The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror

Plot summary

In this module, the player characters plummet into a strange partial plane. They meet the Jabberwock, the Bandersnatch, and the Walrus and the Carpenter, and become involved in a giant game of chess.

Publication history

This module, like its companion Dungeonland, is a close adaptation of a work of fiction by Lewis Carroll, in this case Through the Looking-Glass. The module was written by Gary Gygax and illustrated by Jim Holloway. It was published in 1983 as a 32-page booklet with an outer folder. Gygax adapted the module from his own D&D campaign.

To maintain the element of surprise, the module advises dungeon masters to keep the players in the dark about what is happening as long as possible, although well-read players will eventually recognize the literary source of the encounters.

In keeping with its sense of oddity and surprise, the cover of this module depicts a scene from its companion adventure EX1 Dungeonland (a battle with a hangman tree). Similarly, the cover image of EX1 Dungeonland shows an encounter from this module (the attack of the roc raven).

Dungeonland and The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror were designed as extensions of existing 9th-12th level dungeons.

Reception

Jim Bambra positively reviewed the module in issue 48 of White Dwarf magazine, rating it 9 out of 10. He enjoyed the "rich vein of humour" that runs through both this module and Dungeonland. He felt that while the modules could be used individually, they were best played together as they sometimes interconnect, and players adventuring in one module could suddenly find themselves in the other. Bambra noted that since the modules were designed for higher-level characters, some encounters were inaccessible for lower-level ones; however, he concluded that if players had high-level characters available, they should "by all means play them, you won't regret it."