It is worth noting that the concept of “PCs captured and enslaved, and must escape with limited resources” is reminiscent of the classic Slave Lords modules, which I will come back to another time…Ī weird personal note: this is yet another module that I bought as a teen but never actually read until recently. In fact, there is a direct sequel to this module, Legions of Thyatis, which I need to pick up and read next! The city of Thyatis is also outlined, for future player adventures! It is not the most creative or spectacular module, but it is nice to see a very different adventure setting than one based on Western Europe. In fact, they are being released as a trap, and will have to escape twice, in a sense! In the finale, they can track down the manipulator who imprisoned them in the first place! Then, after a key gladiator falls ill, the PCs must take his place and fight monsters in the arena itself! I should note that the arena is very well detailed in the module.Īfter the fight, the players get a chance to escape, thanks to political machinations. (This is why the adventure is necessarily a low-level one: who would dare enslave a party of high-level adventures?)īut there is an initiation into gladiatorial service, which involves the characters being dumped into the monster-ridden caverns below the arena, from where they must then work their way back to the arena! So a dungeon crawl is included. However, they also draw the attention of folks who run the arena, and end up drugged and pressed into gladiatorial service! … and when I say “freewheeling,” I mean that TSR mixed in every existing culture like a D&D game of Civilization.īut back to Arena of Thyatis! It is an adventure for low-level characters that gets them mixed in all the infamous parts of Roman history: backstabbing Senate politics and gladiatorial battles! The adventure begins at a Senator’s lavish party, which the players have finagled an invitation to. The (non-advanced) Dungeons & Dragons world of Mystara was a bit more freewheeling that way: Dawn of the Emperors described the Thyatian Empire. What makes Arena of Thyatis interesting is that it is one of the few D&D modules set in and inspired by Roman history. This more obscure module is one I’ve had in my collection for a long time, but only finally got around to reading once I started these threads! Still have many to catch up on here…ĭDA1: Arena of Thyatis (1990), by John Nephew. Continued abuse of our services will cause your IP address to be blocked indefinitely.Time for another edition of Old School Dungeons & Dragons! I did soooooo many of these threads on twitter, I’m kinda amazed and appalled. Please fill out the CAPTCHA below and then click the button to indicate that you agree to these terms. If you wish to be unblocked, you must agree that you will take immediate steps to rectify this issue. If you do not understand what is causing this behavior, please contact us here.
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