Thinking about running this module so I could use inspiration from what you remember when you played/DMed it.
-Marcon
Your memories from "Neither Man nor Beast"
This module was the first Ravenloft adventure that seemed to finally admit "Okay, okay - the players will likely have read everything in the Black Box, so we have to be a bit more creative in hiding the bad guy's identity from them".
The statues on the beach were pretty cool. If you describe them in great detail, your PCs can potentially spend a lot of time occupied with them. I put a single earring on one of the statues for the party's thief to recover and use as a bracelet, just to reward them for the time and role playing they put into investigating the statues. I think it was just a bracelet of Dex +1 but still made it nice for them.
Make sure you only ever refer to the baddie as "Dr. Fran". I made the mistake of referring to him by his full name once, but it didn't really matter as my players had not read the black box at all. Depending on whether your players have done so it may not matter.
This game didn't have too much railroading in it so my players were fairly content. They did explore a possible romance with Delphi and were able to escape with her in the end. I ran the adventure pretty much as scripted and it went well.
One thing I would do if I could is to go back and really play up the whole "rumble in the jungle" rituals that the PCs see Dr. Fran engage in. Make it really disturbing and unsettling. Flames, bonfires, devilish silhouettes in the foliage, bloodstains and unidentifiable gore on the rocky mountain slopes...
The statues on the beach were pretty cool. If you describe them in great detail, your PCs can potentially spend a lot of time occupied with them. I put a single earring on one of the statues for the party's thief to recover and use as a bracelet, just to reward them for the time and role playing they put into investigating the statues. I think it was just a bracelet of Dex +1 but still made it nice for them.
Make sure you only ever refer to the baddie as "Dr. Fran". I made the mistake of referring to him by his full name once, but it didn't really matter as my players had not read the black box at all. Depending on whether your players have done so it may not matter.
This game didn't have too much railroading in it so my players were fairly content. They did explore a possible romance with Delphi and were able to escape with her in the end. I ran the adventure pretty much as scripted and it went well.
One thing I would do if I could is to go back and really play up the whole "rumble in the jungle" rituals that the PCs see Dr. Fran engage in. Make it really disturbing and unsettling. Flames, bonfires, devilish silhouettes in the foliage, bloodstains and unidentifiable gore on the rocky mountain slopes...