Close
Close
Advanced Search

CM2 Death's Ride (Basic)Click to magnify
Full‑size Preview
https://watermark.dmsguild.com/pdf_previews/17115-sample.pdf

CM2 Death's Ride (Basic)

ADD TO WISHLIST >
Selected Option:

A King's Commission leads to danger!

All communication with the barony of Twolakes Vale has ceased. King Ericall, worried about the security of his border and angered at the loss of tax revenues, has commissioned you, a delegation of powerful adventurers, to investigate. This is not a petty problem to by solved by the armies of local nobility. Indeed, the king's forces are desperately needed elsewhere. Twolakes Vale is, after all, only a small barony on the far frontier of Ericall's domain.

And yet? The cloud is there, its nature and cause unknown. None have returned for the barony for weeks. Furthermore, the cloud is spreading, and vague reports of unrest and mysterious disappearances are starting to trickle in from nearby baronies.

Can you discover the secret of Two Lakes Vale?

*****

Product History

CM2: "Death's Ride" (1984), by Garry Spiegle, was the second Companion-level adventure for Basic D&D. It was released in 1984.

About the Cover. JB at B/X Blackrazor notes that while there is a blue dragon in the adventure, no one ever rides it as is shown on the cover.

Not a Typical Companion Adventure. Companion adventures tend to have more of a focus on politics and warfare. In "Death's Ride," however, it's apparent that TSR hadn't yet settled on that format; instead, it reads like a high-powered Expert adventure.

Players are presented with a mystery and given a sandbox to explore in the form of the wilderness surrounding the Barony of Twolakes Vale. Somewhat inexplicably, the wilderness is laid out on a square grid, rather than the much more common hex grid, but beyond that it's a fairly typical wilderness; high-power encounter areas are scattered across the map.

With that said, there's some focus on new elements from the D&D Companion Rules (1984); there are, of course, new spells and new monsters. The rules also encourage the PCs to wrestle with each other at one point, highlighting a new Companion ruleset. Finally, the adventure suggests the use of the War Machine rules for a particularly large battle.

Expanding the Known World. "Death's Ride" introduces the Barony of Twolakes Vale to Norwold - the Mystaran setting of the Companion- and Master-level D&D adventures. The Barony is actually described in pretty good detail, including not just its dominion stats and a big map, but also information on numerous NPCs.

Unfortunately, "Death's Ride" doesn't actually note where Twolakes Vale is located within Norwold. The Vaults of Pandius has placed it in "a small valley nestled between the Icereach and the Mengul Mountains, in the southern part of Norwold." Other fan sites seems to agree with this.

Expanding the Outer Planes. "Death's Ride" also introduces the Sphere of Death, an extra-dimensional realm that's not quite an outer plane, but which is said to be the source of death and entropy.

More information appears in the D&D Master Rules (1985), which state that the Sphere of Death (or the Sphere of Entropy, the preferred name) is one of five Spheres of Power - the others being Matter, Energy, Time, and Thought. Together they comprise the entire multiverse.

You wouldn't realize from reading the Master Rules that the Spheres are physical places that things can travel to and from - but based on "Death's Ride," that's apparently the case. The five Spheres of Basic D&D thus form a pretty big addition to the game's cosmology, one that you won't find in AD&D. 

About the Creators. Garry Spiegle worked at TSR, writing supplements for several different RPGs, from 1983-84. "Death's Ride" was one of his last publications from TSR before he jumped over to the short-lived Pacesetter and co-authored the Star Ace RPG (1984).

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.

We (Wizards) recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website does not reflect the values of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end.

pixel_trans.gif
pixel_trans.gif
 
 Customers Who Bought this Title also Purchased
pixel_trans.gif
pixel_trans.gif
Reviews (2)
Discussions (2)
Customer avatar
Scott R March 04, 2022 2:26 am UTC
PURCHASER
Print on Demand version is not a good quality scan. There's a lot of shading on all pages and it looks terrible. Though I find most of their stuff to be great, this one was a dud, quality-wise. I would recommend holding off until they get a better scan.
Customer avatar
Timothy B May 11, 2017 9:29 pm UTC
The 5th edition conversion is available at the DMSGuild.
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/211681/Classic-Modules-Today-CM2-Deaths-Ride-5e
Browse Categories
$ to $
 Follow Your Favorites!
NotificationsSign in to get custom notifications of new products!
 Recent History















Product Information
Gold seller
Author(s)
Artist(s)
Rules Edition(s)
Pages
32
Edition
1.0
ISBN
0-88038-117-5
Publisher Stock #
TSR 9118
File Size:
8.01 MB
Format
Scanned image Click for more information
Scanned image
These products were created by scanning an original printed edition. Most older books are in scanned image format because original digital layout files never existed or were no longer available from the publisher.

For PDF download editions, each page has been run through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to attempt to decipher the printed text. The result of this OCR process is placed invisibly behind the picture of each scanned page, to allow for text searching. However, any text in a given book set on a graphical background or in handwritten fonts would most likely not be picked up by the OCR software, and is therefore not searchable. Also, a few larger books may be resampled to fit into the system, and may not have this searchable text background.

For printed books, we have performed high-resolution scans of an original hardcopy of the book. We essentially digitally re-master the book. Unfortunately, the resulting quality of these books is not as high. It's the problem of making a copy of a copy. The text is fine for reading, but illustration work starts to run dark, pixellating and/or losing shades of grey. Moiré patterns may develop in photos. We mark clearly which print titles come from scanned image books so that you can make an informed purchase decision about the quality of what you will receive.
pixel_trans.gif
Original electronic format
These ebooks were created from the original electronic layout files, and therefore are fully text searchable. Also, their file size tends to be smaller than scanned image books. Most newer books are in the original electronic format. Both download and print editions of such books should be high quality.
File Information
Watermarked PDF Click for more information
Watermarked PDF

These PDF files are digitally watermarked to signify that you are the owner. A small message is added to the bottom of each page of the PDF containing your name and the order number of your purchase.

Warning: If any files bearing your information are found being distributed illegally, then your account will be suspended and legal action may be taken against you.

Here is a sample of a page from a watermarked title:

File Last Updated:
July 15, 2013
This title was added to our catalog on July 16, 2013.