Join me as I review When Black Roses Bloom (2e) by Lisa Smedman, live! This is the sixteenth Ravenloft adventure released in February 1995 by TSR Inc. You can buy a copy here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17528/When-Black-Roses-Bloom-2e?affiliate_id=50797
About When Black Roses Bloom (2e)
The nightbound realm of Sithicus is dying!
The grey forested crags scarred by jagged rifts echo with the laments of the dying elven nation. But the lord of the land sits uncaring on his blackened throne in the charred castle of Negragaard, lost in ancient memories. Through his passion and hatred the nightmare haunted death knight, Lord Soth, permitted catastrophe to befall his native world of Krynn. Now trapped in the Realm of Terror, Soth has once more brough calamity to his home. Abandoning rule of his twisted realm of Sithicus, Lord Soth has retreated to a still more distorted domain: the mad fantasies of his own history.
To save the land and themselves, the heroes must venture into banshee-haunted Nedragaard Keep, and there into the warped mindscapes of a tormented darklord. The history of the greatest villain of the DragonLance Saga is at last revealed in the Realm of Terror.
For fans of DRAGONLANCE and RAVENLOFT adventures alike. This grand adventure is suited for four to six player characters of levels 4-6. No prior knowledge of Krynn or the DRAGONLANCE Saga is necessary. You must have the RAVENLOFT boxed campaign set to use this adventure.
Discussion
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Misham, Fierswelt the 6th. My name is Adam and today I am going to give you my Spoiler review of When Black Roses Bloom (2e) by Lisa Smedman. I will not be spoiling the contents, so if you haven’t run through this module, you can still watch this review! I would like to take a moment and thank the members of this YouTube channel, and invite you to consider becoming a member by visiting the link in the description below. You can even pick up Dragonlance gaming materials using my affiliate links. This is my perspective only, and if you have any thoughts or disagree with mine, I invite you to share them in YouTube chat.
Outro
But that’s it for my review of When Black Roses Bloom (2e) by Lisa Smedman. What did you think of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition Ravenloft setting? Do you mind having Lord Soth in Ravenloft? And finally, would you play this module in 2nd edition, or would you prefer a 5th edition version? You can email me at info@dlsaga.com or comment below.
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This channel is all about celebrating the wonderful world of the Dragonlance Saga, and I hope you will join me in the celebration. Thank you for watching, this has been Adam with DragonLance Saga and until next time Slàinte mhath (slan-ge-var).
Notes:
- “When Black Roses Bloom” followed “The Awakening” (1994), “Hour of the Knife” (1994) and “Howls in the Night” (1994).
- “When Black Roses Bloom” is all about Lord Soth of Sithicus. There’s even a brief crawl through his Keep in the middle of the adventure.
- “When Black Roses Bloom” is largely event-driven. The adventure’s heart is a series of encounters through magic mirrors, each of which details a fantastical version of a vital juncture in Lord Soth’s history.
- The ending of “When Black Roses Bloom” originally had the goddess Takhisis appearing in Ravenloft. She would have given players the chance to escape Ravenloft … but they would have ended up in the Abyss instead! Project coordinator Harold Johnson didn’t like this ending and had author Steve Miller rewrite it; now it’s all about Lord Soth. This also kept any deities from manifesting in Ravenloft, which the Dark Powers surely appreciated!
- “When Black Roses Bloom” provides extensive details on Lord Soth’s home, the Ravenloft domain of Sithicus. It reveals an elf-peopled land that’squite different from the gothic visions of most of Ravenloft’s domains. However, elf doesn’t mean happy: the elves are pale reflections of the Silvanesti of Krynn, depressed and depressing. (Nonetheless, the high fantasy theming is unusual for the setting.)
- Much of the focus of the adventure is on Nedgregaard Keep, including maps and scattered details of the castle. This is largely based on “Dargaard Keep”, by Michael Gray, from DL16: “World of Krynn” (1988). Though the plot of Gray’s Dragonlance adventure adventure was largely non-canonized, it still presents the best maps of Dargaard (and thus a good reflection of Nedgregaard as well).
- Thanks to its memory mirrors, “When Black Roses Bloom” contains some great details on the world of Krynn too — albeit, viewed through Lord Soth’s warped desires. Not only do the mirrors reveal Soth’s history, but they also touch upon crucial points in Krynn’s history such as the Cataclysm and the conquest of Palanthas during the War of the Lance.
- Of course, the mirrors show alternate histories, not the real thing, but that ties nicely into the Dragonlance saga to
- The original writer for the novel fell through. Tracy Hickman was offered a shot at the novel and declined because he and TSR were on the outs at the time. Other authors wrote proposals, but they all suggested big changes to Soth’s character, which Ravenloft fiction line editor Jim Lowder refused, because he wanted to be able to hand Soth back to Krynn intact when Ravenloft was done with him. In the end, James Lowder himself was commissioned to write Knight of the Black Rose (1991), which more fully introduced Soth to the demiplane of Ravenloft.
- Lowder also wrote a short story about Soth, “The Rigor of the Game”. It appeared in the tenth book of Ravenloft fiction, Tales of Ravenloft (1994) and was later adapted as a comic in “The Worlds of Dungeons & Dragons #3 (July 2008).
- “When Black Roses Bloom” thus marked Soth’s third major appearance in Ravenloft, following the Lowder novel and short story … but he was already becoming a bit of a political hot potato. Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis had returned to the company to write new Dragonlance novels, and they were unhappy with Soth’s use in Ravenloft. Reports say that as far as they were concerned, Soth had never gone to Ravenloft, and he even appeared in a cameo in Dragons of Summer Flame (1995) … which just confused the matter — though Wizards of the Coast has made it clear that Soth’s sojourn to Ravenloft is a canon part of D&D lore.
- Future History. Lowder wrote one more Soth novel, Spectre of the Black Rose (1999), with help from Voronica Whitney-Robinson who followed his outline. It was rushed out because Weis & Hickman had (again) returned to Dragonlance and wanted Soth back. The novel returned Soth to Krynn, but he was then promptly killed in Dragons of a Vanished Moon (2002).
- Lowder had two other pieces of Soth fiction in process. “All the Colors of Sorrow” was a short story that would have fit between the two novels. Wake of the Black Rose would have been a third novel; it’s been suggested that it would have followed the story of Sithicus after Soth’s departure. Unfortunately both stories got caught up in Wizards’ cancellation of the Ravenloft fiction line (1991-1999). Lowder later proposed the novel to White Wolf when they published Ravenloft for 3e (2001-2005), but that possibility didn’t pay out either. Lowder would return to Sithicus one more time, when he wrote a report on the domain for White Wolf’s Ravenloft Gazetteer: Volume IV (2003).
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