[Review] Inferno (AD&D 3PP); And now for something completely different…

[Adventure]
Inferno (1980, Remastered edition 2010)
Paul Elkmann & Geoffrey O’ Dale (Spellbook Games)
Level 10+ (but 14+ is much wiser)

Something special today. An excellent recommendation from the sagacious EOTB (inquire about his 1e project in Foundry!) who had learned about my quest for good high level D&D. For 1e there is a goldilocks zone for for 8-12, some offerings for 10-14 but anything above that has been mostly dissapointing. WG6 has some parts that work but is ham-fisted, H4 is ridiculous, CM1 tries mass battles/domain play but is not all there, the list goes on and on. Bruce Cordell did good work with Return to the Tomb of Horrors, Monte did okay with LoM. And that’s the pros. Today we have Huso, who is great (review forthcoming), but really no one else.

No one that is, except a man called Geoffrey O’ Dale, who did his own adaptation of Dante’s Inferno in AD&D 1e, published for Judges Guild. The original publication only covered the first 4 circles. It was only in the 2010s that he not only republished a refurbished version of the old adventure, improved for readability, published the fifth lair in the legendary FIGHT ON! magazine, but also did a complete new trilogy incorporating the old work featuring all the Nine motherfucking lairs of hell under the name Journey Through Malebolge. After reading this thing and checking out a few things, I bought the entire bundle. We won’t be taking a look at those today, but in the future, yes this will be checked out.

An immediate gripe about the revised edition. Although its boast about being in general a complete and refurbished version of the original is more or less accurate, there are a few irritants. The first is the brutal omission of the first page of the original version, that informs the GM about the level range, party size and recommended number of magic items, as well as a possible response should the party be too slow in the exploration of HELL. There are other minor but significant omissions too. A sentence here that explains that the Great Lion is meant to be avoided, a note there on how Plutus interacts with the party. A sentence further on, explaining what happens when a devil that is already turned to gold is placed on the poles on lair 4. Loss of functionality.

One is about actually running it.

The second one is flavor text.

This is not PC Corporate friendly HELL. There is no Bloodwar, the word Baatezu is cause for a lynching and the Arch-devils have gone from being 60% ripped from Dante’s Inferno to being 100% ripped from Dante’s Inferno (this is exaggeration, the author has lovingly kept all the Archdevils, merely rearranged them). And it’s all done in the lingua franca of AD&D. This is not some lit sophmore thesis project. This is a fully playable adventure.

First up: Great topic for a high level adventure. Maybe the greatest? What could be better and more heroic then going to HELL and robbing it? And then there’s the Hero’s Journey stuff: Let’s do it but literally. And this is all done tastefully, there is no salaciousness, no wallowing in the cruelty and degredation, merely an excellent adaptation with some literary flourishes.

It is also markedly different from its friendlier corporate counterpart that makes all the sinners less nervous in that once you are in HELL, it is inferred you can’t exit HELL via the usual convenience of Teleport without Error or Plane Shift. Once you walk through those gates that say ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER you may only exit through the maw of Lucifer himself. Once you set foot inside hell, not even a Wish spell will allow you to leave. Good fucking luck.

So! I said this was a legitimate adventure. And it is. We will get to why that is the case. But first…booh! Hiss! The negatives.

Hell is a railroad. There are occasional forked tracks or side-paths. You will encounter the odd side passage, roadside encounter, or even entire fucking dungeon on your road to PERDITION’S FLAMES but this is pretty much a straight line, hemmed in by literal gigantic walls covered with monsters, with the possibility of some backtracking. A quick skim reveals that the refurbished Journey to Malebolge’s version not only contains all 9 circles but that they are actual circles. For now though, it is railroading time.

Second gigantic gripe. Despite admirable attempts to improve some of the clarity, this is a hefty chonker of a module. Its not that its padded, its that its DENSE. Bullet points is lost technology. You get all of it in paragraphs. Are you still literate? Fuck your eyes. Good luck finding anything. The following section is atmospheric as hell but its all straight paragraphs. Stattblocks have all been placed in the back of the book, which might make the whole slightly harder to run considering the amount of times you refer to it.

Its not just mucho texto. There are more then a few artifacts here that not only get a fairly detailed backstory, but a whole array of powers.

So! On to the good stuff: The set up/foreshadowing is fantastic. You don’t get any hooks or whatever (the original text mentions something like someone getting Geased as an example, but you are expected to be able to come up with a good enough reason to GO TO HELL yourself). The set up is great, and clearly based on Dante’s Inferno. You begin in a deserted wilderness region on the material plane, shitty road, gnarled evil trees, eerie flowers. Horses begin to bolt (since the primary method of transportation in hell is walking, having a more rapid method of transporation is actually a huge advantage). You meet an immense cliff with a passage beyond. Then…an obelisk, trees grasp at you, a great mountain in Perdition, leading up to Heaven, its way barred by Angels. Before it, a last test. Three monsters, a fire-breathing Shewolf, a GREAT Panther and the all but invincible GREAT LION implore the characters to go back. These are merely the doorkeepers, intended to ward off the characters, give the unworthy a bloody nose but allow them to retreat (actually pretty fair game design) and in case of the GREAT LION, a 16 HD behemoth with a repulsion breath weapon and claws that reach into different planes, to teach them a lesson about identifying fights you should run the shit away from. Here too the original text contains a tiny detail that explains the purpose of the encounter which is omitted in the revision.

One of the strengths of Inferno and one that should apply to a good planar adventure is the idea of POWER. In the mortal realms the characters are like gods. But the planes are a change of scale altogether. You want to give an impression of immensity, of infinity. Of being intruders into a place that is beyond them. POWER is a straightforward way of doing that. Clear, obvious ways of DESTROYING yourself. The environment is BLASTED by natural forces like hurricanes and earthquakes. Rivers filled with waters of the Lethe, exercising a terrible compulsion on you. Yes a remove curse will clear it right up, but do you have enough of them? Are you prepared, truly, for what awaits you. That’s why there is a mountain to heaven, with angelic guards warding the way to heaven. That is not a fight you can win, and you should be able to recognize those. When you walk through the tunnel of indeterminate length, lit by phosphorescent fungi in the shape of hands, reaching from the walls, encountering on your way processions of damned souls marching into hell, or on the way back, a procession of devils. You don’t have to fight them, but are you really going to stand aside while some smug horn-faced bastard strutts by you like he owns the place?

This applies so some of the artifacts you find too, alongside the heckin piles of heckin Dmg magic items and mountains of gold (good luck getting all of it out of hell). The amulets, the (multiple) artifacts. It is all powerful beyond mortal magic. But it WILL destroy you with prolongued exposure. How much do you push your luck.

At the same time, THIS IS STILL DND. This is not a walking simulator where you are a powerless stooge meant to ooh and aah. Even the Archdevils you encounter have talismans that, if these are somehow obtained, will allow the PCs to control, or indeed temporarily destroy the Archdevils. Getting through each successive layer of hell represents a unique challenge that will test the players in different ways. Say, in level 0 of hell you have to get across the river Acheron. How do you go about it? And here, despite being essentially a railroad, we get the design chops: Encounter for when you try to fly over, what happens when you try to swim, where Charon’s amulet is located, a way of getting across without problems etc. Later too, Cerberus awaits…but there’s a way to bypass the encounter if you explored the palace of Minos enough. The dynamic nature of the encounters themselves kind of save it. Dare you rob Charon’s house, knowing he is on his ferry? Are you feeling lucky enough to murder Tiamat and her consorts too while you are at it? She’s right there. You can just walk in!

CRUCIAL game design decisions. Hell is incredibly punishing, so one of the first things you encounter on the first level of hell is A castle of virtuous people from the Days Before the Gods, barred from Heaven but allowed to dwell in relative comfort and harmony. They will host you three times, each time equipping you with some items. There is here, too, a way to hopelessly ruin it. A limited number of options for recovery…excellent. Divination is unreliable, you are on your own.

Here lies the Court of Minos. You cannot go around. Minos sits in judgement of the processions of the damned. Do you try to just run past him? Do you submit yourself to judgement? The palace rooms are still keyed like a regular dungeon, albeit it a terribly strange and baroque one, filled with devils, the wealth of a lord of hell and baroque instruments of torment.

On the one hand there is no complete order of the battle for the entire place. On the other hand there are caveats, hidden spies that follow and report to Minos, powers that can be summoned in case one tries to sneak past. The map is quite primitive. The encounters are anything but. Spell layered atop treasure layered atop bizarre trap layered atop complex creature. Its a bit more serious then H4 but it is still very often baroque, and it should be. This is HELL, a realm beyond mortal ken.

The gp and magic item amount is immense, beyond counting. There is a reason the (original) adventure recommends you track encumberance. Even with the manifold bags of holding you find, there is too much to carry by far. And indeed, where do you spend it? And the usual trickery is not waved either. There’s secret treasure vaults that unobservant players will miss, fake treasure vaults with the occasional nasty cursed item, and hoards in amounts that would shame an Emperor’s treasury.

There is something about the transition too of these places, inspired by the Divine Comedy. A realm of eternal darkness, blasted by hurricane winds (will you lose your way). A realm of filth, soot and snow, raining down. A vast plane on which the doomed push great boulders in futile rows. The elements chip away at you. You want a short evocative? Here’s your short evocative.

You get there by walking, mile after mile, circle after circle, into hell. Hideous abominations await. Frost Spiders with the gift of illusion, weird golems, manifold types of devils. Things from legend walk the realm: Minos, Plutus, Cerberus.

While I have little to say about the merits of the new version when compared to the now out of print old one (which comes with Kevin Siembada art), none of this is really a deal breaker. I think if you are not well versed in 1e this product is likely to be impenetrable but for a target audience of coinnaiseurs, this is fine work, rich, lavish. Brimming with new artifacts and new terrors. A genuine attempt at providing a challenge for high level characters, although there is some gimping, particularly in the areas of mobility and reconnaisance. Occasionally the question of whether you could not simply walk around some of the set piece challenges pops up. We know the answer is no, but if you are going to do it in some places, you should strive to do it consistently. The heavy-handedness of the invisible walls, and some of the banned spells might be a bit much for some.

But in terms of genuine challenge, scope, scale, ambition, this is a legitimate attempt, better then most we have seen. A powerful imagination using classic elements is successfully melded with the framework of AD&D. Worth checking out, probably worth running, even if there are some considerable warts. My gut says it works, probably far better then H4.

***

Update: I feel like I am only scratching the surface. The complexity of all the monsters with their plethora of spellike abilities. The introduction of Fasttime (a.k.a superhaste). I guess there’s the second question of whether the magic items in Hell are supposed to be reduced by two plusses, to which I would say ‘probably not’ but again, it is hard to tell, and since the level range is open, both interpretations probably work. It reads like a grand proof of concept for a high level planar adventure and I cannot help but wonder if the completed version manages to realize it. Very interesting stuff.