The Immortal Storm is a 1986 adventure module for the Immortals Rules expansion to the Basic Rules of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.
Plot summary
The Immortal Storm is a scenario for novice Immortal-level characters. Immortals from the five spheres of power (matter, energy, thought, time, and entropy) must stop a cosmic storm. To do so, the characters must quest through the planes to obtain the Key to Eternity.
A supernatural storm threatens the entire multiverse. Mysteriously, a supernatural eye sits in the center of the storm watching the Hierarchs, who cannot dissipate the storm. Nix, the Hierarch of Entropy, wants the player characters' help to rid the multiverse of the malignant maelstrom that threatens all of space and time. At last, the eye gives the Hierarchs a puzzle, which they use to test the player characters to determine their fitness for the mission. By solving the puzzle, characters learn their roles in the quest. Having solved the puzzle themselves, the Hierarchs impart this knowledge to characters regardless of their performance.
The party then seeks necessary items in the planes; searches in New York and Chicago precede the climax. When the Immortals visit the plane of technology, their powers cannot help them. At the conclusion, the characters guard the Hierarchs as they destroy the storm.
Publication history
The Immortal Storm is a 40-page booklet with an outer folder, published in 1986. It was written by Frank Mentzer, with cover art by Larry Elmore and interior art by Valerie Valusek and Larry Elmore. This module was the first produced for the D&D Immortals Rules set, designed for a party of Novice Temporals, the lowest level of Immortal character.
Reception
In his review for White Dwarf, Graeme Davis compared the premises of The Immortal Storm and Star Trek: the Motion Picture, noting logical flaws: "everybody knows Our Heroes will get the mission no matter how badly they do [on the test]"; the storm lists the things needed to destroy it. Davis found the different planes' presentation imaginative, despite a plane consisting entirely of music staves and populated by sentient musical notes that "smacks more of Dr. Seuss than D&D". He further criticized the air-filled tunnels in the Plane of Earth that help its inhabitants move about, and ridicules the adventure's climax: "Our Heroes happen to need something from this humble little plane of ours, and as everybody knows, if it's vital to the survival of the multiverse, well gee whiz, it's just gotta be in the USA. I must admit, though, having an inter-planar gate on the New York subway might explain a thing or two." Davis felt that newly-Immortal characters' powers were "severely wasted by sending them on a trip down the shops. I'm sure that it would have been possible to come up with something a little more grand in scale for the first Immortals module." He claimed to sense a hurried quality about the module's production, concluding that "the module does have its moments, but my overall impression was one of disappointment".