The Gates of Firestorm Peak (1996) is a second-edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons adventure by Bruce Cordell for levels 5-8.

When TSR introduced the second-edition Player’s Option books, new designer Bruce Cordell drew the job of writing an adventure highlighting the supplements.

The Combat & Tactics supplement introduced the maps-and-minis, grid-based style of combat that would come to dominate third and fourth edition. For that, the adventure packages monster tokens, and vivid—almost psychedelic—battlemaps for key locations.

For characters upgraded with Skills & Powers, The Gates of Firestorm Keep brings tough combat challenges against organized duergar resistance.

After passing the duergar guarding the gate, the party can continue through more combat, or stealth, or an alliance with a duergar usurper. Reviewer Will Mistretta writes, “Firestorm Peak is strongly non-linear, with more than one way to tackle the dungeon’s challenges.”

Never content to build a dungeon around a mere ruin or hole in the ground, Cordell begins with a evocative premise: “Once a generation, they say, a strange comet appears in the sky overhead and the gates of Firestorm Peak swing open.” One player has the option of casting their character as the offspring of an adventurer who disappeared in the mountain 28 years ago.

The adventure starts as a tactical challenge, but it veers into fresh territory. “Anyone who’s been a gamer long enough reaches a stage where he or she begins to feel like it’s all been done,” John D. Rateliff says. “This adventure is evidence that fresh talent will always come along and do the familiar with so much verve and so many personal touches that it all seems new again.”

As the party delves deeper and starts unraveling the peak’s mystery, the story creeps into the weird territory of things we’re not meant to know. “It positively oozes freaky flavor,” writes Mistretta. “The alien life forms infesting the depths of the dungeon are truly unsettling in their aspect and the gradual transition from a classic Underdark romp to the heart of an otherworldly foulness is handled quite deftly.”

Firestorm Peak introduced the Far Realm, a Lovecraftian dimension of insanity and horror. “It got a lot of attention because it was evocative and focused on one of D&D’s influences that had long been neglected—the Cthulhu mythos,” Shannon Appelcline writes in his product history. “The Gates of Firestorm Peak was also the adventure that changed the way people thought about D&D aberrations. Beforehand, they were wizardly experiments gone wrong, but afterward they were more frequently associated with Lovecraftian monstrosities.”

The Gates of Firestorm Peak ranked 11 on Dungeon magazine’s 2004 list of 30 greatest adventures.

Next: Number 9.