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Castles & Crusades modules
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Mars
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Post Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2016 4:25 pm 
 

I picked up these two Castles & Crusades modules in a lot recently and was wondering if anyone can tell me anything about them?  I found them strange because they do not have a product code, ISBN or price on the back and the covers are different from their normal versions.

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Thunderdave
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Post Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2016 6:33 pm 
 

Kickstarter print editions. I have a copy of Stains. I can't recall which project it was, from 2013 or so I believe


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Mars
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Post Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2016 1:12 am 
 

Good call.  That explains a number of the other items in this lot too - such as the signed reprints of the early TLG modules, etc.
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benjoshua
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Post Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2016 10:54 am 
 

You can get a free Castles & Crusades pdf module here:

Troll Lord Games | Troll Lord Games

It's 12 pages long and is for 2-4 characters of 2nd through 5th level.   8)


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benjoshua
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Post Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2016 7:47 am 
 

I thought I would collate some thread information together.   8)

benjoshua wrote in Interesting Non-TSR Items Currently on eBay:
cdenham wrote in Interesting Non-TSR Items Currently on eBay:Troll Lord Games is having an awesome .99 cent sale.

Troll Lord Games | Troll Lord Games


I can not thank you enough for alerting me to this sale.  I ended up buying 26 Castles & Crusades modules for 99 cents each for a total price including shipping of $32.46.  They came quickly and well-packed.

The adventures were definitely worth the 99 cents price.  They are overall good quality, but it seemed like every adventure suffered at least a few typos or errors of some kind.  The writing was decent in most and good from time to time.  If you prefer 1e and 2e, the monster descriptions are easily convertible.  I read the adventures below before selling them all for a $90 profit!   :D

C1 Mortality of Green
C2 Shades of Mist
C3 Upon the Powder River
DA1 Dark Journey
S3 The Malady of Kings
S4 A Lion in the Ropes
U1 Shadows of the Halfling Hall
U2 Verdant Rage
U3 Fingers of the Forsaken Hand
U4 Curse of the Khan

C1, C2 and C3 are all placed in the same locale, and share a lot of the same text.  These are heavy on the environment descriptions and sparse on the events and encounters.  DA1 has almost no background story and was basically 100 rooms of, what monster and treasure is next?  S3 had some of the best writing and was creatively constructed with interesting encounters.  U1 and U2 had a good balance of mystery and challenge as players try to figure out "who done it."  U3 was the best of the lot in my opinion as I like high-level, challenging adventures.  U4 was the largest of the adventures by far at 70 pages.  However, the maps were a disaster and basically need to be completely re-done.  The maps aren't labeled and have lots of errors.  I contacted the author asking if he had replacement maps he could e-mail me, but nothing came of it.  That's too bad as the rest of the adventure had some interesting role-playing encounters.  The bottom line is that I have decided to not collect Castles & Crusades adventures, but I'm glad I took advantage of that sale!   8)


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benjoshua
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Post Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2016 8:06 am 
 

So, Troll Lord Games had another 99 cents sale and I bought a bunch more modules mostly just to make money (which I have), but I was surprised to find that three of the adventures I bought were written by James M. Ward!  I know, probably most of you knew this, but I didn't.  The three adventures were:

Beneath The Dome
Chaos Touched
Towers of Adventure

All three were interesting in their own way.  Towers of Adventure was the longest at 54 pages, but it's not an adventure so much as a Monsters & Treasures assortment document.  There are some great illustrations and some interesting ideas.  He confesses that he was the original Monty Haul as a Dungeon Master and explains his philosophy why.  Beneath the Dome was my favorite because it told more of a story than the other publications, plus had a good balance of new monsters, tricky traps and a mystery to solve.  It's biggest problem was that there was significant level advancement between its four phases/chapters requiring multiple adventures between each of its phases.  The first phase is for 2-5 players of 1st to 5th level and the last phase is for 2-5 players of 12th to 14th level.  Chaos Touched has an interesting dynamic in the adventure I've never heard or thought of, which is great, but it's fairly short at just 15 pages.  If Troll Lord Games offers another 99 cents sale, these are a bargain at that price, and you get a piece of history from one of D&D's classic writers.   8)


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SimperingToad
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Post Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2016 8:08 pm 
 

Rats! Missed another one. Don't have a lot left from former purchases, but if I wanted to do a collection outside of TSR stuff and minis (and just fun stuff), this line would be high on my list.


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