Storm over Skyreach is a tournament adventure for use with the Classic D&D game system and compatible with your favorite retroclone such as Dungeon X, Old School Essentials, etc. The scenario is designed for six to eight characters of 5th to 7th level. A balance of character classes is suggested but no particular class is required. Particular emphasis on at least three fighter types is recommended. In tournament play, the party consists of eight pre-generated characters.
This event was originally held at Gen Con 22 (1989) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The tournament was successful and included 144 players in the first round with a total of 18 groups of eight players each. The second, and final, round consisted of the six top-scoring teams competing for the winner’s slot. The scenario has been slightly re-vised for the 3rd Annual (2011) North Texas RPG Con held in Irving, Texas. But for the most part, it is exactly as it was in 1989.This tournament version of the scenario follows a pre-set course in which the player characters are presented with an overall mission, but must overcome numerous minor encounters to achieve their ultimate goal. The sce-nario follows the possible reappearance of a powerful, and evil, wizard and his minions, the storm dragons. The player’s primary goal is seek out and destroy a recently-sighted storm dragon and determine if the evil wizard, Hilgdred, has returned to spread chaos.
Because this is a tournament, there is little opportunity for actual role-playing.
Additionally, the scenario follows a fairly rigid progression of events and encounters The players may alter the course of the adventure, but only as outlined by the scenario. In short, each group must follow the basic script of the adventure and proceed through pre-set encounters to receive points. When each round is complete, the GM adds/subtracts the points awarded for each completed encounter and a total is gen-erated. At Gen Con 22 the points from the first round were used to determine which groups advanced to play in the second round. At the North Texas RPG Con, each group automatically advanced to the second round. The point totals from both rounds were combined to deter-mine the winning group.
This version includes all the information needed to play the adventure as a tournament, but adjustments have been made to make the module fit into a standard game campaign. While this adventure was designed to be used as a tournament, it can be seamlessly used as a regular game. Its location, while specific in the adventure, is really pretty generic; you can place this adventure just about any-where mountains are present. There are plenty of opportunities to expand the adventure, add role-playing encounters, or simply revise those described by adding roleplaying opportunities. All that said, this is, at it’s a core, a good-old-fashioned fetch quest. But, because it’s a Pacesetter adventure, you know there are plenty of twists and turns.