Blackmoor’s Temple of the Frog Available as a PDF
It looks like WOTC has released this week’s PDFs. The first one to catch my attention is DA2 Temple of the Frog (for BECMI). TSR lured Dave Arneson back in the mid-1980s to co-write four Blackmoor-based modules, the “DA” series. All for were excellent adventures that did a good job of bringing Blackmoor to live. The second module, DA2, revisited the Temple of the Frog. It was the first adventure TSR published, in about 20 pages of the Blackmoor supplement to original D&D. It was the first published dungeon many early players of D&D ever saw — myself included.
The DA2 version is updated and expanded. Unlike many attempts to redo a classic, this one actually succeeds. Here’s the back cover description:
Green Death…
That’s what old hands call the Great Dismal Swamp. For centuries, this tangled maze of sluggish watercourses, stagnant ponds, and festering marshes has defended Blackmoor’s southwestern frontier. Large armies and smaller parties have disappeared altogether inside its vast, dripping, claustrophobic corridors.
Among those who have dropped from sigh in this arboral hell is young Rissa Aleford, one of Blackmoor’s most important leaders. Carried off to the sinister City of the Fron, she is now being held by the eccentric Monks of the Swamp. By making the baroness captive, the deranged monks have serioulsy weakened Blackmoor at a time when enemies already threaten it from all sides.
Yet, even as the Froggies gloat, the king of Blackmoor dispatches a small band of bold adventures to the rescue. Deep into the Great Dismal Swamp they must go ? far from sunlight and sanity? there to seek and save the Swamp. There to find? the Temple of the Frog.
Temple of the Frog, like all four DA modules, is excellent, It’s well with the $4.99 for the PDF.
The only other item that really catches my eye this week is L1 The Secret of Bone Hill (for AD&D 1e), the first part of the L series — an excellent series of adventures aimed at new characters/new players.