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A new party of characters featured in this adventure, namely Sine (m; fighter), Calcula (f; fighter), Cosine (m; rogue), Calcula (f; ranger), Tangent (m; wizard), and Logarithm (f; cleric).

The party enters the mines near the town of Duvik's Pass to find the source of a plague which has affected the water supply. In the mines they find some sick kobolds and the source of the disease itself, an orc cleric and worshipper of Gruumsh called Jakk Tornclaw, who has also been infected. The adventurers defeat Jakk and the plague passes.

It took me ages to write this one because on each occasion that I started it, I'd have the company traipsing up to the mines with the ground frozen around them and… That was about it. I ended up finishing it off at school during the exams for want of anything

The PCs for this adventure were my usual line-up, but Salt and Naidecolen were replaced by Lucian/Gevyen and Nicoramus from Expedition to Castle Ravenloft.

Chapter 1
Lucian/Gevyen calls round at Gunpowder's looking for a job of some sort. His arrival is fortuitous because Gunpowder has just been commissioned to deal with some problems in Relkingham. However, he is also looking for a ranger to join his company, but no one suitable is available until Nicoramus, the spirit troll from Ravenloft Castle, turns up.

Chapter 2
The party sails off to Relkingham on board a ship called the Marineuse. They're escorted by a frigate called the Audacieux, and in the course of the short voyage, Gunpowder asks Captain Salé about the ruler of Relkingham, the overly pious Founder Nélani, and

The company in Barovia was Gunpowder, Kingdom, Power, Salt, Saecula, and Naidecolen.

A. Barovia
The PCs arrive in Barovia to find the town under attack from zombies. The cause of the infestation is the village priest, Danovich, who used dark magic to raise his dead son, Doru, with unfortunate consequences. The party is approached by Ismark, the son of the lately deceased mayor, who was killed by Strahd Zarovich, the Count of Barovia. If that wasn't enough, Zarovich has designs on Ismark's sister, Irena.

B. Fanes and Relics
But before the adventurers can deal with Zarovich, they need to weaken his hold over the land (and thus his power) by killing the three hags who were sister priestesses corrupted by him, and they need to recover the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind (not hard) and the Sunsword

Once again, Gunpowder leads our band of heroes, but Glory (pregnant; yes, Gunpowder was responsible) was out and Naidecolen, an elf ranger, was in.

Area A: Guard Cavern
The party fights with some dragons.

Area B: Auriovo's Lair
They fight a dracolich and work out a means of thwarting its spirit from reanimating one of the dead dragons from the previous battle.

Area C: The Transformation Chamber
The adventurers now fight a dragon called Krakestros and some cultists.

Area D: Krakestros's Hoard
The PCs plunder the dragon's treasury.

Area E: Cultist Camp
The cultists find the dead dragons, and then the party makes them dead.

Area F: Fog of War
They encounter a foggy area where the cultists were trying to turn Krakestros into a dracolich.

Area G: Guardroom
There is a fight with a golem and a

Gunpowder, Kingdom, Glory and Saecula were rejoined by Power, and had recruited Salt, the elf wizard who had appeared in War of Dragons, to their ranks.

The party arrives in Winterhaven to map a nearby keep for Parle Cranewing, who is writing a history of the Nerath Empire. They encounter some kobolds before they reach the town. A man called Valthrun tells them that there are kobolds living there. He suggests that the PCs should see Lord Padraig, who offers them a commission to deal with the kobolds. He points them towards the keep and also tells them about the dragon's burial site, which is being excavated by a man called Douven Staul.

The adventurers head off and duly encounter some kobolds, discovering that they're under the command of a goblin called Irontooth, who answers to someone

This adventure featured Gunpowder and his companions once again. However, it took me some time to write anything because the more I looked at The Road to Oblivion, the less workable and more ill-conceived the story became. At the time, I'd been doing a lot of Classical Greek, and I wrote it up as a trial with the the party being sued by Kartak Spulzeer for destroying the juggernaut which had been threatening to destroy the town of Oblivion. The story is told in retrospect at the trial. The result is unsatisfactory, but that was the nature of the adventure.

I was going to follow this with an adventure called Stone Dead, but that, too, was unsatisfactory. The Road to Oblivion attracted 14 comments from me; Stone Dead got 28. Not a good sign.

Next time: Keep on the Shadowfell.

Gunpowder and his band were the PCs in this adventure, which was a side trek for Expedition to Castle Ravenloft.

The Attack of the Diseased Werewolves
Some werewolves attack the adventurers who fight them off, but when they try to heal themselves of the injuries the werewolves inflicted, the wounds are not completely healed.

Thorny Embrace
The party looks for somewhere to rest for the night, but the ruin in which they shelter is home to a predatory vine, which they have to defeat.

Interlude: Barovia
The PCs reach the town of Barovia where they hear about some disease which the werewolves are passing on and that it can be cured, but only by a powerful healer. They are soon approached by some Vistani who ask them to go and speak with Madam Eva. A couple of the Vistani are also suffering from

I went back to Gunpowder and his band of merry mercenaries, but wrote Power out and an elf called Saecula in.

Chapter 1
The Black Rain has started falling in Waterdeep and Lord Geiron summons Gunpowder and Glory, who have to find the other PCs first. While Gunpowder is looking for Power and Kingdom, he meets the latter who explains that Power has gone AWOL and who introduces Saecula to him.

Chapter 2
The party goes to Lord Geiron who gives them a commission to find out why a magical barrier has enveloped the church of St Cuthbert. When they reach the church, the city watch has made no progress trying to penetrate the barrier. The captain of the watch tells the adventurers as much as he knows from witnesses. That sends the PCs in search of Terrid Fomgarten's house to see whether they can

In Dungeons and Dragons, the campaign/adventure does not start off in a dark, dank dungeon or a shadowy forest. No, the start of any adventure begins with the characters. However there is, and should be, more than just rolling up a character and jotting his/her stats down on a character sheet and starting play. There are questions about that character or even a group of characters that are eventually asked. How did they come to be in the town the adventure takes place in? How do they know each other? Why exactly is Sir Paramore the Just a good guy? Why is Niles a Rogue? To answer these questions, one must not only give stats to thier character, but also to give them a background.

Character backgrounds give life to a character. They tell not only the DM, but other players as well the reasons