Perilous Lands' Site Book describes fifteen locations in detail and mentions two others, one of these is the Tower of the Dead (Tower). The Tower comes in a very thin box with a nice cover illustration on the front showing the main baddie on his throne and a color map of the adventure area on the back of the box. Using the back of the box this way is an interesting concept I have not seen on another product. Inside the box is a tri-fold referee screen with specific information for Tower and a 56 page adventure book.
Tower is what I call an "adventure path" in today's vernacular. It tells a story in several scenes scattered about several locations. It involves interaction with a number of PCs, some investigative work and several decisions on the part of the players to continue down the path. It's not exactly rail-roadie, there are choices, but choosing to get off the path usually means the referee is in improvisation mode. "Adventure paths" are common these days, but probably less so in 1984 when this product was published.
Written by Powers & Perils author Richard Snider, Tower is firmly grounded in both the P&P system and the default Perilous Lands setting. Tower begins in the city of Porta where the local gangs openly battle for dominance - reminds me of the Al Capone era in Chicago. If the players go along with the story arch they will be drawn into some bad dealings - beatings and murder. If they take the moral high road, it's improvisation time for the referee. on the positive, the gangs and NPCs are all described in some detail giving the referee plenty to work with. I can't help but wonder what playing one gang off against another (Yojimbo, Fistful of Dollars, Last Man Standing) might be like.
Eventually information will lead the PCs to a farm outside town and an opportunity to acquire an ancient sword that can be helpful. They will also learn of an ancient evil in the form of a powerful lich that threatens to "take over the world". If they accept the challenge to "save the world" they move on to the tower where said lich resides plotting his evil. From this point on it's a tower crawl.
The other location mentioned in Perilous Lands is Doom Manor which was printed in Heroes magazine Vol. 1 No. 2. Doom Manor is a haunted house adventure with a twist...the house itself is sentient evil and actively trying to destroy the PCs. Heroes magazine printed several useful articles related to P&P, including Vol. 1 No. 1 which has a history/traveler's guide of the country of Donara and Vol. 1 No. 5 which has a nice lengthy article on the Royal City of Donara. Taken together the published material available for P&P is enough to run a lengthy campaign, maybe lasting years. The P&P world setting and adventure ideas seem to compare nicely with more modern products and I wonder how influential this body of work has been in the hobby.
No comments:
Post a Comment