Troubled Times, Troubled Adventures: Waterdeep, part six

At long last, we are on the last chapter of the Avatar Trilogy. Chapter 6 of Waterdeep is a long, convoluted mess that ends with a huge insult both in game and out of game. But let’s take it one step at a time.

“Midnight has seen the Realm of the Dead, and she would rather be destroyed utterly than live in the Realms if Myrkul rules them. What actually happened there? ‘Don’t ask,’ Midnight replies, shaking her head. ‘Never ask me that again.’

“The only fact she will reveal about her time in Hades is that she succeeded in gaining possession of the second Tablet of Fate – the one that had been held by Myrkul. As the PCs can deduce, her success occurred at just about the same time that Myrkul’s minions stole the first tablet. Thus, an ironic and uneasy balance is maintained – and the fate of Realms, as before, still hinges on which faction will ultimately possess both tablets at the same time.

“If the players think to post a guard over Midnight’s sphere in the Pool of Loss, go to Event 1. However, don’t remind them of this if they don’t think of it! No NPC thinks of it, either.

“If the PCs post no guard, skip the next event. PCs can undertake more adventures in Waterdeep (left as exercises to the DM). If and when they return to Blackstaff Tower to rest, go to Event 2.”

Troubled Times, Troubled Adventures: Waterdeep, part five

As Chapter 5 of Waterdeep begins, the PCs have been separated from Midnight. They have also lost the Tablet of Fate to the god of death. But wait…didn’t the text in the previous section state that the PCs could hold onto the tablet if they took special pains to do so?

“If the PCs managed to hang onto their Tablet of Fate through the battle at Dragonspear Castle, they should lose it before they reach Waterdeep. Harry them with more night riders, or have Myrkul himself steal into camp invisibly and steal the tablet from its sleeping guard.”

Yeah…should’ve known better.

“Once they lose the tablet, the PCs still should head for Waterdeep. They can guess that is where Myrkul will be, with one or both tablets. Besides, they still want to meet Elminster, so that the sage can help them find Midnight.”

There is no part of that paragraph that I like.

Troubled Times, Troubled Adventures: Waterdeep, part four

Chapter 4 of Waterdeep opens with a multiple choice path: either Midnight teleported the group to safety or they’re screwed. Breaking with my normal format, I’ll show the second option first, since it’s the non-assumed part that won’t get brought up again in the module.

Troubled Times, Troubled Adventures: Waterdeep, part three

Waterdeep Chapter 3 assumes that the PCs watched as Midnight saved the day yet again and that they are okay with having Bhaal incapacitated rather than dead. Admittedly, they can’t kill off Bhaal without some fatalities – as demonstrated in Tantras, a dying god goes out with a literal bang that devastates everything in the area. Still, this would seem like an ideal time for a resourceful and noble PC to get everyone else out of the area and put down the Lord of Murder once and for all.

Troubled Times, Troubled Adventures: Waterdeep, part two

Chapter 2 of Waterdeep wastes no time in telling us where the plot is going to go: “Midnight can think of nothing but her lost spell book. She needs a spell book to cast spells, and the party certainly needs her magic! Everyone should agree at this point that one of the first things they must do is find a way to replace the lost book.”

I’m beginning to wonder if these adventures were even designed for parties with a mage. If the group has a mage on hand, he’s been entirely useless this whole trilogy. His magic hasn’t worked reliably, and he’s been routinely dwarfed in power by Midnight and Elminster, both of whom operate with power of plot while the PC mage is bound by the rules.

Troubled Times, Troubled Adventures: Waterdeep, part one

Who will be the new gods?

The God of Strife is dead, destroyed in his attack on Tantras, and Midnight and the player characters have recovered the first Tablet of Fate – one of a pair of mysterious artifacts that will return the gods to their former glory and save the Realms from the fallen deities’ wrath.

But the quest isn’t over! To find the other Tablet of Fate, your heroes must travel across Faerûn to Waterdeep, the City of Splendors. But both Midnight’s former ally, Cyric, and Myrkul, the Lord of the Dead, want the tablets for their own dark ends, and they will stop at nothing to capture Midnight – even if it means the destruction of the Realms!

Waterdeep marks the third and final portion of the Avatar Trilogy. It is also the most epic, with the PCs taking on multiple gods and meet Ao the Overlord himself. Perhaps because it has so much epic potential, it’s also the worst of the three modules, repeating all of the mistakes in the first two modules and then ending in the ultimate screwjob to the PCs. (Well, maybe not as ultimate as the “Rocks fall, everyone dies” ending of Neverwinter Nights 2, but it’s right up there.)

I think the cover, like the covers of Shadowdale and Tantras, is recycled art from another TSR product. But unlike Tantras, this recycled art makes sense, as it sets a pair of adventurers right in front of the Yawning Portal, a popular inn in Waterdeep. The woman even resembles Midnight’s description in the text, although it doesn’t mention her being so scantily clad in the flavor text. The back of the product says the module is for four to six PCs of levels six to nine, which is in line with the other modules. And a blurb on the front cover advertises the adventure as compatible with both 1st and 2nd edition AD&D, although we already saw some of 1st edition fall away in the last module with every assassin in the Realms dying at once.

The introduction gives us a breakdown of the story so far, in case the DM didn’t run the first two adventures. It also explains that the NPCs Midnight, Adon, and Kelemvor, are required for this adventure. Of note, both Adon and Kelemvor are 5th-level characters, meaning that they should be lower level than the PCs. Naturally, we can expect level not to matter, since they and Midnight are massively plot protected.

The prologue also gives details about the plans of Myrkul and Bhaal, the two remaining evil gods who stole the Tablets of Fate in the first place. The gods are manipulating Midnight and the PCs, allowing them to find the Tablets only to rob them afterwards. We begin with an in media res opening for the PCs, who took a ship from Tantras to Waterdeep only to get booted off because of a magical storm that caused the captain to think they were bad luck. So Chapter 1 begins back in Cormyr, not far off from where the PCs got involved in this whole mess in the first place and with several hundred miles of travel to go before reaching Waterdeep.

As in Tantras, there are no random encounters or non-plot related events here – the PCs should be used to having no freedom by now, anyway. And, as should be expected, we open up with an offstage event. The PCs are being pursued by two groups: followers of Bane, who blame Midnight for the death of their patron god (even though it was very clearly Torm who killed Bane in Tantras), and Cyric, who hopes to grab the Tablet of Fate from them. Cyric was, after all, the guy who walked around the last module wearing an “I’m evil” t-shirt but who still surprised all the NPCs with his sudden yet inevitable betrayal.

A Kind of Magic: Highlander: The Source, part two

Picking up from where we left off last time…

After Joe casually drops the fact that the the Watcher organization no longer exists, he informs Duncan that Methos and the other remaining immortals are looking for the Source, and Duncan is required to come along because Anna is joining up with them. Wait, what?!

A Kind of Magic: Highlander: The Source, part one

Highlander: The Source is the suckiest thing that ever sucked.

Believe it or not, it is worse than Highlander II. It has worse characterization than Highlander: Endgame. It was intended to be the first part of a trilogy of films, but instead stands as one final middle finger to fans. It systematically goes through everything that is iconic about the Highlander franchise and destroys it.

I have a really hard time not calling Highlander: The Source the single worst movie I have ever seen. Triumph of the Will has always stood out as the iconic terrible film to me, with monstrous content supporting the Nazi party and a pace that makes it feel like a week of torture, but it at least had some artful directing to it. The Russian version of Solaris is boring as all hell, but has something thought-provoking and eerie in its conclusion. Even Tommy Wiseau’s The Room, one of the single poorest examples of acting, writing, and directing in modern cinema, is at least so bad it’s funny. The Source isn’t even something I can laugh at. It’s like somebody systematically set out to make the worst movie of all time and proceeded to accomplish that goal with all the precision efficiency of an unstoppable bad movie-making machine.

Between Highlander II and Highlander: The Source, this single franchise has not one, but two of the worst movies ever made. How is that even possible?

Superhero Evolutions: Wonder Woman, part two

Through the 1980s, Wonder Woman changed a lot due largely to editorial laziness and inconsistent writing. People just couldn’t be bothered to try and keep her consistent from one issue to another up until Perez’s post-Crisis reboot. Going into the 90s, though, Wonder Woman changed even more, not due (entirely) to creator laziness but rather due to attempts to repeatedly market her or reinvent her for a changing crowd.

The 1990s brought a lot of change to superhero comics. Fans veered toward the idea of “grim and gritty” and superheroes who were less idealistic than the Silver Age icons. Paragon heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman suffered as a result. The market also targeted comic book speculators, the folks who mistakenly thought that buying special edition comics was a good investment. As a result, there was a big push to churn out major event after major event in an attempt to convince the speculators to buy variant covers, holo-foil covers, and comics where the iconic superheroes were supposedly “changed forever.” The death of Superman is a good example of this, with people rushing out to buy the issue where he died under the impression that it would make them rich someday. The fact is that such issues A) meant nothing in a comics universe where death was a speedbump, and B) were not rare like the valuable comics of the Golden and Silver Ages, and thus never really increased in value. That didn’t stop speculators from buying into comics, however, nor did it stop Marvel and DC from creating constant upheaval in their stories to appeal to said speculators. Wonder Woman had to face this battle as well as the fact that DC didn’t really know what to do with the iconic female superhero. She was a feminist character in a market primarily composed of adolescent males. So how do you get her to sell to high schoolers?

Superhero Evolutions: Wonder Woman, part one

“Go in peace my daughter. And remember that, in a world of ordinary mortals, you are a Wonder Woman.”

Wonder Woman has changed a lot in both powers and looks in her 80-plus years of existence. Even today, in an era where creators try to keep continuity more or less consistent, she changes radically from writer to writer. So let’s look at the greatest of the female superheroes, her origins, and the changes she’s been through over the years.