Product Description

A D&D adventure for 14th-level characters.

In this adventure, the heroes must unravel the plots of the vile minions of Lolth, the infamous Demon Queen of Spiders. Along the way, they'll face off against drow, demons, and worse!

This adventure can be run as a stand-alone adventure or as Part Two of a three-part series of adventures (starting with P1 King of the Trollhaunt Warrens) that spans 10 levels of gameplay.

Demon Queen's Enclave is a D&D adventure designed to take characters from 14th to 17th level.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #258290 in Books
• Published on: 2008-12-16
• Released on: 2008-12-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780786949779
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
DAVID NOONAN is a game designer for Wizards of the Coast, Inc. He contributed to the 4th edition core rules and co-wrote the Cormyr: The Tearing of the Weave(TM) adventure. He lives in Washington state with his wife and two children.

CHRIS SIMS works as a game designer for Wizards of the Coast, Inc. His recent credits include the 4th Edition Monster Manual and Dungeon Master's Guide.

Customer Reviews

It's just OK
I admit I was really excited to hear of this when it first came out. I was hoping for a re-incarnated adventure combining "Queen of the Demonweb Pits", "Kingdom of the Ghouls"(from Dungeon#70), "Expedition to the Demonweb Pits", and possibly some other Drow adventures etc.

At first, things looked good because they start off describing the many factions that are vying for control in a drow enclave deep in the underdark. There are 3 or 4. The enclave has been decimated by undead and demons. The factions are holed up trying to survive. The party gets to encounter each faction, and can choose to parlay or they can kill them outright. The problem is the NPC characters are not very well fleshed out. They are the stereotypical drow matron, drow wizard, drow fighter, etc. They just tacked on "motivation A" to the matron who wants...guess what... more power. Considering that the only contact you get with them is a 5 minute encounter maybe they didn't need to be fleshed out. The characters fall very flat and an average DM would need to be an expert at improvisation to give them any personality that made them memorable. Luckily the DM that ran it for me put a lot of work into that. There's no intrigue, there's no subterfuge other than: meet matron, she asks you for something, you do it, she rewards you, you kill her anyway for the XP. Repeat with the other 3 factions. There's never any fear or feel of drow society since the city has been sacked. SPOILER ALERT: none of the factions ever sell the party out. It would have been awesome if the party was relying on a faction only to find out they sold the party out to another faction and betrayed them at a pivotal time. END SPOILER ALERT.

I think it would have worked better if the factions weren't just shells of their former selves. It would have been better if defeating the main undead faction were impossible unless you got help from at least one of the factions. Then there would have been more moral discussion on who to ally yourself. The party would have to discuss taking the lesser of two evils and also have to investigate the factions more to find out who they want to join; who's the strongest, who's the most evil. That investigation could have opened up lots of role-playing etc. It also would have been better if the factions had more of a backing. For example, if you walk into a gang leader's house in Chinatown and kill him. He's not the supreme leader so you know that the gang will not just fall apart. The gang has thousands of members that will take retribution on you. It makes for a more scary negotiation with them. Even adding a non-drow faction would have been cool, like a trek to negotiate with the Kuo-Toa like in the old-school modules. As it is, you can walk through and kill everything in the adventure all on your own including the main bad guy and his faction.

A lot of the fights are in really tight quarters. 4th edition is more fun when the battles are in places with tons of tactical possibilities. It seems a lot of the fights just got stuck in some doorway or in a small 4-by-4 room. My rogue wouldn't have been able to maneuver even if he was an artful dodger.

I would recommend a 3.5 adventure:"Endless Night" published by paizo. They captured drow and the flavor of their society very well.

Undead Underground
I am currently taking my team of players through this module, and I have gotten multiple compliments from the group, saying they are some of the best sessions that have ever played.

The encounters are built superbly well and are a real treat to run. It helps when you have creative players that take complete advantage of every piece of terrain given to them. Each fight is different since there seem to be 4 or 5 factions vying for power, between demons, undead, spiders, and drow.

The material given makes it easy to tie it into your homebrew campaign. We've been running these characters from level 1 in a homebrew world, and now that they are level 14 they are carving through the Underdark like they were born to do so.

My one complaint is that it comes with 1 two-sided poster map while some of the others seem to come with more. A good thing about it is that the encounters flow pretty logically, so before the session begins I draw two or three detailed maps on my wet-erase battle grid assuming that they will go there. Sure enough, the characters pick where they feel they need to go next, and they manage to go to each drawn location.

There is enough material to last months if you are doing weekly sessions like I am. Pick this one up!

Excellent!
Overall- This is well worth the money. It is higher level so any decent DM can meld it to their needs with their experience and creativity.

I just finished the scenario. Picking up the Open Grave book opens up possiblities or just adding "undead" flavor/template to any mob gets over the tedium of ghoul after ghoul.

Problem- PCs enter a drow city and DM can guide through in 3/4 sessions or let PCs fumble through in 10+ if PCs want to check out every single thing *shrug* so preparation/knowing the PCs are definitely musts. Getting minis can be a prob because, as this is a higher level, many of them are rares.

Problem- No campaign can forsee everything so in the following I made suggestions that I added to help out the game.

There are a few other modifications that I did with my weekly game to "jump start" and add some difficulty to this campaign (the 6 PCs I had owned everything I threw at them).


SPOILER ALERT:
-There's a +5 artifact *grin evilly* weapon that... that I introduced in the first (intro) encounter (slave trogs with collosal carrion crawler carrying the weapon in its belly; DC Arcana)- the role play of this sentient weapon helped guide/speed the PCs along/add flavor/drama- DM can let PCs decide or DC religion/whatever to decide whose hands it appears in- I added dynamic (changing) to the weapon so any PC could use it
-"Caught in the Middle" -Drow drop 2 "drow house insignias". Add glyphs to the doorways leading out- can only get by with insignia- creates a bit of a puzzle
-Slave quarters-Dungeon Delve troll minis were nice (added a 2nd-Mort and Gort)
-When my PCs played hack and slash with drow (skipping diplomacy)- a pair of "(human)crazed nobles" popped up-"3" clouds of darkness-hid another 7 drow assassins on the ramparts
-DM step in- added the jump in of the Raven Queen vs. Orcus theme to "freeze" game when PCs were being a bit to aggressive and got in trouble
-PC changing characters were sent on mission to assist from Raven Queen etc.

-Additional/changed encounters- Patrols (when PCs aren't stealthy)-
1)Nightmare with a Deathknight
2)Goristro with Bodak Reavers
3)Bridge of Bones- add floating Caller in Darkness (w/ reach 3) for the range aspect
4) Death Gate- "Deathpriests of Orcus" summon a scaled down Aspect of Orcus (when else are ya going to use this mini *chuckle*)
PCs ran away from this so caught them coming back with
5)Astral Stalkers
6) and then zombie swarms 3x3 (different type of mob not at all in here) on the Bridge of Bones
7)Cages- used War Devil mini
8)Butcher Shop- switched Goristro to 2 Blackroot Treants (these are cheap and make encounter tougher)
9) Black Gate- added another "noble" to hide 2nd building and take pot shots at PCs
10) As Black Gate winds down, with new minis, a scaled down Balor morphing out of the statue to guard the "Black Gate"
11- Final Showdown =) (I have to leave some of the creativity up to you.)

Enjoy!