Shadows of Evil (1984) is the biggest adventure in the Role Aids line, clocking in at 80 pages plus map pull-outs. There is some source material at the front of the book for roleplaying in the Celtic world (or, I guess, the post-Roman Celtic world, more accurately) and a set of powers and items designed as a supplement for the D&D Druid class (reprinted from an earlier article in Dragon Magazine). This focus on Celts is a little jarring, as the Boris Vallejo cover is pretty generic looking fantasy, and, aside of some narrative trappings, the adventures don’t have much Celtic flavor.

There are two linked adventures. The first concerns a, well, a weird place. It was a site of worship for Dark Druids, then a Roman fort and now it is a manor that doubles as an abbey for some good Druids that seem rather Christian, really. They’ve been corrupted, though and in order to set things right, an evil artifact of great power must be retrieved. The second adventure requires the destruction of the artifact lest its use bring about the return of an evil pre-Celtic deity. To do so, the player have to travel to an evil citadel…owned by a witch-king…and throw the thing…into a pit of fire. Which seems a lot more Lord of the Rings than Celtic mythology. All of this is further undercut by pretty standard dungeon design populated by a prosaic complement of D&D monsters. I actually like the dungeons and how generic they are, but they feel real weird in the Celtic context.

Nice art throughout by Robin Wood. Very different, I think, from her work in Swordthrust.