Dungeons and Dragons Blog

A lot of people cut their teeth on module B2, The Keep on the Borderlands.  My first D&D sitting was a homebrew adventure called the Orc’s something (can’t remember).  But the first D&D product I ever purchased was the Expert Set, which contained X1, the Isle of Dread.  So while it wasn’t my first, for quite some time it was my only module and it got plenty of play and it’s also the main setting for Dungeon Magazine’s latest campaign path.

In a lot of ways, the Isle of Dread was one of the first open ended adventure.  I know the Keep on the Borderlands is close (you can pick your cave), but the Isle of Dread presented one of the first open AND outside settings.

The first thing I notice about this adventure are all of the maps.  You have an overall map of the Isle of Dread but then you also get several maps that provide much more detail on the appropriate sections.  You also get a map that’s simply called “the continent” because it provides a setting for you to start the party’s sea travel to the Isle of Dread.  The adventure starts when the party discovers an old scroll that details a ship log that talks about the Isle of Dread and after the party does some research, they decide to set sail for adventure.

There’s not a ton of detail on what happens when the party travels to the Isle of Dread.  It discusses the party getting lost or getting lost in a storm, but there’s no overseas encounters.

Then at that point, it’s all about the Isle of Dread.  You get a description of all of the appropriate places worth nothing but there’s no detailed path the party is supposed to take.  You’ve got a ton of dinosaurs, some dragons and even some zombies on the wandering monster table.  There’s a pirates lair and a lizard men lair but the ultimate destination is the the central plateau (which has a gold vein and a small village) along with Taboo Island, who’s temple provides a neat little dungeon crawl.

There’s an appendix that provides some extra goodies and adventure paths and then you get the low down on all of the dinosaurs.  This is definitely a classic though and I thought Dungeon made a great choice for their campaign adventure path when they chose the Isle of Dread.

The latest Dungeon Magazine is out and here’s what you get this month….

The first adventure is a mid level adventure set in Eberron.  I don’t own Eberron so I’m not going to pass judgement but the adventure is a very neat idea.  It’s based on a lightening rail coach that’s moving while the player’s battle the bad guys.  This looks like a neat, quick adventure and as has happened several times, it almost makes me what to check out Eberron.

The second adventure is installment five of the Savage Tide Adventure Path.  Good stuff here as the characters tackle one of the smaller islands that ring the Isle of Dread. This one will get the players up to tenth level and probably the coolest part is a trip to the tar pits where you take on a pretty high end tyrannosauras and it ends with a battle against a 12th level Lemorian.  After that, you get a pretty detailed description of Farshore so you get some pretty nice background information here as well.

The final adventure is called Mask of the Diamond tears an it’s a higher level, fairly complicated adventure.  I didn’t read the whole thing but the premise is that an Illusionist steals a funeral mask and this causes some extraplanar problems.

In addition, you get Wolfgang Baur’s first Dungeoncraft.  He tackles how to run a chase scene in your adventure.  Good stuff.  The Dungeon section talks about spicing up secret doors and Wandering Monster presents you with the slithering tracker.

My subscription expires in a couple of months and I’m on the fence as far as renewing.  If I were playing, I would for sure but a) I’m not right now and b) this site isn’t making me enough money to justify the cost on it’s own.  From a personal standpoint, I do want get the rest of the Savage Tide Campaign Path so if anything, that will probably be what makes me recommit for another year.  Also looking at a Dragon magazine subscription but for the same reasons, I’m on the fence.