[The Dark Eye] Retrospective: A1 Die Verschwörung von Gareth (Conspiracy at Gareth, 1985)

Reading through Das Schwarze Auge adventure A1 Die Verschwörung von Gareth (The Conspiracy of Gareth) from 1985, by Reinhold H. Mai and Andreas Blumenkamp.

And oh boy, this is like a quantum leap in scenario design and complexity, if everything you knew before was the B-series at least.
This now classifies itself as the A-series (for “Ausbau” extension) and is written for the rules of the Abenteuer Ausbau Set, a rules and lore expansion that came out in early ’85.

Where in B9 the GM had to deal with at times 12 named NPCs on a boat, this one throws you into the deep end: it’s set at the annual tourney in Gareth, the largest city of the continent, and it has dozens upon dozens of named characters with different motivations. It has multiple timelines and Detective elements (barely) and some potential for epic showdowns in the imperial palace.

That sounds good, and is marred only by a few problems.

But first the authors: I don’t have a clue about Mai. He wrote two more adventures, one of which was a sequel to this. He also contributed to the Ausbau rules.

Blumenkamp on the other hand will show up in the history of German roleplaying for a while, doing DSA stuff, columns, and reviews, often a quite critical and funny ones even. That is until 1997 when Kiesow dies and this pen name of his dies with him.

I am not sure why Ulrich Kiesow felt the need to use a pen name here, when he published before under his own name. Maybe because half the books so far were penned under his name.

The preface notes this is intended for the rules expansion so we can now play all types of heroes: Adventurers, Warriors, Mages, Vagabonds, Druids, Votaries (priests), Elves, and Dwarves.
Oh well, except Wood Elves as they don’t like cities.

Yup, that was the amount of classes available.

It’s actually funny, but in no part of the adventure is the need to play a noble mentioned to take part in that tourney. It’s just recommended to have one or two warriors.
Despite the fact that B10 ended with the possibility of a title for the heroes.
But DSA is being ahistorical here. Warriors are already special in the rules, with a patent that allows them to use knightly weapons. Right now it also works as a prestige class for Adventurers (the class that is), but later lore establishes them as an accepted social class.

So of course we start with a backstory to read. We meet Odilbert, “the bard of your group”.

Really? You are dropping a new member of our own group on us?

In any case Odilbert wants to win the bardic competition and is scouting for a topic. he even seems to find one and doesn’t say much more, although you overhear a snippet. Something about foxes and ravens.

Then he’s stabbed in the stomach.

Alas, poor Odilbert. You didn’t even make it past the introduction.

You better hope none of the heroes present have healing magic ready. But well, even if they do, it’s a cut scene.

The intro is mercifully brief, it’s barely two and a half pages, one of which is a full page illustration.

It does not actually provide a reason WHY after creeping through dungeons and deserts for months we decided to just attend a tourney, but oh well.

It does pose a small problem with the mystery section of the adventure though. A quick-witted player might easily cotton on to what’s going to happen within a paragraph of hearing the song snippet.
Because the next paragraph highlights coats of arms with foxes (the imperial family) and ravens (of the chancellor’s).
So yeah.
It turns out chancellor Answin of Rabenmund wants to kill the heir of Emperor Hal, crown prince Brin, at his engagement dinner.

This is where it gets complicated, because this adventure is free-form. We get two timelines, a public one for the tourney, and a GM-only one with plot relevant stuff. Then we get an overview of the various stages of the tourney.
The heroes can investigate Odilbert’s murder and the conspiracy, but at certain points stuff is happening. The bad guys will try to keep an eye on them, so they randomly get invited to high society events, allowing them to mingle there.

At the same time this still is a tourney, so stuff happens in the background all the time. Events in the tourney are given as mini games.

At one point the bad guys even send someone to lead them on the wrong track.

Next part is an overview of the locations. Except the tourney place is a bit thin. There’s a whopping 5 tents described, 4 of which are our neighbour’s, one is the one of a co-conspirator. Thin.

The bulk of the location overview is the Old Palace. And it reads just like a dungeon, but of course one shouldn’t go room to room here, lest you end up in the actual dungeon.

There’s a bit of genius in presenting this place as only in use during the tourney. Explains the lack of people.

We end with an overview of important NPCs, mostly just their stats and their coat of arms.

One interesting entry are the two amazons on the list, one of which is Queen Yppolita of Kurkum in disguise.

Why interesting?

Because the next adventure in the line is A2 Die Göttin der Amazonen (The Amazons Goddess) where both reappear.

So… what do I think?
So far this has been the best of the DSA adventures, it definitely has potential to be an epic moment in a campaign. It’s a very open approach to a scenario.
It still is rather shallow though.
The conspirators’ plot is rather obvious and they go about it like morons. A lot of background detail is missing (the layout of the tourney grounds for example, or NPC characterizations). Everything is kind of short, despite this being the first module with larger page count. Nowadays this would be way more worked out.

For the time this was a political epic though.

Notes

• Sorry, but the illustrations of this one look decidedly home-baked. The illustrator was Jochen Fortmann, who already did the illustrations for B10. These ones are… boring.
• The picture of Emperor Hal as your typical bearded royal causes some interesting canon-issues with the character of the Emperor that was established later (or even just his profile in the extension set that should have come out the same time and which is being referenced in this adventure)
• What exactly is happening on the cover there. Sure, two knights jousting with another. With… morning stars? What the hell? That’s not how a joust works! Cover art was by Claus Biswanger again.
• We start getting into the time where there’s no foreign language translations anymore. This one only had the French versions published in 1986, no Italian or Dutch this time.

Running Tally (by quality, from best to worst):

1. A1 Die Verschwörung von Gareth
2. B2 Wald ohne Wiederkehr
3. B6 Unter dem Nordlicht
4. B9 Strom des Verderbens
5. B1 Im Wirtshaus zum Schwarzen Keiler
6. B8 Durch das Tor der Welten
7. B10 In den Fängen des Dämons
8. B3 Das Schiff der Verlorenen Seelen
9. B4 Die Sieben Magischen Kelche