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The Return of the Blue Baron is the sequel to An Invitation From the Blue Baron, but it is designed to be played without needing to have played the first part, since it is the continuation of Blue Baron's story, not the PC's.
Return is a free two-level, medium-length collaborative dungeon written for Blueholme, the retroclone that emulates the first revision of D&D Basic. It is designed for a group of 4 to 6 adventurers, level 3.
This adventure includes some traditional elements (goblins, for example) and others that only seem traditional but have completely unexpected twists (ying / yang trolls; wait to see them and you will understand!). There's also a hole that is actually a huge mouth.
The adventure of Return consists of a contest. The Blue Baron has died (in strange circumstances), and his widow organized a competition: the first group that manages to find the body of the Baron, which is hidden somewhere in a dungeon, will be the winner.
The strongest points of this adventure are its originality and its cohesion. Although it was written by 10 people, most of the dungeons have a certain flavor that makes it plausible; that does not mean that there are not unexpected and surprising moments, it means that almost all the rooms are unexpected and surprising, maintaining the same tone during the whole adventure, with only few exceptions.
Speaking of tone, this is partly whimsical and partly serious. Many of the encounters can become hilarious for all players with the same ease with which they can be taken seriously; one could say there is almost no place for vanilla fantasy, because Return is more on the weird, or even gonzo sides of game style.
Other highlights are the depth of the plot (intrigue, and several factions that operate at the same time), the ability to play as a sequel or independent module, the rules to measure time (they have 3 days to find the body or escape of the dungeon), strange and original monsters, and the multiple endings according to whether or not they manage to find the Baron's body before the others.
If there are two things I can complain about, it's, first, the descriptions of some rooms are quite long; and the second is that the text appears in a single column, not double column. None is too serious a problem when found separate, but when they come together, reading becomes a bit more difficult and exhausting. The descriptions of most of the rooms are so interesting allow a funny adventure, though, but sometimes it gets alittle tedious to read through a not particullarly interesting room, which, fortunately, are few.
Other small details that are strange are the numbering of the maps (when reading room 1 there is no indication of where the entrance to the dungeon is; in fact, it's until we get to room 3 that we discover the entrance) and the appearance of rules when it seems that the adventure has already begun (the widow makes an announcement and the players can make their characters get equipped and roll for rumors), after that fake start, some more rules come, which causes confusion. But none of these details is too important, and when the exploration of the dungeon begins, which is the central part of the module, there is no interruption until the end.
In conclusion, Return is an interesting adventure that will challenge your most ingenious players. Will they be able to assemble the Baron's body in time?
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