AD&D "The Desert of Desolation" conversion in Ylaruam
by JTrithenI'm running the AD&D I3-5: Desert of Desolation campaign in Ylaruam. It's interesting that quite a few references say it can be run in Ylaruam or is easy to drop into a desert campaign. But in reality it can take a lot of work to convert. I've always wanted to run something like this with desert adventures and Arabic -- and Egyptian -- themes.
I'm running it in 5e. The mechanics and monsters' conversion (to 5e) is not that big a deal. There are some helpful guides out there that do a lot of it for you. The conversion to the setting, however, is a lot or work!
I'll present a several difficulties, observations, conundrums and thoughts below to the community. I am hoping for feedback from the community regarding fixes or ideas for items 5 and 6. Fitting this adventure into Ylaruam definitely takes a bit of "shoe-horning" to make it work!
***SPOILERS abound!***
1) A Little Background and Working of History
In The Desert of Desolation, a great mage (named Martek) in ancient times (1,000 years ago) imprisons a powerful efreet pasha. He prophesies that the efreet will break out of the prison 1,000 years later. And he orchestrates a grand scheme to predict when a band of heroes (the PCs) will appear and take on the task of finding magical spheres (MacGuffins) that will allow them to defeat the efreet once and for all. Martek made these magical spheres that he left with pharaohs during his mortal life, with instructions on how to maintain or protect the spheres.
So, in the conversion, Martek imprisoned the efreet during Nithian times, over 1,500 years ago (since the Nithian empire disappeared in 500 BC, which is 1,500 years before the current day – 1000 AC).
2) Gods/Immortals
One foundational part of the conversion is what to do with the gods. The main modern urban-dwellers in the Raurin Desert (the setting of The Desert of Desolation) worship one true god (Anu). The desert nomads and dervishes of the setting preserve and protect all worshipping sites of all religions, and also worship the old gods (the RW-Egyptian gods).
For Ylaruam, the modern city-dwellers’ religion fits in fine with the Ylari religion of the Eternal Truth. They revere/worship their prophet Al-Kalim and the Immortal Guardians, and disregard or look down upon non-believers. In Ylaruam, the desert nomads follow the Eternal Truth, which is fine.
I decided that the desert dervishes are not necessarily pacifistic. They will use weapons (because it’s fun for them to have scimitars) and they protect the old temples. They are followers of the Eternal Truth but also respect and protect other religions, so they fanatically protect the old temples, pyramids, and ruins. This is what they do in The Desert of Desolation series, so it works great.
3) Player Maps, Old Language
There are several player maps and also a language that the players can decipher during the adventure. That second part can be pretty fun, I think. However, one has to match up the map to the setting, at least a little bit. So, I've started working on that. And one unfortunate part of this is that some of the language on the player maps are not translated in the modules. So the DM has to figure them out to see if they'll fit a converted adventure. They don't. So I've been working on re-working the maps (almost from scratch). More of that is below; see point 5.
Some of the inscriptions that the players can decipher will probably have to be re-written, too. Because they might refer to places that have different place-names for Ylaruam. I haven't dug into that too much, yet.
4) Cursed Former Nation and Re-Establishing the Major River that Disappeared
Several ruined cities of The Desert of Desolation that are encounter areas of the campaign deteriorated and became ruins because the ancient river of the former nation dried up and disappeared. This was due to a curse. So this fits well with Nithia’s demise and Ylaruam’s past.
In one part of the adventure – the second major place that the party will typically explore – the river that dried up will spring forth from the ground again, and the river will be re-established. I’m willing to have this major change occur in my campaign. The name of this location in the adventure is the Pyramid of Amun-Re.
The original source of the River Nithia is in the Rockhome Mountains (west-northwest of the Emirate of Makistan, I’m guessing). So I’ve placed that pyramid there. It will take some more working and manipulation of the original adventure design and plot for me to get the PCs there.
5) The Sea of Glass
Another trope of Arabic stories is the sand that is turned to glass. In Ylaruam there is a place of melted obsidian at the center of The Dead Place. This is where the Immortals took on Thanatos at the time of the final downfall of the Nithian Empire.
In The Desert of Desolation, this “sea of glass” is called Skysea. This area was formed when the original efreet fought Martek in a great battle. The place burned for twenty years before solidifying into a sea of melted glass.
So this is a neat trope that would be nice to dove-tale together.
I’m wondering how I’ll explain which battle caused the sand to turn to glass. The battle between the efreet and Martek took place first (this would happen before the fall of Nithia, since Martek imprisoned the efreet and later gave magical spheres to ruling pharaohs).
One could say the rock of the site was melted into obsidian from the battle with the efreet, after 20(?) years. Then, during the battle between the Immortals, it was further remelted and purified into glass and obsidian. There could be pockets of “pure” glass and other streaks and huge whorls of leftover obsidian.
Any other ideas?
6) Where Ancient Nithia’s Cities Lay
I’ve looked at a couple of the “outer world Nithia” maps that others have made:
Ancient Nithia 1500BC-8 mile hexes (by Robin), and
A map of the Ancient Nithian Empire (by James Mishler)
I don’t think I’ll use a lot of that material, but I knew these were there and that I could look at them for referencing or getting inspiration from other people’s ideas.
One main consideration is where did the river go - -what route did it take? Most likely, many of the ancient cities were along the river. And, in The Desert of Desolation, most of the ruined city locations indicate they originally were along the ancient river.
One thought is that the arch-villain Barimoor probably made his undergound hideout in the ancient riverbed of the River Nithia. This would seem like an easier and natural place for Barimoor to create his hideout and utilize much of the existing old water “tunnels” that are now hidden by sand and much of the surface bedrock. He would have found the existing tunnels he could use and connected them (many of them broken up by the Immortals when the River Nithia was diverted underground, made to disappear, or whatever).
And, if you look at all the underground tunnels that are depicted on the foldout cover of GAZ2, one could surmise that that main route of the tunnels (from Uruk to Jaboor and/or Fabia) is roughly the main riverbed of the River Nithia. And the other “side” tunnels would probably have been closely aligned with the tributary rivers that fed into the main river.
A map of Ylaruam is here, of course, by Thorfinn.
And, without dissecting it too much, at the very least the region between Jaboor and Fabia would have been the River Nithia delta, or at least part of it.
I don’t know if that has been discussed before here or if there are any articles on Pandius about this idea, but what does everyone think?