Wikipedia is irritating me

Well.  Not Wikipedia, but some of the deletionists.
Now they want to delete the article on Tharizdun, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tharizdun

So. Anyone know of some good 3rd party (not TSR or WotC) references?
I have a stack of magazines to go through, but I am running on fumes now.
Could use some help on Night Hag as well.

S is for Satan

I have talked a lot about demons this month and about Hell prior to this.  The one thing I have not talked much about is the Big D himself, The Devil aka Satan.

Here are two things you likely didn't know about Satan in RPGS and D&D in particular.
First, he usually doesn't appear in them.  In fact, there are no official stats for Satan/Lucifer in D&D in any edition.  Plenty of stats in third party products, but none for the guy himself.
Secondly, I never use Satan in my games.  Not because I don't want too or have any fear of it, simply put there is no way he could ever live up to the expectation of the players.
One lucky roll and all my carefully laid plans become, oh hey we just killed the Source of All Evil.  How many XP do we get?  There is just no way that stats on paper can match up with the expectations of the players.  With a character like Dracula, it is easier.  He can be just as evil, just as much of a threat to the characters, but we know something else about Dracula. It's the same as Smaug, or Voldermort, or Vader or Sauron.  These evils can and were defeated.  Satan is, or at least should be, an unstoppable dreadnaught of evil. He is not the Monster of the Week, he is not even the Big Bad.  He is the Biggest Bad EVER.

Despite the lurid tales from the 80's (check out Asshat Paladin's review of "Playing with Fire") or Pat Robertson's claims, D&D players are not Satanists.  Sure, maybe some are. But no more or no less than say the general population (which is much smaller than people generally think).

Lucifer as Satan has appeared in the pages of Dragon Magazine and in the various Tome of Horrors books.

Satan made his appearance in Dragon #28 from 1979 in the infamous Politics of Hell article.  Here are the stats he had then:

Satan
FREQUENCY Very rare
NO. APPEARING 1
ARMOR CLASS -8
MOVE Whatever desired
HIT DICE 333 hit points
% IN LAIR 5%
TREASURE TYPE H(*2), l(*2), U(*2)
NO. ATTACKS 1
DAMAGE/ATTACK 10-100
SPECIAL ATTACKS +3 or better weapon and purity of heart required to hit
MAGIC RESISTANCE 95%
INTELLIGENCE Godlike
ALIGNMENT Lawful evil
SIZE Variable
PSIONIC ABILITY Special
Attack/Defense Modes Special

and his more recent S&W stats:
(Satan from the Tome of Horrors Complete, Copyright 2011, Necromancer Games, Inc., published and distributed by Frog God Games; Authors Scott Greene.)

Satan

Hit Dice: 25 (150 hp)
Armor Class: -6 [25]
Attack: Rod of Infernus (3d6), bite (2d4 plus poison) or 2 claws (2d8), bite (2d4 plus poison), tail sting 1d8 plus poison)
Saving Throw: 3
Special: Gaze weapons, spells, summon devils, +3 or better weapon to hit, immunity to fire and poison, regeneration (4 hp/round), magic resistance (90%), see in darkness, telepathy 100 ft.
Move: 21/30 (flying)
Alignment: Chaos
Challenge Level/XP: 40/10400

The Pathfinder stats are even more powerful.
EVEN then there is some character out there that could take this guy.  Maybe not many, but they are out there.


Lucifer and Satan have appeared as separate entities in the old Death's Edge Games Inferno games.
Which got me thinking, what if "Satan" isn't a person, but a title.  Not "Satan" but "the Satan", similar to what I did for Demongorgon.  The idea is not really an original one, Piers Anthony covered it in his Incarnations of Immortality series and it was covered well in the Charmed series with their Source of All Evil concept.
So the idea here is take a demon, already powerful, and juice him up on all the power of evil, or Evil, and he becomes the ruler of all demons.  Take a page from Lexx and His Divine Shadow and make it so that the new host of this evil power, the new Satan, has all the memories of all the previous Satans AND the knowledge of the new host.  That is a very dangerous foe.

So lets combine this idea with Dante's Inferno and some from the the D&D game itself.  In D&D there is a god of Evil, Tharizdun (who I'll talk about more tomorrow) that is roughly the same as Lucifer/Satan.
Tharizdun is trapped in a prison where his jailer was Asmodeus.  Asmodeus is now the leader of Hell and Tharisdun is forgotten.  There are a lot of clues to his whereabouts and even Gygax himself featured him in his Gord the Rogue books.  So my solution is to split "Satan" up into a couple of beings.  Part of him is the imprisoned Beast and another part in actually part of AAsmodeus

Another part...well I have not figured that one out yet.

The real question that in a world FULL of demons, devils and all sorts of monsters what purpose does Satan serve? What does he do?

The recent Kelley Armstrong book "Thirteen" finally features Lucifer.  He is very different than what is typically expected.  Two of my favorite versions was Peter Cook's in Bedazzled and Viggo Mortensen in The Prophecy for different reasons.  Maybe I should do that for my next October Movie marathon, only watch movies that feature the Devil/Satan as a character.

I also have something to say about RPGs and their role in the Satanic Panic of the 80s.  But that needs to be for another day.

A to Z of Adventure! Q is for Queen of the Demonweb Pits

Q is for Queen of the Demonweb Pits.

What else could it be?  Well...funny you should say that. There is also a few Vampire Queen adventures out there and there is the adventure path I am playing around with, War of the Witch Queens.  But I guess really there is only one queen and only one Q module.

Queen of the Demonweb Pits is the ultimate finale that began with the characters looking into some giant raids. Behind it all was the Drow and Lolth!...er wait. Wasn't supposed to be the Elder Elemental Eye? Tharizdun? I mean that is what is going on in T1 Village of Hommlet.

Well as it turns out Q1 was supposed to be different. It wasn't the vision that Gary wanted. Now the official story is that Gary was too busy to work on Q1 because he was working on T2 The Temple of Elemental Evil.  We can see bits of his thinking in T1, S4 and WG5.  So David Sutherland came in to finish it off.  At least that is story we have been told.  According to Shannon Appelcline this was the start of Gary's eventual ouster at TSR.

Regardless of how, what and why, Q1 is fondly remembered to this day 36 years later.  As part of the GDQ series it is considered to be one of the greatest adventures of all time.

I remember playing this back in the day and that confusing as hell map.  I remember talking to friends in the days WAY before the Internet and how we would speculate on Q2 and Q3.

Like T1 and the mythical stand-alone T2, a DIY Q2 would be great.

SO TO MY REGULAR READERS:  What would be in YOUR Q2?

Would you have the characters look into the Elder Elemental Eye connection?  Maybe there would be a civil war among the drow; those that support the EEE and those that support Lolth.

I suppose I could take a few pages from Expedition to the Demonweb Pits for 3.5 edition of D&D to.  I do know I need to work out this Lolth-Tharizdûn issue before my players get there!

3 Different Editions, 1 Basic idea

Monstrous Monday: Tiâmat

I have talked about Tiamat since the earliest days of this blog.  No surprise really given my love of mythology and my oldest son's obsession with dragons.  It really is a natural fit for me.  I was working on this post a lot over my Thanksgiving break and I went back and forth on a lot of different ideas.  But circumstances came together and I finally decided, last night, what to post.

My oldest started Descent into Avernus this weekend for his 5e group.  We thought that a nice early Christmas present would be the new Gargantuan Tiamat miniature. 

The Tiamat "mini." Feiya and Larina for scale.

This thing is, well, gargantuan!

Up till now, we had been using the Aspect of Tiamat, the D&D Icon of the Realms Tiamat, and the Mage Knight Apocalypse Dragon (more on that guy in a bit). The Queen of Dragons enters a lot into our games. 

This also got me thinking about how I handle dragons in my Old-School games.  In particular how I want to handle them in my Basic Bestiary.   Over the years here I have experimented with various ways to present dragons so they are a constant challenge to any party regardless of size or levels.  There have been some really good innovations over the years starting with the dragons in AD&D 2nd Ed and into 21st Century forms of D&D.  I want to capture the best of the best design principles and also allow them to fit into the design I have already been using with my own monster stats.

I am not really 100% there yet.  

But I am at a point where I can present unique dragons like Tiamat (or Tiâmat as I am presenting her).  I still have a few issues to work out, but since I want to get my money's worth out of that figure here she is.

Tiâmat
Gargantuan Dragon (Evil)

Frequency: Unique
Number Appearing: 1 (1)
Alignment: Chaotic [Chaotic Evil]
Movement: 90' (30') [9"]
  Fly 180' (60') [18"]
  Swim 180' (60') [18"]
Armor Class: 0 [19]
Hit Dice: 30d8+240****** (375 hp)
 Gargantuan: 30d20+240****** (555 hp)
To Hit AC 0: -2 (0) (+21)
Attacks: 5 bites + 1 tail lash or breath weapons or spell + special

Damage: 3d6+7 x5, 1d6+7 or Breath Weapons or spell
Special: 
Save: Monster 30
Morale: 12 (NA)
Treasure Hoard Class: Special
XP: 30,250 (OSE) 30,250 (LL)

Str: 30 (+7) Dex: 10 (+0) Con: 32 (+8) Int: 28 (+7) Wis: 24 (+5) Cha: 22 (+5)

Tiâmat is the mother of all dragons, good and evil.  She was destroyed by her grandson Marduk and was cast out.  Formerly a god she now represents the primordial chaos of the deep sea or even the infinite abyss.  For this reason, she is often seen with the heads of all the major evil dragons, Black (Acid), Blue (Electric), Green (Poison), Red (Fire), and White (Cold). Fittingly, the mother of dragons makes her home in the depths of the Abyss in a layer known as  Têhom, or the "deep".  She is also considered to be the mother, or at least the Grandmother, of all evil and chaotic monsters.

Tiâmat can attack with all five heads per round.  Each head can bite, use their respective breath weapons, or use spells. The bite attacks do 3d6+7 hp of damage each, but the individual heads cannot attack the same Medium-sized or smaller victim at the same time.  A Large or larger-sized target can be attacked by two heads at the same time.  Tiâmat can attack up to five (5) separate targets this way.  Each head can also use their respective breath weapons doing 10d8 (45 hp) up to three times per day.  She will typically attack with her breath weapons first, to overwhelm and awe her opponents and then resort to spells and bite attacks.  Tiâmat believes that opponents need to be dealt with in the quickest, most deadliest, of ways.

Her aura of dragon fear is such that all, even true dragons, have to make a saving throw vs. magic or fall under the effects of a Cause Fear spell. This will affect all creatures regardless of HD/level.  Each head can additionally cast a Magic-user/Wizard spell per round in lieu of a physical attack.  The white head can cast 2 first-level spells and 1 second-level spell.  The black head can cast 2 second-level and 1 third-level. The green head can cast 2 third-level and 1 fourth. The blue head can cast 3 fourth, 2 fifth, and 1 sixth-level. Finally, the red head can cast 3 sixth, 2 seventh, and 1 eighth-level spell.  Tiâmat chooses her spells at the start of her day. She typically opts for spells of control, damage, and ones that can summon support. She does not need somatic or material components for her spells, they come naturally to her. 

Due to her size, Tiâmat cannot make claw attacks while on the ground.  She can attack with her foreclaws when she is flying or swimming.  She is immune to charm, hold, mind-affecting magic, and sleep effects.  She is additionally immune to all sorts of poison. She takes half damage from acid, cold, and fire. She also has 75% magic resistance.

As the Queen and Mother of Dragons Tiâmat she is served by five consorts. These are dragons of largest size and greatest age of their respective dragon types, White, Black, Green, Blue, and Red.  Each one is utterly loyal to Tiâmat, failure to be anything but this will result in their immediate death and their skins put on display.  Tiâmat can summon 2d6+1 evil dragons of any type once per day.

Tiâmat's home plane is known as Têhom, or the "deep." Here there are seven distinct areas that represent the preferred habitat of each of the five evil dragon types. Each one is governed over by her consorts. The sixth area is an ocean, so deep and so dark that no bottom has even been seen.  Tiâmat makes her home here along with sea dragons of all sorts. It is rumored that the great dragon Leviathan also resides here. The seventh and last area is an island that Tiâmat often visits. Here her treasure horde can be found. This land is populated only by undead dragons.

Tiâmat as a Patron
Dragon Tradition Witches and Draconic Pact Warlocks take Tiâmat as their patron.  Chaos mages also look to the Mother of Monsters as their patron, inspiration, and even Goddess.  All dragons, good and evil, regard her as their mother or the first of their kind but only evil dragons and dragon-kin worship her. 

--

Notes

I like this stat block quite a lot.  I can look at it though and tell I still need to define my demons and dragons both a little better. There are ideas I want to express that I am currently not doing.

She is a Gargantuan creature.  So because of that, I am going to be using my alternate HP calculations. A gargantuan creature uses a d20 for HP determination, not the standard d8.  Even with this she is at 30 HD so in standard games she ends up with 375 hp. In my games that is boosted to 555 hp.

A bit on that HD.  Yeah, she has 30 HD.  She is big and bad and is not a monster you find on level 20 of some random dungeon. This flows from the level setting I was doing in One Man's God. Tiamat is not just on the top of the scale, she should be the top.  A former Goddess now cast into the Abyss, that means two things for me. One she is powerful and two she should be a demon of some sort.  She is obviously something more. I have her listed as "Gargantuan Dragon (Evil)" but she would certainly also be an Outsider or even a Fiend possibly. She could even be an Eodemon. 

Alignment.   I have been playing Tiamat as "Chaotic Evil" since I first started reading Chaos Theory back in the 90s. It always made far more sense to me.  Plus she never really fit into the hierarchy of Hell as far as I was concerned.  I do borrow a page from Paradise Lost and say she was there when the Devils fell.  But that was only one of her lairs in the cosmos. 

What about that Apocalypse Dragon?  Well, I still want to get my money's worth out of him.  So he has been redubbed as Leviathan.  Fitting, given the history my games have had with him.  I will need to revisit my stats for him though. 

Tiâmat and Leviathan

Links

Links to other Tiamat postings here on the Other Side.

• Tiamat on my Mind
• T is for Tharizdun and Tiamat
• Post 666
• Campaign Specific
• Dragonborn in Oerth
• Dragonslayers: An Epic Epic of Epicness
• Retrospective, Review and Refit: M3 Twilight Calling (BECMI)
• One Man's God
• OMG: Babylonian, Sumerian and Akkadian, Part 1
• OMG: Babylonian, Sumerian and Akkadian, Part 2
• Monstrous Monday: Scorpion Men
• Goddesses of the Witches

Revised Plan; Generational Mega Plots, Part 2

So.  I started to put my plan into action for the first major campaign arc I have planed out from square 1 and ran since the Dragon and Phoenix. My boys are excited, my wife will buy me adventures (how cool is that?!) and we will get going.

I told the boys that they can play two characters.  A character and a companion character via the 4e rules.  We need the extra characters because they wont survive otherwise.  So far we are going to have a Dragonborn Paladin, a Dragonborn Sorcerer, a Ranger with some thief skills and a "sword guy".  I am thinking the "Sword guy" will be a Warlord to get at the Leader role.  But we certainly need a Cleric if for nothing else than for undead battling.  Given that this is 4E I do want the roles to be covered.  So I have a defender and a couple of strikers, I need a controller and a leader.  The "Sword Guy" would work, but I am going to look into all the Leaders we have so far and see what would fit the best.  He would love a Swordmage, but that is a defender. Bard is a good choice, but I would really prefer a Cleric I think.  I like the Inovker as a potential controller too.

I am going to start to lay the seeds in my current game for this new one.  The 4e characters are the descendants of the 3.x characters.  So yeah I am likely to give 1st level characters a magic item each.  I  know some of you old-schoolers are cringing at the thought.  So some clues will be laid out about Tharizdun, the Raven Queen and Orcus.  I will have the Raven Queen kill Nerull sometime before the 4e game starts.  The result will be massive amounts of undead roaming the lands due to the "backlash of necrotic energies".  The Raven Queen is getting them under control, but this backlash has not escaped the attentions of Orcus and Vecna.  Orcus wants to use this time to kill the Raven Queen and put himself in her place.  She is still just a "godling" in age, but controls vast amounts of power.  Vecna wants her power pure and simple.  I can begin the 4e adventure with a story on how one horrible day all the dead got up and attacked.  There was a mini-Rekoning (ala WitchCraft RPG) and magic went crazy and now everything is new again.  Better than ramming a planet into my world.   If that is the case then I might want to run CM2 Death's Ride for the current 3.x group, build up to that.  Plus Death's Ride has something else I want, some great NPCs for the characters to fight as an arch nemesis.

The Raven Queen is going to be a combination of Death from The Endless, the Raven Queen of D&D world and the Morrigan of Celtic Myth.  So less like Xena becoming Death and more like Teen Titans' Raven becoming Death.  Or some combination.  I like the idea of the world's most powerful god being a teenage goth chick.  With her being younger it would help my kids relate to her more.

Some things to consider while I look over my adventures and books some more.

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

Return to the Palace of Silver Princess

Like a lot of gamers my age I am familiar with the module B3: Palace of the Silver Princess, and like most of those gamers my experience is with the "Green" cover version.  Well I had heard about the infamous "Orange" cover version of course, but never hoped I would see it.  Well Wizards of the Coast had changed that when they released the banned Orange version a few years back along with the story of why it was banned/deemed inappropriate.   An interesting bit of game history, but really I think nearly everyone feels that the edited Green version is the better module.

Reading the Orange version with knowledge of the Green is an interesting experience and one that almost always leaves the Orange one coming up a bit short.  Not that the Green version, with edits by Basic Game guru Tom Moldvay, is a stellar module, it does have it's moments.

B3 holds a special place for me since it is the first module I ever bought specifically to run and not play in.  There was a lot for a neophyte DM like myself in 1981 to like.  The programmed adventure in the beginning was a nice touch to kid just learning how to also program the computers in Jr. High.  Arik of the Hundred Eyes was an awesome sounding bad guy and one I had hoped would make another appearance one day. And it was easy for me to place this all in Glantri from the Expert Set, it seemed to fit well with other things I had going on at the time.

Reading over the Wizard's site this past weekend got me thinking.  I have wanted to use B3 in my kids' game for a while now.  Thanks to the maps (linked below) from the Vaults of Pandius and the update to D&D 3.0 version of the monsters and encounters I could run this is as-is for them now.  Of course I'll want to bump the encounters up a bit to make them more challenging.   Course the maps are for the Green version and 3.0 update is for the Orange version. 

I think I'll take a suggestion from Wizards and run this as "Return to the Palace of the Silver Princess".  The events of the "green" cover happened many years ago, but something went wrong that lead to the events of "orange" cover.  The Eye of Arik wasn't destroyed properly and soon the entire area became cursed.  Ellis the Strong (The Silver Warrior) became the the cause in the minds of the locals.  While the evil energies pouring out of the fragmented eye caused mutations in all living things in the castle.  Plants became vampire roses and archer bushes, the staff became Ubues (gotta explain them somehow), Aliegha, Catharandamus and the dwarves Boron and Xyzom were adventurers that came here previously and are now coming under the affects of the Eye.  Catharandamus is going insane, thinking he can summon Arik, Aliegh is turning into a wolf (or bear or a bear-wolf crossbred-thingy) and the dwarves are slowly becoming orcs.  I do plan on using Candella and Duchess, as randomish NPCs, but they had just gotten there and have not started to mutate yet. I just liked that picture of the two of them being caught by surprise. 

I doubt I will drop any hints here to the upcoming 4e adventures or even the on going Dragonslayer's plot.  So Arik is not really another name for Tharizdun, and I doubt I'll make the Eye of Arik a part of the summoning ritual they need for Tiamat.  Just a little side adventure to amuse me and them while I build them up to the big finale.  Though the Knights of the White Drakes from the Green version allays interested me.  Maybe once the adventure is over I'll have the Knights send them their thanks and offer them a great gift, a Drake (a riding dragon) for them to use in their battle against Tiamat.  My son would LOVE that.  Of course that only works if the the guy on the dragon that everyone thinks is evil is actually good and the characters help clear his name.  I do like that idea.

Links

- Wizard's page for the Orange version, http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/dx20020121x7 

- Grognardia reflects on B3, http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/11/retrospective-palace-of-silver-princess.html

- As does Emerald Lich, http://www.emeraldlich.com/post.php?post_id=1162

- Acaeum overview, http://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/modpages/b3.html

- Cool maps from the Mystara uber-site, Vaults of Pandius, http://pandius.com/maps.html

- d20/3.0 conversion at ENWorld, http://www.enworld.org/cc/downloads/files/palace_of_the_silver_princess.rtf

Adventures in Hyperborea

Hat tip to Jason Vey for sharing these with me.

So if I know ANYTHING at all about Conan, likely it came from Jason Vey. In addition to being a top rate game designer, he is a Master's level scholar on Robert E. Howard.  So when he shares something related to Conan, or Howard or realted topics, I pay attention.

This week he shared this with me, Adventures of the Hyborian Age. This is an older site with adventures for the Mongoose d20 Conan game.  Jason is using this material for his OD&D-based Conan game which sounds fantastic.

He shared with me something he knew I would love. A Conan-flavored conversion of one of my favorite adventures of all time, S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.

The new adventure has a more Hyborian feel to it and draws heavily from Conan lore, in particular, Red Nails.

HS4 The Lost Caverns of Acheron

The adventure is, at it's heart, the same as S4.  Save now it has been reskinned for the Hyborian Age and all the background has been changed.

Now maybe I have been reading a lot of Eric Fabiaschi of late (or always really) but this sounds like a PERFECT adventure for  Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea!

Eric has had a LOT to say about AS&SH (most of his blog) and S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.  In fact he pulls in a lot of Jason Vey's own game, Amazing Adventures into the conversations too.

In fact, I am very curious to hear what Eric has to say about this adventure. (EDITED: I talked to Eric before this post went up. He has played it using AS&SH. He also pointed out my next point.)

Now AS&SH only takes us to level 12.  This adventure is right up against that level limit and might even be a bit more than a party can deal with. I would alter this by having a larger party to be honest or carefully scaling the encounters.

Outside of the Hyborian skin the biggest change is the Witch-Queen Xaltana.  She essentially combines the characters of Iggwilv and Drelzna into one.

So instead of this:

We get this:

It actually works out quite well. In fact, Xaltana is much more interesting than Drelzna ever was. (Sorry D!)

Appropriately the adventure takes on a more Clark Ashton Smith feel to it.  This plays so well into the sequel WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun. Which could in like fashion be reskinned as The Forgotten Temple of Thasaidon. Hmm. Maybe that is something to try; borrowing heavily from The Tomb-Spawn.

She would make a great Witch Queen!  More on that later.

The Dragonslayers vs. The Lost Caverns of the Tsojcanth

Today the boys wanted to play some D&D for Father's Day.  Really, how could I say no?

So we wrapped up the last bits of the return from White Plume mountain.  The boys went and visited Crazy Omar to collect their reward.  Omar got Whelm, as he wanted.  They traded Blackrazor for an equally notorious weapon from my world, the crossbow "Bessie Mauler" (yes, yes stolen from the Riftwar Cycle, but to be fair I stole it from my old DM and I had no idea he had stolen from somewhere else).

I also wanted to point out that they now had a crowd following them wherever they went.  After all they were the heroes that freed the Silver Princes and defeated Dragotha.  They are a long way from The Caves of the Stinky Goblin (the first adventure of the Dragonslayers).  I wanted them to feel like heroes.

Of course now they are a day's ride to the Horn of Iggwilv.  Omar has told them that great treasure awaits them in Iggwilv's lair.  They are free to keep the spell books, but Omar has his sight on "Iggwilv's Greatest Treasure" something so precious that she "wrapped in in gold".   Well Omar, or the boys yet, don't know that the rumors of the greatest treasure are referring to Drelzna and she is wrapped in gold.  Gold armor to be exact.

The made it up into the mountains.  They know there is a Gnome kingdom located in the mountains and they have just been abused by a group of Stone Giants tossing boulders at them.

I have had S4 forever and it is great to finally get a chance to run it.  I am using the original AD&D 1st ed version of this, along with the Iggwilv's Legacy update from WotC from 2007 (no longer online) and will include the Lost Temple of Tharizdun IF it seems like a good idea.  This adventure should take us well into Gen Con.

There is a blue dragon in this adventure and one in the next one I am planning, Death's Ride.  I am going to make them the same blue dragon.  It would be good to give them a reoccurring enemy.  And who better for the Dragonslayers than the Huge Blue Dragon Korbundar?

I am not planning on having them run into Iggwilv just yet.  Mostly I am torn on whether or not to make into a witch (one of my versions) or make her into a wizard.  She did study with the Circle of Eight and she does seem to be in every respect a wizard.  The easiest thing to do is cheat and wait till I am running 4e and just make her into a Warlock/Wizard multiclass.  A person of such history would be great to have in my games.  Wilva though is not a do-er, she is a manipulator. She has pawns.  I think this pic sums her up best.

I still have my Big Plan^TM in motion for 4e and Iggwilv is a part of that.  So she is manipulating the Dragonslayers now to get them in place for her take over of the Abyss.  Turns out it will be their kids, but she can wait.

I just don't know if I can!  I want to play this all now!

#FollowFriday: Tasha / Iggwilv on the Web

It is another Follow Friday here and since we are wrapping up Tasha's Week of Everything I thought it might be nice to detail some of the sites on the web and social media that feature Iggwilv, Tasha, and items from her history.

The Web

Tasha from HeroForge

Lots of great stuff here really. 

Greyhawk Online has a wiki full of details.

• Iggwilv
• Drelnza
• Perrenland
• Graz'zt
• Baba Yaga
• Elena the Fair

Likewise, the Forgotten Realms wiki has some entries for her. 

• Iggwilv
• Graz'zt
• Baba Yaga

She has even made appearances in Golarion from the Pathfinder wiki.  In particular as a former Queen of Irrisen.  According to the Golarion timeline, she ruled 4113 AR to 4213 AR (current year 4720 AR).

• Iggwilv/Tashanna
• Baba Yaga

If you want some fiction about Tasha/Iggwilv then there is Tommy John Kelly's Greyhawk Stories Page. 

• Iggwilv: Mother of Witches

Greyhawk Online has a number of posts featuring S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.

• Links to all articles
• Side by side comparisons of Tsojconth (1976) vs. Tsojcanth (1982) encounters.

Blogs

Iggwilv from HeroForge

Lots of people have had some words about Iggwilv in the blogging circles too. Here are some of them

James over at Grognardia gives her an uncharacteristically brief mention in his post about The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.

Sean McG has written up an extensive post on the publication history of Iggwilv, which he keeps updated at the Power Score.

• Dungeons & Dragons - A Guide to Tasha/Iggwilv
• The Demonomicon of Iggwilv

Mike Bridges at Greyhawkery also has a few posts.

• Happy Mother's Day...to witch-queen IGGWILV
• Article: The Iggwilv-Graz'zt Affair
• Comments on New D&D Book: Tasha's CoE

And of course, Greyhawk Grognard has some posts. Though he is not as enamored with the adventure as I am. 

• Looking at Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, Part One
• Looking at Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, Part Two
• From Hommlet to Tharizdun, by way of Tsojcanth
• Iggwilv’s Horn
• Review: Artifact of Evil
• Review: Sea of Death

Blogger Trent over at The Mystical Trash Heap has some thoughts on S4 as well.

Paleologos at the OSR Grimoire has a post on Drelnza the Vampiress Lord and talks a lot about the original Lost Caverns of Tsojconth. 

Social Media

Baba Yaga from HeroForge

There is a ton of social media out there. What places are best for Iggwilv and Tasha?

Facebook

• 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons
• 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (Official)
• Advanced Dungeons & Dragons
• 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (Uncensored)
• Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (Family Friendly)
• Old school TSR gamers
• ONLY Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition

• Greyhawk Musings
• Oerth - Adventures in Gary"s Gygax's Greyhawk.
• World of GREYHAWK Adventures - AD&D RPG
• Sages of Greyhawk

Twitter

• The Greyhawk Channel
• Bards of Greyhawk
• Greyhawk Grognard
• Iggwilv, the Baddest Witch (not active for a bit)

MeWe

• Advanced Dungeons & Dragons
• Greyhawk
• Basic Fantasy and Tabled Top RPG

YouTube

• Like his blog? Well, GreyhawkGrognard is also on YouTube.

P is for Paimon

Paimon is another demon that was once an Angel.  When he was a Angel he was is in Lucifer's* service and remained there after the Fall.  Paimon is a great king of Hell and he commands 200 legions of demons, a full 25 legions of these demons are his personal retinue of musicians and singers that announce his arrival.  Another 10 are his court, followed by his marshals, generals, and captains. All in his court are scholars of fine learning and repute. These demons are not soldiers and are not expected to go into battle.

Paimon is great scholar in his own right, in fact he may be the greatest mind in the infernal court.  He has no desire for personal power, but he has amassed so much knowledge that no plan gets enacted that he does not know about.  His familiars granted to mages and witches never fail to teach his subjects whatever knowledge they need to know.  All he requires of course his their ever-lasting soul.
While he gives out good familiars he is never summoned himself.  It is said that in order to summon Paimon the would be conjurer first needs to learn his secret language; no small feat.  Then properly summon Paimon in this language and converse with him in it.  Anyone that attempts to summon him will instead get his two chief advisers Beball and Abalam.

Paimon appears as a man with an effeminate or even a woman's face. He ride on a camel that breathes fire.   He is richly dress and always appears kingly.  He carries a rod that he uses to command  or on the rare times that he partakes in combat.
If attacked Paimon sees fighting beneath him and will send his legions in his stead. If he found alone he will summon Beball and Abalam to fight for him.

All other Baalseraph fear him but they also value his sage advice and knowledge. None dare openly plot against him.

Paimon

Alignment: Lawful Evil
Movement: 180'
Armor Class: -2
Hit Points (Hit Dice): 125 hp (24 HD)
Attacks: Rod
Damage: 1d8 +save vs. death on critical hit
Special: +2 or better weapon to hit, immunity to fire, electricity and poison, regeneration (1 hp/round), see in darkness, magic resistance (75%), telepathy 300 ft., knows everything
Save: F24
MORALE: 11
XP: 25,000

Beball and Abalam fight as powerful (full hp) Pit Fiends.  Paimon's mount is a camel, but it possess all the same powers of the Shedim including a fire breath weapon like a red dragon.

*For the record, while I have nothing against adding Lucifer to my games it seem far to Judo-Christian for my tastes.  Especially when I can achieve the same goals using the D&D version of Asmodeus or Tharizdun.

Gen Con 2016 in Review

I am back from Gen Con.  As always we had a great time. I am on my lunch so I thought I would fire off an update.

Every night was devoted to the Against the Giants adventure. We didn't get as far as we wanted, we only got through G1 The Hill Giants and +Thork Hammer aka R.C. Pinnel's G4 The Stone Giants.

They encountered their first drow of House Eilservs from Erelhei-Cinlu.
Since I am running this all under D&D 5e I am making the Drow of House Eilservs all partially Warlocks of Tharizdun, whom they know as the Elder Elemental God.  The G4 module played into this rather nicely.

I bought some things of course.  Mostly stuck to Castles & Crusades books.

Can't wait to dip into Victorious!

Went to the ENnies.  I didn't win, which I will admit was disapointing.
I'll post more later on this.

I did get a chance to meet +Zak Sabbath, Stoya and Charlotte Stokely at the ENnies and that at least was cool.  Zak took home 3 of the 5 ENnies he was nominated for, that was also cool.  My son loved his speech thanking Satan.  My son threw up some horns for that.  I also got my copy of Maze of the Blue Medusa signed by Zak and Stokely.

Opted to play a lot of different types of games this year.  Played a great game of Castles & Crusades.
Played some Exploding Kittens (really fun) some Munchkin (also fun), got into a board game at the Mayfair group, but didn't really care for it.  Tried to find a board game we all liked, but no success there.

I got some more art for my game room from Wayne Reynolds.  I think I want to get one of those frames that holds three pictures at once.

Wonder how much he would charge to do some art of Larina....

I picked up a copy of Gettysburg for a friend.  Picked up some more dice. Signed up for the Star Trek playtest.  Was going to pick up Pathfinder Horror Adventures, but there wasn't really anything new in it for me.   I might grab it later at my FLGS.

Loved all the Cosplay.  My son went as Jacob from Assassin's Creed and found a like-minded friend.

There were tons of "Harley Quinn"s but also a lot of "Rey"s from Star Wars. I thought that was cool.

While the con is still dominated by middle-aged, bearded white guys I am seeing a lot more families and kids.  This is a great thing.

Ate and spent WAY too much.

Not sure if I can make it next year.  It is later in August and my kids' school starts before Gen Con.

All in all a great time.

The Dragonslayers vs. The Lost Caverns of the Tsojcanth, Finale

Last night the Dragonslayers (aka my kids) finished up the Greater Caverns to discover Iggwilv's greatest treasure and fight Drelnza.  I was considering to bring her back, but she was so completely destroyed that I just can't imagine how she would do it.

The boys did great really, I am very pleased how they played.  I was amazed how well my youngest did.  He figured out the secret of the central doors really fast and had a really good sense of direction.  We used minis of course, but not for the entire dungeon, just the battles.  They got the Lanthorn, the Prison, and all her books of magic.  Everyone leveled up one level.

Of course the boys had a  great time and we even got to play past bedtime. They woke up today and wanted to get right back into it.  That is the sign of a good adventure.

Now I need to figure out what the guys are going to do next.  I'd love to move on to the Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, but I am anxious to get them to the big battle against Tiamat.

For that I am considering using the old H4 Throne of Bloodstone, but not sure yet.

Here are the previous posts in this series.

• http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/11/getting-back-in-to-it.html
• http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2011/06/dragonslayers-vs-lost-caverns-of.html
• http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2011/07/dragonslayers-vs-lost-caverns-of.html
• http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2011/12/return-of-dragonslayers.html
• http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2012/01/dragonslayers-and-books-of-vile.html

Tomorrow. Something special!

Up next, Lost Caves, Hidden Temples and Death's Ride

So I am starting up my end game for the Dragon Slayers.

I think their next to the last adventure will be the old D&D Companion Adventure Death's Ride.  I remember going through this one when I was younger and I think it will be a perfect fit for this group.

It will help build up some of the action for the next campaign and it is a good cap for this campaign.

I am going to do S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth first, and maybe squeak in WG4 The Lost Temple of Tharizdun.  There is a blue dragon in S4 that just might become Korbundar in CM2.

Now the question I have for you all.

Does anyone know if CM2 had been updated to 3.x rules at all?  I have a ton of RTF/DOC files of modules that people updated back in the early days of 3.0.  I have them for a lot of modules, but what I don't have is one for CM2.

Anyone know if something like this is out there?

Sol Invictus: The Unconquered Sun

The mountains and the canyons started to tremble and shake 
as the children of the sun began to awake. 

It's not easy pulling off a large mono-theistic religion in a FRPG, especially one where the world not only has a lot of pantheons, but also where all these goods are assumed to be real.
Fortunately there are plenty of examples from the real world.  Especially in the Christ-like figure of Mithra or Mitra and the similar Sol Invictus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Invictus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraic_mysteries
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81ine

I think a god like Mithra would be interesting in D&D.

The Church of Sol Invictus
In my Mystoerth world the Church of Sol Invictus seeks to unite the faiths of the world under the banner of one Sun God.  They have a lot of influence in the temples of Pholtus, Pelor, St. Cthubert and Ixion.  There are many similarities to this faith and the one of Taiia in 3rd Edition.

Proponents of Sol Invictus believe that their god is the only true god and all others are false gods or even worse elevated demons or mortals.

But the Church of Sol Invictus has a number of other, deeper secrets.
In addition to only recognizing the sun gods of various faiths as the only true god, they believe that these gods are really only aspects of a much greater god.
The high priests and the leader of the faith, known as "His Brilliance", feel that these aspects are in fact aspects of the god known as "He Who Was".

He Who Was was an ancient powerful god whose chief lieutenant was Asmodeus. At the behest of Tharizdun, Asmodeus tricked and betrayed this god. He was ambushed by Orcus, Demogorgon and a third demon whose name has been erased.  He Who Was managed to kill this other demon and even split Demogorgon into two.  Demogorgon later regenerated into  his current form, each half of his head regenerating in to two complete heads.  Orcus killed He Who Was and in a further act of desecration used his skull and spine as the the great Wand of Orcus.

The clergy of Sol Invictus believe then that by combining these aspects of the Sun God and destroying Orcus forever they can have their god reborn. They believe that this rebirth will make their god more powerful than he ever was.

In my larger world St. Aleena was also a follower of this philosophy and the Church of Law and Order in City of Dolmvay is just another aspect of this faith.

The major foes of this Church are followers of Orcus and pretty much any demonic cult.  Also feared and mistrusted are the faiths that follow the Moon.

The Church of Sol Invictus are among the main witch-hunters in my world.

I am planning to work elements of this church into my current game, but not sure how much detail the players are actually going to get.  The use a word my wife hates, I am going to let it grow "organically".

Some of this organic growth began when I first started pulling all this together for 4e. It was building the 4e version of Aleena that got this idea rolling again.  I guess this is one of the reasons I have not let go of my 4e books.  A lot of the fluff is still compatible with what I am doing in 5e.

Not everything is figured out though.
Given that I grew up in the 70s I would love to add some more left-over hippy shit to it all. I would love to add something like 12 houses to the faith, something along the lines of orders.  Or 7 orders and break them down by color.  The 7 orders actually fits better with some other things I had done in the past.  Each order representing a different aspect of the faith.  I had already figured out Red (Military might) and Blue (Knowledge/learning).  It should not be too hard to come up with something else.  Obviously Green could be related to growing things.  Violet could be Guidance. Why? Well it brings in a group I had created separately that could work into this faith.  Maybe they absorbed them.  I could even have a "Black" for the secret police within the faith.

I will give this some thought.  But yeah this could be fun.

I Have a Plan…

It's not a great plan, or even a well thought out one, but it is a plan. I am going to be taking my two sons (and now it seems, my wife) on a massive 4^th Edition D&D campaign. Yes I know this will take years, but that is fine, I have those years. I am going to place it in my "Mystoerth" world.

Given my penchant for all things horror, I am going to set up the campaign to focus on the ascent of Orcus to godhood. Orcus is a great enemy to have. He is unrepentant evil, his minions are undead and he is full of rage, horror and violence and everything a good upstanding hero would want to stop.

I'd use some of the "new" mythology of Orcus and Raven Queen, plus a bit of my own. But not all would be railroaded plot-driven arcs. My oldest son loves to fight dragons so that would also be there. Plus I want to make this very, very relaxed. The unfolding meta-plot is my extra enjoyment, but I want to do it in such a way that we all have fun.

I am going to place it in my world's version of Glantri. Glantri is from Mystara and in that world was a Principality, now I have at as Theocratic Monarchy where the King is also the head of the Church of State. So basically, Fairy Tale England, or more to the point Fairy Tale Western Europe, since I also have influences of France and Italy here. The Princes are gone, defeated in a coup, but their lands remain ruled by nine dukes under the King. The Dukes are mostly the old family of the Princes, looking for a chance to reclaim power. So I have political intrigue if I want it, but I am going to be keeping my good and evil mostly easy to spot, at least in the beginning. The Dukes allow me to use older Glantri material, I just swap out the terms. Under the Dukes are various landed nobles, typically retired adventures, known as Barons and Counts. My thinking here is to give my boys all the full D&D experiences; so there are knights and dames, courts of intrigue and chivalry, and the way for brave adventurers to return home as heroes. Sure it is not "grim-dark" or even "points of light", but it can be part of the "oncoming darkness".

My world has a Blackmoor, a Desert, a Hyborea, not mention Greyhawk, Glantri and Kara-Tur all in one world. So, more than enough to keep me and my family busy for years to come really. Though there are only four of us, I might have to bring in some others, maybe some of their friends as well. This is one of the main reasons I am going with 4^th Edition as opposed to say an older version (the D&D Rules Cyclopedia would be so awesome for this) or another game (like Ghosts of Albion). I am more likely to find others that play 4E than some other game AND it just makes the most sense really given all the tools for 4E out now.

Here is the "Hero Tier" to borrow a phrase. These will be local and be the Mystara flavor of the epic.

• T1 The Village of Hommlet, levels 1-2. I do have the 4^th Edition update for this.
• B1 In Search of the Unknown, levels 1-3 (can run this one in my sleep)
• B2 The Keep on the Borderlands, levels 1-3
• B3 Palace of the Silver Princess, levels 1-3 (using bits from both the "Green" and "Orange" versions).
• L1 The Secret of Bone Hill, levels 2-4
• X1 The Ilse of Dread, levels 3-7
• X2 Castle Amber, levels 3-6 (place it in the Shadowfell, which is the new Ravenloft anyway)
• C2 The Ghost Tower of Inverness, levels 5-7. Though I won't run it as a tournament module and that is if I don't use it as a converted Doctor Who adventure.
• I6 Ravenloft, levels 5-7. That is if I don't use it as a convert Ghosts of Albion adventure. Use some of the Ravenloft campaign/world setting stuff here too.
• S2 White Plume Mountain, levels 5-10
• I10 Ravenloft II, House on Gryphon Hill, levels 8-10 (maybe. They might be burned out on undead by this time.)

Now begins the "Paragon Tier" and I will start with the Gygaxian canon.

• S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth (with some of the info from the 3.5 update), levels 6-10
• WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, levels 5-10
• S1 Tomb of Horrors, levels 10-14 (though some of the instant kill traps changed, more skill challenges)
• S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, levels 8-12
• G123, Against the Giants, levels 8-12
• D12 Descent into the Depths of the Earth, levels 9-14
• D3 Vault of the Drow, levels 10-14
• Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits, levels 10-14
• CM2 Death's Ride, levels 15-20. This sets up the next tier, or I could even make this the start of the next tier and keep the Epic levels nothing but Gygaxian Greyhawk. I like that idea.

I can also fit Gary's "Dungeon Land" and "The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror" adventures here as well to complete the Gygaxian saga. But I need to re-read those to be sure.

Now here would also be a good spot for the DA series Blackmoor adventures for made for the Expert D&D set, but there is a lot of high tech stuff mixed in with those. I might pick and choose things, but I think I am more likely to go with the newer d20 Blackmoor stuff.

The "Epic Tier" is harder, but here some ideas.
Some of the Master level modules (M2, M3 and M5 in particular) look like they would work well. Plus they have the Mystara high fantasy feel that some of the Greyhawk modules don't have.
Of course I would do the Bloodstone series here, just make them harder, maybe even pair them up with the Orcus related adventures for 4e (the new "E" series), though old H4 and new E3 cover a lot of the same ground. I would want to add some other planes adventures here too. So to follow my rule of thumb I should try to find at least 6 more adventures for this tier.

• H1 Bloodstone Pass, levels 15+
• H2 The Mines of Bloodstone, levels 16-18
• H3 The Bloodstone Wars, levels 17-20
• H4 The Throne of Bloodstone, levels 18-100

I could also do a sub-campaign in my desert area using:

• B4 The Lost City, levels 1-3 (though I am using this one now in 3.5)
• I3 Pharaoh, levels 5-7
• I4 Oasis of the White Palm, levels 6-8
• I5 Lost Tomb of Martek, levels 7-9
• X4 Master of the Desert Nomads, levels 6-9
• X5 Temple of Death, levels 6-10
• I9 Day of Al'Akbar, level 8-10. Useful for the Cup and Talisman of Al'Akbar.

Now granted these levels are all for AD&D and Basic D&D and might not translate well into 4E. But I have a lot of tools at my disposal to help with that. I have a load of maps, a DDI subscription, monsters and even some third party stuff to make it all work. If I plan everything out correctly I can have them go up a level at the end of every adventure. I like that too. Also I can set up a titanic army of the undead using all the previous "bosses" from these adventures. So Strahd, Drenzula, Korbundar, Acerak, and more I know I am forgetting. Plus some GM PCs I'd love to try out that I know I'll never get to play in a 4^th Ed game.

To borrow a Klingon quote, "It will be glorious!"