Beginning in 1992, TSR published a series of one-on-one scenarios catering to each character class. There were duets before (Blade of Vengeance is a good one), but those featured pre-generated characters. This new series was meant as a way for custom characters to gain experience before joining a larger group campaign. I really like this idea!

Fighter’s Challenge (1992) is the least surprising of the series, as fighters fight and that, essentially, is the distillation of D&D adventures broadly. There’s lots of fighting here. The combat leans on many of the optional rules from the Fighter’s Handbook as well. They’re still optional, but it nice to have them incorporated here to make learning them more accessible.

The module is surprisingly robust. It would be totally acceptable to have it be a simple dungeon crawl, but that’s not the case. There is a hub village with NPCs, a wilderness area to travel through and, ultimately, a ruined tower to explore. The main questline is supplemented by a number of additional sidequests, which would work either in duet, or developed for group play.

A nice thing about the encounter design here is that many of them begin in a way that reflects action in the world outside of the player’s choices. For instance, there is a black dragon statue in the sidequests; the result of an encounter with a beholder. Before getting hit with the eye ray, she mortally wounded the beast, leaving a severed eye stalk and a trail of ichor for the player to follow. This is a really nice way of putting some high-level creatures in the world without expecting the player to have to fight them (the beholder, if found, is dead; in addition, knowledge of the dragon statue will save the player’s life if they encounter her offspring).

The cover illustration is by John and Laura Lakey. I believe it originally appeared in the Fighter’s Handbook and it maybe got recycled again in the 2.5E Player’s Handbook? Interiors by Karl Waller, and damn, they look good, though as usual they reproduce rather lighter than I would like.

Tom Meier's one of the great sculptors of miniatures. I've loved his giants in particular for a long time, the ones he did for Ral Partha back in the late '70s. They have an amazing, elongated quality, strange proportions and an ungainly sense of motion. 

I've finally gotten a hold of a few to paint, two of his cloud giants, and the classic frost giant. This last I painted the other weekend. I'm quite pleased with him. I usually drybrush fur, but all those highlights are individually painted. And I managed to not cock up the eyes! Anyway, he's very jaunty.