WARNING!!!
I feel
that I should take this opportunity now and issue this warning as you are
making your characters. After reading some reviews about this module,
I thought that I had better fill you in with a little data about it.
The beginning of this adventure was written in 1979 as the "village of hommlet"
and finished many years later with the "temple of elemental evil". This was
written by Gary Gygax and many of the reviews that I have read have considered
this the best work by Gygax. This is a tough 1st Ed adventure.
As one person put it "as best of a Bash as it gets" others have refered to
Gygax as the "king of the dungeon crawl". PC's should be expected
to die. This is considered one of the Super Modules that was printed
for 1st Ed. AD&D and is on the same level (if not higher) than "queen
of the demonweb pits". Please use careful consideration when creating
your critter and your party. Your critter will be challenged. Your
party will be challenged. You will be challenged. That is why I want to be
overly picky on your character sheets and on your character. They will need
to be as complete as possible in order to have a chance of survival. That
is also why I want certain classes to be from 1st Ed. they are more powerful.
2nd Ed characters and normal fighters are mainly the same (except the ones
that I want played at first Edition). Please watch carefully
when you make characters to avoid flaws that always happen. Be careful
if you multiclass them so they don't have any obvious weaknesses. Only parties
that work well together will survive this adventure.
Only a well balanced party will succeed. A
good mix of classes are important, but not as important as how well the PC's
work together. Fighters will run out of armor and hit points, mages
and clerics will run out of spells, thieves just may run out of luck. It
is important in this module that not only the classic roles of the classes
are carried out, but that the stereotypes also may be crossed. Perhaps
the warriors luck will run out when he is trapped and someone else may have
to engage in melee.
This module was good enough that I have only ran
through a small, small portion of it, but it that little bit has stuck with
me for over 10 yrs as probably the best little bit of an adventure that I
have ever been in. My goal is to prepare it and present it in a way
that you will feel as good (if not better) as I did 12 years ago. You
have heard me talk about the newer adventures as being not as good as the
old classics and that 2nd Ed has ruined a few things. It is my hope
that you will understand this after playing in this. I hope the you
will be on the edge of your seat, sweating for your critter in combat, and
hoping that your fellow adventurers do not fall either.
So run your critter through everything that you
can. Think about any and all situations that you can for your lowly
PC. Plan carefully for your character's lives may (and do) depend on it.
You Have Been Warned.....
