ST1: Up the Garden Path

ST1 "Up the Garden Path" (1986) by Graeme Morris and Mike Brunton is a tongue-in-cheek D&D adventure for character levels 4-7.

ST1 "Up the Garden Path" (1986) by Graeme Morris and Mike Brunton.  Cover illustration of Ritter Stirrupcup the Centaur, by Jeremy Goodwin, (originally used as Turpin the Centaur, from module O2 "Blade of Vengeance")

The module was originally sold at the Stoke-on-Trent National Garden Festival in the UK, held from May 1 to October 26, 1986, and at the 1986 Games Day RPG convention at the Royal Horticultural Society Hall in London, hosted by Games Workshop on September 27, 1986:

And if you are going to Games Day, you'll have a chance to pick up a copy of "ST1 Up the Garden Path", that I mentioned in passing last issue.  This is a shortish (16 pages - but what a lot of words!) D&D/AD&D adventure that comes at a bargain price of 2.50.  Its also one for completists, as TSR UK have made it a very limited edition.  ST1 is an (admittedly excellent) adventure so wildly improbable and strange that all I am going to say about it is that the characters arrive in a pocket-universe aboard a salamander-powered steam train run by a bunch of gnomes...  You can find the rest out for yourselves, but this is a good antidote to all that usually serious stuff from TSR UK.

from White Dwarf #82 (October, 1986)

The Adventure:

The PCs are whisked into the Paradoxical Garden Festival Anomaly (PGFA), a small, pocket universe, based on the Stoke-on-Trent National Garden Festival site, where they must retrieve a number of improbable items in order to save the multiverse.

The tone evokes a Douglas Adams-style of British humor, and is not meant to be taken seriously.  The adventure can probably be played in a single session, as an interlude between episodes of a regular campaign (perhaps as an alternative to canceling a session due to attendance).

Part of the whole point is the rather overt tie-in to the National Garden Festival site, and running the adventure without having attended the National Garden Festival probably detracts from the module's main premise.

Map of the Paradoxical Garden Festival Anomaly (PGFA) based on the map of the National Garden Festival site.

Production Values:

At 16 pages, including 4 pull-out sheets, the adventure is rather short and self-contained.

There is no original art.  Interior illustrations are reused from module B10 "Night's Dark Terror" (Golthar) and AC9 "Creature Crucible" (amber lotus flower, pocket dragon, gakarak, giant amoeba, ice wolf, killer tree), both of which were likewise published in 1986.

New Monsters:

IffanbutT - Partial Quirk (Probability Elemental); Shadow Wolves; Snap Dragon; Giant Cocoon Wasps (similar to Robber Flies)