Review of H4 Throne of Bloodstone (lvl 18-100)

[Adventure]
H4 Throne of Bloodstone (1988)
Douglas Niles & Michael Dobson
AD&D 1e
Lvl 18-100

SPOILERS: If you are a player in my high-level game do not read this on the chance I might run it.

In our delve into high level adventures, there is one entry travels far beyond any of its peers, that stands as a legendary monument to hubris, ambition and glory. At the tail end of AD&D, Douglas Niles and Michael Dobson conceived of a series of modules that tied into the then published BATTLESYSTEM rules for mass combat. The series as a whole is now mostly forgotten, but H4 lives on in the collective unconscious, not so much because it was good, but because of its sheer ambition. Indeed, had it realized its goals, it would have been absolutely legendary, the most epic adventure of all time. That it is mentioned only as a curiosity is a testament to the failure of those ambitions. But is there something to be learned from H4 for us would-be high-level entrepeneurs?

There is a lengthy overview of what happened in the previous 3 parts of the adventure, none of which is terribly important to the current situation. Suffice it to say, the characters have gotten involved in a lengthy and protracted conflict with the forces of evil in the remote Bloodstone lands, having vanquished Duergar and the Grandfather of Assassins, all of them puppeteered by the hoary hand of Orcus, Demon Prince of Undeath himself. The armies of good and evil are at an impasse, divided by a river, neither daring to cross for fear of giving the other a crucial advantage. The heroes are preparing to make their assault on the stronghold of Zhengy the Witch-King, 30th level lich in command of the armies of Vaasa. By the time we will have finished the adventure, we understand that this attack is a mere prologue.

Douglas Niles attempts to instill in us three concepts of high level gaming that are meant to help us navigate the insane world of 25d6 fireballs, 100 Type III demons, wishes and teleportation without error.

* 100th level characters are not 10 times more powerful then 10th level characters

* Apply all the Rules strictly

* Never give a 100th level character an even break

The first point makes sense in that it illustrates the relative power of high level characters with 18+ ability scores and points out that very often the difference is no more then some extra hit points, and extra spell slots taper off at 30th level. It further recommends restricting character items to the material found in the DMG and not to let them have any artifacts. The continuing increase of spell area of effects and damage is not addressed, which renders the whole treatise of dubious merit. The advice to replace illusions by the time the characters get the ability scores to become absolutely immune to them (this should not happen during your average level 18 game) is a bit more sensible. On its own the measures seem sensible but the whole comes across as a bit censorious.

Apply all the rules strictly is another punitive measure, although it is certainly more defensible. You are encouraged to enforce the limits of the AD&D rules with an iron fist w.r.t time spent memorizing spells, mixing potions, maximum number of magic items, no automatic identify, spell book capacity, all of which is required to serve as a brake on what are already formidable characters. In my own high level game, I have found strict interpretations of the rules have a similar effect, and remembering to apply, say, the limit for attacks blocked on a +3 medium shield can radically alter the tactical situation.

The third bit of advice also comes across as adversarial but also makes sense. The idea is that at the time it was quite common for GMs to fudge a horribly unlucky diceroll or otherwise alter the results in the characters favor if they were otherwise grossly unfair (like, say, an unfortunate Random encounter with 1-3 purple worms attacking with surprise). Niles tells you to stop doing this, but also goes into the same concepts that we had reverse engineered in our article. The rationale is that very often the PCs have immense resources to be dealt with and they can recover from most damage easily, and must be worn or pulled down via attrition. A few (valid) points to take away:
– Run monsters intelligently, with full use of their abilities
– Don’t rely on brute force alone, use monsters intelligently, or in the right environments
– Use environments to restrict PC power
– Don’t be afraid to go hard, make instant death traps, throw something ridiculous at them etc. since they will find a way around it

Advice which probably holds up, although the degree to which it is applied is going to determine whether your adventure is an impossible meat grinder or a barely adequate speedbump for functional demigods.

So given that Niles understands concepts that would later be iterated by the likes of Huso et. al., and applied in the glorious manufacture of such adventures as Dream House of the Nether Prince, why is H4 not held up as the pinnacle of high level gaming today? I would venture this has the following root causes:

* It relies on convoluted traps and hacky design elements to generate some of its challenges (I have never seen an adventure with so many saves vs poison at -8).

* Because of its vast scope, much of it feels incomplete, and very often crucial PC abilities like scrying, teleportation and divination are not taken into account.

* Although some of its elements are quite good and effective, strange or hacky decisions like St. Solar who speaks with a conservative drawl and smokes cigars (is it Gary?), are dubious.

* The combat heavy nature of much of the adventure might be off-putting to many, and it is not hard to see how it would devolve into a slog

* High level gaming already requires more investment in and understanding of the game of AD&D and will appeal to a select niche only meaning few will have played it to begin with

With all that said, is H4 worth examining? HELL YES. After a 2 pages of material to either carry over characters from H3 or to integrate new PCs into the adventure, it’s off to the Citadel of Zhengy for the Citadel of the Witch King.

Part I takes place as an assault on a sort of pseudo Barad-dur as envisioned by Michael Moorcock, complete with Great Eye. The idea is that your characters travel beyond the lines of the enemy and attempt to eliminate Zhengy in one fell stroke. Notably scrying, divination, etherealness or teleportation are not discussed.

There are some interesting elements to the approach proper. The first injunction, to give anyone falling from the soft dirt-sides of the ravine (Dex check) 8d6 damage, seems ridiculous and is a taste of the occasional excesses to come. At night the area is scoured by unnatural weather. Detection brings with it immediate retaliation in the form of the White Dragon Arctigis, a medium adult 56 hp bastard white dragon equipped with a ring of spell turning who will use brutal strafing tactics against the PCs. There’s even procedures for % chance of detection if you peer over the sides of the ravine, notes on the dragon’s tactics and search pattern and the eye has a minimum range as well as a maximum. 50% chance of random encounters with the likes of demons, groaning spirits and spectres are there to ensure the PCs do not dither overlong. This is, by and large, fun and rewarding.

The convoluted bullshit starts at the castle wall and might be a good benchmark for your enjoyment of this section of the module as a whole. The Witch King’s fortress is ringed by a 50 feet high rube goldberg death trap wall that contains a moat of acid over a fragile egg-shell thin plate of stone, and is hollow on the inside, with tunnels containing Purple Worms. Wooden doors allow entry into the wall if they are forced, but disappear once the characters are inside. At least there is treasure I guess. Just use one of fifteen different ways to cross the wall (there is no gate?), fight 4 invisible Perytons (a gentle ribbing by this adventure’s standards) and have at it.

The map is actually interesting because there are again multiple means of egress and there is no restriction on teleport or passwall or whatever. An upper landing is coated with convoluted non-magical superglue of abyssal origin that will pin the characters to the floor, generously detectable by Truesight but not detect magic. Convolution aside, the dungeon design throughout the module is generally sensible for characters (and players) of high level ability. If the PCs move entirely according to the enemy plan they will almost certainly perish. This seems a valid principle: If the players never attempt to utilize their superior mobility or intelligence capability they deserve what is coming to them.

So you get a main gate, electrified, setting it off will alert the Wizard inside who will begin deploying protections. The difference between attacking with surprise and attacking a well-entrenched foe, already night and day, is herein magnified to ludicrous proportions. Fuck around too much with the gate, and Zhengi and his two guardian daemons is waiting, invisibly, with a conjured 16 HD elemental and numerous protections. Like most intelligent adversaries in this adventure, the Witch-King will also teleport away if he is losing to regroup, get reinforcements, and then counter-attack.

Another section higher up, another totally fair trick. Several doors in the area are stuck. This is no barrier for high level PCs but if you make noise you alert the Balor (erroneously labelled Type IV), who begins gating in reinforcements. There are two more doors like this, and the antechamber to the guardian’s lair has been filled with treasure. THAT’S great. He is also in a library filled with books and can actually be bribed with rare volumes if the PCs think to ask. That’s also good. Then a few sucker punches like a Death Knight disguised as a Vampire or a Groaning Spirit. That’s cute. The traps in Part I are probably the worst. You move into a room that is barren and featureless, and ZAPPO you are teleported onto the upper glue landing. Is this fair game, or do you clog up your adventure with rubbish actions because the PCs will be scanning everything with find traps. On the other hand, this entire assault is likely to take place as an intense flurry of activity and Find traps will just be a prepatory spell cast on one of the characters as they rampage through the fortress at record speed, chasing a retreating Witch-king who has just teleported to his Dragon friend to regroup.

The traps part has me torn. Some of them are nasty but completely fair. Some of them seem like arbitrary bullshit. A wooden chest with ‘abyssal venom’ at -8 to the save seems a bit lazy. Falling block traps and then pit traps filled with acid around them so that if you jump aside you plunge into the acid…that’s acceptable. You walk into a room TELEPORTATION seems like it should be used sparingly. And then there are the in-betweens, the fake door that sets off the teleport trap. The nozzles in the ceiling of the featureless room that sets off ‘abyssal poison gas’ at another -8. The -8 stuff seems cheap. The appeal of older versions of DnD is that there is no rubber-band: at higher levels you will generally hit more often and make your saves against most things.

There is one very nasty little detail in the incomprehensible hoard of treasure that can be found in the Witch King’s citadel. I consider it almost unfair. One of the items is a ring of vampiric regeneration that also gives you undead immunities. That’s insanely strong. This is the only warning you are likely to get. Putting it on means you transform into a vampire over the course of several days. The ring is not traditionally cursed, but the character wearing it will and cannot remove it and after 7 days, he is a fucking vampire. The character is bound to conceal these acts from his companions. I would expect an effect for good-aligned clerics and paladins/rangers here. It is very nasty, but it does still more or less follow the injuction of ‘too good to be true.’

There is another section, which reaches saw trap proportions (but again you have passwall, etherealness, teleport, dig etc. etc.). In order to get into the main shaft that leads all the way down (which is lead lined and thus passwall proof), there is a brutal gauntlet of traps, involving slippery slides into hell-rooms (containing either a 18 HD water weird, 100 Green slimes, a suprisingly demure 5 rust monsters or 20 salamanders and furnace like temperatures). The key is inside, 3 are fake, one is real. Once again, you have to have the right mind-set. As soon as the GM says, “let’s do this it will be fun and cinematic” you have to be willing to smirk and shake your head as you prepare to ram another stone to mud + dig spell combination, plunging the villain into a freshly teleported segment of acid-moat. A drop down into the GATE, with the adventure equivalent of a quick-time event that spells instant death for the incautious or the unattentive, and a downright relaxing smackdown with 6 Nabassu (that’s the death gaze attack ones) and 2 Babau demons, all of them furnished with intelligent tactics and you have made it to the end of the Prologue, and discovered the GATE TO YE ABYSS. A friendly admonition reminds you to double, triple or quadruple the number of demons if the PC levels are above 25 as well as trap damage, which feels horrendously cheap. Ignore the 18-100 rating, and just go with a nice, even 18-25 is my recommendation. Some of the NPCs in the adventure also have 3 sets of HD depending on party level, and random encounters are calibrated based on the average party level, but this is done haphazardly and as an afterthought. This thing should work for levels 18-25 and is probably even fun if you want to experience the real taste of Powah. Crucial elements involve: Intelligent preparation, design that encourages/demands sequence breaking or intelligence, intelligent adversaries that will fight in conditions that are to their advantage if they are allowed.

There’s a few other point to cover. The myriad countermeasures and complicated traps create a sort of sensory blur that would make writing this in a more evocative style feel challenging, I think. Creating a location like this in a way that is, not natural, but plausibly supernatural is an interesting challenge for NAP III.

The interlude between discovering the gate and going into the Abyss proper involves a bizarre tonal shift that I cannot quite explain so I will assume Niles was either drunk or perhaps he was burning inside with the sheer accumulated power of the module and he needed to discharge some of it for fear of evaporating under the strain.

You are commissioned by St. Sollars, under the delight of a cigar and a pitcher of beer, to steal the Wand of Orcus from under the eyes of ole’ goathoof himself and destroy it by quenching it in Tiamat’s heartsblood, thereby ending the threat to the valley. To do that you are to travel through the convenient portal to the Abyss, arrive at the 1st lair (Panzunia, lair of 1001 closets), find the entrance to Orcus’s lair, infiltrate his fortress, and steal his fucking wand. The PCs get 7 questions, and a full recharge of all spells before they head out. Again, no notes on the effects of divination or legend lore, very dissapointing, and if the PCs want to use some other form of travel, the module essentially says ‘eh, go ahead.’

Part II is on the Abyss and gives only a short reference to the Manual of the Planes before diving headlong into the adventure. The Abyss is a fine example of a hostile environment for high level characters. Several effects are employed to make the adventure much harder. The most major effect is that the +s of all items forged on the Prime are reduced by two. This not only dampens character power by a considerable margin, it is also an incentive to obtain local equipment before taking on any outsiders with Immunity to weapons of +3 or above. There is a whole host of restrictions to summoning magics, making its employment very dubious, divination becomes linked to the local powers of the realm and is therefore inadvisable and Clerics can only recover 1st and 2nd level spells while on the Abyss, unless they serve a local power, in which case they have other problems! I would have liked to see a ruling on the nature of treasure that is found ON the Abyss during the adventure. It is assumed this will function normally, being of extra-planar origin.

I remember reading Throne of Bloodstone as a child and the Abyss section always stood out to me. In concept it is fantastic. You are transported onto this blasted plain, dotted with the Iron fortresses of Demon Lords, and filled with Great Holes, each leading to one of 666 layers of the Abyss. Fantastic. And H4 is at its strongest when it can momentarily channel the awesome power of its premise. The challenge is formidable. Describing one entire realm in a way that does not make the entire place feel one-note would be formidable. What about 33 layers? Niles’s disdain for dotting all the i’s and crossing all the T’s is magnified, and a lot of these lairs come across as little more then outlines.

In terms of a stupid tax this section is fantastic. People trying out random holes in the hope of finding the entrance to the Realm of Orcus are likely to find themselves in a succession of EXTREMELY inhospitable environments. Ditherers are subjected to random encounters of 1d6 of various demon types CHECKED EVERY TURN. There are multiple obstacles, multiple ways of dealing with them and multiple consequences. Crossing by land means somehow getting across the River Styx (immersion in which causes instant super memory loss), dealing with Charon (expensive but reliable) or Charonodaemons (inexpensive but possibly treacheorus), or flying across and getting attacked by 5d6 Hydrodaemons. And then there is the second possibility: Flight, which has only one creature on the random encounter table: This guy.

This introduces a potentially very interesting but somewhat dubiously implemented mechanic of this and the next section of the adventure. The good part is that a lot of the Powers you encounter (and all demon lords have lesser god powers on their own plane) do not attack immediately and can be bargained with. The bad news (and Niles waits until Part III to tell you this) is that in almost all cases bargaining with demons means an alignment shift towards Chaotic Evil, and if you reach Chaotic Evil alignment you immediately become a Bodak NPC. Of course there are also the usual Alignment shift penalties. On the one hand this fits in with the theme of the Abyss as a place of ultimate evil that will attack not only your hit points but your very soul but on the other hand this is actually quite a shame. The demons are treacherous enough in and of themselves so that any aid they offer is going to be a double-edged sword but it also means that a lot of the interesting possibilities (who does not want to invade Orcus’s lair with 6 Grazz’t Balors and blow a whistle to summon 10.000 Type III demons?) will be inaccessible. There might be an interesting trade-off with the PCs carefully managing their alignment shift and in at least one instance evil characters are much more vulnerable later on but I would have liked to see a paragraph covering the implications. Does a Paladin also lose alignment if one of his buddies deals with one of these powers? The ability to accept aid from Demogorgon or Grazz’t, Orcus’s major rivals, is awe-inspiring. In an interesting turn of events, it as as easy to become damned by accepting this momentous aid as it is by a moment’s inattention (by say, accepting help from Pazuzu or helping a village of alu-fiends and cambions exterminate their rivals for some treasure, or gaining it for the dubious benefits of a single bless spell from the CE oriental adventures deities).

These realms tend to run into the same problem as the worlds in Q1 in that these supposedly infinite places get less then a page, and in some cases less then 3 paragraphs of description, little more then an outline, weather effects and possible encounters. The encounter balance here is also suspended. Many of these layers are absolutely deadly and going into them is a net negative. The empty void whipped by raging winds is a particularly good candidate, the Styx Ocean probably another, and inhospitable and barren for the Abyss is the Abyss going soft on you.

About 1/3 of the realms is inhabited by Demon Princes or Lesser evil powers. As a capstone to your campaign, an adventure might have so much as a single demon prince. This module has over a dozen, easy. A page is probably not enough to devote to what would be the endpoint of a campaign in any other adventure but to his credit Niles gets some of them right. Demogorgon lives in a fucked up jungle world filled with demoniac dinosaurs and has the PCs meet his herald after they have been chewed up by 25 Tyrannosaurs. The adventure more or less abstracts the fortresses of Grazz’t and Demogorgon though they generally have 100.000 troops or something ridiculous. Yeehnoghu tries to capture the PCs and if they succeed they can try to goad him into letting them go via a contest of strength but he will just cheat so you (probably) can’t win. Most powers like Juiblex, Fraz-Urb’luu and Kotchenchie attack almost immediately, which would be boring but getting attacked by A GOD multiple times in one adventure is hardly boring. Several demoniac cities will drain a level from the characters each hour they are in it and negative plane protection does not work on the Outer Planes for vague cosmotopological reasons.

Tortured for all eternity.

Occasionally the absurdity of the Abyss and this adventure hit home but then you realize that at some point, sending 100 Type III or Type IV demons, which the adventure has a fondness for and will pull several times, is perfectly survivable at this level and requires only that the characters have some means of escape, which is probably true. Some of these layers are essentially cliffs notes or outlines but I suppose the GM can always say uhhhhhhh 100 Type III demons and have at it. The most egregious example is the Realm of Delusion which pretends to be an exit back to the prime material plane where the PCs are fully healed and all their friends are there and they receive the best possible magic items and of course it is the worst possible fucking nightmare realm and all their friends are horrific dopplegangers and the food is slow acting poison (-8 to save).

One of the most intriguing (and highly unlikely) alliances is between the breath-weapon minotaurs of Baphomets realm and the PCs. You see Baphomet has been captured by Orcus and the minotaurs want him back. In this case the PCs actually CAN ally with the minotaurs to help free Baphomet without turning Chaotic Evil as long as they don’t actually go through with it. Normally I would berate anyone who puts this sort of stuff in there for more or less wasting the GM’s time but then this is a game where people have access to divination and wish so you have a nonzero chance of actually finding material like that.

Strange effects, assuming you believe this adventure can be run, which I am starting to come around to. The Abyss lowers all your weapons by 2, Orcus can be hit only by +3 or more. That means if you didn’t have a +5 sword going in or you lost yours (in this adventure, hardly unthinkable), you are shit out of luck and adventuring in the abyss in order to get the weapons to fight through to Orcus’s palace actually becomes neccessary again. I don’t know if that is design so much as Douglas Niles injecting black tar heroin directly into his cerebrospinal fluid while he conjures forth this ludicrous behemoth of a module from the deepest abysses of plato’s idea world. Douglas probably should have considered the effect of magic like Find the Path and described the effects of various divinations but a glance at the Manual of the Planes reveals that you are probably not getting off that easily. This is also a massive omission on Niles’s part; Finding the entrance to Orcus’s realm is the entire goal of this section but the most obvious routes or ways are not even discussed.

As an aside, To get an idea why, say, 100 Type III demons are a problem to 5-8 characters with 300 hp, AC -8 and 50d6 fireballs one need only be directed to the At Will Telekinesis ability with a 4000 gp weight limit that allows No Saving Throw which can be spammed AT WILL BY EVERY DEMON as a spell-like ability that cannot be disrupted. So a quarter of them juggle you irresistably while the rest gates in reinforcements, pelts you with heavy objects, or other shenanigans. Hope you win initiative and don’t let them close within 100 feet. There’s a few magical protections, as well as mundane counters (you could elect to weigh more then 400 pounds! say) but these tend to be finite.

So lets say you do all that and you make it to the 33rd layer of the Abyss. You figure, I have been through all sorts of hell. How much worse can this module still get?

Oh you sweet summer child.

Overland portion of Orcusrealm. A demi-lich is on the random encounter table as are 2d6 death knights. The second you step outside you are challenged by Brigade Commander Ter-soth and sigh…100 Type III demons. If he escapes (the adventure optimistically assumes you will obliterate your way through them), the Palace is on alert, surprise becomes impossible and all random encounters are the maximum number. It is a bit surprising that besides the brutal random encounter tables, Orcusrealm has no particular environmental effects (like, say, having everything animate or something) or particularly evil weather which is probably a missed opportunity but you will see a different solution is chosen to put pressure on the players.

Yes you can play a drinking game in Throne of Bloodstone for every time you get attacked by 100 Type III and no, no that would not be good for your health. This overland portion before the attack on the fortress proper is actually one of the strongest parts of the adventure. It is still insane but I will explain.

This overland portion is a micro-cosm of the Abyss segment before only it is more diverse and possibly less grindy, although it does not help that the second encounter is ALSO with 100 type III demons. FWIW, you get encounters that are not what they seem (demons torturing people in lava who are all actually fire memphits), there is a dissident Fire Memphit who might (this is handled stupidly but whatever) decide to ally with the players, or at least try to trick them by leading them to a place with ‘friends.’ The massed encounters in the valley feel properly imposing, granted strength even by Niles’s aenemic prose. A valley filled with stone thrones upon each of which sits a Crypt thing. Great. A cave-dotted canyon, in each one lairs a Nabassu. Also great. There are two ‘cities’ here filled with undead you can actually ally with. The city of Liches (100 in number thank you) can be roused to support a coup de etat (indeed with their combined power it is dubious why they have not tried to do so before). Also their treasure includes the Hand of Vecna because why not. There is also a city of friendly zombies that can be motivated to stage a diversionary attack. Why the fuck would I want that? you ask. Just wait. Game design chops are a bit spotty as always. It is clear enough why the Liches would be willing to covertly back the PCs but the Zombies just want to die and there does not seem to be a reason why they would not have killed themselves before. So the writing is very much off here.

Some good elements here are places that pose a risk to the party if explored (say, a giant heap of animated skeletal bones or a tomb garden full of ghosts, dotted with treasure) but as previously noted it is quite possible the PCs took a bit of item attrition getting to Orcus Island so it is quite possible they will want to stock up on some goodies before staging a final attack. Resting is still hell. No one offers you a chance to rest, which is a bit surprising. Anyway, there’s also a Solar being tortured by Balors, and cutting it loose destroys the magic weapon that is used to do so (very nasty!) but a Wish is granted in return (a high level currency if ever there was one). Among the more interesting combat encounters are the Dire Whiner (a giant fat woman demon that gaslights and whines the party), which is so weak the party should absolutely obliterate it and it has been placed there for sheer joy-de-vivre and oh yes there is a Tarrasque.

Please note that RAW the Tarrasque regenerates and can only be killed by being brought down to -30 hp and then stopped with a Wish.

Alright, so the fortress proper. You get a nice, dare I say, cinematic moment to observe the fortress for 8 to 10 minutes [based on level duration] (the GM gives you a map (with two major pieces omitted) so the PCs can actually theorize on what goes where, or how to plan their attack etc. Every demon in the fortress gets 2e style MR, meaning that even if you are a level 50 spellcaster, their MR does not go down [1]. There are, bizarrely, no other protections. You are free to scry the fortress, teleport in etc. The only security measure that is discussed is flight over the giant lava moat. Which is solved by attacking you with air patrols and fired at by bone guns. These guns seem formidable and their arc of fire is described but under what conditions they will target characters is again left unclear (NILES). There is an anti-magic dome (this is mentioned all the way in encounter 23. of the Orcusfortress) surrounding the throne room so entering via flight is an extremely bad idea because you receive encounters until you are killed or you land. This does make it attractive to try short sequence breaks.

Instead of allowing you to carefully plan your attack the module gives you 8-10 minutes to look at the map and then DUMPS Fryllicus the Abyss bred dragon on you. 200 hp at the LOWEST DIFFICULTY, bred in the abyss. Unlike most combatants it does not have sophisticated tactics but then again something with a 200 hp Breath weapon and the ability to throw a 40d6 Lightning Bolt probably does not need to. Remember that AD&D Breath weapon damage is based on Dragon total hit points. If the party level is above 25, increase to 50 HD, and increase to 100 HD if it is above 76. How many party members did you just lose?

There is one mechanic I actually do like even though it is likely included to prevent scale issues is that of distance distortion. The idea is that Walls (in one of the labyrinths) seem only about 50′ high but are actually 1000 high. Falling from them means a 1000 fall. Climbing up them has a chance of heads and limbs forming on the wall (including, say, a dragons head) and attacking you. The same applies to the bridge across the lava moat, the moat itself (which is emits poisonous fumes too btw) and the rest. So you CAN sequence break, it is just hazardous. In contrast, the random encounters INSIDE the fortress are actually rather mild compared to the meatgrinder you encounter outside.

The opening is probably too long but I love it. It exemplifies H4: it’s 50% awesome, and 50% complete bullshit. The skulls create a duplicate of the strongest fighter in the party (magic items are again not specified), who then challenges him to single combat. You can actually just cheat and kill the fighter, or you can smash the skulls and the apparition dissapears, there is no ill effect except…the bridge will collapse if more then one person tries to cross it and the skulls warn you of this if you have won fair and square. This encounter is actually great. IT FEELS like the encounter you would get if you were about to enter a demonic super fortress through the front gate.

This thing is probably too insane to run (although I am again getting tempted) and I suspect there are some rather large holes in it but as a proof of concept it has a lot of interesting ideas. The green clouds if entered will transport the PCs to one of 5 types of mazes, with a few nasty complications if the PCs screw up. The mazes and their inhabitants are rerolled every time the PCs cross through the strange vapor. The principle of the first part is applied in the second part. If you go for the most direct route, you are very likely to get your ass kicked. So if you just go through the ground maze, maybe kick Baphomet’s ass, then go through the lower area and walk up the walkway there is a chessboard there (you don’t see it during your observation, the module includes sheets to place over it) and suddenly you are facing Orcus with a retinue of maximum strength demons. The chessboard squares start falling out, and all magical effects are dispelled every 3 rounds. Ludicrous. Orcus has 95% magic resistance, 240 hp, a poison tipped tail at -8 save (justified in case of a demon prince I’d say), a tonne of spelllike abilities and up to 6 heals.

But then there is an entire seperate route where you go into the City of Orcusgate, which appears abandoned and is actually trying to lead you along to drain you of Life (every 6 turns). More demoniac fights possibly ensue, more possibilities of alliance followed by inevitable betrayal (which also do not shift your alignment in the direction of CE, there should be a more explicit way of figuring out how this works), there are strange hinterlands of eternally burning cities or mad glowing cities led by councils of demented nabassu that are alluded too only briefly, but the point is, you can sneak in via the Kitchens and enter Orcus’s throneroom via the dumbwaiter.

That all sounds very advanced but YOU AREN’T HERE TO KILL ORCUS YOU STUPID FUCK. YOU ARE HERE TO GET THE WAND. So what you do instead and this is BURIED IN THE TEXT somewhere is you stage a DIVERSIONARY ATTACK ON ORCUSGATE, thereby luring out Orcus and his most faithful retainers, THEN you breach the palace WITHOUT PASSING THROUGH THE SCRYING ROOM SO ORCUS INSTANTLY KNOWS YOU ARE COMING and you can get into the Throneroom when he is not there, take his wand, and get the fuck out while the entire realm will attempt to kill you.

Madness.

There is a fifth part of the adventure where you are transported by Bahamut to Tiamat who has one chromatic dragon of each color but you get all your spells back and if you made it this far killing another God while you get ample time to prepare feels like a victory lap. If you forget to destroy the Wand of Orcus in her blood (which does not kill you instantly but will begin to corrupt you should you keep it), St. Solar is annoyed and sends you back without giving you a chance to rest, and all the fucking dragons and Tiamat will be back again, which seems like early 90s video game design. There is a wrap up but what the hell are you going to do after this? Fight God?

There is a collection of premades, lovingly equipped with +4 and +5 weaponry and armors of various types, along with copious misc. magic items, each of them hovering around level 18-25. These were apparently used in the campaign. The more bold option is to use the lvl 100 characters, with most stats raised above 18 and their choice of any magic items from the DMG. The choice to limit magic items to the DMG and UA and not create a whole staple of Abyssal magic stuff is probably smart considering the vast quantity of the stuff the PCs can readily obtain (and lose). A few choice items are likely to be in the hands of major powers.

Judging H4 is difficult because of its sheer size and scope. You admire the bravado and daring of the author even as you gaze at the tarrasque-sized holes and ponder the question: does this actually work? There are no structured play reports online, a scattered few have apparently tried it but not completed it and many were turned off. On the other hand, as a proof of concept for a demon lord’s realm, it is actually great. There is plentiful material to borrow and lift, but to apply it in its entirety is highly dubious. Does it matter if the fortress has 15 rooms? Not really because of the enchanted mazes (do you get random encounters inside the mazes? this is not answered) and other bizarre obstacles make it seem suitably hellish. The intelligent response to intruders is mostly left up to the GM, which is also a dissapointment.

So H4, yay or nay? Here’s what we do: Ignore the 18-100, this is a somewhat playable 18-25 adventure thank you very much. As a proof of concept this is highly ambitious and attempts to tread ground that remained more or less untrod. As a practical application of these principles it requires considerable interpretation, is occasionally ham-handed there are large holes and only an experienced GM is going to be able to juggle the amount of rules and abilities to run this anywhere approaching smoothly. Is the effect of deities essentially wasted by throwing them at the PCs like 1d6 orcs? I think poor Tiamat definetely deserves much better.

But it is a serious attempt, a proof of concept, for tackling adventuring in an area where none have gone before. Someone had to get there first. And only one man in the OSR would follow in the footsteps of Dr. Niles, and create an adventure that is only slightly less ambitious, and much more coherent and playable.

Would be high level NAPsters, check out some more grounded stuff first, PLAY it, THEN return and check this out and learn from lessons from it. There is something here, a Power, an attempt to approach the transcendent, but it is buried in false practice and partial execution.

Edit: as an additional consideration, I think H4 gets the scope and scale of this level of play just right. The universe is not going to be destroyed. A nation-wide conflict on the material world with otherworldly interference spirals out into a raid on extraplanar territory, with the objective to destroy, at least temporarily (it is noted in the adventure Orcus can reforge his wand but it will take centuries), the fighting capabilities of one of the belligerents. It is possible, as written, to end the adventure with a major regime change. Actually killing Orcus is not possible because the location of his amulet is not specified. The PCs, while of considerable power, remain underdogs when matched against the Lords of the Planes.


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[1] For the B/X fans here, magic resistance in AD&D is a percentage score to resist hostile magic that is reduced by -5% for every CL above 10, and increased by +5% for every CL below it.