a dragon against a circle on the otherwise black cover. The cover art and interior line art are of the same good, but not great, quality. Actually, the overall appearance of the book is par for the course, considering the time of its release. Maps and tables are easy enough to read, but player handouts need to be either photo copied or removed from the book with a razor blade.
The adventures are written to be placed in sequence with one that sounds like it comes with the rules, but the connection is very loose. They are just as easily used in any existing fantasy campaign, alone or even out of the sequence presented. These are all logical, living dungeon, thinking players adventures, not the senseless trap filled, monsters waiting in hiding, mazes this time period is famous for. The mass combat rules, on the other hand, require the High Fantasy rpg rules to be of any use as the game rules are referred to frequently. In the 199 pages, I found only one typo and there was one chamber on a map left unidentified in the text of the first adventure.
The first adventure, Fortress Ellendar, has the PCs infiltrating an occupied stronghold for its former master. Their mission is to release the demon trapped in a sub-chamber, permitting the demon to destroy the invading enemy from within and hopefully escape without becoming one of the demon's victims. The next scenario, Moorguard, centers around a dead god's artifacts. A mage is driven to become a lich in order to complete his work to discover or duplicate the titanic god's weapons. The players find him in a temple built within what appears to be the gigantic skeleton of the fallen giant, and learn that the deity's enemies still covet his prized magical weapons as well. The last adventure, Terra Ash, takes the players into a subterranean community of three warring factions. The inhabitants think the outside world is destroyed and have been trying to best each other, and still survive, for 100 years. Their benefactor has them teleported inside with a quest to find a magic sword and sends his niece along as assurance that he will honor his end of the bargain. Unfortunately, all is not as it appears. Each contains some well thought out traps, some awe-inspiring mysteries and a few original encounters.
Hard or soft cover, this will be a hard item to find. I would not pay an exorbitant amount for it but it is a good read as well as three fine adventures. If you can get it for about the price of a current scenario or sourcebook, you should, and you won't be disappointed.
This review appears in Alarums & Excursions #323 (see archieve) and appears here with permission.
