Well, here’s an odd one. The 1997 campaign box Tale of the Comet, by Thomas M. Reid, is…well, let me start with the AD&D Odyssey line. The Odyssey branding was only used on four products – the three books in Jeff Grubb’s Jakandor campaign setting, and this unconnected box. The through line, I think, was to provide a catch all for experimental D&D settings that would largely stand alone.

Tale of the Comet riffs a bit on the core idea of S3: The Expedition to the Barrier Peaks – a spaceship has crash landed in a sword and sorcery fantasy world. In Comet, though, it is just one ship in a larger invasion force, thus pitting the players against an army of ray gun wielding death machines that would feel at home in Warhammer 40k or an old school bullet hell videogame.

The invaders, called the Rael, are basically six-fingered space elves. Their tech, in game terms, is nicely balanced against…their own tech. A regular D&D party doesn’t stand a chance against the Rael unless they steal some of that tech, or have a lot of mages with electricity-based spells.

Strangest of all, should the players defeat the invaders, the players will discover a dimensional gate that will take them up against the Overseer, an insane artificial intelligence bent on dominating the universe and, finally, provides rules for converting D&D characters into TSR’s Alternity science fiction RPG system.

I am never going to run this. As an oddity, I kind of love it, though I can’t decide if it represent a last gasp of unhinged creativity born out of the decline of TSR, or a flailing disaster attempting to hook players on Alternity. There is a slight whiff of desperation in the box.

If you’ve played this, sound off in the comments. I am dying to hear your takes.