Skull & Crossbows (1990) is the second Spelljammer module and is a collection of short scenarios by Nigel Findley, unified by the theme of piracy. I’m always excited when I see Findley’s name on an RPG product! Somehow, he crams 19 scenarios into 64 pages! Fantastic cover by Brom — my favorite piece of Spelljammer art, I think — with a villain inset an undead pirate which could very well be by Brom, too. Paul Abrams is the interior artist; I like his bold, comic book-style ink work. He reminds me of Jeff Butler and I think the clean lines suit Spelljammer well.

Let’s see. First scenario is perfunctory — players are hanging out on the Rock of Bral and get commissioned to hunt pirates. A couple of the scenarios are fairly mundane pirate bounties, one for an evil elf, one for some space vikings, one some giants. One’s a bit unusual and turns out to be a space dragon, another a lich. There are some abandoned ships to investigate, some neogi slavers to foil. There are two scenarios featuring space drow. Several scenarios have interconnected threads, plenty have villains who will likely escape and plague your players in adventures to come. The whole package is a nice set of opportunities, though the bounty list and pirate-hunting set-up gets a little repetitive. At this historical point, though, Skull & Crossbows was the best bet for setting up an ongoing Spelljammer campaign.