Fucking Battlesystem? Goddammit.

This is I14: Swords of the Iron Legion (1988) and I didn’t know until just this moment that it was an anthology of Battlesystem scenarios. Unlike the Bloodstone Pass modules, this doesn’t even have the decency to go way over the top. It’s very much watered down Bloodstone.

Like Bloodstone, this is one of the earliest appearances of the Forgotten Realms logo, this time on the front cover. I think it is the second instance, following N5: Under Illefarn. Like Bloodstone, its pretty heavy on the Battlesystem. It is maybe the most Battlesystem-ish module TSR put out? And, in typical fashion, there is no actual Battlesystem logo (though it does get mentioned on the back copy, so I guess my first seeing it on the title page is a bit of my own problem). That all the scenarios pretty much culminate in a mass combat makes me want to go to sleep.

The scenarios are very loosely linked and involve the efforts of a daemon to create a super weapon, which the players eventually encounter and destroy. The weapon in question is a sort of phantom train full of undead solders that blasts people with necrotic energy as it thunders along its tracks? It is very silly and entirely impossible to take seriously.

Larry Elmore delivers a curiously static looking cover. The only point of real interest for me is the skull-headed guy in the deep background. And, I guess, the fact that main warrior looks like he’s going to try to lop the head off his own horse, and that the horse appears to be giving him the side-eye? No credit for the interiors, which is a shame, because some of them are rather nice.