RIP Jareth, Devotee of Orcus

*Spoiler Warning*

Even if a player makes all the right choices, the die gods care little for the affairs of mortals. Goodman Games' Doom of the Savage Kings module promised to be deadly, and for Jareth it was. I can't claim this to be an adequate review of the module because I modified the dungeon significantly to fit the scheme of my home-brew campaign. But for the purposes of this article, I will discuss only the aspects I drew from the module without getting into my custom content.

But I will say that Doom of the Savage Kings is easily adapted. I had no problem sculpting the content to fit my overarching ACKS sandbox. I've never really been one to run modules. I prefer to plan just the exoskeleton of my own adventures. My players are rather unpredictable, so extensive planning usually ends up as a waste of time (Gotta love players who keep a DM on his toes). But this module proved to be well worth the prep time.

Gauging the reactions of my players, they seemed to find DCC's serpent infested ghouls far more intimidating (and deadly) than the centrally antagonistic demonic Hound of Hirot. As I mentioned -- the dice gods didn't favor Jareth during the session. After burning stats to fend off the hound in a spectacular display of arcane might, the already wounded Jareth was slain by a snake infested ghoul perched in a high and shadowy alcove.

Doom of the Savage Kings provides everything I want in a dungeon; mythic treasures, bizarre monsters, the necessity of true strategy, and above all, peril. As Jareth's death was the first death in the campaign, the other characters certainly seemed sobered from their bloodlusts. It's a real feat to actually scare your friends at the game table as a DM, but I think this module gets as close as it gets in DnD.

If you manage to get your hands on Doom of the Savage Kings I would certainly recommend running it, or at the very least mining it for ideas. After reading through the module I'm really considering converting my campaign to DCC once the PC's hit level two -- if only to test out the system fully.