Beggars Review: Corsairs of Tallibar
Judges Guild Stock # 910
By: Mike Wilson
Date: 1982, Pages: 48 (counting covers)
Six (6) Pre-Gen Characters are provided with details including stats (Judges Guild) and supplies and some secondary skills are listed with short histories for each character.
Approved for use as a Universal Fantasy Supplement for 1st-3rd level Characters.
This book is a common enough listing on e-Bay and should cost no more than $10 and probably half that much with patience.
Designed for Players/Judges with a couple of adventures of experience.
Even though the number of creature encounters is not large; this scenario can be challenging for lower level characters.
Those players/judges who prefer hack and slash adventures with crowds of monsters and huge mounds of treasure, will be less than thrilled with this one.
Encumbrance factors should most definitely be adhered to as it plays a huge roll at the start and even more so at the end.
Some of the treasue is in the form of large items not easily carried.
This is a basic Uncharted Island with an abandoned Pirate Fortress/Underground Dungeon Crawl.
Starting the Adventure:
There are several levels of complexity the Judge can use for this scenario.
If run alone, the scenario could start at the Island or even at the front door of the Fortress itself.
The Judge could fill in details for the Port City of Qylondak for some city encounters, with the PCs not knowing at first about the Lost Island at all.
The players might be hired by someone in the City to Map an uncharted Island for them.
The Players could get information for the Island through legends and lore, or at the local watering hole not far from the suspected location of the Island.
The information gathered at the watering hole would be in the form of rumors, some true some not true.
Another method to integrate the Characters into the main scenario is a letter from a friend or family member giving some details of the Island and its history.
(Such a letter is supplied).
Some advanced prep work by the Judge (
DM) is needed as this is a somewhat large module filled with details that the Judge should be familiar with prior to running the scenario for the first time.
Depending on how detailed the Judge wants it to get; this is not a quick plug in module, but a time consuming adventure that should take at least two and probably more full sessions to complete.
The Judge could add pre-Corsairs and post-Corsairs encounters/scenarios as well.
The module could be plugged into any world setting that includes a sea with Islands and Pirates, or Sea going raiders.
The Book includes a map of the Island with a few detailed pre-set encounters, and others can be plugged in by the Judge, or none of them.
The Island portion has specific encounters listed for each area of the map.
There are four different wandering monster encounters for each area above ground (Sea/Island);
Nydar Sea/Rocks/Forest/Hills/Scrublands/Grasslands/Rocks/Mountains/River/Marsh
And six different wandering monster encounters for each dungeon level: Upper Dungeon Level/Lower Dungeon Level
Additionally there are more than 80 areas detailed with 71 of them inside the dungeon/fortress itself.
A couple of the tougher areas:
Area 48 can be deadly: At the Lower Dungeon level there is a huge underground Salt Water Lake (Map 2, area 48.) that could be the start of further adventures if the Judge wishes to continue beyond the scope of this book.
Not far from the shores of the underground salt Lake is a deadly threat that the Judge might not wish to use... it is a giant Octopus, lying in wait for food.
If they remain in the area long enough, the noisy PCs will be irresistable for this creature.
The Characters are unlikely to kill this creature (almost impossible) but the creature could easily kill and eventually devour one or several party members if they are not wise enough to flee, or lucky enough to run it off for a time.
Another possibly deadly area (Map 2, area 60) is a long hallway which includes a see through wall (Magical force wall) which displays sea life (underwater).
The sea creatures cannot get beyond the force wall (though they can push on it to some extent) but the PCs could...
If the wall is somehow penetrated by a PC (IE. Sword thrust/stab) the resulting flooding would cover most of the lower level, likely Drowning the entire party.
Area 71 is an unfinished area that can be used by the Judge to expand the adventure further.
