When I first heard about Necromancer, I was intrigued. Their slogan was "Third Edition Rules, First Edition Feel." Interesting. I started really getting into AD&D during 1st Edition's heyday (as opposed to the earlier days when it was just D&D), and while I look back on some of those old products and laugh at the quality, I also recall them with great fondness. So I bought Necromancer's Crucible of Freya. Sadly, I was not impressed. Not only was the adventure nothing special, but it did not have a 1st Edition feel at all. The scenario was divided into acts and scenes. "First Edition of which game?"I wondered, because it certainly wasn't AD&D. Still, I was willing to give them another chance. The adventure Rappan Athuk was also a disappointment. I mean, deep down, I love dungeons. But this, "the grand daddy of all dungeons," we are told -- even though we've never heard of it and such a distinction certainly belongs more to something like Tomb of Horrors -- was again nothing really special. Worse, the introduction actually seems to disdain dungeons, claiming that they make no sense and you shouldnít even try to explain them. Well, faster-than-light drives make no sense, either, but good sci-fi at least puts a veneer of explanation on them to achieve verisimilitude.

So, by all rights I should not have picked up Demons and Devils. But I did, and I'm glad I did. I guess I'm a sucker for demons and devils -- always have been. The three adventures in this product are interesting, well-organized, and usable in almost any campaign. They are not overburdened with lots of boxed text (which I think is a good thing).

The first has the uninspired name "The Sorcerer's Citadel." Nevertheless, this adventure for 9th-level characters has some very cool bits. Interesting and original traps abound, as well as some very challenging monster encounters. I'd be hesitant to actually use this with 9th-level characters (10th or even 11th seems more appropriate), not necessarily for the challenges, which I might even make a bit tougher, but for the amount of treasure involved.

Unfortunately, the uninteresting names don't stop at the title of the adventure. The sorcerer in question is named Crane, and -- worst of all -- the erinyes devil involved is named Melissa. (Melissa? Why not just name her "Betty?") There are other drawbacks as well. The stats for the devils are incorrect, at least as far as the Monster Manual is concerned. It would be fine, I think, for a d20 publisher to redo monsters for new adventures, but nothing in the text warns DMs that the monsters have all been redone -- in fact it encourages DMs to reference the Monster Manual. Worse, they are only moderately redone. The ACs, Hit Dice, and/or Spell Resistance values are slightly different, for one example (and there are others). It makes me wonder whether this was intentional or if it is just the result of poor editing; it doesnít seem to have occurred in the other adventures, and other editing mistakes pop up here and there as well.

The second adventure, "Ra's Evil Grin," is full of riddles as well as traps, and a great encounter with a marilith. Here, the treasures and challenges are commensurate with the level suggested (11th). Even the minor artifact at the end of the adventure won't unbalance most games. I think the riddles and traps are well done, and the combat encounters look likeÝ a lot of fun. By the way, the scenario mentions a frog-related god, Tsathogga -- I donít know why they donít just call it Tsathoggua, the Cthulhu Mythos deity. Itís all public domain, now, guys.

The third adventure is called "The Pit of Despair," and it's perhaps the most interesting, even though it's the shortest. There's a wonderful use of deception (rather than just straight-out combat) that could lead to some interesting roleplaying challenges outside the scope of the small dungeon presented. The sword gained at the end is probably overpowered, but then, so are the encounters. I'd suggest the whole thing for levels 15 or 16 rather than the recommended 13.

So, three pretty good adventures. Unfortunately, a few things that seem to trip up a lot of designers trying to handle high-level adventures present some problems here as well. They stem from just not taking into consideration the powers and abilities of high-level characters. Passwall, ethereal jaunt, teleport (in conjunction with scrying), and other spells will bypass many of the challenges presented here. DMs will have to tinker with these adventures a bit to deal with that (the problem is not insurmountable -- spells such as screen and forbiddance can help). The designers do a little of this, just not enough.

Lastly, Bill and Clark apparently have a fondness for the 1st Edition technique of referencing the various demons by their "type." Type I demon, Type II demon, etc. I can't say that I'm with them on that one. Even "back in the day," as they say, I thought this was silly. The demons are the utterly chaotic ones. It's hard to imagine that all demons aren't completely different from every other demon, let alone conveniently organized by power into tidy little "types." Oh well, that's a minor point.

So, the good outweighs the bad. I wouldn't want to play in a campaign consisting of nothing but adventures like these (they are all "hear a legend, go into a dungeon after an artifact" style adventures). However, as additions to a standard campaign, any one or two of these would be a welcome evening's enjoyment -- if not two or three evenings' worth.

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