Practical Magic - Dungeon 113

Practical Magic is an adventure full of personality. Many personalities in fact. 

A necromancer whose work is focused on making skilled undead even better at their jobs, he sees corpses that aren't being put to productive purposes as wasted material. He gets wind of another spellcaster with a sense for putting magic and inventions to practical uses and sees an opportunity for the two of them to work together, bettering both their efforts.

He sends an invitation to meet, but the message doesn't arrive because her boyfriend is breaking up with her. So the necromancer has his very smart undead servant kidnap the wizard.

The boyfriend is a dominated servant of a mermaid vampire. So is his cousin. 

The mermaid vampire has the boyfriend lure the downtrodden, poor, or depressed to her lair under the guise that she is a fortune teller that can help relieve them of their burdens. She then convinces the victims to go out of the world in an exotic way . . . as her food.

The boyfriend's cousin has turned evil and now wants to become a vampire.  

The ghast that kidnapped the wizard is addicted to fine clothes and fancy furnishings. He owns a Hat of Disguise that lets him pose as himself before being turned into a ghast, and allowed him to pull off the kidnapping.

The kidnapped wizard has heard out the necromancer's idea and come around to giving it serious consideration. She however has her own plan for how things should work.

Much of the adventure takes place in the two hidden lairs and will require time spent in the water. 

Now we just need to figure out where everything is and who else might be involved.

According to the module the mermaid vampire's lair is about 300' off the coast in about 20' of water, with a bunch of sharks around it. This could be almost anywhere as long as it stays not too far from Ptolus. Victims need to be able to reach the lair and her agents need to be able to return to the city fairly quickly, but it all needs to remain unnoticed. At first I thought to put it south of Beacon Island, but reading further into the adventure made it more likely that the necromancer's lair is under the south end of the island. Two major lairs that close together doesn't work for me.

Then I looked north of the docks. It might work, but it starts to come close to the territory of the Covenant of Blood and their Sahuagin allies. it could certainly work. She might be one of the 6 vampires in the Covenant. She's good with sharks and so are the Sahuagin. The drawback is that PCs that defeat or drive her away make enemies of the Covenant, the Sahuagin, the Balacazars, and all of their other allies. That's a lot of weight bearing down on the player characters. Maybe the mermaid vampire is viewed as unwanted competition by the Covenant and they'd like to see her gone, one way or another. 

"One thing about living in Ptolus I never could stomach is all the damned vampires."

Studying necromancy is not technically illegal in Ptolus, but creating undead or bringing undead into the city is outlawed. This is reason for the necromancer to have a hidden lair off shore. The lair is fairly large so he needs a big place to put it and under the south end of Beacon Island seems perfect. The island already has a reputation of being haunted. The necromancer is a known entity, and has in the past aided in fighting off pirates, so while dealing with unsavory things, nobody has gone out of their way to try and put an end to his practice.

Interesting is a great way to describe this adventure. It is possible for characters to make enemies of just about everyone in the module if enemies aren't killed. They could also end up with some bizarre semi-allies depending on their own sense of morals.

A Red and Pleasant Land, and Death Frost Doom revised.

I have been looking forward to getting my greedy little DM fingers on these two books. They became my present to myself for the holiday season.

Death Frost Doom
I have read most of Death Frost Doom and have a solid grasp of just how good this adventure meets the horror criteria and easily functions as a pivotal event in a campaign. The book, and it is a book; hard bound; 6 by 9 format; new art; and updated material that puts a keener edge on every story element and encounter within; is a great example of how adventures should be written, even if they aren't apocalyptic. Everything within is tight and worthy of player attention, and it meets the definition of adventure - DANGEROUS!

DFD is the start of an undead apocalypse or close enough to one that as it says, the PCs that survive will have a lot of work ahead fixing or at least mitigating the damage caused. The smile on my face at several points in the reading of the adventure was that of a rat bastard DM loving the potential in the pages. If you have the kind of players that enjoy moral dilemmas, and love horror elements done right, then Death Frost Doom is worth the cost.

WARNING - Death Frost Doom is not suitable for crybabies unable to handle character death. In this adventure it is likely that some player or players, will lose their character if the group is not sharply aware, and/or take too many risks. Some things may be tough to avoid, but can still be mitigated by a party on their toes. Besides, what fun is there in being too cautious!

A Red and Pleasant Land
What if Lewis Carroll and Bram Stoker somehow mated and bore offspring, then made an RPG setting based on their wickedly strange family? This might be that outcome, channeled through the mind of Zak S. of Playing D&D With Porn Stars.

While I have not finished reading the beautiful book, my skimming of A Red and Pleasant Land convinced me that it is a work of art, even more-so than its predecessor Vornheim. It is full color, full of art, and full of wonderfully twisted ideas mixing Alice in Wonderland and Vampires to create a very playable campaign setting. The bits and pieces, all of them, easily lend themselves to cannibalization for use in other fantasy style campaigns.

The Alice character class is unlike any character class I have seen in decades of RPGs. In this setting, it fits perfectly with the whimsy and twisted reality of Voivodja, though outside the setting it would be incredibly out of place and possibly less effective. During the progression of the class, random rolls move development along peculiar paths, all useful for navigating the chaotic social and political structures of the vampire warped pocket of existence and all based on some aspect of Alice in Wonderland.

ARPL is another of those RPG books that is very worth having and reading even if you do not plan to play in the setting, or might make a brief detour through it during your regular campaign.

The first printing/first edition (3,000 copies) has sold through and a second printing has been ordered. The reviews that have come in so far include glowing praise from the likes of China Meiville, Ken Hite, Monte Cook, and others. Get it, quickly, do not hesitate, or you may regret not having a copy for your gaming book shelf.

I may have more to say when I finish reading this amazing book. The only drawback, if you can call it one, is the very tiny bits of gold glittery material that ends up on your hands and other objects while you handle this hard bound, cloth covered treasure.