Someone graciously gave a copy of the tracks to A Light in the Belfry. So, without further ado...
A Light in the Belfry
This module, for levels 6-8, comes with a CD. There were a handful of products of this nature published by TSR in the mid-90s after CDs became all the rage. This adventure takes place in an uninhabited island domain called Avonleigh, that is perpetually shrouded in darkness. Why the PCs are here is anyone’s guess. The module describes various ways in which to get the party here, all of which boil down to “Oops, you’re in Avonleigh now.”.
To start, the GM is instructed to listen to tracks 1-13 on the CD which details the story of the necromancer Morgoroth. In short, he arrives in Avonleigh and swears allegiance to a paladin lord, to atone for the sins of his past. Using magic, he constructs a keep on a parcel of land. He falls in love with the lord’s sister, Aurora, though her vows to the church keep them apart. Eventually, Morgoroth’s past catches up to him, and a paladin from his former home comes for vengeance, and Morgoroth kills him, heads back to his keep, and turns the paladin into a zombie. The Lord convinces the order that Morgoroth is still good, and seeks an audience with him at his keep, but finds the zombie instead, and is never heard from again. Morgoroth heads back to the temple, kidnaps Aurora, and the remainder of the paladins arm themselves and attack the necromancer’s keep to finish him once and for all. Like the lord, all the paladins were never seen again. Ironically, if they had just waited a day, they would have seen that Ravenloft itself would pluck Morgoroth and his keep into the domains of dread. There, Morgoroth fashioned a magic mirror to act as a portal home, only the mirror shattered into 13 shards upon its creation, trapping a bit of Morgoroth’s soul into each shard. Aurora remains in the castle, in a glass coffin frozen in a stasis.
The story is OK but does sound a bit like a cheesy romance novel at times. Morgoroth comes across as a narcissistic incel, honestly. But he’s not really meant to be a sympathetic character, anyway. The module plays out a bit like Castles Forlorn – the PCs are just expected to show up at the gates of the castle, and a track on the CD is tied to each room of the keep, to enhance the gaming experience.
The first area is the gate to the keep. The track gives a great description of the gate, and its pointed iron spikes that make up the wall. The rusty padlock can be removed with magic, picked or, curiously, the gates will open if the PCs say the wizard’s name “Morgoroth”. And I’m over here completely scratching my head trying to fathom how anyone would know this wizard’s name in the party, because with nary a soul in the entire land, and the PCs being plopped here, basically randomly, that seems impossible.
This proceeds in a room-by-room fashion until the PCs finally arrive to the final showdown. There are some 45 tracks in total for the various rooms and the various endings that could result in the final showdown. The final 27 tracks on the disc are there just to use as sound effects. These vary from the sound of breaking glass to a grown man crying. All the tracks evoke a kind of “Vincent Price” style of narration, heavy on the style at the time. It’s almost campy or kitschy today, but amazingly enough – I kind of like it!
Here's the thing. This module would make an incredible module for a beginning GM to run. Like, yes, the tracks on the CD are somewhat cheesy, but they are good. And, along the way, the GM gets to hear what describing the rusted iron gate of an abandoned keep should sound like. In a way, the GM gets to lay out a map, have their players wander around it, and for each room, simply click a button to play that track. Oh sure, there are some game mechanics to resolve, and some combat along the way (it’s kind of light on the combat), but for the most part, this should be an easy ride on the GM’s part. Honestly, I think I’ll give this to my daughter to run for her friends. She’s never ran a D&D game before, but I think this one could be quite doable for beginner GMs.
That doesn’t mean there’s no prep here. Obviously, unless you’re running this using 2e rules, you’ll have to convert stuff. Morgoroth is a 13th level necromancer, which kind of sounds like a TPK for a party of 6th-8th level. Moreso for the 6th level party, but still. He has a lot of abilities and would be quite difficult to defeat in regular combat. Fortunately, clever parties can destroy his mirror, which kills him, so there is kind of an easy button here. Lastly, I’m not sure I would place this in Avonleigh. There isn’t a compelling reason, IMHO, to place this within its own isolated domain, devoid of anything but heavy-handedness getting you there and back again.
Some online reviews I’ve read of this suggest this to be either a “love it” or “hate it” kind of adventure. It will probably be necessary to forewarn the party of the hokey nature of some of the tracks, and to just take it all in stride. The other chief recommendation here is to find a transcript of the tracks. If someone has a question about a room, the only option is to play the track again, so having a text of the room’s description will speed that process up. You might want to create an actual reason for the party to be here, unless you're just planning on running it as a Halloween one-shot, or something.