What do you think?
A Light in the Belfry: Ravenloft Audio CD Adventure:
"The only thing more fragile than glass is a lover's heart."
- Vistani Proverb
Decades ago, the fair land of Avonleigh was guarded by an order of paladins known as the Circle.
One stormy night, a wizard named Morgoroth came to seek refuge with them.
But, all was not as it seemed!
Morogoroth was no mere wizard; he was a necromancer on the run from a knightly brotherhood that had vowed to see him destroyed!
When fate revealed his past, he betrayed the Circle and fled.
Can your heroes complete the crusade that destroyed the Circle?
Can they learn the secrets of Morgoroth's power before the necromancer destroys them? Accept the quest if you dare....
A Light in the Belfry is the first RAVENLOFT adventure to feature an Interactive Audio CD.
As players explore Morgoroth's dreadfilled manor, they will actually hear the lamentations of tortured spirts, the clash of swords and the thunderous roar of magic.
With almost 100 tracks of dialogue, sound effects and mood music, TSR's Interactive Audio CD Adventures add a new dimension to the horror of Ravenloft.
Format: 32-page book w/cover, fold-out map, audio CD w/jewel case, track index sheet.
- Vistani Proverb
Decades ago, the fair land of Avonleigh was guarded by an order of paladins known as the Circle.
One stormy night, a wizard named Morgoroth came to seek refuge with them.
But, all was not as it seemed!
Morogoroth was no mere wizard; he was a necromancer on the run from a knightly brotherhood that had vowed to see him destroyed!
When fate revealed his past, he betrayed the Circle and fled.
Can your heroes complete the crusade that destroyed the Circle?
Can they learn the secrets of Morgoroth's power before the necromancer destroys them? Accept the quest if you dare....
A Light in the Belfry is the first RAVENLOFT adventure to feature an Interactive Audio CD.
As players explore Morgoroth's dreadfilled manor, they will actually hear the lamentations of tortured spirts, the clash of swords and the thunderous roar of magic.
With almost 100 tracks of dialogue, sound effects and mood music, TSR's Interactive Audio CD Adventures add a new dimension to the horror of Ravenloft.
Format: 32-page book w/cover, fold-out map, audio CD w/jewel case, track index sheet.
- GenresDungeons and Dragons
32 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 16, 2015
A very solid module. The story is good and engaging, and as it unfolds for the PCs, forces them to focus on the overall events that brought them there. That being said, the CD almost removes the need for the DM. That's probably an overstatement, but. stand by it. It completely takes over the role of flavor text. The truth of the matter is you could almost run this module without talking.
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September 15, 2022Just covering three adventures here -- man, Ravenloft had a lot of adventures.
WHEN BLACK ROSES BLOOM
This is all about Lord Soth, a villain--a fallen knight--from the Dragonlance campaign. And it's very funny that this adventure in Ravenloft includes a comment about how the people of Dragonlance misunderstand the plane system of Planescape, as if that matters.
We’ve seen this adventure plot before--PCs have to save the realm by helping the Dark lord--which brings up a problem we've seen before: really why should they care? An easy fix might be that the PCs have to save the multiverse by fixing this one realm--it's a prison and we need to keep the great evil inside. (Though: is it fair to keep innocent people in hell in order to keep a bad person there?)
The backstory is Soth had a wizard create some memory mirrors, which allow Soth to relive his greatest triumphs and revise his greatest failures, but this disconnects him from the realm, which is now falling apart in earthquakes, etc. BUT then there's also some bullshit about a lost and fake medallion with his beloved’s soul.
So now the PCs have to enter the memories and mess up Soth's attempt to relive them, which is really fun. But then there's other stuff that just kind of mucks it up, I think.
A LIGHT IN THE BELFRY
Another foray in audio-enhanced adventures, which basically means: whenever the PCs walk into a room in this cursed manor, the DM should play a track; and by putting together all the clues in the tracks, the PCs will learn the history of this new dark lord.
Which also means: there’s no place in the short book for the DM to learn that story.
I can see the use of audio tracks as props, but I didn’t bother listening to the tracks here, so I can’t comment on how good they are. I used to own some of TSR’s audio choose-your-own-adventures (Terror T.R.A.X.) and they were fine and corny.
The adventure plot here is fine and corny too: there was an evil necromancer in love with good priest, and now the PCs have to reassemble a magic mirror to help break the curse (and then fight the necromancer).
What kind of bugs me about this adventure is the background. The necromancer fled his past to start over and became, for a while, a good adviser to a good king and his circle of paladins. Then due to his requited but misunderstood love for the good priestess AND the return of an old enemy, the necromancer snaps and kills everyone and then it’s off to Ravenloft. That’s not bad, but it just feels disconnected from the adventure and unnecessarily complicated.
Like, I’ll be honest, I’m tired of Ravenloft leaning on spurned love or jealousy as a motivator; but I’m very excited by this idea that someone wanted to start over but didn’t do the sufficient work to atone and make amends, and how that dragged him back into past evil. But even then, what I want is some connection between the history (backsliding, atonement, the past) and the adventure, which is otherwise just a manor-crawl.
CIRCLE OF DARKNESS
Circle of Darkness is another of those “one great evil is trying to displace the other great evil” adventure, which just… why did they hit on that as a story engine for adventures in Ravenloft?
This takes place in G’Henna, which is an authoritarian and theocratic state dedicated to a fake god who demands people fast and starve; and where heretics and criminals are turned into mongrelmen, before being exiled to starve in the wilderness. This is a pretty terrible place to be, and I like the idea of the horror being about the informants and police.
But then the adventure is the PCs aligning themselves with a rebellion that is going to accidentally release a fiend. (This book was published pretty close to the Van Richten’s Guide to Fiends and I want to highlight that synergy with some of TSR’s choices.) And then it just becomes a fight between the bad priest and the bad fiend, with some possibility of destroying both. But ultimately, that final bit is just a brawl, and I’m more interested in the horror of rebellion against authoritarian theocracy than in an outright war between two bad people.
And really—how often have they used that trope in these adventures?
WHEN BLACK ROSES BLOOM
This is all about Lord Soth, a villain--a fallen knight--from the Dragonlance campaign. And it's very funny that this adventure in Ravenloft includes a comment about how the people of Dragonlance misunderstand the plane system of Planescape, as if that matters.
We’ve seen this adventure plot before--PCs have to save the realm by helping the Dark lord--which brings up a problem we've seen before: really why should they care? An easy fix might be that the PCs have to save the multiverse by fixing this one realm--it's a prison and we need to keep the great evil inside. (Though: is it fair to keep innocent people in hell in order to keep a bad person there?)
The backstory is Soth had a wizard create some memory mirrors, which allow Soth to relive his greatest triumphs and revise his greatest failures, but this disconnects him from the realm, which is now falling apart in earthquakes, etc. BUT then there's also some bullshit about a lost and fake medallion with his beloved’s soul.
So now the PCs have to enter the memories and mess up Soth's attempt to relive them, which is really fun. But then there's other stuff that just kind of mucks it up, I think.
A LIGHT IN THE BELFRY
Another foray in audio-enhanced adventures, which basically means: whenever the PCs walk into a room in this cursed manor, the DM should play a track; and by putting together all the clues in the tracks, the PCs will learn the history of this new dark lord.
Which also means: there’s no place in the short book for the DM to learn that story.
I can see the use of audio tracks as props, but I didn’t bother listening to the tracks here, so I can’t comment on how good they are. I used to own some of TSR’s audio choose-your-own-adventures (Terror T.R.A.X.) and they were fine and corny.
The adventure plot here is fine and corny too: there was an evil necromancer in love with good priest, and now the PCs have to reassemble a magic mirror to help break the curse (and then fight the necromancer).
What kind of bugs me about this adventure is the background. The necromancer fled his past to start over and became, for a while, a good adviser to a good king and his circle of paladins. Then due to his requited but misunderstood love for the good priestess AND the return of an old enemy, the necromancer snaps and kills everyone and then it’s off to Ravenloft. That’s not bad, but it just feels disconnected from the adventure and unnecessarily complicated.
Like, I’ll be honest, I’m tired of Ravenloft leaning on spurned love or jealousy as a motivator; but I’m very excited by this idea that someone wanted to start over but didn’t do the sufficient work to atone and make amends, and how that dragged him back into past evil. But even then, what I want is some connection between the history (backsliding, atonement, the past) and the adventure, which is otherwise just a manor-crawl.
CIRCLE OF DARKNESS
Circle of Darkness is another of those “one great evil is trying to displace the other great evil” adventure, which just… why did they hit on that as a story engine for adventures in Ravenloft?
This takes place in G’Henna, which is an authoritarian and theocratic state dedicated to a fake god who demands people fast and starve; and where heretics and criminals are turned into mongrelmen, before being exiled to starve in the wilderness. This is a pretty terrible place to be, and I like the idea of the horror being about the informants and police.
But then the adventure is the PCs aligning themselves with a rebellion that is going to accidentally release a fiend. (This book was published pretty close to the Van Richten’s Guide to Fiends and I want to highlight that synergy with some of TSR’s choices.) And then it just becomes a fight between the bad priest and the bad fiend, with some possibility of destroying both. But ultimately, that final bit is just a brawl, and I’m more interested in the horror of rebellion against authoritarian theocracy than in an outright war between two bad people.
And really—how often have they used that trope in these adventures?
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews