Intro Adventure Cover: AD&D 2E

  From 1989 and on into the 90s, something strange happened. Gary Gygax went to Hollywood and did a surprising amount of cocaine while laying the groundwork for the Marlon Wayons-Thora Birch epic Dungeons and Dragons Movie. Charts got themselves consolidated, turning into the clear and self-explanatory THAC0 number. And AD&D Second Edition came out in dribs and drabs, held aloft on the wings of Dragonlance and the clear understanding that Lorraine Williams has for her audience.  Nothing could possibly go wrong. But how best to introduce players and DMs? Not the Book of Lairs bundled with the boxed set, that's no good. How about a nice new 1-10 adventure, taking characters from zero to hero? Enter Night Below: An Underdark Campaign. 
  I know less about Night Below than I do many of the 1e modules, or later 3e adventures. It appears to be a fairly standard plot...first you have a menaced Ye Olde Medieval Village (The Evils of Haranshire), then you go underground (Perils of the Underdark), then you go even deeperer underground (The Sunless Sea).  There's nothing intrinsically bad about this, but it's fairly generic...and that's borne out in the movie-poster-esque box set cover. 
  First I suppose I should be complimentary...we're far beyond the bright and childish color palette and wonky perspectives that marked earlier modules' cover art. Not only is this illustration one with depth, but there's also a clear hierarchy in the monsters depicted. If I'm playing this thing, I expect to fight in order:

1. Fish Guy
2. Monochrome Evil Great Gazoo
3. Crimson Squidface
4. Dark Mass of Tentacles 

  I suspect that's not precisely what the adventure is about, but it's also a nice ladder of progression imaged. I'll also note that long before "teal and orange" became the meme, this cover had those colors contrasted to really make this poster pop.
  That's it, though. There are no protagonists depicted, unlike in earlier covers, no characters to inhabit. The monsters are also inhabiting a vague and cloudy neverspace, not part of a solid scene. There's no hope of treasure, no strange places to poke around, no protagonist actions suggested at all. There's an implication of progress, but it's just bigger and bigger bosses to battle, evil because they're lit up with menace. I don't think the problems with AD&D Second Edition were just due to the rules...all the vices are pictured right here.
​  Still no pants depicted.  

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