Review: Forgotten Dangers

A collection of hidden gems

Forgotten Dangers is a collection of previously published but out-of-print DCC adventures from the past years. In size and scope, its comparable to Chaos Rising, but I think this collection has even better adventures inside! I've played or run every one of them and each made for a fun game. By and large, they’re the same as they were in their original printings. In some cases, the font seems to have been shrunk by maybe a half size. And one adventure (The Legend of the Silver Skull) somehow lost an appendix entry and a handout. I’ve reproduced those below for anyone who bought Forgotten Dangers and has need of those. Anyway, there’s six adventure to cover so let’s get to it!

Gnole House (level 1)

(originally found in Free RPG Day Quickstart Rules 2017)

Written by Mike Curtis, this one is easy to slot into most campaigns. In short, a bunch of gnoles are living in an old house in the woods. With the mildest of adjustments, it'd be perfect for the Shudder Mountains too! You’ll see the map below, but this adventure has a ton of interconnectivity and exploration choices to make in a pretty small area.

As far as a narrative goes, the PCs are likely seeking out this house specifically because its rumored to have good loot. They can create a diegetic story about the gnoles’ previous victims through finding various loot, but there’s not too much more too it. That said, it’s still a really great adventure. Plus, the Eyes of the Elder Gnole are such a great magic item. There’s some variation in power, depending on whether who have replaced one or both of your eyeballs with these magical jewels (suffer 1d4 damage and 1 Personality, per eye replaced). But infravision, see invisible, a bonus to ranged attacks, and the ability to decipher terrestrial languages is pretty awesome! I think this is a great adventure that really gets slept on.

Geas of the Star-chons (level 1)

(originally found in Free RPG Day Quickstart Rules 2019)

Julian Bernick wrote one mean adventure! It's a rather linear affair and has a decent likelihood of TPKing a group of first level PCs. It’s also the only use of kobolds as an enemy within a DCC adventure that I can recall. The PCs are ostensibly geased to perform this quest though that’s easily changed. IT also includes Luck Storms, which can randomly change how Luckburn works (for good or ill), though I skipped that rule when running because I was doing enough “mechanics teaching” going on. In fact, a guy who’d only played 5e before ragequit when he spellburned a lot and then rolled a 1 on sleep. I improvised and the PCs awoke in the next room, tied to chairs while a bunch of skeletons mimed eating food.

The PCs do encounter a Metazothikian warrior (an ape-man kingdom that Julian sometimes includes in his adventures) and eventually find a magic circle. The wizardress Yndrkalla has been summoning alternate reality versions of herself. One is a spider-monster and the other was burnt at the stake for witchcraft. The PCs can actually get that spell: summon reality walker. So make sure to make their summoned selves be horrific or from horrific worlds. Lucky people don’t tend to get summoned to other universes. If the PCs can manage to defeat Yndrkalla, they can explore an extra room or two and find her spellbook and some cool magic items. That said, its a crazy hard fight. And after the PCs kill her, a Star-chon shows up! It doesn’t want anyone to know that reality-warping spell, or even anything about it, and it will probably TPK the PCs if they managed to survive this far. Fun adventure, but why are you so mean Julian? Sheesh.

Legend of the Silver Skull (level 1)

(originally found in Free RPG Day Quickstart Rules 2020)

So Julian calmed down a bit from 2019 to 2020. This one is also a tough cookie, but I think it’s a little more wild fun for the players/their PCs as well. Unfortunately, Forgotten Dangers dropped Appendix A, which cover a magical ghost-ship, and Handout A, which is pretty important for a puzzle that is a highlight of the adventure! For posterity’s sake, I’ve included screenshots of those two portions below.

The PCs start by arriving on an island, going inside a giant hollow skull where the fight some skull-faced creatures that seem like cultists but are worse, then go down inside the island to fight fish-men (who have these wicked barbed tridents that the PCs will totally want to use). There’s a couple side rooms to explore, but not much in the way of “exploration route choices”. In one side room is an awesome puzzle with an objection hidden inside a mirror (don’t get pulled in). The other has all the fish-men children, which are basically just as awful as the adults. I hope your PCs look at the bottom of the murky pool in there so that they can find Unmasker, a very righteous and rather militant magical sword. Play this sword like an NPC cause it can be an awesome one. My game had an exchange that went something like this:

“Wow Unmasker, what’s, like, your favorite hymn?”

“I love the psalm of the Burned Man! The pride shall be humbled and those who can accept it rise in glory!”

The PCs likely fight a monster called a “crabssassin” before getting to the final room where the must fight the Oracle. Oh, did I mention there’s a whole “chosen one” thing going on? One PC brought the others here because of visions that they had before and during this adventure. Not a huge fan of that, but I made it work in my adventure. This can be a great fight though, the Oracle wants to turn the PCs head into a silver skull and possess them. If the “chosen descendant” fails just the right amount of rolls, they can come away with some awesome bonuses! Once combat is over, the PCs can explore one final area that has three “heads-in-a-jar” of an ape-man, a serpant-man, and an elf, plus rare books. Lots of things a clever judge can do with those.

Man-Bait for the Soul Stealer (level 2)

(originally found in Free RPG Day Quickstart Rules 2018)

Terry Olson wrote a really solid adventure here. It begins with the PCs upon Blood Smoke Island, where they encounter a petrified shield maiden. She’s one of Sezkrekan’s 50 shield maidens so this can be a perfect adventure to help tie in that kind of element into your game. The PCs must enter the island and slay Odag the wizard. The island is small, but has nice interconnectivity and verticality so the players get interesting choices in how they explore. There’s also “Exposure Checks” from the intense heat and poisonous gas within the island so that puts a nice time pressure on them, plus that’s a well written mechanic to steal for other games. The PCs likely end up fighting Odag in a pretty interesting room for a combat arena. After his presumed defeat, the PCs get to check out Odag’s personal rom where they find a magical sword… that now houses Odag’s soul! Whoever picks it up must pass a Willpower save or be permanently possessed by Odag. When I ran this, a natural 1 on that save quickly led to a TPK since all the other PCs were so weakened by the prior combat. It was a cool ending that I followed up by running Arawn’s Challenge.

Yddgrrl's Maze (level 2)

(originally found in DCC RPG, 7th printing)

This one is valuable to have on hand just for the bonus spell: Sorcerous Sap. It’s a level 1 patron spell provided by Yddgrrl, the World Tree. I ran this Michael Curtis adventure a few years ago and it wasn’t a huge success. Adventures where the PCs must explore a maze can be difficult to make work and that may have been because of me, my players, the written module, or (more likely) a bit of each. That said, there are some really cool areas within the maze. The scene of orcs frozen into solid ice really freaked out my players. And the ending had a great showdown! And lastly, I really like the “Sap Samplings” table where the PCs can become magically mutated to because more plant-like.

Abbot of the Woods (level 1-3)

(originally found in Blades Against Death, 2nd printing)

A bonus adventure by Harley Stroh. It’s quite brief and doesn’t offer much in the way of exploration choices. The map is primarily a star-shaped loop with interesting areas at each of the five starpoints. The areas are each a mixture of combat and puzzle that make me feel that this could be reskinned into an Xcrawl adventure with not too much work done to it. I experienced this one as a player and we ended up TPK’d. The titular Abbot was unfortunately resurrected and became a giant monster before another PC cast a max level sleep spell. Wolves of the forest devoured us whilst we slept a supernaturally deep sleep.

Which of these have you run and which adventure is your favorite?

What Else Is Going On?

Dark Dwelling on the Prairie

A level 2 Weird Frontiers adventure. Desperate and depleted, the PCs seek refuge in an old farmhouse nestled deep within a windswept cornfield, where they uncover the haunting remnants of the Verrill family's tragic past. Trapped between supernatural echoes and the imminent threat of the Sagebrush gang, the posse must unravel a mystery that threatens to destroy them.

P.S. - There’s a stretch goal to get me to write an an encounter!

DCC March Madness Continues!

Cast you vote in Round 2!