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Dark Sun Mission #DSM1
Black Flames
A simple trip from Urik to Raam: What could be easier? But unexpected encounters and freakish sandstorms conspire to make this journey more dangerous than imagined. Lost and dying of thirst, your characters unwittingly involve themselves in a strange mission-the motivation behind which lies hidden.
On the adventurers' trail are enraged dragons, desert fiends, and a curse that threatens to drive them mad-or make them one of the walking dead. Their only hope is to enter the ancient ruins of Yaramuke, site of a great battle between sorcerer-kings of ages past.
Yaramuke -- City of Black Waters. The very name curdles blood.
Designed for four to six characters of 3rd to 6th level, Black Flames is set in and around the remains of Yaramuke and the cities of Urik and Raam. Let your Dark Sun game characters experience new adventure among the ancient ruins of Yaramuke!
On the adventurers' trail are enraged dragons, desert fiends, and a curse that threatens to drive them mad-or make them one of the walking dead. Their only hope is to enter the ancient ruins of Yaramuke, site of a great battle between sorcerer-kings of ages past.
Yaramuke -- City of Black Waters. The very name curdles blood.
Designed for four to six characters of 3rd to 6th level, Black Flames is set in and around the remains of Yaramuke and the cities of Urik and Raam. Let your Dark Sun game characters experience new adventure among the ancient ruins of Yaramuke!
112 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
18 people want to read
About the author
Sam Witt
46 books41 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 29, 2014
Black Flames had a very long row to hoe right from the beginning. Apparently, a 22nd level dragon named Farcluun needs a group of 3rd to 6th level PCs to accomplish a task for him because reasons. Rather than magically compelling them to do the task, or just giving them some money to do it, he sets up an elaborate plan where the PCs drink the black waters of Yaramuke, leading to the party's inevitable death unless they agree to the plan. He sends undead minions disguised as ordinary travelers to offer the water after magically transporting the PCs using a sandstorm (the better to ruin all their supplies), and if the PCs are suspicious and refuse to drink, well, he just threatens them until they agree. It's right there in the adventure:
I mean, he's a 22nd level dragon, so why does he need the help of the PCs at all? Why not summon elementals or demons or something to do it? There's some justification later about how Yaramuke has a "Wall" around it that limits any evil creatures within to only two senses--touch and hearing--but this has never been mentioned previously and is obviously an ex post facto justification for why Black Flames happens in the first place.
Alignment in Dungeons & Dragons is already dumb, and it's especially dumb when it's treated like sports team affiliation and others can determine which jersey your soul is wearing. This is Dark Sun, where hard choices are part of daily survival and being a dick is part of life. What if some or all of the characters are evil and have their sense taken away? There's no advice on dealing with that, but I've mentioned before that adventures for Dark Sun seem to assume that the PCs are basically good people who are willing to do things out of altruism. Maybe it's just the AD&D 2nd Edition-ness of it, but it's extra dumb here.
And why does it have to be a dragon? Dragon Kings made it seem like dragons and avangions were incredibly rare, but as is common in RPG products, later authors who want a powerful and memorable NPC immediately leap to it and pretty soon it seems like there are dragons running around everywhere. He could have been a powerful defiler and it wouldn't have changed anything other than removing a fight scene that doesn't matter because the PCs can't participate without getting splattered anyway.
Alright, enough ranting. What actually happens in Black Flames after Farcluun shanghais the PCs into accepting the mission? He gives them their choice of a bunch of gear he has, including metal armor and weaponry, and then they go to Yaramuke and have to find the Orb and the Eye among the ruins, while avoiding monsters, dangerous ruins, and a t'chowb agent of Alabache-Re who also wants the treasures from Yaramuke. The structure here isn't that bad, since the PCs can go wherever they want and search in whatever order they like with the eventual goal of taking the Eye and the Orb, placing them in the statue of the first emperor of Yaramuke, and using the light beams that shine out with the setting sun to the find the palace. Once they do that, they go within and look for the scroll of black waters, and after they find it, Farcluun suddenly but inevitably betrays them and attacks. Then Alabache-Re shows up and it's a dragon royal rumble that collapses the palace while the PCs flee.
There's a great(?) bit where if the players can't find the scroll, which is given as a simple 1-in-8 chance because AD&D was high on exception-based design and low on sensibly dealing with anything that isn't stabbing monsters in the face, Farcluun rages at them for their incompetence in classic evil overlord fashion and then casts true seeing. But of course, the character with true seeing will be able to tell he's actually a dragon, so there's a section about him hiding while the character looks, or asking the PC to face the wall and threatening them if they turn around, and so on. Other than the stupidity of the premise, that has the potential to be a great scene.
After the dragons fight it out and the PCs flee towards the actual black waters, they have to find a druid there who is the only one who can cast the spell, protect him from the cursed dead who drank the enchanted water while he does so, and then fight Farcluun, who survived the palace falling on him because of course he did. This is about where I started banging my head against the wall, because the druid of the black waters is a druid, so black waters is a priest spell, which means Farcluun can't cast it at all, so why does he want it anyway? Maybe he's just an idiot, much like the last ruler of Yaramuke who installed golems inside the obsidian pillars of her palace as a defense mechanism, because golems busting out of pillars is really threatening and surprising. She apparently didn't realize that having no pillars in your palace makes it collapse on you, but fortunately Hamanu killed her (and the entire city) before that happened.
And then at the very end, after all that jerking of leashes and railing of roads, there's no treasure and no suggested XP award. Farcluun's lair isn't detailed because the players can't find it because fiat, Alabache-Re now hates them, they might get hired by some merchant houses but targeted for assassination by others. You can make a reasonable argument that life isn't fair, especially on Athas, but one important part of RPGs is that the PCs should have a reasonable way to learn the consequences of their actions even if they aren't immediately obvious. There is none of that here whatsoever. Every time the PCs even try, the adventure either says not to allow it, or to allow it and then continue on like nothing happened because the plot demands certain things happen.
Black Flames is pretty much terrible the whole way through. The non-linear design of the middle is more than outweighed by the giant set of rails running through everything, the constant screwing of the PCs, the idiotic twists, and then lack of any satisfying resolution. I'm not sure if Black Flames or Freedom is worse, but that's like asking whether you'd rather get Ebola or Irukandji syndrome. The correct answer is, "What the hell is wrong with you?" and that's also what you should ask any GM trying to run this adventure.
The characters must join Farcluun or die. They have no other choices.This isn't guaranteed to get your players to pull an ASCII Kirby and flip the table on you, but it's probably the most obvious way to get them to do so.
I mean, he's a 22nd level dragon, so why does he need the help of the PCs at all? Why not summon elementals or demons or something to do it? There's some justification later about how Yaramuke has a "Wall" around it that limits any evil creatures within to only two senses--touch and hearing--but this has never been mentioned previously and is obviously an ex post facto justification for why Black Flames happens in the first place.
Alignment in Dungeons & Dragons is already dumb, and it's especially dumb when it's treated like sports team affiliation and others can determine which jersey your soul is wearing. This is Dark Sun, where hard choices are part of daily survival and being a dick is part of life. What if some or all of the characters are evil and have their sense taken away? There's no advice on dealing with that, but I've mentioned before that adventures for Dark Sun seem to assume that the PCs are basically good people who are willing to do things out of altruism. Maybe it's just the AD&D 2nd Edition-ness of it, but it's extra dumb here.
And why does it have to be a dragon? Dragon Kings made it seem like dragons and avangions were incredibly rare, but as is common in RPG products, later authors who want a powerful and memorable NPC immediately leap to it and pretty soon it seems like there are dragons running around everywhere. He could have been a powerful defiler and it wouldn't have changed anything other than removing a fight scene that doesn't matter because the PCs can't participate without getting splattered anyway.
Alright, enough ranting. What actually happens in Black Flames after Farcluun shanghais the PCs into accepting the mission? He gives them their choice of a bunch of gear he has, including metal armor and weaponry, and then they go to Yaramuke and have to find the Orb and the Eye among the ruins, while avoiding monsters, dangerous ruins, and a t'chowb agent of Alabache-Re who also wants the treasures from Yaramuke. The structure here isn't that bad, since the PCs can go wherever they want and search in whatever order they like with the eventual goal of taking the Eye and the Orb, placing them in the statue of the first emperor of Yaramuke, and using the light beams that shine out with the setting sun to the find the palace. Once they do that, they go within and look for the scroll of black waters, and after they find it, Farcluun suddenly but inevitably betrays them and attacks. Then Alabache-Re shows up and it's a dragon royal rumble that collapses the palace while the PCs flee.
There's a great(?) bit where if the players can't find the scroll, which is given as a simple 1-in-8 chance because AD&D was high on exception-based design and low on sensibly dealing with anything that isn't stabbing monsters in the face, Farcluun rages at them for their incompetence in classic evil overlord fashion and then casts true seeing. But of course, the character with true seeing will be able to tell he's actually a dragon, so there's a section about him hiding while the character looks, or asking the PC to face the wall and threatening them if they turn around, and so on. Other than the stupidity of the premise, that has the potential to be a great scene.
After the dragons fight it out and the PCs flee towards the actual black waters, they have to find a druid there who is the only one who can cast the spell, protect him from the cursed dead who drank the enchanted water while he does so, and then fight Farcluun, who survived the palace falling on him because of course he did. This is about where I started banging my head against the wall, because the druid of the black waters is a druid, so black waters is a priest spell, which means Farcluun can't cast it at all, so why does he want it anyway? Maybe he's just an idiot, much like the last ruler of Yaramuke who installed golems inside the obsidian pillars of her palace as a defense mechanism, because golems busting out of pillars is really threatening and surprising. She apparently didn't realize that having no pillars in your palace makes it collapse on you, but fortunately Hamanu killed her (and the entire city) before that happened.
And then at the very end, after all that jerking of leashes and railing of roads, there's no treasure and no suggested XP award. Farcluun's lair isn't detailed because the players can't find it because fiat, Alabache-Re now hates them, they might get hired by some merchant houses but targeted for assassination by others. You can make a reasonable argument that life isn't fair, especially on Athas, but one important part of RPGs is that the PCs should have a reasonable way to learn the consequences of their actions even if they aren't immediately obvious. There is none of that here whatsoever. Every time the PCs even try, the adventure either says not to allow it, or to allow it and then continue on like nothing happened because the plot demands certain things happen.
Black Flames is pretty much terrible the whole way through. The non-linear design of the middle is more than outweighed by the giant set of rails running through everything, the constant screwing of the PCs, the idiotic twists, and then lack of any satisfying resolution. I'm not sure if Black Flames or Freedom is worse, but that's like asking whether you'd rather get Ebola or Irukandji syndrome. The correct answer is, "What the hell is wrong with you?" and that's also what you should ask any GM trying to run this adventure.
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June 15, 202213/32 and a short adventure this time, and as far as I know, something totally divorced from the novels and from the earlier adventures.
A return to the flip book form factor, this presents a somewhat scaled-back adventure. That is, the other adventures kept pitting the PCs against (or at least among) super-powerful dragons, avangions, and psionicists, whereas this adventure only has, let me check my notes, one dragon and one sorcerer-king. Yet, coming from Dragon's Crown, this adventure feels almost pared down.
Heck, the first part of the adventure is practically a dungeon crawl: an evil dragon wants an artifact from a ruined city, but because that ruined city is surrounded by a wall of magic that robs evil creatures over a certain power level of most of their senses (a phrase which should thud and clang with all the plot machinery required of it), the PCs have to lead the now-blind dragon in or face death at the hands of the curse of Black Water. Which is, despite the clanginess of the plot mechanics requiring it, kind of a fun setup.
Then there's the betrayal, the sorcerer-king getting involved, a race to the oasis where the ritual can be performed, etc. I... might have skimmed over some of this a little more, but I'll say this for the adventure: it bakes the railroading into the plot. Want to cure yourself of the curse? Gotta hit all these plot points along the way.
I'm only a little disappointed because I thought this was the adventure Black Spine, and also I'd like to talk to TSR's marketing department about maybe having more varieties of names. Oh how I long for the halcyon days of the nonsense of Asticliian Gambit.
A return to the flip book form factor, this presents a somewhat scaled-back adventure. That is, the other adventures kept pitting the PCs against (or at least among) super-powerful dragons, avangions, and psionicists, whereas this adventure only has, let me check my notes, one dragon and one sorcerer-king. Yet, coming from Dragon's Crown, this adventure feels almost pared down.
Heck, the first part of the adventure is practically a dungeon crawl: an evil dragon wants an artifact from a ruined city, but because that ruined city is surrounded by a wall of magic that robs evil creatures over a certain power level of most of their senses (a phrase which should thud and clang with all the plot machinery required of it), the PCs have to lead the now-blind dragon in or face death at the hands of the curse of Black Water. Which is, despite the clanginess of the plot mechanics requiring it, kind of a fun setup.
Then there's the betrayal, the sorcerer-king getting involved, a race to the oasis where the ritual can be performed, etc. I... might have skimmed over some of this a little more, but I'll say this for the adventure: it bakes the railroading into the plot. Want to cure yourself of the curse? Gotta hit all these plot points along the way.
I'm only a little disappointed because I thought this was the adventure Black Spine, and also I'd like to talk to TSR's marketing department about maybe having more varieties of names. Oh how I long for the halcyon days of the nonsense of Asticliian Gambit.
February 3, 2022
This one requires heavy work for the GM to make it work.
Then again, it does have audacious elements added which do much for suspense.
But: Farcluun, meh... not a terribly good idea of the writers to add another dragon we're supposed to have never heard from before. That could easily have been some other big bad with the same-ish mission.
Good to get some stuff on Yaramuke and especially the much neglected in lore sorcerer queen Sielba.
There's potential here but you'll have to salvage the parts that work and improve them and rigorously hack away the rest.
Then again, it does have audacious elements added which do much for suspense.
But: Farcluun, meh... not a terribly good idea of the writers to add another dragon we're supposed to have never heard from before. That could easily have been some other big bad with the same-ish mission.
Good to get some stuff on Yaramuke and especially the much neglected in lore sorcerer queen Sielba.
There's potential here but you'll have to salvage the parts that work and improve them and rigorously hack away the rest.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews