We’re finally going to bring this review home, before any more catastrophic events happen to distract me. I hope life doesn’t get this exciting the next time I do a multi-part review. In case you’re reading this in the future, since I got access to this book, we’ve an attempted assassination on a presidential candidate, a massive web services failure, and a standing president step down for running for reelection. If life is more interesting than this chain of events when you’re reading this, remember me fondly, because I’m not sure if I’m still around.

Our remaining sections in this book are Appendix A: Magic Items and Technology, and Appendix B: Creatures. We’ll be looking at all of the moving parts that you can mine for your own adventures, outside of this anthology.

Artwork

We get artwork for Daud’s Wondrous Lanthorn and the Staff of Ruling, but sadly, no individual image of Heretic other than the images of Drelnza holding her sword. There is also a group shot of all of the technological devices introduced in the anthology.

Each of the creatures in Appendix B are illustrated. We even get a separate image of Nafas’ sword. A few of these creatures weren’t illustrated in their own adventures. I think Nafas and Zargon are especially impressive, but I have to admit, Drelnza’s image in the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth is my favorite of Iggwilv’s undead daughter.

Appendix A

We only have three new magic items in this section, one of which is an artifact, one which is evil, and one that the PCs may have been asked to turn over to the archaeologists in the Desert of Desolation.

My opinion of D&D 5e artifacts is that some of them have been a bit lacking. The Lanthorn isn’t the most powerful item, but it does have some fun, thematic abilities, revealing everything invisible within 60 feet of the artifact. There are also some powerful abilities linked to the lenses of the lantern, but each lens requires powdered gems to power it, and that gets expensive. It’s the kind of artifact that makes sense for someone to ask to be recovered, but maybe not one that people don’t want to give up.

Heretic is Drelnza’s evil longsword, which has some nice abilities. It has a lot of handy abilities, some of which are more effective against celestials. It’s an intelligent item that pushes its owner to destroy the servants of good-aligned deities. But it’s a +3 sword that can paralyze and can cast fly and true seeing. I like that it’s an evil sword that is still tempting for someone to use.

The Staff of Ruling has a nice “building” effect. You can summon a ball of lightning, and for each round you concentrate on the lightning effect, and it doesn’t detonate, it gets more powerful. It’s also got a thunder effect, and can turn into a snake, which to me is the least interesting effect and is probably a remnant of someone trying to think of what kind of magic should go into an Egyptian-themed adventure. I would almost be tempted to yank the snake ability off the staff and just go all in on the thunder and lightning theme.

• Daoud’s Wondrous Lanthorn (Artifact)
• Heretic (Legendary)
• Staff of Ruling (Rare)

The high-tech weapons in the DMG are referenced in Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, so if you want stats for an anti-matter rifle or a standard laser pistol or rifle, those don’t get reprinted. There are some fun technological items included, and since they all use power cells, it’s pretty easy to shut them down if you don’t want them having a continued effect on the campaign. I am a little disappointed that the powered armor’s only strength effect is to grant advantage on Strength checks. At the very least it should have had some kind of additional damage for punching with the enhanced fists.

• Antigravity Belt
• Concussion Grenade
• Needler Pistol
• Paralysis Pistol
• Powered Armor
• Robot Controller
• Sleep Grenade

Appendix B

There are lots of creatures that someone like me, that fondly remembers picking up the AD&D 2e Monster Manual II, is very nostalgic for. Do you want an even bigger froghemoth? Got  you covered. The NPCs stats are all pretty versatile when used outside of the adventure to which they are associated. You have spellcasters and warriors with shadow swords, as well as general champions.

Gibberlings, the monsters you have probably killed by the hundreds if you played Baldur’s Gate when that CRPG came out, have been converted to fiends instead of humanoids, and there is a stat block for swarms when you want to throw a lot of them at your PCs, but you don’t want to run a ton of low CR stat blocks. Changing them to fiends helps to shift them from “small mean humanoids that try to kill you,” without much of a culture of their own, to primal forces of destruction that are literally all about destroying things.

I have the distinct feeling that Legendary Actions are probably a thing of the past in the 2024 rules. The creatures with lair actions and those that are singularly powerful all have the more recent design development of giving them multiple reactions per round, with several reactions that can be triggered. I heard people on podcasts attest to how they don’t remember to use Legendary actions, and apparently they don’t work as well for a lot of gamers as they do for me. I’m just not sure remembering how many reactions a creature has, and knowing what triggers those reactions seems harder to keep top of mind for me than just remembering that I can take actions between PC turns.

I like that Nafas and the Gardener serve as potential Warlock patrons, in addition to Nafas serving as the PCs patron if they play through this anthology as a connected campaign. I love my demon lords and archdevils, but I want more singular entities. We need more archfey, archoelementals, genie lords, and archangel style celestials.

CR

Creature

Type

0

Gibberling

Fiend

1/8

Guardian of Gorm

Humanoid

1/8

Mage of Usamigaras

Humanoid

1/8

Warrior of Madarua

Humanoid

1/4

Derro raider

Aberration

1/4

Vegepygmy scavenger

Plant

1/2

Tower hand

Humanoid

1

Derro apprentice

Aberration

1

Tower sage

Humanoid

2

Champion of Gorm

Humanoid

2

Champion of Madarua

Humanoid

2

Champion of Usamigaras

Humanoid

2

Sion

Humanoid

2

Vegepygmy thorny hunter

Plant

3

Barkburr

Plant

3

Swarm of gibberlings

Fiend

3

Vegepygmy moldmaker

Plant

3

Worker robot

Construct

4

Horrid plant

Plant

4

Leprechaun

Fey

4

Memory web

Aberration

4

Pech

Elemental

5

Android

Construct

6

Combat robot

Construct

6

Nafik

Undead

7

Wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing

Plant

8

Maschin-i-bozorg

Construct

12

The Gardener

Fey

15

Drelnza

Undead

15

Froghemoth elder

Aberration

17

Zargon the Returner

Aberration

23

Nafas

Elemental

Visiting the Wonders of the Multiverse

Several of these adventures feel like they maintain some of the core experiences of these classic adventures, with some fine tuning to make them less punitive and time intensive than the original experiences. Nafas and his domain on the Infinite Staircase are great additions to D&D’s planar lore. There are a lot of elements that can be mined from the book, not just individual adventures or encounters, but also items and stat blocks. I love the presentation of the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, and I’m glad to see an iconic location/adventure with a presence in D&D 5e. I really appreciated some of the slight adjustments, like NPCs that volunteer information without the need to be pressed, and more creatures willing to negotiate and bargain with the PCs.

Gloomy Doorways

Some of Nafas’ marching orders for the adventures are a bit thinner in content than I would have liked. There are also some places where it’s a little confusing exactly who was making a wish, although most of the adventures do have clear objectives. Having the Iron Shadow introduced but getting so little detail on it, other than using it as an excuse to introduce shadow creatures and corrupted doorways, is a little frustrating. Some of the adventures could have used one more pass of quick lore to add some context to their events. I honestly missed some of the weird hyper-dimensional explanations for snared psionic creatures in Barrier Peaks, for example.

Recommended–If the product fits in your broad area of gaming interests, you are likely to be happy with this purchase.

It is not too difficult to recommend this book, given that it manages to present some classic adventures with 5e sensibilities, but because as an adventure anthology, it also makes a solid toolbox. The expanded setting material, detailing Nafas’ Censer of Dreams and information on the Infinite Staircase, provides some good additional setting information. If the multiverse is the setting, we might as well have some flavorful characters and locations for that setting.

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I have never had the opportunity to look at the original Pharoah adventure. I have heard a vague bit about the plot, mainly because it is set in the Forgotten Realms. To clarify, it’s set in the Forgotten Realms as much as the Bloodstone adventures are set there, meaning the adventures were written without any connection to the setting, but when TSR acquired the Forgotten Realms, they were assigned their own locations.

The Raurin Desert, which is where this adventure is located in the Realms, is right next door to Mulhorand, which eventually became the Forgotten Realms analog of Egypt. Eventually that “like Egypt” was made more explicit, because the Mulan people were actually kidnapped from Earth by the Imaskari. It’s kind of a mess, especially since Ed Greenwood’s initial comment on Mulhorand was “it’s kind of like Stygia in the Conan stories, sort of Egyptian,” which translated into “totally Egyptian,” as opposed to Stygia in the Conan stories, which is vaguely Egyptian flavored with a lot of its own weird stuff thrown in.

Original Credits for Pharoah

Design and Development: Tracy and Laura Hickman
Editing: Curtis Smith
Cover Art: Jim Holloway

Artwork

There are fourteen pieces of art in this chapter. There are seven maps this time around, although some of the maps are of smaller locations rather than larger buildings or dungeon complexes. There are three character portraits, and three scenes from the adventure, as well as the picture of the doorway that leads to this adventure on the Infinite Staircase.

The Framing Device

If the adventure is used as part of an ongoing story with Nafas, the wish that Nafas needs the PCs to help him fulfill is the wish of Amun Sa, hoping to repair that damage he did in life. If you aren’t using that framing device, the hooks suggested include having the PCs face exile into Rairun as a punishment for something, leading to their encounter with Amun Sa. The other hook just directly ties the PCs to the group working at the site of the tomb, looking to restore the River Athis.

It’s already got a home in Faerun, but the suggested additional locations include locations in Dragonlance (which is interesting, given that the adventure was written by Tracy Hickman), Eberron, and Greyhawk. Essentially, look for the biggest stretch of desert and put it there. As far as I know, canonically the Athis was never restored on Faerun, and that feels like a potentially major setting development, suddenly having a new river appearing in a desert region.

Adventure Overview

I know you’re thirsting for more content, but if you’re planning on playing in this adventure, you may want to let the current carry you away, because we’re going to be getting into some spoilers.

Pharoah doesn’t waste any time, because the opening of the adventure jumps straight to the ghost of Amun Sa. He shows up and asks the PCs to help him reverse a curse that he brought down upon the land. Amun Sa conquered a neighboring land, while facing an uprising in his own land, but his insurance policy was to link his life to the life of the Athis River. If he was killed, the river would dry up.

That apparently wasn’t the deterrent he was hoping it would be, and when he takes a spear to the chest, the river dries up, but his soul is barred from entering the afterlife by the God of Death, cursing him to wander the Desert of Desolation until a mortal recovers the Staff of Ruling and the Star-Gem of Mo-Pelar, which will cause the Athis to flow once more. He wants the PCs to head to the tomb and help him with this task.

Now, if you don’t want the PCs to start in medias res, there is some guidance about how hot the desert gets for how long, and where to find the rules for that, as well as an encounter table. The encounters are framed as “monster doing X,” which I prefer, although some of the creatures are just noted as setting up an ambush.

At the tomb, there are already some people working on restoring the location. Unfortunately, they haven’t gotten as far as they would like, because the experts they brought with them got eaten by a purple worm. They would appreciate the help exploring that tomb and finding out what they need to do to restore the river.

Inside the pyramid, various sections still contain the waters of the Athis, which can remove exhaustion and poisons once per 24 hours per person drinking from it. The tomb is also warded against teleportation, or spells that alter the stone of the tomb. I’m not always convinced that its best practices that a dungeon complex takes away toys that the PCs have, but it doesn’t feel too heavy handed here, especially given that gods are involved in the curse.

The dungeon itself is separated into the following sections:

• The False Tomb
• The Maze of Mists
• Halls of the Upper Priesthood
• Gauntlet
• Tomb of Amun Sa

I’m not going to do a room-to-room description. This is an early edition adventure, with lots of traps, but not, you know, like Tomb of Horrors traps. Most of the creatures encountered are elementals, undead and fiends. There are several groups of NPCs that the PCs can interact with, including a group of bandits lost in the tomb, a sphinx that may eat them, but only if they can’t handle her riddle, and later on, the survivor of a doomed adventuring company and a quirky gnome explorer.

The Maze of Mists is the largest part of the dungeon, and I’m not really thrilled with the mists themselves. The DM is instructed to make it hard for the PCs to know where they are going and where they have been. The mist barely parts for them at all. I don’t like this. I don’t know how to not tell my PCs where they are going in a manner that doesn’t feel adversarial.

The Halls of the Upper Priesthood can be accessed by tracing the flow of the Athis up to where its flowing from, but there is also a teleporter outside of the maze. The priests were trying to reverse the curse, and the teleporter has an illusion of a flame consuming whatever is placed on it. The people used to think they were sacrificing food and goods to the gods, but it’s actually teleporting things to the Halls. If the PCs figure this out, they teleport straight to the Halls, cutting out the Maze of Mists.

At this point, I should mention that one of the story-based milestones is escaping the Maze. While it would feel really rushed if the PCs figure out the teleporter early on, I think if they teleport to the Halls of the Upper Priesthood, I would consider that escaping the Maze. But that’s just my thoughts on the matter.

The two NPCs that the adventurers can meet give them some important information. There is an undead high priest up here, and he survives being destroyed as long as his heart survives, which one of the NPCs can point them towards. Nafik is kind of a cross between a mummy and a lich, and when you confront him, there is a really cool giant construct arm that tries to swat the PCs during the fight.

If the PCs take care of Nafik, they can participate in the Trial of Truth which is almost 98% assured with end up causing someone at the table to quote Monty Python and the Holy Grail because of how it’s phrased. This does lead to a cool sequence where the PCs ride a waterspout, discover a chamber that teleports them 10,000 feet above the tomb to recover the pharaoh’s gem. Once they come back from their stratospheric sojourn, they can enter the actual tomb and retrieve the staff from the top of the sarcophagus. Amun Sa tells them that they can have any treasure they find, teleports them back to the entrance, and they see the Athis river flowing out of the pyramid once again.

Thoughts on Chapter 5: Pharoah

I should note up front that the adventure does pull on the D&D trope of “people from somewhere else save a culture they encounter,” rather than having adventurers from that culture engage with the adventure, although some of the hooks allow for local characters. I really like that there is a recovery team at the site, both to make the pyramid feel a little less isolated, and to make sure the locals are actively involved in the restoration.

It is kind of funny to me that the people working on the restoration ask the PCs not to take anything culturally relevant, even though Amun Sa told them they could have everything, but the Staff of Ruling seems like it’s pretty culturally relevant. The last big prize the PCs get is the first one they need to give up. If you’re using this as part of Quests from the Infinite Staircase, it’s probably pretty easy for Nafas to give them an item that works the same way, if your players are really attached to it.

I really wish I liked the Maze of Mists, but I just don’t like how it’s framed. I would be much happier if the PCs just had to make a save or a check occasionally to suffer something that reminds them they can’t see that far, without making sure they can’t see ahead or behind them. This advice also kind of sucks, because one of the conventions of 5e is that if someone is saying that they are mapping in the party, they can always retrace their way back out of a dungeon.

There are some great set pieces in this adventure. I love the visual of the PCs looking down 10,000 feet to the pyramid, and the giant hand slapping them around while they fight the undead priest is a neat complication for a fight, even though technically the PCs can just beat the hell out of the hand like they could another monster. The potential 10,000-foot drop illustrates a bit of a glaring issue with D&D falling rules, in that you can fall 10,000 feet, and take 20d6 damage, which average 70 hit points. But that’s not this adventure’s fault, it’s the assumption that there has to be a falling damage cap based on terminal velocity.

While The Lost City definitely felt like an older edition adventure in places, I feel like this is the first one that pulls forward an affectation from a previous edition that detracts from the adventure. I’m going to be thinking over how to do something with the mist that doesn’t just keep the PCs from finding what they need to do in the tomb.

If you would like to further delve into the Desert of Desolation, and you want to contribute to my RPG buying habits, you could use the affiliate links below. Thank you!

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• I5 Lost Tomb of Martek
• Desert of Desolation Bundle
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Continuing with adventures I, personally, hadn’t read through from previous editions, and also continuing our trend of looking at the UK series of adventures, our next adventure is Beyond the Crystal Cave. While the plot doesn’t directly follow any one story, there are some elements in this adventure borrowed from Shakespear, most notably with the NPCs the group is hired to find, with their feuding families and forbidden love. While I knew about the AD&D 1e version of the adventure, I only recently realized that this adventure was adapted for a season of D&D Encounters during the D&D 4e era.

As with the previous adventure, I can’t speak to what has been changed from the original, other than what the adventure itself notes. The original lovers who created the Eternal Garden were originally male and female presenting characters, and for this adventure, both original lovers that created The Eternal Garden are women. The archfey that appears in this adventure, the Gardener, was originally The Green Man, a character from real world folk lore.

Original Credits for Beyond the Crystal Cave

Design and Development: David J. Browne, Tom Kirby, Graeme Morris
Editing: Tom Kirby, Carole Morris, Graeme Morris, Don Turnbull
Art: De Leuw, Timothy Truman
Cartography: Graeme Morris
Playtesting: Jim Bambra, Jeanette Blaaser, Clive F. Booth, Michael W. Brunton, Chris Hall, Bill Howard, Kate Kirby, Gary Kirkham, Steve Mote, Chris Rick, Dave Tant, Don Turnbull, Pat Whitehead

Artwork

There are 15 pieces of art in this chapter. This includes nine images drawn from encounters in the adventure, three maps, two-character portraits, and the image of the doorway leading to the adventure that appears on the Infinite Staircase. In addition to the artwork in this chapter, there is also a picture of the Gardener that appears in the stat block appendix to the book.

The opening portrait of the two lovers who originally created the garden is my favorite piece in the book so far. It features the two women in robes of green and purple, surrounded by flowers and greenery, in the company of a young centaur, a treant, and a pair of dryads.

The Framing Device

The wish that Nafas asks the PCs to facilitate is a plea from two formerly waring families to find and bring home their children, who fell in love and ran away from their home. If the PCs aren’t going to be working for Nafas, the suggested hooks include the PCs arriving at the island as part of another trip, or as survivors of a shipwreck, and being recruited by one of the family members. The other hook assumes that the PCs were old friends of the characters and have just learned about their disappearance.

The original adventure was set in Greyhawk, so it’s got a canonical location that the introduction mentions, but it gives suggestions for placing it in Dragonlance, Eberron, and Theros. I wasn’t expecting a Magic setting to be thrown in there, but I like the reference. I appreciate that the Eberron placement mentions the unique planar structure of that setting. The Dragonlance suggestion is to make the children inhabitants of two traditionally unfriendly nations, such as the Qualinesti and the Silvanesti elves, but honestly, make it a Neidar clan dwarf and a Hylar clan dwarf and expand your horizons.

Adventure Overview

Don’t get your heart set on reading through this review if you plan on being a player in this adventure, because there are spoilers on the horizon. Seek your heart’s desire elsewhere and come back to the blog later.

Once the PCs arrive on the isle of Sybarate, they are approached by Governor Folcarae, a member of one of the two formerly feuding families. She explains about the feud, the children running off, and that she has hired multiple adventurers over the past two years to find them. She’s hoping the PCs will have better luck. She gives the PCs their last known location, the Cave of Echoes.

Inside the Cave of Echoes, if the PCs speak too loudly, they get feedback in the form of thunder damage. If they determine that the word “ask” on the wall means something will happen when they ask for assistance, the cave will answer them, potentially gaining the results of up to an 8th level spell, including a response similar to a Divination spell if they ask a general question.

While most of this adventure is designed to be resolved without combat, the cave has a few creatures that can get vicious, including some mud elementals, an ooze, and some poltergeists. The far end of the cave has a portal to the Eternal Garden, where the PCs can find the lost lovers, but they need to find a way to tame the waterfall that’s raining down with enough force that it’s almost a solid wall. There isn’t one solution here, the key is for the PCs to have some kind of creative way of dealing with the waterfall to allow them to pass through it, with some examples provided.

Past the waterfall, the PCs find the portal to the Eternal Garden, which is now a Domain of Delight, a region of the Feywild controlled by an archfey. The PCs arrive in a fairy ring and have some leprechans they can interact with, who provide several limericks that give them clues about the rest of the domain. If you aren’t the type to be able to decipher clues, none of the clues are necessary, but they are helpful.

The PCs can encounter a bronze dragon, some dryads, satyrs, awakened bears, awakened toads, awakened otters, sprites, a treant, centaurs, unicorns, or a chimera. Each one of these encounters provides the PCs the opportunity to learn more about what may have happened to the lovers that ran away and may potentially learn that the inhabitants consider the lovers to be the reincarnation of the creators of the garden, so they’re pretty happy with them sticking around.

There is a location in this domain, the Fountain All Heal, which can provide the effects of spells like Greater Restoration or Heal. However, if you avail yourself of this fountain, you no longer want to leave the domain. The only exceptions are characters that are fey or have fey ancestry. The only way to remove this effect is via a Wish.

Since there isn’t much in the way of combat, unless the PCs are terrible people, there is one encounter where the PCs may be afflicted, and thus tempted to use the fountain. Creatures called barkburs inhabit a grove, and they can turn people affected by their toxin into wood.

Eventually the PCs run into the Gardener, who invites the PCs to sit with them for some refreshments. They may pick up the benefit of the Hero’s Feat spell now, and the Gardener will provide general answers about where the lovers may be, telling the PCs to navigate the Hedge Maze nearby to get more answers.

There is an ongoing puzzle seeded by the leprechauns that will point the PCs at collecting certain leaves. Various locations mention what leaves are available there, so if the PCs have picked up on the clue, they can start gathering what they need. We’ll come back to this.

The Hedge Maze, thankfully, isn’t about navigating an actual maze. Well, it is, but not one that the players must deal with. It takes a group ability check to navigate the maze, but they can also plow through the walls of the maze, if they don’t mind taking damage from the massive thorns that will pierce them as they barrel through. At the center of the maze is a sundial with impressions for different leaves that should be set in it, which will teleport the PCs into the Palace of Spires, where the runaway lovers currently live.

In addition to the lovers Juliana and Orlando, there is another couple, two guards who are also romantic partners, who will protect the palace, Juliana, and Orlando, if threatened. Juliana and Orlando don’t want to leave, because they have both been affected by the fountain. If the PCs find Caerwyn and Porphura’s tomb (the creators of the garden), and they are respectful, the inscription on the tomb instructs them that they can make a wish, which they can use to free anyone from the effects of the fountain. Once Orlando and Juliana are free, the PCs just need to explain that their families are no longer at war to get them to leave.

The PCs need more leaves to teleport back out of the palace courtyard, however, all of the NPCs that live in the palace have tokens of the leaves that can be used to activate the teleportation effect, and some of the NPCs are noted as having an additional set of the leaf tokens. Now, if they tried to raid the tomb, things go downhill. The PCs are confronted by the Gardner and banished from the domain, which changes from a pleasant summer land to a chilling winter domain.

Assuming the PCs don’t upset the Gardener, they can leave with Orlando and Juliana, return them to their families, and collect their reward.

Thoughts on Chapter 4: Beyond the Crystal Cave

I like having more options for adventures that lean more heavily on roleplaying and exploration, although you may want to know how much your party wants that content before you use this back-to-back with When a Star Falls. I am onboard with more archfey being introduced. I would love to have the same kind of diversity in archfey in D&D lore that we already have for creatures like demon lords, archdevils, archoelementals, etc. I wouldn’t mind seeing the literal Green Man as an archfey, since we’ve got lots of other examples of singular planar beings drawn from Earth’s folklore.

I don’t think the leprechaun’s limerick about the leaves is too difficult to follow, but since the leprechans have six total limericks, one of which doesn’t mean anything, and four of with are more foreshadowing then an actual riddle the PCs need to solve to advance the plot, I’m a little concerned about limerick overload and the PCs not knowing what is immediately useful and what isn’t. I appreciate that the PCs aren’t penalized if they don’t think to bring two sets of leaves, so they can leave the palace. I also like that you can blunt force the hedge maze if you don’t manage to navigate it with your group check.

I like all the little interactions with the various creatures that populate the domain. I appreciate the callback to some well-known faerie lore, i.e. its potentially dangerous to eat or drink in the fey realm. This was a fun read through, and I think I would enjoy running it. Ready to look at the next doorway!

If you don’t mind contributing to my ability to pick up new games, and you want to look at some of the history behind this adventure, you can use the affiliate links below. It’s much appreciated!

• UK1 Beyond the Crystal Cave (1e)
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When a Star Falls is an adventure that I only know by reputation. There is a narrative that evolved that Hickman’s adventures like Ravenloft and the Dragonlance series moved D&D away from this original playstyle towards a more narrative focus. However, I know the UK series of adventures have a reputation for being more plot-oriented than the US-developed adventures.

I can’t speak to what may have been changed because I don’t have my own copy of this adventure. At best, I’ve done some research that tells me that the structure of the adventure, and the highlights, all seem to be present. As it’s been adapted for 5th edition, this adventure is designed for 4th level characters.

Original Credits for When a Star Falls (1984)

Storyline: Phil Gallagher, Tom Kirby, Graeme Morris
Production/Editing: Jim Bambra, Phil Gallagher, Tom Kirby
Design: Paul Cockburn, Kim Daniel
Art: Jeremy Goodwin
Cartography: Paul Ruiz

Artwork

There are about 17 pieces of artwork in this chapter. Six of these pieces are maps of encounter locations present in the adventure, including the overall map of the region showing the relative locations of those encounters. We get the standard thematic image of what the doorway leading to this adventure on the Endless Staircase looks like.

Other pieces include images of locations like the Tower of the Heavens, encounters like an assassin’s ambush, and various character studies of the NPCs that appear in the adventure. One of my favorites in the chapter is the giant eagle nest, with the image of the titular star falling in the night sky.

The Framing Device

The wish that Nafas is interpreting in this introductory material is from Shalfey, the leader of the Tower of the Heavens, wishing that the entourage that he has sent will find the falling star they are seeking. Nafas asks the PCs to help the entourage deliver the fallen star to Shalfey. I think you can argue that maybe, just maybe, this takes a little bit of the charm of the adventure’s introduction away from it, but also, sometimes you do need to make sure your opening hook is well set.

The starting hooks for those not using Nafas are interesting because one has the PCs investigating murders in the region, but the other seems to send the PCs directly to the Tower of the Heavens instead of encountering the inciting incident before the rest of the adventure. The advice for placement in existing settings includes Eberron, Forgotten Realms, and Greyhawk. I know no product has infinite wordcount, but this does make me wonder how the designers picked the three settings they discuss for each of these adventures.

Adventure Overview

We’re about to go into some spoilers for this adventure, so if you want to be surprised, or you may be a player in this adventure, you may want to wish for some other content to consume while you skip the next part of this post.

The best way I can describe the beginning of this adventure is that you get a bunch of big arrows pointing to different spots on the map, but not all of the context on why to go there, or in what order. You stumble across some people that have been killed by a memory web, and after defeating the monster, the PCs get flooded with memories drained from the fallen.

From the gear the NPCs are carrying, the PCs get the following clues:

• Look for someone named Derwyth
• Here is a map of the region

From the memory web, the PCs get these additional hooks:

• The secret phrase used by people employed by the leader of the Tower of the Heavens
• The importance of the fallen star regarding prophesy

This allows the PCs to head to an NPC that can contextualize what’s going on, giving the PCs some additional context on how, why, and when to do various tasks. The PCs can head someone on the map that isn’t the best place to go first, and they’ll find something there, but they may need to fill in the details on what they learned as they talk to other NPCs.

This structure reminds me a lot of how Infinity Engine games like Baldur’s Gate or Icewind Dale work. It’s entirely possible to see something at a location, think, “that’s got to be important, but I don’t know why,” and then in the next town, someone sends them to that location to investigate it.

What’s really going on is that the leader of the Tower of the Heavens, who has a set of books filled with prophesies, needs the fallen star to trade with a group of deep gnomes who have the next volume of prophetic books. While the leader of the tower is waiting for his emissaries to find the fallen start, there is a coup at the tower, and the usurper tells everyone the former leader is dead. The star itself has been stolen by a band of derro, who have also been murdering locals and turning them into zombie servants. The gnomes are being harassed by a red dragon, with which anyone visiting the gnomes will need to contest.

In addition to all of these locations, there is a druid that tests the PCs to see if they are worthy of her help, who may give them context and material support, and there are some traveling hunters that may give the PCs a head’s up on the disappearances and ask the PCs for information about the situation, which they can bring back to the hunters once they encounter the derro and figure out where all the missing people are going.

There are also visitors staying at the hostel at the Tower of the Heavens, and servants of the leader of the Tower, who may help the PCs if they can be convinced the leader is still alive or that the new leader acted against them. The PCs can also interact with some giant beavers that can understand common, but not speak it, and some giant eagles, who can communicate with them.

Thoughts on Chapter 3: When a Star Falls

The more I describe the adventure, the more it feels like the same structure that the Infinity Engine games have utilized. That feels like a pretty strong recommendation for someone who is a fan of those games. The adventure has a primary goal, but nothing is keeping the PCs from going off in a different direction than is assumed, which makes a fairly linear adventure into something that feels a lot more open.

I am once again reminded that if I had encountered the right adventures at certain points in my early RPG career, I may have been a lot more likely to have used published adventures sooner than I did. I’m not sure if the original When a Star Falls is as clearly laid out, but if it’s similar, I would have understood that structure and purpose so much better than the adventures I first encountered.

Seeing how the NPCs are portrayed, including the talking animals and the wise NPC testing the PCs worth, are portrayed, it feels like this is a different paradigm than NPCs in adventures I have read from this era from the US. There is almost more of a respect of the pastoral or whimsical, versus a slightly harder edge to NPCs and how the world treats them in the US adventures. Take this with a grain of salt, this could just be my impression.

That red dragon is going to be rough for 5th-level characters. As written, the dragon retreats if they are reduced to 50 hit points or less, but I would be a little more generous, and maybe change this to 89 hit points, which is half the total hit points, which may give the PCs an extra round of survival.

I’m appreciating this opportunity to look at some classic adventures that I haven’t had the opportunity to experience up to this point, and to put some of the things I’ve read about these adventures in context.

If you are interested in checking out the original version of this adventure, and you don’t mind sending some game-buying funds my way, you can use the affiliate link below. Thanks!

• UK4 When a Star Falls

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Back when I was doing my review of Vecna: Eve of Ruin, I wasn’t sure if I would still be doing these reviews for official WotC material, because I like having a little bit of time before the release date to post them. Once we hit street day, everything gets flooded with reviews, promotions, and first looks, so it becomes a little redundant to try to post meaningful D&D content.

It turns out, WotC is still releasing items on D&D Beyond early, if you preorder. The process is actually simpler now than when you had to buy the bundles through WotC’s website and apply a code to D&D Beyond. Now you just buy the bundle, and it unlocks when it unlocks. No, I don’t think it’s scandalous that WotC allows early access via preorder. Of all the things that parallel the video game industry, that’s one of the least odious trends to emulate.

Disclaimer

I’m working from my early access to the D&D Beyond version of the adventure. I don’t get review copies from WotC, although I do get press releases. This literally just unlocked, so I haven’t had a chance to play or run any of this material, but I am familiar with D&D both as a player and a GM, and I may even be familiar with some of the adapted material in the book.

Quests from the Infinite Staircase
Lead Designer: Justice Ramin Arman
Art Director: Emi Tanji
Designers: Dan Dillon, Carl Sibley
Rules Developers: Jeremy Crawford, Makenzie De Armas, Ron Lundeen, Carl Sibley
Lead Editor: Judy Bauer
Editors: Eytan Bernstein, Michele Carter, Janica Carter, Laura Hirsbrunner, Sadie Lowry, Patrick Renie
Principle Graphic Designer: Trish Yochum
Cover Illustrators: John Patrick Gañas, Syd Mills
Cartographers: Stacey Allan & William Doyle, Marco Bernardini, Jason A. Engle, Sean Macdonald, Damien Mammoliti, Marc Moureau, Mike Schley
Interior Illustrators: Hazem Ameen, Luca Bancone, Mark Behm, Eric Belisle, Olivier Bernard, Zoltan Boros, Zezhou Chen, Daniel Corona, CoupleOfKooks, Axel Defois, Julie Dillon, Olga Drebas, Tomas Duchek, Craig Elliott, Victor Ferraz, Jaqueline Florencio, Jessica Fong, Michele Giorgi, Kevin Glint, Alexandre Honoré, Adrián Ibarra Lugo, Dario Jelusic, Jane Katsubo, Katerina Ladon, Yuliya Litvinova, Titus Lunter, Marie Magny, Dave Melvin, Martin Mottet, Irina Nordsol, One Pixel Brush, Hinchel Or, Alejandro Pacheco, PINDURSKI, Andrea Piparo, Arash Radkia, Noor Rahman, Tooba Rezaei, Cyprien Rousson, Taras Susak, Kamila Szutenberg, Matias Tapia, Brian Valeza, Zuzanna Wuzyk
Concept Art Directors: Josh Herman, Kate Irwin, Emi Tanji
Concept Artists: One Pixel Brush, Noor Rahman
Consultants: Tempest Bradford, Ma’at Crook, Dominique Dickey, Sameer Joseph, Omar Ramadan-Santiago
Project Engineer: Cynda Callaway
Imaging Technicians: Daniel Corona, Kevin Yee
Producers: Bill Benham, Siera Bruggeman, Robert Hawkey, Andy Smith, Dan Tovar, Gabriel Waluconis
Prepress Specialist: Jefferson Dunlap
Product Manager: Natalie Egan

Product Overview

Quests from the Infinite Staircase is the latest adventure anthology published by WotC, following other products like Tales from the Yawning Portal, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Candlekeep Mysteries, Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel, and Keys from the Golden Vault. It’s similar to Tales from the Yawning Portal and Ghosts of Saltmarsh in that it’s adapting adventures from previous editions to D&D 5e. It’s similar to Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel and Keys from the Golden Vault, in that it frames the adventures as something that can be accessed via a common source, and while the narratives may not be directly linked, you can make a campaign of it using that connective tissue.

This reintroduces the Infinite Staircase, a cosmic structure that winds through multiple planes of existence. Originally just kind of a reference to something that exists, and that you could use for planar travel, over the years it has accumulated some lore around it. The Infinite Staircase is where Helm killed Mystra when she attempted to return to the outer planes during the Time of Troubles in the Forgotten Realms. A Planescape anthology product called Tales from the Infinite Staircase provided more detail on the location, mentioning huge landings that might house structures, and introducing inhabitants, like the lillend. It also morphed the staircase a bit more from its portrayal in the Realms, where “staircase” was more of a concept than the literal appearance, and from the entrance of the staircase, the staircase itself would wind upwards towards another portal to another plane.

In this presentation, the Infinite Staircase builds on its Planescape description. Doorways lead to the staircase, which exists between planes. At various points on the staircase, some doors lead to various planes of existence, some of which may provide some clues as to where the portal leads.

One of the landings on the Infinite Staircase houses the Censer of Dreams, home of Nafas, a noble Djinn. Nafas can only grant wishes on the Infinite Staircase, but wishes from all across the multiverse travel on the wind to him. To fulfill some of these wishes, Nafas sometimes recruits adventurers to go help out. That how the anthology ties these adventure together. Those reworked adventures include:

• The Lost City (1st-level)
• When a Star Falls (4th-level)
• Beyond the Crystal Cave (6th-level)
• Pharaoh (7th-level)
• The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth (9th-level)
• Expeditions to the Barrier Peaks (11th-level)

One interesting note is that two of these adventures have been adapted to D&D 5e previously, while Goodman Games had the license to do their Original Adventures Reincarnated line. Goodman’s 5e adaptations were very concerned with keeping everything in the adventure as it was in the original, just with 5e stats. They often included additional material, but it was added on to the adventure and didn’t modify what was already present. I haven’t read ahead yet into the adventures, but I’m pretty confident that WotC is more likely to change not only problematic content but also content that just doesn’t work as well with D&D 5e’s playstyle.

Artwork

Looking at the introduction and chapter 1, we get several views of Nafas, the Censer of Dreams, and various locations on the staircase itself. There is a total of six pieces in the two sections I’m looking at today, and they really lean into the wondrous. I especially love the shot of the enormous interior of the Censer of Dreams, as well as the wide shot of adventurers traversing the staircase toward the Censer.

Introduction

The introduction briefly touches on the concept of the Infinite Staircase, and gives some background, about a paragraph each, on the adventures adapted for this book. They also mention that you can use the framing device of the staircase and Nafas to insert other adventures from the various anthology series into a campaign as well.

Chapter 1: The Infinite Staircase

This chapter goes into more detail about what the staircase is and how it manifests. It distinguishes the doorways that lead to the portal as distinct from the portals in the Planescape setting in that they don’t require portal keys. There are just specific, set doors on various planes of existence that lead to the staircase.

This section also mentions that the staircase can manifest as ramps or clockpunk conveyor belts as well as stairs, which I appreciate as a nod to accessibility for player characters that may need mobility aids.

A malevolent force from Tales of the Infinite Staircase, the Iron Shadow, is reintroduced. This is a cosmic force that drains art, motivation, and joy from whatever it touches, and doorways that have been corrupted show signs of that corruption. There are also a few monsters associated with the Iron Shadow, one of them new to the anthology.

There are sections on finding the staircase, locating specific doors, random doors that PCs may encounter, random encounters on the staircase, as well as a list of four adventure starters for (a few paragraphs each) to build on for an adventure taking place primarily on the staircase itself. There are a lot of evocative doors with interesting locations on the opposite side, and the list specifically name-drops doors for the Radiant Citadel, Ravenloft, Zybilna’s domain in the Feywild, Candlekeep (Forgotten Realms), Sharn (Eberron), and Dargaard keep (Dragonlance). Most of the encounters aren’t just “entity,” but rather “entity doing thing,” which I generally find to be a bit more useful, especially if I really do randomly generate the encounter.

Nafas and the Censer of Dreams are the subject of much of this chapter. I love Nafas’ origin as the sum total of the exhalations of breath from across the multiverse. The Well of Destiny, a location within the Censer of Dreams, is a nice, evocative creation. Wishes are carried on the wind through the multiverse to the Well, and when he hears them, Nafas tries to arrange for visitors to help out those that are in need across the planes.

Thoughts on the Introduction and Chapter 1: The Infinite Staircase

I am a big fan of featuring the Infinite Staircase, and adding details to it as a location where PCs can spend time and even adventure, rather than a background detail providing a planar shortcut. Nafas and the Well of Destiny are a far cry from the framing convention of Tales from the Yawning Portal, where the whole idea was . . . people might talk about these adventures in the common room?

Since Eve of Ruin is still fresh in my mind, I would have loved some cross-pollination between this framing convention and that adventure. Having Nafas deliver the PCs to the Wizards Three as the answer to a Wish spell that didn’t go off properly would make them feel a little more like they weren’t just randomly summoned. Having a single portal in Alustriel’s sanctum that lead to the Infinite Staircase, and having the PCs track down the pieces of the rod from there would have made the transition between different settings a little more purposeful and a little less contrived.

I wish we had gotten a little more detail on the Iron Shadow. I appreciate it’s inclusion as a tie to the 2e material, I just wish there was a little bit more. The description of how it saps the creativity and novelty out of a location that it corrupts almost, almost, felt like a meta-commentary on using specific settings in D&D adventures. For all of my frustration that WotC doesn’t do a lot of setting detail with their prime material plane settings, I have really been enjoying their multi-planar organizations and locations that have been introduced over the last few products. I may not always agree with the “the multiverse is the setting” ethos, but at least if the multiverse is the setting, they are adding some interesting multiversal bits.

I like having story elements that facilitate my predilection toward pointing my PCs at other planes of existence, even when they don’t have the means to get there themselves.  I have a feeling that Nafas and the Well of Destiny are going to get some use in one of my campaigns.

If you would like to explore planar-themed anthologies from other editions of the game, and you don’t mind contributing to my habit of buying new games to review, you can click through the affiliate links below. Thanks!

• Tales of the Outer Planes
• Tales from the Infinite Staircase
• Elder Evils
• The Plane Above: Secrets of the Astral Sea
• The Plane Below: Secrets of the Elemental Chaos

https://whatdoiknowjr.com/2024/07/09/what-do-i-know-about-reviews-quests-from-the-inifinite-staircase-part-one-introduction-chapter-1/

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