Commentary On B11 King's Festival (Basic D&D ) By Carl Sargent For Your Old School Campaigns

 "Someone has "borrowed" a cleric, and without him, the fabled King's Festival cannot go on. Unfortunately, it looks like the orcs have him, and your characters must rescue him."

I had an email request for B11 King's Harvest & while I have covered B11 in the past I wanted to do a fresh blog post on this classic module.  B11 King's Festival is by Carl Sargent can be seen as one of those modules that attempted to revive the Basic Dungeons & Dragons line of product at TSR during the '89 era. I have a very storied history with this module because of its Basic Dungeons & Dragons roots. The fact that its deeply rooted in Mystara or more importantly in as an  introduction to the Grand Duchy of Karameikos. This module can be seen as the Grand Duchy of Karameikos lite in a sense. The whole adventure centers around the region as a whole. The dungeon master has enough details to fill in all of the little layers of B11 with each of the classic elements of Dungeons & Dragons. All of the ins & outs of dungeon crawling along with investigative old school play is highlighted in B11 King's Festival.


While B11 King's Festival seems like its a straight forward adventure module, B11 in fact supplies all of the classic Dungeons & Dragons elements in one very tightly run adventure package. There's enough here to keep a minor Basic Dungeons & Dragons campaign going for months of game play. The overview of the module has the plot revolving around the major big bad at the center of the module. The truth is that B11 King's Festival if used right will put the PC's center stage for the royals in the Grand Duchy of Karameikos & not simply as flavor of the month. That is if they survive the experience & here's where the module really shines. This is another Basic D&D module that takes the PC's into the Dungeons & Dragons Mystara experience. The fact is that on the whole B11 King's Festival by Carl Sargent is a good set of 1st through 3rd guidelines on actually making, creating, & running a classic Dungeons & Dragons adventure. Scattered throughout B11 are tables, references, charts, & advice for actually becoming a better player & dungeon master. Today B11 King's
Festival almost seems forgotten & that's a shame because its a quality low level dungeon crawl adventure romp as much as an introduction adventure module.

For running B11 King's Festival through an OSR retroclone system there are a number of OSR systems on the table including B/X Rules Cyclopedia Dungeons & Dragons. B11 is a fairly easy to run introduction to the Basic Dungeons & Dragons game on its own. All of the classic D&D elements are here in force & the module moves quickly at a brisk pace. The dungeon master is going to have to be on his or her game when running B11 King's Festival. Taken as a whole the module will leave the PC's right in the middle of & at the attention of the royals of the Grand Duchy of Karameikos! This might not be a good thing depending upon the module's event's outcome. PC's may want to tread this path carefully.

OSR Commentary On The Orc Raids Of B11 King's Festival By Carl Sargeant For Your Old School Campaigns

"Someone has "borrowed" a cleric, and without him, the fabled King's Festival cannot go on. Unfortunately, it looks like the orcs have him, and your characters must rescue him. "
So I've been playing around with & looking over lots & lots of B/X  & Advanced  Dungeons & Dragons adventures over the last six to eight months. Now let's dive into the deeper B/X pool with an adventure that seldom gets mentioned.


If your looking for a B/X Dungeons & Dragons adventure that will actually take your PC's from first through fourth without the iconic drivel that seems to follow in the wake of Keep On The Borderlands. Let me point you all in the direction of one of the most under sung modules to come out post classic era TSR then B11 King's Festival might be just what your looking for. This introductory adventure will take your PC's from levels one right through four with action, danger, & plenty of actual plot.
This is an adventure that takes the humanoids & orcs especially bringing them where they belong front & center. So I know what your thinking, " What the hell does this have to do with Sword & Sorcery"? Well I'm glad you asked. The orcs of King's Festival are the nasty & highly dangerous pig faced orc bastards that old school players know & love.
But as good as my word B11 King's Festival makes a perfect Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea second edition set up. The fact is that in AS&SH orcs are the product of a mating of Picts with a really nasty Lovecraftian or Clark Ashton Smith pig demon thing.


The result of this is a rather nasty monster with all of the charm of a migraine headache for your PC's. But there's also another hook here for AS&SH players for the DM to take full advantage of, "King's Festival provides players and DMs with a valuable introduction to fantasy role-playing in the land of Karameikos."

 If we transfer the events of King's Festival to just outside of the Hyperborean capital of Khromarium then suddenly things take a very weird turn of events. All of this might center on Petrides the evil NPC behind all of the events of this adventure. He could well be connected with the thieves/assassins guild  network of one of the Vorloi, Radu, and Torenescu families Atlantian royal survival families in Khormarium from my version of B6 The Veiled Society.

What King's Festival does doesn't just set up B6 but also puts orcs dangerously close to the Hyperborean capital & sets up events for either an earlier brush with Keep on the Borderland or a combat round about with Night's Dark Terror waiting in the wings. This all culminates in the awakening of the Lovecraftian forces of 'The Temple of Elemental Evil' set on Hyperborea.


I've written about The Temple of Elemental Evil way too many times on this blog. But there's a more subtle & insidious reason to pick B11 King's Festival as introductory adventure. B11 puts the PC's square on the path of domain level play, the PC's are in the cross hairs of the royals of the adventure & destined for greatness or the headman's ax. The stakes here are perfectly aligned for a Sword & Sorcery campaign set against the Adventurer, Conqueror, King rules set. 



I've used B11 King's Festival in the past as a set up for a  Dark Avalon campaign. The 'orcs' were debased humans that had been mutated by the chaotic energies of Fairyland. There were  the ruins of Elven engines nearby allowing the animation of the dead. This all centered around the occult gateway that was beginning to open up again allowing a crossover into the dread realm. The set up here was the fact that the kidnapping by the 'orcs' was the first salvo of the Rose War.  The adventurers were pawns in the game of the royals. My point is that B11 King's Festival is flexible as it is useful.  If your going to set B11 for Dark Albion make sure that you use Cults of Chaos.

Review & Commentary On The Karameikos: Kingdom of Adventure Box Set By Jeff Grubb, Aaron Allston, & Thomas M. Reid

"Karameikos ... a classic fantasy setting where bold adventurers can become Legendary heroes. Whether you have played only the First Quest audio CD game or have enjoyed the AD&D game for years, you'll find high adventure in the kingdom of Karameikos. Discover a magical land sure to challenge the bravest hearts and sharpest swords. Hear this realm come to life in two extraordinary quests featuring dramatic sounds on compact disc! Inside you'll discover . . . * an interactive audio compact disc featuring thrilling sound effects, character voices, music for two adventures in Karameikos * a 32-page Adventure Book "

"There are always frontiers where adventurers can carve out their own piece of the wilderness where monsters lurk around every corner. The Kingdom of Karameikos is one part wilderness & two parts of the mirror darkly of the Mideveal Dark Ages Europe. Here adventurers still have the chance to pit themselves against the worst that the world has to offer & still bring their families glory.
Take one part Tsarist Russia & stir with a mix of fierce goblins & monsters dark & dire. Here you will find The Kingdom of Karameikos."Over the holidays I received The Kingdom of Karameikos box set as a gift from a friend for Christmas. The box set was a surprise & generally is incredibly well put together By  Jeff Grubb  (Author), Aaron Allston (Author),  & Thomas M. Reid (Author). The history of the setting centers around ; 
"King Stefan Karameikos, a Thyatian who gained rulership over the nation in AC 970 by trading his ancestral lands, the Duchy of Machetos, to Emperor Thincol of Thyatis in exchange for autonomous rulership over the Imperial Province of Traladara.The nation was originally called the Grand Duchy of Karameikos, and theoretically owed fealty to Thyatis, but following the great war between Thyatis and Alphatia, which greatly damaged Thyatis and resulted in Alphatia's sinking, Duke Stefan sold out his homeland and friend^[1] and declared himself King, and Karameikos gained greater prominence in the Known World. "

I was generally surprised at how useful the entire box set seems to be with swaths of   Karameikos history, language, and culture, which completely describes the minute details of the this Kingdom in the Known World. There are not one but two low level adventures that can be used with AD&D & as the reviewer Rick Swan concluded in  Dragon magazine #216 (April 1995); "He stated, "You're a newcomer to the AD&D game. You've played the First Quest game. You've read the Player's Handbook and understand about half of it. Now what? Well, you can 1) close your eyes, buy one of the zillion or so supplements, and hope for the best; 2) design your own adventures from scratch (good luck!); or 3) invest in the exquisite Karameikos campaign set."^[1] Swan concludes: "If you're a beginner and Karameikos fails to make your heart race, you might as well go back to crossword puzzles.""

Yes its that good & solidly done. Yet it seems to be seldom mentioned today!?
With so much setting  history & detail I don't get the look over that this box set gets?! I've seen it mentioned  that the  2E the crunch is very low and converting it to OD&D isn't  hard. So the gaming utility of the Karameikos campaign set is incredible in my humble opinion. 


The low level PC adventures don't end with the three in the box set. Indeed the classic B11 King's Festival By Carl Sargent can be played with the  Karameikos campaign set to set the stage for an epic campaign of incredible proportions. 

This is a classic adventure by Carl Sargent & the fact that someone has decided to borrow a cleric adds a bit of a flare as the PC's quickly get in over their collective heads. "Someone has "borrowed" a cleric, and without him, the fabled King's Festival cannot go on. Unfortunately, it looks like the orcs have him, and your characters must rescue him." All in all this is a solid adventure with deep connections to the Karameikos region. There are also connections to the Dark Knight of Karameikos fantasy novel by Timothy Brown, an interesting article by David Keyser piggy backs everything back into  the  Karameikos campaign set . The Vaults of Pandius has quite a nice array of support material for the  Karameikos campaign set including adventures.  I was surprised at how quickly a mini campaign came together when I added in B12 Queen's Harvest to the mix by Carl Sargent. Using both King's Festival and Queen's Harvest together adds some of the best introductory adventuring for players starting out. 

 The Karameikos campaign set for Mystara feels like coming home for me. The fact that its so compatible with even the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition books as well as really useful for the Basic set of Dungeons & Dragons is an added bonus in my opinion. On the whole I think that  the Karameikos campaign set should get far more attention then it does. I give it five out of five stars in my humble opinion marking it as one of the high water marks of the second edition eras. 

Review & Commentary On B11 King's Festival (Basic D&D ) By Carl Sargent For Your Old School Campaigns

"Someone has "borrowed" a cleric, and without him, the fabled King's Festival cannot go on. Unfortunately, it looks like the orcs have him, and your characters must rescue him."

I had an email request for B11 King's Harvest & while I have covered B11 in the past I wanted to do a fresh blog post on this classic module.  B11 King's Festival is by Carl Sargent can be seen as one of those modules that attempted to revive the Basic Dungeons & Dragons line of product at TSR during the '89 era. I have a very storied history with this module because of its Basic Dungeons & Dragons roots. The fact that its deeply rooted in Mystara or more importantly in as an  introduction to the Grand Duchy of Karameikos. This module can be seen as the Grand Duchy of Karameikos lite in a sense. The whole adventure centers around the region as a whole. The dungeon master has enough details to fill in all of the little layers of B11 with each of the classic elements of Dungeons & Dragons. All of the ins & outs of dungeon crawling along with investigative old school play is highlighted in B11 King's Festival.


While B11 King's Festival seems like its a straight forward adventure module, B11 in fact supplies all of the classic Dungeons & Dragons elements in one very tightly run adventure package. There's enough here to keep a minor Basic Dungeons & Dragons campaign going for months of game play. The overview of the module has the plot revolving around the major big bad at the center of the module. The truth is that B11 King's Festival if used right will put the PC's center stage for the royals in the Grand Duchy of Karameikos & not simply as flavor of the month. That is if they survive the experience & here's where the module really shines. This is another Basic D&D module that takes the PC's into the Dungeons & Dragons Mystara experience. The fact is that on the whole B11 King's Festival by Carl Sargent is a good set of 1st through 3rd guidelines on actually making, creating, & running a classic Dungeons & Dragons adventure. Scattered throughout B11 are tables, references, charts, & advice for actually becoming a better player & dungeon master. Today B11 King's
Festival almost seems forgotten & that's a shame because its a quality low level dungeon crawl adventure romp as much as an introduction adventure module.

For running B11 King's Festival through an OSR retroclone system there are a number of OSR systems on the table including B/X Rules Cyclopedia Dungeons & Dragons. B11 is a fairly easy to run introduction to the Basic Dungeons & Dragons game on its own. All of the classic D&D elements are here in force & the module moves quickly at a brisk pace. The dungeon master is going to have to be on his or her game when running B11 King's Festival. Taken as a whole the module will leave the PC's right in the middle of & at the attention of the royals of the Grand Duchy of Karameikos! This might not be a good thing depending upon the module's event's outcome. PC's may want to tread this path carefully.