Nightrage (1990) continues the Blood Brethren trilogy (that refers to two goblin brothers, one a cleric, the other sorcerer, of mysterious origin, who are instrumental in Thanatos’ plot). This one takes place primarily in Nithia, a riff on ancient Egypt, though some additional Azcan stuff shows up, then there’s the island of the feathered flying serpents, creatures that are pretty important to the central mystery. Oh and there are elementals (which are weird in the Known World, in a cool way) and a volcano. Lava!

How do the players get to Nithia from the remote Azcan Empire? Why, a giant worm eats them in Azcan, travels to Nithia, and then poops them out. I know a lot of people think that 90s TSR is the boring period and I keep trying to tell those people how wrong they are. Those giant worms are a big part of the evil plot, as they’re literally eating the world.

After cleaning themselves up, the players have a big sandbox (litterbox?) to sift through, punctuated by preordained events, as was the fashion in the early 90s. I think it works better here than in, say, the majority of the Ravenloft modules.

Lot of cool art in this one, including early stuff from Tim Bradstreet.