''Rahasia'' is an

adventure module An adventure is a playable scenario in a tabletop role-playing game. These can be constructed by gamemasters for their players, and are also released by game publishers as pre-made adventure modules. Different types of designs exist, including l ...

, self-published by DayStar West Media in 1980 and published by

TSR, Inc. TSR, Inc. was an American game publishing company, best known as the original publisher of ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (''D&D''). Its earliest incarnation, Tactical Studies Rules, was founded in October 1973 by Gary Gygax and Don Kaye. Gygax had bee ...

in 1983 and 1984, for the ''Basic Set'' rules of the ''

Dungeons & Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical Studies Rules ...

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...

. Its product designation is TSR 9115. It was designed by Tracy and

Laura Hickman Laura Curtis Hickman (born December 7, 1956, in Long Beach, California) is an American fantasy author, best known for her works in game design and fantasy novels cowritten with her husband, Tracy Hickman. She was one of the first women to write a ...

, and features artwork by

Jeff Easley Jeff Easley (born 1954) is an oil painter who creates fantasy artwork for role-playing games, comics, and magazines, as well as non-fantasy commercial art. Early life Easley was born in Nicholasville, Kentucky in 1954. He spent time drawing as ...

and

Timothy Truman Timothy Truman (born February 9, 1956) is an American writer, artist and musician. He is best known for his stories and Wild West-style comic book art, and in particular, for his work on ''Grimjack'' (with John Ostrander), '' Scout'', and the re ...

Plot summary

In RPGA1 ''Rahasia'', the heroes seek to save a kidnapped elven maid, and to do so they must enter the Temple of the Sacred Black Rock, break a curse, and capture the evil Rahib. In the revised module B7 ''Rahasia'', the adventurers must save a group of kidnapped elven women held in the dungeons beneath a good elven temple taken over by an evil cleric. An elven village is threatened by a dark Priest known only as the Rahib. He has kidnapped two of the village's fairest maidens and now demands that Rahasia, the most beautiful elf, surrender herself to free the others. The

player character A player character (also known as a playable character or PC) is a fictional character in a video game or tabletop role-playing game whose actions are controlled by a player rather than the rules of the game. The characters that are not control ...

s are drawn into this adventure when they find a plea for help from Rahasia. The only way to free the captured maidens is to enter an old temple, built upon the ruins of a wizard's tower buried under a mountain.

Publication history

The original ''Rahasia'' was written by Laura Hickman, and was first published in 1979 by DayStar West Media as a 32-page booklet. Daystar West Media was Tracy Hickman's private publishing company, and no more than 200 copies were ever printed. ''Rahasia'' was the first in the ''Night Ventures'' line of scenarios. The Hickmans decided to privately publish the first two adventures they had designed together, ''Rahasia'' and ''

Pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: ''pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until the an ...

'', which gained them a reputation on a local level. However, disaster struck when Tracy went into business with an associate who went bad, leaving the Hickmans to cover $30,000 in bad checks. They were driven into bankruptcy, and Tracy decided to sell their modules to TSR, "literally so that I could buy shoes for my children". TSR decided not only to buy the modules, but hire Tracy as a game designer. He said of the event: "They said it would be easier to publish my adventures if I was part of the company. So, we made the move from Utah to Wisconsin." Tracy and Laura Hickman rewrote ''Rahasia'', which was published by TSR in 1983 as a sixteen-page booklet with an outer folder, with the code RPGA1, and sold as a limited edition only to members of the

RPGA The RPGA (also called the Role Playing Game Association and the RPGA Network at various times), was initially part of the organized play arm of TSR, Inc and later of Wizards of the Coast. From 1980 to 2014, it organized and sanctioned role-playing ...

. In 1984, TSR revised and compiled RPGA1 ''Rahasia'' and the second tournament module RPGA2 '' Black Opal Eye'', and published the combined adventure as B7 ''Rahasia'', a 32-page booklet with an outer folder, featuring cover art by

and interior art by Easley and Tim Truman. Rahasia (1979 Daystar West Media Edition)
/ref> This module was later featured in the compilation B1–B9 ''

In Search of Adventure ''In Search of Adventure'' is an abridged compilation adventure module published by TSR, Inc. in 1987, for the '' Basic Set'' of the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (''D&D'') fantasy role-playing game. Its product designation was TSR 9190. This 160-page ...

'' in 1987.

Credits

Design: Tracy and

Editing: Curtis Smith
Cover Art:

Interior Art:

and

Cartography: David S. "Diesel" LaForce and

David C. Sutherland III David C. Sutherland III (April 4, 1949"United States Social Security Death Index," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/JT69-9Y8 : accessed 12 Feb 2013), David C Sutherland, 6 June 2005; citing U.S. Social Security Administra ...

Art Direction: Ruth Hoyer

Reception

Wayne Ligon reviewed the adventure in ''

The Space Gamer ''The Space Gamer'' was a magazine dedicated to the subject of science fiction and fantasy board games and tabletop role-playing games. It quickly grew in importance and was an important and influential magazine in its subject matter from the la ...

'' No. 73. Ligon commented, "A nice story combined with an interesting temple complex makes this module a good one. The villains are well-portrayed and have definite objectives." He felt that this was a good module all in all, because the emphasis is not on killing, and the module forces the players to think. In his review of B1-9 ''In Search of Adventure'' in ''

Dragon A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...

'' magazine #128 (December 1987),

Ken Rolston Ken Rolston is an American computer game and role-playing game (pen and paper), role-playing game designer best known for his work with West End Games and on the computer game series ''The Elder Scrolls''. In February 2007, he elected to join th ...

calls ''Rahasia'' one of the "two exceptionally fine adventures" in the compilation, and "a classic low-level FRPG scenario".

References and Footnotes

External links