M1: Into the Maelstrom is the first of the adventures designed to use with the D&D Master set, that is the expansion of the D&D Basic game for levels 26-36. In the D&D Companion set, the PCs were rulers of kingdoms or the ruler’s principal servants. By D&D Master, their mortal lives are drawing to a close and they’re reaching towards the possibility of Immortal existence.

The actual D&D Master set is a mixed bag, and it doesn’t come as much as a surprise that the adventures for it are likewise problematic. Into the Maelstrom continues the tale of the Kingdom of Norwold begun in CM1 Test of the Warlords. If you’re not using the Kingdom of Norwold, good luck!

The adventure begins like this: Poisonous fumes are covering the land of Norwold, choking all life that is exposed for more than a day. An ultimatum has been sent by the nearby island kingdom of Qeodhar demanding the Norwoldian surrender, but King Ericall of Norwold is not going to submit so easily: instead he will raise a great fleet and invade Qeodhar. The characters will be the leaders and heroes of that fleet.

However, all is not as it seems: Qeodhar knows nothing about the fumes; they are the creation of Alphaks, a Chaotic Immortal who wants nothing more than to provoke a war between Alphatia and Thyatis, two of the great empires of the Known World. Qeodhar is a vassal state of Alphatia, and he hopes that causing Norwold to attack Qeodhar will bring response from Alphatia and then Thyatis will be forced to intervene.

Meanwhile, two other Immortals – the Lawful Koryis and the Neutral Vanya – have also become aware of Alphaks meddling in mortal affairs. Koryis wants to stop the war, and Vanya doesn’t care: she just wants valorous deeds to occur. Apparently Koryis can’t just send a message to Norwold telling them its all a plot. One wonders at why any life is left in the Known World at all when the chaotic Immortals can meddle to this extent.

The timeline of the adventure tends to not make that much sense. As the adventure begins, the poisonous fog has been over Norwold for three weeks. One wonders how anyone is still alive. The adventure then notes that “the expedition takes (game) months, if not years, to complete”. Poor Norwold.

The first section of the adventure covers the voyage to Qeodhar, which is presented somewhat like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” script: depending on which option the characters choose determines which encounter to run next. As the players attempt to reach Qeodhar, the three Immortals gain prestige depending on which option they choose. Eventually the group will realise that Qeodhar has nothing to do with the poisonous fog (although they may have well destroyed the Qeodharan fleet in the process and killed its baron), and in a particularly blatant form of railroading, their entire fleet will be sucked into a great maelstrom created by Vanya which deposits them in another part of the galaxy.

Now that is out of the way, the real adventure can begin. Where are the adventurers? Well, they’re in the part of the galaxy where the Alphatian empire began. (Did you know they were invaders of the Known World? Well, they were!) Mighty magic-users once filled all the space between the planets with air, before a struggle between those following the Air path and those following the Fire path devastated the empire. And the adventure? Well, it’s a D&D Master version of the Odyssey, with the players in the role of Odysseus, their sailors in the role of Odysseus’s crew, but with the slight possibility of them surviving the experience.

There’s not much choice as to where the group go in this part of the adventure: the wind blows them from encounter to encounter. The fleet sails first to the land of the Lotus Eaters where some of their crew may abandon them, then to the isle of the Cyclops (a beholder), from there to Leosus, the keeper of the Sky Winds. Kersy (Circe) is one of the encounters, and other events of the Odyssey or other Greek myths as well. This probably was very enjoyable for the writers of this adventure (Bruce and Beatrice Heard), but it seems awfully linear and railroaded to this reader. I guess being 28th level or higher doesn’t allow you to go home easily…

Part three of the adventure sees the PC’s armada reach an area of the three Star Kingdoms, who want to take advantage of the new power entering their waters to attack their enemies. This is one of the stronger sections of the adventure as the PCs engage in diplomacy and war. However, the DM will need to be inventive to run this, as the basics are sketched out but so much will then depend on the actions of the players.

Finally, the group returns to their own world, where they have to fight Alphaks’ undead-crewed fleet, find Alphaks’ source of the poisonous fumes, and defeat Alphaks himself. If they do all of that, Vanya turns back time so that the entire adventure never happened (except that the PCs have gained experience and Alphaks is now banished from the mortal plane). Well, at least Norwold isn’t a ravaged ruin.

What’s good about this adventure? For me, the main things are the revelations about the original home of the Alphatian empire. The characters get to discover that their major foe, Alphaks, was indeed once the Emperor of that realm before the civil war he provoked destroyed it (and he wants revenge on the survivors: thus this adventure). Why he’s not just attacking Alphatia is left up to the reader to invent. Perhaps it is just a suitably Byzantine plot for a Chaotic Immortal.

The adventure as a whole shows a lot of the whole over-the-top nature of the D&D Basic line, which may not be to everyone’s taste. I never played very much in the Known World – basically just in the very early days which gave us Keep on the Borderlands and (especially) Isle of Dread, which give a much more low-powered view of the world. The addition of the Companion and Master sets and their corresponding adventure modules certainly changed that!

The adventure comes with six pregenerated characters who are (mostly) of 28th level. The exception is the level 10 elf, who I assume is of a higher attack rank, but this isn’t listed: you’ll have to work it out from his XP total. The suggested part is 4-8 characters of levels 25 to 30, with a minimum of 150 total levels at the beginning of the game. You may notice that this requires a party of four to exceed the maximum levels available in the D&D game!

Ultimately, I’m very worried about some of the forced encounters. There’s an adventure here, and it’s epic enough, but the characters feel very much to be playthings of the Immortals, following a path they don’t quite understand. Understanding might come, but it’s not going to endear the party to any of the Immortals.

Alphaks story isn’t finished yet, however. He returns in the second Master-level adventure, his goals clearly stated by the name of the module: Vengeance of Alphaks.