Mastodawn

What Do I Know?Jul 25, 2024

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.

Creature

Type

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

Derro apprentice

Aberration

Tower sage

Humanoid

Champion of Gorm

Humanoid

Champion of Madarua

Humanoid

Champion of Usamigaras

Humanoid

Sion

Humanoid

Vegepygmy thorny hunter

Plant

Barkburr

Plant

Swarm of gibberlings

Fiend

Vegepygmy moldmaker

Plant

Worker robot

Construct

Horrid plant

Plant

Leprechaun

Fey

Memory web

Aberration

Pech

Elemental

Android

Construct

Combat robot

Construct

Nafik

Undead

Wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing

Plant

Maschin-i-bozorg

Construct

The Gardener

Fey

Drelnza

Undead

Froghemoth elder

Aberration

Zargon the Returner

Aberration

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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What Do I Know About Reviews? Quests from the Infinite Staircase, Conclusion (Appendix A, B)

What Do I Know?

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!

UK4 When a Star Falls

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DriveThruRPG

What Do I Know?Jul 9, 2024

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!

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