The Shade of the Sinking Plain (1984) is an odd one. For starters, unlike every other Iron Crown publication, this one’s cover isn’t attached, so, like a D&D module. Second, it is a joint venture between Iron Crown and something called North Pole Publications, which I have never otherwise heard of. Third, probably owing to that, it doesn’t at all feel like an Iron Crown book.

The production values are pretty low, particularly in the first half, which is under-illustrated and features maps well below Iron Crown’s usual extremely high Pete Fenlon standards. Once the book gets to the adventures, at least, there is some good art, including a pretty wild two-page spread by James Holloway. Most of the substance of the book seems like it was mushed into the Loremaster mold, rather than created specifically for it. Much of it feels unimaginative. Just about all of it feels forced.

That said, the Shade is a pretty great villain. For starters, she’s a she, which is unusual for the time (the way the text handles this, though, reminds me a bit of that All in the Family episode with the riddle about the doctor). She has a cool backstory. A former princess and dabbler in the dark arts, her astral self wound up in a bad dimensions where, Hellraiser-like, her soul was tormented for years. When she finally escaped back to her body (which lies, Sleeping Beauty-like, on a bier at the top of an isolated tower), she found that her soul had been stained pitch black and she could no longer animate her physical form but also can’t die in a conventional way. So she naturally turned to a life of crime. I love her. Someone should steal her and put her in a good adventure.

Holloway did the one illustration of her. The other, with the badass demon, is by Victoria, who I never heard of before, but I’d love to see more of her work. She did the cover too, which I also like a lot.