Review: "The Howling Hills" by Charley Phipps

This is not the greatest module in the world.
This is a tribute.

Charley Phipps' The Howling Hills is a free adventure for AD&D First Edition and its clones.  The material could be used with other TSR or OSR rules without much conversion.  The scenario aims to challenge high level adventurers - no mean feat in any game - and also has to deal with the problem of very skilled players.

Review: "The Tavern of Daednu" by the Oliver Brothers

The Oliver Brothers' The Tavern of Daednu is a free adventure module for low-level characters.  The cover commits the work to AD&D 1st Edition, but as usual this means that referees using TSR-era D&Ds (and clones of the same) can run Daednu with a small amount of conversion.  It's one of many free OSR resources hosted by Dragonsfoot.

Review: "The Forbidden Land" by RC Pinnell

The Forbidden Land by RC Pinnell is a free hex-crawl scenario hosted on Dragonsfoot.  The design is oriented towards Classic D&D (B/X, BECMI, or the Cyclopedia) but the work leans lightly enough on the statistical information that I think it would work well under any old school rules.  Indeed, it wouldn't be too hard to use The Forbidden Land with new school or non-D&D rules.  The scenario is recommended for somewhat seasoned characters, from about 4th level, but the actual difficulty will be determined in the process of preparing the work for play.

Review: "Ice Maidens of the Frozen Horn" by RC Pinnell

Back in May, I reviewed RC Pinnell's Cold Drake Canyon, a module with an engaging ambition but lacklustre achievement.  Pinnell's latest on Dragonsfoot, Ice Maidens of the Frozen Horn, is another module outside of the usual design parameters.  Styled as "X14-T", Ice Maidens is described as a tournament module for the 1981 B/X rules, but it would work very well under the other Classic lines or their clones.  There's a sensible note that running the module under AD&D would require conversion and - perhaps for my benefit - permission to modify the scenario is granted but not repeated too many times.  The scenario is a little unclear but it seems to be aimed at six to nine characters of 8th to 12th level.

Review: "Cold Drake Canyon" by RC Pinnell

RC Pinnell's Cold Drake Canyon is a free module on Dragonsfoot for 1st to 8th level characters.  The design is aimed at 1st Edition AD&D, but could fairly easily be used with other TSR editions or retro-clones.  Pinnell's stated ambition is to lay out a "mini-setting" with an appropriate base of operations and challenges for bringing characters from low levels up to between fifth and eighth level.

I was very interested in this module for two reasons.  Firstly, it seemed like a cry back to the Keep on the Borderlands both in scope and scenario.  There's room for more modules like Gygax's classic, and having a good free one to direct new DMs towards would have been wonderful.  Secondly, I have my own AD&D 1e game and although I am determined to make use of old notes, the dungeon I have on paper is really more suitable for PCs around 6th level.  Cold Drake Canyon looked like a possible time-saver.