Reading through these over the day has left me with the one thing that has eluded me for probably the past 15 years or so. Inspiration on module design! These modules just felt 'in line' with how I remembered the mystery of fantasy roleplaying. Truly delving into the forbidden and unimaginable before so many packaged settings defined every square inch of a world. You know, the high fantasy of Forgotten Realms never jived well with me. A world where death was always a raise dead spell eyeroller. Catering these modules to low level also helps. Where players are helpless to rely on stats and have to use their minds to overcome obstacles.
Reading Death Frost Doom just left me thinking that maybe designing my own lost forgotten temple to some unfathomable deity might not be too impossible. Perhaps a remnant of a near dead religion with once powerful servitors of inhuman characteristics have devolved down to creatures with fighting skills little better than say the equivalent of the D&D kobold. Perhaps evil WON. They raided the nearby town for sacrifices, raided it often, carrying people back to their dark, evil temple. Rather than mustering an army for an epic battle the town simply died, the survivors moving away. Perhaps everything just vacated the area leaving the temple to starve for sacrifices as the human priests turned on themselves. The servitors left on their own degenerated, formed a dying society that barely trundles on. Just barely as occasionally foolish adventurers come by to serve as meals and sacrifices to just barely keep the deep dark evil contained in the temple.
Perhaps a tribe of goblinoid creatures REALLY want the mostly abandoned temple as a fortress of their own darkness and occasionally send a group of their 'bravest' warriors to check if the temple is truly 'dead' yet. These foolish souls never return so ever so often they send a new group to check it out. Alas, the adventurers spurred on by the thought of an abandoned place teeming with long forgotten treasure cross paths with these goblinoids and you have your entry level slashing and hacking with probably nary a thought a to why these goblinoids are out here when obviously nothing else is.
Alright, my text runneth over. I just wanted to really say that all three modules have endlessly impressed me and above all excited me with ideas to work out a module of my own in the same stream of thought.
