Publisher: Wizards of the CoastBeware the cat-men's fury!
This entry-level module pits a single player character of 2nd to 4th level against samurai cat-men. Rage of the Rakasta is specially designed as a one-on-one for a single DUNGEON MASTER and one player. It can also be played by a DM and a group of players or by a single player without a DM.
Rage of the Rakasta takes place in the Thunder Rift game setting. It can be played by itself or as part of a campaign with other modules sharing the same setting: Quest for the Siver Sword, Assault on Raven's Ruins, Sword and Shield, Knight of Newts, and the forthcoming In the Phantom's Wake.
The DUNGEONS and amp; DRAGONS Game Box is needed to play this adventure
Recommended for a single character, levels 2-4 Can be played with or without a DUNGEON MASTER Includes a large map sheet and twenty stand-up figures Introduces new monsters, new magic items, and a new character class Can be played as a sequel to Quest for the Silver Sword or as a stand-alone adventure.
Product History
and quot;Rage of the Rakasta and quot; (1993), by William W. Connors, is the fifth Thunder Rift adventure. It was published in April 1993.
About the Title. This adventure was originally advertised in Thunder Rift (1992) as and quot;Rage of the Cat Men and quot;.
Origins: Simple Adventures. By Spring 1993, the Thunder Rift line of adventures was quite mature. Each one was a short and simple 16-page supplement meant for use with The New Easy-to-Master Dungeons and amp; Dragons Game (1991), based on the setting described in Thunder Rift (1992).
and quot;Rage of the Rakasta and quot; is a pseudo-sequel to the first Thunder Rift adventure, and quot;Quest for the Silver Sword and quot; (1992). It's set in the same locale, uses the same character as a patron, and allows for slightly higher level play.
Graphic Tropes. Like all of its predecessors, and quot;Rage of the Rakasta and quot; comes with components intended to make play (and particularly combat) easy. A black-and-white map with room descriptions gives the GM easy access to the overall dungeon; while a color battle map and cardstock figures give the players evocative access to the locale.
Adventure Tropes: Choose Your Own Adventure. Like and quot;The Knight of Newts and quot; (1993) before it, and quot;Rage of the Rakasta and quot; supports GMless gaming. The difference is that and quot;Rage and quot; is a one-on-one adventure; if the single player goes GMless, then it becomes a solo gamebook, a style of play that had very different expectations than the multiplayer GMless experience of and quot;The Knight of Newts and quot;.
At the time, solo play was quite well-developed in any number of choose-your-own-adventure stories or more complex gamebooks. TSR published many of their own, including Basic D and amp;D solos in the BSOLO (1984) and XSOLO (1984-1985) lines. These adventures usually included pretty sophisticated game systems that protected players from knowing too much and that carefully guided their actions.
and quot;Rage of the Rakasta and quot; instead repeats the much more limited GMless play style of and quot;The Knight of Newts and quot;, and it's nothing like that. The player reads short descriptions of rooms on maps, decides what to do, then finds the room in the adventure text, and sees if his actions are supported. Players expecting the more complex and mature solo play of previous D and amp;D solo adventures tended to be disappointed.
Adventure Tropes. and quot;Rage of the Rakasta and quot; sounds pretty epic. The adventure background is all about stopping a war. But the adventure is just another dungeon crawl (or a palace crawl if you prefer).
Expanding D and amp;D. and quot;Rage of the Rakasta and quot; is the only Thunder Rift supplement to contain rules for a D and amp;D class: the Rakasta. Unfortunately, because and quot;Rage and quot; was a supplement for black box D and amp;D game, the class only goes up to fifth level! This class was included with Ral Partha's and quot;Basic Heroes Set and quot; (1991) of miniatures a few years earlier and mdash; but that class was limited to fifth level too, because it was another black box release!
Players who wanted higher level Rakasta play could instead consult Dragon #181 (May 1992), where Bruce Heard's and quot;Voyages of the Prince Ark and quot; article sort of had rules for Rakasta and mdash; though it just allowed them to use human character classes, at variance with the rest of Basic D and amp;D play.
Exploring the Rift. and quot;Rage of the Rakasta and quot; starts out in the town of Torlynn from and quot;Quest for the Silver Sword and quot;, but its most notable exploration of the Rift comes in its one-page description of the Rakastan village of Artarashai. Though the Rakasta near Torlynn had been referenced in the Thunder Rift sourcebook, the actual village was new.
and quot;Rage of the Rakasta and quot; also makes a rare reference to lands beyond the Rift. The Rakasta apparently came from and quot;the grand Kingdom of Ashai and quot;, which appears to be somewhere faraway, on the same world as Thunder Rift.
Monsters of Note: Rakasta. Though Thunder Rift was theoretically its own standalone world, the presence of the Rakasta in this adventure suggests a connection to the Known World, as they're a race that's exclusively appeared in that setting.
The Rakasta debuted in X1: and quot;Isle of Dread and quot; (1981), then returned in X2: and quot;Castle Amber and quot; (1981). However, these early adventures gave almost no indication of who they were and what their culture was. For that, fans would have to await Bruce Heard's and quot;Voyages of the Princess Ark and quot; column (1990-1992). The Rakasta made their first appearance in the column in Dragon #160 (August 1990), where the crew of the Princess Ark found Rakasta on the Known World moon of Myoshima; this article also offered the first indication they had an Asian-influenced culture. This was clearly an influence on the Rakasta of and quot;Rage of the Rakasta and quot; and mdash; and some fans suggest that the Kingdom of Ashai might be associated with Myoshima.
Later, the Rakasta would return in Dragon #180 (April 1992) and Dragon #181 (May 1992) which laid the groundwork for their presence in the Red Steel Campaign Expansion (1994). As noted, Dragon #181 included alternate rules for Rakasta PCs, something that Bruce Heard revisited for AD and amp;D 2e and the Red Steel setting in and quot;Rakasta of Mystara and quot; in Dragon #247 (May 1998). Though the Rakasta remain a favorite of fans, that would be their last appearance.
Monsters of Note: Rakshasa. Because of their similar names and their similarly feline appearance, fans confuse the Rakasta of Basic D and amp;D and the Rakshasa of AD and amp;D. The similarity in names is probably purposeful, but the Rakshasa aren't feline humanoids, but instead evil spirits drawn from Hindu mythology.
Gary Gygax said that his particularly inspiration for the Rakshasa came from and quot;Horror in the Heights and quot; (1974), an episode of Kolchak the Night Stalker (1974-1975) where Kolchak must fight a Rakshasa who has a vulnerability to a blessed crossbow. This vulnerability indeed was referenced in the debut appearance of the AD and amp;D Rakshasa, in The Strategic Review #5 (December 1975).
About the Creators. Connors burst onto the D and amp;D scene in 1989 with work on many Monstrous Compendiums. He also coauthored GAZ11: and quot;The Republic of Darokin and quot; (1989), giving him footing in the Basic D and amp;D game. and quot;Rage of the Rakasta and quot; was his second Thunder Rift scenario, following and quot;Quest for the Silver Sword and quot; (1992).
About the Product Historian
The history of this product was researched and written by Shannon Appelcline, the editor-in-chief of RPGnet and the author of and nbsp;Designers and amp; Dragons and nbsp;- a history of the roleplaying industry told one company at a time. Please feel free to mail corrections, comments, and additions to shannon.appelcline@gmail.com.