Cliffhangers: Unearthing the Past

Alright, so the Cliffhangers series was a set of adventures that were published piecemeal, four installments over the course of a full month. So, it was sort of like the Map-a-Week feature. Except I'm not going to do one installment at a time; I'm going to review the entire adventure at once, because I've got enough other stuff to do over the course of the month.

The first Cliffhanger, Unearthing the Past, is another beginner's adventure for 1st-level characters. They had quite a few of these early on, didn't they? It's set around a village named Travensburg. Like the Dead of Winter adventure on the PH CD-Rom, this one is set in winter, albeit with spring right around the corner. The adventure is not very complicated; the village needs a shipment of food that is coming from a nearby village, and there are hungry humanoids who want the food for themselves.

Warning: This post will be full of spoilers for this 25-year-old adventure.

The party is asked to track down a missing wagon, and it's really not that far away (only about five miles outside of town). Of course, it's been attacked, and there are orcs standing guard along with their boss, a 1st-level sorcerer. Fight! After the party wins (they'd better win against two measly orcs and a wimpy sorcerer), they can let the villagers know what happened, and/or they can follow the rest of the ambushers to get revenge. Following the tracks (any ranger worth his salt could follow them blindfolded), they come to a cave. End of part 1.

Part 2 involves a fight with more orcs guarding the cave, as well as a ghoul in a crypt. The crypt is barred form the outside to give a warning to adventurers that it might not be a good idea to go that way. Being adventurers, of course, they will do so anyway, and thus end up fighting a ghoul. After that, they hear a lift operating further down the corridor.

Part 3 takes them to an old dwarven lift that can bring them down to the lower levels of the map. Needless to say, there are more orcs waiting for them, so more fighting. Then there's another room that the orcs and their bosses avoid; this one has a new creature in it: A choker. We are given the stats, but there's no picture for it, and there won't be one until the Monster Manual is released next month (assuming the choker is included in that volume). It would have helped to have a description included for the DM to describe it to the players; as it stands, it could be anything.

Part 4 goes to the bottom level. Here are more orcs, as well as the other boss-human, a 2nd-level cleric of Wee Jas. His plan in all of this is to consecrate the grand hall he discovered to the goddess Wee Jas. Assuming the characters can finish him off, that ends the threat to the village.

If there is interest in further exploration of these ruins, there is a suggestion to use the dwarven city map tiles from an adventure in Dungeon #60 (which would be about three years old at the time this was written, and it's for 2nd edition) to expand the area. Alternatively, the passage can lead to a different location: The Sunless Citadel, which just happens to be the first published adventure for 3rd edition and which I will be reviewing later this month after it arrives in the mail.

And that does it for this. It's a quick adventure, and the whole thing could probably be handled in a single night's play; spreading it out over four sessions would mean you're either doing a hell of a lot of expansion, or you're playing on your lunch break and don't have time for anything more than that. Still, it's a good introductory adventure to whet the players' appetites for more.

Next up...more on the Tasiri campaign and last month's Map-a-Weeks.