Ghosts of the Southern Anduin (1989) has a fantastic Angus McBride cover that depict the adventure module’s inciting event, which involves a tailor (you can see his shears in his sheath). Imagine being able to call Angus frickin’ McBride up whenever you like to have him paint a custom cover for your adventure modules. Just, mind-blowing. Anyway, I love the mist and the hooded figure quite a lot.

Unlike most MERP adventure modules, this one is primarily devoted to adventures. Also unusual: I like them all. The book introduces a little river trading town and proceeds to complicate the lives of the inhabitants. The first arc involves the tailor seeing a ghost on the river and hiring the adventurers to find proof so the village takes him seriously. The phantom is actually a servant of Sauron at work in the town — he occasionally provides passage across the river for fellow agents of the dark lord. Both he and his current passenger are keen to keep that secret.

The second scenario has a similar “is it ghosts?” set-up involving river pirates that can nicely complicate the first. Once those are resolved, the third scenarios sees the players rescuing the tailor from the clutches of Sauron’s cultists. Finally, in the fourth scenario, a real ghost shows up and is intent on drinking souls and spreading pestilence. It hangs together as a nice little campaign, with far more cohesion than I expect from a MERP book.

Darrell Midgette did the interiors. Strong line work. I particularly like the priest of Sauron who looks like Edgar Allan Poe. As ever, there are some very nice maps as well. MERP, Iron Crown Enterprises, Ghosts of the Southern Anduin,