The lerendi princess, Corinna, has disappeared.
She set sail aboard a ship of the Minrothad Guilds - the guilds whose ships have been pirated and plundered for many weeks. Trade is horribly disrupted as many ships leave, never to be seen again. The guild masters now call for adventurers of great skill and renown. They offer small fortunes to any who can help them discover who is pirating their ships. But most importantly, to any who can rescue the princess.
Can you and your party of adventurers defeat the dangers that lurk in the dark depths of a terrifying sea? Or will you find a watery grave within the cold confines of a murky sea floor?
This game adventure contains special rules for underwater adventuring. For characters level 9-12.
Note on Print version: The cover of this title in the print edition has a black boarder due to sizing issues with the original scan.
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Product History
X7: "The War Rafts of Kron" (1984), by Bruce Nesmith, is the seventh adventure in the Expert Series for Basic D&D. It was published in 1984, perhaps toward the middle of the year since it was the second of three "X" adventures that year.
Not Necessarily the Wilderness. Despite the facts that (1) this adventure focuses on several cities that are distant from each other, (2) there's a beautiful hex map of the areas under the Sea of Dread, and (3) this adventure was designed for the wilderness-heavy Expert Rules (1981), there's not much in the way of wilderness in the actual adventure. A few wandering monster encounters and the aforementioned hex map are all you get; the DM will have to supply the rest.
Beneath the Waves. Much of this adventure takes place underwater, and thus it includes two pages of rules for gaming underwater, the only Basic D&D adventure to do so - though its predecessor, X6: "Quagmire!" (1984), had some underwater locales too. Basic D&D's underwater rules postdated somewhat similar rules for underwater adventuring in AD&D, which were published in U3: "The Final Enemy" (1983).
Though "Kron" is the only largely underwater Basic D&D adventure, maritime adventures were quite popular for Basic D&D at the time, with other entrants including X6: "Quagmire!", X8: "Drums on Fire Mountain" (1984), X9: "The Savage Coast" (1985), and XSOLO: "Lathan's Gold" (1984).
Expanding the Known World. "Kron" is a beautiful mirror for X1: "The Isle of Dread" (1981) in that it introduces and details islands and other realms upon the Sea of Dread and also fully details the areas under the Sea of Dread! (Detailing both the areas above and below a Sea - as X1 and X7 do - was pretty unique, both then and now.)
Specifically, "Kron" provides further information on the Minrothad Guilds and Minrothad Island, both of which were mentioned in "Isle of Dread." It also introduces the Triton city of Suthus, the raft city of Kron, and the ruined city of Colhador. Finally, the aforementioned map of the realms beneath the Sea of Dread is presented in full color.
All told, the Sea of Dread gets a lot of expansion and development here!
Monsters of Note. "Kron" is an excellent source for sea monsters. Some of these were monsters that had appeared in the original Expert Rules, but were not reprinted in Frank Mentzer's Expert Rules Set (1983) revision. This list includes the dragon turtle, giant octopus, sea serpent, shark, giant squid, and whale. Others were new to Basic D&D, including the dolphin, the eel, the gargantua, the sea horse, the giant jellyfish, the manta ray, the triton, and the velya.
Future History. The Minrothad Guilds that get this adventure started are further detailed in GAZ9: "The Minrothad Guilds" (1988). Further, supplement PC3: "The Sea People" (1990) mentions Colhador and Suthus, provides more underwater rules, offers more mapping of the area under the Sea of Dread, and generally gives more details on the undersea races of Mystara, including the tritons.
About the Creators. Though Nesmith had been working at TSR since 1981, he'd come on as a computer games programmer. His game design work only started appearing in 1984. Most of that work was for Marvel Super Heroes (1984), but he also wrote his only two Mystaran supplements that year - CM3: "Sabre River" and this one, X7: "The War Rafts of Kron."
About the Product Historian
The history of this product was researched and written by Shannon Appelcline, the editor-in-chief of RPGnet and the author ofDesigners & Dragons- a history of the roleplaying industry told one company at a time. Please feel free to mail corrections, comments, and additions to shannon.appelcline@gmail.com.
