Dragons in the basement... XLI

"...for a brief moment the sluggishly roiling clouds part... In stark contrast to the ever-present darkness that shrouds most of the Underdark, this enormous cavern is alight with fire. Immediately in front of you lie extensive fields of fungus and a paved road leading south into the wreckage of a mighty city.

Campfires are scattered throughout the city, most concentrated around a large, oval structure... more than ½ a mile away. To your left, larger fires burn in a ring around a towering fortress of dark elegance. The castle rises from a steep plateau in swooping ramps and great landings. Arching bridges connect the main towers to additions built into the massive stalactites that hang down beside them. Faerie fire in hues of green, blue, and violet dances along the structure's swirls and curves.

Opposite the great castle, on your right stands a squat building that resembles a gigantic stone spider. It is lit by softly glowing globes of magical radiance, and it seems to have been heavily damaged. Close before you... figures move around a camp or bivouac by a large, smoky fire.

Far above, the cavern ceiling is shrouded in roiling clouds of smoke. In fact, it looks like there are fires burning even in the air overhead - the clouds of black smoke are occasionally lit from within by a lurid red light. After each such flash, billowing clouds of smoke descend again, blotting out the city."

SPOILER ALERT: This review contains some information regarding the plot and events of the City of the Spider Queen that players may not wish to know before play. Be warned!

City of the Spider Queen is a 159 page soft bound Forgotten Realms adventure set in the Underdark beneath the Dalelands. Written by James Wyatt and published by Wizards of the Coast City of the Spider Queen is designed for 10th level characters and promises to take them to 18th level by the adventure's climax.

The adventure itself is divided into four major sections that each in turn advance the events and change the locale of the adventure. Two appendices follow at the end of the book - the first of which contains the full entries of the 14 new monsters and the new magical items to be encountered and found by the players; the second contains every stat block from every encounter throughout the adventure. The stat blocks are presented together for ease of reference and organized in the order they are likely to be encountered.

The adventure itself deals with a civil war that has broken out amongst the drow. The infamous drow Goddess Lolth has seemingly abandoned her faithful and the followers of Kiaransaleen have risen to fill the power vacuum.

In their home city of Maerimydra, the followers of Lolth have been usurped and either slain or forced into exile. Leading the worshippers of Kiaransaleen is an albino drow priestess named Irae T'sarran who is rapidly animating her fallen enemies and friends alike and forming them into a great horde of undead.

Into this mix of warring drow is thrown an army of goblins, orcs, giants and demons and their half-fiend fire giant general Kurgoth Hellspawn. This third faction was welcomed into the drow city by a powerful drow archmage who is allied with neither of the religious factions but whom hoped to take the city for himself in the absence of Lolth's worshippers.

That's what is happening with the bad guys - the Player Characters become involved when the drow become a little too inspired by Irae T'sarran and begin staging more raids than usual upon the surface lands in the Daggerdale region. Enter Randal Morn with a plea for the Player Character's to investigate and put a stop to these attacks and things simply gather momentum from there.

No real alternate hooks other than this are provided to draw in the Player Character's but some discussion is made of how to port the adventure to another region in the Realms and even of how to run the adventure with the Player Character's all playing drow from another region of the Underdark. Other than this, it shouldn't be difficult at all for a Dungeon Master to incorporate this adventure into almost any campaign setting.

The adventure is mostly location based, but the sprawling expanse of the Underdark makes this a good-sized dungeon (or in fact series of dungeons) for the players to progress through. That said, a timeline of events is provided and will take place once the ball is rolling so players cannot afford to become complacent or they will be quite spectacularly unsuccessful in their endeavors.

As action-heavy dungeon crawls go - there haven't been many better than this one in recent years. It is a shame that adventure modules do not have the marketable appeal that rules supplements do - because this is a great adventure. To those young gamers who cut their teeth on Third Edition, City of the Spider Queen could quite likely be the classic campaign they look back on with fond memories of characters lost and victories won that older players do now to romps like the Tomb of Horrors.

Visually this book is very appealing. It follows the format that the Third Edition Forgotten Realms books have done thus far with the yellowed parchment-like pages and the small page-packing fonts. The art work is really very good with only a very few images that do not maintain the overall standard - the images often depict locations and encounters very well which makes them a great thing to show to the players.

The timeline is a nice touch as it allows the adventure to feel dynamic - that things will not remain static waiting for intervention from the players. In the same way, the reactions of the creatures and the drow depend upon the actions of the players - the enemy will not wait in his room for the Player Character's to come knocking. Another nice and unexpected touch is that some of the enemies come back - after defeating key drow in combat the Player Characters might be surprised to meet them again later as now-undead foes.

The encounters are very well written to be truly challenging to the toughest of parties, tactics are provided for the antagonists that should make it easy for the Dungeon Master to truly put his players through the wringer.

The locations are often unique and innovative and create added levels to the encounters - they are also very evocative of the feel of the setting. A massive chasm -crisscrossed with massive spider webs - with multiple entry caves and tunnels along its face; an inverted tower; aerial combats; and of course the semi-sentient, partially ethereal tower built around a sphere of negative energy that forms the backdrop for the grand finale.

If your players are not the sort of group to enjoy prolonged dungeon adventures or explorations of the Underdark this is not going to be the adventure for them.

Opportunities exist within the adventure to facilitate role-playing, parleying with dubious allies and attempting to deal with the lesser of two evils but these are the exception rather than the norm. For the better part of the adventure - decisive violence and a quick reckoning will solve the problem.

This is a tough, tough adventure. Particularly in the latter stages, players will have little room for error and no time to retreat and recoup. Relentless overwhelming odds, and combat after combat after combat may quickly wear down even the toughest of groups and result in the rolling of fresh characters before too long.

City of the Spider Queen is truly a great dungeon epic. Reminiscent of old-school super-modules this adventure will take the players on an extended rampage through fascinating and dangerous locales and throw them against some exceedingly difficult and smart foes. Light on roleplaying and heavy on action and combat, this is an adventure that a hack and slash group will rank among the best, and a roleplaying group can utilize to craft a great epic worthy of memory.

Buy this book if you (a) enjoyed T1-4 The Temple of Elemental Evil; (b) enjoyed A1-4 Scourge of the Slavelords; (c) enjoyed GDQ1-7 Queen of the Spiders; (d) enjoyed the War of the Spider Queen novel series; or (e) if you just really enjoy to battle the drow.

Final Grade: A+

Listening to: 'All Things Must Pass' - George Harrison