Publisher: Wizards of the CoastA Forgotten Realms adventure for 2nd-level characters.
A mysterious presence has taken up residence in one of the towers of Spellgard, and now its dark minions plague the Gray Vale!
Scepter Tower of Spellgard is the first full-length Forgotten Realms adventure published for 4th Edition D&D. When paired with the adventure that appears in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide, this adventure provides the Dungeon Master with all he needs to get his campaign started. This stand-alone adventure is designed to take characters from 2nd level to 5th level.
Product History
FR1: "Scepter Tower of Spellgard", by David Noonan and Greg A. Vaughan, is the official adventure for the 4e Forgotten Realms. It was published in September 2008.
Completing the Forgotten Realms Line. The official plan for campaign settings in D&D 4e (2008) called for just three publications in each campaign line. Thus, the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide (2008) and the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide (2008) were supplemented by a single adventure FR1: "Scepter Tower of Spellgard" (2008).
The use of the module code "FR1" was somewhat odd, since only one adventure was planned for each line, but it matched 4e's general use of module codes for adventures, including "H", "P", "E", and "HS"; however, by the time Seekers of the Ashen Crown appeared a year later, as the adventure for the Eberron Campaign Guide (2009), the module codes were gone for the setting adventures.
"Scepter Tower of Spellgard" is an adventure for levels 2-5. This allowed GMs to run "Barrow of the Ogre King" from the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide for level 1, then move players from Loudwater to Spellgard to continue the campaign.
As with all of the early 4e adventures, "Spellgard" is a folio. It contains a 32-page overview book, a 64-page encounter book, and a double-sided map showing the ruins of Spellgard on one side and the tower of Spellgard on the other. The tower map is interesting, because i'ts a single map meant to depict all the levels of the tower. This could be accomplished through the use of Dungeon Tiles, as Wizards laid out in an online DDI article.
Adventure Tropes. The typical D&D 4e adventure is constructed as a series of one-to-two page tactical encounters, each of which carefully lays out a specific conflict. "Spellgard" follows this model, but sets its encounters in a sandbox. There are NPCs to encounter, a variety of places to crawl through, and some choices within those crawls. There is a single most-likely path that the players will take, but there's nonetheless some opportunity for free choice if players want to break away from that standard path.
The adventure is almost all combat, with skill challenges only appearing in a few asides. Though some players complained about this, others felt the adventure was a great introduction to the Realms thanks to its light style of adventure.
Exploring the Realms. Spellgard, on the edge of the Anauroch, first received attention way back in FR13: "Anauroch" (1991), where Ed Greenwood described it as an ancient ruin of Netheril, haunted by Lady Saharel, the Sorceress of Spellgard and now an archlich. Anauroch: The Empire of Shade (2007) transforms her into a ghost and suggests that she might answer questions about herself for PCs. "Scepter Tower of Spellgard" expands this brief mention into a full adventure. Now Saharel doesn't just answer questions about herself, but has become a full-on prophetic seer who can solve mysteries plaguing the player characters.
As you'd expect, "Scepter Tower of Spellgard" provides extensive details on the castle of Spellgard. However, there's almost no focus on the Realms beyond its crumbling walls. The Fallen Lands are suggested as a possible future campaign location when the players finish with Spellgard, but it's up to GMs to flesh that out.
The RPGA Adaptation. With the release of D&D 4e, Wizards of the Coast and the RPGA shut down their Living Greyhawk campaign (2000-2008), replacing it with Living Forgotten Realms (2008-Present). The RPGA created dozens of organized play adventures for the Living Realms, but they also published rules for adapting published Realms adventures to the RPGA format. Following ADAP1-01: "Barrow of the Ogre King" (2008), "Scepter Tower of Spellgard" thus appeared as a sequence of three RPGA adaptations: ADAP1-02 (2008), ADAP1-03 (2008), and ADAP1-04 (2008). Each one built on the published adventure but included specific guidelines for diferently-sized parties, variable experience, and other RPGA elements.
Future History. Though Wizards intended to publish just three books for each setting under D&D 4e, they couldn't say away from the Realms. D&D 4e's fourth setting, Neverwinter Campaign Setting (2011), detailed a single city in the Realms. One of their last adventures, Halls of Undermountain (2012) then gave the setting a second official adventure.
Meanwhile, Wizards also revisited the Realms in noncommercial adventures. A number of their Encounters organized play sessions were set in the Realms, beginning with Encounters #1, "Halaster's Lost Apprentice" (2010). "Dead in the Eye" (2011), a Free RPG Day, featured yet another visit to the Realms.
About the Creators. Noonan had been a game designer at Wizards for a decade, but was now approaching the end of his tenure; a few more books would appear from him in 2009. Vaughan worked on a handful of supplements for Wizards starting with The Twilight Tomb (2006), also for the Forgotten Realms; he's since moved on to other publishers.
About the Product Historian
The history of this product was researched and written by Shannon Appelcline, the editor-in-chief of RPGnet and the author of Designers & Dragons - a history of the roleplaying industry told one company at a time. Please feel free to mail corrections, comments, and additions to shannon.appelcline@gmail.com.
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