Despite the cover saying The Cloudlords of Tanara (1984) is the first of the Loremaster series, it is, in fact, the third. It follows the same Iron Crown framework of cultural, historical and political information followed by a number of adventure sites. With Iron Wind, it is a big building block for what would eventually become the wonderfully strange Shadow World campaign setting. I also feel like this is the best known of the Loremaster modules – it felt familiar for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on (I didn’t own it back in the day). Maybe the power of advertising.

This region of the world is dominated by the Cloudlords, false gods who set themselves up as tyrants, while various factions push back in rebellion. This makes every political relationship in the region fraught, naturally. Is it me, or are those three lads Rutger Hauer, Billy Idol and Sting? Most of the adventure locations are less dungeons than they are active civic buildings and palaces. There is a lot of interesting material here.

Very nice cover by Gail McIntosh, another great Iron Crown artist who didn’t do much work for other companies. Just a handful of Dragon Magazine covers, at least that I can find. Shame, that.