Close
Close
Advanced Search

The Great Modron March (2e)Click to magnify
Full‑size Preview
https://watermark.drivethrurpg.com/pdf_previews/17302-sample.pdf

The Great Modron March (2e)

ADD TO WISHLIST >
Selected Option:
THE NEXT MARCH WASN'T DUE FOR ANOTHER 189 YEARS. TRY TELLING THAT TO THE MODRONS!
 
On a regular schedule, the Great Modron March spills out of Mechanus, and the lawful automatons files their way around the Great Ring. No one knows why they do it, but everyone stays out of their way - because when the modrons march, they'll walk right over a berk who doesn't know enough to move aside.
 
But this March has started decades before it was supposed to begin, and that's even more of a mystery. Caught unprepared, the planes shudder under the modrons' collective footsteps - and even the modrons themselves seem a little out of sorts.
 
The Great Modron March anthology features 11 adventures for characters ranging from 1st to 10th level, as well as new information about the modrons of Mechanus. Each adventure can be played separely or linked together to form an extended campaign. The modron procession touches every Outer Plane in turn - and it isn't always welcome. On their unswerving path, the clockwork creatures will destroy celestial towns, be attacked by evil knights intent on using modron parts in foul experiments, and lead characters onto the deadly plains of the Abyss and into the famous prime-material labyrinth of Undermountain. Without help, they'll be lost in the swirling chaos of Limbo or even fail to complete the March entirely.
 
And along their route, every blood on the planes seeks the answer to the most important question: Why have the Modrons abandoned their normal, lawful schedule to march years before they're due?
 
Product History
 
The Great Modron March (1997), by Monte Cook and Colin McComb, is a series of adventures that give the heroes a tour of the Great Wheel, acompanying the clockwork automata from the plane of Mechanus around the multiverse on an unscheduled tour. It's eleven separate adventures can be played in almost any order, skipping around as desired in order to customize the adventure path's pacing. They're designed to take heroes from 1st level to 10th.
 
There are also a lot of good set pieces in these adventures that can be yoinked by DMs for use in their own home adventures, and the module definitely delivers its money's worth. Good thing, too.
 
A True Story. I pretty much cackled with glee when I read The Great Modron March for the first time. The adventure was full of clever fights, intriguing villains, and exotic planar locations; just the sort of thing I loved. It was also a perfect lead-in into Monte Cook's upcoming Dead Gods adventure. 
 
And so I planned for my campaign to focus on modrons for the next year or so. With the PCs already in Sigil, it was no trouble to set up the beginning of The Great Modron March; on cue, the modrons poured forth from the gate-town of Automata to begin their oddly unscheduled circuit of the Great Wheel, trampling anything in their wake. The heroes watched with awe.
 
"Wow," said one of my players, "that modron just walked through someone's house. Modrons are kind of jerks."
 
"Lawful neutral," said another player, "whatcha gonna do? You know, there's a lot of other heroes here who can deal with this. Let's go back to Sigil and just check in on them later to see if anyone found out why they're marching."
 
"Good idea!" chorused the group. And back to Sigil they went.
 
With them went my modron-related dreams, hopes, and aspirations. But I'm not bitter. Nope. Not at all. Even if to this day when trying to decide what to do in my current D&D campaign, a player occasionally says, "Let's go see what the modrons are doing!"
 
Jerks.
 
And when the modrons finally finished their march, and the PCs asked why they had been marching in the first place? I didn't tell them.
 
Wherein Your Historian Learns a Lesson. I think I would have been fine if I'd used the adventure hooks in the adventure instead of trying to create my own. Even so, modrons aren't necessarily sympathetic characters, and you'll want to think about how to humanize them enough that the heroes want to follow them and discover what's going on. The adventure does address this, but perhaps not in as much detail as I would have liked.
 
Varying, Epic Tone. The tone of each adventure varies somewhat. The book's content careens from a horrific facility that is trying to create monstrous human/modron hybrids from dismembered modrons to a lesson in unanticipated consequences when the PCs help right an ancient wrong, to roleplaying with an insane modron judge, to the challenge of being summoned and pressed into service by an extraplanar conjurer. I think these adventures work best when layered into an ongoing campaign, with side adventures and other exploits between them to help match pacing and tone.
 
Note that there are moments of dark horror in the adventure, as well as opportunities for exceptionally fun roleplaying. There's even a tie-in to the Forgotten Realms and Halaster's Undermountain.
 
Overall? This is a slightly uneven, magnificently rich, really fun adventure that delivers a substantial amount of creativity and valuable play for the money.
 
About the Creators. Award-winning author Monte Cook started working as a freelancer for TSR in 1992 and ultimately left Wizards of the Coast in 2001 to start Malhavoc Press. His 2012 Kickstarter for the post-apocalyptic science-fiction(-fantasy) roleplaying game Numenera raised over $500,000.
 
Colin McComb is the creative lead on inXile's Kickstarted RPG Torment: Tides of Numenera, which uses Monte Cook's upcoming sci-fi/fantasy game Numenera and which follows in the creative vision of Planescape: Torment. Also an award-winning designer, he has written dozens of games and adventures for TSR and Paizo Publishing.
 
About the Product Historian
 
History and commentary of this product was written by Kevin Kulp, game designer and admin of the independent D&D fansite ENWorld. Please feel free to mail corrections, comments, and additions to kevin.kulp@gmail.com.
 

We (Wizards) recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website does not reflect the values of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end.

pixel_trans.gif
pixel_trans.gif
 
 Customers Who Bought this Title also Purchased
pixel_trans.gif
pixel_trans.gif
Reviews (6)
Discussions (20)
Customer avatar
stefano R November 11, 2022 3:24 pm UTC
Give us Appelcline back
Customer avatar
Josh S July 06, 2021 12:00 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Excellent POD. The print quality is good, text is clear, and the cover looks nice, including the original art for the spine of the book. It seems to me like their POD quality has increased recently and it shows in this product.
Customer avatar
Andy S June 02, 2021 9:59 am UTC
PURCHASER
PoD please.
Customer avatar
Frederic L April 12, 2021 1:27 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Print on demand please!
Customer avatar
Nick S April 01, 2021 6:19 pm UTC
PURCHASER
WARNING: DO NOT BUY
I have contacted both DMs Guild and WotC about quality problems with this product and they simply don't care.

The Great Modron March (2e): Text is blurry, the cover is damaged (cracks and creases on left-hand side), pages are crooked, image is over compressed, images (including the cover) are cropped (the image goes off the page)
Reply
Customer avatar
Nick S June 02, 2021 9:22 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Update: 6/2/2021
Product has been re-scanned and has addressed all of the issues that I had. The book is legible and OCR'd now and the artwork looks crisp. Thanks!
Customer avatar
Jozsef T February 01, 2021 6:22 pm UTC
PURCHASER
pod pls
Customer avatar
Dwight F January 31, 2021 4:24 am UTC
Make it a POD and you'll get a purchase.
Customer avatar
Nicholas P January 13, 2021 5:12 pm UTC
POD please
Customer avatar
Tristram E January 03, 2021 7:13 am UTC
PURCHASER
shame this doesn't have a POD option
Customer avatar
Christopher T December 16, 2020 12:56 pm UTC
PURCHASER
POD, please.
Customer avatar
Carlos R December 15, 2020 7:37 pm UTC
PURCHASER
POD please
Customer avatar
PAUL C November 01, 2020 8:58 pm UTC
PURCHASER
POD?!?
Customer avatar
Antonio W October 02, 2020 3:43 pm UTC
POD
Customer avatar
Gareth J September 17, 2020 2:56 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Same here - POD please.
Customer avatar
Jozsef T August 20, 2020 5:44 pm UTC
PURCHASER
POD pls!
See 16 more
Narrow Results
$ to $
 Follow Your Favorites!
NotificationsSign in to get custom notifications of new products!
 Recent History















Product Information
Platinum seller
Rule System(s)
Pages
129
Edition
1.0
ISBN
0786906480
Publisher Stock #
TSR 2628
File Size:
48.63 MB
Format
Scanned image Click for more information
Scanned image
These products were created by scanning an original printed edition. Most older books are in scanned image format because original digital layout files never existed or were no longer available from the publisher.

For PDF download editions, each page has been run through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to attempt to decipher the printed text. The result of this OCR process is placed invisibly behind the picture of each scanned page, to allow for text searching. However, any text in a given book set on a graphical background or in handwritten fonts would most likely not be picked up by the OCR software, and is therefore not searchable. Also, a few larger books may be resampled to fit into the system, and may not have this searchable text background.

For printed books, we have performed high-resolution scans of an original hardcopy of the book. We essentially digitally re-master the book. Unfortunately, the resulting quality of these books is not as high. It's the problem of making a copy of a copy. The text is fine for reading, but illustration work starts to run dark, pixellating and/or losing shades of grey. Moiré patterns may develop in photos. We mark clearly which print titles come from scanned image books so that you can make an informed purchase decision about the quality of what you will receive.
pixel_trans.gif
Original electronic format
These ebooks were created from the original electronic layout files, and therefore are fully text searchable. Also, their file size tends to be smaller than scanned image books. Most newer books are in the original electronic format. Both download and print editions of such books should be high quality.
File Information
Watermarked PDF Click for more information
Watermarked PDF

These PDF files are digitally watermarked to signify that you are the owner. A small message is added to the bottom of each page of the PDF containing your name and the order number of your purchase.

Warning: If any files bearing your information are found being distributed illegally, then your account will be suspended and legal action may be taken against you.

Here is a sample of a page from a watermarked title:

File Last Updated:
June 02, 2021
This title was added to our catalog on May 21, 2013.