Show
i like the way they take away the massive pile of gems at the end... 'cause, you know, it's not as if the hundreds of +1 swords, half a dozen helms (some major, some minor), and multiple staffs of power are gonna give them more money than they need anyways, so it's important to limit them from getting the gems. oh yeah, and let's not forget they may have captured a few ships as well, in which case they are going to get the money from that. and also, the various wizard's spellbooks. and a random selection of other stuff. plus the money from the ultimate ship weapon of doom, (that is, medium ballistas with doubled range) the design of which i can't imagine the players won't steal. but hey, thank goodness they didn't just hand the players an endless supply of wealth, because that would have really ruined things 
Anyways, UtDF kinda strikes me as a "there is a really good product in here somewhere, buried under the dross" product. Here's some ideas I'd use if I were to run it:
* Use it more as a sourcebook rather than an adventure. The adventure itself had very little meat, and was more a barebones outline than anything else.
* Make the Vodoni ships more fearsome. Steal design ideas from Warhammer 40K. Haven't figured a way to get the wings to look more fearsome, but definately I'd make the wolf-heads look like Grum from Return of the King. Drop the 'ribbon-like' feet, and do something to make them look scary. Basically redesign them from the ground up.
* Greater range of troops. Definately use Shifters as baseline troops, making a base level of 4th level barbarian/fighter, with fighter/wizards as helmsmen & ship wizards. Equip as appropriate. Remember there are no clerics, so I'd use another means of healing for them, such as access to ready supplies of potions of healing. True werewolves, enforcers/conquerers, & breeders are very high level, so save them for officers aboard big ships.
* Play up the horror aspects. They should scare the hell out of PCs. Maybe play one encounter where the PCs manage a victory against one of their smaller ships, but take hideous losses (all crewmen are killed). Give them strange stuff; maybe their potions are injected directly into the bloodstream in classic horror fashion. A tactic might be to infect lycanthrope in towns & cities to weaken them internally before a ship shows up. Maybe their form of lycanthrope is stronger and deadlier, too. When infected, you must make a strong fort save or perish. And the curse is stronger than normal, so standard methods of curing won't work. Vodoni agents could spread the disease to whole kingdoms without being detected, causing such destruction their invasion forces have a cakewalk.
* At the same time, downplay the boss at the end. Make him a sphere govenor or something. Defeating him would set the empire back by decades or more, but not be the end of the empire. That way the empire is still around for further torment of the PCs :D
Anyways, just a couple of ideas.
However if it involves lycanthropes then the you might be interested in the following monsters available in the S.R.D. (and therefore already converted to 3.x edition):
Lycanthrope, Hill Giant Dire Wereboar (Hill Giant/Dire Boar hybrid) [Level Adjustment: +7] [Racial HD: Giant +12 Humanoid +7]
Lycanthrope, Werebear (Human/Brown Bear hybrid) [Level Adjustment: +3] [Racial HD: +6 Humanoid (bear)]
Lycanthrope, Wereboar (Human/Boar hybrid) [Level Adjustment: +3] [Racial HD: +3 Humanoid (boar)]
Lycanthrope, Wererat (Human/Dire Rat hybrid) [Level Adjustment: +3] [Racial HD: +1 Humanoid (dire rat)]
Lycanthrope, Weretiger (Human/Tiger hybrid) [Level Adjustment: +3] [Racial HD: +6 Humanoid (tiger)]
Lycanthrope, Werewolf (Human/Wolf hybrid) [Level Adjustment: +3] [Racial HD: +2 Humanoid (wolf)]
Lycanthrope, Werewolf Lord (Human/Wolf hybrid) [Level Adjustment: +3] [Racial HD: +2 Humanoid (wolf)] [Fighter Levels: +10]
You can also apply the following template to other character races and animals to create new types of lycanthropes:
Creating A Lycanthrope [Template] [Level Adjustment: +3 or +2] [Racial HD: (as per base animal)]
Not all lycanthropes share the same alignment, so you could easily have a war between different types of lycanthropes. This would enable you to give the Vodoni opponents that can fight back on equal terms.
It might be interesting to put the PCs onto a ship where some or all of the crew are from a race of good lycanthropes that the Vodoni are trying to hunt down and kill off. Wereboars are usually lawful good and weretigers are usually neutral, so either of these races would make good choices for crew members.
Even wererats, who are lawful evil, might be tempted to stand shoulder to shoulder with other lycanthropes if the chaotic evil werewolves were hunting them to extinction. So it might be fun to create a ship full of wererats and have them come along and rescue the PCs if they really get into trouble.
By the way, from what I can see, the Werewolf Lord is just a bog standard werewolf who has taken 10 levels in the fighter class. You could generate Wereboar Lords, Wererat Lords and Weretiger Lords by doing the same sort of thing.
Please also note that all the above monsters are playable races. So you could even allow players to have lycantrope PCs. I've given you the LA and racial HD so that you can work out what level a PC would be (add the LA and racial HD to the class level to get the character's ECL).
There are two choices for lycanthrope PCs. You can either have born lycanthropes (+3 LA) or afflicted lycanthropes (+2 LA). Afflicted lycanthropes pretty much become NPCs during the full moon. I'm not sure how those sort of rules would work in wildspace, so it might be better to only allow PCs who are born with the "gift" (+3 LA). They can control their shape (and their actions while they are in their animal form).
See the "Lycanthropes As Characters" section underneath the "Creating A Lycantrope" rules for more information.
(I personally would be tempted to limit unusual races like lycanthropes and only offer them to players if they have a character killed, or retired, while they are in a place like the Vodoni empire where you would expect to find that race. That way a long term SJ campaign would have a constantly changing choice of PC races that would make a crew more unique.)
If you want to use the influence of the moon (which in Spelljammer is probably going to be the influence of any moon and maybe even full planets as well) then you would need to work out where full moons can be seen. I would say that full moons are facing a sun, so I would project in an imaginary cone from any moon towards the direction of the sun.
If you have a heliocentric sphere then you could just make lycanthropy full moon effects kick in if a ship flys between any moon and a sun. But if you have a sphere with several suns you would have a major headache trying to track the angles. I'd suggest plotting them on the sphere map that comes with the AD&D Adventures in Wildspace boxed set and judging the angles by eye (or using a tool like a set square - please note that I mean the English "set square" not the American English one, as that is a different instrument - a "90-60-30" degree version might be good for calculating the angle that the rays of light bounced off a moon might project to).
* At the same time, downplay the boss at the end. Make him a sphere govenor or something. Defeating him would set the empire back by decades or more, but not be the end of the empire. That way the empire is still around for further torment of the PCs :D
I don't see any need for this! There's HUGE adventure opportunities in a collapsed empire!
In the game I ran, various local factions began competing for control to fill the sudden power vacuum. In the aftermath of the Radiant Alliance campaign, spacelanes to the fallen empire developed into some of the most heavily navigated passages in the region, mostly by mercantile companies greedy for new opportunities. At the same time, mercenaries and pirate crews began trolling the quadrant, hiring on with would-be warlords or simply plundering unsuspecting merchant ships. In the absence of the Vodani patrols, it quickly became one of the most dangerous, lawless routes in all of space. My players had a blast!
Pax,
KRad
Found it in thrift shop. Thank You whoever threw away thier sons collection. Someone is now crying while i am grinning.
Just got my copy of it.
Found it in thrift shop. Thank You whoever threw away thier sons collection. Someone is now crying while i am grinning.
yea...ive only got the original boxed set, the rest is all pdfs...*sniffle*
For the latter, both Underworld I & II are good movies to show how organisations of were-creatures can look like.
I plan to throw UtdF my players way, but they are still groundlings, and I want to start the adventure only after they have explored a few crystal spheres. Which means I have another few years time to plan the whole thing. :D
How bout any ideas for something like that?
Roughly a century ago, Emperor Vulkaran's younger brother, Duke Hakkaran had a bit of a falling out with his older, more successful brother. The two didn't come to blows, but the Duke grew tired of being the small fish in the vast ocean that was the Empire. So, with the Emperor's reluctant blessings, the Duke set off with a small army (consisting of several legions, breeders, his own family, and their favored slaves) to conquer their own kingdom. Their journey takes them to the PC's homeworld.
At first, their conquests are small. They set down in a remote part of the world, where they build a city and some infrastructure (farms, mines, etc). Then the breeders go to work. They unleash lycanthropy, previously unknown, into the world, causing waves of panic and destruction across the continent. Whole kingdoms are consumed by the plague. Millions die. From the chaos, the Vodoni rise armies of werewolves, wererats, and other lycanthropes to conquer everything in their path.
Fast forward to today. The Vodoni rule over a devastated continent. From their well-defended throne city, they control much of the countryside. Little remains outside their reach; werewolves prowl the cities, breeders have supplanted the nobility, while medusa princes live in posh luxury.
The Vodoni have tremendous resources at their disposal, but theirs are on a level more akin to something PCs can hope to fight and win against. And there won't be enormous reinforcements from the Empire should things go wrong for the Vodoni; that bridge was burned long ago.