M1 Into the Maelstrom Dungeons and Dragons (Basic)

Description: 👉This reprint is an unread perfect bound copy that is made to order. Any foldout maps (if any) that were included in the original print are separated and bound all together as 8.5 x 11 inch pages. 👉🏼These reprints are made to order. Please allow 1-2 weeks for your order to ship. A tracking number will be provided when your order ships. 👉🏽These reprints are fully licensed by Wizards of the Coast and printed on demand from original edition scans or digital files (if available). Please allow 1-2 weeks for your order to ship. A tracking number will be provided when your order ships. 👉🏾All orders are packaged safely in boxes for shipping. 👉🏿All books ship for FREE and thus have FREE combined shipping! 📧Please get in touch if you want a particular title! TSR, WOTC, R. Talsorian and more are available!Alphatia, the most ancient empire, land of arcane and obscure secrets. It has grown for centuries and its might now overshadows the cauldron of civilization. Some say the Alphatians come from elsewhere, but no one knows for sure.Beyond the scope of mortals broods an evil mastermind, still in darkness. Once a betrayed emperor of ancient Alphatia, now an entity of the Sphere of Entropy, he seeks revenge on the greatest empire and on the race of man. His plots brought a deathly fog on all of Norwold. Perhaps it will extend to the southern nations. The matter is grave, so much that lords of the spheres have now to show their might. For them, it is time for mortals to intervene. Man defends his cause for him to earn divine favor. A great armada has been raised and able commanders must be found. Prove your worth, and the eternal portals of the spheres may open for you.For four to eight characters of levels 25-30.Product HistoryM1: "Into the Maelstrom" (1985), by Bruce and Beatrice Heard, is the first Master-level adventure for Basic D&D. It was published in October 1985.About the Module Code. TSR's use of the module code "M1" to mark the new "Into the Maelstrom" adventure was somewhat surprising, because that code had already been used for M1: "Blizzard Pass" (1983). This was the first time that TSR had repeated one of their module codes; presumably they thought it was important for this new series of adventures to match the "Master Rules" box, and if that messed up the code for the "Magic Marker adventures", it was no great loss.About the Cover. A trio of immortals spies upon ships, offering a pretty good thumbnail of the adventure. That's obviously the chaotic Alphaks to the left. The lawful Kryis similarly wears his allegiance on his white-robed sleeve, while the neutral Vanya stands apart from them, and is dressed for battle.Origins (I): A New Series. Exactly a year after the release of the D&D Companion Rules (1984), TSR published the D&D Master Rules (1985), which took Basic D&D players up to level 36, the "ultimate" level of Basic D&D play.This of course required a new series of adventures.Origins (II): An Odyssey. During the adventure, the characters are stranded far from home and must find their way back. This reveals another source for "Into the Maelstrom": Homer's The Odyssey (8th century BC). The connections are quite explicit: the "isle of the eye" repeats Homer's famous Cyclops encounter with a giant beholder; while the "isle of the turkeys" features "Kersy" (Circe), a madly-polymorphing magic-user. Other islands are stocked with other denizen's from the Greek epic.Adventure Tropes: A Master Adventure. So what does a Master-level adventure look like? The D&D Master Rules are remarkably unhelpful on the topic. They talk about an "ultimate level of might and glory" and say that player characters can "soar across and into the pages of legend". But what does that mean for an actual adventure?There were a few hints. The Master Rules include a page about the Spheres of the Known World and another couple of pages on immortals in D&D games. It turns out those elements form the core tropes of "Into the Maelstrom" — and not mystics, undead lieges, or siege machinery, some of the other topics found in the high-level rulebook. These new ideas are paired with some of the favorite tropes of the Companion Rules, including country-level dangers and large-scale warfare using the War Machine and Sea Machine rules."Into the Maelstrom" is also very story-focused, following an adventure style that would become much more common at TSR in the '90s. Most of the adventure is laid out as set encounters. Sometimes the players move sequentially through them, but at other times their actions determine what encounters they advance to, like in a choose-your-own-adventure book. There's a very minor open dungeon crawl at the end, when the players explore Alphaks' volcano, but that's the exception for this adventure.

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