T1 The Village of Hommlet

Title: T1 The Village of Hommlet

Price: $4.99 (PDF), $11.99 (Softcover)

Publisher/Year: TSR / Wizards of the Coast, 1979 / 2013

ISBN: 0935696113

Author(s): Gary Gygax 

System: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

DriveThruRPG Link

Rating: 3/5

Much has already been written about this venerable module which came from the pen of the Great Gygax himself way back in 1979, when AD&D was still in its infancy.  It consistently features on 'best of' lists, and is cited as being a classic by many an internet reviewer, so why is that?  Has it stood the test of time?  And how well does it work with a 'modern' group?

When choosing adventures for my current 'classics' campaign I was in two minds about picking this one. I didn't rate it in the 80s, as my first exposure to it came when I already had access to other low level modules, ones which had ready-made intrigue, and here was a somewhat awkwardly presented affair, which on the surface consisted of a village, a short 2-level adventuring locale, and no plot to speak of.  So I cast it aside then, and gave it no further thought. Fast forward more than 30 years and, with one of my group having already experienced my other low level adventure options, I reluctantly dusted this one off and gave it a chance.

In 1979, all the modules released thus far for AD&D had been aimed at high level parties, the only low level products were B1 and B2, which were designed for the Basic game. The AD&D releases were also mostly adventures that had been used at conventions, designed for tournament play.  T1 broke the mold. Not only was it the 1st low level adventure to be published specifically for AD&D, it was also the first to spend time detailing a game setting - that being the eponymous Village itself. Notable members of the populace were named and statted, and given a few lines detailing their relationships and motives. B2 provided Basic DMs with a Keep to use as a base of operations, but the occupants were left unnamed, and very few had any details beyond raw stats, thus it felt somewhat utilitarian. The simple addition of these extra nuggets gives Hommlet life.

The main adventuring locale is provided in the form of a Moathouse. It is left in the hands of the DM as to how to get the party to it, and to give them a reason for going there.  Those minor details stymied my teenage DM brain, I just wanted a ready made plot so my equally impatient teenage players could just dive straight in without faffing about around town. 30 years later, playing the game with adults, this is really a non-issue - the aforementioned NPC details help provide the story hooks, and with just a small amount of interaction between party and populace, thus the seeds of adventure can be grown! The upper level of the Moathouse is a ruin, and is well realised.  The dungeon level is somewhat more haphazard, and feels more like a relic of the adventures of the time - but once again the key to its success lies in the small details.  Rather than just fill it with nasties and say 'go adventuring', Gygax did with the dungeon denizens just as he did with the townsfolk, he gave them a few lines detailing why they are there and what their motives are.  More nuggets for the DM.

Be warned.  Though it is short, the dungeon is very hard for the party of 1st level characters that Gygax takes pains to stress it is designed for, on the surface it appears to be too hard. Again this criticism is short-sighted, as once again the party (and the DM) should spend time in the town, where they can find an array of NPCs willing to accompany the group, some trustworthy, others very much not so!

The beauty of The Village of Hommlet is that, due to all the little details, it becomes a mini-campaign.  It provides so much in just a few short pages.  My 1E party have now played more than half a dozen of the old classics, which are now back on my shelf.  My pdf of T1 still sees use at the table however.  They have taken ownership of the Moathouse and are rebuilding it, they have made allies in the Village, they are making the surrounding area safe, they care about it.

I5 Lost Tomb of Martek

Title: I5 Lost Tomb of Martek

Price: $5.00 (PDF)

Publisher/Year: TSR / Wizards of the Coast, 1983 / 2013

ISBN: 0880380998

Author(s): Tracy Hickman

System: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

Character levels: 7-9

DriveThruRPG Link

Rating: 3/5

The Desert of Desolation trilogy ends with the Lost Tomb of Martek. In it, our heroes need to find the tomb of the legendary wizard Martek in order to finally defeat the evil efreeti that has been ravaging the land. It's a suitably epic climax to the series, but it doesn't quite come off.

Tracy Hickman had done a good job of incorporating both his previously written adventure Pharaoh and Philip Meyer's Oasis of the Lost Palm into an overall structure; the problems with the structure – primarily that the players might never release the efreeti in Pharaoh – are relatively minor and something that he would find a solution for in his later works. Both adventures had been seeded with mentions of Martek, a wizard who had foreseen the release of the efreeti and had put plans in place to see it defeated; all of the business in Oasis about the bride's handmark and the amulet is Martek's work.

Now all the characters need to do is find Martek's tomb and his Sphere of Power. The keys for the tomb are in their possession already – the three Star Gems, so all they need to do is get there. Between them and the tomb is the Skysea – a place where the sand has fused into glass, so the sky is reflected in the ground. To travel on it (as it becomes devastatingly hot during the day), the group need to acquire a cloudskate or skyship, which skates on a thin blade over the glass. It's one of the best concepts in the series, but unfortunately little more is done with it – only random encounters might threaten the group as they're on the skyship. It's a throwaway detail, really, but greatly evocative.

Hickman shifts gears when the group enter the first portion of the tomb, and we get the first major interaction of the adventure: the degenerate descendants of treasure seekers trapped in a magical garden. I'm not very fond of this section: you have the descendants of paladins and the descendants of thieves. They don't like each other, and I feel it detracts from the serious tone of the rest of the series – I don't mind occasional lighter elements, but this feels forced and wrong.

It doesn't help that the big thing wrong with the adventure is introduced here: three NPCs who try to steal the Star Gems and, if they do, spend the rest of the adventure being chased through the tomb as the group try to catch them.

What's wrong with that? Well, AD&D doesn't handle chases well. Fights against single NPCs are typically boring. And there are significant problems with fighting high-level magic-users, as Trifakas is (a 12th level magic-user!) – one or two failed saves and that's it for the party! Or Trifakas.

This wouldn't be such a problem if the next section of the adventure was good enough to stand on its own, but it isn't. Once within the tomb proper, the group still need to go on a treasure hunt for three crystal minarets. The three demi-planes they need to go to find them are great inventions, but only one of them is good for adventuring: the mobius tower, where everything is "time locked" and can't move (save through a few special instances). It's a good example of where theme and adventure potential come together.

Unfortunately, the Black Abyss, where space, time and magic begin to breakdown in fascinating ways, has no actual threat to it save random encounters and the potential NPCs, and the Crypt of Al-Alisk, despite once again being an interesting place at its core, lacks challenge – really, it comes down to working out a single teleport trap to complete.

And wouldn't it be easier to just wait near the door for the three NPCs to get the minarets, then defeat them and take the spoils?

That is the bulk of the adventure. The final section – the Citadel of Martek – involves the group finally bringing Martek back to life, him rewarding them, and finally an epilogue that closes the adventure and series in suitable style.

Tracy Hickman displays great invention in this adventure, but rarely is it employed on things that translate to exciting adventuring; setting-wise there's not much to fault, but the entire adventure feels incredibly light on good adventuring material. This is a great shame, as the first two parts of the Desert of Desolation are superlative.

Production-wise, the maps are very good and most of the (uncredited) artwork is also fine – the weakest part is the cover by Holloway. As with the other adventures in the series, it has two nested covers which have most of the maps printed on them.

GameStop Power Up Rewards Pro Program

 

Year ago, I was lured into becoming a member of the GameStop Power Up Rewards Pro program. For a yearly membership fee, I would get some great benefits that included the following:

At the time, this was worth it to me because I was picking up many of the exclusive Funko Pop's from GameStop. I would go in on a monthly basis to use the $5 per month pro reward to get Pops or action figures. During the length of my membership, I also got back into gaming so I bought a new XBox and started playing on a Nintendo Switch as well.

Another benefit that the membership included was I received points based on how much I spent, and those would accumulate over the course of a year. When I eared over 10k points, I could redeem those for additional benefits including money off for in-store purchases.

At the end of the year, I would often make a larger purchase and use these points to reduce the actual amount of out-of-pocket money I was using. It was a nice system. I was part of the program in a time when they provided membership cards. I would typically get an astonished remark from the customer service rep in more recent years as I believe they discontinued providing these card in lieu of just using your phone #.

It has recently come to my attention that some changes have been made to the program that now make it not worth the expense, IMHO. GameStop has completely phased out its reward points system for Pro members, which officially ended in 2026. While the $25 annual membership cost remains the same, you can no longer earn Pro Points on purchases, and all existing points have expired. Also, the $5 monthly coupon can only be used in-store through their app.

I had installed the app a few times on my phones over the years, and 98% of the time I could not get it to function properly. Because of this, I uninstalled it from my phone. Last month (June 2026), I was made aware of the change to the program and I needed to use the app to use my monthly coupon. I made another attempt recently (July 2026) at a different location thinking that perhaps the rep at the last store just didn't want to help me. I got the same response. When I complained to each of the reps that I was never able to get the app to work correctly on my phone, they both said the same thing: "Yeah, I know bro."

This is an unacceptable response to the problem! While I understand that there is probably nothing the local reps can do to fix the issue since it is now part of the corporate policy, I shouldn't have to be forced to try and get a stupid app to work on my phone just to utilize the benefits of the membership I have held and paid for for so many years.

Because of this change in their program, I will not be renewing my membership once it expires and I also urge any of my readers who still pay into this same program to do the same. I doubt that it will cause a large enough impact, but it's a start. The new lack of real benefits outweigh the cost of membership, IMHO.

I'm sure there are those of you who will continue to use this program because you make more purchases of gaming products that the small discount makes it worth your while. That's fair. I did notice that on my last purchase, I did not receive the typical discount on the figures I bought. Based on what I'm finding online, I should still have received 5% off those purchases.

I10 Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill

Title: I10 Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill

Price: $6.99 (PDF), $12.99 (Softcover)

Publisher/Year: TSR / Wizards of the Coast, 1986 / 2016

ISBN: 9780880383226

Author(s): Tracy and Laura Hickman

System: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

Character levels: 8-10

DriveThruRPG Link

Rating: 3/5

This adventure, while not as well received as the first, ground-breaking, Ravenloft it did have a lot going for it. For starters, it was much more classically Gothic in nature. An old family, an ancient curse, ghosts, a strange and charming young Alchemist by the name of Strahd von Zarovich.

I should point out here that this adventure, while having the Hickmans in the by line, was really just an outline and some notes. Tracy Hickman had left TSR in 1985. The adventure was given over to David Cook, Jeff Grubb, Harold Johnson, and Douglas Niles. Now personally, I can see the sections that were created by Grubb and Niles. I had become very familiar with their works by this point. I honestly believe that if they had started from scratch, this would have been a different sort of adventure. 

Not that I am complaining. I rather enjoy this adventure, significant warts and all. It is more Gothic than Ravenloft I6 was, complete with an epic battle on lightning-streaked moors. 

This adventure introduces many elements that will become central to the Ravenloft campaign setting. The Weathermays, the lich Azalin, the d’Honaires, the Timothys, will all appear again in the Realms of Terror boxed set. 

One thing that won't make that much of a splash though is the big surprise of this adventure; the Alchemist Strahd. Is he the distilled goodness of the Vampire Strahd? Is the Vampire the distilled evil of the Alchemist? Or is there something else?  Like the first adventure, this one has a random plot device. Instead of fortune-telling cards, we get a mesmerist's session. The nature of the two Strahds can be found here.

Or not.

Again, the Alchemist doesn't make a significant impact in the later AD&D 2nd Edition. The Ravenloft campaign setting is all but forgotten in future treatments.  This is not a bad thing, really; the whole Alchemist deal felt like a bit of a retcon in some respects.  Though I can imagine running this adventure now for, say, the 5e players who know who Strahd is would be a lot of fun.

At 48 pages, with more isometric maps, it is larger than the original Ravenloft adventure. There is also a lot more going on. Though fans of "hack n slash" style D&D are going to be disappointed. Oh there are monsters here and they are deadly as hell, but that is not what the adventure is about. Those are just obstacles to the real adventure.

There is a small section of this adventure titled "The Dreams of Barovia" which is rather fun. The idea is that you play I6: Ravenloft and I10: Ravenloft II concurrently. The character move back and forth between one reality to the other. Playing the same characters but at different times and places. For example, the characters fall asleep in Barovia (I6) and wake up in Mordentshire (I10) wearing different clothing. 

I ran it this way back in college. My old High School DM, Bob Grenda and I ran it together for his normal group. We took turns DMing, with me taking I10 while he ran I6. We did it in a marathon session from a Thursday night to Sunday. It was fun but I forgot to tell my roommates and girlfriend at the time I was doing this and they had no idea where I was. This was the early 90s, so before everyone had cell phones. I found my notes, it was 10/26/1991. 

It worked well, but it was really deadly. HP loss and wounds carried over from reality to reality, which really upped the fear.  I'd love to try it again sometime, but I'd make some tweaks.

If you didn't like Ravenloft I then this one will feel like more of the same. But I enjoyed it and there is still a lot of untapped potential in this adventure for me. 

I6 Ravenloft

Title: I6 Ravenloft

Price: $6.99 (PDF), $9.99 (Softcover)

Publisher/Year: TSR / Wizards of the Coast, 1983 / 2013

Author(s): Tracy and Laura Hickman

System: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

Character levels: 5-7

DriveThruRPG Link

Rating: 3.5/5

Ravenloft was originally an adventure for First Edition AD&D, released in 1983, and written by Tracy and Laura Hickman's husband-and-wife team. It was part of the "I" or intermediate series of adventures. Most of these were not linked and only shared that they were higher levels than beginning adventures. Ravenloft, given the code I6, was for character levels 5 to 7. 

Ravenloft is not your typical dungeon crawl, and it is very atypical of the time's adventures. There is less of the typical Howard, Moorcock, and Tolkien here, and it is pure Bram Stoker. 

Ravenloft is Gothic Horror—or, more to the point, it is the Hammer Horror flavor of Gothic Horror laid over the top of Dungeons & Dragons. Harker was a milder-mannered English solicitor. The heroes here have fought dragons, goblins, and other real monsters. How can the Lord of Castle Ravenloft measure up to that?

Quite well, really.

I  picked up this adventure when it was first released and essentially threw it at my DM and told him he had to run me through it. It was everything I had hoped it would have been. Remember, my Appendix N is filled with Hammer Horror, Dracula, and Universal monsters. This was perfect for me. 

Ravenloft was a huge change from many of the adventures TSR had published to that date. For starters, the adventure featured an antagonist, Count Strahd von Zarovich, who was no mere monster. Yes, he was an AD&D Vampire, but he was meant to be run as an intelligent Non-player Character.  Before this, the vampires have been the unnamed Vampire Queen of the Palace of the Vampire Queen, Drelnza, the vampire daughter of Iggwilv in The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, and Belgos, the Drow Vampire in Vault of the Drow. By 1983, the amount written on all three of these vampires would not even be as long as this post will be. Strahd was different.

Strahd had a backstory, motivation, and intelligence, and he was ruthless. The goal was to destroy him, and that was not an easy feat by any stretch of the imagination.

The adventure also introduced some new elements. The dungeon crawl was gone, replaced by a huge gothic castle and a nearby village. The adventure could be replayed and unique given the "Fortunes of Ravenloft" mechanic, which allows key items, people, and motives to change based on a fortune card reading.

Finally, there were the isomorphic, 3D-looking maps from Dave Sutherland, which helped give perspective to many levels of Castle Ravenloft. 

The adventure was an immediate and resounding hit. This adventure, along with the Dragonlance Adventures, also by Tracy Hickman (and Margaret Weis), led to something many old-school gamers call "The Hickman Revolution." They claim it marks the time between the Golden Age and Silver Age of AD&D, with the Silver Age coming after 1983. While yes there was change, a lot of it was for the better.

For me, it was a dream come true. Vampires had always been my favorite creatures to fight in D&D, and I was an avid Dracula fan. I bought this adventure and then threw it at my DM, saying, "Run this!" 

I grew up on a steady stream of Universal Monsters, Hammer Horror, and Dark Shadows. That's my Appendix N. So, an adventure set in pretty much the Hammer Hamlet where I get strange locals and have to fight a vampire? Yeah, that is what D&D was to me. You can almost hear Toccata and Fugue in D minor while running it. 

I find that the people who don't like this adventure don't see what makes it great. This is not Lord of the Rings, Conan, or some other Appendix N pulp fantasy. This is Hammer Horror. Strahd has to be played with a combination of charisma, scene-chewing villainy, and absolute brutality. In other words, it is exactly like Christopher Lee playing Dracula.  Even the nearby village is filled with terrified but pitchforks in the ready villagers. 

That is not to say the adventure doesn't have its problems. At times, the Gothic elements are shoved into the Swords & Sorcery fantasy of D&D. And...let's be honest, some of the puns on the headstones in the lowest level are more than cringe-worthy.  If played properly, a vampire like Strahd could wipe out a party, and that is not counting all the other monsters (gargoyles, really strong zombies, werewolves) in the castle. Though Strahd suffers from the same issues that Christopher Lee's Dracula did, completely obsessive that blind him to some obvious blunders. But that is the nature of vampires, really. 

Doctor Strange Vol 2: The Last Days of Magic

Title: Doctor Strange Vol 2: The Last Days of Magic

ISBN: 9780785195177

Price: $24.99

Publisher/Year: Marvel, 2016

Artist: Chris Bachalo, Mike Deodato, Jorge Fornes, Kev Walker, Kevin Nowlan, Leonardo Romero, Danilo Beyruth, Mike Perkins

Writer: Jason Aaron, Gerry Duggan, James Robinson

Rating: 3.5/5

Anyone who came to Doctor Strange as a new reader, their curiosity stimulated by the 2106 movie, couldn’t have asked for a better primer to the man and his world than The Way of the Weird. Jason Aaron and Chris Bachalo covered all the essential elements in a spectacular graphic novel. So how does the continuation stack up? Not as well, unfortunately.

When last seen, an other dimensional technocratic civilization known as the Empirikul (ugh!) had worked their way through several other dimensions pursuing their dogmatic ideology of eradicating all magic. They’ve now launched an attack on Earth and almost all magic has been wiped out. This is where the wider Marvel universe becomes problematical. When confined in places only accessible to Doctor Strange vastly powerful technology-worshipping zealots are a viable threat. Have them invade Earth, however, and the obvious question becomes where are the Avengers? Claiming the Empirikul to be beyond the sight of mortals doesn’t really cut it.

Ignore that, and it’s a big ask, and Aaron delivers a thrill ride with multiple threats and a desperate Doctor Strange gathering what little scraps of magic remain accessible in our dimension. This is enough to enable Chris Bachalo to shine once more. With Strange relying on locating ancient objects in accessible places Bachalo opens his imagination, unleashes the nightmares, and in turn terrifies ours. He makes good use of variations of an image repeated as a statement from the early pages of the previous book, and his cast designs are suitably creepy.

So we have a big plot hole, and Doctor Strange reduced to Indiana Jones. Can Aaron pull it back again? No, not really. The conclusion to a desperate situation has been foreshadowed, quite well actually, but it’s a solution that we’ve seen before, both in Doctor Strange and elsewhere, and seeing it again in what had been a relative beacon of originality is disappointing. Furthermore, given their inflated reputation, the Empirikul surely previously encountered resistance along the lines of that offered.

This is still very good Doctor Strange by most reckonings, but nowhere near as good as what came before. The ending still leaves a major problem, and that’s Strange’s task for the next book settled.

As the plot affected magicians other than Doctor Strange there’s also a spotlight on their reactions to the disappearance of magic with the involvement of Aaron, but with Gerry Duggan and James Robinson (with a clever twist) also writing sequences. There’s some excellent art from Daniel Beyruth and Mike Perkins among others, and the magical world is expanded and given a wider ethnic spread via the introduction of viable new characters, which is welcome.

Avengers: Endgame Paradox Problem

I was recently thinking about the 2019 movie Avengers: Endgame and realized there is a huge paradox contained within.

In the scene where the Ancient One and Bruce Banner are discussing the problems with taking any of the Infinity Stones out of their timeline, it is mentioned that the stones would need to be replaced at the exact time they were taken from in order to not create a branching/divergent timeline.

When Captain America and Iron Man go back 1970 to steal the Tesseract from a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility. We know that the Tesseract houses the Space stone and to retrieve the actual stone, the Tesseract must be broken.

Because of this, Captain America would have to recreate the Tesseract to house the Space stone in order to return it to the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility. Since he couldn't do this, it wouldn't be returned correctly, S.H.I.E.L.D. wouldn't be able to continue researching it and Loki wouldn't have been sent to New York to retrieve it so the Chitauri could attack Earth. This would have created a whole new timeline.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.