Egg of the Phoenix

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Egg of the Phoenix is a 1987 adventure for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 1st edition. It is coded I12 and designed for character levels 5–9 in a generic campaign world. In this adventure, players investigate a slave ring and must help save the land of New Empyrea from the Lords of Elemental Evil. The game includes dungeon adventures, wilderness exploration, time travel, and journeys to other realms. It was designed by Frank Mentzer, with significant help from Jennell Jaquays. TSR published it in 1987 as an eighty-page book, a twenty-page booklet, and an unattached outer folder; the cover art is by Keith Parkinson, and the booklet contains a map and pre-generated characters. Egg of the Phoenix ties together four earlier RPGA adventures (R1–R4) into one longer campaign.

Reception: Ken Rolston reviewed it in Dragon magazine issue #133. He liked the first three parts as original and entertaining, especially in how they use the AD&D rules, but found the final part busy and not as elegant. He felt the campaign frame didn’t fit well because the earlier adventures weren’t designed to be a single sequence, and the transitions didn’t match the tone. He also noted typos and a map-book misprint. Still, he concluded there is a lot of strong material—nine or more sessions of solid, sometimes brilliant content—and that the tournament-style adventures are among Mentzer’s strongest designs.