The Necropolis campaign scenario is an epic adventure which sweeps the
Heroic Personas across the dramatic landscapes of Earth's most magickal
kingdom, Egypt. From a hidden evil in a desert village, to tribes of
raiders in the wilderness, to the secrets of ancient tombs and beyond,
the Necropolis campaign scenario takes your HPs on a danger-filled
mission to prevent an undying archpriest-wizard from calling a dark god
back to rule the Earth! The designation of this work as a campaign
scenario means that playing time for this product is judged in weeks
rather then days. The book comes complete with extensive GM information
and multiple maps. Also included is an appendix of commentary on the
Kingdom of Egypt, with a detailed full-page map meant to supplement data
found in the Epic of Earth companion volume. Finally, there is a
full-color, foldout 17x22 inch map of the adventure's primary tomb.
It's odd to see a book as thick as this one and realise that it's
actually an adventure. It has more than 280 pages that describe both an
epic adventure and the lands of Egypt - or at least, a fantasy version
of the same. The Temple of Elemental Evil was a mere 128 pages, and I
used to think that was Gary Gygax's greatest work in the art of module
writing. It wasn't, for this surpasses it by far.
Comparing it with the Temple of Elemental Evil may have some relevance -
in both, the adventure begins in a small community. The village of
Aartuat, which is amply described in the text, has factions of NPCs
working for either good or ill, in addition to other features which make
it an interesting place to begin the adventure. From there, the
characters will set out to the main place of the adventure: the Gorge of
Osiris - the Necropolis, the Valley of the Dead. However, where the
bulk of the action of in the Temple was in one dungeon complex, the
action in this adventure varies much more in approach and location.
Breaking down the book into chapters, this is what you get:
Chapter One: Introduction, 2 pages: what the book is about.
Chapter Two: Beginning the Saga, 9 pages: notes on getting the characters into the action, and on the plans of the villains.
Chapter Three: Aartuat Village, 22 pages: a small village where
the characters get introduced to the land, and find their first allies
and enemies.
Chapter Four: The Pool of Hapy, 8 pages: an encounter location near the village.
Chapter Five: The Road through the Gorge, 14 pages: the wilderness travel to the Gorge of Osiris.
Chapter Six: The Temple of Osiris, 38 pages: the first major encounter area within the Gorge.
Chapter Seven: The Gorge of Osiris, 17 pages: the lesser tombs within the Gorge and other encounters.
Chapter Eight: Rahotep's Tomb, 58 pages: the goal of the quest, and the climax of the adventure.
Chapter Nine: Epilogue: 2 pages: wrapping up the adventure.
Chapter Ten: The Blemmysh Tribesman's Account, 2 pages: this
details information that will get the party interested in the adventure
in the first place.
Chapter Eleven: The Temple of Set, 10 pages: an additional encounter area that the party might stumble into.
Appendix A: NPCs of Necropolis, 12 pages: stat-blocks and personality notes for the major NPCs.
Appendix B: Monster Appendix, 46 pages: a host of new monsters - more than fifty of them - and two monster templates.
Appendix C: The Lands of Khemit, 8 pages: details on the land of fantasy Egypt.
Appendix D: The Gods of Khemit: 10 pages: details on over fifty gods of the land.
Appendix E: Classes, Spells and Items of Khemit: 12 pages: a
ranger variant, plus many new items, spells, cleric domains, and notes
on other classes in Khemit.
The rest of the book is taken up with the maps, pictures and the legal appendix. As you can see, there's a lot of material here.
Above all, what strikes me most of all is the amount of advice that
Gygax gives the DM about running the adventure - in scaling it to meet
the needs of the players. "Are the PCs virtually unscathed?" he asks at
one point. "If so, you've been too lenient, they've been too clever, or
I've not made this adventure as deadly as I intended... Is the group
nearly destroyed? That's no good, either." The sheer bulk of the
material here is going to make this a true challenge to DM, but Gygax
helps as much as he can to make it easier for you.
The actual adventuring areas throughout this module are fiendishly
inventive, and often deadly. The module's cover says that it's "An epic
adventure... designed for 4 to 8 characters of 10th to 18th level." This
isn't really a module for novice players with high-level characters.
Inexperienced players are likely to find this adventure too hard without
much adjustment of the challenges on the part of the DM; however, it is
a superb challenge for experienced players.
With regard to the storyline of the module, well, it's epic. An ancient
evil is stirring, and it's up to the PCs to stop it. I don't want to
detail that much of it, in case a player is reading this that shouldn't
be. (Go away! Get this module for your DM to run!) However, I can reveal
that finishing the quest will require some crawling through the ancient
trap-filled tombs of a fantasy version of Egypt, as well as
role-playing, problem-solving, and actual fighting!
Gygax broadly details a couple of methods for which the characters can
enter the story: the Direct Mission, where they're sent by the
Archpriest of Thoth to the area to find out what's going wrong, or the
Casual Approach, where the PCs are simply looking for treasure in the
fabled Necropolis, having discovered certain papers suggesting that such
a treasure is available. (The Blemish Tribesman's Account, detailed in
Chapter Ten).
I should point out that, strictly speaking, this isn't an adventure in
Ancient Egypt. It's in a fantastical version of the same, with a recent
history that diverges from our own. It is long past the days of the
building of the first pyramids, and many of the tombs have been
plundered. Compared to our own history, it seems as if the year is about
870 A.D. or so, but Khemit has not fallen to the Greeks and later the
Romans - it remains its own country.
Physically speaking, this is an extremely attractive book. It is a
hardback, printed on a superior quality of paper; the internal layout is
excellent and eminently readable. Very little of the module is actually
Open Gaming Content, even though this is produced as a d20 System
module, due to the fact that Wizards of the Coast actually own the
original material from which this module was converted. We must greatly
thank Necromancer Games for doing the conversion - which is excellent -
and Wizards for allowing it to be published.
Are there things about this module that I don't like? Well, I haven't
found very much - perhaps more will reveal itself to me when I finally
get to DM it, but, as of yet, not much has become apparent to my
reading. Two things come to mind: one is that it's deadly, though that's
not much of a blemish. It will require experienced players, though. The
other is that it may be hard to fit into an ongoing campaign, for Egypt
is a little outside the parameters of normal fantasy campaigns. To
solve the latter will probably require some individual DM ingenuity, but
such effort will be fully paid off.
The most important thing about this module for me is that I can't wait
to DM it. With a lot of adventures, I think "that's nice", and may draw
inspiration from them for my campaign, but I don't have a real desire to
run them. I want to run this adventure, and that's pretty much the
highest praise I can give.
I've tried to shy away from giving too much away of the adventure
details, but it's worth mentioning the Temple of Osiris section. As one
might expect - this being an adventure - the Temple has a few problems
of its own. There is plenty of opportunity for fighting and role-playing
here, and the characters are likely to find themselves descending to
the Underworld! Once they get there, the sense of wonder steps up a
notch. The place is dangerous, but Gygax carefully makes it possible for
the characters to succeed, even if they have been tricked into entering
it. As he writes, "It will then take a lot of skill, hard fighting, and
luck to get them back above ground safely, but that's what dungeon
adventuring is all about, isn't it?"
It certainly is, and the Underworld section (not the actual Land of the
Dead, but it might seem that way to the players) is fascinating to read.
Deadly, certainly, and the players must avoid various magical areas and
traps as well as defeat the forces of Set if they are to survive.
However, it is to be hoped that in the end they will restore the fallen
statue of Osiris to its place of honour. The action is interesting
throughout this section - as it is throughout the entire adventure - and
of a grandly heroic style.
If you haven't realised it by now, I strongly recommend that you put
down whatever you're doing, and rush off and purchase Necropolis. This
is one of the all-time classic adventures, finally made available to the
wider gaming world under the aegis of the d20 system. It presents
opportunities for dungeon delving, treasure finding, monster slaying,
role-playing, town adventuring, wilderness adventuring, intrigue, magic,
wonder, and most importantly of all, a chance for the players to be
heroes.
What more could you ask for?
