This is the second edition of The Mines of Keridav (1983) from Gamelords, a reissue of the 1979 Phoenix Games edition. It is statted for Thieves Guild but it is essentially generic, suitable for any D&D-derived system with a minimum of conversion. The basic plot is a cliché—rescue the princess from the evil wizard—but there aren’t actually a ton of scenarios where damsels are in distress, so it feels sort of novel in a weird way. The mines themselves are logically arranged and therefore extremely deadly for a frontal assault—players who want to succeed are going to need to be clever. The mage, Keridav is tough (though one with an interesting weakness—in close quarters, he is liable to get flustered and stutter, disrupting his spellcasting) and supported by a band of orcs and a menagerie of critters. Of potential help for the players, Keridav has imprisoned a population of dwarves and forced them to work the mines. His hope that the princess will naturally fall in love with him also presents unusual opportunities a smarter villain might otherwise account for.
The great thing is that the mines is only a small part of the module (just five of the 28 pages). The rest is dedicated to describing the Tiraval Valley, a number of overland hexes that include a well-realized village, a ruined castle (which would be expanded on in the companion module) and a number of encounter areas. This sort of material was more common by 1983, but when the first edition came out in ‘79, there wasn’t a ton of wilderness stuff out there and honestly, of the stuff I’ve read, this is some of the most polished and cohesive. I’d have no problem lifting this for one of my games.
Like most Gamelords books, the art is pretty solid. VM Wyman is on the cover—I like their cartoony fantasy and that lettering is great (they did a lot of work for the Thieves Guild line and it is definitely part of the charm). Bob Charrette (Bushido, Shadowrun) also has some art inside, an artifact of the book originally being published by Phoenix Games, where he started out.
