Mastodawn

What Do I Know?Jul 11, 2024

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!