Lair of the
Demon Queen
Don Turnbull
White Dwarf #7
June/July 1978
“A difficult
but rewarding section of the Greenlands Dungeon.”
This is what we
might call a “drop in” encounter area today. Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe it’s
just Don Turnbull teasing us with what his clearly-inspired-by Greyhawk and Blackmoor
dungeon was all about.
Sprinkled in
with the requisite room and creature information are tidbits of design advice
and Turnbull uses a conversational tone that makes this a little hard to use.
You’ll need a highlighter at the very least to use this. I think I’d do a quick
one-page summary.
“These rooms
may be inhabited by guardians of the Queen’s lair – say evil elves which fire
arrows at an intruding party. My choice of occupant, however, was the
Disenchanter (one in each room). This is one of Roger Musson’s creations...”
Summary: Disenchanter (each room) replaced after killed
So much of the
prose here is of the commentary variety “So, to return to the poem...” “As an
added incentive, of course, some treasure can be put in...” “Let’s hope they
realise the meaning of...”
There is a long
poem (spoken by a magic mouth, of course!) that the PLAYERS have to work out
the meaning of to be able to “beat” this room. This whole set piece feels very look
how clever the DM can be to me. That’s how we used to play, so I don’t have a
problem with it. The content is interesting enough – a little “funhouse
dungeon” for me, but it seems to be pretty true to the source material (I hate
hate hate disenchanters – they are just magic killers and really would have
little place in any true ecology... like rust monsters and luck eaters and...
but I digress – Source Material being Castle Greyhawk and Castle Blackmoor).
As a player
this would be fun and memorable. As a DM this would be a nightmare to run as
is. I get accused of using too many words when I write adventures – but there’s
just so much commentary that it really gets in the way of trying to work
out the details.
And then
there’s the dearth of details... “The tombs, marked D, can be designed to suit the
taste of the DM. Each will contain a member of the Undead class and some
treasure. In my case the Undead were pretty powerful but the treasure in the
tombs was excellent and contained a number of useful magical items. In
particular, I left a few scrolls around with Cure Serious Wounds spells - the
least I could do in the circumstances.” Wait... what? This thing is just over
two pages long, with only five areas detailed... and this is the “detail” for
one of those five areas...
The titular
Demon Queen does get a full three paragraph treatment, most of which is good
role-playable detail. Until we get to treasure... which is rather abstracted, “The
treasure (in a box under the bed) was of course very rich. In my room there
were coins, gems and jewellery worth a total of 8,300 GP and two very powerful
magical items – a Ring of Three Wishes (full, untarnished wishes, of course)
and a Rod of Rulership. When added to the treasure elsewhere in this area, the
total GP value was 13,700 and there were three scrolls, a Potion of Heroism, a
good book and a dozen other pretty good magical items (plus a crocked sword
just to add spice).”
As a glimpse
into the history of adventure design and the early days of the big dungeons,
this is invaluable. Turnbull give us lots of commentary on what and why – all
to the detriment of usability... As an encounter area, it’s okay. Like I said
above, I’d make a one-page summary and maybe a handout with the poem (I know
the players are supposed to listen carefully and take notes and whatever...
yeah, not how I roll.)
Other reviews:
I’m sure there
are more, but all I could dig up was this brief comment:
https://www.enworld.org/threads/white-dwarf-the-first-100-issues-a-read-through-and-review.325009/
And this:
https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/in-which-i-read-white-dwarf-from-issue-1.405199/page-4
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