B3 - Palace of the Silver Princess by T. Moldvay & J. Wells

Palace of the Silver Princess by Tom Moldvay and Jean Wells (GREEN COVER)

GREEN VERSION and ORANGE VERSION: This review is on the Green Version of the module reprinted in 1981. There is also an Orange version of the module and it has an interesting history. The Orange version has different monsters and some rooms of note within that made it infamous (and eventually pulled from being sold). I will cover more of the Orange version later on in this review.

Like B2 – Keep on the Borderlands, I have played in this module about 2 dozen times and DM’ed it about 3 to 4 dozen times in the past 30 years or so. This is perhaps one of my favorite modules because this is what adventurers are born to do; slay evil monsters, find great treasures, and save the princess and her kingdom from the bad guys. This module is for player characters levels 1-3 and more experienced players. Since I run the majority of my modules in the Forgotten Realms, I did some special things with this module I rarely do with any other that I have hosted as a DM. The events of the module will take place 500 years in the past in another location far from where the adventurers are currently at. The “protector” of this mystical land known as Haven does not exist in the current timeline of the player characters. It is less a myth than anything else since nothing exists of this former civilization and its peaceful inhabitants. So, Thendera, the Protector of Haven, will meet with all of the player characters individually in their dreams when they are sleeping in an inn or even near a campfire in the wilderness. I will pass each player the “background” which basically gives the players some idea of this place called Haven, the peaceful and benevolent Princess Argenta, the dwarves of Haven and their finding of a huge red ruby the size of a fist, a fateful wedding day, a terrible disaster at midnight, and an invasion of evil humanoids. From there, Thendera will plead for help short of begging the players. If they accept, they will be instantly teleported back to the past in the middle of a road that leads to the Palace of the Silver Princess.

NOTE: As a player of this module, there have been numerous issues with how Thendera’s expectations would conflict with the party as a whole. First off, this is not a dungeon crawl where one can just explore the castle and its rooms and loot the place of all treasure and not expect some type of dismay at that behavior. The players might be looked at as thieves and looters and face quick and certain punishment for their crimes. Another issue was dealing with the evil humanoids and other monsters in the castle. Do the players slay every evil creature with no mercy or can they take some who surrender as prisoners and let the Princess deal with them if she is saved from the evil threat? So, as I can recall a few times, players simply looted the palace as they explored and of course, killed most of the monsters encountered without any chance of parlaying or role-playing. This is fine and the DM should take appropriate action once the Princess is saved and she realizes what the so called “heroes” have done. As I usually play LG characters, I have reminded players that this is a rescue mission, not a free-for-all and loot as we explore.

As a DM, I gave the Protector a more terse tone as she explained the situation of Haven. I even went far enough to tell the players that they must slay all evil creatures if they cannot be driven away. The Protector made it clear they can keep what treasures the monster carried but not destroy or vandalize the castle or they are just as worse as those evil creatures. If there was a paladin in the party, she charged him/her to ensure there was order and discipline under threat of severe punishment from the Princess and her guards. There is a lot of loose treasure in this module so looting the castle is not even worth the trouble if captured at the end when the Princess is freed. If she is rescued and learns that the players were very greedy, she must just give them a simple thanks and tell them to leave the lands since their kind are not desired there. Experience points gained from treasure can be denied if the loot is part of the castle and not of the encounter itself.

THEME: This module has a very simple theme. The kind and benevolent Princess Argenta who lives in a castle that shines likes silver when the sun sets on it has disappeared after a huge explosion rocks its edifice. A ruby red glow surrounds the palace and slowly spreads outward throughout the lands of Haven killing all plant and animal life that dares enter it. After the mysterious explosion at the castle which destroyed parts of its walls, a huge invasion of evil humanoids raided the countryside and made residence within the broken walls of the palace. The countryside is in disarray, the common populace is confused, and even the great “protectors” have seemed to disappear.

The chain of events that led to all of the chaotic events came from the dwarves of Haven finding a huge red ruby. The RED RUBY contains a powerful and evil entity known as Arik. Arik is a very evil being who was at times worshipped as an evil god. Because of his evil nature and crimes, Arik was punished by the Protectors and banished to a magical dimension within the RED RUBY effectively making it his prison. When the red ruby was brought to the palace by the unsuspecting dwarves as a gift to Princess Argenta, it was then that Arik made his move to take over Haven by sending in the invasion of evil monsters led by an evil cleric and cover the countryside with the poisonous red glow.

The Protectors have sent Thendera to find a group of good adventurers and bring them to this timeline to hopefully defeat the evil machinations of Arik, the evil cleric, and the evil monsters in the castle.

NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS: The players will encounter a few NPC’s in this module. Some have been driven insane by the power of the evil that has taken over the castle, others are just foraging for loot, some are led by the evil cleric, and some will be helpful to the players. Depending on the players reaction to some of the NPC’s will dictate the necessity for combat or just driving them off hopefully to never be seen again. It is possible to imprison some in the palace jail and that is just as acceptable. The one NPC that might give the players a shock is Ellis the Strong who actually rides on a white drake. In the very beginning, it sounds as if the disaster began as soon as he came to the kingdom to meet the Princess Argenta. This might be the red herring a DM can play to the max until the the finale when the players encounter the Red Ruby.

NOTE: As a player, even I thought the rider on the white drake was evil because I thought that all white dragons are evil. I just equated drake with dragon and that was it. I was shocked later in that very first game to learn that Ellis the Strong was actually not who he appeared to be in the beginning of the game.

LENGTH OF MODULE: This is a long module. The palace consists of two main floors with some rooms going deeper under the place in a cavern area. Some parts of the palace will inaccessible due to the explosion that rocked the eastern portion. The entire module is comprised of 76 rooms and caverns. The palace is neck deep in monsters therefore combat will be a common denominator in the majority of encounters as the players explore the palace. As a DM that has hosted this module, it took me 2 weekends to successfully run groups through and playing an average of about 8 hours per day. I have hosted this adventure in shorter periods depending on how the players explore the area and if they find the right items to destroy the Red Ruby.

BOXED TEXT: This module was done to my liking and that is boxed text. Boxed text made it easier to host as a DM especially considering some of the contents of the rooms. A time will come when too much info revealed (happens a lot in modules without boxed text) sometimes ruins the encounter or the room.

MONSTER GENERATION: As the players explore both levels of the Palace, they will run into a wide variety of creatures. The wandering monsters on the floor level are typically much easier to deal with but the ones on the 2nd floor are extremely dangerous. The players as they explore the palace will find many stone statues of the former residents. This may create the illusion that someone or something is turning people to stone. One of the wandering monsters on the 2nd floor happens to be a medusa. The truth is that the former inhabitants were turned to stone by the curse placed on the palace by Arik, not a medusa. A good DM could use this knowledge to keep the players alert and on their toes against a threat that does not exist (the medusa).

NOTE: One of the big disappointments I had with this module was the placement of certain monsters. It just did not make sense at the time to place a particular monster in that area. I will cover more of that as I describe certain rooms/areas of interest.

GAME CONVENTION POSSIBILITIES: Any D&D module can be used at a game convention but with the understanding it might not be possible to complete it in its entirety unless the players are doing a one nighter or perhaps two nighters. Like B1 and B2, this module can be modified to be run and completed at a convention or at a tournament.

SUMMARY: Palace of the Silver Princess is a hack and slash module with some puzzle solving areas required to be solved in order to complete it in its entirety. The monsters are cruel and ruthless and will stop at nothing in destroying the player characters as they explore the palace. The player’s greed will be tested at many levels. The opportunity to die horribly is present in many forms by various traps and poor decision making especially when combat is concerned. This is a TPK module if the players do not have a plan on dealing with the current evil inhabitants of the Palace. In any sense, this is a very fun module to play because it has a wide array of elements to keep the players on their toes, allows them to play a detective role (covered later on in the review), encounter illusions that are deadly (or so it seems), and deal with new monsters never seen before. With some minor modifications by a DM, the experience the players will have by completing this module will be treasured especially if they have not been through one such as this.

EXTRA INFO:

Original "banned" orange cover Although the removed artwork included subject matter such as "The Illusion of the Decapus" by Laura Roslof, wife of Jim Roslof, in which a woman was tied up by her own hair, on the whole the objectionable art was rather tame relative to that released in some other products of the time, so the specifics of the recall are a matter open to speculation.[6]

Frank Mentzer, the editor of the module, recalls events differently. In his recollection, it was Brian Blume, not Kevin Blume, that ordered the module to be pulled from publication; and the reason for the pulling was a particular piece of artwork by Erol Otus on page 19 of the module, depicting 3-headed monsters called ubues whose heads are caricatures of the three directors of TSR (the Blume brothers and Gary Gygax) rather than objectionable artwork elsewhere in the module.[7]

The original version of the module had treasure and monster listings left open for the Dungeon Master to fill in, while the second printing was a more standard dungeon and lacking the fill-in encounters.[5]

Only a few copies of the orange cover version survived.[3] The limited number of copies made this edition a very collectible item.[5] At the 1984 Gen Con game fair auction, a copy came up for sale and went for $300.[2]