Valley of the Pharaohs (1983), by Matthew Balent. I guess teenage me didn’t find those appealing? A shame! See the difference? The US titles were often focused on sinister places – ruins and dungeons – while the UK titles focused on story concepts, often fairy tale-like. But in hindsight, I was wondering why I didn’t pick up more of the UK modules? Here’s my theory: let’s compare titles of original US modules and UK modules… Overall, When a Star Falls is a solid, unusual adventure. The adventure starts when the PCs defeat a memory web that killed the previous star questers, giving them instant info on the mission! The other new monster is also quite fun: a memory web, which drains the memories of its victims but spits them out when it is killed. They find more unpleasantness along the way, including magical mechanical tanks created by evil gnomes. Several of the encounters have this “keep a cool head to avoid a bloodbath” theme, which was pretty rare in D&D adventures at that time, and a nice change of pace.Įven after claiming and bringing the star to the sage, the adventure continues: the PCs must now bring it to a particular location to fulfil the prophecy. A couple of misunderstandings could lead to needless bloodshed. They pass through the territory of a group of non-hostile but paranoid hunters, fearful of outsiders. One in particular requires the PCs to have cool heads to avoid tragedy. They must also deal with treachery among the sage’s peers along the way. It isn’t a simple recovery quest, however, and the PCs must travel through a number of tricky wilderness encounters in order to get the star and return it safely.
meteorite, making it perhaps the first adventure to feature some actual celestial bodies! The PCs are tasked with recovering the star for a sage in order to fulfill a prophecy.
The module features the recovery of a fallen “star,” i.e. I mostly neglected the TSR UK modules when I was younger, so I’ve been excited to go back and see how clever they are in many aspects, including their graphic design, organization, and layout. The fact that this module is written by Graeme Morris is a good sign: Morris was an author or co-author of many excellent modules from the TSR UK office, including Beyond the Crystal Cave, which I’ve written about before! We start today with another of the UK-produced modules, which tend to have a very different flavor and welcome quirkiness when compared to their US counterparts. UK4: When a Star Falls (1984), by Graeme Morris. Almost caught up on my old school Dungeons & Dragons posts from twitter! So here’s part 7!
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