D&D BECMI - Hollow World Adventure - Nightstorm

Dungeons and Dragons BECMI Edition

D&D BECMI - Hollow World Adventure - Nightstorm

Dungeons and Dragons BECMI Edition

Product Description - D&D BECMI - Hollow World Adventure - Nightstorm

Third Adventure in the Blood Brethren Trilogy.

To find the Immortals!

The all-powerful Immortals have vanished! The quest to locate them has led across the Atlass Ocean to the land of the Shahjapur, where moguls hunt tigers, untouchables respectfully avoid higher castes, and holy fakirs perch immobile for years on end.

In this land of shrines and elephants and shapeshifting assassins, resolution may lie at the end of the mysterious “Emerald River.” But no one knows the location of this river and no map shows its bed. Does the answer lie within the Temple of the Eight Sweet Winds? Hopefully so, for time grows short. The Immortals themselves must be found and enlisted – to stave off the approaching cataclysm called:

NIGHTSTORM!

Nightstorm is the third adventure for the D&D HOLLOW WORLD Campaign Set.

Product History

HWA3: “Nightstorm”(1991), by Allen Varney, is the third of the Hollow World Adventures and also the third of the Blood Brethren trilogy. It was published in February 1991.

Origins (I): Hollow World Adventures. “Nightstorm” finishes off Allen Varney’s tour of the Hollow World. He delves into one more kingdom and offers a truly epic conclusion that caps the schemes of the whole trilogy.

Origins (II): Spells of Preservations. Varney originally wanted his adventure trilogy to make a major change to the Hollow World. His original pitch to line editor Bruce Heard suggested that in Blood Brethren’s finale, the Hollow World’s Spell of Preservation would be destroyed. He explained the benefits of this: “This would open the setting for the players to make major changes, if they wished — to reform evil customs and take part in building a new (hollow) world.” Varney generally thought that the Spell of Preservation was an obstacle to Hollow World play, as bad as Star Trek’s prime directive.

Heard “demurred”. He didn’t want to mess with the premise of a new setting that had just been created. Varney thought that the ending of the trilogy lacked “thematic oomph” as a result. However, reviewers have typically found it to be impressively epic anyway.

Adventure Tropes. As with its predecessors, early parts of “Nightstorm” mix together set encounters with sandboxed investigations. Chapter 6, “The Yantra of the Emerald River” is particularly notable because it features a trio of MacGuffin hunts that can be run in any order and which are relatively freeform.

Toward the end of the adventure, the encounters feel a bit more railroaded as players move through a specific sequence of encounters … but they’re still surprisingly freeform, as the GM gets to fill in details as appropriate for his own campaign.

The climax of the adventure trilogy involves a confrontation with Thanatos himself. The heavily plotted adventures of the ’90s too often let players watch as a very powerful adversary fought some other powerful entity; “Nightstorm” instead lets players take the starring roles, as they’re powered up and Thanatos is powered down.

Exploring the Hollow World. “Nightstorm” introduces an entirely new Hollow World culture, Shahjapur, which is based on Mughal-era India. However, it isn’t just a setting for an adventure: Varney offers an entire mini-Gazetteer, and also details its main city, Dharsatra.

Varney links Shahjapur to the outer-world land of Sind, saying that the Immortals preserved part of Sind just prior to its contact with outsiders. Unfortunately, the history of Sind was rewritten in Champions of Mystara (1993), retconning the connection to Shahjapur that had been revealed here.

“Nightstorm” also touches upon Greater Colima, expanding on the stonecarver culture and lands of Colima that were introduced in HWA2: “Nightrage”(1990).

Exploring the Hollow World: The Planes. Part of “Nighstorm” takes place on the “Emerald River”, which is essentially a variant of the River of Time that first appeared in Dragonlance Legends (1986).

NPCs of Note. Thanatos continues to be the main adversary of this trilogy, and appears in (weakened) avatar form here. One other immortal makes an appearance: Asterius. He’s a prisoner who must be rescued, a rather humiliating role for a god. Asterius is an immortal of thought, the patron of trade and money. He originated in Blackmoor and got a bit of attention in the Hollow World Campaign Set (1990). This is his main starring role.

Future History. After the end of the Blood Brethren trilogy, TSR moved over an “HWR” series of Hollow World Reference books (1991-1992), though they would publish one more Hollow World adventure, HWQ1: “The Milenian Sceptre” (1992).

About the Creators. Freelancer Varney had previously worked for Steve Jackson Games, but was now writing for a variety of publishers. His TSR work started with M4: “Five Coins for a Kingdom” (1987) and now continued with a whole trilogy of supplements.

About the Product Historian

The history of this product was researched and written by Shannon Appelcline, the editor-in-chief of RPGnet and the author of Designers & Dragons – a history of the roleplaying industry told one company at a time. Please feel free to mail corrections, comments, and additions to shannon.appelcline@gmail.com.

Where it is used - D&D BECMI - Hollow World Adventure - Nightstorm

Wrath of the Immortals - Used in the timeline as Thanatos and the Shahjapurs.

Content Updates