Customer Reviews

Masters of Eternal Night (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons/Monstrous Arcana Accessory)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Masters of Eternal Night is the second in a trilogy of illithid-themed adventures. Like most trilogies, the middle story isn't much more than a quick set-up for the finale and this game module fits the mold.

MOEN starts with the PCs being told where to go, what to do and how to do it by an unknown entity and, much like the first installment in the series, this lead-by-the-nose approach is its major failing. The overall story line isn't particularly strong or even complicated. In search of a world-saving artifact, the PCs must travel to a remote location and excavate a crater that holds the ruins of an ancient illithid spacecraft. Most of the craft (and its millenium-old inhabitants) has been preserved by time-stopping technology, so the quest becomes a series of dungeon crawls as the PCs dig up and explore the thirteen seperate sections of wreckage while having to contend with sporadic attacks by illithid bounty hunters and their human thralls slavers in one of the few sub-plots.

Like its predecessor, MOEN sets a strong tone of oppressive gloom as the PC's world begins to die around them. With an alien spacecraft, psionics and various technological items in the story, MOEN has a strong bent toward sci-fi/horror and away from the more traditional swords and sorcery type of fantasy. The wintry setting is an unusual change of pace.

MOEN is a decent value, but it subject matter is somewhat specialized. It could be reworked as a stand-alone module, but probably is best used in conjuction with the other adventures in the trilogy. This is also a save-the-multiverse kind of plot that GMs might have difficulty integrating into an existing campaign, though the product does give several alternate starting points and, more importantly, suggestions for what to do if the PCs-ahem, fail and destruction of the campaign universe is imminent. While this product is better than many three-star modules, including A Darkness Gathering, it does fall short of deserving a four-star grade.

Wow, what a great adventure. Having just read the previous review, I have to wonder if we read the same module. Masters of Eternal Night combines an epic journey with the chance to aid desperate refugee-rebels struggling against illithid domination, and finally, a good-old dungeon crawl with an innovative twist. If successful, the heroes find a relic of the illithid empire long vanished, and what a rush that is!

I can't reccomend this adventure (and the next one, Dawn of the Overmind) enough.

In this vehicle to boost sales of The Illithiad, players once again are spectators to Bruce's story. Nothing they do will affect the outcome.