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The Bloodstone adventure series came to a conclusion with H4 The Throne of Bloodstone in 1988. While nowhere near as elaborate a production as H1, with its thin box, BattleSystem counters and 3D-Adventure buildings, it was still more elaborate than the usual module with a 96 page book, and a poster-sized sheet with various maps, including a sprawling one of Orcus’ citadel in the Abyss. At this point, it went fully over to Forgotten Realms trade dress with the standard narrow frame around the cover, and the large gold-and-stone logo.

Taking ‘high level’ to new heights, the module advertises as being for levels 18-100, which brought it in for a fair amount of knee-jerk criticism. However, as an introductory section rightly points out, at least if you follow the AD&D rules as written, there’s just not a lot of difference between a level 100 character and a level-25 character as the various ‘to hit’ and saving throw tables shut down in the late teens to twenties, and past the level 29 limit of the spell tables, the only thing that continues to go up is hit points, at a somewhat modest +1 to +3 per level. Of course… that is assuming that the people playing games that have characters going that high didn’t just extend the various tables as they went. But as an official TSR product, the authors have the luxury of assuming use of the official AD&D rules without variants. There’s actually some good advice for high-level play that recommends paying attention to the rules for magic item destruction and the time for magic-types to recharge their spells (70 hours for a Magic-User to get all his spells back…). Also, several fights in the later parts of the module are actually scaled to the party’s levels.

The module begins right where H3 left off, with a war between Bloodstone and Vaasa that has stalemated at the Ford of Goliad. The Vaasan army is too big to fight (short of unexpected clever PC ideas… though that’s pretty well sledgehammered away) and can’t get past the ford (too far away from its base of power to keep all the undead going). So the DM is to present the players with the idea of sneaking into the citadel of the Witch-King Zhengyi to destroy his base of power. Since he is obviously backed by Orcus, this will also entail finding a way to confront and defeat Orcus as well.

(Warning: I keep descriptions very general, but if you wish to avoid knowing anything at all about the contents/plot of the module, skip down to the Conclusion.)

The Witch-King’s citadel is actually fairly small, and unusual in form. The DM is invited to show the players a full-page illustration of the citadel, but unfortunately it’s not very good as the artist didn’t get a description to go with the cutaway view of the citadel and drew it as the cutaway showed it (i.e., among other errors, it shows a pair of small towers to either side instead of a wall surrounding it). There’s only about 20 areas split across several levels (not the administrative hub of a large kingdom…), but is designed to present the party with a stiff mix of tough enemies (Zhengyi himself is a 30th level M-U Lich) and deadly puzzles. Once successfully negotiated, the party is confronted with a gate to the Abyss, which should look familiar after the end of H2, and a deus ex machina to egg them on to the Abyss to challenge Orcus and take and destroy the Wand of Orcus so that he will be unable to interfere with the Prime Material Plane for the next hundred years.

This  is where the module gets frustrating. The party gets dumped on the first layer of the Abyss, the realm of Pazuzu, “Palace of 1,001 Closets”. Or at least 665 of them, as there’s conduits to all the other layers of the Abyss scattered around, and the party is left to try them at random until they finally find their destination. So… Orcus is influencing the Realms through the gate the PCs just came through, and there’s no signs of traffic from his conduit to the gate? No trail? No command posts? No checkpoints on any of the conduits, letting things go through Pazuzu’s realm at will? Pretty close. Going through a conduit is somewhat difficult, and the party may encounter Pazuzu himself (along with random patrols of demons), but they’re mostly free to try things at random until getting it right. Worse, there’s no immediate way to know when they have reached Orcus’ realm (though the increased numbers of undead encountered should be a good clue).

Wandering around the Abyss and Orcus’ realm serve two purposes: exhausting the party, and challenging them with the trap of steady alignment change towards chaotic evil. There are some possibilities for a group to gather some allies (there’s a good number of demons who’d like to pull someone as powerful as Orcus down), but not nearly as many as might be thought, and they generally lead to the alignment change problem (there’s a certain amount of Lawful Stupid in force in the module).

The map of Orcus’ palace takes up the bulk of the poster sheet, making it inconvenient for the DM to lay out and refer to. However, much of what’s presented is visible to the outside, so there’s a pair of pages in the module designed to be overlayed on the map to present a full outside view to the players (not as good as could be hoped, but an interesting idea). Again, the design is inventive, and straight down the gonzo sensibilities of AD&D (hey, it’s the Abyss!), and does a nice job not telling players they can’t dodge obstacles, just that it’s tougher than it looks. I’d say inventive players will both be rewarded and suitably frustrated.

There is both more and less than might be expected after dealing with Orcus, including a pit arena fight against Tiamat, and then because two evils make a good, evil destroys evil, uh… well. The party gets to plant the White Tree of Gondor Bloodstone to protect the valley from Orcus even after he reforges his wand. There’s a very nice pair of pages at the end giving different ideas of where to go from here for further adventuring, including some that deal with native Forgotten Realms concerns, and one that concentrates on running the kingdom trough the D&D Companion Set rules.

Conclusion

The module has a lot to recommend it. The design of the various places the party goes to is inventive, major monsters/NPCs get ‘capsule’ descriptions that give the DM ‘hooks’ into running them, and if they aren’t utterly devoted to ending the PCs lives, describe how they might be negotiated with. I’ll also note that any reference I see to the module from people who played it is very positive. The climax of a high-level AD&D story deserves to be over the top, and the module not only delivers, but presents a nicely alien environment. Players who go through this should rightly feel they’ve done something special.

But I will note that despite being larger, it feels more confined than the previous modules. H1-H3 all feature a relatively straightforward story, but have sections where the players are free to find their own way to reach the goal. H1 has the players finding ways to gain the confidence of, and train as militia, the residents of Bloodstone Pass. The battles are more-or-less scheduled, but what the players meet them with is up to them. H2 is largely dungeon crawl, but turns the party loose a couple times to deal with life in the pass and explore the Underdark. H3 has a fairly scripted war, but with just a little effort, it can present them with rich options of maneuver. Better yet, that module starts out letting the players loose to solve the challenge of converting mined bloodstone into cash, and deciding what to do with this budget. Even H2, with it’s large dungeon crawl eating up much of the module, felt like it had a bit more going on than this.

The tendency of the H-series to highlight the latest major release continues here. This time, it is the Manual of the Planes. It is pointed out that demons are more powerful on their home plane, and that Orcus is much more powerful where he’s the Prime Power, and stats are noted as being adjusted to match. There’s a nice bit of using player knowledge as PC knowledge, where the DM is invited to let the players look through relevant sections of the Manual of the Planes during the initial briefing, and after that what the players remember is what the PCs know. BattleSystem does not even get mentioned in the blurb or introduction to the module, though it gets suddenly recommended to run a couple of the larger fights.

In all, it’s a good, if frustrating, end to a good, if frustrating, series. The original Bloodstone Pass is easily the highlight of the series with its attempt at doing something truly different. Throne of Bloodstone completes the series’ transition back to regular adventuring, running full-tilt away from the political realm of running the kingdom that is put together through the series, but H1 and H4 are the modules in the set that need the least playing around with to run well.

Another year, another Bloodstone module. By 1987, the Forgotten Realms had become a TSR property, but the original box set was still a month away when H3 The Bloodstone Wars was printed, so the back cover got the soon-to-be-familiar gold and stone logo, while the front retained the usual AD&D trade dress. At this point, the entire arc had been set, and the end of the module positively talks about the upcoming conclusion in H4. Reverting to the usual practice of a detached tri-fold cover and 32-page book, H3 also included a poster-sized hex-map of the remnants of the Kingdom of Damara.

The module generally assumes that the players have been through the first two adventures and one of them is now the Baron of Bloodstone (the former Baron having retired at the end of H2). If not, there’s a section that talks about how to get them involved, and does a good job with working them into the first part of the adventure, but fails to discuss anything past that, and the party would not be in the position of authority assumed by the rest of the module.

It is now spring, and the module assumes that the players will, naturally, still be working on loose ends, and the maps of the main mines from H2 are repeated, though no key or description is given. The real concern here boils down to logistics. The mines are open, and producing plenty of valuable unfinished gemstone. Now they need to be converted into something more useful—cash, supplies, troops….

This module features another turn in focus. Whereas H2 had BattleSystem as an afterthought at best, going hard down the line of a tough dungeon, H3 returns to large-scale warfare (with a side-order of killer dungeon). This isn’t as lovingly presented as in H1, but there are proper BattleSystem stats for everything (but no pre-filled out forms), and a set of five scenarios outlined, with a general flow chart of how things should progress. This latter is the idea that I think might have gotten edited out of H2 as the Temple started dominating the entire module.

(Warning: I’m talking about plot, such as it is, from here on.)

At any rate, the module assumes that the party will end up escorting a caravan of bloodstones to the nearest major trade city, and the first part does a good job outlining how that should go, and anticipates possible player actions well (such various methods of flying out there). There’s some hints though this section that there’s warfare in the near future, but I think it might need to be a bit more heavy-handed after how it got blown off in the second module. There is enough build up afterwards that it shouldn’t take the party by surprise, but they can lose some valuable opportunities to prepare at this point.

The second major section of the module details the war. The various (now) independent duchies of southern Damara quickly become jealous of the wealth flowing into Bloodstone again, and threaten and attack. Mostly. There’s some detail given to the start of this process, with the nearest barony, Arcata, given some detail. After that, it kind of comes apart. Carmathan attacks… because. The smaller baronies near the old capital? Because. There’s no sense of the leaders involved, no discussion of attempts to negotiate. They mobilize and attack because Bloodstone is successful.

There is mention that while independent, these duchies and baronies are puppets of the Witch-King of Vasaa, who is unhappy at recent events. But that still doesn’t excuse the entire lack of discussion about the attitudes of the various leaders involved. As a pure miniatures campaign, it’s not bad, featuring a logical series of battles that get progressively tougher, that culminate in a battle that’s supposed to turn into a standoff. The hex map isn’t really needed to control the movement of armies, it can be done by feel and narration, but if the players are into it, it’s very handy for that—except for the fact that it clearly marks the secret location of the Grandfather of Assassin’s citadel. Now, the party will find out about it, and go there at some point (very possibly in the middle of all this), but that’s supposed to be a plot point.

Worse, the final part of the campaign makes no sense by the map. Bloodstone has always been known to be one of a pair of passes over the mountains separating Vasaa and Damara, and the less popular one at that. So having the Vasaan army gather a bit south of the other pass makes some sense. Having it head south to the heart of the old kingdom makes some sense, but going west towards Bloodstone might be more productive (okay, fine, the party’s forces should be in the heart of the old kingdom at this point). But, the Witch-King’s citadel isn’t that far from Bloodstone. There should be some fighting in there, even if the pass is easy to hold. No, nothing, no mention of it at all. What makes it especially odd, is the glacier placed between the two passes, and blocking the citadel from where the Vasaan army is. (Later maps do not have this bit of glacier. I recommend ignoring it if you use this module.)

Apart from all of that, the party’s lives are being complicated by repeated assassination attempts. The module has some kindness in that they are targeted on the PCs, and not hirelings and other lower-level targets. At first. During the war, the assassins start going after the various unit leaders, which will start having bad consequences for BattleSystem leadership if they succeed. Finally, an assassin is captured, and the PCs can use him to find the Grandfather of Assassins’ hidden citadel.

This is a trap of course, and the party will get forced to chase him down a deadly gauntlet where he knows all the traps. This is actually an adaptation of an Ed Greenwood adventure in Dragon #64, but where that was an obstacle course, with blunt arrows, this is full of damage-dealing traps and save-or-die poison (at -5). At this level, fighters and clerics can probably take that, but thieves and magic-users could be in big trouble, especially with things like 100 assassins firing poisoned arrows (okay, while there, the party shouldn’t need to face that, and 2nd level To Hit probabilities help). And when needing to force the PCs into something, the writers need something better than a wall of annihilation. The real problem is that the Grandfather of Assassins pops up at a couple points in this run, but there’s no schedule given of what exactly he does, and how long it takes him to do it. It’s just assumed that he always gets out of view of the party and gets to set up as he wants. Somewhat likely, but don’t count on players to not come up with something clever.

In the end, players who are in it for miniatures battles will get far more of what they want this time around, and players who’d rather just continue their adventuring career get something too. This is probably the best attempt at doing battles and adventure there’s been, but it still marks another frustrating change in direction from the previous module. There’s still frustrations this time, but the jarring inconsistencies of H2 are largely gone. The real problem is a lack of personal interaction. The Grandfather of Assassins just acts like an insane villain for the gauntlet run, destroys his citadel if the players succeed, to show he can be a load-bearing boss too, and the leaders of the opposing forces in the war are not fleshed out at all.

The year after Bloodstone Pass came out, H2 The Mines of Bloodstone came out. One thing had changed: This was a direct sequel to the former module, and there were definitely going to be more after this (whether they knew at this point it would be a four module series is not said).

Something else important changed: There’s no BattleSystem logo on this one. There’s one mention in the back blurb of “optional” BattleSystem scenarios. Which is entirely correct; any wargaming adventurers going through this one are in for a big let down. Instead, other newer, cooler, products are called out: the Dungeoneer’s Survival Guide and the Wilderness Survival Guide. The adventure instead featured an extremely tough dungeon environment which allowed a reversion to the typical 32-page adventure book, though it is worth noting that (contrary to usual practice) the cover was stapled to the book. There’s several maps, many of which are in the isometric format introduced in the DSG.

At this point one could wonder if the H series was just a way to show off the latest new product, and convince people they really wanted to get them. In practice, there’s no crying need for either of the new hardbacks, and the need for the WSG is very minimal. The actual need for the DSG is also fairly minimal, but at the same time it was essential to writing the module. The DSG had discussed the idea of sprawling linked cavern complexes under the entire game world, called variously ‘deepearth’ and ‘underdark’, and this module, co-authored by the author of the DSG, featured a corner of what was explicitly just that.

This is still before the Forgotten Realms became a TSR property, and the setting is ‘anywhere you wish to drop in the countries involved’. However, the background became more concrete in this installment. Vaasa was ‘ruled by a Witch-King of incredible power’ in H1, but now this is expanded upon with Vaasa being a barren wilderness until the coming of Zhengyi a little more than 10 years ago. After that comes some quick notes on the module, and the lead ins for if the players have or have not been through H1.

And that’s where the inconsistencies begin.

(Caution: I’m headed into spoiler territory here.)

Thankfully, it’s never anything really game breaking, but there’s a handful of problems throughout the module. The first one is probably the biggest: The module starts with the basic rundown of the next couple months after the end of H1, as a harsh winter settles over the valley. Thanks to all the fighting, the harvest was delayed, and now heavy rains and an early freeze have ruined some of it before it can be brought in, leaving the village short of food for the winter. But wait, H1 had a nice schedule that explicitly said the harvest was completed right before the party arrives. After all, the bandits don’t come calling until the villagers have done all the work so they can take it from them, and fighting starts at that point.

So, the first thing the DM gets to do is figure out how to short the village of food. If part of the village got torched during the fighting (likely), that can explain it. Also, if the party hired troops to help out (possible), there’s extra mouths to feed. Otherwise….

Bloodstone Village only gets three pages of detailing this time, repeating the brief profiles and random villager tables, plus an updated map. The local dwarf, centaur, and halfling communities are each introduced in a little under a page each this time, including a map, important people, BattleSystem info, and a small encounter/adventure that could happen if/when the party visits.

The module purposely starts slow, with worries about the winter, wolves, and some minor annoyances before a night attack on the village attempts to jump-start the plot. It certainly provides a nice little mystery that might take a few (bloody) nights to solve. Intelligent players shouldn’t have any trouble figuring out Orcus is involved (they may not know what to make of what they’re finding, but the obvious questions will lead to answers). Making the jump to the abandoned mines (that may not have even been seen—though they are part of the background—in H1) seems tenuous to me. Okay, they were important, and they were abandoned when something evil was found in there, but does that really have anything to do with vampires and warg attacks? The fact that Bloodstone needs money, and reopening the mines would produce a lot of money, seems a safer bet to motivate the PCs to check them out, which will draw them into the rest of the adventure, but there’s no direct link.

The mines themselves are where the module gets going, but there’s minor consistency problems again. The box canyon the mine entrances are in is only mapped in H1, but that implies they’re on the north side (the compass rose is missing), but the entrances lead to the west here. Past that, there’s problems every time you go from one map to another, and the connections don’t match up right. They can all be explained easily enough, but feels like they were all written separately and then stuck together. There’s one passage that goes off-map and and off into the deepearth map in the DSG in here, but it has nothing to do with the current module, and there’s no good mechanism for steering the players straight if they divert down it (“if the PCs are still plodding along, have them meet a beholder”).

The general goal is to find the svirfneblin (gesundheit) kingdom in exile and get them to attack a duergar city in a massive diversion while the PCs sneak into the Temple of Orcus. This can be played out in BattleSystem, and stats are given, but there’s no particular need to, as the PCs are presumed off doing their high-level dungeon stuff instead of taking part.

After that, comes the main course: the Temple of Orcus. It’s big, it’s tough, it has magical protections to keep the players from short-circuiting things. (Which is generally fine; a big temple to a major demon lord should have magical protections in place. I just wish things like that were handled a bit more systematically for the world at large, instead of feeling like a band-aid.) And in classic fashion, the party arrives (one hopes) right as a ritual to summon Orcus into the world is starting! …And there’s no hint that this is about to happen in the rest of the module. I mean, what makes now special, as opposed to, oh, say, a month ago?

Okay, that’s a list of complaints and inconsistencies. In general, these are actually fairly minor to the flow of the module, but it means the module needs a bit of massaging before being truly ready to go. This is really just a bigger, badder dungeon module. It has some good pacing, with local problems escalating all the way up to a very bad, and immediate, problem. Of course, if you’re expecting something different from a high-level module (like H1), then this will be a disappointment.

Now, back above ground in the valley, the dwarves and centaurs got BattleSystem info, but the module pretty much states outright it’ll never be used. (The halflings also get BattleSystem info, but there is a small battle for them (only) to take part in.) There’s also a couple sample battle maps given for the underground that are part of the section on the big battle, but aren’t directly referenced in the text. One of them looks to be far inside the main cavern, away from any battle that would naturally get fought. I’m wondering if we’re seeing fragments of a much more complicated campaign to fight an army up to the temple so the party can get in and do their heroic thing, which got cut to make room for a really, really, big temple. The latter was probably a safer bet for the general TSR audience, but it means the module is nothing special.