Q2 – Eruptor’s Vengeance

Q2 Eruptor’s Vengeance is the second in the Pacesetter Games Quick-Play series. These series of modules are meant to be played in a single session or two. This particular adventure is for a group of characters from levels 2-4. This particular module has 14 pages, plus two more usable pages from the insides of the module cover. We cover contains a map of the cave system on one page and the stats for the various monsters on the second page. There’s a page of ads, one for the license, another that cover the table of contents and credits, another that has a page of 7 pre-gens, and finally one that contains a write-up of two new monsters. That leaves us nine pages for the core of the module, one of which is background information and another of which is the pre-cave encounter. That leaves us five pages for the 8 keyed encounters.

The adventure is a simple one that is chock full of possibilities: a dragon just died. The party, drawn by the smell of death in the air, stumbles upon the scene of a great battle in the wilderness. A dragon lies dead surrounded by the bodies of the group that killed it, and it looks like it JUST happened. Like any good vultures the characters will certainly search the bodies and find there a map to a dragons lair. The very dragon that lies dead in front of them. At this point every PC’s eyes should be glazed over with GREED. An unguarded dragon hoard … their for the taking. The two new creatures include a Dropper, a pointed stone-like creature which waits it’s entire life on a ceiling to drop on something walking underneath. Finally there is a Drake, a shape-changing reptilian creature that comes in different colors.

While there are only eight keyed encounters they are very well done and imaginative. If I take the definition liberally then there are seven or eight tricks/traps, including an interesting betrayal that I found particularly evocative. For it’s size this is a rather interesting little crawl, thanks in large part to the traps & tricks that generally do double duty in rooms. A room may have a ‘normal’ encounter and then it also has the trick/trap also, which usually doesn’t happen during the core encounter. You don’t need to be worried about the hoard unbalancing the campaign; there’s a good explanation for the reduced amount.

This is a great little adventure full of OSR spirit. A good premise, tricks, traps, factions, the module would have it all if the map was more complex, but then it wouldn’t be a quick-play module, would it? I have no qualms recommending this.
Let me tack on this: What if you, the DM, respec’d this to be for a group of 1st level characters and placed the most awesome dragon hoard ever? One that makes Smaugs look like a kobold purse? At LEAST four of every magic item in the 1E DMG, and several artifacts to boot. Of course, as the dwarves learned, news of a dragons demise spreads rapidly, and every wannabe demi-god and demon-prince is going to hunt the PC’s to find out where the hoard is … You’ve got riches & items beyond the dreams of avarice, but can you keep them? Now THAT’s a campaign!