Old Pop Music...

It's Fats Domino's fault.

I was totally fine with my 'development of rock music' playlist that started with 1950 and jumped right into the rock explosion of the mid-50s. It was going great. Sure, I did some AI research and found that I was missing a few important songs and had some in my list that weren't really feeding that rock DNA I was looking for. But that's fine; that's why we do research in the first place.

Then I found out that Fats Domino's The Fat Man, one of the seminal songs that fed the rock piano lineage of Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elton John was not a 1950 song...it was recorded in December of 1949. Which meant, by the arcane rules of my playlist, that it had to be moved out and replaced. Okay, that happens, no big deal. Except I made the mistake of asking the AI if The Fat Man was foundational enough that I needed to keep it. Turns out...it is.

So, what to do? I couldn't leave it in 1950, which meant I had to add some 40s music to my playlist. And there's plenty of it that leads into the rock music we're familiar with. But those lines of evolution didn't start there. I went back to the 1930s defiantly, but I already knew with that sinking feeling in my heart that I wasn't going to stop there. I was going to go back before the swing era, before jump blues, before Duke Ellington's jazz...even before the beginnings of jazz music itself, all the way back to the early ragtime and blues music that really got things started. I wasn't at the embryonic stage of rock music; I was now at the sperm-and-egg stage.

So, I started a playlist that begins with Scott Joplin's earliest compositions and included a smattering of pop music, blues, and other stuff that I expected would bring us into the later music that gave us jazz, swing, and early rhythm and blues, the key components of rock n' roll's DNA. My cut-off for the non-Joplin music was 1900; for my sanity's sake, I couldn't go any earlier than that. Joplin did have a few compositions that predate 1900, so I did include them because I wasn't leaving Maple Leaf Rag off this list. The first million-seller sheet music in history? Hell, no. 1899 is fine.

Anyway, after curating a representative list with the help of the Google AI, I got all the music downloaded. One song in particular was a bit frustrating; the quality of the recording is terrible, and I couldn't find a newer version of it where the sound wasn't overwhelmed by the crackling noises of the cylinder recording I was listening to.

Tonight, I started listening to that 1900-1909 playlist. And after about eight songs, I came to that one particular song: Ma Tiger Lily. It's a 1900 song sung by a man named Arthur Collins (he was really popular back then). And right in the first verse, I stopped washing the dishes and had to listen more closely, because I could not believe what I was hearing. And then I understood exactly why this record doesn't have any modern recordings. Because anyone who tried recording it with those lyrics would be canceled faster than a Disney live-action project. No, I'm not going to post the lyrics, not even a sample of them. It's that bad. If you want to look them up, that's your own choice. I'm not even linking to them. You have been warned.

I mean, sure, I've heard these words before, but not to music (rap doesn't count as music). It's just really, really weird to hear those words with an upbeat, happy tune. And this was a novelty tune, music people danced to (the Cake-Walk, in this case).

It will be interesting to see if I run into more songs of this type; as my friendly AI told me, songs like this died out and didn't really lead into the DNA strands of rock n' roll. Hopefully there won't be too many more, especially ones that sound like that.

Part 3: The Wizards

December 10, 2002 – 3:45 PM

Wizards of the Coast Headquarters – Renton, WA

The rain was a cold, relentless drizzle. Mark Sterling stood in the lobby, shaking out a wet umbrella. He’d had a frantic race home to grab some clothes in a duffel bag to make the 11:00 flight to Seattle. He’d slept in snatches, but his head still swam from that second gin and tonic on the plane; he wasn’t used to first-class seating. He’d gotten most of it out of his system on the cab ride over, thankfully, but he needed the liquid courage. He checked his Blackberry once more for any last-second notes from New Line. Contrary to Emmerich’s instructions, he wasn’t wearing a $1,000 power suit. Instead, his instincts had told him to wear a corduroy blazer over a faded “Gen Con ‘94” t-shirt he’d dug out of the bottom of his dresser. He looked less like a Hollywood executive and more like a guy who had spent too much money on lead miniatures.

When he was ushered into the “War Room,” he didn’t find a board of directors. He found three guys in fleece vests sitting around a table with a dragon model and a mismatched set of coffee cups. They politely stood up and shook his hand in order, introducing themselves as Bill Slavicsek, Vice-President of D&D, Christopher Perkins, the creative director, and Andy Collins, the lead designer for the Dungeons & Dragons brand. Mark’s mouth went even more dry. The current heavyweight champions of the RPG industry, and Mark was face-to-face with them alone.

“New Line, huh?” said Slavicsek, looking at Mark’s business card with deep suspicion. “We’ve seen your boss on the news. He’s got the Ring. Why does he want our ‘scraps’?”

Mark didn’t sit down. He walked to the window, looking out at the gray Seattle sky. “I’m not here because of the Ring. I’m here because I was ten years old when I read Dragons of Autumn Twilight for the first time. I’m here because I know that Sturm Brightblade’s mustache is more than a design choice—it’s a symbol of a dying code. And I’m here because if New Line doesn’t do this, some hack at another studio will eventually turn Tasslehoff Burrfoot into a Jar-Jar Binks clone.”

The room went quiet. The executives traded looks. This wasn’t the pitch they’d heard from the 2000 movie team.

“You’re talking about Dragonlance,” blurted Collins. “Are you serious?”

Slavicsek looked at Mark with a pitying sort of amusement. “Look, Mark,” Slavicsek said, his voice dropping into a conciliatory tone. “We appreciate the corduroy. We really do. But you’re pitching a dead brand. Dragonlance is…it’s a legacy brand. We literally just gave the keys to Margaret and Sovereign Press. If New Line wants a ‘Greek Tragedy,’ they want the Forgotten Realms. We have Drizzt. We have a dozen Salvatore books on the shelf right now that sell five times what the old Chronicles do.”

Mark nodded. “Sure. But the War of Souls trilogy just spent the past three years climbing into the New York Times bestseller lists. Just like Legends did back in the 80s. Gamers want the Realms, but everyone else? They want the Lance.”

Mark met their gazes head-on. Not as a movie studio ‘executive assistant to the VP’, but as one of them: A gamer. “You didn’t give Margaret the rights back because Dragonlance is dead; the latest trilogy proves it’s not. You gave her those rights because you don’t want a story with an ending. You want a sandbox to play in. That’s fine, but this isn’t about playing. This is about a monument. New Line Cinema wants to take the next step in the fantasy movie genre. And what better way to do that than with a homegrown setting that gamers have been talking about since the first teasers in Dragon magazine all those years ago? A setting with not only dragons, but ancient towers of High Sorcery, magic guided by the three moons, the fabled but feeble Knights of Solamnia. A setting dripping with a post-apocalyptic feel in a world that practically ended three centuries earlier.”

“You know the lore,” muttered Perkins, leaning forward. “But—”

Slavicsek interrupted him. “Mark, Drizzt is the rock star. Salvatore sells out every time he does a signing tour. Tanis is a guy who’s been out of print for nearly a decade, and nobody cares about him. Why should Hasbro bet on that, when they have the dark elf that everyone wants to be?

Mark shook his head. “Drizzt? He’s great, if you want to capture the edgy emo demographic as well. The problem is, you’ll still have people that want Moonshae instead. Or Cormyr. Or a dozen other places on the map that 99% of the population has never heard of and won’t care to. Not to mention that no matter what New Line does with Elminster, he will always and only be seen as a Gandalf clone.

“But the Chronicles? That’s a closed loop. It’s a beginning, a middle, and an end. The ‘War of Souls’ just hit the New York Times Bestseller lists. It’s not just a ‘legacy brand’. And Bob Shaye doesn’t want a ‘brand extension’. He wants a statement. He wants the movie that Peter Jackson is too ‘prestigious’ to make. More importantly, he wants Dragonlance. And he’ll walk away from this if he doesn’t get it. Don’t be the ones that let that happen. Dragonlance was written as a story. Almost more than it was written for the game.”

He leaned forward, his arms locked on the table and his eyes intent as he went back and forth between the three men. “Think about it: Two years ago, the fans were clamoring for the movie we had been wanting to see for twenty years, and it flopped. Sorry, but it’s true. But why? Sure, the effects were terrible, and Jeremy Irons was channeling his inner Jim Carrey for most of the movie, but those weren’t the real problems, were they?

“That movie didn’t connect with the fans. It wasn’t Greyhawk, or the Realms, or hell, even Birthright. It felt like someone’s homebrew campaign. It was a heist film with bad makeup. And he even used beholders as dumb, trained watchdogs in a throwaway scene. How many people in the seats loved that?” Mark noticed Slavicsek nodding slightly, and the dark look on Collins’ face. Perkins merely sat, unfazed, listening to Mark’s presentation. Or rather, his heartfelt plea.

His eyes gleamed in a fair imitation of Toby Emmerich from earlier that morning. “But imagine what the fans would say when they see the Vallenwoods on the screen. Imagine the scene where Onyx bursts from the well, or the nightmare in Silvanesti. That’s lore the fans will latch on to. And if it’s done right, they’ll be begging for more of the same. And New Line can deliver that, if we,” he waved to encompass the table, “work together as a team. And if we can get Weis and Hickman to agree, we want them as script consultants. Heck, the first few chapters of Autumn Twilight read like a script; we might just have them do it themselves.”

The execs watched his excited motion as he continued, emphasizing the need for brand continuity and partnership, his love of the setting plain on his face. After a span of time that no one in the room bothered to measure, he took a deep breath and visibly settled down. “Look, I could probably go on for hours about why I love Dragonlance, and why I think it’s the right property for this project. But that’s just me. The reason Bob Shaye wants Dragonlance is simple. There’s an epic war story just sitting here, waiting for someone to tell it on the screen. And that’s what New Line wants.”

“It’s what you want,” corrected Perkins.

“And it’s what I want,” Mark agreed, a tired grin slowly forming on his face. “I’ve been walking through Ansalon for more than half my life. I played Sturm at my brother’s table. I’ve read every book, even the stinkers. But here’s the thing: Based on just a handful of the materials I have, in less than an hour I got Robert Shaye himself to take a serious look at Dragonlance, as a real project. And he wants to do this, even more than I thought he would. New Line is going after Antoine Fuqua to direct this like it’s a war movie.”

The three men looked at each other. “Antoine Fuqua?” asked Perkins.

“He directed Training Day,” replied Slavicsek. “He doesn’t seem to fit the ‘fantasy’ mold.”

“That’s the point,” explained Mark. “We’re not trying to fit the mold, we’re trying to break it and reshape it. Can you imagine the director of Training Day making something like the 2000 movie? There’s no chance in hell. He’ll make people believe that this war is a real thing.”

The three executives looked at each other for a moment in silence, their thoughts churning at this sudden realization that this would indeed be a very different movie.

“So what’s New Line’s plan, then?” asked Collins. “You really want to follow up Lord of the Rings with Dragonlance? Pin our brand onto Peter Jackson’s coattails? That’s a lot of pressure on our IP.”

Mark nodded. “That’s why we’re keeping this quiet. We aren’t calling this ‘Dungeons & Dragons.’ We’re not even going to mention the word ‘Dragonlance’. We’re calling it Operation: Redemption. Bob Shaye wants to get the first movie made in time for the 2004 holiday season. No compromises. No Bulgarian parking lots. In fact,” he said with a sudden inspiration, “we would want Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman to guide the vision, and maybe even the man himself: Gary Gygax. A technical consultant. Weis and Hickman can protect the lore, but Gygax can protect the rules and the underlying IP of Dungeons & Dragons. He can finally get the D&D movies he always wanted.”

Perkins raised an eyebrow at the mention of Gygax. “You do know we’re not an ‘old-school’ company anymore, right?”

“Sure, but Gary Gygax is still a part of this game. I read his editorials in Dragon when the new edition came out. Editorials he is still writing, too. The fans are listening to him. If he’s part of this project, the fans will listen to us, too. We want him for the fans and especially the fundamentals. Weis and Hickman are the architects, but he’s the one who built the foundation. Having him on board ensures that foundation is strong, not only for us but for the fans as well. You don’t think his name on the posters will get attention?”

After a brief silence, he slid the briefcase across the table. “I’m not really a suit. I’m a gamer at heart, like all of you. But I’m the guy who’s going to make sure this world doesn’t get butchered. But I need you to get on the phone with Hasbro and tell them to clear the path. We have forty-eight hours to get the Letter of Intent signed, or the studio plans to move on to something else. And speaking not as a representative of New Line Cinema, but as a fan like you, that would be a tragic waste for all of us. Don’t be the reason this doesn’t happen.”

Mark stepped closer to the table, pointedly ignoring the Forgotten Realms hardcovers Slavicsek was trying to slide toward him. “You pivot to the Realms, and the lawyers will be tied up for years trying to figure out which characters are licensed where. You give us the Chronicles, and we make that a reality.”

“You know that if this fails,” Collins said quietly, “Dragonlance dies on screen for another twenty years.”

There was a silence in the room. Slavicsek looked at Mark again, his eyes falling on the ‘Gen Con ‘94’ T-shirt. “You’re a true believer, aren’t you, Mark?” He shook his head. “Hasbro isn’t going to like passing over Drizzt,” he muttered, but he finally picked up the phone and dialed an extension. “Hi, it’s Bill. Get Hasbro licensing on the line. Tell them the Ring guys want to work with us on a movie…and they sent us one of our own.”

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This will be my last post on the story here; I'm continuing to post it on the alternate history forums, though. I just don't want it to take over this blog completely.

Part 2: The Pitch

December 10, 2002 – 7:00 AM

The Office of Robert Shaye – New Line Cinema Headquarters

The early morning sun fought through the thick marine layer of fog, casting a cold, grey light over the “shrine” Mark had spent all night constructing. On the mahogany table, the 1985 Elmore calendar sat alongside the 1987 Dragonlance Adventures hardcover. Mark had flanked these with the recent War of Souls bestsellers, their glossy covers a sharp contrast to the weathered paperbacks of the original Chronicles. Alongside them was a printout showing estimated sales figures for not only the current series, but the rest of the line: Over 20 million books sold since the 1980s.

Toby Emmerich entered first, clutching a steaming cardboard cup of coffee. He didn’t look at Mark. He walked straight to the table, his eyes immediately locking onto the 1987 sourcebook. He flipped a page, his gaze lingering on a map of Ansalon.

“This isn’t just a story, then,” Emmerich muttered, more to himself than anyone else. “It’s a geography. There’s a logic to the borders.” He skimmed quickly through the book, then grabbed a copy of Dragons of a Fallen Moon, the newest Dragonlance hardcover novel.

Shaye marched in a moment later, the smell of fresh cedar and unlit tobacco following him. He looked at Mark—really looked at him—for the first time. “You look like hell, kid. I hope what’s in those books is worth the bags under your eyes.”

Mark stood at a stiff, respectful attention. “It is, Mr. Shaye. Between Chronicles, Legends, and the spinoffs? You're looking at thirty million books in circulation.”

Shaye grunted and sat. “We’ll see. Toby. Talk to me.”

Emmerich didn’t look up from the War of Souls hardcovers. “The pulse is real, Bob. These hit the New York Times list within the last twenty-four months. Hell, this one just got released a few months ago. This isn’t a dead brand; it’s alive and kicking. And the structure is exactly what we discussed. A core trilogy. A group of friends. A world-ending war.” He tapped the Elmore art of Raistlin Majere. “And this character... he’s the hook. He’s the anti-Gandalf. He’s tragic, he’s dying, and he’s dangerous.”

“What about the legal rights?” demanded Shaye. “How is this not under Sweetpea’s rights umbrella?”

“That a question for the legal department to answer, sir,” replied Mark. “But Dragonlance is a distinct property created by TSR, now owned by Wizards of the Coast. It’s not the generic Dungeons & Dragons brand.”

“Alright, kid,” said Emmerich, still perusing the materials. “Give me the quick version of how a movie would work. Forget trilogy, let’s stick to just one movie at the moment. What’s that movie, in twenty seconds?”

“It’s Dragons of Autumn Twilight,” replied Mark. “A fractured group of former friends reunite in a world where the gods have been silent for 300 years. Among them is a crippled mage who may be more dangerous than the enemy. When they discover the first proof the gods may have returned, they become targets of a rising Dragonarmy. After their hometown is destroyed, they lead a slave rebellion inside an enemy fortress and defeat a Dragon Highlord in the first battle against dragons in a thousand years — ending with hope reborn as the war truly begins.”

“Fine,” interrupted Shaye. “But who’s the villain for this movie? You said this wasn’t about eyeballs in a tower.”

“Verminaard,” answered Mark immediately. “He’s the Dragon Highlord leading the invasion. He destroys the heroes’ home halfway through the film and becomes the face of the war. The movie builds toward a final confrontation with him inside his own fortress while dragons tear the sky apart above them.”

“And what makes him interesting?” asked Emmerich. “Why should the people in the seats care about this guy getting it at the end?”

Mark frowned. “Verminaard is the first priest of the true gods since the Cataclysm — the first man in three hundred years to wield divine magic. That makes him more than just a general; he’s living proof the gods have returned. He believes he’s chosen to cleanse the world.”

Shaye grunted. “And he dies in the end? No ‘miraculous escape so he comes back in a later movie?’”

“No, sir. He’s a Dragon Highlord, but he’s not the Dragon Highlord. There are others who will lead the war after he’s gone.”

Shaye considered for a moment, his eyes lingering on the artwork on the table. “Alright, so this works as a standalone movie with possible sequels if it makes good at the box office. I’m not going to sign off on a three-movie deal right off the bat, I don’t care how much the Kiwi makes next week.” His eyes flicked back to Mark. “Alright, kid, now for the real question. How does this make money for us?”

Mark took a deep breath. “Because, sir, it already has a multi-million reader fanbase that’s been active for nearly twenty years. And fantasy isn’t a one-brand market — The Lord of the Rings proved there’s appetite, but so did Harry Potter. This is a different tone: grounded, war-driven, character-first. It skews slightly younger than Gladiator but older than Potter. And Raistlin gives this movie a breakout anti-hero audiences can latch onto the way they latched onto Hannibal Lecter or Tyler Durden. It’s not just a fantasy — it’s a character franchise.”

“You came prepared, kid,” said Shaye with an approving note in his voice. “Alright, what’s the tone of this? Is it dark? Funny? Is it for kids?”

Mark shrugged. “It’s a war epic, sir, with humor that comes from friendship. The stakes are real, but the characters are human. It’s accessible without being childish—emotional without being grim.”

Shaye’s eyes narrowed. “And what’s it going to be rated? War movies get a lot of ‘R’ ratings.”

“PG-13,” was Mark’s firm reply. “The war has consequences, but this isn’t an R-rated bloodbath. If it’s ‘R’, we lose a lot of the core fantasy audience. If it’s ‘PG’, nobody believes the war. It needs to be intense enough to feel real, but accessible enough that a 13-year-old can see it without it being traumatic. That’s the lane where fantasy performs best.”

“He’s right,” said Emmerich. “PG-13 keeps the tension high but doesn’t alienate the ticket buyers. We want a lot of the same crowd Jackson’s getting, right?”

“Right. If this is the sort of thing they want, we’re the ones that can give it to them. But what about the director, Toby?” he asked, leaning forward. “You said you had a name that wouldn’t make the trades bark.”

“Antoine Fuqua,” Emmerich said firmly.

Shaye paused, his cigar halfway to his mouth. “The Training Day guy? For elves and dragons?”

“For the war, Bob,” Emmerich corrected. “Fuqua doesn’t shoot fantasy. He shoots conflict. That’s what this story is—a war movie with dragons. He’ll shoot this movie like it’s a combat zone. He’ll make the dragons feel like heavy artillery, not pets.”

“We just said we’re going PG-13, not R-rated. How is Fuqua the guy for that?”

Emmerich pointed to a picture of Sturm Brightblade facing off against a blue dragon. “He can make this feel real without loading it up with gore.”

“Why not Petersen? He loves that war stuff.”

“He’s neck deep in Greek mythology with Troy. Pulling him off that project would be starting a war with Warner.”

Shaye nodded. “I see your point. What about del Toro? He likes monsters and stuff, and he’s in the New Line family.”

“Hellboy,” replied Emmerich. “That’s a passion project that he’s spent years trying to develop. Now that it’s finally greenlit, pulling him would make the same waves as Petersen. But with Fuqua, he’s between projects. We can sign him and have him in a production office in Vancouver before Jackson even gets his Oscar nominations for Two Towers.”

“Vancouver?” repeated Shaye.

“Yeah, let’s make this as much the ‘anti-Ring’ project as possible and film it right here. This is an American, homegrown property, and let’s make that clear right from the start. Film it all in North America, use the natural vistas in a way Jackson never thought of. He’s got paper-mâché trees; we’ve got redwoods. He had to build that snowy mountain set from scratch; we’ve got mountains galore from the High Sierras all the way up through Canada and into Alaska, and glaciers all over the Canadian Rockies that can be more intimidating than anything Jackson dreamed up on that little hook of an island.”

Shaye nodded. “That’s true. And filming it here means the jobs stay here or in Canada. The unions will pounce on it.” He looked at Mark. “Mark. You played this game as a kid, right? Let’s see if you’re up to speed on Hollywood. Why Fuqua?”

Mark swallowed, keeping his voice low and professional. “Because the heroes aren’t perfect, sir. They’re broken. Fuqua knows how to film people who are losing their souls. He’ll make the audience feel the dirt and the blood. It won’t look like a fairytale. It’ll look like a survival story.”

Shaye stood up, his hand hovering over the 1985 calendar. He looked at the image of the companions huddled around a fire, then at the legal papers from Jackson’s camp still sitting on the corner of his desk.

“Alright,” he said with a grimace. “But we’re going to do this right. And we’re going to do it fast. If we’re doing this, we’re not playing small. There’s exactly twelve months until Return of the King hits theaters. I want a teaser in front of that movie. And I want to ink the release date: December 2004.”

“That’s a pretty tight schedule,” noted Emmerich. “Two years to get the movie finished and we don’t even have a script yet.”

“We’ll get one,” Shaye barked. “If Jackson can shoot three movies in a row in the middle of nowhere, we can shoot one in our own backyard.” He jabbed a finger toward the table. “I want a location scouting plan on my desk by four o’clock today. Mark—your last name?”

“Sterling, sir. Mark Sterling.”

“Sterling. Let’s see how fast you are on your feet. What’s the final shot of the teaser? The one that gets people talking instead of watching the credits of the movie they paid to see?”

Mark’s brain fired like a shorted circuit. He grabbed the Dragonlance art book and flipped it to the cover photo of Dragons of Spring Dawning, tapping the image of the red-robed mage. “The teaser fades out,” he said quickly. “Audience thinks it’s done. Then from the darkness we hear a whisper.” He lowered his voice. “Shirak.” Mark pointed at Raistlin’s arm in the painting. A flash of light from the Staff of Magius, and they see a golden hand in red robes gripping the Staff of Magius. No face. Just the arm.”

Silence filled the room. Shaye stared at the picture. Then he looked at Emmerich.

Emmerich slowly nodded, a thin, predatory smile forming.  “That’ll play,” he said quietly.

Shaye leaned back in his chair. “If I send Toby,” he said, gesturing with the cigar, “the trades hear about it before the plane lands. If I send legal, Wizards thinks we’re about to bury them in contracts.” His eyes settled on Mark. “But you? You’re a fan. You walked in here with the books. You spoke the language.” He tapped the table once. “They’ll listen to you.” A pause. “You’re going to Seattle.”

Mark blinked. “Seattle, sir?”

“Toby’s office will make the arrangements,” Shaye continued. “You meet the people at Wizards of the Coast. As high up the ladder as we can get you.” He leaned forward again. “New Line comes knocking, they’ll listen. You tell them we want the whole package. Film rights. Author participation.” He paused. “And absolute silence. If they want to be part of what’s coming next in fantasy movies, they sign with us. Fast.” His finger shifted to Mark. “You’re the bridge, Sterling.” Another pause. “Don’t let it collapse.”

“Yes, sir,” Mark said, finally allowing himself a breath.

“Good.” Shaye stood up. “Now let’s see if you can swim with the sharks.” He waved toward the books. “Pack that stuff up. I don’t want anyone seeing it.”

Mark immediately began gathering the materials.

Shaye turned back to Emmerich, his tone dropping to something colder. “Especially Ordesky.” Emmerich raised an eyebrow. “EVP or not, he’s Jackson’s concierge,” Shaye said. “He’ll run straight to the Kiwi the second he smells something.”

Shaye began pacing slowly. “Create a paper trail. Something boring. Fellowship international residuals. Accounting nightmare. Tell him the numbers out of Wellington don’t match the Weta invoices.” Emmerich nodded, already thinking through the logistics. “Send him down there to audit the mess,” Shaye continued. “I want him buried in spreadsheets so deep he doesn’t see the Big Dipper until 2005.” He stopped pacing. “And Toby… have legal review the force majeure language in the New Zealand contracts. If Jackson hears even a whisper about this, I want his ‘creative autonomy’ to be the only thing he has left when we’re done.”

Across the room, Mark was still stuffing books into his bag. Shaye snapped his fingers. “Sterling!” Mark froze. “You’re still here?”

Mark straightened.

“Seattle isn’t getting any closer.”

“Yes, sir.”

Mark hurried out of the office with his books. The door shut.

For a moment neither man spoke. Finally Emmerich said quietly: “If this works… we just started a war.”

Shaye picked up the Elmore calendar and studied the image of the companions around the fire. A slow smile crept across his face. “Good.”

What If...

Okay, so I've been working on a project in my 'spare time' to keep my mind busy. This is an alternate timeline, a 'what if' scenario that I've been thinking about for quite a while. I'm going to post some of the story here and see what people think of it.

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December 9, 2002

The Office of Robert Shaye – New Line Cinema Headquarters

The office is thick with the smell of expensive tobacco and the nervous energy that always precedes a New Line premiere. The Two Towers is about to conquer the world, but inside the executive suite, the atmosphere is more “war room” than “celebration.”

Robert Shaye didn’t look like a man who had just minted billions. He looked like a man who had been told his house was being renovated by a squatter who was now charging him for the privilege. He paced the length of his mahogany desk, a copy of a legal injunction from the Jackson camp crumpled in his hand like a spent shell casing.

Toby Emmerich sat coiled in the deep leather armchair, a stark contrast to Shaye’s restless pacing. As the President of Production, he viewed the staggering tracking numbers for The Two Towers not with the warmth of a fan, but with the cold, calculating eye of a man tired of being the junior partner in his own success. To Emmerich, the projected billion-dollar haul was a double-edged sword: it proved the genre’s dominance while simultaneously handing Peter Jackson the leverage to bankrupt the studio’s autonomy. He watched the rain lash against the window of the Los Angeles office.

“He wants more, Toby,” Shaye growled, tossing the paper onto the desk. “More points. More oversight. More ‘creative autonomy.’ I gave that man the keys to the kingdom when nobody else would give him the time of day. I sat in meetings and defended a six-hour pitch for a three-movie gamble! And now? Now he’s treating me like a vendor.” He grabbed the paper again, took a quick glance, then crumpled it up and tossed it in the general vicinity of the wastebasket. “He thinks he’s got me over a barrel because of ‘The Hobbit.’ He knows I can’t even touch that script without MGM sniffing around for a distribution fee, and he’s using that stalemate to squeeze me for more points on Return of the King. He wants to wait me out until I’m desperate enough to give him the moon just to keep him from taking the ‘prequel’ to a rival.”

Emmerich sighed, leaning back in a leather armchair. “The problem, Bob, is that the narrative is already set. The press thinks Peter Jackson is the franchise. They think New Line is just the bank. If we push back too hard on Return of the King, we look like the villains in our own fairytale.”

“Then we change the narrative,” Shaye snapped, stopping at the window overlooking Los Angeles. “We prove that the ‘fantasy epic’ isn’t just a New Zealand thing, it’s New Line’s thing! We find something else. Something bigger. Something with dragons that actually talk and a world that doesn’t require us to fly halfway across the planet to a sheep farm. I want a production that I can touch. I want a director who knows his place in the ecosystem. I want to show the world that the ‘New Line Magic’ is about the studio’s vision, not one man’s ego.”

Before Emmerich could reply, there was a knock on the heavy oak door. It was an interruption Shaye usually would have barked at, but today, he was looking for a distraction.

“Enter!” Shaye commanded.

Shaye didn’t even look up as the door opened. He was too busy stabbing a finger at a map of the global box office projections.

“I don’t care if the New Zealanders think they’ve cornered the market on elves,” Shaye muttered, his voice dropping to a dangerous, gravelly low. “I want a property that makes Tolkien look like a warm-up act.”

Emmerich let out a sharp, dry laugh, shaking his head. “And there isn’t anything like that out there, Bob. There’s nothing with that level of cultural connection. It’s like trying to replace the Bible. You’re asking for lightning to strike twice in the same bottle, except this time you want to control the weather.”

The silence that followed was heavy. It was the kind of silence that usually sent subordinates scurrying for the exit.

Mark Sterling, assistant to one of New Line’s VPs, felt the weight of it. He was twenty-six, dressed in a suit that cost more than his car, and he had spent his weekends since 1985 tucked away in basements rolling twenty-sided dice.

He was supposed to drop the trades, summarize the overnight tracking for The Two Towers, and vanish. Instead, he watched Shaye’s shoulders tense. He saw the genuine, burning frustration of a mogul who felt his legacy was being stolen by a director ten thousand miles away.

Fortune favors the bold, Mark thought. He cleared his throat. It was a small sound, but in the vacuum of the room, it sounded like a gunshot.

Shaye spun around, his eyes narrowing as if only just realizing there was a third person in the room. “Who are you? Where’s Miller?”

“He’s out sick today, Mr. Shaye. I’m Mark. From the creative development floor.” Mark’s heart was hammering against his ribs, but he didn’t look down. “I was listening to what Mr. Emmerich said. About the Bible.”

Emmerich raised an eyebrow, leaning back. “It was a figure of speech, kid. We don’t need a sermon.”

“I know,” Mark said, taking a bold step toward the desk. “But you’re wrong about there being nothing else. There is a property. It’s got the scale, the dragons, the magic, and most importantly, it’s got a fan base that has been waiting almost twenty years for someone to take it seriously. It’s not Tolkien... but for millions of people my age, it means just as much.”

Shaye crossed his arms, his curiosity finally piqued by the sheer audacity of the interruption. “Go on then. Give me a name.”

Mark didn’t blink. “Dragonlance.”

Shaye squinted, the name echoing in the high-ceilinged office. He repeated it slowly, tasting the syllables as if trying to determine if they sounded like “money” or “another lawsuit.”

“Dragonlance,” Shaye said. “Sounds like something I’d see on a black-light poster in a head shop. Toby, have you heard of this?”

Emmerich rubbed his chin. “Can’t say that I have. Where did you hear about it, kid?

Mark turned to the stern executive, keeping the catch out of his throat as he replied. “It’s a fantasy world built by TSR back in the mid-80s. I played in it as a kid. Wizards of the Coast owns it now; it’s one of their classic Dungeons & Dragons settings.”

Shaye didn’t just scoff; he recoiled as if Mark had suggested they pivot to producing hardcore pornography.

“Dungeons and Dragons?” Shaye’s voice rose an octave, thick with disbelief. “Are you kidding me, kid? I sat in a screening room two years ago and watched Jeremy Irons chew the scenery until he choked in a movie that looked like it was filmed in a Bulgarian parking lot. It was a joke. It was a punchline. We’re New Line Cinema. We have the Ring. Why the hell would I go from the gold standard to the bargain bin?”

Emmerich leaned in, his expression more clinical but no less skeptical. “Not only that, but Sweetpea still has the rights to that brand. But the 2000 movie didn’t just fail; it poisoned the well. The brand is toxic in Hollywood. If we announce we’re doing a D&D spin-off, the trades will bury us before we even cast a single wizard. They’ll say we’ve run out of ideas and we’re desperate.”

Mark felt the sweat prickling at his hairline. This was the wall. “That’s exactly why you don’t call it ‘Dungeons & Dragons,’ Mr. Emmerich. You call it The Dragonlance Chronicles. You treat it like Star Wars, not a tabletop game. And if I’m not mistaken, Dragonlance is technically a separate IP from generic ‘D&D’. It would be a job for the lawyers, not me, but I think Dragonlance would be available. The 2000 movie was a generic mess because it didn’t have a story. It was just ‘thieves steal a rod,’ and none of us gamers connected to it at all. But Dragonlance is a Greek tragedy with fire-breathing lizards, with a huge fanbase.”

“It’s still guys in capes with funny names,” Shaye muttered, reaching for a cigar. “What’s going to make this anything other than a discount Tolkien?”

“Middle-Earth is stable, and has been for a long time. It’s a world where the evil is growing, and the heroes are just that: Heroes. Aragorn is the perfect king, Legolas surfs down a staircase shooting orcs, and Gimli spends his time in combat counting bodies. Dragonlance is nothing like that. It’s a post-apocalyptic world where three hundred and fifty years ago, the gods dropped a mountain on the world and completely changed the landscape. Then they disappeared. Now, they’re returning, and they’re bringing flights of dragons with them.”

“Post-apocalyptic,” repeated Shaye, his eyes narrowing. “So, this is a world where civilization is wrecked?”

“Not quite, but close. Most towns are on their own, there’s not a lot of central government. The Knights are fractured, the dwarves are hiding, and it’s very much a ‘my town is all that matters’ attitude.”

Emmerich nodded. “Okay, that’s the background. What about the characters? What makes them different from Tolkien’s heroes?”

“These characters are only heroes because they have to be. But none of them are perfect, none of them are paragons. This story is about a man named Tanis Half-Elven,” Mark pushed, his voice steadying. “He’s a bastard child of two races who belongs to neither. He’s not Aragorn; the elves don’t trust him because he’s half-human, and the humans don’t trust him because he’s part elf. He’s the definition of a reluctant hero. And it’s about Raistlin Majere, a mage who’s literally rotting from the inside out because he traded his health for power. And his twin brother, Caramon, who’s the strength to Raistlin’s weakness, the ‘big brother’ that Raistlin both loves and hates. These aren’t ‘heroes’—they’re a group of broken people who haven’t seen each other in five years and frankly don’t always like each other anymore. They meet at a bar to have a drink, and they find out the gods have returned to the world, and brought the dragons with them. It’s a war epic with deep characters, people who feel real instead of being perfect archetypes.”

Emmerich leaned back, his eyes glinting as he thought. “Twin brothers? At odds with each other?” He softly caressed his chin as he pondered the possibility. “The kid might have something, Bob.”

Keenly aware of Emmerich’s scripting vibe, Shaye stayed silent and waited. Mark tried his best not to fidget in place as Emmerich sat in silence for a full minute. When Emmerich returned his attention to Shaye, there was a predatory glimmer on his face that matched his smile.

“He really might have something,” repeated Emmerich. “Phoenix, maybe, for this Raistlin character. If he’s not too young. And a big guy for the brother, like Brendan Fraser.” He blinked and focused on Shaye again. “Think about it, Bob. Jackson’s movies are about ‘destiny’ and ‘purity.’” He glanced at Mark. “You’re saying that this is about choice. It’s grittier, it’s more cynical, and the villains aren’t just a giant flaming eyeball in the sky, right? These villains are human?”

Mark nodded silently, and Emmerich looked at Shaye. The word ‘cynical’ had landed. New Line had always thrived on a bit of edge—this was the studio of Nightmare on Elm Street, after all.

“And the dragons?” Shaye asked, blowing a cloud of smoke. “Jackson doesn’t have one in this movie, but if he goes on to do the Hobbit afterward, he’s going to have a massive CGI dragon to wow people. How does your ‘Dragonlance’ match that?”

“He’s got one dragon,” replied Mark with a bit more confidence. “Dragonlance has three in the first book alone. It was designed specifically to show off dragons in the game. And they aren’t the brainless ones that we saw in 2000, either. They’re smart; they’re characters, not just obstacles. And near the end of the third book, the dragons go to war. Not just one, but dozens. It’s like…like a fantasy version of ‘Top Gun’, but the planes have scales and can think for themselves.”

Emmerich nodded a shade more enthusiastically. “Like the dogfights in ‘Pearl Harbor,’ Bob. Imagine that level of kinetic energy, but with fire and actual stakes.”

Shaye didn’t speak for a long time. He just watched the smoke from his cigar curl toward the ceiling, his mind clearly working through the logistics of a counter-strike. He looked at the crumpled legal papers on his desk, then back at Mark.

Emmerich, sensing the shift in the room’s gravity, leaned forward. He picked up the thread Mark had laid out, his voice dropping into that smooth, analytical tone that had greenlit a dozen hits.

“You know, Bob,” Emmerich said softly, “Jackson’s whole thing is ‘realism.’ He wants Middle-earth to feel like a dusty history book come to life. It’s all brown, grey, and moss. It’s ‘sacred’ to him. And his heroes are, like the kid said, too perfect. Can you even imagine Legolas taking a piss in the forest? He’d never touch something this loud. He’d never do a movie with ‘Pearl Harbor’ dragons or heroes this... jagged.” He paused, a smirk playing on his lips. “It’s the one thing he can’t—or won’t—do. It’s too commercial for an ‘Auteur.’”

The silence that followed was different. It wasn’t the heavy, suffocating silence from before; it was the hum of a machine starting up. Shaye and Emmerich locked eyes across the mahogany expanse. There was no need for words. They were the architects of a studio built on calculated risks and middle fingers to the establishment. They were thinking about the trades. They were thinking about the 2004 winter slate. They were thinking about the look on Peter Jackson’s face.

Shaye finally snapped his gaze toward Mark. The junior exec felt like he was being pinned to the wall by a spotlight.

“Seven a.m. tomorrow,” Shaye barked. “I want to see everything. I want the books. I want a breakdown of these ‘Chronicles.’ I want to know who owns every comma in those scripts. And Mark?”

Mark stood straighter. “Yes, sir?”

Shaye leaned over the desk, his expression turning deathly serious. “If a single word of this leaves this room—if I see so much as a blind item in Variety about ‘New Line looking at dragons’—I will not only fire you, I will make sure the only thing you ever ‘develop’ in this town is a tan while you’re parking cars at the Ivy. Do you understand?”

“I understand, Mr. Shaye,” Mark said, his heart hammering a rhythm of pure adrenaline.

“Get out,” Shaye ordered, already reaching for the phone. “And find me a copy of that first book. The ‘Autumn’ one. I want to see if these ‘friends’ are actually worth a damn.”

Mark didn’t walk out of the office; he practically floated. Somehow, he’d taken his shot. Now he just had to make sure it hit the target.

I'm Still Here...

I've been busy working on a bunch of stuff lately. And I got caught in the big nasty storm we had last week and had to spend the night away from home. That sucked. Anyway, I've basically dropped my other blog about the publication of 3rd edition D&D since there's been little to no interest in it and no feedback whatsoever. Plus, I can't spare the money to buy more of the products anyway. So, it will stay dormant for the time being.

The project I mentioned last time is a 'what-if' scenario involving the potential creation of a Dragonlance trilogy of movies back during the huge fantasy bonanza we got in the 2000s. I've been working with it pretty steadily for the past week and a half, but I ran into a few snags and had to go back to redo stuff at the beginning (and thus invalidate most of what I'd worked on already). But, that's the way it goes. So, I'm going to polish up the beginning and post some of it here for people to look at. If it's well received, I'll continue developing it here.

In the meantime, I hope everyone enjoyed my Top Ten Adventures list. I'm considering doing something else in that vein in the near future. Top Ten lists are a pretty easy way to generate blog content, although it might be seen as lazy. Still, they do give insight into the writer's mindset. So they're not totally self-indulgent. Just mostly.

Anyway, it's late (past midnight here), so it's off to bed and early to rise to make more bread. Yay.

Creative Juices

Well, that's been quite the ride. I've been hit by the inspiration bug and spent the last week doing a lot of work on an 'alternate timeline' project that has really taken on a life of its own. It's already a full hundred pages, which should give you an idea of how much I've fallen into this. I'm tired, sick, and behind on my housework, but I haven't felt this energized in a long time. I'm just not sure what to do with this project. Do I post it here in excerpts, or start yet another blog for people to follow it? Do I post it to an online forum for feedback? Or do I just sit on it and keep it to myself? It's not something I can publish, since it's a modern-day pop-culture alternate history.

Decisions, decisions. Any feedback would be welcome. If you're interested in seeing more, let me know.

My Top Ten Adventures: #1, B10 Night's Dark Terror

Of course it's this one. Was there ever any doubt? There are two kinds of gamers: Those who think B10 is the greatest D&D module of all time, and those who are wrong. This is the absolute peak of D&D right here, everything that made the game great is within these covers. And you'll notice the Union Jack on the masthead; this was one of the contributions from the UK, and they really went all out to make this the best of all time.

Night's Dark Terror is pitched as a bridge between the claustrophobic dungeon crawling for beginners found in the Basic rules, and the far-reaching wilderness exploration of the Expert rules. And it more than lives up to the billing. This is an epic, spanning a large chunk of the Grand Duchy of Karameikos, the default beginner setting for the BECMI series of D&D rules. Most of the Basic modules and several of the Expert modules were set here, either retroactively or explicitly. Karameikos is the heartbeat of Mystara, aka the Known World. And Night's Dark Terror had a huge part in defining Karameikos as presented in the Gazetteer series. Doing a full synopsis would take too long, but here's a brief summary.

****************

The party begins with a seemingly simple task: escorting a herd of horses to the remote Sukiskyn homestead in the Grand Duchy of Karameikos. Upon arrival, they are immediately thrust into a desperate, night-long defense of the farmstead against a massive, coordinated siege by multiple goblin tribes. This opening battle reveals that the attacks are more than mere raids; they are part of a larger plot by a sinister slaver organization known as the Iron Ring, who are searching for a specific magical tapestry that holds the key to a lost civilization. 

Following the siege, the adventurers embark on an expansive wilderness trek across more than 20,000 square miles of territory. They must track the Iron Ring’s agents and their goblin allies through various locales, including riverside villages and ruined cities like Xitaqa, to rescue a kidnapped homesteader named Stephan. Along the way, they discover a magical needle and thread that, when used with the recovered tapestry, reveals a hidden route through a northern mountain range into a secluded sanctuary. 

The adventure culminates in the Lost Valley of Hutaaka, where the party finds themselves in the middle of a conflict between two ancient cultures: the jackal-headed Hutaakans and the primitive Traldar. Exploring the valley leads to a final confrontation within the Vault of the Elders, where the players must contend with the remaining leaders of the Iron Ring and an ancient "crawling horror". After securing the valley's treasures and resolving the factional war, the party must navigate a treacherous escape as former allies may turn on them to claim the spoils for themselves.

**********

Trust me, that only scratches the surface of what's inside. The siege of Sukiskyn plays out on a large map with counters (provided with the module). There are nearly twenty total maps covering different locations, and plenty of side quests as well. This is an adventure that will take many sessions to complete, even if the party is laser-focused on the main plotline and doesn't waste any time with the side quests.

But B10's greater legacy is its impact on the development of Karameikos. Prior to this module's publication, information on Karameikos itself was limited to a few blurbs in the Isle of Dread module, the canonic placement of several Basic modules in the setting, and the city of Specularum detailed in B6, The Veiled Society (details that would be drastically changed upon the publication of the Grand Duchy of Karameikos gazetteer, GAZ1). But here, we get tribal factions, information on the Iron Ring, homesteaders with names that point to the Slavic heritage of the Traladaran people, and even some detail on the Callarii elves of eastern Karameikos. This is a treasure trove of information on Karameikos, and served as a primary source for the 'bible' of the setting, GAZ1.

I'm not sure I really need to add more to this; B10 is a classic by any measure, and everyone should play through it at least once just to really get that feel for the land of Karameikos, and because it's a fantastic adventure in its own right. I cannot recommend this any more strongly than this: If I could only play one D&D adventure for the rest of my life, it's this one.

And that wraps up my diversionary project on my top ten adventures of all time. Next time...I have no idea what I'll be talking about. But hopefully it will be interesting. See you then.

My Top Ten Adventures: Honorable Mentions

Every top 10 list has honorable mentions, right? Of course they do. So, who am I to buck the trend? Well, I often do buck trends; in fact, I kind of prefer to do so. But in this case, we'll go along. Let's see what we have. These are adventures that I really like, but that couldn't muscle into the Top 10 Adventures.

This one was really close to making it, but I already had B1 on it, and I think that's a slightly better introductory kit than this one. Not that this one isn't great; it's got a ton of advice for DMs to get started, and the dungeon is really not that complicated. It's certainly challenging, particularly with BECMI rules. And, unlike B1, this one ties into the Known World/Mystara setting, being directly set in the Grand Duchy of Karameikos. Along with its follow-up, B12 Queen's Harvest, these make a great introduction to the setting for beginners. My only caveat is that this adventure would be too simple for experienced players to enjoy, but it's still a great adventure. The premise is simple; the party arrives at the village of Stallanford in time for a festival celebrating the long-dead king Halav. However, orcs have raided the village and kidnapped the local priest, and the party are asked to help. Finding him isn't hard, although there are plenty of orcs to dispute the party's claims on the priest. When rescued, he heals the party as best he can, and he tells the party that there is more to the dungeon than they have seen, that even the orcs don't want anything to do with. There's a secret door, of course, and the party finds some nasty undead and the like down there, along with some nice treasure. Again, it's a straightforward adventure, a good introductory dungeon crawl. Highly recommended.

Remember when I said that there were plenty of railroad-type adventures in early D&D, even if they weren't called that at the time? Well, this is the exception that proves the rule. This is a great, packed module with lots of stuff going on and many different plot threads for players to unravel. There's the mongrelmen and the captive magic-user. There are the yuan-ti, in their first-ever appearance. There are tasloi and bugbears, bullywugs and an aboleth (also making its first appearance). There are multiple ways into the city, all with their own perils. The first part of this adventure was used as a tournament module in 1980, and Dave Cook wrote the rest of the module around that. This 32-page module could have supported a party for months, if not years, of gaming.

If you're wondering why this is so great, I'll simply point you to the two words at the top of each of the modules. Hollow. World. I came really close to putting this in the list, but Volturnus demanded a spot. Still, this trilogy is a full campaign arc that takes characters inside Mystara to the Hollow World and the continent of Iciria. And there, they will encounter monsters and cultures that have been extinct on Mystara's surface for centuries, millennia, and even millions of years. They'll meet and have to deal with Azcans, who are basically Aztecs. They'll find the lost kingdom of Nithia (ancient Egypt), complete with pyramids and the like. They'll journey to an island that has an Indian culture, and I don't mean North American; I mean Indian sub-continent. Oh, and they'll also get involved in an Immortal plot to corrupt magic throughout Mystara, both on the surface and below. This is epic fun.

Alright, that's my honorable mentions. Next up, I'll bring you the grand finale, the all-time greatest adventure I've ever owned, played, or heard of. And believe me, the voting was not even close. I'm sure you already know what it is, because this is everyone's favorite. And no, it's not Keep on the Borderlands.

Top Ten Adventures: #2, DL1 Dragons of Despair

The year is 1984. TSR is now ten years old, and is the undisputed king of RPGs, not only with Dungeons & Dragons, but games in a bunch of other genres. Boot Hill, Metamorphosis Alpha, Gamma World, Top Secret, Star Frontiers, Gangbusters, the new Marvel Super Heroes game...but everything was about to change in a way no one had anticipated.

The top-secret plan was to do something D&D had never done in the previous decade: Base a set of adventures around dragons. It makes sense; the game is called Dungeons & DRAGONS, after all. But when you look through the classic TSR modules, including the ones written by Gary Gygax, you won't find many dragons. And you certainly won't find any taking center stage. So, when Tracy Hickman approached the TSR brass about doing a dragon-based series, they went with it.

This was a huge production; the modules were only a part of it. There were novels, calendars, miniatures, Dragon magazine tie-ins, the works. The trade dress for the modules was unique and eye-catching. The cover art was done by men like Larry Elmore, Clyde Caldwell, and Jeff Easley, who were the second wave of TSR artists following the earlier artists like Erol Otus, Jeff Dee, and Dave Trampier. Margaret Weis came in to help write the novels, the first that TSR would publish. It was a new aesthetic, and it worked. Boy, did it ever.

The first novel, based on the first two adventures of the series, became a New York Times bestseller. And while the second adventure rightly gets labeled a railroad, the first one was a magnificent module that combined storytelling with exploration and mystery, things that D&D had always done well.

Dragons of Despair was the first adventure that not only provided pre-generated characters, but expected you to play with them. Not as much as later adventures would expect (it was just recommended here), but the module flat-out says, 'this is a story' on the first page. And it was the first module that tweaked the rules and made the setting feel different from a normal D&D module. This wasn't Greyhawk; this was Krynn. And the setting had rules to enforce that. No clerical magic, no dragons, gold is worthless, and halflings are now kender, and you will be annoyed by them. They even got new special abilities: Immunity to fear and Taunting. So they could be even more annoying.

I'm sure you know the characters: Tanis Half-Elven, Flint Fireforge, Sturm Brightblade, the twins Raistlin and Caramon Majere, and Tasslehoff Burrfoot, later joined by Goldmoon and Riverwind. In time, they would become legends. Here, they're just mid-level D&D characters ranging from 3rd to 6th. Raistlin is the weak link (in more ways than one); he's just a 3rd-level magic-user. Meanwhile, his twin brother Caramon is a 6th-level fighter with more than four times his brother's hit points. Note that the recommended level range for the characters is 4-6. Raistlin just refuses to conform to expectations.

The 'back story' for this adventure is contained on the backs of the tiny character cards. The party, old friends from the town of Solace, have been wandering for five years, seeking signs of the true gods, and everyone came up empty. Now they've gathered together again, and things are about to change. They meet Goldmoon and Riverwind, fight some hobgoblins, and learn of a mysterious blue crystal staff that mysterious armies are searching for. The party has to escape with the staff and find its resting place, where they will then discover the greatest treasure the world has ever known.

The settings in this adventure alone are evocative and amazing to see. The Darken Wood, which terrifies even the most stalwart of heroes; the village of Solace and the town of Haven, the destruction of Que-Shu, and the ruined city of Xak Tsaroth, buried in a swamp and infested with gully dwarves. And of course, the dragon. An ancient black, Onyx is one hell of a challenge for a party of this level. And this is just the kickoff to the saga.

So, why is this my second-favorite adventure of all time? Oh, there are plenty of reasons. First, as I said, it's the first part of an amazing epic series, but it's playable on its own if you really want to do that. There's a definite beginning and ending here, although there's a final bit of boxed text that hints at what is to come.

Second, the maps. Xak Tsaroth is a brilliant design, a dungeon in three dimensions as there are multiple levels all shown on the same isometric map. The elevator, the gully dwarf king, the tube slide...there's so much here. And the rest of the maps are inspirational, too.

Third...the music. Yes, the music. Remember the Castle of the Blind Sun, that had recommended classical music selections? This one does it one better. There is actual sheet music in this adventure. Seriously! And it's playable and sounds great! I'll prove it to you. Check out a live performance of Goldmoon's Song and tell me that doesn't have you feel the D&D oozing through your veins. There were several other adventures that included music; off the top of my head, I can remember songs in DL2, DL4, and DL8.

Finally, the story itself. It was a different kind of adventure from what we'd seen before then. There were stakes that went beyond 'don't get killed while you're trying to loot the dungeon'. And sure, adventures like Against the Cult of the Reptile God had stakes, but that was local stuff. These stakes were world-shaking. And yes, there were some railroady bits here and there, such as the looming dragon armies that would herd the characters in the right direction if they strayed. But let's be honest, the earlier dungeon modules were often railroady in nature as well. You had to get to the Frost Giant Jarl, or travel through the Underdark in search of the drow, or escape from the dungeon of the Slave Lords wearing nothing but a loincloth. This used the railroad aspects to drive the adventure forward; the cool stuff was in Xak Tsaroth anyway, so why not go there?

Now, I know a lot of people dislike this module because of the change in gameplay that it portended. After all, this was indeed a shift, and it was a very popular one. The sales figures were through the roof. People wanted what Dragonlance was offering, so TSR made sure to give it to them in spades. The location-based sandbox-style was diminished, and storytelling gaming became the thing. Was that a good thing for the hobby? Yes and no. It broadened the game's appeal, but it was a change that many old-schoolers never accepted. To each their own; I'm just going by this particular adventure.

So, that brings us to #1. But before I do that, I'm going to post some honorable mentions, modules that I like a lot but don't quite make it to the top ten. In the meantime, Happy Valentine's Day, and game on.

Top Ten Adventures: #3, The Mud Sorcerer's Tomb (Dungeon 37)

Another 'first' for me, this was the first issue of Dungeon Magazine I ever bought. And boy, was it a good one. There was a yuan-ti lair for mid-level characters, a destroyed wizard's tower for levels 1-3 starring an imp, a Celtic-style adventure hunting a dangerous beast, a side-trek starring some pet leucrotta...and The Mud Sorcerer's Tomb, a high-level (10-14) adventure that rivaled the Tomb of Horrors for player challenge and devastation. I absolutely love this adventure.

Seven or so centuries ago, a cult of magic-users who mixed water and earth magic into a bizarre style of sorcery that earned them the derisive nickname, 'mud sorcerers' from the more sophisticated practitioners of the magical arts. They were students of the long-dead, totally deranged, lunatic wizard-priest Jezule, and they were fanatical about secrecy. Therefore, little was actually known about them except their style of magic.

Oracles predicted the downfall of the cult, so their leadership came up with a plan to thwart this future. The leaders of the mud sorcerers would be entombed in huge, labyrinthine crypts in temporal stasis so as to await a time when their faithful followers would take advantage of the renewed chaos of society and awaken their masters. Unfortunately, a strong leadership rose to power in the region and hunted down the cultists with zeal and ferocity, purging them from the land through execution. Thus, the tombs of the mud sorcerers were forgotten for centuries.

Nice background, isn't it? Apparently, about 30 of these tombs have already been found and plundered, but there are quite a few more that are still hidden. And the lucky player characters get to find one themselves.

Like the Tomb of Horrors, there are some ground rules that will change the tactics of the players, such as wards that prevent spells like teleport and passwall, so the party can't skip ahead. Even blink doesn't work in here. Also, undead can't be destroyed, only turned, and even that is only hedging them out of a 10' radius circle. The Dark Side is strong in here. If the party is casting water or earth-based spells, there's a chance they'll summon a mud grue that will be laser-focused on killing the caster regardless of how many party members get in the way. And divination spells are hindered or reduced in power as well. So, this will be a bit of a slog. Enjoy.

If the party is smart enough to consult a sage before delving into this tomb, they'll get some helpful hints, like 'prepare for lots of poison', and 'expect traps even if you don't find them'. They'll also learn of the cult's predilection for using false sepulchers, which might help them avoid thinking they've cleared the tomb too early.

The main difference between this adventure and the Tomb of Horrors is that this one has more monsters to fight. There are hill giant mummies, a spirit naga, an annis hag, water weirds, a ghost, some clay golems, and more. There's also a neat little twist at the end if the party actually does get all the way to the end and find the actual mud sorcerer's hiding place.

All in all, this is a really fun and dangerous adventure that will test the party's abilities and the skill of the players. It's a great homage to the Tomb, with the addition of clues about an ancient cult that plans to return to wreak havoc on the world. Maybe the party will be inspired to seek out more of these tombs in the future.

Two left! My second-favorite adventure started the greatest campaign in D&D history. I'll tell you all about it next time.