I was browsing stuff about Casus Belli and it’s Jarandell subsetting, when I came across some scenarios they published for L’Œil noir at the time it came out.
I actually never really had thought much about the stuff that appeared for DSA in other languages. Schmidt Spiele seemed to make it a thing for a year or so, but then stopped publishing new things. And I knew there was some nostalgia from people who played it back then, but soon after first the Italian, then the Dutch, and finally the French versions stopped getting new releases.
The Dark Eye’s first edition was translated into French in 1986, which is also when this scenario appeared in Casus Belli (in the same issue as a similar Dungeons and Dragons scenario): a very short solo penned by Jean Balczesak: La dernière nuit (The last night). This was in Casus Belli 32 (1986).
I do have to assume that this was an initiative of the French publisher of the game (Gallimard) to get the game some mindshare with French players. For what it’s worth they manage to misspell the name of the German publisher in this issue. And Gallimard otherwise was mostly doing gamebooks, e.g. the Fighting Fantasy series.
It’s… not good.
Actually it’s surprisingly engaging for such a short scenario, but it really is just four pages. The player character makes the mistake to talk to the wrong person (You thought he was a guard!) in the city of Agadinmar (where?!). It turns out you have been chosen as a sacrifice to the god of the city (who?!) and will be slowly tortured to death in the most excruciating manner, before being burned. Yeah, that’s not something to look forward to, so the whole scenario is about you trying to find your way out of this predicament.
The tone of the scenario is rather jovial, with a sometimes dry sense of humor. I find it interesting that of all things Balczesak decided to emulate the mode of speech employed in the starter set. But oh well.
Unless Agadinmar is the translation of a city I know under a German name this is not actually a place in DSA lore. The red-robed priests that do human sacrifice also don’t sound like anything I am aware of in the game. But that might easily be because at that early time of the game there simply was not enough lore to go against. Well, German-language areas had the the extension set already which contained a description of the setting, but that would be translated later in the year. The scenario does fit into the vibe of early DSA somewhat. Back then not much was established yet, and over time things would go different than those first few books would show the place as.
