OK, it’s time to tackle the Conan modules. This is the first, Conan Unchained!, by Dave Cook, from 1984, which makes it a marketing tie-in for Conan the Destroyer, the not nearly as good sequel to Conan the Barbarian (though the soundtrack is arguably better). That’s Arnold Schwarzenegger on the cover, if you didn’t know (of course you knew).

Let’s get this out of the way: the best part of the module is Jeff Butler’s art. I think he did a good job of capturing the vibes of Marvel’s Conan comic book magazines of the 70s and 80s. The second best thing is the rules variations Cook came up with. There is a fear system for reactions to monsters, luck points for heroes and a pulpier healing mechanic, all of which are interesting, if rudimentary, additions.

Everything else is crap. It’s on rails. You have to play pre-generated characters, only one of which is Conan (who, of course, everyone wants to play) and no one at TSR apparently stopped to wonder if D&D was a good fit for game set in the world of Conan. It isn’t. There’s very little magic. It’s ultraviolent in ways that D&D struggles to support. There are barely any monsters, and one of them is called the Manotor. Crom deliver me.

I would be hard pressed to call this one of the worst D&D modules, because there are some serious stinkers in the catalog, and there is some novelty to having Arnold on the cover, but this was such a missed opportunity for something cool and interesting.