I love a Christmas adventure! This is Unholy Nights in Lankhmar (2019), for Dungeon Crawl Classics: Lankhmar, naturally. I don’t know if there are other DCC holiday scenarios — it wouldn’t surprise me — but if you asked me to outline sort of the Platonic ideal of one, I feel like it would be pretty close to this.

This sees Khahkht of the Black Ice, the sort of big bad from some of Leiber’s later stories of the Twain (primarily “The Frost Monstreme” and “Rime Isle”), come to Lankhmar to attempt the sorcerous resurrection of one of his ancestors. With him comes endless night and cold — the working requires twelve human sacrifices to fertilize twelve trees to grow in the darkness of twelve nights. Not very Christmasy, even considering the fact that the pictured tree is an evergreen. Perhaps an appearance by Santa Claus will help? As a bit of a red herring, there’s Christoph Krenkel, a time traveler/dimension hopper in the employ of Hagenbecks Zeitgarten (we’ve met his sort before — Karl Treuherz, the sea monster-riding German from Leiber’s novel, Swords of Lankhmar). In the hopes of disguising his activities, he consciously dresses like St. Nick in the hopes of duping the inhabitants of the worlds he visits. Why not!

Despite these silly trappings, the scenario is a deeply and effectively investigative one, with players taking to the streets in various manners to shake loose the truth of what’s going on. Little chance of defeating Khahkht himself (he’s on the level of DCC’s otherworldly patrons) but his ritual is fragile. His minions — ice gnomes and aurora wraiths — are interesting, though, and provide a nice, icy foil for the players’ heroics. Good stuff, one of the best in the line, perhaps!

Cover by Doug Kovacs. Interiors by the DCC crew: Chris Arneson, Kovacs, Brad McDevitt, Stefan Poag and Peter Mullen. Maintains the iconic DCC look handily.