In a word: Excellent. Easily one of the Top 10 D20 supplements released to date.

Review Originally Published October 13th, 2001

Let’s face it: When we look at the shelf in our game shop and see yet another D20 monster manual variant, our eyes begin to glaze over. “For the love of God,” we think, “How many cheesy fantasy monsters can these people crank out? Oh, look! It’s a geezlehopper. It just like an orc, except it’s neon pink! Ooooo! Wow!”

We’ve so thoroughly “been there, done that” that it makes the endless Energizer Bunny commercials look fresh and innovative. (Do you realize that there are children in sixth grade who have never seen the original Energizer Bunny commercials? One is forced to wonder what, exactly, they think of this inexplicable pink bunny – who, as far as they can tell, has always starred in some of the worst commercials imaginable. But I digress.)

That’s why I’m writing this review: To send up a bright signal beacon to the gaming world at large, while jumping up and down and screaming:

HEY! OVER HERE! THERE’S AN INCREDIBLY AMAZING, HIGH QUALITY CREATURE CATALOG OVER HERE!

It’s called Legions of Hell, and it’s published by Green Ronin (famed in the D20 market for their Freeport modules).

THE LEGIONS OF HELL

As the title should suggest, Legions of Hell delves deeply into the nine circles of the Pit, exploring the servants of Asmodeus, the King of Hell. The core of the book consists of roughly forty-five monster entries, detailing a wide-range of hellish creatures.

At one end of the scale, Legions of Hell contains the foot soldiers of hell: The Akop (an entire race tricked into servitude and transformed into shadows); the Bonedreg (constructs created by the Leviathan from the remains of his victims he is unable to digest); the Chamagon (gaunt, quick-footed infiltrators and magical saboteurs); the Darksphinx (corrupted gynosphinxes); the Distender (foul devils with the appearance of a bloated stomach, capable of attacking using the four classic humors); the Faceless (assassins who signal their success by wearing the face of their latest victim as their own); the Hellwardens (living scarecrows who act as guardians); the Spinders (monstrous-sized creatures who travel in swarm – a bane even to the devils of hell); the Soulsniffer (creatures capable of tracking escaped souls across the planes); and many others.

At the other end of the scale, Legions of Hell also presents a variety of unique creatures – primarily various Princes and Dukes of Hell. These include such notables as Balan, Master of the Infernal Hunt; Furcas, Duke of Rhetoric; Hadriel, Duchess of Domination; Iblis, Duke of Pride (a Fallen Solar); the Lich Fiend; Krotep, Pharoh of Axor and Nekhet, Prophet of Set (who believe themselves to be the son and daughter of Set); and others.

In addition to this core of material, Legions of Hell presents a number of prestige classes designed for the servants of Hell; templates for Fallen Celestials; information regarding the Angelic Choirs; and an overview of Hell itself.

STRENGTHS

Legions of Hell distinguishes itself in a number of ways:

1. There is a lot of material crammed into it. Not only does it present a plethora of material which can be put to immediate use, every page seems to have some new idea or adventure seed waiting for exploration.

2. Chris Pramas, the chief author of Legions of Hell, was also the author of Guide to Hell, the definitive AD&D reference for the infernal plane. (He is also known for the Origins Award-winning Death in Freeport.) He puts this experience to good use, exploring the complete spectrum of Hell – rather than just focusing on one or two features. Legions of Hell is made notable because it isn’t the same old stuff we’ve seen before – a lot of creativity and research has gone into making this product distinct and valuable.

3. The artwork is simply stunning. It includes work by Brom, Sam Wood, Raven Mimura, and Toren Atkinson (those of you who keep an eye on artist credits in this industry should recognize all of those names). There is, literally, not a single weak piece of art in the entire book.

WEAKNESSES

So, moving onto an actual weakness of Legions of Hell…

Oh, wait. That’s right. It doesn’t have any weaknesses.

CONCLUSION

Legions of Hell is just plain good. It’s subject matter is rich; the ideas it brings to the table are original and creative; the development of those ideas is solid and imminently useful; the lay-out and production values are exemplary.

There is, literally, nothing negative that I can say about this product. If you have even the slightest interest in having a demonic presence in your D20 campaign, this product is absolutely essential.

In short: You will never regret the money you spend on Legions of Hell. There can be no higher recommendation.

Style: 5
Substance: 5

Author: Chris Pramas (with Jim Bishop, Brian Kirby, and Erik Mona)
Publisher: Green Ronin Publishing
Line: D20
Price: $14.95
ISBN: 0-9701048-4-7
Product Code: GRR1005
Pages: 64

The Book of Fiends series was completed, then revised into a single hardback collection for D&D 3.5 and then again for D&D 5E. I’ve never stopped singing its praises. It greatly enhanced the Avernus Remix. I used it extensively for my In the Shadow of the Spire campaign, from whence its influence can be easily seen in the Chaos Lorebooks series. I’ve adapted its monsters to Mothership, Numenera, and other systems.

If you asked me what my favorite RPG bestiary of all time was, it would be a toss-up between The Book of Fiends and the AD&D 2nd Edition Monstrous Manual.

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

TM and © 2022 Monte Cook Games, LLC

I’ve been running adventures in Monte Cook’s Ptolus for over twenty years, including my long-running D&D 3E campaign In the Shadow of the Spire.

The Ptolus sourcebook — originally published D&D 3E, but since released in edition for D&D 5E and Cypher — is one of the best RPG setting sourcebooks ever published. It describes a rich and marvelous city perched upon the coast and filled with the wonder: The impossible, terrifying heights of the Spire tower above it; beneath it endless, overlapping warrens, dungeons, and caverns worm their way through the earth. The book itself is nearly 700 pages long, and every single one is packed to the gills with practical, gameable material. And while I typically find such huge tomes to be overwhelming and difficult to use, Ptolus is incredibly well-organized, with bountiful cross-references and a sidebar reference system that makes it easy to navigate the book and find the information you need, whether during prep or at the table.

Over the years I’ve remixed a variety of published Ptolus adventures and created new ones. Some are entirely idiosyncratic to my group. Others I’ve shared below, with plans for more.

REMIXES

Ptolus Remix: Banewarrens
Ptolus Remix: The Mrathrach Agenda
Ptolus Remix: The Quaan
Ptolus Remix: The Vladaam Affair

ADVENTURES

The False Tomb
Complex of Zombies (3E)
Laboratory of the Beast (3E)
Lost Laboratories of the Arn (3E)

CAMPAIGN JOURNAL

In the Shadow of the Spire

RESOURCES

Chaos Lorebooks
Dreaming Arts (3E)
Kaostech (3E)

REVIEWS

Review: Ptolus – City of Adventure

COLLECTED EDITIONS

Patrons of the Alexandrian can download collected PDF editions for most of the material above, and I’ll be adding PDF collections for the older material soon!

Rappan Athuk promises “the grand-daddy of all dungeon crawls”! It delivers.

Third Edition Rules, First Edition Feel.

That’s Necromancer Game’s tagline. In their introduction to Rappan Athuk they expand on what this means: “Why is the dungeon there? No one knows. Why do the monsters usually fight rather than talk? We aren’t really sure. Why are there 16 trolls in a cave with a jug of alchemy? No one cares. What do all the monsters eat? We don’t know that either. And we don’t have to know these things. This isn’t an ecology experiment; it’s a dungeon.”

So what’s the point?

To have fun, of course.

To a certain extent, though, I don’t feel that Rappan Athuk quite lives up to this ideal. Sure, they’ve adhered to the classic, first edition format: Here you have your tables of rumors about the dungeon (some true, some false); random encounters; a plethora of monsters, traps, and treasure. But Rappan Athuk isn’t quite as random or meaningless as their introduction would lead us to believe: There is a logic to why things are the way they are.

Does Rappan Athuk strain credulity? Perhaps. Is it really as illogical as TSR’s “classic” modules? I don’t think so. It seems more akin to Ruins of Undermountain than Palace of the Silver Princess.

Not that I’m criticizing this, by any stretch of the imagination. I am, to the contrary, more than happy to see that Rappan Athuk will not be featuring, for example, levels of bloodthirsty Lewis Carroll characters incomprehensibly assaulting adventurers (as Castle Greyhawk did).

In fact, for me, Rappan Athuk is an exciting product – a product that makes me itch to retrieve my game manuals, dice bag, and character sheets and start rolling up stats. The pure, high-octane fun of an epic-level dungeon crawl carried out with style really shouldn’t be underestimated.

Sure, there are folks who consider themselves too “mature” for this sort of thing. Those people are boring. Ignore ‘em and strap yourself in: It’s time for a ride…

CONCEPT

Warning: This review will contain spoilers for Rappan Athuk. Players who may end up playing in this module should stop reading now.

One thing to note right up front is that this particular module is the first in a trilogy of modules, covering only 6 of Rappan Athuk’s 37 levels.

That’s right: Thirty-seven levels!

Damn, that’s cool.

But I digress.

Rappan Athuk, the Dungeon of Graves, was founded by the Temple of Orcus, following their defeat in an ancient conflict between good and evil. The priests of Orcus’ foul temple escaped the final conflict, and fled to a vast complex of underground caverns. Over time, the priests adapted these caverns to their purposes, continuing with their foul rituals, and hidden from the light. Eventually their spreading influence could no longer be concealed, however, and parties of adventurers came to the dungeon seeking to end the evil for ever. They failed.

(One nice touch to the design of Rappan Athuk is that it is a “legendary dungeon” which takes into account the fact that, as a “legendary dungeon”, it will attract adventurers on a fairly regular basis. The upper levels of the dungeon, presented in this module, show the signs of recurrent adventuring parties – who can only delve so deep before retreating or being destroyed.)

Rappan Athuk: The Upper Levels presents Levels 1, 2, 3, 3A, and 4A of the dungeon (as well as Ground Level).

Ground Level: On the surface, Rappan Athuk is primarily accessed from a graveyard. The main order of the day here is traps, which are all designed with the intention of keeping adventurers out of the dungeons and away from the Temple of Orcus hidden deep beneath the earth. A number of access points to the dungeon below exist, including the Rat Tunnels, the Mausoleum… and the Well.

But those who have been to Rappan Athuk in the past have one very important piece of advice: Don’t go down the Well!

Another nice feature of Rappan Athuk is that it is not a linear dungeon: One does not simply go from one level down to the next. Rather, the levels link together in a complex myriad of possible approaches. Entering the dungeon itself can take you to a variety of locations: The rat tunnels can lead to Level 1 or Level 2. The Mausoleum leads to Level 1. The Well leads to Level 3A. From Level 1 one can go to Ground Level, Level 2, or Level 9. Level 2 has exits to Ground Level, Level 1, Level 3, and Level 4. And so forth.

Level 1: Level 1 is a natural cave system, primarily inhabited by wererats. However, the level as a whole is named after the “Dung Monster” – a mutated mimic which disguises itself as a toilet in order to lure in its victims. (Don’t laugh – it works in every single playtest I’ve run.)

Level 2: Level 2 is a finished level, featuring the home of Marthek the Madman and Ambro the Ogre. In a sealed portion of the level which adventurers have never successfully penetrated, one can also find the Tomb of Saracek – an undead, skeletal warrior with a history connected to the dungeon as a whole.

Here, again, you can see the nice contrast between “adventurers have plundered here” and “adventurers have not successfully plundered here” in the dungeon design. You can also begin to see, at this point, the subtle way in which Webb and Peterson have made Rappan Athuk believable, if not necessarily realistic: The wererats have a reason for living where they live. Marthek and Ambro have reasons for living where they live. The presence of the Tomb here makes sense.

Another strength which can be seen here, again, is the dynamic complexity of Rappan Athuk. PCs who come to Level 2 for the first time will most likely not be able to gain access to the Tomb of Saracek until they have delved deeper into the dungeon. Rappan Athuk defies a “loot it room by room” mentality – again helping to subtly reinforce its believability.

Level 3: Level 3 is a return to the natural caves which drew the Temple of Orcus to the location in the first place. This level is inhabited by purple worms, who hunt viciously. The entire level is known as a bane to adventurers – as witnessed by graffiti warnings over the level’s entrance. This level also features an oracle of the Temple, dating back to the earliest days of the Temple’s presence in the caverns – and remaining a sight of unholy pilgrimage for the priests who live below.

Level 3A: Level 3A is primarily accessed via the infamous Well. It is the lair of Zelkor, an extremely powerful, undead wizard. The lair is, essentially, a death-trap for all but the most powerful of adventurers. Cocky adventurers who ignore the plentiful warnings (not to mention the scratch marks of those unsuccessfully attempting to escape the lair via the Well after making the mistake of entry) will learn their lesson the hard way.

One thing I like about Necromancer’s modules is the fact that they refuse to pull their punches. Your players will learn fear in Rappan Athuk, and they will learn to respect the dungeon. This makes for a highly effective game session – and adds to the mystique.

Level 4A: Level 4A is known as the Basilisk Caverns, which should be pretty much self-explanatory. There are also some lost goblins in this level.

The lost goblins point to another nice strength of Rappan Athuk: The goblins journeyed up from Level 12A via Level 7A and became trapped by the basilisks. This is just one example of the foreshadowing of later dungeon levels which occurs throughout The Upper Levels. I have seen some reviewers criticize Rappan Athuk as a series of disconnected dungeon levels – but I simply can’t agree with this assessment (and am unsure how such a conclusion could ever be reached).

WEAK POINTS

Rappan Athuk has a lot going for it. Of course, it’s not without its share of flaws as well. A few things that caught my attention:

1. Several of the monster stats presented in the book are incorrect to one extent or another.

2. Necromancer Games should invest in a copy of a good mapping program. The maps I have seen in their products to date do not impress me. In products whose professional qualities shine throughout, the maps present themselves as oddly amateurish. Unfortunately, since the first place most people look in a dungeon module is the maps, I have the feeling that Necromancer is shooting itself in the foot by making the first impression of its products a potentially negative one.

3. The highly interconnected nature of the Rappan Athuk’s various sections really demands that the entire trilogy be released before you play it. It’s no good, for example, “starting to play now and not reaching the lower levels until they’re released” when, in point of fact, you can take a left turn one Level 1 and end up way down on Level 9. Although notes are included for playing the Upper Levels in isolation, they essentially consist of “the lower levels are completely, absolutely, and utterly inaccessible behind magical doors”. I don’t find this a satisfactory solution.

CONCLUSION

No one in the movie Casablanca says, “Play it again, Sam.” The words “Beam me up, Scotty” never appeared on an episode of the original Star Trek television series.

There are a lot of things in life which are seen in our memory only through rose-colored lenses. They exist in a state of “Platonic perfection”, and when we go back to view them again we realize that they do not – in fact – embody the archetypes which we have crafted for ourselves.

In my opinion, the “classic D&D modules” of the early days of the industry exist in this state: As a collective community, we remember them through rose-colored lenses. Perhaps we simply edit out the bad parts for ourselves. Or perhaps our DMs fixed up those modules before running us through them. Or perhaps we’re guilty of drawing a little bit from The Tomb of Horrors, a touch from Queen of the Demonweb Pits, and a smidgeon from The Keep of the Borderlands and making up a memory which is greater than any of its parts.

Where am I going with all this?

In my opinion, Rappan Athuk succeeds at capturing the spirit of the classic dungeon crawl in a way which the classic dungeon crawl, in point of fact, never captured on its own. Rappan Athuk is the epic dungeon which could only be found in nostalgia before now.

Although I’ll reserve final judgment until the fully trilogy is released, I will say this of The Upper Levels:

Rappan Athuk looks like a classic. Buy it today.

Style: 4
Substance: 4

Author: Bill Webb and Clark Peterson
Publisher: Necromancer Games
Price: $9.99
ISBN: 1-58846-156-4
Product Code: WW8360
Pages: 48

I’ve lost count of how many different editions of Rappan Athuk have been released. In addition to the original trilogy, Rappan Athuk Reloaded was a boxed set that expanded the Dungeon of Graves even further. Frog God Games has produced versions for Pathfinder, 5E, and Swords & Wizardry. I think there was also an abortive attempt to adapt it for Dungeon Crawl Classics?

Rappan Athuk is probably my favorite published megadungeon. I’ve run the first level many times, but — despite a couple of attempts — never managed to run a truly successful campaign of the whole thing. Some of the very earliest material here on the Alexandrian was actually new material that I created for one of these abortive campaigns:

The Lost Goblins

Level 5a: The Caverns of Mist
Level 7B: The Ethereal Palace

Level 6 Mazes: 6-2A, 6-2B, 6-2C, 6-2D
Level 7 Mazes: 7A-A, 7A-B, 7A-C, 7A-D, 7A-E, 7A-F

One of these days I’ll probably revisit those campaign notes and restructure them into an open table. Flipping through them, I see that I also did a massive remix of Level 7, considerably expanding the mind flayers there. I wonder if anyone would be interested in seeing that?

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

An excellent overland adventure, organized to make the GM’s task simple and the player’s experience memorable.

Original Review Posted May 21st, 2001

Before WotC’s OGL and D20 trademark license came along and allowed them to release products like A Lion in the Ropes and The Malady of Kings, Troll Lord Games was producing generic fantasy adventures. As with many products of their kind, the production values on these generic modules were weak. But in the case of Troll Lord, the modules were cheap enough to match those production values ($5), and the content itself was highly memorable (if sometimes in need of some fix-up work). These modules are now being updated to D20 (check out their website), and are – I think – worthy of your attention.

PLOT

Warning: This review will contain spoilers for The Mortality of Green. Players who may find themselves playing in this adventure should not read beyond this point.

One of these modules was (and is) The Mortality of Green by Stephen Chenault. Set within the Darkenfold Forest, The Mortality of Green focuses upon the Druidic Council’s efforts to recover the forest from the evil which has long possessed it. Although the task will be long and arduous, the Council is attempting to offer the denizens of Darkenfold hope by having Cornelius the White carry a sapling of the Great Tree to the woodsmen of Rangers Knot, who will plant it in a secret grove whose ground shall be sanctified. In turn, the grove (and sapling) will begin to heal the Darkenfold.

Unfortunately, deep within the forest lives a sentient tree named Gristlebones. Gristlebones is twisted, old, and corrupt. He sends one of his allies – Quagmire the Troll – to intercept Cornelius and steal the sapling. Which Quagmire does.

Enter the PCs, who stumble across the dying Cornelius – who attempts to extract an oath to recover the sapling and fulfill his failed mission. The PCs’ attempt to fulfill this oath will lead them throughout the Darkenfold as they seek to catch Quagmire before he can deliver the sapling to Gristlebones, who will corrupt its powerful magic for his own purposes.

STRENGTHS

When I was first being exposed to the adventures being produced by Troll Lord Games, I was immediately struck by the extremely memorable environments in which they were being set. All of them take place within the After Winter Dark campaign setting (which I have reviewed elsewhere on RPGNet). Despite this, however, their unique – and compelling – elements are still presented in a fashion which allows them to be inserted seamlessly into any sufficiently generic campaign world.

The Mortality of the Green, of course, is no exception to this. Stephen Chenault is very careful to present the Darkenfold in such a way that it is not simply rendered into the meaningless background noise of the stereotypical “evil forest”. The Darkenfold is given a specific character, history, and geography – playing upon familiar fantasy themes, but establishing itself as something memorable unto itself.

With his setting established, Chenault then proceeds to develop upon it an excellent overland adventure. As a general rule, I find that overland adventures generally have problems. Unlike a standard dungeon, the players are not tightly confined to a set of stone rooms – and, as a result, it’s all too easy for the PCs to simply start missing things. On the other hand, unlike scene-act structure, the overland adventure has a certain assumption of self-direction. The Mortality of the Green is also a chase adventure – in which the PCs are expected to track someone down. This provided yet another opportunity for the adventure to fall flat, because its all too easy to fall into the trap of designing such an adventure so that the entire thing will derail in the DM’s hands if a single tracking die roll (for example) is missed.

Fortunately, Chenault avoids the pitfalls – and the result renders the DM’s task simple, and the player’s experience memorable: The necessary possibilities are covered, the adventure responds with changing dynamics to the actions of the PCs, and the entirety is kept simple enough to be easily played.

Style: 3
Substance: 4

Author: Stephen Chenault
Publisher: Troll Lord Games
Line: D20
Price: $5.00
ISBN: 0-9702397-1-8
Product Code: TLG1101
Pages: 22

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

This is a product you shouldn’t ignore. Read the review. No, really: Read the review. I’m not kidding.

Review Originally Posted February 12th, 2001

After Winter Dark, I’m afraid, is one of those products which – if you saw it on the shelf at your game store – you would promptly ignore. I mean, it’s got three strikes against it:

1. It’s from a company you’ve never heard of before.
2. The cover, while having a very nice picture of a dragon on it, still comes across as very amateurish in its overall composition and structure.
3. It’s a generic fantasy campaign.

Whoa! Hold on there! Don’t hit the “back” button on me quite yet! Keep reading!

After Winter Dark is, thus, one of those products which is truly fun to review, because you know that you have the chance to let people know about an outstanding product which they might otherwise miss.

So give me – and After Winter Dark — a chance to change your mind.

WEAK POINTS

Let’s get these out of the way first: Yes, the cover has a certain taint of amateurism. The interior art is reproduced too darkly. And the two maps (one of the geographical forms and the other for the sociopolitical boundaries – a nice touch, by the way) are organized numerically, while the text is organized alphabetically (making it difficult to cross-reference between them).

After Winter Dark is also only 24 pages long – which isn’t so much a fault in the grand scheme of things (because, at $5, that makes it a far better deal than the comparable product on the market, the D&D Gazetteer), as it is a fault because I want more.

Okay, those are the downers. It’s all uphill from here.

HISTORY

The After Winter Dark campaign setting is placed upon the world of Erde. The story of its creation is fairly typical in all but the details: The All Father brought the world into existence, and during the Days Before Days all creatures knew his mind – even the Great Dragon Frafnog who, today, is the only being which remembers this ancient time. Given eternity, however, the All Father grew weary of his creation and allowed the dwarves to enter it – and the dwarves did not know his mind, and their empire grew great. Some of the dwarves settled far from their brethren and lived wholly above ground, eventually becoming the thirteen tribes of man. And the Great Trees still wandered wild, and the Dragons made their nests across the world, and for three hundred centuries Erde thrived beneath the light of the sun.

Then the Goblins came – from whence, no one knows (although there are whispers of dwarves forever twisted and corrupted by the dark and evil of the deep). The terrible sorcery of the goblins made war upon the dwarfs, and the Goblin-Dwarf Wars stretched across four millennia – smashing the world of the Days Before Days into chaos. In the final days of the wars, the goblin sorcerer Ondluche worked powerful magic in an attempt to undo the dwarves – but the magic went awry, and the mind of the All Father was broken, opening gates into all of his imaginings. Thus the multiverse was born, and a host of new creatures sprang into the world. From the All Father’s purest thoughts came the Faerie, but there were also darker things – demons and orcs and, worst of all, the All Father’s Nightmare: Unklar.

The Age of Dwarves came to an end, with the great societies of both dwarf and orc smashed back into a primitive state by their self-destructive war. And thus the Age of Man began. From their “shallow roots in the distant north, the thirteen tribes of men grew.” The tribes became kingdoms, and the greatest of the kingdoms became the Empire of Aenoch. Then the Empire decayed, and the Middle Kingdoms arose in its place. This was the Age of Heroes – when “men, elves, and dwarves battled the evil remnants of the Old Empire, and heroes, like Aristobolus the White, Luther the Gallant, Daladon Half-Elven, and the monk Jaren ruled the day”.

But the Age of Heroes was doomed to end in tragedy: Sebastien Oliver I, “last of the House of Aenoch”, summoned forth the “last breath of the Days Before Days”. Using vile sorcery he summoned forth Unklar from the Paths of Umbra, and Unklar slew Sebastien and for forty years made war upon the land – bringing all the world beneath his heel: “In the last only the Kingdom of Kayomar stood alone against him and his vile folk. But in the Catalyst Wars, they too were thrown down and their last King, Robert Luther, slain, and with him, Jaren the monk. Only the Great Tree avoided Unklar’s touch for it hid in the deeps of the Eldwood, on the edge of the world. There, servants of the Oak under the ranger lord Daladon struggled on through the long years of the millennial darkness. Jaren, taken to Aufstrag, languished there for a millennium.”

Thus came about the Age of the Winter Dark – when Unklar ruled with an iron fist, and a shroud of mist obscured the sun and brought eternal winter upon the land. Then, “in the 1019th year of Unklar’s reign the Winter Dark Wars began”. Unklar’s power had waned, and his opponents gathered about the Great Tree – Aristobolus returned from the Land of Shade and Chaos, Luther from the Sea of Dreams. Jaren was freed, Dalodon half-elven and Dolgon (the last dwarven king of Grundliche Hohle) came as well. “In the 1030th year of Unklar’s reign they stole into his throne room and cast him from the plane.”

That was sixty years ago.

This, then, is the world of After Winter Dark: There is just the faintest scent of Elric here, as the Young Kingdoms begin to build anew beneath a lingering shadow upon the remnants of an ancient past.

THE WORLD TODAY

It was the history of the After Winter Dark campaign which first caught my attention. You know that something is being done right if you are immediately enraptured with era after era of a world’s history: I can easily see myself setting entire campaigns in the time of the Goblin-Dwarf Wars, the Empire of Aenoch, the Age of Heroes, the Age of Winter Dark, or the Winter Dark Wars – not to mention the Young Kingdoms which are actually detailed in this pamphlet.

After Winter Dark takes the familiar, twists it just enough to make it its own, and then adds that ineffable quality of the epic which can take the ordinary and make it exceptional. In short, I was excited — and that’s worth $5 right there.

Erde’s cosmos and calendar are described, then its people and languages, followed by the gods and divine orders, and then the guilds and other organizations of the world. Finally, the individual lands are given brief descriptions (including their Lord, Capital, History, and Modern Classification). Finally, the major geographical and terrain features of the world of Erde are described.

The actual detail of the world, although sparse (as the format would suggest), is no less exciting than the history. A few examples.

Aufstrag. “Fell Unklar, brooding in fear, roused himself and fortified his Keep. Rending the earth with his great axe he cleaved huge rifts about the Imperial castle of Old Aenoch, and with sorceries created great pools of water and pestilence to cover the rent lands. And all of Aenoch between the rivers Udunilay and Uphrates was made a swamp of fell death.” Aufstrag was once the mighty stone citadel of Unklar’s rule – “in time of years the place became a cesspool of all things vile; tunnels, great and small, fanned out beneath the halls into the rock of the world, towers and buttresses rose into the sky, and the city sprawled out over hills”. The halls of Aufstrag have fallen into decay now, but Coburg the Undying – one of Unklar’s unvanquished lieutenants – is rumored to lurk within its massive halls, plotting for the day that he will reclaim his power.

(In my opinion, Aufstrag is simply a wonderful excuse for an elaborate dungeon. And I really hope that the Troll Lords return here some day with a product which will explore its dark depths in detail.)

Grundliche Hohle. The Deep Halls, as it is known in the tongues of men, is the oldest of the dwarven realms. Unklar opened it to the darkness and slew or enslaved Angrod’s people. Eventually, though, Dolgan – the last king of Grundliche Hohle – rose up from the slave pits and helped defeat Unklar. Now the dwarves have returned here, to reclaim their ancient land.

The Shelves of Mist. “These gently rolling, forested hills, north of the Darkenfold, are home to all manner of fantastic creatures. The many creeks and small lakes lend to the banks of mist which seem to forever hang over the shelves. ‘Tis said that these hills harbor the gates of Vakhund, doorways to other worlds.”

The Detmold. “An old and dark forest. Its short thick trees grow close together and crowd the northern road. It is said that Queen Ephremere of Aachen became one with the Unicorn here.”

Even in the brief span of 24 pages, it becomes clear that what truly helps After Winer Dark excel is the attention to detail: Specifically, Stephen Chenault has crafted a world in which every detail has been dipped in the fantastic and awe-inspiring. The mountains of Erde have a history; the hills echo with the ring of magic; the rivers flow from springs of time immemorial; and the entire world seems harmonized to an ancient, evocative song. If you can take nothing else from this product, you can take the rich elements from which it has been built and use them to spice your own campaigns.

This is a world of fantasy, above all, which deserves a much more detailed presentation. But, until that happens, we will have to content ourselves with After Winter Dark.

COMMERCIAL DETAILS

A full color poster map (21” x 32”) of the world of Erde is sold separately, also for $5. It is well done for the price, and I honestly can’t imagine using After Winter Dark without owning a copy. Check it out.

After Winter Dark and the After Winter Dark Fantasy Campaign Setting 21” x 32” Map can be ordered directly from Troll Lord Games or from Wizard’s Attic. Both of these have also been packaged with the CD-ROM editions of The Fantastic Adventure, Mortality of the Green, and A Lion in the Ropes for the low price of $10. I have reviewed The Fantastic Adventure, and will be reviewing The Mortality of Green and A Lion in the Ropes in the near future.

Style: 3
Substance: 4

Grade: B+

Authors: Stephen Chenault
Company: Troll Lord Games
Line: Sword & Sorcery
Price: $5.00
ISBN: 0-9702397-0-X
Production Code: TLG 1001
Pages: 24

This campaign setting has been vastly expanded and released as After Winter Dark: The Codex of Aihrde, but there is something still incredibly appealing about the slim, 24-page version I first read 20+ years ago.

This review nearly went astray. It somehow slipped through my original archiving of these reviews and, although I recalled reading After Winter Dark, I had actually remembered NOT reviewing it. (I think because I wrote half of a never-finished review of a later Troll Lord Games campaign supplement.) It was only because a review that will be reprinted next month mentioned that I had written a review of After Winter Dark “that could be found elsewhere on this site,” that I realized something was amiss.

Thankfully, I was still able to track down a copy of the review. And here it is!

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.