Let Slip The Dogs Of War (Part III)

In which I  finally discuss...at lengrh...the tournament module written for Cauldron 2025's prestigious (and now annual) Blackrazor Cup....

SATURDAY BLOCK I: Rivers of Blood, Death, and Glory

Getting to Germany from Seattle isn't the easiest thing in the world. Yeah, it's a long haul. Yeah, it's more money than I'd like to spend on a plane ticket. Yeah, it means being away from my family for a weekend and missing things like high school dances and playoff soccer games. 

Is it worth the trouble and effort, just for a gaming convention? For me?

Yes. It is.

But I don't know if it's quite worth it...or if I'm quite willing...to make it an annual pilgrimage. Every other year sounds about right. At least until my kids are old enough to accompany me (always assuming I can afford the airfare). Cauldron I (in 2023) was fantastic...but I couldn't quite justify doing it again in 2024. And yet, I wanted to be part of Cauldron II all the same. Which is why I asked to convention organizers (well, really just Settembrini) if I could write a tournament module for the thing. 

Hence was born Children of the Sea, which I haven't written much about, because I thought it was going to be part of the OSRIC kickstarter stretch goals. Yeah, no...THAT didn't happen. But don't worry; it'll get released in a different fashion....

Feedback from Children was immensely positive: the con-goers in 2024 really seemed to enjoy it...so much so that they wanted to make it an annual contest at the con. Great news! However, some folks felt that the module had been "too easy." What the F...?

[when I ran it for my home group it ended in a TPK...]

My adventures are supposed to be "challenging" not "easy;" certainly not "too easy!" Having my ego slighted, it is only natural that I would want to redeem myself with a stronger adventure for 2025. Not a terribly awful, "killer" dungeon, but something designed to be fiendish even while being appropriately stocked for players of the requisite level.  

Thus was conceived the idea for Rivers of Blood, Death, and Glory. I think the title probably came first, even before the concept: an upriver trek into the frozen wilds of British Columbia. 

Now, when searching for a premise/scenario, my first thought that to re-write/re-purpose yet another DragonLance module...specifically DL6: Dragons of Ice. I have a fascination with this adventure, for a number of reasons. For one thing, I rather love white dragons: they are dragons (duh) that even low-mid level parties can survive encounters with...great for a game with the word "dragons" in the title. Also, frost breath is awesome. Also, in B/X and OD&D they are NEUTRAL in alignment, making them one of three "non-evil" dragons (which opens all sorts of possibilities). Not that this adventure was ever planned to be anything other than AD&D....

My favorite DragonLance cover art...

There are two other reasons that DL6 interests me: the first of these is that it represents the first adventure truly divorced from the novels. I read the original DL novels long before I ever read any of the modules, and the details of the protagonists' excursion to IceWall Castle (another great name) is mostly left out of the text, instead being relegated to (yet another) example of the Hickman poetry fetish. Which...for me...means that the unfolding events of the adventure are quite wide open for interpretation.

The last reason I find DL6 interesting is that the "dungeon" portion of the adventure is actually stocked "by the numbers," with the proper amount of monsters, traps/tricks, special, and empty encounters (for the number of encounter areas) AND (if memory serves) even the proper amount of treasure for the party. This is pretty amazing, and considering the size it would fit just fine within a four-hour tournament time slot (it is a rather small "dungeon").

However, it is BORING AS HELL and, for the most part, far too easy when it comes to the "big bad evil wizard," and while it is well-themed (and includes some great dragon encounters), I didn't particularly want minotaurs and walrus men.  Oh...and the layout is pretty sad, too: a bunch of rooms around a courtyard; possibly the most dull map ever attached to a Hickman project.

[to be fair, it IS credited to Douglas Niles, an author I do not hold in very high esteem as a module cobbler] 

Even so, it gave me a good base to start from. I removed the "evil wizard" guy completely (because evil wizards tend to get pwned when facing a party of eight adventurers, no matter how high their level...spell interruption, you know?) and instead made the guy dead and buried and part of the backstory. Minotaurs and thanoi got replaced with yetis, the polar bear for a brown bear (because it's British Columnia). All the dragons got to stay (yes, Chomi, DL6 uses the exact same number of dragons!), as did the winter wolves. Throw in a few undead here and there, a golem, some magical traps appropriate to a lich's stronghold and some more interesting treasure and voila! Tournament adventure written.

[I keep telling people I'm just a hack when it comes to this stuff, and I'm not lying. I may be a very good hack, but in terms of sheer creativity there are plenty of Very Fine Minds out there to whom I don't hold a candle]

Having run the adventure twice prior to Cauldron, I had a pretty good idea of how the thing played. The "upper works" (where the bulk of the adventure's half a million gold pieces in treasure may be found) is especially dastardly.  UNIVERSALLY, I found players would get flustered/distracted by the firetrap on the lich's crystal ball and then miss searching for secret doors in the scrying room; this is only exacerbated by the multiple yeti encounters (where are we going to run into another pack of those guys) and the pressure of the tournament time limit.

[I am cognizant of the elven party members' ability to automatically check for secret doors just by passing by the space, but if they did not mention anything about exploring the room or even going deep into it, I did not allow the chance. Were I to rewrite the adventure, I would simply note that the secret door can ONLY be found by "active searching," and see which groups keep their wits about them]

Likewise, the cliffside entrance to the dragon caves is supposed to be difficult to spot...if anything, that entrance is meant to be a "reward" of sorts for groups that encounter (and survive!) a random encounter with the dragon while exploring the village. I will relate that ONE particular group at Cauldron (who shall not be named) asked me for a "hint" about the adventure and I said, "Keep your heads up." They deciphered my message and found their way into the caves...only to be all-but-TPK'd by the dragon and her young. Instant karma, perhaps?

With regard to my own Cauldron session, the group did a fine job: certainly the best of any of the three groups I've run. Now, given, they DID have eight heads in the game, but the adventure ran pretty much the same, and they were quite clever with how they approached the various encounters, not taking anything in the way of casualties (by actual DEATH), losing fingers to frostbite, melting their own weapons in the black forge, blowing up spell-casters with the firetrap, or trying on the necklace of strangulation. In fact, they were the FIRST group I've run to not lose a single party member...well, except for one player who left the table (perhaps in disgust, after being energy drained half his levels). 

[sorry, man...]

ACTUALLY, the disgust was more likely due to the way I could not contain my maniacal cackling laughter towards the end of the adventure. I have no excuse for this and I apologize unconditionally for the offense I caused...the pained look on Prince of Nothing's face and the desperation in his voice as time was running out just did something to tickle my funny bone. It was highly reminiscent of playing with my brother (back in the good ol' days before he went crazy off-the-rails with his mental issues and alcoholism...), and Prince (and the others) should take it as a compliment. It is rare that I laugh that hard or so long with anyone, except friends I feel comfortable with (and my own kids). 

[and, to be clear, it was not Prince who abandoned the table]

But...look here: they sussed out that the pit of wights was FULL OF WIGHTS even before they left the throne room. They MAPPED THE DUNGEON METICULOUSLY (up until the mines below) and knew EXACTLY WHERE THE WIGHTS WERE. And then they STILL went there (and got their asses beat). And THEN...with time running out and the desperation to find more treasure positively reeking off them...they WANTED TO GO BACK FOR MORE PUNISHMENT.  

How could I not chuckle?

This I chalk up to metagaming of the WRONG type. I encourage metagaming: if players know that fire kills trolls, they should not pretend otherwise when they encounter a band of regenerators. The players KNEW that the skeleton with the yellow-orange mold on it was a dangerous mold of SOME variety, and wisely avoided it. They should have probably taken the same tack with the wights, especially since they knew there were 16 of them, far more than they could probably turn. 

And, yet, they assumed that I (the DM) had put the wights there for a reason. That there must be some "great frigging treasure" in that pit. As if a lich lord wouldn't just have a pit of wights to throw people into for his own amusement. My adventures are designed to have a certain type of logic to them...they are not "funhouses." Why are the yetis there? Because the place has been abandoned and they've taken up residence (in the places they could reach). Why is there a forge of black flame? To craft the lich's weapons of war. Etc., etc. See, there is metagaming and then there is "over-thinking” (which might be defined as “trying to out-think/guess the DM”). I suppose that works sometimes but…well, I can’t say I recommend the practice.

But, again, the adventure is designed this way. The time pressure functioned great...the methodical, cautious approach started escaping their grasp as time wound down. As happens. A blizzard is a-coming folks...got to get the treasure out and get back to the boats!

Anyway...

Other teams (except the one that blundered into the dragons' den) escaped with far more loot...several in excess of 200K and the winning team with more than 300K. Then again, I wasn't running the adventure for all of them...would they have fared as well with me in the captain's chair? Hard to say. Prince & Co. took home some 88K which exceeded my home group by the value of one potion of heroism and a handful of silver...but they did it without losing a single PC to death and that is something.

Last thing I want to say about the tournament adventure (which most everyone I spoke with at Cauldron seemed to enjoy): every single monster in the adventure came direct from the 1E Monster Manual. Every single treasure in the adventure can be found in the pages of the 1E DMG. Every single spell-type trap (firetrap, glyph, etc.) is in the 1E Players Handbook.  No UA tricks, no Dragon Magazine articles, not even a Fiend Folio critter to be found...I wanted to make sure all the DMs could run the thing using nothing but the core books.

Because the core books have PLENTY of "good stuff" in 'em.

; )

All right. That's all I want to say on the tournament adventure. Thanks to everyone who gave it a go, and thanks especially to all the DMs that ran it...you folks were excellent!

Let Slip The Dogs Of War (Part I)

In which I discuss in detail the games I ran at Cauldron 2025, spoiling secrets and providing insights into the cracked mind of a geezer DM....

FRIDAY BLOCK I: Silver Temple of Transcendent Flame

Friday Block I was billed as a “Temple of Doom/Sidekick:” a short gaming session (only three hours in length compared to the other, four-hour time slots) designed to ease people in as they arrived for the con. People were given time to check in, find their rooms, gather their bedding (we made our own beds), and snack and coffee-up prior to the session, which ran from 4pm to 7pm (at which time dinner would be served). Quickly dressing my bed (deducing…correctly…that I’d be in no shape to do so at the end of the night), I discovered that my room had been stuffed full of Americans, many of whom I knew by reputation (and voice) from the internet, but whom I’d never met. Great guys, all around. Gus has a tremendous mustache of which I am tremendously jealous.

Silver Temple of Transcendent Flame is not a “Becker” original; it is, rather, a tactical exercise Anthony Huso designed and wrote as an introduction to his players when he first re-booted his AD&D campaign some ten or so years ago. He details this on his blog: as a campaign starter, he had his players create new, 1st level PCs, but then RAN them through a high mid-level adventure using EVIL pre-gens of his own design, sacking a temple of goodness. Following the scenario, he returned the players their original character sheets and kicked off the campaign proper with the PCs dealing with the aftermath of the destructive raid.

It's a fine idea; quite clever, in my opinion. The adventure itself (the map and his game notes) are freely available on his blog, and I decided to run the thing at Cauldron…something different, something fast, something that I knew had already been play-tested by one of the modern masters of the AD&D craft. Easy-peasy.

Unfortunately, Huso long ago lost the character sheets for the pre-gens, and I was forced to recreate them (best as I could) from the notes he provided. This was the bulk of my prep, made more than a bit challenging by his use of three evil NPC classes (the anti-paladin, the necromancer, and the witch) from Dragon Magazine. I am familiar with these, but I’m not particularly enthused by their implementation or execution in the mag. As such, I altered the classes rather drastically from how they appear. Here’s what I brought to the tournament:

• Caul, Flayer of Men: 8th level “Anti-Paladin:” abilities taken from Hackmaster…basically as a paladin except with reversed abilities (cause wounds instead of heal, befriend undead instead of turning, protection from good instead of evil, etc.).
• Vessvka Vith, Drow “Witch:” female Dark Elf cleric/magic-user of 6th/6th level.
• Tergomant Glim: 7th level cleric and a monster of a man (18 STR, 6’1”, 270#; wields a footman’s mace with one hand).
• Ergonin Hews: 6th level half-orc fighter, wielding double-fisted hand axes. Agile for an orc (Dex 17).
• Nicodemus Plath: 7th level half-elf assassin, based loosely on my son’s main PC of the same type.
• Sable Croft: 7th level human fighter; exceptional strength (though less than Caul) with a magic bardiche. More beef.
• Vlaimir Sush: 5th level Necromancer; totally unchanged from the Dragon mag entry and given a scythe for a weapon because evil necromancers with two-handed scythes are the height of coolness, even if the class kind of sucks.
• Barthax Brunst: 6th level dwarven fighter/thief. NOT one of Huso’s originals (he only lists seven characters, probably because he only had seven players). I wanted more PCs in the party because Huso throws psionic couatls, silver dragons, clay golems, and magic-user/monks at people (he’s a bad, bad man). Also, the fighter/thief built in some skill redundancy for the party.

For the adventure itself, I reformatted and (partially) rewrote what Huso had done. Anthony, God love him, has a penchant for writing the purplest of prose…he is an actual author, after all…but I needed things terse and punchy, both to match my personal style as well as the three hour widow with which I was working.

Likewise, I had to remove the various “Huso-isms” throughout the text: monks getting DEX bonuses to AC, or bonuses from wearing “silk armor,” anything that appeared to come from the UA, nutty magical “eye traps” that had multiple effects and would be a bear to adjudicate without a battle map (something I don’t use). Huso loves nothing better than a protracted siege battle a la The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, but I didn’t plan on forcing the PCs to charge in guns ablaze. Why would they, when so many of their party members were more powerful in subtler ways? 

Besides, the adventure was plenty deadly as is.

Oh, yes…I also removed encounters #29-#33 and their associated sections of the map (too long, mostly empty, and redundant) and axed some of the other weird, none-too-normal weirdness (room #27 is simply empty and I switched the "Starfire Neonate" for a more Golden Child-like "Celestial Being").

[everyone knows the old Eddie Murphy “Golden Child” movie, right? The adventure gives off quite a bit of that vibe anyway]

Thing is, Huso made a divine being in need of slaying, but then gave it immunity to weapons of less than +3 while only arming his pre-gens with +2 weapons (come on, Anthony!); as such, capture/kidnapping had to be on the table, unless I really wanted to spend time re-stocking the dungeon (but, then, that would have made the adventure more drawn out as PCs would have to search for items to use to destroy the child and yadda-yadda-yadda. No).

Interested people who want my pre-gens and the re-tooled/formatted adventure I used at Cauldron can download them HERE and HERE, respectively. In play, I changed/improvised the last paragraph of the “START” to explain their mission: find and destroy…or capture…the “Celestial Child” (with no more information given as to what exactly a “Celestial Child” is).

So how did it actually go? Great! The players decided NOT to charge into the dungeon, but scouted ahead with their assassin instead, who was able to completely surprise and recon the couatl and monks in room #1 and report back without sounding the alarm. Using silence to first neutralize the spell-casting ability of all within the chamber, the PCs then charged into battle and put paid to the initial guardians without sounding the alarm. Pretty good start.

In the great hall, however, they were forced to decide on a course of action…and had trouble doing so. Eventually they decided to just start “opening doors” and seeing what was behind them, which led to them alerting the four clerics in room #7, the bulk of whom would sell their lives while the other two retreated through the many redoubts of the map to alert the temple proper. The players pursued, but the need to unlock doors (and getting hit by fire glyphs, etc.) slowed them down. They managed to NOT activate the clay golems in chamber 14, found the secret door, and the corridor that led to the trapdoor in area #6 (wherein resides a silver dragon). However, before going through that they waited for Chomy (playing the necromancer), who had been gathering dead monks and clerics to make maximum use of his one animate zombie spell. The party waited below while they sent a pair of their “undead soldiers” up the ladder to scout around.

And then watched as the zombies were vaporized with fire.

By this time (of course) the bell had started sounding in the grand hall, the temple was on alert, and minions were rallying to their battle positions, as they had been trained to do. The party knew that time was of the essence, but they were still trying to compose a battle plan of their own, arguing the virtues of one form of action or another.

While they were doing that, the trapdoor opened above and the magic-user launched a fireball into the narrow corridor below. So much for the necromancer and his zombies.

The PCs returned fire…perhaps Nicodemus with his poisoned darts and/or Barthax with his crossbow…slaying the magic-user. The group then decided to posse to head up the ladder and not wait around anymore. Of course, they saw the dragon, as well as the other magic-user (with a wand of lightning). Much hilarity ensued as more PCs were cooked but, in the end, they slew both and made their way to the battle royale with THE TWILIGHT PRINCESS herself. Much fun, but the forces of evil eventually triumphed (I think Marcellia was felled with a hold person spell, a common theme of the con...), and the remaining survivors (which I believe only included Caul, Tergomant, and Vessvka), made their way to the Child, who was fairly obvious considering the lilac skin, single blue eye, and enormous halo of light. All good: they removed the child, the temple started to shudder, and everyone headed for the exits (including the surviving defenders of the temple).

A good, solid game and just a few minutes over our three-hour time slot…we still made it to dinner with plenty of time to spare. 

*****

FRIDAY BLOCK II (Friday Night): the Battle Emridy Meadows. 

As I described in my prior post, I played in Settembrini's Chainmail game…at least until I could no longer physically stand without the risk of collapse. I bowed out around midnight and hit the hay at roughly 12:30am. I was then awakened at 6:45am by several successive members of the American contingent marching through my room to use the shower (the one bathroom being located nearest to my bed). The person occupying the cot next to me slept like the dead and snored like a chainsaw (so loudly that individuals from two doors down commented on it)…fortunately, for me he was a bit of a “white noise generator” and actually led to a fairly restful repose.

I finally dragged myself out of bed around 7:30, as much to use the bathroom myself (which I had to go down four flights and leave the building to do, given the person occupying the shower), and headed for breakfast.

*****

SATURDAY BLOCK I: Rivers of Blood, Death, and Glory. 

I will talk about this in a separate post.

*****

SATURDAY BLOCK II: Caul’s Dark Citadel

The afternoon session, after lunch, and this time I would be doing a “Becker Original.” Ever since seeing WotC’s use of “the D&D kids” (from the 1981 D&D cartoon) as “content” for their new 5E 2024 books (and on the cover of their Stormwreck Isle starter set), I’ve wanted to write my own adventure that featured these characters. And for Cauldron, I decided that I would use them in a sequel adventure to Huso’s Silver Temple of Transcendent Flame.

My plan was to make the adventure more of a stealth/infiltration in contrast to the Caul's destructive raid to showcase different styles of play. The PCs would be tasked with the recovery of the Celestial Child’s remains: a mercy mission fitting their 'good guy' ethos, as opposed to a task of vengeance. I figured the PCs could return the ashes (or whatever) to the Silver Temple, where the surviving monks would use the power of "transcendent flame" (or whatever) to raise it from the dead. This was my idea for quite a while, even after I realized it was a long shot that Caul and his buddies would actually figure out a way to kill the Child.

And yet, that wasn’t my main problem. The main problem was the actual adventure site, i.e. the map. I needed a stronghold for Caul...and while it couldn’t be too large, it still had to feel like an “epic evil fortress.” Or, at least, weird. Or both. But with a capped number of encounters.

*sigh*  Let me explain.

In a convention time block...even a four hour one (which is long enough that you need to give the players at least a break, in my opinion)...there’s a limit to how many encounters they can get through. An excellent example is the tournament scenario found in Dave “Zeb” Cook’s module I1: Dwellers of the Forbidden City. The scenario is a linear gauntlet: each encounter area needs to be bypassed, one after another. There are no branching decision points, no side treks, no work arounds. You have ten encounter areas…TEN…and that’s it. I’ve run this scenario countless times over the years, but the last two times were for Cauldron 2023, one in playtest (at home) and once at the convention itself, and both times with strict attention paid to the time limit. And in BOTH instances, I found it impossible for the players involved to navigate the entire length within the time frame…NINE encounters was the most anyone ever got through in four hours.

Dwellers is pretty dastardly, and it’s a good example for study: you have two large, “set piece” encounters. You have two “tricky” encounters that can be avoided through cleverness. You have one “trick/trap” room, you have two “small” encounters that should be resolved quickly, and you have one “medium” encounter that would normally be okay, but due to its position (at the end of the adventure), the party will be low on resources like hit points and spells and so it will PLAY harder than it might otherwise play. The last two encounters are (effectively) “empty” locations with nothing there except possible time wasting by the party. Generally speaking, a good overall formula…but, again, still too long for the time slot (it runs about 15-20 minutes over four hours, and I run the thing like a machine).

And anyway, this is supposed to be a fortress…a CASTLE, not a linear gauntlet. Dwellers works because of the scenario itself…you are burrowing through a mountain following a tunnel into the heart of the forbidden city. But I wanted something that could be explored with branches and loops and whatnot…an environment for exploration in other words. Where and how to even begin. So, I started thinking about what Caul’s castle would like like…something gifted to him by Dark Patrons (of course) since he was only 8th level and not stout enough to build his own. As such, it could be as twisted and fantastic as I wanted. And, of course, it would need ways to sneak in (because, duh, stealth mission, not “Avengers Assemble” frontal assault). So probably through a cistern or catacomb or something.

IN FACT, my original idea was to simply re-purpose the Pax Tharkas mission from DL1…even using the map from that module. How easy! (mmm…now that I’m remembering I was ALSO planning on using warped version of the DL heroes as the pre-gens before I finally decided on the D&D Kids). But after looking over Pax Tharkas, I realized that it was really, really crappy. I needed something else.

Eventually, after bouncing off several different ideas (including a Harold Lamb description of the Hashashin's lair..and having my daughter draw me a castle map), I finally decided on something I could live with: the castle from the Jim Henson film, The Dark Crystal. It had everything I needed…a way in through the tunnels beneath (in addition to a front gate), a crazy-ass interior, vivid rooms/chambers (from the film), verticality, etc., etc. A place for Caul to set his throne, a lab for Caul’s evil wizard to do apothecary stuff, a “temple room” (the crystal chamber) for the witch to perform her dark rites, etc. Now all I needed was a MAP of the place…and I found THIS on-line:

Look at that thing, ain’t it a beauty? Except of course, it’s got the cutaway floor plan that doesn’t work for me and actually making the thing make sense was going to require a whole bunch of scribbling and erasing and scribbling on my part.

SO…I procrastinated. I detailed the actual encounter areas, numbered at 15. 'Hey! 15 is more than nine,' you say…heck, it’s more than ten! Yes, but this is not a "linear gauntlet." I wrote the thing in such a way that there were some nine-ish encounter areas for the PCs to surpass to both A) reach the Child’s destination (which would be determined by the results in the earlier “Silver Temple” adventure), and B) escape the dungeon. Because…stealth, right? We don’t need to confront Caul and his minions (though, if you do, it's frosting…). In addition, I threw in a bunch of slave areas (people for 'good guys' to rescue) because, of course there are slaves (like the podlings in the movie) AND...because I wanted to go “full Henson”...I also stocked in all the DC’s “Garthim” (giant black crabs…same stats as the MM) as Caul’s mutated guardian minions. Chef’s kiss.

HOW’D IT GO? Well, I'd hoped to get some of the same players from my Friday, Silver Temple adventure (continuity), but no such luck. Sign-up sheets filled FAST. And "Best DM" winner Grutzi…who had contacted me before the con and left this session open specifically to play this adventure at my table was unable to get a spot! Crap. I had only seven pre-gens (my other games were all 8+) because, of course, there aren’t all that many “D&D kids.”

[no, there was no “Uni the Unicorn;” my characters are a decade older and Uni has long since left ‘em to join a herd or something. The seventh pre-gen PC was a grown up version of Varla the Illusionist, a minor character introduced as a love interest for Presto in an episode I believe is called The Last Illusion. Yeah…an illusionist girlfriend. Suck it, Hank!]

Adult Varla

But at the last second, I decided that I was being stupid and I just went and grabbed Grutz and told him: get one of his own pre-gens and join the party. We went with eight and he brought a cleric, which was a welcome addition...although I had converted the older “Sheila” into a (dual-classed) thief/cleric to ensure the party sported some divine power. Now they had more.

ANYway...despite finishing the maps only two days before I hopped a plane and not getting a chance to play-test the thing…it played surprisingly well! The players decided to climb the castle (forgot to put rope on their equipment list…whoops!) and enter through the highest tower, working their way DOWN rather than UP. Which was fine…that, too, was a way I'd coded my encounters for the con. Their first encounter was with the assassin Nicodemus Plath, contemplating his life choices in the lookout. They got into a scrap with him and should have been poisoned five ways to Sunday, but my die rolls were pretty horrendous, and they beat the snot out of him. I had him surrender and then they got to tie him up and do some "role-playing" as they interrogated him about the layout of the place. “Well, it’s kind of hard to describe...”

Thing is, my map was all wonky with “non-Euclidean geometry:” due to me trying to crib together a vertical map into something horizontal I just ended up using no corners (nor even many straight lines), just a lot of “bendy,” wrap-around tunnels and a great many stairwells and changes of elevation. It worked well to make the whole expedition confusing, frustrating, and painful for the characters, as the slaves they encountered had only partial information and even then could only say, “Well, it’s kind of hard to describe…” Much hilarity.

However, the players were determined to kill Caul, Divine Child or not. One of the players, Dillon, was a self-professed Huso fan and knew all about Caul and really wanted to off the guy (Dillon was very enthusiastic about everything, actually…I think he was having a pretty good time as his first Cauldron…). They figured out where Caul’s throne room was and hatched some cockamamie plan to disguise themselves as a Drow (Diana wearing the witch’s clothes from a ransacked bedroom) and a slave (Varla using change self) with an invisible Sheila in tow to backstab the guy or some such. Caul wasn’t buying it of course…everyone in his castle was cleared by him and he knew there wasn’t any other Drows or “new cultists,” and also knew that slaves weren’t allowed in the throne room (other than his chained up scribe), so he dispatched his cadre of gnolls to round up the obvious imposters.

Fighting ensued; damage was done, Bobby stunned the hell out of everyone with a thunderclap (including his own people), but Sheila got off a hold person on Caul and the party carried the day to much fanfare. They found Caul’s hidden treasure vault, trapped with a necrophidius (credit to ChatGPT for that idea), but still: no Divine Child.

“We’ve got to find that temple with the witch…maybe we need to keep going lower.” But the party really did not want to end up in the catacombs…they had a sneaking suspicion that would be a BAD IDEA (and they were right because...you know...Garthim). But a little lower they went and ended up in the slave pens and fought and killed an ogre with a big old whip (not as dangerous as it could have been) and then said “AHA! Let’s cast speak with dead on the ogre and see if he can tell us where we find the Child!” Okay, cleric, you get two questions:

“Where’s the Divine Child, dead guy?” With the witch…

“How do we get to the temple?” Well, it’s kind of hard to describe…

Hahaha…no, just kidding. He told them go up the stairs to the main hall and take a right. How hard is that?!

They found the temple, the child, and the her cultist acolytes worshipping a stone obelisk, roughly shaped like a spider, that floated above a red glowing pit (Dark Crystal, right?). Eric was dressed in Caul’s armor, Varla was doing her illusion thing and they got close enough to the witch to trap her INSIDE Erik’s “dome of force” (that his magic shield could project 1/day), while the others blasted the cultists and Diana grabbed the Child and ran like hell (as a 6th level monk she was uber-fast) up to the top tower where she could feather fall off. Pretty sure Shiela ran behind her as backup.

Well, that wasn’t so hard…what the--?! As the GIANT MUTANT CRABS in the shadowed alcoves came out to attack. More combat but they won the day, the witch surrendered, and the party made her divest herself of all her gear and commanded her to return to the UnderDark, never to return.

All with minutes to spare before the dinner bell. Good stuff.

[to be continued...]

A moment of unbridled joy...

Revisiting The Past

The last couple nights, I've had the pleasure of watching the first two episodes of Daredevil: Born Again. Man, I missed that show. Vincent D'Onofrio is so great...I've followed his career for years (starting with the Blood of Heroes, cheering him as Rob Howard in The Whole Wide World, even watching him as that evil Billy Corgin-looking serial killer in that Jennifer Lopez movie whose name escapes me)...but his portrayal of Wilson Fisk has got be his greatest role. And Charlie Cox makes a terrific Murdoch/Daredevil. Chef's kiss.

But MCU television isn't the reason for this post's title (although, as usual, it makes me itch to run a superhero campaign. Also, Sofia was watching The Incredibles 2 the other day...I'm sure that's part of it). No. I received an email from someone the other day that read (in part):

Reading The Complete B/X Adventurer I've noticed a teaser for the module "In the Realm of the Goblin Queen". I didn't find it anywhere, was this module published?

Ah, man...I'd forgotten all about that one.

BXC1: In the Realm of the Goblin Queen was an adventure module I had originally planned on publishing alongside...or in conjunction with...my B/X Companion book. I wanted a companion adventure for my Companion that provided a decent scenario for high level B/X play in the same way that B2 was published with Moldvay's Basic set and X1 was included in the Cook/Marsh Expert set.  Unfortunately, it never happened...for a number of reasons.

That doesn't mean there wasn't work done on the thing. Looking through my laptop's hard drive, I not only found my notes on the thing, but whole sections of text that were completed for the module: nearly two dozen pages of text, in fact. Considering the size of other adventures I've written for publication in recent years, this is pretty darn huge...the thing probably would have been close to the size of Dragon Wrack, had it been completed.

Of course, it's too wordy by far, and in need of serious editing. It looks like I last worked on it in 2010 or 2011, and my idea of what's needed/necessary in a module (even an introductory/teaching example, as this one was supposed to be), has changed quite a bit over the last 14+ years. It's not bad...in fact it has some decent ideas in it. But it could certainly be more clear and direct and less, mm, "flowery." There's read aloud text here (similar to that found in B2 and X1), and its presence makes me cringe a bit...I was putting a lot of effort into aping old adventure writing styles at the time.

Understandable, of course. BXC1 was my first attempt at writing any kind of adventure module.

However, it wasn't dissatisfaction with my own writing that kept me from completing the thing. Heck, it wasn't even lack of ideas for content: all the content is pretty much outlined in my notes (and most, if not all, of the more complex encounter areas were the ones I finished writing. Nope. This project got shelved for the two my two biggest bugaboos (of that time): lack of artwork and lack of satisfaction with my mapmaking abilities.

*sigh*

Which is all so dumb. I mean, sure, I STILL drag my feet when it comes to drawing maps (for me, the map is the hardest part about designing an adventure), but I've developed strategies and methods of dealing with that particular weakness of mine. And the art thing? That is sooooo not a concern for me these days. Way too many adventure writers are prioritizing form and style over functionality and playability...to the detriment of the product they're ostensibly trying to create. I'm at the point where I'm more-or-less anti-artwork in adventures. Which I grok is bad for the business side, but the artwork in adventure modules is so rarely helpful/useful. Decorative fluff, rather than truly illustrative.

SO...I should probably just finish this thing. 

I actually don't think it would take that long to do (hahaha...sure, pal! it always takes longer than anticipated!). But seriously, the bulk of the work has already been done. Cutting the extraneous and cleaning up the format doesn't take that long. If I could find my maps (never scanned, though they're around here somewhere), I could probably bang this out in a couple weeks or less. But there ARE a couple things that make me hesitate:

1. It's a high level adventure written for B/X.  I am sorry, but these days I'm not wearing the same rose-colored glasses I once did with regard to the viability of long-term B/X play. Do I really want to be encouraging this concept? Finishing BXC1, at this point, would be more of a vanity project than substantive (at least, so far as my own development as a game designer is concerned). Good practice for writing (maybe), but doubtful in its practicality.
2. I've got three (or four) adventures still in need of writing for Cauldron 2025. And all of eight months left before that little trip...eight busy months (with one kid graduating and starting high school, Confirmation classes, volleyball season/playoffs, soccer club tryouts/tournaments, summer travel, etc., etc.). Not to mention I still need to finish cleaning out my mom's house so I can get it on the market. Just a ton of stuff.

But "being busy" is nothing new for me; I suppose I should be used to it by now (though, to be fair, "not completing writing projects because of busy-ness" is also nothing unusual). Ah, well.

Okay, that's enough for the nonce. I'm currently in the process of thawing out a frozen beef liver for my lunch. Talk about "revisiting the past:" I haven't had liver & onions in some 30+ years. It was one of my mom's favorite dishes, though she stopped making it around the same time I started going to high school...instead, she'd get it for her birthday, once a year, when her best friend would take her to the (horse) racetracks.  Just had a craving. 

Later, gators.

EDIT:  Man, there were a lot of typos in this post (fixed most of 'em). ALSO: the liver and onions dish was delicious.

; )

The European OSR: Tourney

Happy All Saints Day! Time for another Friday morning blog post to read as you recover from your candy and booze hangovers!  Had a frightfully good Halloween myself (okay, sorry, bad pun).

As I mentioned in my original post of this series, even though I couldn't get over to Cauldron this year, I provided them with "tournament adventure" to run. Since I've fielded several questions about this the last few days, I figured a blog post might be the best way to disseminate information.

SO...y'all have heard of OSRIC, right? For those who haven't, OSRIC was one of the first D&D retro-clones published...in fact, I believe it was The First retro-clone published (unless you want to count HackMaster).  OSRIC is a clone of 1st edition AD&D; originally compiled by an attorney with the free time and passion for the project, its goal was to provide a framework through which hobbyists could write 1st edition adventures ("written for OSRIC") without getting C&D letters.

[if any of that info is incorrect, please feel free to ream me in the comments]

Anyway, the folks behind OSRIC are working on releasing a NEW edition of OSRIC; cleaned up, clearer, better usability, etc. While I don't see any news about this on their web site, this isn't some big secret: it's been a topic of conversation on several discords I read, and there have been forum announcements about it. The kickstarter hasn't launched yet, but I know it's in the works.

What might be a secret (apologies for the spoiler) is that, some months back, several folks were asked to help with the KS by writing adventures...presumably for 'stretch goals' or the like. I was one of the people invited to participate, and I offered to do "something with pirates and saints' relics," this idea rising from the world/setting concept presented.

Enter my adventure: Children of the Sea. Here's the blurb from the intro:

A holy relic has been stolen, and the Church of Sacramental Bliss has offered a substantial reward to anyone that can recover it. Careful investigation has revealed the lair of the pirates holding the blessed item: an abandoned temple on a small, craggy island. Can brave adventurers recover the relic before someone else claims the prize?

That was written in early October; I can see from my laptop that I created the document that would become Children of the Sea on September 30th (for the interested, the maps were created October 4th). 

But I'd had several months to ponder the project: I was first contacted about penning an adventure in May...but summers are busy 'round these parts (I told them it would be tough for me to get it to them by August but November/December wouldn't be an issue). It would sit percolating on the mental 'back burner' for a while...

However, in July the fam and I travelled to Europe and I had a chance to meet up with Prince of Nothing in Amsterdam (that will be the subject of a later post...). Even by then I'd started thinking about offering "something" to the Cauldron people...some way to 'keep my hand in,' even if I couldn't make it to Germany. When I broached the idea of an adventure to Prince, he suggested I just take the idea direct to Settembrini (the main con organizer), whom we'd both met and knew to be an amiable guy.

So I did...in September. As I said, summers are busy times for us and the start of the school year ain't anything close to a "slowdown" in the action. On September 16th I mustered the courage to send an email, writing:

"While I won't be at Cauldron this year, I'd like to offer a new adventure that can be run at the convention. Similar to the old tournament modules of GenCon's yesteryear, this would be a short 1E module, fleshed and prepped, that willing DMs could run and (hopefully) help fill out your event schedule. I'll include pre-gens, etc. to make the thing as easy to "read and run" as possible, and it will be of suitable length for a 4 hour time slot. 

"My thought is that (if several DMs were willing to run the adventure) such a thing could be a shared "touchstone" for Con-goers."

However, I did not start writing (being busy and then suffering a bout of Covid) and, instead, waited for a very busy man to get back in touch with me. Which he did on the 28th. Buoyed by this affirmation,  I set to work and had the whole thing out the door by October 5th.

Cauldron is a fairly small convention..."cozy" is the word that comes to mind. Some 54 (55?) people live, eat, and game together in a German manor house over a long weekend; in 2024 folks arrived Thursday afternoon and departed Sunday morning. Games are played in four hour blocks from 9am till...well, till whenever people decide to sleep...with meal breaks in-between. Seven "official" gaming blocks were assigned Thursday through Saturday, with Sunday being reserved for brunch, awards, packing up, etc.

Children of the Sea was run by six different DMs for 43 total players, providing a shared gaming experience for 90% of Cauldron participants. Better than I'd hoped for when I first had the idea.

I don't know if GenCon still runs tournament adventures. But I know they used to, and several adventure modules rightly called "classics" started their lives as tournament scenarios. We laud those old adventures because they are so ubiquitous...so many people have played them over the years, the S-series, the G-series, the C-series. That shared experience is the thing that keeps them in our memories, more than whether or not they are exceptionally written and/or designed. So many of us can crow about how we dealt with the giants or bitch about getting murdered in a Tomb of Horrors trap or whatever. Common war stories...THAT is what we get from these things. Like the way I've seen war veterans from different social classes and different ethnic backgrounds still bond with each other. 

Yeah, it's fun to have a D&D "competition," but the tournament exercise also strengthens the community.

Or so it seems to me.

Anyway. Much fun was had by all. Certificates for winning play groups (and runners up) were given out. One group's score sheet was misplaced and was later found to have actually had the most measurable success of all (they will be acknowledged in the published version of the adventure). From all the reports I've received and read on-line, it was a good experience with all groups managing to "win" the scenario to one degree or another and with only a fifth of the players being killed or "transformed without their consent." 

The Cauldron people have decided to make it an annual con event: the "Blackrazor Cup." Named for the iconic AD&D sword, not for me (the "Becker Cup?" Hell no...hard pass on that!). It will not, of course, always be an adventure penned by myself (though I am already thinking of what I might write for next year), but it will...I hope!...always be done in a similar spirit: providing a shared gaming experience where teamwork and cooperation and ingenuity are needed to overcome challenges and obtain great reward.

As for the adventure? I am currently in the process of polishing the thing for the OSRIC release, incorporating the feedback I received from both players and DMs alike...that's a lot of playtesting that got done in Germany!  My own gaming group didn't have a chance to play it till this week (Wednesday afternoon). We ran Children of the Sea exactly as written for the tournament, including drawing our six PCs from the tournament pre-gens, and setting a time limit of four hours.

The result was a TPK with 105 minutes still left on the timer. But I'm a pretty ruthless DM.

; )

[the kids still had a blast]

Happy Friday, folks!

"D&D Is The Best"

My family will be leaving town on Sunday, and I don't plan on bringing my laptop...it'll be a couple weeks before you see much (if any) blogging from Yours Truly.  But I want to leave folks with something to chew over...

We've been continuing our play of Dragon Wrack this week...session #5 was Friday, and we put in a solid four hours, though I'd estimate the total play time prior to be something in the 10-12 hour range. Kids are having a great time, the title of this post was an un-prompted quote from my daughter towards he end of the session, after a pretty good battle between the party and some 14 elite gnolls. 

The running has gone much smoother, now that we're into the heart of the thing; I am much more pleased with the adventure than my initial impression. Yeah, there are still frustrating bits: it really needs some organization with regard to which troops are where and when and available, and responses to invaders (like the PCs). But MOST of this is there already, and I've been able to dig it out...just procedurally slower than I like (due to the lack of organization). Yet another reason not to write your adventures too big.

The time pressure aspect is great. Heck, the scenario itself is pretty great. But best, perhaps, to describe the action in specifics for the interested, rather than gush without context.

*SPOILERS* to follow.

As I wrote before, the players decided to leave the majority of the party behind in order to scout the temple-fortress of Tiamat using Salamander (elf assassin) and Potter (half-elf fighter). These are my kids' most successful PCs to date; they break them out for tougher adventures, and they've had more than their fair share of good luck in surviving. They took a total of eight party members with them, replacing Tanin and Teek among the pre-gens with their own PCs, and bringing along Carnen, Father Ellis, Goldie, Gythwynn, Hasslehoff, and Raistel...a good mix of fighting, magic, thieving, and healing. Because of their party selection, their adventure started on June 11th of the scenario timeline, the same day the Black Wing of the Dragon Army was scheduled to arrive from the south (although the players got to start their day at dawn, and the Wing wouldn't arrive until afternoon).

Not that it mattered, as they ended up waiting for the army's arrival and joining the train of orcish troops filing into the fortress. Gythwynn cast invisibility on Potter, Sal disguised himself, and the two were able to skate their way through the section reserved for the Black Wing...up until they were confronted by an officer and some troops and decided to blood themselves. This led to a frantic flight through a (fortunately) empty section of the fortress, eventually ending up in the dungeons below the main temple level. 

Despite the Black section being on alert, the training grounds were still somewhat understaffed (the Black Wing only having just arrived) and Salamander managed to bluff his way past the skeleton staff in the dungeon area as 'just another orc' informing the troops about the alert. Potter, at this point, was STILL invisible, just tagging along with Sal (i.e. staying close at hand) without breaking the enchantment. Together the pair found their way into the massive Hall of Obeisance, (rightly) guessing they were on the precipice of Tiamat's lair...and turning away as quickly and quietly as possible.

Instead they found themselves in the Court of Inquisition where the Grand Inquisitor was sharpening his knives. Un-fooled by the assassin's disguise and paltry excuse, a melee ensued with Potter breaking the invisibility spell and landing several devastating blows. The wizard was unable to get a single spell finished before being gutted (he lost initiative every round, despite using 1 segment spells). After looting the body, they first tried disguising the fighter (this failed miserably) before the assassin decided to imitate the G.I. himself. The pair then decided to split up in order to look for their imprisoned companions.

[the adventure contains 12 pre-generated characters. Players choose which character they will use to a maximum of TEN; all non-used characters are considered imprisoned and can be found and freed to create allies...or replace dead PCs...in the adventure]

Their idea being to add "muscle" to the party on the inside. At the same time, they had told their companions outside the temple to wait until midnight when Sal and Potter would drop a rope down from the roof, allowing everyone to scale/invade the place from the top. At this point, they still had 4-5 hours till the appointed time.

Splitting up proved...not terribly effective. Salamander did find the Inquisitor's chambers (treasure!) and secret laboratory, along with the G.I.'s apprentice (a 12th level magic-user). Another fight ensued and the assassin had to make several saving throws versus wands (paralysis) before finally dispatching his foe. Fortunately, his bag of holding was far from full, as he carefully wrapped and stored more than a dozen potions of unknown type.

Potter meanwhile, had found himself in an upstairs shrine, before somehow managing to end up back in the Hall of Obeisance, just in time to encounter a huge congregation of Dark Priests (more than a dozen) preparing for their evening services). Running through the twisting corridors, he managed to avoid being pinched, but ended up back in the Black Wing section, where he was forced to butcher a few temple guardsmen as well as a pair of orcs guarding the armory.

He then stumbled into the lair of Umudabrutu, the ancient mount of the Black Wing's dragon lord.

Surprise was rolled and, unfortunately, Potter was surprised. Even more unfortunately, 'Blackie' (as the orcs call him) was not surprised, nor was he asleep (50% chance). Having heard the alarm horns above and now seeing a half-elf warrior, bloody sword in hand, the great beast uttered but one word ("No.") before unleashing a stream of acid at the adventurer. Potter had 61 hit points; the dragon's breath weapon did 64, reducing him to -3 (failed saving throw)...still alive, but just barely clinging to life.

Several of the PC's magic items were destroyed by the acid, including his boots of elvenkind and ring of free action. However, his ring of regeneration (just acquired from the Grand Inquisitor and worn, but unidentified) DID survive. I ruled that the ring could do nothing to heal the acid damage (acid being acid), but the ring would prevent the character from losing further hit points from pain/trauma. A perpetual state of suffering...until Umudabrutu decided he wanted a snack. At this point, the dragon was content to return to his slumber, assuming the intruder had been dealt with.

Meanwhile, Salamander was still exploring the dungeons, disguised as the Grand Inquisitor (I gave a higher chance of failure for attempting to imitate a specific individual). He bluffed his way past the skeleton crew of hobgoblins in the Green section, and found his way into a dragon cave of his own...albeit one without the dragon (the Green Wing of the army still marching back from Coeur D'Alene, and not expected to arrive till June 16th). Dumping most non-essentials from his bag of holding, Sal proceeded to search and fill the thing with all the choicest goodies he could find...after several hours spent digging through the piles (I wrote up some procedurals in the module for searching dragon hoards...given that there are several in the adventure); he'd manaaged to catalogue several dozen pieces of jewelry and fine gem stones, a number of "unusual" (read: magic) items and some 10,000+ coins of gold and/or platinum, filling the thing to bursting. He then threw the (now large) duffle over his shoulder and left through a long, natural tunnel which...after about an hour's walk through filth and excrement...exited in the the dragon pits dug outside the city walls, the designated area for the Green army to bivouac.

From there he hiked back to town, scaled the wall, pulled his sack up with a rope, and made his way back to the inn where his compatriots waited.

Now for the bit "particular to JB's campaign:" I have written before that I allow PCs to advance in level without training (after a period of rest/reflection, though only between sessions and generally once they have left a dangerous environment). However, we have an additional, long-standing house rule with regard to players who have been "zeroed out" on their HP totals: if advancement and level increase brings enough hit points to raise a character above zero HPs, then they do NOT require the mandatory week of rest (or use of a heal spell) to get back to adventuring shape. Call it our 'homage' to literary/heroic adventure fiction stuff. 

Anyway, when we calc'd the x.p. at the end of the session, we found that Potter had leveled up to 8th, based on combat experience alone. A roll of the D10 gave him another six hit points, putting his total back up to three, allowing him to 'get back into the fight.' The ring of regeneration still wouldn't function with the acid burns but the half-elf had a potion of extra healing stashed in his backpack (which had miraculous made its save versus acid) and...at the beginning of our next session...was able to sneak away without waking the dragon.

Potter thence made his way to the armory...still unguarded at this point...where he found replacement boots, a closed-visored helm, and some Black Wing livery, before moving on. In the training hall he encountered a large troop of Black Wing soldiers marshaling into patrol groups to look for "the intruder" and was able to pass himself off as one of them, thanks to his fluent orcish and rather scarred and discolored (as yet unhealed) flesh. 

Potter spent the next several hours marching the halls before being relieved and sent to the barracks for rest, where he was able to grab a bite to eat and retire without being discovered...the other troops generally exhausted from marching all day and then the late night alert duty.

While the half-elf slept, Sal and Co. formulated a new plan of action: they would use the dragon pits as their way of ingress into the temple complex, find their missing (imprisoned) companions and sack the place from below. The bag of holding was emptied into several trunks and armoires, which were moved to a single inn room and wizard locked. The party left the city through the northern gates before first light, hearing rumors that the Red Wing was on the march and would be arriving sometime that day (June 12th). Coming in through the (still vacant) Green camp, they made their way down the tunnel to the 'hoard cavern,' and then up a set of stairs back to the main level of the temple-fortress.

Luck was with them as they encountered no patrols, despite the place still being on alert. Finding their way back to the throne room, Sal deduced that there may be SEVERAL un-guarded dragon hoards worth plundering, and they cautiously launched a systematic approach to finding these. Still disguised as the Grand Inquisitor, a squad of frost goblins were bluffed into letting them past, where they discovered the assassin's theory was indeed correct and they uncovered another hoard...though a paltry one in comparison to the earlier offerings. Still, the use of detect magic allowed the group to sus out any enchantments buried in the pile, and they spent a good deal of time collecting the best the hoard had.

Potter, meanwhile was awakened and fed, before being assigned to patrol duty again. "Our spies tell us the Allied host will be here in three days time, and we still need to drill and prep. The Red Wing should be arriving this afternoon and we don't want to look like fools!" On patrol circuit, the half-elf was able to sneak away as they passed through the Grand Hall and hid himself in an empty antechamber, trying to figure a way out of his predicament.

20 minutes later, the sounds of booted feet entering the Hall heralded the arrival of a motley crew of adventurers, reuniting the invaders.

After swapping stories and sharing intel, "the Plan" continued: the group made their way to a new section of the fortress, intent on finding the red dragon's hoard before the Red Wing arrived. What they encountered instead were mailed duergar clad in blue livery...soldiers who were not fooled by the inquisitor's act. Spurning caution, the party cut down the dwarves and then descended a stairwell which did, indeed, lead to a much larger hoard. Overjoyed, the party began looting the place of gems, jewelry, detectable magic and valuable coins, while Potter (quite healed by his clerical companions) kept a lookout at the top of the stairs. 

The attack, however, would come from below: a side passage through which streamed a dozen or so duergar soldiers.

The melee that ensued went well for the thiev...er, "heroes," and minimal damage was sustained. After inspecting the corpses for loot, they hid the bodies beneath piles of copper and silver, and spent another hour or so filling their bags of holding (the party had two) to capacity. However, rather than escape through the (presumably empty) blue dragon pits, they decided to once again go back to the main level and seek out the final hoard, deciding it was probably the biggest prize in the place.

Again avoiding patrols, they investigated the one section not yet explored...and blundered into the gnolls guarding the Red Gate. Horns were sounded and battle was joined...and then 10 more gnolls up from the training grounds below attacked from both the flank and rear of the party. Sacks were dropped, loot was scattered. The battle was fierce (elite gnolls are no slouches), but a well-timed (and well-placed) fireball from the mage wiped out half the beastmen. The remainder died to the last, stoutly passing their morale checks. 

And that's where we left off. 

It is almost noon on June the 12th. The fortress is in a state of alarm. Although currently under-staffed, the Red Wing is fast approaching. The party is currently standing in the midst of a massacre...and 120' away from the stairs that lead down to the hoard they've been searching for. Lord Hurneth, high comander of the Red Wing, will arrive at the fortress at approximately 2pm. When he does, it will be astride Usumgallu, his ancient red dragon. Tired from the long journey, the huge red will crawl through the gate and go down to his hoard, hoping for a good rest. If he finds his hoard disturbed (or in the midst of being looted) he is likely to be...unhappy.

[Lord Hurneth will be at the head of his elite soldiers: some 300 gnolls, brigands, ogres and officers, as well as 100 of the hell-fueled Red Berserkers, his crack terror troops. These will quickly take up residence in the section designated for their wing]

Escaping from Usumgallu's cavern through the dragon pits (as Salamander did the evening before) will be problematic, as the Red camp will be occupied by the remainder of Hurneth forces, including hill giants, trolls, and another five red dragons. Prospects for survival in that direction appear...grim.

; )

[something-something 'enough rope to hang themselves'...]

All right, that's enough. Apologies for the length of the post but, as I said, I'll be out for a while. I doubt we'll be getting in another session before we leave, so notes like these will help me remember the situation when we get back into town. Thanks for the indulgence, and I'll write when I get back.

Current Party Status:

Salamander (9th level assassin): 26 of 52 hit points

Potter (8th level fighter): 54 of 67 hit points

Carnen (10th level fighter): 77 of 92 hit points

Father Ellis (10th level cleric): 49 of 54 hit points

Goldie (11th level bard): 84 hit points

Gythwynn (5th/9th fighter/magic-user): 33 of 40 hit points

Hasslehoff (12th level thief): 33 of 52 hit points

Raistel (11th level magic-user): 34 of 38 hit points

"Dragon Wrack"

Hope folks had an enjoyable Father's Day this last weekend, whatever your relationship to "fatherhood" might be. Speaking for myself, it was delightful, due in large part to my family bending over backwards to make Sunday a special day for Yours Truly.

Doesn't mean it was perfect, of course. I wasn't able to get the dinner I wanted (not for lack of trying...we won't go into that), and I did still have to do some dishes (though not nearly as many as usual), and I would have preferred a different pie than "Key lime" (it's not bad, just not my favorite). And then there was the gaming....

SO, one thing I forgot to mention the other day: the latest installment of Prince's No ArtPunk contest has been published. NAP 3 is available as an absolutely enormous, 'pay what you want' PDF file. 

How enormous? 694 pages. Yeah. Granted, it contains 14 high level adventures (including maps) interspersed with some half dozen essays relating to "high level play" (the theme of this year's NAP competition) and a few pages of art, but still...it's big. The adventures are big. Prince included his own most recent module (Slyth Hive) in the compilation, and that's damn near 100 pages itself.

[yes, all my ranting from the other day about large page counts still applies]

But laptop memory eater or not, slog or not, it's a pretty amazing compilation. A lot of creativity on display, a lot of enthusiasm. Folks really attacked the NAP challenge with gusto, and the sheer volume and variety of submissions is...well, as I already wrote, "amazing." I plan on doing a read through over the next couple months (slog, remember?) and will probably pen some 'capsule reviews.' At least for the AD&D modules.

Now, about that gaming...

The last couple-three years, my kids have been really good about making sure I get some serious D&D play in when Father's Day rolls around. That's just what Nerd Dad likes doing: I'm not (much of) a golfer, so I don't want to hit the course or (even) sit on my couch watching the U.S. Open. D&D (or other games) is the main event on the docket and, what with being a weekend (and usually one that's OFF from other activities), we can carve out a nice large chunk of time for ourselves, rather than the couple hours snatched here and there during the week. Often, my kids will run a game for me, but this year I wanted to DM because I had something specific I wanted to run: Dragon Wrack, my high-level entry for NAP3.

If you pick up the NAP3 book, you'll see the adventure, as it made the cut as one of the finalists. In brief: it's a re-writing/re-working of the old TSR module DL14: Dragons of Triumph. Yep, I'm still on that whole 'rehabilitating DragonLance" kick, though in this case I redrew all the maps and chucked pretty much everything from the original module save for the general concept (Tiamat's temple-fortress, surrounded by her armies, PCs doing an infiltration gig, while the Forces of Good are marching on the place). I mean, I even wrote the thing for use with CHAINMAIL, including an appendix of new AD&D specific adaptations, since I never was into "BattleSystem."  Sure, it includes pre-gens bearing a passing resemblance to certain "heroes" of the DL novels and, yeah, it has some Dragon Lords...but it's not really the same adventure. It's not set in Krynn, but in my own PNW world (Moscow, Idaho taking the place of "Neraka"), and you certainly won't find any "draconians" or "kender" or any bars of gold that have been completely devalued by the setting. Au contraire, what you WILL find are heaping piles of treasure, as well as Tiamat who never makes an appearance in the original module, despite featuring prominently on the cover. 

Illo by Clyde Caldwell

Why did I want to play Dragon Wrack? A couple reasons. First, I never had the chance to play-test the thing when I first wrote it (I was under serious time pressure just to get the thing out by the submission deadline). Second, I wanted to take a break from our current campaign...as a test for a future publication, that adventure is requiring a bit more work and attention then I really have time for at the moment. But mainly, it's just that...now that NAP3 has been made available to the general public...I figured I should at least say I've given the thing a spin myself.  And this was as good a time as any.

Hoo-boy.

Problems, problems, problems...abounding, right from the get-go. 

First, there's the premise. Unlike a normal "explore and loot" scenario, DW has a fairly specific objective: find a way to disrupt the Queen and/or her forces so that the Allied army can win the day. Okay, but how? The party is basically the equivalent of a high level task force / commando squad (or the generals of the Allied host...if you want to play it that way)...but this needs to be spelled out a bit. "Intel" could be better: what the players know (and don't know) needs to be very specific, because the time crunch, the time pressure of the thing, is very real once you sit down to play the scenario. My players have been trying to get intel AND formulate plans at the same time, all on the fly, with very mixed results.

The whole intro/background section of the adventure needs rewriting, in other words.

Then there's the town of Moscow: my original idea for the adventure was to include at least a rough sketch / layout of the place, based on actual city maps of the town circa 1890. Unfortunately time constraints caught up with me (I had less than a month to write the whole thing, start to finish), and this got 'cut' from the final. But without something to show the players, keyed or not, it's hard for them to really visualize the situation they're in. Besides which, I hadn't even bothered to decide the answers to questions like 'how open is the town?' 'What are the streets like?' 'Are there dragon army patrols / town militia / etc. and what is their composition?' Once again (as many times before) I was struck by the inadequacy of the game to provide procedures for running a town or urban environment.

The adventure has a decent timeline of events that is based on the specific pre-gens the players choose to use on the adventure. For my players, they wanted to bring their own characters as well (a provision accounted for in the adventure) despite being a little under-leveled (8th and 7th) for the scenario. Because of the particular party composition chosen, the players found themselves just a few hours ahead of the Black Wing of the Dragon Army. However, rather than try to get into the temple first, the players decided to sit and wait, giving the army a chance to enter and occupy the fortress. 

Why? Because they decided to scale the temple/fortress from the outside and wanted to wait till the dead of night to do so. And here again I see things missing from my scenario that would have been useful: pieces about foot traffic in and around the temple, patrols in the grounds, locations of guardsmen, numbers and weapons. Yes, some of this is there...in the form of wandering monster tables and percentage chances for room occupants depending on whether or not the army is present. But, as written, it needs more. And probably needs greater specificity. Also, how long a Wing takes to enter the place and in what order (as well as where they go from there)...all things I ended up needing to work out at the table during play.

Because, at the last minute, the players decided it would be easier to simply infiltrate the place as part of the army; Diego's assassin disguised himself as an orc soldier, the magic-user cast invisibility on Sofia's fighter, and the two joined the back file of grunts marching through the Black Wing's gate.

At this point, we've been playing for two days now (I'm typing this Tuesday morning; while we started the game on Sunday, it ended up continuing to Monday). The lack of clear objectives has meant the players are kind of running around like chickens with their heads cut off. They're divided on whether or not they want to find a way to the roof (to let down their ropes to the others), or find their imprisoned companions (also part of the scenario), or find Tiamat herself (though I'm not sure what they'd do if they did!). They've been wandering about, blundering into places, and then having to explain why they're in the wrong areas/sections (again, notes on how the temple's inhabitants react to such blunders should have been included in the adventure). 

All in all, I'm rather disappointed in how the thing is playing out...so much so that the original title of this post was "Dragon Crap." It IS tense and pressurized, but as written the adventure lacks focus or a clear path of action for the players...and that has meant the pace of the thing has been slow. I'm used to a brisker adventuring style, not this cautious, tentativeness (caused by the lack of direction). It's frustrating; I wish I'd had a chance to play-test before submitting the thing for publication. 

Ah, well.

We'll see how it goes today: last week the kids finished up school for the year, and we ain't got shit to do (at least, not till soccer practice this evening), so I'm sure it will be "game on" after breakfast. The players finally stumbled into a fight (right at the end of yesterday's session) and it seems pretty clear they've managed to alert the section they've been poking around.  I'm going to try spending a little time organizing the pages this morning, to see if I can get some semblance of what organized resistance to the PCs' intrusion. Hopefully, things will go smoother.

Later gators.

: )

Slyth Hive

I’ve said before that it’s not really possible to review an adventure that you haven’t run or played. An adventure module is not a book; D&D is not a film to be viewed or acted. Dungeons & Dragons is a game that needs to be played to be experienced. Without that experience of play, the best one can do is offer thoughts and opinions, critiques and praise over how one BELIEVES the thing will play. And while…sometimes…those opinions will be informed by the experience of the “reviewer” with regard to game play and design, it’s still all just “theory” until the adventure is actually run as a game.

Call all that “The Standard Caveat.”

Slyth Hive is the latest adventure penned by the erudite rapscallion known as Prince of Nothing. You may recall his earlier adventure modules: Red Prophet Rises and The Palace of Unquiet Repose. I own both of those modules; I have not played them (nor reviewed them), though I have offered opinions on them (here and elsewhere): generally, I find them “okay.” In relation to other adventures published these days they are far better than the standard fare, but this is an extremely low bar and, despite nice writing and good-to-interesting atmospherics/aesthetics, I have my issues with them...it is doubtful they will ever see my gaming table.

Slyth Hive, on the other hand, is a different matter.

This is no sophomoric work or retread of earlier work. Rather, it is tour de force, far surpassing (in my estimation) the quality of Prince's early work, while still displaying his trademark flair for evocative writing and his penchant for sword & sorcery tropes. Yet Slyth Hive is elevated, and...for the most part...it is well designed.

True, it needs polish and definitely a good pass with the editor's pen. Several minor flaws related to the map and keying are present (I intend to send him a list of fixes...for when he has the time) and there are numerous 'slip ups' with regard to the system. But the bulk of what's here is "good stuff," and a cut above his earlier work in a way his earlier work is a cut above the usual business produced for publication. 

Let's begin with the basics: the adventure is written for high level (14th+) AD&D play; fully outfitted pre-gens are included. The adventure itself in its current form is some 50ish pages in length PLUS twenty-one pages of appendices (pregens, new monsters, magic items, notes, etc.), ten more pages of maps, and roughly half a dozen pages of (AI generated?) art. Characters seek to penetrate and conquer an enormous, multi-level hive of insect-like super predators (and their minions) obtaining great fortune and glory and (presumably) putting a civilization-razing threat to the sword. The adventure has been play-tested more than once...I observed Prince running it at the Cauldron convention, and I have heard nothing but glowing reports from those who've played the thing.

Something like this, but far nastier...and bigger.

It has been fascinating to watch Prince's gaming evolution over the last 6-7 years (well chronicled on his blog)...from Basic play (generally of the Lamentations of the Flame Princess and Labyrinth Lord variety), back to 2E (from his own primordial origins), to 1st Edition AD&D, aka The King of Games. It seems to have been quite a journey of discovery, aided both by discussion on various forum sites and his own delves into the numerous publications ('zine, mag, and module) of the game's early days.

Writing this post, I find myself wanting to write more about our Brave Sir Prince himself, rather than the module proper. You see, I've met the Prince...I have broken bread with him, have talked with him, have gamed with him. I have had the chance to take something of his measure. He is very intelligent and creative and cursed with the nagging self-doubt that ALL intelligent, creative, self-aware people seem cursed with. He is a young man...but he's no kid. As a creator, he is still maturing, and you can see the growing pains...even as you can also marvel at the brilliance of the work.

Okay, down to it: the scope of the thing is massive, though the premise is simple, drawing amply from a rather obvious list of horror and sci-fi media of the "bug hunt" variety. The tyranid species of Warhammer 40,000 figures hugely in the titular antagonist's mutating/adaptation abilities, creating the main operative pressure on the player characters: the more they fight the slyth, the more the buggers change and adjust (via manifest organic weapons and defenses) to come back harder against their persecutors. This is a wonderful and original concept and...while I might have some quibbles about its implementation...it is a fantastic way to challenge and punish players who take a passive and/or tentative approach to engagement.

The environments here are excellent: a level of prehistoric simulacrum, a level of fungal forests and killer slimes, a more-or-less submerged (underwater) level, a level featuring nothing but a gigantic cavern with a waiting army of killer bugs, etc. Good stuff. Non-bug creatures abound as well, including both minions and subterranean denizens willing to become allies of the player characters. This adventure offers many, many interesting challenges for experienced players, in a horrific, terrifying environment, with (what appears to be) plenty of reward. I'm fairly satisfied that this will provide many hours of glorious bloodshed and adventure gaming, and probably not a few "oh, shit!" moments...exactly what jaded, er, "high level" players are hoping for.

I will move to the criticism: aside from needing an editor to catch some of the errors, the thing could use an editor to tighten things. I hate to say it (because I can already guess the reaction) but, in my opinion, the thing is too big. There are a few many encounters that are too much the same despite the transformative ability of the slyth. There are things added that have the marks of "this would be great!" but really add little to the adventure as a whole. There are two or three too many Giant Impossible Utterly Devastating New Monstrous Threats sprinkled throughout...like endless video game boss battles. There are one or two too many homages present (sorry, not a fan of the Dune reference) that for me would indicate a little too much exuberance with the source material.

And I don't just mean the fiction from which the author draws...I'm talking about the source material of OTHER "high level adventures" that Prince has digested and is now re-synthesizing. He may have looked at TOO MANY examples from days of TSR past, adding things that are unnecessary in terms of theming or even gameplay. By the time an adventuring party has braved a gauntlet of six or seven levels they should be in their last legs...resources depleted, men lost, bleeding from scores of wounds. You don't then hammer them...and then hammer them...and then hammer them again with Ever Bigger Hammers. There is a rhythm to game play...ebbs and flows...even in an adventure like this. 

Back to the good stuff for a moment: Slyth Hive actually includes TWO sets of pregens. A group of mid-level miscreants than get sent in to investigate, followed by the immense high level heroes.  This is a great gimmick: it gives the players a chance to scout a bit and get some idea of what they'll encounter before taking the REAL troops into the jaws of death. Unfortunately, the mid-level guys aren't likely to get too far (unless played extremely well), and the Hive's defenses against gathering intelligence means the party is going to be operating in a blind, reactive state from at least the mid-point of the adventure. Perhaps that won't be an issue for experienced, resourceful players...but it could be a rough go for players of middling proficiency using the pregens.

Eh. That's just critique. As noted, the adventure has been run...multiple times for multiple players...and I am unaware of any complaints. "Stylistic nitpicks," I suppose...but I know what I like. And this feels...mm...'over-exuberant.'

Even so, there IS room to breathe, in the adventure...there are 'beats' that don't feel rushed. The adventure is BIG, but (for the most part) it is has the appropriate DENSITY of information. I didn't feel that in Prince's early adventures, even though they were written for a "basic" edition of D&D.

NOW...one last negative, and then I'll stop. Going hand-in-hand with the "learning too much of the (maybe wrong) thing" category, let's talk treasure. There's a LOT of treasure, and its not just the hand-waved 'millions and millions' found in TPoUR; but a many of the treasure piles are incredibly obscure...they take the whole 'treasure should be hard to come by and/or hidden' thing a little too far; some examples:

• a monster whose "carapace, treated with acids and worked by a supremely capable dwarven blacksmith, yields 3d10 gemstones of 1,000 g.p. value..."
• 125,000 in coins buried under a diamond-hard stone slab that weighs 50,000 pounds and is immune to stone to mud and passwall spells (but not disintegrate).
• a 50,000 g.p. sapphire hidden in the heart of a giant mushroom (requires 120 h.p. of damage by edged weapons to cut through; every round of attack requires a save vs. poison at -4 to avoid effect of hallucinogenic spores; fireballs and the like have a chance of destroying the gem).
• an immense pile of treasure covered in a colorless, odorless contact poison (lethal, -2 save, seeps through fabric and even metal gauntlets). The poison is slow acting (only takes effect after 1 turn) so everyone handling treasure has the potential to be wiped out without warning.
• a purple worm nest with nearly 200,000 in detailed treasure that is not on any map and no indication is given of how one might discover it

A brief accounting of monetary treasure indicates something less 1,400,000 g.p. worth, which is surprisingly small given A) the size of the adventure proper, and B) the number and level of pre-gens on hand. However, magic items are plentiful (though many...specifically Eyes taken from, I assume EoPT sources, have no value listed), and I suspect that this, accompanied by valuable "cores" dug from specific corpses could get that treasure total up to 2.5 or 3 million. But that's still...not much? I'm probably looking for something on the order of 8M or more for something this size, and I can't believe I'm saying this (there are ENORMOUS sections of detailed treasure!) but this might be...stingy? Not on purpose, mind you...it's just tough when you're dealing with things of this size and scope. By the book, 92,000 silver pieces weighs 4.6 tons...and is worth only 4,600 g.p. That's not much bang for the buck when your 16th level mage needs 350,000 x.p. to level up.

Still. There's a lot of combat x.p. on the docket in Slyth Hive.

This "review"...this list of critiques...is going to sound overly negative, I know. Please allow me to reiterate that the adventure is an immense, fantastic tour de force. I have issues with it, but this is a case where my feelings are 90% positive and 10% negative, and I am only harping on the negative because...well, because that's what I do. I am impressed...very impressed with Slyth Hive. I paid $15 on DriveThruRPG for a PDF so that I could read the thing, and I'm not disappointed. It's an ass-kicker of an adventure, with some fiendish design, clever ideas, and evocative writing. It is solid enough to run. With a bit of polish and editing, some slight mechanical fixes (if you're going to include UA rules, you need to get them right), and...perhaps...a slightly streamlined system to the slyth adaptations, this thing would rate in among the best high level adventures of all time.

And I say that as someone who's not really into 80+ page modules.

; )

EDIT: For a more detailed review/advertisement for what's in the adventure (including designer notes and substantial SPOILERS), please check out Prince's own article on Slyth Hive.