Back to Basics, Part 2

Yesterday the Order of the Platinum Dragon was called to the Council of Greyhawk to help figure out what to do about the sun.  Panic is setting in and the world searches for a solution.
Eventually, the great wizarding minds of the land come up with the idea to re-light Moradin's Forge. This is an asteroid that orbits the planet, but in the Dawn Time it was used by Moradin to create the Dwarves.  He then loaned it to the gods of the Elves (who created Gnomes) and the gods of the humans (who created Halflings).    He even let the gods of the Orcs use it, but they created monsters.  The Forge was then put out.

While this is going on the Order has been accused of opening the Temple of Elemental Evil and the murder of Aleena, something they have no memory of.  

We went back into their memories and uncovered their very first adventure. It was not B1 as they previously thought, but rather a visit to the Village of Hommlet where they met a cleric who wanted to know if they were adventurers like her.

We got about half-way through the Moathouse and the conspiracy theories are running rampant now.  The boys have pieced together every little detail they remember, including many I forgot!

For example, one character, who dropped out early on, is brought up.  "Where is Cynder?" refers to an elven elemental fire wizard that just stopped going with the group.  We totally forgot about her, well at least I did, until yesterday.

So far they have tied Lolth, Yeenoghu and Orcus together.  They remember the Tome of Strahd had a partial spell to block out the sun.  They remembered clues from when they went to Halfway.

For investigating the adventureI took some cues from the novelization of the "Temple of Elemental Evil" and had a goblin raid on the town and a fire at Rufus' and Burne's tower.  They never really engaged with Elmo, so I dropped him.

Frogs. With dirty little lips...

They battled the giant frogs, like everyone does.  They learned quickly that Basic D&D is much more deadly than D&D3 or 5.

Personally, I thought it was a blast.  Tables and charts that used to be second nature to me are now less familiar, but thanks to +Richard LeBlanc's GM screen and packet it was a breeze.
I will say it is one of the best GM's Screens I have used in a long time.  Much more useful than the D&D5 screen and on par with the AD&D1 screen.

Some things still need to happen.
- Aleena has to die. Sorry, but fixed point in time.
- Their memories need to be erased of this event.
- Cynder needs to disappear.
- The warlock, Croulie (that's how he spells it) also needs to be kidnapped by gnolls.  That one is easy.
- They still need to meet up Lareth and Bargel.  Lareth can be killed, Bargel is going to get away.
- Discover more about the "Elemental Eyes".

This is going to be great!

Back to Basics

So today this is happening.

The Council of Greyhawk is meeting to discuss the emergency of the Sun going out.  But in the process, Lady Ironwolf accuses the PCs of causing the death of her cousin Aleena and opening the Temple of Elemental Evil!  The PCs (and the Players!) have no memory of this.

What happened? How does it relate to the current crisis?

Won't know till later today!

Special shout out to +Richard LeBlanc.  His GM screen and sheets will get much use today.

Next Stop, The Temple of Elemental Evil

For the next phase of the Come Endless Darkness campaign, I am going to do a flashback episode.  I am taking the characters all back to first level, or more to the point 0 level, and they are going to meet for the "first" time in Hommlet.

Here they are going to meet other adventurers such as Morgan Ironwolf, Rufus, Burne, and Aleena.  I might even throw in Emirikol the Chaotic just for fun.

Why go back and do this?  Well, I wanted to run Temple of Elemental Evil now for a while.  But T1 Village of Hommlet is for brand new characters.  I also have been dying to do some Basic D&D again.  I have picked up all this really cool Basic-era related stuff lately and I think it would be a blast.

So this flashback episode will serve to introduce the party, give them a reason to be together, and uncover the reason why they had forgotten it to start with.

I am going to throw this out there, but despite my own personal objections to the women-in-refrigerators like plot device,  I am still going to kill Aleena.  Partly because I want to later use The Shrine of St. Aleena, but also because of my stated goal of giving my kids a full D&D experience.

Though I also admit I have always wanted to run a game called "They Keep Killing Aleena" as a time-travel adventure.

On this day the Slave Lords have been defeated!

Over the weekend the boys escaped the Dungeons of the Slave Lords and started a revolt in the city of Sudderham to defeat the Slave Lords.  They managed to kill them all including the leader Stalman Klim.

I decided that Klim was not a cleric of the Earth Dragon cult, instead, I made a more tangible connection to the Elder Elemental Eye.  Yeah I could go all convoluted with the connections and cover cults and fronts, but really the boys have enough details to juggle.

On the Water Dragon on their way back to the Duchy of Urnst I hit them with the big plot point.  The Sun just went out.

In typical fashion, my youngest announces that someone is killing Sun Gods.

While they were unconscious in the Dungeons I told them they had a flash back to an adventure very early in their careers, and one they don't remember.

So for the next adventure, I am going make 0-level B/X Basic versions of their current 7th level D&D 5 characters and take them through T1 The Village of Hommlet.

I was going to do this using 4e, but a few things have happened recently that have made me really want to do this as Basic D&D.  Plus this is a flashback to when the characters were "younger" so a simpler system is really what I want to give it that right feel.

Any XP they get in Hommlet I am going to give to their 7th level characters.  Afterall, if they just now remembered the adventure that could not have had any advantages from the XP till now.

Also, the nice thing here is I am going to take advantage of D&D Basic's features as features (and not as I thought of them then as bugs).  So the sorcerer and the warlock are going to be Magic-Users. The elven ranger will be an Elf.  The Paladin will be a Fighter and so on.  The only sticking point is the Dragonborn.  I think he will be a Dragonborn.  Just like a Dwarven fighter would be a Dwarf. So yes I am going to use Race-as-Class for this.

I also got all my B/X GM's Screen stuff in the mail yesterday from +Richard LeBlanc so Basic is on my mind.  More on that though in another post.

The Sun is gone. The Order of the Platinum Dragon has a lost memory to recover.  And now they hear of giants coming down from the hills to brazenly attack villages...

Hammer of the Gods

The boys will soon be wrapping up their journey through the A-Series and then on to GDQ.  My plan is to play either G or D during Gen Con. After all, what could be better?

But before that happens I want to introduce the big bad problem, someone or something has snuffed out the Sun.  The lands are dark and cold and people are dying.  The is going to be a huge meeting in the City of Greyhawk to try to figure out the problem.  The big guns of the world are going to investigate a lead they think is good while the PCs deal with some giant raids.  I don't need to tell you which group is going to be successful.

BUT before that can happen they need to solve the problem of not freezing to death.

The idea is for this one shot adventure the Council (in Greyhawk) will ignite a large asteroid called "Moradin's Forge" to give them temporary light and heat.  They wanted to do it to one of the moons, but the witches in the world objected to that (and thus allows me to set the stage for the next adventures).

I need something for a group of 8th level characters to do in this.

Alternately I could have the boys play some of the council; very high-level wizards and the like to set it ablaze.  But really setting the Forge on fire is not supposed to be the difficult part.  I thought maybe they would need some special fire to do it, or means to get it to the forge.  Maybe even finding Moradin's Hammer to do it.  But while the stakes are very high, I want it to be something I can do in a 4-hour afternoon.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Bonus points if it can be tied into Led Zeppelin at all.

Against the Giants - Prep Time!

The boys are about a session or two from completing the A series.
Time to start thinking about getting ready for the G series.

I have already made a list (likely incomplete) of all the monsters in the G series.
Currently, I am gathering up supplies and minis, but I am coming up a little short.

There are these sets of paper minis that could work for me:

• Giants Set from Arion Games
• Giants from Sanity Studios
• Cardstock Miniatures: Giants—Large and In Charge from Rogue Genius Games

While searching for minis (no one makes giantesses that I have seen...well there is this set, but not for my kids use) I did find this adventure:

• Dungeon Crawl Classics #21: Assault on Stormbringer Castle

But I really know nothing about it other than it has a Storm Giant...which I am missing from the G123 series.  Looks promising though.

Weekend Gaming: Against the Slave Lords!

The Order of the Platinum Dragon made it to the throne room of the slave lords and encountered the first five.

The battle was fierce with many HP lost on both sides.
I did notice that in some cases the Playtest version of Next has slightly different monster stats than the final version of 5e.  I have used both more or less interchangeably.

Sadly the heroes were all knocked unconscious and awoke in a deep, dark dungeon with no weapons, gear or armor.   Adventure A4 begins next!

Of course while they were unconscious they had more dreams.
I am using dream sequences and flashback to give them tidbits of information about what is going on in the world or the past.  I am going with the old adage that it is better to show and not tell.  Each different dream sequence or flashback I use a different version of *D&D.  The next one uses AD&D 1st Ed for a trip back 30+ years ago (natch).

I have used Basic already and even have one planned using 4th ed D&D.

I have my summer gaming mapped out.  This is going to be epic!

A to Z of Adventure! M is for Masters Series

M is for Masters Series.

The Masters series of adventures were created for the BECMI version of D&D.  Typically around here I have BECMI as roughly synonymous with B/X D&D or "Basic D&D" well....the M or Master Series is around to remind me that this is not really the case.

So a bit history.
The first Basic Set was authored by John Eric Holmes in 1977.  Gamers often call this "Blue Book Basic".
The next Basic Set was written by Tom Moldvay and was followed by the Cook/Marsh Expert Set. These books are collectively known as B/X.
The next set would be the last "Basic D&D". It was written and edited by +Frank Mentzer and included the Basic, Expert, Companion, Masters and Immortal sets. Also known as BECMI.
Each set detailed more levels of the game; 1-3, 4-14, 15-25, 26-36, and Immortality, respectively.

The Masters set and M series of modules were designed for experienced players and characters of 26th level and higher.

Only five M series modules were made.

Code	Title	Levels	Author(s)	Published	Notes
M1	Into the Maelstrom	25–30	Bruce Heard, Beatrice Heard	1985
M2	Vengeance of Alphaks	28–32	Skip Williams	1986
M3	Twilight Calling	30–35	Tom Moldvay	1986
M4	Five Coins for a Kingdom	28–32	Allen Varney	1987
M5	Talons of Night	20–25	Jannell Jaquays	1987

Of these I only own M1, M3 and M5.

The simple matter is few characters get to this high of a level and often when they do the DM usually has their own adventures for them.

M1 Into the Maelstrom is a cool adventure with flying ships which became some of a fasination for +Bruce Heard.  If I were to play this one I would naturally have to include material from Bruce's own Calidar, In Stranger Skies setting.  Or set it in Calidar...hmmm this gives me some ideas.

M3 Twilight Calling is from the creative mind of the late Tom Moldvay.  Tom is something of a celebertiy in my home games. Every adventure I have run of his my family likes.  Likes enough to ask who wrote it. After saying Tom Moldvay for the third time (Castle Amber, Isle of Dread, Lost City, Secret of the Slavers Stockade...).   It is my favorite M series module and has the players go on a plane-hopping adventure to finally get to the Plane of Nightmares.  I have often thought it would make for a perfect "Final Adventure" for any party.

M5 Talons of Night by Jannell Jaquays is also fun, and really deadly adventure.  I grabbed it becuase of the dragon on the cover.  If M3 is the finale for my "Come Endless Darkness" game then M5 should be the finale of my "Dragonslayers" game.
Plus, it always reminds me of this song.



I mentioned H4 with it's 18-100 level range, and it is deadly.  But that adventure is just really a scaled up 20th level adventure.  These adventures are qualitatively different.

I am just disappointed that they are not available yet on DriveThruRPG as PDFs, though I am glad I have mine.

A to Z of Adventure! D is for Descent into the Depths of the Earth

D is for Descent into the Depths of the Earth

Growing up in the 80s it was not uncommon to have multiple, independent groups of people playing D&D.  I have fairly vivid recollections of different groups talking about this adventure or some other book.  But the epic of the time was GDQ series and everyone was playing it.  I'll talk about the Giants series on "G" day and Queen of the Demonweb pits on "Q" day.  But today I want to talk about the "D" series, Descent into the Depths of the Earth and Vault of the Drow.

Once upon a time, back in the days of Walkmen, MTV, and Rubik's Cubes, the Drow were not what we think of them today.  This was the Pre-Drizzt Do'Urden days.

For those that didn't live this at the time the Drow are dark elves, cursed to live underground and worship the demoness Lolth.  Elves were good, and fair and full of light.  Drow...not so much.  The big reveal of the Drow as the main enemies of the GDQ series of adventures is akin to the Classic Star Trek episode "The Balance of Terror" that introduces the Romulans as a big bad. Not just as another race, but an offshoot of the Vulcans.  Evil Vulcans if you will.  The drow were everything the elves are not and they are also the cause of the giants and the kuo-toa raids.

These two (originally three) adventures are the action sequences to the big plot build up, though even the drow are just pawns in a larger threat.

I have such great memories of these adventures. I started playing them, but like so many others I never finished them.  They are the next adventures for my kids and I in our "Come Endless Darkness" campaign.

The one thing I have struggled with though is we live in a post-Drizzt world now.  Drow are no longer the scary dark-elf threat of the unknown.  Today they are potential heroes and a viable race option.

I want to take the drow back to the days where they were a mostly unknown threat.  Also I have proposed a number of other changes to them as well.  Making them more blue in skin tone like the Morlocks of the Time Machine movie.

These days the drow you are most likely to run into are not so much evil, but more emo or goth elves.
I covered some of this a while back in my post "Drow should be Lawful Evil, among other things."  So instead of covering that ground again I will let that stand and move forward.

The nice thing about running these adventures so many years after the fact is there is a wealth of information about them out there.  I have read reviews, play-by-plays and even read the novelization by Paul Kidd.  The book was actually kind of fun and the characters, introduced in the earlier White Plume Mountain, are likable.   I am thinking of introducing Evelyn, the half-pixie ranger as my own homage to the novel.  She would be the daughter of the two main characters Escalla and The Justicar.

Eclavdra
One of the best things about these adventures and the G series before and the Q after, is the number of really cool NPCs.  Top of that list has to be Eclavdra, drow priestess.  She has been described as being a priestess to Lolth, an attaché to Grazzt and even a convert to the worship of the Elder Elemental Eye, who in my game is another name for Tharizdûn.   This fits in so nicely with my plans that I feel the need to detail her more.

We know she is a drow and an exceptionally beautiful drow at that. She is introduced in the module G2.  Here is what is said about her there:

Eclavdra (10th level cleric/fighter; H.P.: 60, Wisdom 17, Dexterity 18, Constitution 10, Charisma 18; Armor Class -8 = +3 shield, +5 chainmail, and +4 dexterity bonus), the one who fomented all of the trouble.

The Vault of the Drow (D3) features her on the cover (see above) and describes her as a 10th/4th cleric/fighter.  These are of course AD&D 1 stats.  I am going to use here under D&D 5.   Also, I want to emphasize her "conversion" to Tharizdun more.   I am going to make her a 10th level Cleric/4th level Warlock with a Pact of the Blade and Tharizdûn as her patron.

To prepare I have also been buying up Drow minis.

Really, really looking forward to running these.

Links
Grognardia

• Retrospective: Descent into the Depths of the Earth
• Retrospective: Shrine of the Kuo-Toa
• Retrospective: Vault of the Drow

Weekend Gaming: Ghost Tower of Inverness

This past weekend an old grade-school/highschool friend was in town with his kids so we played some D&D5.  They had been over before and we had a lot of fun then.

Their character were all 5-6 level, but all of our characters were higher and in the middle of the Slave Lords series.  Originally I was going to run an adapted Temple of Elemental Evil, but in the end I opted to run something I have been wanting to run forever; C2 The Ghost Tower of Inverness.

While reading through it I also decided that I was going to run it as a Tournament module, complete with scoring for individuals and team.

Well everyone had a great time.  It had been a while since I last used this module and even longer since I had thought about it for D&D.  But it was quite satisfying.

Tournament scoring is an interesting beast really.  Not sure if I will ever do it again, but I am happy to say that I have now done it.

The adventure took about 5 hours, which is what I expected.  I wasn't too strict on the time in turns elasped since all it did was change their team score.

To tie this into the larger Come Endless Darkness plot/campaign I am having the Soul Gem as one of the artifacts used to drain the sun's life force.

Should make for an interesting and fun time as we lead into the Giant series coming up!

Weekend Gaming. Modern threats and Ancient enemies

This weekend was the end of the first part of the module A3; the boys are about to enter the city of Sudderham.  But before they left the maze they took a long rest.

And then the dream sequence kicked in.
The boys were transported back to the Dawn War where He Who Was was killed by The Destroyer (who will become Demogorgon) and Dis, the god that dies and then becomes the demon Orcus.

The old Dungeons & Dragons toy troll and ogre are Demogorgon and Orcus prior to the battle respectively.

I had them fighting a new creature, well, new "then"; demons.

I ran the game using 30+ level "gods" using the B/X and Companion rules (with some AD&D 1 to smooth out some edges).

It was a lot of fun.

Now to tie it into the current adventure.

Show. Don't Tell.

I was thinking about my post from this morning about Tharizdûn, the Temple and various things that happened in the wee hours of history.
While I have a nice little mythology going here with bits that date back all the way to when I first started playing my players, my kids, do not have the same investment.

I told tell them the story of course, but that is just a story.
Then I recalled the old adage; "Show. Don't tell."

So via a dream or flashback sequence, I am going to have my players participate in the Dawn War.
Here they are going to be figures from that mythical age in the fight against Tharizdun.

Here is what I have so far. The participants in the war are Tharizdun, Orcus and Demogorgon, though he only had one head at this point. I will also have some of the other Elder Evils there too.
On the side of good are He Who Was (who will be killed here), Bahamut (as a PC), Samuel (a PC, HWW's right hand and the future Asmodeus), Corellon Larethian (also a PC) and some others.  Maybe Wee Jas.
Tiamat and Lolth will be there, but they do not fight.  This is why Tharizdun hates them.

I am going to let the battle play out.

I thought I would stat up all these gods in 5e and put them at 30th level.  Sure I could make them all 3rd level and the battle will be similar, but I want my players to feel like these are really powerful beings.
But I started thinking about D&D 5. It is great, but I have not done a lot of gaming at 20+ level with it.    So to add to the dream-like quality of it all AND to get the characters up to the 30+ level AND to have them be true immortals I am going to do something fun.

I am going to run this dream/flashback battle using D&D Basic.  Though OD&D is also on my mind.
The players know the rules, but they will be just off enough to make them have to think about what they are doing.  Plus looking down and seeing 31st level and over 100 hp will impress them.
It will also give me the chance to use some of my favorite B/X-BEMCI material.

Now I need to make some good looking "God" sheets and figure out who was there and who is going to play who.   Obviously if a character worships a god that is who they will be playing.

I have done this in the past, use a different system to invoke a different feel in the players.
When the dream is done each character will get a boon from that god to help them out later on.

The more I think about the more I like it.

Replacing the Temple of Elemental Evil

Not replacing as in removing and putting something else in its place, but moving it to a different place.

The "Come Endless Darkness" plot is moving along nicely. But I really need to introduce the Temple of Elemental Evil at some point.  I am now thinking of upping the HD of all the monsters and putting it into place right after the A series but before the GDQ series.

Which also brings up an interesting point.  The characters in the current game are now 7th level, almost 8th.  Goblins, in enough numbers, are still giving them a run for their money.  More so than I recall 1st Ed doing.

If the big bad is Tharizdun in his aspect as the Elder Elemental Eye, what's Lolth's stake in this?  Demons don't work together.  Maybe through Ghaunadaur.  OR maybe Ghaunadaur is manipulating events to get Lolth out of the picture.  That could work.  Ghaunadaur is nothing more than a puppet of Tharizdun anyway.  Given that he is the God of abominations, then I could put him in the Temple prison instead of Zuggtmoy. It's an idea anyway.

Of course if he is in prison, how did he work out this long plan?  Well maybe this is only the body, the mind has been roaming free.    So if Tharizdun's mind or ego is trapped in Ghaunadaur's body.  Where is Tharizdun's body?  Well that is trapped in the lowest part of the Nine Hells.  Sages call it Zargon the Returner.  When these two meet then all Hell breaks loose.  Though I think three parts is better.  To cover the three evil alignments (Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil and Chaotic Evil),  as a parody of the "holy trinity" and also (and more for me) as a representation of Tharizdun's Id, Ego and Super-ego.  Zargon is the Id, Ghaunadaur is the ego and now I need a Super-ego, the one pulling the strings together. Maybe that is Tharizdun himself.

The Darkening of the Sun is not only beneficial to the Drow, Vampires and Mind Flayers, it is the sign of Tharizdun's return.

Sounds like a plan.

The Order vs. the Slavers Stockade and introduction of the Drow

Over the weekend the Order of the Platinum Dragon completed the Secret of the Slavers Stockade.

The managed to kill all but one of the Slave Lords in the stockade, freed 140 slaves including a Tiefling Warlock name Crowley who is staying with the Order.
The Rogue discovered two short swords of sharpness and quickly named them 'Snicker' and 'Snack'.

The Order enters the torture room

The order was leading the slaves out when they encountered the brainwashed Markessa's double, whom they also saved.  As they were leaving a group of Drow leading 20 more slaves in.  In typical fashion my youngest made a called shot (I am aiming for her eyes) and rolled a natural 20.  Solid.

They are now spending some time returning some of the Slaves to their homes in the Duchy of Urnst.  They left Highport and are travelling by ship up the Wooly Bay following the river in.  This gives me a chance to get them used to this area of the world, including Greyhawk, AND a a chance for the Slavers to recover a bit more to be ready for them.

All in all a great time this weekend.  No one leveled up, but the treasure was nice.

The Temple of Elemental Evil

Confession time.  I have never run or played through The Temple of Elemental Evil.
I think I was in the Villiage of Hommlet once, but that was back in the early, early days of the game.

So I have to admit I really want to run it now.  Though I want to tie it in to my current D&D5 game.
Trouble is that the characters are now already 7th level and in the middle of the Slave Lords.  I didn't want to start with T1 because for me it was more important to start with B1 and B2.

So I have the T1-4 supermodule on PDF, but there is a lot going on that I am not a fan of.  Not that it isn't good, it is, but not what I need or want.  Plus I am no fan linking Zuggtmoy to the temple.  Her powers are not elemental in nature.  Plus I always liked the idea that some remnant of Tharizdun especially in the guise of the Elder Elemental Eye.  Maybe this is an elemental themed patron for a warlock.  The idea is of course to play into the larger "Come Endless Darkness" plot line.  So yes this evil is related to the larger evil. Which might be Tharizdun. At least that is what I have always considered over the years.  Turns out that +Joseph Bloch agrees with me.  I already did S4 and WG4, so I guess I am going in reverse.

As usual I have an embarrassment of riches. Too much material actually.

I found some 5e Conversion notes that look really nice.
And I have a lot of choices when it comes to plots, ideas and adventures.
Of course I will use T1 The Village of Hommlet and likely a good portion of T1-4 Temple of Elemental Evil.  Given my particular desire to make an easy job far more difficult I am also going to look at versions for other editions.

• WGR5 Iuz the Evil (2e)
• Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (3e)
• The Village of Hommlet (4e)
• The Elder Elemental Eye (4e)
• Elemental Evil - Princes of the Apocalypse (5e)

I read through most of those last night.  T1 is easy, T2 will be a bit more work.  I think I am going to steal a lot of ideas from Return and Princes of the Apocalyspe.

While doing some research, I discovered this blog post, http://sagaworkstudios.blogspot.com/2014_08_01_archive.html that talked about T2 The Temple of Elemental Evil as promised  back before T1-4 came out.  It is a very interesting read to be honest. That is where the image above came from.

Here are some other posts I consider "must read" on my goal to build this gigantic conspiracy of evil.

• Grognardia: Retrospective: The Temple of Elemental Evil
• Greyhawk Grognard: More on the Temple of Elemental Evil
• Greyhawk Grognard: DMing into the Depths of the Oerth, Part III 1/2
• Greyhawk Grognard: From Hommlet to Tharizdun, by way of Tsojcanth
• Greyhawk Grognard: Thoughts on the Elder Elemental God

To me "Expert" level (as listed on the T2 cover) is 4 to 14.  But I am more likely to do 4 to 8.  Then the characters of this adventure will then join the other characters of the Order of the Platinum Dragon to move on to GDQ.

So it is settled.  Zuggtmoy is out. Tharizdun is in.  What is his plan?

Simple. He wants out.  He has convinced all these different evil factions to blot out the sun and deliver the essences of gods to him they think they are going to obtain godhood, but in truth they will be freeing him.  Maybe each has a piece of the Elder Elemental Eye.  Lolth has Air, Orcus has Earth, Dagon/Hydra has Water and someone else has fire.  I kinda want it to be Asmodeus.  But I am leaving out the mindflayers.  Why Air for Lolth when she is underground?  Air represents what she has lost. Plus I like tying her to the Queen of Air and Darkness.

This will also let me try some of the new material coming out for 5e.  Like +Mark Craddock's Dhampir TK Monk!

What have your experiences been?  What should I watch out for?

Kid's Games

I totally missed Friday Night Videos the other night.  Sorry. Insane day at work. I didn't even know about Paris till I got home Friday night.

OneBookshelf is running their annual "Teach your Kids to Game Week" with lots of sales on introductory material for kids.

While I totally applaud such efforts, I think back to how I learned and how I taught my own kids and we all started with D&D.

In fact my oldest son has been playing for close to 11 years now.  He is still playing his first character in our Dragonslayers game.  We began the game in early 2005 with "The Cave of the Stinky Goblin" and now have a host of epic-level bad asses.

This weekend we even took some time to play the children of the Dragonslayers, the Order of the Platinum Dragon in the next part of the Slaver's series.  The big "reveal" is coming soon and I can't wait to spring it on my players.

Attack on the Slave Lords!

While searching for a ship that will take them home the Order of the Platinum Dragon discovers that  there has been an increase in the slaving activity to the north.  They decided to put a stop to it.

The first half of A1 went very well.  The characters discovered a lone cart from a caravan with slaves.  A few well-placed sleep spells and a few more well-placed arrows and the slavers were dealt with and the slaves freed.  An illusion later the party, with a couple of freed slaves looking for revenge manage to get into the north entrance.  So now they have an orc helping them.

Things went rather well so far.  The cleaned up much of the upper temple and have now dealt with the apis and the giant ants.

I did replace the orcs and half-orcs with gnolls and gnoles, respectively from the Hercynian Grimoire #1.  Replacing Gruumsh with Yeenoghu was an easy swap.  It also allowed me to play up the whole "demon" aspect since Gruumsh is considered a god and not a demon.

The high priestess in the chapel on the first level was also turned into a were-hyena witch.

Can't wait to see what the next session brings me!

Assault on the Slave Lords

Things are heating up for the Order of the Platinum Dragon this weekend.  They have been dropped into some unknown part of the world after they left Barovia.

While trying to charter a boat they hear some rumors of a group of slavers.

I went through this series years ago myself, so I am really looking forward to running it.  I think I still have a thief that was trapped in the basilisk room.
Of course I am going to make some changes to these adventures. The Slavers themselves are working for a group of vampires.  One or more of them are vampires themselves in fact. Not sure who though.

Also, I am going to replace some of the orcs with gnolls. I am planning on incorporating some more gnoll themes in the Slavers series. I am replacing Gruumsh with Yeenoghu and capitalizing on his role as "King of Ghouls" and "Vassal to Orcus". I am going to use a lot of the material in Hercynian Grimoire #1 from +James Mishler too.  It's just too good NOT to use.

I am also considering throwing in thouls just for the fun of it.

Here are some other postings on this module. Always interesting to read what others have experienced.
http://www.metagamemastery.com/2011/09/26/annotated-a1-slave-pits-of-the-undercity/
http://www.thedelversdungeon.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=227
http://bloodofprokopius.blogspot.com/2012/02/re-imagining-slave-pits-of-undercity.html
http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/11/retrospective-slave-pits-of-undercity.html
http://bxblackrazor.blogspot.com/search/label/a1-4
http://dungeonfantastic.blogspot.com/2014/12/review-a1-4-scourge-of-slave-lords.html

Edited to Add, Peter's detail into each adventure.
http://dungeonfantastic.blogspot.com/2014/10/review-a1-slave-pits-of-undercity.html
http://dungeonfantastic.blogspot.com/2014/10/review-a2-secret-of-slavers-stockade.html
http://dungeonfantastic.blogspot.com/2014/10/review-a3-assault-on-aerie-of-slave.html
http://dungeonfantastic.blogspot.com/2014/11/review-a4-in-dungeons-of-slave-lords.html

Endless Darkness vs. The Outer Darkness

No game this weekend. It's my son's birthday so he is taking over my game room this weekend.

This gives me some time to work on their next adventure (well, future adventure), the D series.

I have been re-reading the D series for a bit now. It's funny how when reading it today I have a really different perspective on things than when I was going through the adventure 30 years ago.  That's not a surprise really, nor is how much of it I had forgotten.  What is the surprise is how much of it I remembered.  Not from reading it or even the printed page, but what my characters were doing at the time.

I remembered how much I HATE Blibdoolpoolp.

Not the goddess herself actually, but the deception.  20 foot tall nude human with a lobster head?  Why would Kuo-toa worship something that looked so different than themselves?  Well the answer was obvious even to my then pre-teen and teenaged mind.  It was an excuse to draw a naked woman.
Now generally speaking I don't have a problem with this, but I would like to think I am a bit more sophisticated today.

Since Kuo-toa are supposed to be stand-ins for Deep Ones anyway, why not go all the way and use Mother Hydra instead of Blibdoolpoolp.  I can keep all the same names, Kuo-toa are a more "fishy" offshoot of the Deep Ones and they call their Goddess Blibdoolpoolp instead of Mother Hydra, but they are the same thing.  She would become one of those things that is a mix of demon, goddess and what those things are from the outer darkness of Lovecraft's mind.

vs.

I have been adding more "Lovecraft" to this adventure series anyway.  Castle Amber was already very steeped in the mythos of Clark Ashton Smith.  I have a bunch of Yithan minis now too.  Plus I have wanted to bring the Mind Flayers closer to their Lovecraftian step-fathers.   So in this sense it all works out.  I also have all of these books at home with the monster stats; Deities and Demigods,  Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, Realms of Crawling Chaos and what I call neo-Mythos books like the Teratic Tome.

My kids are really into reading about the mythos, but not the actual stories yet.  My oldest doesn't read horror and my youngest is working his way up to Lovecraft now.  
Ok. For the record, I know there is so much more to Lovecraft than the Mythos.  But that is the part I want to use here.

I am not planning on bringing in the big C himself.  But I can see Dagon showing up sometime.

In any case it is going to be a lot of fun.

Rage...Across the Multiverse.

Wizards of the Coast is pulling out the stops for it's new Rage of the Demons campaign and I have to admit I am rather excited about it myself.


There is a lot going on here. Including the new Out of Abyss book and Rage of the Demons minis.

Though how is any of this going to affect the Order of the Platinum Dragon?  Simple. This is a multiversal event.  While all that stuff is going on in the Realms and the Sword Coast, over here in my world we are still running through what I call the "Great Greyhawk Campaign" in my campaign of the Endless Darkness.

The two campaigns are obviously linked. I'll adapt bits and pieces from the Rage of Demons to put into my campaign.

I am excited to see Demogorgon in this and the mindflayers.  Mindflayers working with Orcus, that is like custom made for my games.