Good Bones

In the past, I've watched a lot of "house flipping" and "remodeling" shows on television. My wife digs this kind of programming (she finds it relaxing) and I find it...well, interesting enough. I am rather the opposite of a "handyman" type. But I don't mind spending a lazy weekend afternoon, sitting on the couch and drinking coffee.

[we rarely have the time to "veg" that much these days, considering all the weekend kid events...but I did start this post with the phrase 'In the past...']

Anyhoo, I myself have done very little "remodeling" in my life...I've certainly never "flipped" a property. But as I said, I've watched these shows and there's this phrase that I sometimes here come up about a house...that it has "good bones." Which, I assume, means it has a good foundational structure on which to build or hang new drywall or, well, whatever. I don't know...I said I wasn't "handy" like that.

What I AM somewhat handy with is adventure writing/design (well, I think I am anyway...). The last couple-four days I've been working on my rewrite of I4: Oasis of the White Palm. Oh, man, it's really good. Not to toot my own horn, but I'm kind of in love with what I'm writing...this looks like it's going to be really fun to run. I'm digging it. 

But I want to give some credit to Philip Meyers and Tracy Hickman, the original writers. Because the thing has good bones...there IS a strong foundation here, mainly in the maps and some of the overall 'Big Concepts." Not the story, mind you...the story is terrible and I've discarded it completely. But many of the situations and factions are quite workable. Well, re-workable. Er...I mean, they're stuff that I can work with and pound something good and decent out of. If that makes sense. Which, maybe it doesn't. But I mean it as a compliment...if a back-handed one.

I'm currently working backwards through the thing because dungeons are more fun (and, in many ways, easier) to stock than other areas. Eh, what am I saying. It's all pretty easy to stock. But the dungeons are definitely more fun. Because they have more obvious threats (and bigger treasures...I like treasure). So I did the Crypt of Badr al-Mosak first (even though it's Part III of three) and then, today, I finished up the Temple of Set (Part II). Yes, these have all been renamed. No, there are no "EverFall Pits" with flying mummies, nor any kidnapped princess-brides...you want that, you can buy the original as a $5 PDF and run it. This is going to be clever, okay? Without the silly puns and with a modicum of sense and sensibility.

I mean...*sigh*  So, NOW, I was just about to sit down to start in on Part I (the Oasis itself), and...as is my wont...I started diving into my analysis of just what is here. What IS this town? I already know a lot of what MY town is going to be, but I want to look at the BONES of the place, the underlying structure. Because the structure is functional...I've run I4 before, back in the day, pretty much exactly as written and I don't remember any hiccups or problems. So let's see what we've got...first up, the Oasis random  encounters, lifeblood of a dynamic environment (or, at least, that which provides verisimilitude of a living-breathing town). What have we got?

Women carrying water. Women carrying clothing. A trader "with beads." Traders with palm dates. Traders with camels. Home Guard. A drunk. 1-4 Male Drow. A noble. A slave on an errand. A....

Wait, what? 1-4 male Drow?! In the desert? Who cares if it's at night...how the hell did they get there? What the heck are they doing? They're not even one of the "special" encounters...just a normal evening encounter around the village.

*sigh* This is why O Great & Glorious Hickmans...this is why I rewrite your adventures. Crap like this. There's a lot of whimsical stuff here that doesn't really fly in my view of an AD&D adventure, but I can stomach a certain amount of whimsy (even if...sorry...I'm writing the pegasus squadron OUT of the adventure). But there's "whimsy," and then there's nonsense. A thriving oasis town filled with fantasy-Islamic/Bedouins is not a place where Drow are just "walking around."

Many, many problems here.

Ah, well. The first two bits have turned out great; no reason to think the town part can't be spruced up. I've even added a couple new NPC personalities to the mix, which is also good fun. One nifty thing about my version: the writing's quite a bit tighter (which is to say, I don't pad it out as much as the original). Consequently, I've already trimmed about four pages from the text. That is GREAT; I really want to keep this thing to 32 pages (max), but I want to add more actionable, game-able content, not just:

D. Hills

Craggy, low hills of broken and baked stone jut upwards at weird andles and cast tortured shadows.

Play: Movement rate is half normal in such areas for all persons except dwarves. There is a 60% chance per hor spent searching of finding a cave shelter large enough for the party.

Or this:

E. Bleached Bones

The trail suddenly broadens amid the dunes. The clean, white bones of camels stand in a roughly 100-foot circle.

Play: There is a 30% chance that a party member will discover that the bones have only recently been picked clean. All worthwhile objects have been taken from the area. A set of three sled tracks leads east to location F.

Or this:

L1-L4. Ruins

Jutting jaggedly from the midst of the desert are ancient broken pieces of hand-hewn stone.

[no other info given, just the boxed text description]

This is what I like to call "tourist crap." It's not nonsensical, but it serves little or no purpose. Regardless of whether or not the players figure out that the bones "have only recently been picked clean," so what? It makes no difference to the adventure. Even if there ARE dwarves in the party, they still can't move any faster than the other, non-dwarf members. This is just extraneous detail for a "tour guide DM" to dole out, presumably to "break up the monotony." Hey, try to roll under 30% on percentile dice? Yeah, you made it? You can see these bones were only RECENTLY picked clean...dun-dun-DUN!

Far easier to simply:

• Calculate the distance between point A and B
• Calculate the time needed to travel there.
• Roll for random encounters based on the time traveled

...and just get to the play at the important bit (wherever that final destination is). 

It's not that we need to 'get to a place where we roll dice,' but it IS about getting to a decision point where the players can make a meaningful decision. Looking at the wilderness map of I4 (which I will be redrawing to match my southern Idaho desert), I can see there's no reason the players would ever have to go to area #D ("Hills")...no road leads there, no plot requirements mandate them passing through the area, nothing. It is just USELESS FILLER.

My adventure doesn't have useless filler.

Anyway, I'm enjoying myself and my little project. Ugly as the original house is, I think my "remodel" will look quite swell. Despite my complaints the thing does have "good bones;" that makes a difference.

Later, gators.

[also, just for fun: this came to mind when I wrote "tour guide DM;" it's kind of catchy!]

K is for Kartha

I missed the April A-Z Blog Challenge this year, so I'm doing my own...in June. This year, I will be posting one post per day discussing my AD&D campaign, for the curious. Since 2020, this is the ONLY campaign I run. Enjoy!

K is for Kartha...the Desert of Kartha. 

"Kartha? I don't see that on my Google Earth!" Yeah, no...you won't. Desert of Kartha is the name I've given to my ongoing project of re-writing TSR's original Desert of Desolation series (adventure modules I3, I4, and I5). Heavily inspired/influenced by the old Marvel Micronauts comics (specifically issues #23-25 and #34-35), I was originally going to call it the "Desert of Karza" (for Baron Karza) but in the end decided to file down the serial numbers somewhat.

As others have discussed, the scale of the Desert of Desolation is pretty small considering its descriptions of being a 'vast wasteland.' However, even a small desert can be tough to cross if you're dealing with the pre-industrial, semi-medieval technology level that is most D&D campaigns. So, I found I didn't need something the size of Saudi Arabia (let alone the Sahara)...I could get by with something quite a bit smaller.

That smaller area? Southern Idaho. 

Famous (infamous) Death Valley is roughly the size of Connecticut.  Google tells me you can fit 17 Connecticuts into Idaho. From Boise (the last patch of "civilization" in northern Idaho) to Pocatello and the Bannock mountain communities, the distance is more than 200 miles on foot...that's a LOT of desert to traverse, even if you have dromedaries. 

But look...I'm pretty busy today, so I'm going to let the good 'ol ChatGPT summarize my notes for you:

Southern Idaho is a land transformed — not the semi-arid farmland of irrigation-fed memory, but a harsh, sunbaked expanse known as the Desert of Kartha. Once a broad volcanic plain carved by the ancient path of the Snake River, it is now a desolate region of cracked lava flats, alkali basins, and slow-drifting dunes. The river itself still exists in places, but it is a skeletal thing — mostly a chain of brackish pools and salt-scarred channels that only rage to life with spring melt from the mountains. Kartha stretches from the ragged basalt shelves east of Boise all the way to the Bannock Range near Pocatello, and from the Owyhee Plateau in the south to the sage-laced edges of the Camas Prairie in the north.

The land is deceptive in its uniformity. On first glance it is flat, shimmering, dead — but travel far and long enough, and the bones of the land show through. Shattered lava fields east of Mountain Home give way to knife-edged canyons around Bliss and Hagerman, where occasional springs burst from canyon walls and feed narrow green ribbons. Farther east, near the ancient flows of the Craters of the Moon, the land buckles and yawns open, pocked with collapsed tubes and deep chimneys that some say lead to caverns filled with poisonous air and stranger things. Near Shoshone, long-sunken aquifers provide a rare permanence of water, and so the town endures — a hub of trade, refuge, and tense diplomacy in the desert heart.

Here in Kartha, the Badawi roam. They are not a single people, but dozens of kin-groups and clans that trace their lineages through oral tradition, inscribed bone tokens, and remembered migrations. They travel in long, low-slung caravans — dromedaries and wiry horses carrying trade goods, tools, water barrels, and kin. The Badawi know where the old wellheads still bubble beneath wind-carved rock. They know which springs have turned to salt and which grow bitter in the summer. They carry obsidian from the old lava beds, sulfur and saltpeter from fumaroles near Carey, silver traded out of the hills near Arco, and strange dark glass scavenged from ancient ruins buried beneath the dunes.

Kartha is not empty. It hums with movement: raiding bands, pilgrims, seasonal migrations, and armed caravans flying clan pennants. Routes are marked by cairns and sun-bleached glyphs. Oasis towns like Richfield, Arco, and Minidoka have become intermittent waystations — part rest stop, part trap. Some Badawi settle for a time in places where the water flows regularly, but they are mocked by their cousins as Hadir-in-disguise, soft-footed and forgetful of the old ways. The greatest insult one Badawi can offer another is to call them “Houseborn.”

Boise, at the western edge of the Kartha, is a frontier city in the mold of Sanctuary — a crumbling Hadir holdout city full of outlanders, deserters, exiles, and opportunists. Stone walls rise from mud and basalt, remnants of an imperial fort that once claimed to guard the desert road. Today, Boise functions more as a free city than a provincial capital — ruled more by the strength of local guilds, caravan companies, and warbands than by any imperial satrap. Agents of the Inland Empire still operate there, but their presence is limited to sealed quarters in the inner district and occasional bureaucratic embassies. Beyond the walls, Badawi come and go, hawking salt, sulfur, and rare desert spices in the market squares.

East of Shoshone, the land rises gradually toward the Bannock Range and the Hadir communities near Pocatello. These mountain settlements have their own character — sturdier, more industrious, more reliant on trade and mineral extraction. Mines in the Portneuf and Bannock highlands supply copper, tin, and iron to imperial forges, while Arco and Blackfoot act as trade nexuses. Caravans from Shoshone arrive weather-beaten and weary, sometimes escorted, sometimes harassed by their own kin-turned-bandits. These caravan routes are lifelines, and also constant battlegrounds of shifting alliances, marriage pacts, and blood feuds.

The weather in Kartha is brutal. Dust storms howl across the flats in spring, burying way-markers and drying out skin in hours. In summer, the ground can burn the soles of a careless traveler’s boots; in winter, ice crusts the sand before dawn. Despite this, the Badawi thrive. They wear garments of tightly-woven wool and desert silk, raise hardy goats and long-haired sheep, and practice forms of knowledge the Hadir dismiss as superstition but which have ensured their survival for generations — wind reading, star navigation, ritual water-scouting, and herbcraft drawn from dry cliffs and ancient wadis. 

The Kartha is not just a desert. It is a boundary — not only between Boise and Pocatello, Hadir and Badawi, or the Empire and its wilderness — but between survival and oblivion. Those who live here learn quickly: everything in Kartha moves, even if you can’t see it. The land itself forgets the names of the weak. Only the strong, the clever, or the silent endure. And sometimes, not even they are enough.

Got all that? The distance from Boise to Shoshone (the latter of which replaces the Oasis of the White Palm in my setting) is roughly 120 miles, some 6-8 days travel by dromedary caravan. The route departs from Boise, skirting the barren Boise Foothills, passes through Kuna Butte and across the Snake River (at a seasonal ford or ruined bridge near Swan Falls), then traverses the high desert plains around Grand Vie, where travelers will find minimal shade and sparse scrub before making camp near the Bruneau Sand Dunes, where a reliable aquifer supports a semi-permanent watering point. From there you cross the Brueau Plateau and descend into the flatlands east of Richfield, where dust storms and basalt ridges challenge navigation, before entering Shoshone from the northeast, approaching across the Big Wood River, where it runs shallow but steady.

From Shoshone to Pocatello (the Eastern Trail) the distance is only 105 miles, but travel time can take 6-9 days depending on elevation and snowfall...early winter snows may close high passes. Caravans depart Shoshone heading northeast to Carey, ascending gently through the Carey Valley, skirting the edge of the Pioneer Mountains to the north and plains to the south. A midway stop near the Craters of the Moon (where deep wells and cave springs make for a vital Badawi gathering site) before continuing east to Arco, a fortified Hadir outpost and caravan staging point. From Arco, caravans travel south over the Lost River desert flats and wind through Atomic City (now ruins, but sometimes used for shelter) before approaching Pocatello via the northern fringe of the Arbon Valley and into the mouth of the Portneuf Range. 

Caravans typically consist of 30-50 dromedaries led by Badawi guides. Banditry is common between Bruneau and Richfield, where cliffs and gullies (especially the Wendell Cliffs) allow ambushes. 

That's probably as much (or, rather, more) information than you need, but I'll mention a few more fantasy tidbits to whet your appetite (possibly) for my (some day) forthcoming adventure trilogy:

The Centauri

Where the lave fields roll into the high sagebrush steppe near Gooding, Jerome, and the Camas Prairie, there you will find the Centauri:  feral, half-mad creatures that view the bipedal races as blights upon the land. Twice as large as a human, their equine bodies are thick with muscle, while their human torsos are adorned with bone talismans, thorn armor, and painted war runes. To the Badawi, the Centauri are an ancient enemy, responsible for countless raids and deaths...but also objects of grim respect. Some tribes leave offerings at border cairns to ward them off. Entire caravan routes detour for weeks to avoid Centauri ranges, especially in spring and autumn when they become migratory and aggressive. Among the Hadir of Boise and Pocatello, sightings of Centauri are often met with terror, but also dark fascination.

The Duergar

Deep below the basalt and ash fields near Craters of the Moon, Minidoka, and Massacre Rocks, the Duergar delve in silence. Twisted, grim, and secretive, these grey dwarves are remnants of an ancient civilization broken by way...or possibly by Kartha himself. Pallid and mutated, their eyes glowing with fey luminescence and theit minds touched with deep-earth madness, they are rarely seen on the surface. Some Badawi have forged careful trading relationships with them, often through intermediaries known as "Ash-Speakers," exchanging surface goods...firewood, leather, alcohol, rare herbs...for gemstones and refined ore. More often, Duergar are blamed for vanishing travelers, collapsed wells, and cursed artifacts. The Hadir mineworkers in the Bannock ranges speak of strange voices and empty tools left polished and rearranged overnight...signs the grey dwarves have passed unseen.

The Shoshone Bird-Riders

The giant desert birds, known as minqar alfas, are a fearsome and awe-inspiring part of life in and around Shoshone. Standing eight feet tall at the shoulder, these sharp-beaed, talon-footed creatures are fiercely intelligent, aggressively territorial, and able to run tirelessly across sand and basalt for days. Though they exist in the wild near the lava plains west of Craters of the Moon, it is only the Badawi of Shoshone that have mastered their training, forging deep bonds with hatchlings and raising them into lethal mounts. The warriors who ride them sever as scouts, caravan guards, and the elite defenders of the oasis.

Shoshone is a jewel set amid desolation. Fed by artesian springs and positioned at the nexus of several old lava tubes, it boasts shaded palm-like trees, stone-built cisterns, and clay-walled homes that cling to its cratered edge. It is the lifeblood of Kartha's trade routes. Every caravan from Boise to Pocatello stops there to rest and barter. Its market hums with dialects from across the desert; Hadir traders from Bannock peddling ore, Badawi selling hides and gems, and even the occasional veiled emissary from the Duergar depths. And overseeing it all, the Shoshone bird-riders patrol in formation, their mounts shrieking as they scan for bandits, Centauri, or worse. 

[I will leave off discussion of the Desert Sage, Coo An-Nah, "The Immense One" for another time]

Idaho Deathlands

My plan to write more got derailed by ending up flat on my back with the flu the last three-four days. Just a bad week to be sick (and, yes, now it's hit other family members, including the wife and daughter) what with the in-laws in town and mi suegra's birthday to celebrate. Ah, well. Most of us...including me...are on the mend and the boy's iron constitution has once again proven to be immune to the soft depredations of the rest of us frails.

SO. What am I working on today. Sticking the Desert of Desolation into my campaign world. Specifically in Idaho, in the eastern half of the Snake River Valley, a.k.a the "Great Rift of Idaho." This was a tricky one; not only did I need to find an area of similar size in specifications (the I3-I5 series encompasses a mapped wilderness roughly 110 miles long by 60 miles wide), it had to be an area that could be 1) easily converted to desert, and 2) be bordered by mountainous foothills and broken lands of the type described in the modules. A great sandbox of death, in other words.

Building on my Micronauts-inspired, post-apocalyptic wasteland, the easiest way to get to where I wanted was to look at climate change projections and blow-up the human-made irrigation systems that allowed Magic Valley to transform from an uninhabitable wasteland it was as recently as the 20th century. Knock out the dams and infrastructure and Twin Falls dies in (probably) a cannibalistic apocalypse...especially when you factor in standard D&D monsters looking for sustenance. 

Fortunately (for me), there really aren't that many towns I need to raze /de-populate once you remove the "Magic Valley" issue. Gooding is pretty much the "last outpost" of humanity: 2020 census puts the population under 4,000 anyway, and my campaign generally cuts pop by a factor of seven to ten...well, when I'm not using the 1890 figures (my go-to default). As such, the Great Kingdom of Boise is really the only organized civilization west of the Desert...and it may be more "bandit kingdom" than anything else at this point. 

Well...maybe. Thing is, when doing pop. figures I'm generally looking at post-European settler / pre-railroad for determining what kind of populations my "D&D-tech-level" can support. Because despite the existence of magic, it's a tough ol' world for these fantasy colonists and this ain't no magical Renfair society. Magic-users (um...sorcerers? witches?) are generally feared and/or misunderstood and the "awe-inspiring" bit only holds until you've got a big enough mob of peasants with pitch-forks. Magic (and its counterpart, "high technology") is generally blamed for the current shambled state of 'the world that is;' peoples are trying to make their way without magic, rather than with it. 

What's the stress-level of people living near Hanford? Do you really want a wizard capable of summoning demons living inside your town? Even one claiming to be beneficent? Yeah, clean, nuclear power...totally cool with that, right?

So, yeah. No railroads. Lose the infrastructure it makes possible. Up the temperature a few degrees, add some heavy desertification (possibly helped along by a magic/tech catastrophe a couple centuries prior) and voila!...a setting for exploration and uncovering of ancient, treasure-filled ruins. 

Now, I did say that the Desert of Desolation wilderness is about 100-110 miles long that, even starting with Gooding, doesn't quite take us all the way to Idaho Falls, let alone I-15 and the cities along that route. But, that's actually fine as it helps explain one of the things left unexplained by Oasis of the White Palm, namely where the heck are the slavers of the Sandvoyagers Guild selling their kidnapped victims. Yes, yes, the module tells us that Thurnas Netmaster (leader of the slavers) "is working with Drow allies," from which we might infer that captives are being taken into the UnderDark...except that the presence of the Drow in the desert is patently ridiculous (how the hell did they get there? There are no subterranean tunnels or methods of reaching the UnderDark from the oasis. The slavers own excavation efforts have led them nowhere! And there are no ways for a dark elf to get across the burning sands with their special "Drow gear" intact...the two presented by the module are given nothing in the way of personality, background, or motivation and exist solely to fight and die on the blades of adventurers).  So, no...no Drow. Which means we still need a buyer of slaves. And while the savage centauri are likely to use such captives as a foodsource, I'm thinking of placing a slave-owning/slave-trading nation/culture EAST of the desert...should the players decide to continue adventuring that direction.

After all, I've still got the Slaver series to re-work. And if one needed a place to put the volcano-situated city of Sunderham, well, you really need look no farther than the caldera of Big Southern Butte, some 90 miles east of Gooding and 47 miles west of Idaho Falls...a perfect location for the secret City of the Slave-Lords. 

; )

The adventure to follow....

Sand Zones, Star Scepters, And Pharoid's Legacy

SO...looking back over my old blog posts, I thought for sure I'd mentioned my love/fascination with Micronauts somewhere. Clearly this isn't the case. I suppose another dive into my personal history is necessary.

My earliest memories of Micronauts are, of course, the toys which for several years (I'm guessing 1977 to 1980 based on release dates) would inexplicably appear beneath my Christmas tree on Christmas morning.

I say "inexplicably" because (as far as I can remember) I never asked Santa (or my parents) for a Micronaut toy ever (at least, not till the very final series) and they were largely off my "kid radar;" I didn't see ads on TV for them (Saturday morning cartoons had not yet started marketing toys via serial tie-ins to children), my cousins/friends didn't own them (so far as I knew), nor did I ever see them in the stores (not that I frequented these regularly as a small child).  In later years, following the first batch's appearance on Christmas morning, my brother and I, now familiar with them, would sometimes pore over the Sears "wishbook," divvying up which Micronauts each of us would eventually own (as we did with ALL toys appearing in such catalogues)...but we never went so far as to actually LIST these, so far as I can recall.

Typical Micronaut
Antagonist

As a matter of fact, this led to tears (on my part) one Christmas morning when I received a Galactic Command Center and my brother received a Star Wars "landspeeder." While the Micronauts base was, by far, the more interesting and useful toy of the two gifts, all my young mind could process was the fact that my brother had received a Star Wars spaceship...and I had not. Where was my tie fighter? Where was my X-wing? Ah, well, I did get over it (even the same day) as children do, and while I have immense affection for all the Star Wars toys and action figures I received over the years of my childhood, the Micronauts, in retrospect, are far more interesting. There are many times I've thought that I'd wished I'd been a bit older when they'd been released so that I'd appreciated them more.

Then again, if I had been older would they have gotten so tightly woven into my subconscious imagination?

If you had asked me, as a child, which was my favorite Micronaut toy EVER, I would probably cite the last one received: centaurus, with his laser crossbow and glow-in-the-dark (removable!) brain. That's a figure I absolutely wanted and asked for...even saw it on a store toy rack before Christmas. And even today, it's still solid...one of the coolest action figures I remember owning. But two other figures stand out as being exceptionally loved and played with by Yours Truly. One was the (original) Acroyear, whose dagger I managed to retain for years, despite being of the age when one loses accessories right and left. The other was Pharoid and his Time Chamber which fascinated me endlessly. I took it with me to Christmas morning Mass (the only toy I ever treated with such reverence) and recall spending long hours just...fiddling...with the thing. Opening the tomb. Putting him in the tomb. Taking him out. Repeat. What was the story of this guy?

Such a weird toy.

[if I had to guess, the Egyptian motif probably had much to do with the fascination. The King Tut exhibit traveled to Seattle in 1978, and was another momentous experience in my formative years]

But regardless of childhood toys, it was the Marvel comics written by Bill Mantlo that really cemented my love of the Micronauts.  I am 99.9% sure I started reading Micronauts with issue #34 (circa 1981) in the middle of the whole "Enigma Force" storyline (guest starring Doctor Strange!). I mean, talk about starting with a bang: mysticism, magic, super science, alien species, drama, betrayal...and, of course, a murderous band of gunslinging adventurer-heroes...all in the desert environment ("Sand Zone") of Aegyptia, with its towering tomb monuments, said to house the giant ancestors of the Microversians.

In addition, there was also Pharoid and Acroyear, Force Commander and Baron Karza. 

Well, whatever. I collected more than a few of the comics during its 50-some issue runs, including several of the back issues...mostly ones that were Micronauts-specific rather than crossovers with the X-Men and such. See, I wanted stories steeped in the lore of the specific IP, strange as it was, weird as it was...and, often, quite "dark" in nature (considering the concept's origin as a children's toy line). Some of those body bank stories...brr, frighteningly gruesome. A lot of body horror in Ye Old Micronauts, even the first issue of "The New Voyages" (the last issue I ever purchased, summer of '84) when protagonist Commander Rann was forced to sever his own hand at the wrist. 

[and people wonder why I like to make player characters suffer...]

Okay, okay, enough with the nostalgia: why am I writing about the Micronauts? Well, the last few days I've been working with the Desert of Desolation module series (I3: Pharaoh, I4: Oasis of the White Palm, and I5: Lost Tomb of Martek), seeing if there is some way, somehow, that I can twist them into something fun and functional for use in my own D&D campaign.  After all, they ARE just sitting there on my shelf, and I have fond memories of them as a child. Plus, they seem to be...more or less...in the proper "level range" for my current batch of players.

Mm. I won't lie. They're all pretty bad. Or, maybe, "inconsistent" is the operative word. Take Martek, for example: it's got some pretty cool ideas in it. The Cursed Garden. The Abyss. The Moebius Tower. But it's a real stinker of an adventure...just really poorly designed and fatally flawed in several gross ways (the Skysea is AWESOME...but it also one of the easiest TPKs I've ever seen in a TSR module). As well, it is just...missing...stuff. Things to do. Monsters to fight. Places to explore...in a non-linear, nor railroad fashion. There are several "here's a place that the DM can develop...so long as it doesn't PCs too long from the story being told" instances. Why the heck not? Because we're in such a hurry to get onto the next story? 

[probably...considering the absolute dearth of requisite treasure levels in these modules]

SO...interesting concepts/ideas, poor-to-terrible execution...and as with my analysis of I6: Ravenloft, I find that a LOT of this adventure would work just fine for LOWER LEVEL CHARACTERS. There is really nothing "mid-level" about this adventure, save that all the Hit Dice of encounters have been pumped up...to no good end.

FOR EXAMPLE: You don't need these unique "noble class" djinni and efreeti...a normal 10 HD efreet with max hit points would work JUST FINE for characters of levels 3 to 5 (remember also that the MM specifically says there are noble djinni with the same HD as an efreet). You don't need all these 4 hit dice dervishes and air lancers...just make them standard dervishes and nomads of the MM. And these new undead? They're just 8 and 10 hit dice NOTHINGS that cause fear and hit for 1d10 points of damage. Just what the hell are we playing at Hickman? It's not like the treasure count justifies a party of 6th - 8th level!

And remember that whole post about how much water you need to carry? In AD&D (the edition for which these adventures were...ostensibly...written) a cleric receives the create water spell at 1st level. By 5th level (the minimum suggested level for I3: Pharaoh), a cleric with a 16 WIS can cast five such spells per day, each casting conjuring 20 gallons of water per day...enough for some 25 humans. As with my review of I6: Ravenloft, it appears that Hickman's design assumptions are based on an earlier rule set (in OD&D, only a 6th level bishop can create water...and doing so leaves the character without the ability to neutralize poison, cure serious wounds, or cast protection from evil 10' radius). 

[side note: when I ran the Desert of Desolation series in my youth, the party tackled it withOUT a cleric, making the adventure considerably more difficult]

*ahem*

SO...the modules are crap, but they're crap with interesting bits. They're railroads and poorly stocked, but they've got a bunch of maps that ain't terrible. So when I think of how to fix them...to take their interesting bits, and make them both playable and (if possible) more interesting...I keep coming back to the Micronauts and those images from my youth: Giant, upright sarcophagus-tombs. Ancient tech/magic lost centuries before. Techno-bedouins riding giant, domesticated "ostras" (think: axebeak) against horse-headed "centauri" (re-skinned centaurs) in tribal warfare. And somewhere, lost in the sands, a laboratory-temple housing the ghost of Baron Karza, waiting to be resurrected and resume his conqueror's ways.

Lots of ways to spin and 'skin this thing. And probably a lot of ways to do it in a way that doesn't require a large group of mid-level characters. A post-apocalyptic, desert wasteland concealing generational secrets buried beneath riddles, legends, and sand. Sand and blood and treasure. Dig it.

Who needs "Sambayan air lancers"
and "Thune dervishes?"

Desolation

The last couple days I've been going through the old TSR modules I3: Pharaoh, I4: Oasis of the White Palm, and I5: Lost Tomb of Martek. Pharaoh was Laura and Tracy Hickman's first (self-published) adventure module prior to their being hired on at TSR...along with Rahasia, it was on the strength of this module that the couple were acquired. I've owned the TSR version of Pharaoh...and the its sequel titles...for decades. I first ran I4 for several cousins at a Christmas gathering in Port Angeles, circa 1986 or '87. I ran the entire trilogy for my brother and his friends circa '88 or '89.

I don't think I've looked at them since. And it shows as, in more than a decade of writing this blog, I've mentioned them only a couple times...and then only briefly. 

[oh, what's all this about then? Aren't I supposed to be continuing my prior post about "adventures?" Yeah, I am. Is this a sign that I'm procrastinating? Probably. Still figuring out how I want to start and whether or not it needs to be a two-parter. Patience, folks! I'll get to it!]

So why am I looking for them now? Well, in considering fitting the entirety of the War of the Lance campaign (a campaign played out on a rather small continent) into my little corner of fantasy reality, I started thinking about the Hickman's other noteworthy creation (not Ravenloft): the Desert of Desolation trilogy. After all, the desert was a magical, cursed creation...how big is it that it couldn't be laid over a corner of my world?  

Welp, it turns out...not very big at all. The area it encompasses is about 90 miles across its longest axis and 50 miles the other way. It's too much area to wedge in south of the Palouse (where I would have liked to have it), but it would be pretty easy to throw in that southeast corner of Oregon.  Just means I have to actually develop Oregon, a world building exercise I'm NOT extremely enthused about.

But WHY Desolation? Well, it's in that low/mid-range level of adventures. My players are in that range. And they were pre-Dragonlance/story garbage, so they should be...um, okay? And they're well-written/laid out (i.e. nice and clear for reading) so prep is minimal. And I do have fond memories of them...how would my memories hold up upon analysis with my old, veteran (geezer) eyes.

How indeed.

I3: Pharaoh is "designed for a party of six to eight players of the 5th to 7th levels of experience." I4: Oasis of the White Palm is written for characters of level 6th to 8th. I5: Lost Tomb of Martek is written for levels 7th to 9th. Reading this we can infer that a party of the proper number should expect to gain a level of experience upon completion of each portion of the trilogy (or, at least, after finishing the first two portions).

SO...a party of the maximum size (eight) should EXPECT to receive enough x.p. to level them from 5th to 6th level after I3 and from 6th to 7th after I4. Everyone groks this, right? A 5th level fighter needs 17,000 experience points to rise to 6th level, but I think it's okay peg this at 15.5, considering almost all fighters should receive a 10% bonus, given the ability score guidelines in the PHB. So, 15.5 x 8 = 124K. Now, for me, I'd probably want that entire amount (124,000) available in potential treasure found, especially in a trap/trick-heavy dungeon like Pharaoh, but I'd be satisfied with 60%-70% considering monster encounters and the possibility of selling unwanted magic items (yes, there is such a thing in AD&D). So, let's call it 74K - 86K worth of treasure at minimum.

A quest-giving ghost isn't
bad...but what if the cleric turns it?

How much does Pharaoh offer? 72,335 worth (if one counts the Star of Mo-Pelar as a gem of seeing). And that's pretty close to right! Especially when one understands the Hickman's presume goody-good adventurers who will most likely sell that libram of ineffable damnation for 40,000 rather than retaining (and using) it for 8,000. 104,000 x.p.? Not bad. And while the distribution isn't great (just under 33% of numbered encounters have treasure)...it's OKAY (B/X distribution is one-to-three, but I prefer my AD&D adventures to have more of a 40-50% ratio). Yes, the Hickmans had some design chops, back in the day.

Oasis of the White Palm, unfortunately, is not quite as good. A group of eight 6th level PCs of the fighter variety would need 255K (including 10% bonus) to achieve 7th level...the minimum suggested for the final part of the trilogy. I4 (credited to Tracy Hickman and Philip Meyers) provides only a bit more than 62,000 (62,519, to be exact), of which barely more than 35K is monetary treasure. 

A couple quick caveats: there is MORE treasure than that in the adventure, but acquiring it would require the PCs to rob/kill the many good-aligned NPCs that they are supposed to be aiding (I don't think that's the authors' intention!). The players are working for a Sheik Kassim Arslan, who does offer "the wealth of my tent" in exchange for the PCs' help which means, taken literally, that he could dig up another 17,250 worth of treasure experience (16,250 x.p. worth is actual monetary treasure). BUT...would the leader of his tribe REALLY give up a decanter of endless water (considering they're a band of desert nomads!)? Would he bankrupt his clan out of gratitude? Um...

Even so, that's under 80K in treasure experience. Even if we gave 'em that 60% leeway you're only about halfway to where you need to be (you'd want over 152,000). This is TERRIBLE...especially considering the overall quality of the module (in comparison to other modules of the time) and the attention displayed in I3. Quite possibly Oasis was rolled out with less play-testing (I3 had been developed over several years prior to its TSR publication in 1982; I4 was published in 1983).

Anyway, it IS possible to get the treasure count higher: by selling all the crap magic items that are present throughout the adventure. Four maces +1. Chainmail +2, plate +1. A scimitar +1, shield +2, sword +2. 6 arrows +1 and a potion of gaseous form. And...hoo boy!...more cursed magic items than I've EVER seen in a single adventure; here's the full list:

Potion of poison, incense of obsession (x2!), phylactery of monstrous attention, periapt of foul rotting, necklace of strangulation, helmet of opposite alignment, and the skull of cargath (an evil artifact that injures non-evil clerics if used). Of course, there's also a libram of gainful conjuration that only functions for neutral magic-users and drive NON-magic-users insane. 

I mean, it's really notable just how shitty the treasure is in this adventure. 20,000 g.p. worth of the monetary treasure comes from a pair of gemstone eyes in a statue that will PROBABLY BE DESTROYED by the PCs as the statue summons a relentless hoard of monsters so long as the eyes are functioning, and they may be destroyed far more swiftly than pried out (resulting in the total treasure "take" to be reduced substantially). Likewise, two of the major opponents in the adventure are DROW (in the desert! In the freaking desert!!) armed with all the usual Drow goodies (magic weapons, armor, cloaks, boots, etc.) ALL of which dissolve in sunlight (and such is stated in the module text). Did I mention this adventure takes place in a DESERT?

*sigh* Now I feel bad for pumping the tires on this module.  I'm going to blame the absence of Laura from the design process, but...poorly done, Oasis. Poorly done.

Lastly, we come to I5: Lost Tomb of Martek (credited solely to Tracy Raye Hickman). Assuming, somehow, we get the character to the minimum suggested level (7th) to tackle this, will they find the adventure "rewarding?" How does 127,000 experience points worth of potential treasure sound? To me, it sounds like "not much" for a party of eight 7th level characters. Considering a fighter is looking for 55,000 x.p. to advance (and an 8th level character would be looking for 125K!!!) that's a pretty small dent in the overall pie needed to level up.

"But JB! They don't NEED to level up at the end of this epic adventure do they?" No, I suppose not. But 80+ numbered encounters (in I5 alone)? How many sessions to navigate this thing? How many months spent playing out the entirety of this trilogy? Still: here's the part that REALLY chaps my hide:

There are only eight encounter areas in the entire adventure module that contain treasure. That's less than 1-in-10.  That SUCKS.

And really only SIX encounter areas...because at the end of the adventure, after you've gone through all the time, space, distance distortion levels and fought upteen monsters (many the same-same types of monsters) and halve faced untold frustrations with the crazy tricks/traps...after all THAT you get to Martek's dimensionally displaced tomb and see his treasure halls (three different chambers) with wealth so vast that the thieves that beat you there have LITERALLY DIED OF HEART ATTACKS FROM GLIMPSING THE TREASURE and you (DM) get the following instructions from the module:

Everything in the citadel. including all treasure, cannot be taken out of the citadel without Martek's permission. All of Martek's treasure has been magically enchanted so that it cannot be removed from this citadel. Only Martek can remove that enchantment, so unless he says it can go, it stays.

So, guess what: the PCs don't get to cart off all the treasure. IF they raise Martek from the dead (the goal of the adventure) he thanks the PCs and allows each to select THREE items from the hoard of items available. That 127K figure I came to? That's from assuming you have an average (surviving) party size of six and are selecting the 18 most profitable (in terms of x.p.) items from the hoard.

Still, it would be unfair not to point that many of these items are rare, "big ticket" types, easily worth three to five times their value on the open market: a lot of magical books (including a book of infinite spells), a dancing sword, a nine lives stealer, a shield +5. Selling those items (instead of retaining them) would make for a fairly profitable haul...AND keep the party's inventory of enchanted items manageable.

[for what it's worth, Lost Tomb of Martek is also mercifully devoid of cursed magic items]

When it comes to AD&D, selling magic items is both valid and necessary with regard to the game economy. It doesn't mean that there are "magic shops" in your game world (*barf*)...generally, the DM simply hand waves the sale and the item vanishes from play, replaced with a pile of gold (and x.p.). You can make it a bigger deal, forcing players to find buyers. etc. (I've done this at times), but then you risk players trying to steal items back or knock-over the dude who has the money for such a purchase...which short-circuits the game economy (not the game world economy, but the way the mechanics of the game interacts with each other). 

Still, finding buyers of 20K or 40K items in the middle of the desert (much less willing to buy cursed items) is a bit of a stretch for the verisimilitude of one's campaign.

[as an aside, I'll note that Anthony Huso, in his adventure design, uses the cash value of magic items when doing his spreadsheets for treasure as opposed to x.p. value (which I generally do). This is probably the better procedure for DMs whose players are likely to dig every piece out of all the nooks and crannies, or who play regular, looong sessions. For an intermittent campaign, or one where players routinely miss half of what's available, using the x.p. value for treasure counts seems to work slightly better]

Of course, Hickman is not overly concerned with verisimilitude. He clearly stated his design priorities long before joining TSR with his wife, endeavoring to meet four objectives:

1. a player objective more worthwhile than simply pillaging and killing
2. an intriguing story that is intricately woven into the play itself
3. dungeons with some sort of architectural sense, AND
4. an attainable and honorable end within one or two sessions playing time

That's really the whole "Hickman Revolution" in a nutshell, isn't it? Less attention paid to the mechanics of D&D (like treasure acquisition), instead looking to meeting "story goals." Elaborate plots and story arcs to be played out (with hard rails coded in to prohibit deviation). Expansive, isometric dungeon maps. And assumptions of "heroic goodness" from the players in a battle against evil.

[ha! Just realized Oasis of the White Palm, much like DL2: Dragons of Flame, has one of those "dying bystander" info-dump encounters where the NPC dies, no matter how much healing PCs might apply. See GusL's post for an echo of my opinions on this tactic]

Okay...that's long enough for now; have to run some errands before the kids get out of school (Wednesday's their short day). I have a couple more things to say about the Desert of Desolation series...especially with regard to dromedaries and the logistics of desert travel...but that's going to have to wait for a later post. Maybe tomorrow. When I try to tie this whole thing into the "better adventure design" conversation.

; )

Later, Gators.

Follow-Up to Stages of Exploration

I want folks to know that I have had a chance to read (and appreciate) all the comments on my recent series of posts (actually, it’s just one BIG post that I broke up into four parts). Fact is, it turns out the place I was staying out on Orcas Island had better, faster wireless web access than what I’m used…however, for the good of my marriage I refrained from posting much to the internet while I was on our “mini-vacation.”

Anyway, here’s the follow-up post:

I don’t have a solution to the issue at this point. But having identified what the issue is, I have some ideas, and I’m currently working on them and looking at adapting ‘em to D&D Mine (my personal version of D&D). And no, none of the ideas involve playing a different system or “boosting” the starting levels for B/X D&D characters.

Here’s the deal, folks: I am familiar with other games. Ars Magica, for example, and Pendragon, too. I have read The Song of Ice and Fire RPG and I’ve played Amber Diceless, as well. These don’t work for my purposed for a number of reasons. I suppose I could enumerate them all, but it would seem like a lot of bashing of these particular games and, fun as that might be, that’s counter-productive. And anyway, they’re good games: Stormbringer was a lot of fun (I played the 1st edition extensively) and can certainly be played on a variety of “levels,” but it works best for a very specific setting and method of play…and I’m looking for something a bit more generic, or rather "setting neutral."

And let me put to rest any thought that I’m one of those dudes who only plays D&D or only considers a single system for my “fantasy sword-swinging” RPGs. I know there are folks like that out there, but I’m not one of them. There are a lot, A LOT, of good things going on in the D&D rules…especially with earlier editions. My D&D Mine has a lot of deconstructed D&D concepts in it, but a lot of folks who read it would say, “That doesn’t resemble the D&D I know!”

As for simply starting characters at 3rd level (or higher!) or adding a bunch of bonus HPs to ensure survivability…that’s just a patch, folks. So why are there rules for 1st level characters then? I mean, you might as well just say 1st level has the same ability as a 3rd level character, right? Ugh…just never mind. 1st level is 1st level, and this is not (just) about adjusting/addressing effectiveness.

Look, I have some mechanics in D&D Mine that will allow me to address the issues of effectiveness in context of objective. I would share it here (I might still sometime), except that it only works in light of me converting the whole game to being D6 based (and, no, not in the West End Games’ sense of “D6”). I think (I’m not 100% sure…maybe 70% at this point) that I can make that part work.

What’s more important, and what is the tougher deal, is fixing…or rather “breaking down and recreating from scratch”…the advancement system of D&D. Because reward mechanics influence behavior…and the current method of reward, while excellent for Stage 1 exploration, blows chunks for Stage 2 and Stage 3.

Let me give you some examples of what I mean. We’ll start with adventure module I4: Oasis of the White Palm. This adventure was widely published so many will be familiar with it, but for those who aren’t the scenario goes like this: the player characters are forced into the Desert of Desolation on a search for some brigands (or something). Along the way they end up accidentally releasing a demonic force. By the end of the three module series (I3 through I5) the demon is defeated, the curse on the desert broken (transforming it back into a paradise) and all the PCs hailed as heroes.

I4 is the middle module of the series. Whereas I3 and I5 mainly feature large dungeons, I4 provides a mystery, a damsel in distress, a thriving desert civilization/town (the titular Oasis), intrigue, and several small dungeons. There’s A LOT of different avenues of pursuit by PCs in I4 and it is not out o the realm o possibility for players to ignore the story/plot at hand. I mean, here’s a town where you can settle down and live if you so choose…start up a business, hire yourselves out to locals, change your name and identity if you wanted, etc. You could throw in with the Bad Guys or start your own competing faction in the town (hypothetically)…and even if you succeed at the “main scenario” of I4 there’s nothing that really compels your characters to continue on to module I5 except the base assumption that your characters don’t like the desert and want to get the hell out of there by completing the over-arching quest.

Basically, it’s a great adventure and wide-open to a number of different possible actions; if it was a fantasy novel, one could see how characters might approach it with little or no worry about collecting treasure. However, as a game, Oasis of the White Palm is a flat, 1st edition AD&D adventure…which means characters receive experience points for collecting loot and killing (“defeating”) opponents. Not for exploring the landscape. Not for surviving the desert. Not for making alliances with the various nomad tribes. Not for doing anything interesting in the Oasis (unless that “interesting” thing involves killing and looting). Regardless of anything else going on in the adventure, the MOTIVE for player characters is “to get paid” period. The only creativity encouraged is creative methods of getting gold.

This issue comes back regardless of whether this is a sandbox world or adventure module and (for the latter) regardless of the difficulty level associated with the adventure. Examples of low-level Stage 2 Exploration (B2, N1), or mid-level (X1, I4) or high level (D3 or Q1) all bog down because of the driving goal established in Stage 1 exploration: Find treasure. Kill monsters.

Here’s the formula I’m working with as my basic paradigm:

Reward for Exploration = XP Gained = Level Advanced = Increased Effectiveness in Exploration.

What is wilderness exploration all about? Finding gold and killing monsters? Sure…in the current paradigm of D&D. But what else COULD it be about, if we removed the standard reward.

- Finding a new place, or opening new territory
- Meeting and greeting or scouting or killing a new culture, tribe
- Uncovering mysteries or secret history of an area or region
- Surviving hostile environmental conditions (swamp, desert, arctic, etc.)
- Opening trade routes (by land or sea) and/or escorting traders
- Climbing a mountain, exploring a jungle, sailing a sea
- Surviving “the road”
- Learning the politics of a region, and making friends/allies

At high levels the same types of wilderness objectives apply to more dangerous and stranger “wilderness” environments: for example, the Vault of the Drow (D3) or the Demonweb Pits (Q1). If the goal of the game was NOT “to acquire gold and kill monsters” how much time do you think individual adventurers would spend in such a hostile wilderness without allies or safe havens? How much time might they instead spend, trying to survive and explore or reach their quest/scenario objective instead? And shouldn't they be rewarded for doing so?

I think they should. A character who has "sailed the seven seas" or plumbed the depths of the ocean floor or climbed Mount Insanity or met exotic tribesfolk in the darkest jungles or visited the surface of the moon should show a marked increase in confidence and swagger...regardless of whether or not the character killed anything or found any treasure while there. A character that has explored the wilderness...who has participated and survived adventures...will be mored hardened (fighters), wiser (clerics), more knowledgeable (magic-users), and probably gained in resourcefulness (thieves) compared to the person who hasn't traveled farther than their home village...even should said village be on the edge of a "mega-dungeon."

Please note I am still talking about experience points here: XP as a measurement of success and accomplishment is a great mechanic for a fantasy adventure game. Much more so (in my opinion) than, say, Chaosium's "increase in skill percentage" (which is just a different method of doing the same thing as old D&D, by the way, save that it is more granular, piecemeal, and clunky. It still only addresses Stage 1 development). It is also much more appropriate than, say, White Wolf's "XP gained for showing up/learning something/role-playing award;" the point is to still reward player characters for their appropriate actions (i.e. for facing challenges), not just for showing up and pretending to be a character. Experience points are EARNED in old school games...on risk of painful (character) death.

Anyway, still working out exactly what to reward and how much (in terms of XP), but it's coming along. Now that I'm back in town for the foreseeable future, I plan on doing more play-testing of D&D Mine and will certainly check the revised advancement system. Of course, I'm going to have to re-do the adventure (which, as I said, is set in a damn setting-based mega-dungeon).

[oh, by the way...please note that the above applies in the main part to Stage 2 types of exploration. I have some very different ideas regarding Stage 3 but they're for a different, future post...this one's gone on a bit long...]

: )

Top Module #8: Oasis of the White Palm

For all the grief OS folks give Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman, I have got to say that I really don't share in it. First off, while I read the (first six) Dragon Lance novels, I never played (or owned until the last couple years) any of the DL modules. My fellow DM, Jocelyn, did own three or four, but because of the cement of the setting and story-line, we never bothered to actually run any of 'em.

Furthermore, while Ravenloft WAS run in our campaign (again, by Jocelyn) I didn't take part in the adventure that particular session, so I can't tell how it went at all. The one time I tried running Ravenloft myself, we (everyone at the table) got bored with it and gave it up before we even met our first gypsy witch. Truth be told, while I own the module still, I don't remember hardly a thing about it.  I should probably re-read it one of these days.

No...besides the Dragon Lance novels, the main experience I have with the Weiss/Hickman duo is the awesome Desert of Desolation series (I3, I4, and I5).  I've never owned the "super-module" version, but I have two copies of each of the original modules.

What a great set...what a great setting! I've written before that I love blood and sand adventures, and anything vaguely "Sinbad" or Egyptian falls readily into that category as easily as Rome and gladiators, so it's not surprising I'm a fan. However, I came to these modules rather late in my DM'ing career...I actually never had the opportunity to run this for my original gaming group (Jocelyn, Matt, Scott, Jason, etc.).

First off, while I saw I4: Oasis of the White Palm and the grinning djinni on the cover many times at the game shop, it never intrigued me. A giant blue man? Nah. He was smiling for god sakes! If the cover had had a glaring efreet....well, maybe. Secondly, it was only for mid-level adventurers. The PCs in our games were a LOT higher than 8th level. Taken together, the module just wasn't as sexy an option as other choices on the shelf.

Then, of course I finally acquired it and found that it was part 2 in a three-part series...and it took me years before I was able to find a copy of I3: Pharaoh. Completionist that I am, I only ran I4 as a stand-alone for the occasional one-off game (cousins, my brother and his buddy, etc.), not for my regular game group.

Too bad really, because it is fantastic.

Of the three, I find Oasis of the White Palm to be the best and the only one worthy of my Top Ten list of "best modules" (coming in at #8).  Truly, all of 'em are great and they offer real old school AD&D entertainment: plenty of dungeon crawling, monsters and undead, tricks and traps galore.  Yes, there is a very specific plot and some end objectives, but the characters themselves are more of the hoodwinked than heroic variety. And while a party may fail to break the curse that created the "Desert of Desolation," there are still rewards to be had...the fate of the world does NOT rest upon the PCs. Also, the adventures do NOT tell the story of some uber-NPC.  The PCs either help the NPCs in the modules or they don't...but they are the protagonists in this particular adventure.

I3: Pharaoh and I5: Lost Tomb of Martek, the book ends of the series, are mainly dungeon crawls...yes, there is some outdoor travel with a few planned encounters, but for the most part they are just "what happens on the way to the dungeon." Oasis is the real meat and potatoes adventure. 

I4 can be used as a stand-alone adventure readily. I've read other folks' accounts on-line where they spent weeks and weeks of game play in the Oasis because they couldn't "figure out what to do." The fact that you can do so much with the module speaks volumes. The adventure includes two full multi-level dungeons, a city in ruins, and a detailed town (the Oasis of the title) in addition to the desert wilderness setting...really a ton of adventure packed into not very many pages.

The dungeons themselves are nothing but the coolest of non-standard encounters with fiendish, fiendish traps.  The "maze of light" is the kind of thing I was designing in my own adventures, and the Pit of Everfall is just a bowlful of awesome. A pit that leads to Pandemonium? The minions of Set?  A gigantic chasm filled with an ARMY OF UNDEAD and only a single bridge across?  Holy guacamole! 

The fact that the wandering desert encounters has the equivalent of lance-wielding bedouins riding pegasi and the gigantic vicious purple worms just make the thing all the more crazy-cool. But I absolutely love the intrigue and adventure that can be explored in the Oasis itself...a desert outpost with legends and history that tie directly into the adventure's story.  

This is adventure design at its finest.  I think Weiss and Hickman really reached their peak with I5, regardless of the "cool maps" and plotting of Ravenloft.

I know I haven't mentioned him in awhile, but I would like to note that Alejandro and Company cut their mid-level teeth on the Desert of Desolation series (from Pharaoh to Martek). This was before Alejandro picked up Blackrazor (and a good thing too with the abundant legions of walking dead!), back when Big Al was simply a two-handed sword Weapon Specialist rather than the force of destruction he was to become.  

[I do recall Al and Arioch  finding a copy of the Necronomicon in the Oasis bazaar, but I don't recall the party ever using it (never a good enough reason to risk insanity I suppose). However, it seemed to fit the whole genre...was Set and Elder God? Perhaps. This question was never answered in the campaign]

ANYway, it IS an excellent adventure module and one worthy of praise (in my opinion). I would certainly be willing to run it again, and if one isn't too tied to the original game background, it wouldn't make a bad "jumping off" point for starting an Arabian Nights (or Knights) type of campaign.  If I were to ever convert it to B/X I would probably do just that...starting the players off in the Oasis itself, allowing them to find the Pharaoh's or Martek's tomb only after acquiring the need for the Star Gems...hmm, not a bad idea at all, really.

Ah! The place is set! I must do this!

As soon as I have the free time, of course....

**EDIT: I actually finished this post at 11:38pm after getting home from a Seattle Mariners game. I don't know why these things insist on carrying the timestamp of when I started the post!**