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Dungeons and Dragons module The Incants of Ishcabeble

Designer: Bob Blake

8.5” x 11” (no binding, 8 pages including covers)

Edition reviewed: Polyhedron Issue #17, 1984

Number of characters: 6-10

Character level: 4-7

 

Player summary: Your team has been tasked to ascend Ishcabeble’s eight-story tower and recover his Incants which are scribed on parchment paper. The incants are needed to safely open a tomb. Ishcabeble enchanted the tower with a series of magical tests. It is said he enjoyed his privacy immensely, and only those who were smart enough and strong enough to reach the top floor would be interesting enough for him to meet. The eighth floor is where he was located, and that’s where the incants can be found. He’s dead, of course, but the question remains: is the magic he infused into the tower still active or not? Can you acquire Ishcabeble’s Incants from the top floor? Your team will find out soon enough.

 

Dungeon Master information: The entire tower is a puzzle. The first floor is easily accessible and provides visual clues as to how the party can proceed to the next floor above. Floors 2 through 7 have a landing with four doors. Only one of those four doors will grant access to the next level. Upon entering the correct door, an encounter must be successfully completed in order to continue upward. The other three doors will also produce an encounter but will accomplish nothing other than wasting the player characters’ time and energy. At each level from 2 through 7, the players must choose the one correct door and must acquire a gem by completing the encounter behind it in order to continue to the next level of the tower. At midnight, the entire tower resets and (I assume) the players are teleported back to the first level (this detail is not mentioned).

 

At the end of the module are a series of encounters numbered 1 through 10. Whenever the players choose an incorrect door, the DM shall choose the next encounter in sequential order. If the players choose the correct door, then they shall have to solve/prevail over the specific encounter listed for that particular tower level. Because the tower resets at midnight each night, the players only have a limited amount of time to work with. They can’t afford to choose too many incorrect doors.

 

After reaching level 8, the players will have access to Ishcabeble’s Bedroom and Ishcabeble’s Study. The bedroom contains nothing required to complete the adventure, but within the study there will be one more test that requires the use of items acquired during their journey to the tower. If the items are used in the correct order, one player at a time can be teleported to a final room: Ishcabeble’s Laboratory. The Incants can be found in the laboratory. However, if the items are not used in the correct order, the player characters will be teleported to an empty room where they must face the next sequential encounter listed at the back of the module. Upon completion of that encounter, the character will be teleported back to Ishcabeble’s Study.

 

Once the characters acquire Ishcabeble’s Incants, the adventure is over (I assume). No information is provided as to what happens once the adventurers acquire the parchments in the laboratory.

 

My thoughts: If this module sounds confusing, it’s because it is. The idea of a tower that prohibits adventurers from reaching the next higher level unless they jump through a series of magical hoops is not a bad one, but the process for completing each floor’s ‘puzzle’ is very confusing and detracts from game enjoyment. I’ve read each floor’s descriptions over a dozen times and I still don’t fully understand the exact process for completing each floor’s puzzle.

 

I’m a writer. I’ve been writing for a long, long time. One of the primary goals for my projects is clarity. If readers cannot understand what I’m trying to convey, then I’ve failed in my writing attempt. That’s the feeling I get when reading this module. It fails to succinctly and accurately convey the steps required for the party to ascend each floor of the tower. The confusing descriptions are not enjoyable to read in the slightest. I can see a DM spending way too much time trying to explain things to the players instead of actually managing the game.

One solution for the puzzle confusion is for a DM to make his own puzzle. Take the framework of this module but alter the tricks to get past each floor. It doesn't have to be complicated, and you can use the existing 1thru10 encounter list whenever the party opens the incorrect door, and use the proper encounter whenever the party opens the correct door. That's the easy solution.

From a collector’s standpoint, this module is within Polyhedron issue #17 and is the continuation of a six-part module series (The Prophecy of Brie). From a playability standpoint, I don’t see this as a module I’d ever like to run as a DM unless I designed my own floor puzzles, and I’d certainly not want to participate in this module as a player.