Unlimited Adventures: Trial of Champions (1993)

Another victory screen. This could become addictive.

         

I promised I wasn't finished with Unlimited Adventures. I love that it's always there, that it will always be there, whenever I get the Gold Box yen.

    

This time around, I decided to play one of the earliest adventures listed on the sheet that Abacos sent me, Wraithstar's "Trial of Champions" from April 1993. It's one of eight adventures from that month, and it seemed like it might be just right for my Level 5-6 party (the one that had finished "The Restoration of Gundahab"), as its starting characters are Levels 6-7. As it happened, I found it a bit too hard, and I ended up ducking out for a while to Roy Osborn's "What Are Friends For" (May 1993) for a little while. (This is not to be confused with Roy Orbison's cover of "That's What Friends Are For.")

      

"Ernie Devlin" is either a coincidence or an obscure reference from a 1970s kid.

       

"Friends" starts on a large overland map with the following backstory: "You have just arrived in Smallsville after an arduous journey from the east. The reason that you are here is because you got a strange request from your longtime friend Ernie Devlin." The request had been accompanied by a package with a picture of a wand, a ring, an orb, and a talisman and a note that said to meet Ernie in Yarbor.

   
As we tried to find Yarbor, we visited some menu towns and other locations and got the sense that all was not right with the land. We found a recently-burned town and a dying old woman who told us that the Southern Realm used to be guarded by an organization called The Protectors, but a "new ruling class" came to power, slowly took over, and drove everything to hell. The Protectors vanished. She told us we must stop Owha Tajrkiam and bring The Protectors back.

    

Things are pretty grim in this world.

       

We saved a "young man" from an assailant, and he asked if we'd help him find a Protectors' outpost. We said yes, but for some reason, when he actually joined, he became a young woman named Nacacia, a Level 11/9 thief/ranger. As her level significantly exceeded our own, I began to wonder if I'd chosen the wrong module.  

     

Maybe there was no artwork showing a woman fighting.

       

Eventually, we arrived at what I guess was Yarbor. A dark robed man approached and said, "If you want to see your friend alive, you will bring me the Ring of Power." He pointed his staff at us and we were teleported to a dungeon. As we roamed the caves, we were attacked every few steps by some canonical creatures (margoyles, carrion crawlers, Drow champions) and some created for the module (sand elementals). Fortunately, we could generally rest between encounters, as some of those enemies hit hard.

        

And paralyzed.

       

There was a boss fight with a fire elemental and some efreet. After we defeated them—an authentically challenging battle—we rescued a Protector named Priam, who turned out to be a Level 18 (!) fighter. I later checked the manual, and it turns out that Priam and Nacacia are stock NPCs programmed into the kit. Nacacia was originally in Curse of the Azure Bonds and Priam was in Secret of the Silver Blades.

      

This guy gets around. I guess that's why he's Level 18.

       

Unfortunately, I couldn't find a way out of the dungeon. I searched every square (using the "search" option) and pushed every wall, but I got nothing but battle after battle. That did its job, and after an hour or so, everyone was ready to increase another level. I thought the module had promise, so it was with some reluctance that I quit and sent the characters back to "Trial of Champions."

      

I poke at some walls in vain.

          

"Champions" is a tight, well-written module with one standard-sized town and one standard-sized dungeon. There are only about ten battles in it, but each one really punches. They're all designed to be tactically interesting in their own ways. They were a perfect challenge for my Level 7 party. I had to experiment with a variety of spells, keep up with healing during battle, and make a lot of use of magic items sold in the town.

   

The module begins with the party's arrival at Sedille, to which they have been drawn by promises of fame and wealth in the "Trial of Champions." As they disembark from their ship, they're greeted by the mayor of the town, Rolf, a fun callback to Pool of Radiance. Like his Pool namesake, he leads the party on a brief "tour" into the city, where a festival is underway.

   

The module begins.

     

The town has one shop ("Anjel's Armory"), a trainer, a temple, and an inn. The shop sells all goods, including some high-level mage and cleric spells that provide some much-needed tactical advantages in combat. It also sells healing and buffing potions. Even though the party was reasonably flush from the previous adventure, I had to make some tough choices here. You also need to save 1,000 platinum pieces to buy entry into the trial.

      

Some of the shop's offerings.

      

There are some fun "tavern tales" at the inn. We learned that centuries ago, a powerful sorcerer named Malhavok created the Trial of Champions "using foul magics." Apparently, no one has ever won the trial, but the mayor keeps sending people to their deaths because "it brings this small town much tourist money."

     

The town has the following encounters:

    

• In an alley near Anjel's armory, a pack of undead (specters, ghouls, and wights) attacks. "Enough mortals have invaded our resting place. You shall trouble us no more!" The battle isn't terribly hard on its own terms, but wights and specters can drain levels, which is kind of the opposite of why you're here.

     

I kept trying to grab a shot of a backstab, but this one, near the end of the battle, is the only one I could get.

      

• In a large town square, a disfigured man offers information for 10 platinum pieces. He says he used to work for Malhavok and that "the key to passage is the elements of his name."

• A secret door leads to an abandoned alley with half a dozen margoyles and two black puddings. Black puddings can only be damaged by magic or fire, and the first time we faced them, I ran out of spells before we could kill them, putting us at a stalemate. The second time, I memorized "Magic Missile" instead of "Enlarge" and was able to clear them out. They left a number of magic items.

       

Black puddings are the worst.

       

• A group of thieves ambushes the party in an alley near the inn. This is the easiest battle of the game.

• In a town hall, a woman who looks like Sasha from Pool of Radiance sells the party a brass amulet necessary to enter the trial.

• In the streets approaching the trial, an old man asks us to find the fate of his daughter, Kallithrea. She is another of the stock NPCs who made an appearance in "The Heirs to Skull Crag."

           

I mean, she went in alone, and there are six of us, so maybe we'll do better?

      

As the party gets near the trial, a man steps out of the crowd and says, "follow me." He leads the party to a secret door. Behind it is a group of spellcasters who greet the party with: "Welcome fools! You'll be one less party we have to compete with for the test!"

   

This leads to a battle with two mages, two clerics, and two fighters, all relatively high level—and they all get to go first. The clerics inevitably cast "Hold Person" and the mages inevitably cast "Lightning Bolt." The battle is nearly impossible to survive. It took me about eight tries to defeat them with half my party unconscious or dead. The enemies have some amazing loot, though, including a flail +3, a Girdle of Giant Strength, and a Wand of Ice Storm.

      

What about the female party members?

         

You cannot exit once you've entered the Trial of Champions. The trial itself begins with a modest combat against three earth elementals and some efreet. In the same chamber where we defeated them, we found the ghost of a previous contestant who gave us his long sword +3, though we didn't identify it as such until we were out of here.  

   

We soon found the ghost's (living) companion—Sir Priam again!—who joined the party. His room offered the only safe place to rest on the level. 

 

A northeast room had a battle with about 20 trolls. Gold Box trolls regenerate and will pop back up, fully healed, in the same place that they died, about four rounds after you kill them. Thus, to avoid those regenerations, you either have to kill all the trolls in four rounds or block the places that the early ones died with "Stinking Cloud," "Blade Barrier" (I had a few on scrolls), or your own bodies.

      

These are some particularly ugly trolls.

      

South of Priam's room was a jail guarded by six minotaurs, two dracolisks, a necromancer, and a cleric. They were arranged in a formation perfect for "Fireball," but the dracolisks were capable of stoning us with a gaze, and we had no way to cure that. 

    

Kallithrea was in a cell behind the minotaurs. We unlocked it with a key looted from the trolls, and she joined the party. She's a Level 9 cleric, and her healing helped a lot in the coming battles.

      

Poor woman was so rattled she forgot her own name.

         

Behind a hot door was a fight with a red dragon, salamanders, and efreet, followed immediately (no resting) with a battle with more fire-based creatures. Kallithrea had given us two Rings of Fire Resistance, and between those and "Resist Fire" spells from her and my existing cleric, we were able to do all right.  

     

The perfect formation for my second-favorite spell. I might even be able to get him again on the ricochet.

       

A door leading out of this room had a sign: "A curse upon all who enter the domain of Malhavok. Only the learned shall pass." We had to choose from five letters: Z, T, C, K, and G. The old man's clue from earlier was that "the key to passage is the elements of his name," which we interpreted correctly as the only letter (K) within his name.

        

But in the Latin alphabet, "Malhavok" ends with a "C."

         

Malhavok was waiting on the other side. "I did not create this little game for fools to win," he sneered. "I created it to bring me profit!"

   

The final battle had two groups of enemies far enough apart that they couldn't be affected with mass damage spells. Each group had a combination of fire elementals, fire giants, salamanders, hellhounds, one high-level cleric, and one high-level mage (Malhavok himself for one of the groups). Complicating things, Malhavok couldn't be targeted by spells directly (he must have some form of invisibility); he was capable of "Delayed Blast Fireball"; and he had a very high initiative.  

     

Malhavok goes early and nails us.

       

The spellcasters were naturally a priority, but the elementals, giants, and salamanders were capable of wiping out half a character's hit points with a single attack. In short, it was a deliciously challenging fight, won only through extensive buffing, extensive in-combat healing and dispelling (when a cleric hit us with a lucky "Hold Person"), and the right damage spells in the right locations at the right times. "Haste" probably would have trivialized it, but my mage never took that spell.

     

Half of the final battle's enemies.

      

Malhavok had some solid loot, and a chest nearby had a scroll proclaiming us the winners of the Trial of Champions. Sandar, the old man, was reunited with his daughter. The mayor thanked us and, somewhat redundantly, dubbed us "Champions of Sedille." 

      

It was nice of him to write this out, considering he never expected anyone to win.

       

The party left the module having gained a couple new levels and numerous pieces of new equipment. I want to play the follow-up to "The Restoration of Gundahab" with this party, so I probably won't use them again, lest I over-level myself for that game. Maybe I'll try to find one for evil parties next time.

       

I mean, accepting "only his thanks" should have been a role-playing choice right?

       

"Trial of Champions" was a relatively short but satisfying, challenging adventure. How is it that a fan got it just right, less than two months after the kit's release, when so many major developers of the era got it so wrong?