Experiences in X11: Saga of the Shadowlord
by Ville LähdeAfter an extended summer pause, I finally got back together with our group, and we could continue our Red Box/Blue Box "we play the modules as written, in the spirit in which they were intended" -campaign. The last adventure was in Chateau d'Amberville
As Etienne was resurrected, the Chateau returned to the intended point in history, 798 AC. So: I tweaked the timelines quite a bit in order to place X11 in an earlier and a much more tumultuous era of history: the civil war in Braerj, a disunited Darokin etc. All in all, I wanted the events surrounding the Shadowlord to take place in an earlier phase of history, to which they suit better in my mind. So although I will be using the fanmade Gazetteers a lot when designing follow-up adventures, the history is rearranged substantially. (Also I am thinking about placing some later adventures in the Braerj Gold Rush and the years of Infamy.)
So: the PCs had a letter or recommendation from Etienne and were teleported close to Wendar city. The country was in turmoil after a year of plagues, drought and famine – the city was packed with refugees, with people begging and dying in the streets. After some initial suspicion they got to meet Gylharen who explained the situation. The PCs accepted the assignment to find and recover the Elvenstone, the reward being an emptied manor house in the city and free tutoring for their mages.
Next morning, 16th Yarthmont, they set out for Mengul mountains, on horseback. On the 18th they met Shedrak's patrol, but as they did not reveal their mission, everything went smoothly. They did not suspect the patrol in any way. It was only late in the evening, when they found the site of the slaughter, that they suspected anything. On the 19th, they noticed the bridang ambush in time and attacked them. It was never going to be a deady fight, especially as the party now has two Displacer Cloaks, so a lot of brigand arrows were wasted. Still, it took some time end effort, and the PCs got to know how tough the Dark Lancers are. They gained the cache of uniforms from a prisoner, and they learned about the dragon.
During the night another large group of brigands attacked them, and this was truly dangerous, as most of the sleeping PCs had no armor! Still, the PCs killed half of the brigands and drove the rest of them away into the night.
On the 20th, they debated taking the western path, but in the end they decided to take the main route. Brulefer surprised them, Invisible or course, and demanded money. Most of them paid up, but suddenly the two dwarves of the group just charged madly in. This was potentially a very deadly encounter, but one lucky strike by their fighter, already a Dragon-Slayer ("Horror on the Hill"), reduced Brulefer's hits enough so that the first breath did not kill the group's only cleric. Phew. Brulefer was slain, and the next morning the cleric Spoke with Dead and learned about the dragon's lair. The group had one Fly spell in the ring of spell storing (gained during X2), and their thief managed to locate and loot the hoard.
On the 22nd, they reached the bridge across the Naga river. The guards immediately noticed them...
Oh, I forgot to mention: I DM'd this back in the late 80's/early 90's as part of our (still ongoing1) campaign. The background: a couple of fanzine modules, Palace of the Silver Princess, Rahasia, Great Escape, Veiled Society, a couple of homegrown modules thrown into the mix, Night's Dark Terror plus a homegrown continuation "Wrath of Iron Ring", Chateau d'Amberville, Skarda's Mirror, Drums on the Fire Mountain, a homegrown Thanegioth campaign "Saga of the Firelord", and then on to Wendar! The PCs were of fairly high level at this time, so I had to beef up the opposition a big.
I ran a "side-quest" between the two parts of the module, and that worked quite well.
SESSION 2: Geron
The PCs were questioned by the bridge guards. As the callous persons that they are, they had bundled up the head of the brigand chief, who they learned was a Dark Lancer deserter. They posed as wannabe mercenaries who had a gift for the local Dark Lancer commander. As this was actually a good plan, albeit a gruesome one, and they have a very charismatic team member (and the reaction roll was exceptionally good), I decided that the Lancers would not search them. They were told to report to Benar at the sheriff's office.
In Geron they went straight to meet the Sheriff who was persuaded by their offer of a deserter's head. They told that they wanted to join the army. As Benar was not present, the Sheriff told them to return tomorrow. It was late afternoon at this time. They went to the tavern and managed to glean solid information from Henna and the merchants. As they had some daylight left, they went to see the madman and learned about Leaper, and then they got the palm-reading from Susa (things got a bit heated after that, but a conflict did not break out). They noticed the Trapper's cottage and one of them immediately thought that it would be the optimal cover role for a spy, but Sean was not in. They retired for the night to a deserted cottage that they had rented with the Sheriff's permission.
Early in the morning they decided to speak to Rollo and managed to rouse his suspicions. Luckily Sean the Spy was their next visit, and Sean knew that Rollo could not be trusted and that the PCs were in danger. So he advised them to move quickly to check out the temple. On their way they paid a visit to Leaper's cottage but did not learn anything useful.
At the temple things went pear-shaped pretty quickly, and they got into a dangerous fight with the guards, with the appropriate flash ang bang of serious spell-use. They killed Prax and drove away or killed the guards, but now they knew it would be only a matter of time before the whole garrison was upon them. So they decided to storm the temple. Two of them succumbed to the dragon-curse, but the fight against Naru and his minions was quick and dirty, with a Fireball spell wiping out the followers and Magic Missiles finishing Naru. The Salamander wounded the group badly, but it too was destroyed. They had some good luck with looting and managed to find the most important treasures before hurrying out, but it was too late: Benar, Sheriff and a bunch of Lancers arrived just as they were trying to escape. So, a battle was joined once again...
A bit of a weird run, this session. The battle outside the temple went very well for the PCs, although initially they were nastily surprised by levitating Camla, who appeared from behind the Elven Cloak and managed to Hold Person their cleric (good luck, as only 1 out of 4 was "held"). Derik successfully attacked one of their mages out of hiding, but botched the Backstab, and sensing disaster, hightailed it out of there. Camla was blasted out of the sky with a Fireball (the Elven Cloak was lost), and Benar's attempt to flank the PCs via the temple was foiled by a clever use of a Web Spell. It was pretty much downhill for the Sheriff and the Lancers from there. The Sheriff and four Lancers were killed, Benar and the rest fled. (Benar salvaged his stuff from his house and fled with the survivors towards the army camp.)
The PCs quickly looted Camla's cabin and moved to grab their horses at the Inn. Nobody dared to try and stop them. They rode to Leaper's hut, and as they were somehow convinced the old man was cursed, they abducted him!
At this point the PCs were, reasonably enough, afraid that the army would be arriving (they knew that the camp was nearly a day's ride away, but in the moment they did not understand that alarm could not have been yet sounded). So they decided to head for the hills to wait for things to cool off and to look for an alternate route to the plateau.
Leaper's "curse" was revealed to be just a figment of their own imagination, and now they had a poor old senile man as a prisoner. As I mentioned, these PCs are not in any way nice people, and Leaper ended up being killed – which did cause a conflict in the group, one that will no doubt be resolved one way or the other later.
They rode a couple of days in the hills, looking for an alternate route, and they were attacked by Lancer patrols twice, both during the night. Still, they managed to kill, capture or drive away them – getting some useful info from a Chamed (but verrrrry scared) prisoner.
Eventually they figured out that by using looted uniforms they might slip through the patrols, and they did (a couple of Invisibility spells and an Elven Cloak hid their two Dwarves and one Halfling). They were running dangerously low on food but had luck in appropriating some from a farm in the Plains of Avien. Finally, they arrived at the Lothenar Forest.
The group entered Lothenar, and the first day went well, although the PCs were spooked by the eerie silence and the lack of animals. During the first night, they were attacked by a group of hellhounds. This was very nearly a fatal encounter, but clever use of magic items and spells won the... night. The next day, at the fork of the road they took the right trail towards Denolas's hall. On the way thay had a brief encounter with shadows. In Denolas's hall, they were extremely afraid of the ghosts, but no battle ensued, and they managed to find the powerful ring and Denolas's Journal.
After that, they returned to the fork in the road and took the trail north. They had wonderful luck: no encounters until they came upon the messenger, whom they dispatched quickly. They read the message and were convinced that "Vitriol" was a human lord (they really missed all the signs) and went to meet him with the idea of giving false commands from Benar to join the army in the Mengul Pass.
At the lake, they were surprised to find the dragon, but – tremendous luck – it was asleep! Before they had time to discuss their plans, one of the dwarves in the group was taken over by his intelligent sword (from X2). The sword is so much more intelligent and willful, so it can do this at it pleases: it is a greeding thieving sword, so it would not pass by a dragon's hoard. So the dwarf, with glassy eyes and monotone voice, gave advance warning that he was about to start shooting at the dragon and the others were best to follow hiw example. All the others were panicking but complied, and the dragon was quickly killed before it managed to flee (this was really really close).
After some practical problem-solving, the treasure was retrieved. During the night, there was another hellhound attack. Again, no casualties, but their precious Staff of Power (gained during their adventure before X2) was finally drained. Also, the cleric of the group had to use some valuable charges of their more pwerful version of the Staff of Healing (Cure Serius Wounds to prevent deaths), so these hellhound fights were truly costly. Still, nobody died.
They left the forest, and after an eventless ride of three days, arrvied at Gereth Minar. After dancing around the issue of the poison cloud they experimented with it a bit and finally pushed through, Knocked the front door open and started a fight with the Dark Lancers...
SESSION 5: Battle of Gereth Minar
The battle with the Dark Lancers at the gate took a few turns, long enough for the garrison to be alerted. So, when the adventurers pushed forward, they were soon ambushed by a large group led by the officers. But the elite troops of Landryn Teriak were no match for seasoned veterans brimming with magic: all Lancers were mowed down, plus the seneschal. The group pushed quickly forward, battling the Iron Statues and ascending to the second floor of the tower. Landryn Teriak spotted them and cast Hold Person while the second level guards ambushed them. However, only one fighter was Held, so the adventurers again handled the fight without any losses.
At the Altar Chamber they met a group of Followers of Idris, and the fighter of the group was sent fleeing by a Cause Fear spell. However, the cleric managed to catch him with a Snake Staff. The Idrisites were dispatched quickly, and the group decided to wait in the altar chamber while the fear spell would fade. Kurda, using the Shadowlord's scrying device, urged the snakes to attack them, but a Sleep spell put an end to that threat. They ransacked the bedroom (one of the Magic users nearly was blinded by the black book, and the halfling was sucked into the Mirror – and released by breaking it) and then battled the Owl Bear and climbed to the hall of the Shadowlord.
During their adventures in Chateau Amberville, the halfling of the group had gained a Ring of Spell Turning, and that proved decisive. The Shadowlord's first Ice Storm rebounded, he failed the save, and thus he had to use the Wish spell at once. So the minions were left to battle it out alone and were defeated. The Elvenstone was recovered.
The adventurers continued looting the tower before retiring for the night. One of the dwarves was very nearly strangled to death by the evil magical rope. The servants had fled.
During the next session we will see whether the PCs can return to Wendar safely with the Elvenstone. Food is an issue, since they are trying to hoard as much gold an platinum as they can, and skimping on space for rations.
After that, it's time for a home-grown adventure. I will return to this channel later next year, when Bensarian calls...
"The Rotating Knives" returned safely to Wendar, and the land was rejuvenated.
After that, they had an extensive adventure in the western lands of Wendar, battling renegade lords who had fallen under the dark influences emanating from the Baamor forest (following the threads woven in our campaign, I have made Arik again the main villain, so there is substantial deviation from the fanmade Gazetters, but the material therein is very useful for me nevertheless).
After the winter, King Gylharen asked them to ride quickly to help Bensarian. So pretty soon the installments about X11 will continue.
Having a long scenario between parts I & II of X11 worked very well! The players really had a DUN-DUN-DUNNNNN moment when the Shadowlord re-emerged.
Oh, I have forgotten to update this thread. We have had two sessions of the latter part of X11 this far only, as I was out of commission for a month.
So, the PCs rode hell for leather to help Bensarian in time. They battled the wyverns and the wight, and Bensarian revealed the re-emergence of Landryn Teriak and his aim to grasp the Blackstick. They agreed to help, even without any promised compensation (this was a first for them!), and rode back to Wendar City, changed their riding horses to war horses and set out towards Geffron with the hawk Vensul.
The ride to Geffron was fairly uneventful, but in the forest they had multiple random encounters and lost a couple of horses. The battles against the gnolls went smoothly, on the other hand, and they found the Blackstick. They continued towards Essuria, and the bugbear ambush was quite hard. However, they prevailed, as their magical armour is at this stage quite tough.
In Drax Tallen, the ghoul/wight/hellhound attack was nearly a disaster – the came close to losing both their magic-users – but in the end they survived without casualties. They cleared the goblin HQ (what a massacre), interrogated a prisoner and spent the night in the goblin hall. Next day, they chose to investigate the King's Hall. The rust monsters degraded one of their powerful shields (+2 --> +1), but no other losses. King Vensul's shade spooked them a lot.
Next time, down into the cellars.
Phew, that was hectic, with a lot of close calls.
The PCs checked the smaller rooms in the cellars (found the Bag of Holding), but they decided not to break the seals into the Royal Shrine. Instead, they progressed into the catacombs. I had done some changes here, as the module is somewhat illogical or faulty at times in this area.
They fought the skeletons and the Skeletal Beast. I decided that the Beast would emerge as a HD12 monster in any case, not subtracted by the number of defeated skeletons. With a level 6 cleric in the group, the chances would have been that the "beast" would have been a laughably puny creature otherwise, making the scene a dramatic flop.
The PCs did not succumb to the teleportation "trap". Instead, they just looted the gems. (I was happy about this, since I have always thought that this is a silly and somewhat unfair feature of this module and will just leave one or more players to stay marooned in room 99, locked as it is – or die trying to find their friends).
In the stalactite cave I had made a substantial rewrite. The module states that one of the shadows will try to flee and will return, imbibed with a spell. But shadows are not undead, so this cannot work. Instead, I had a single wraith try to escape the cave when battle ensued. The PCs were not surprised by the wraith (they were by the shadows), but the magicians could not fire their spells quick enough, and the wraith escaped, alerting the Wraith Lord. The shadows were defeated, and the PCs searched the cave. During that time, the wraith returned, imbibed with a Fireball spell. Luckily the PCs had left two stout dwarves to guard in case it returned, so the Fireball did not kill anyone, and the wraith was dispatched (no level drains either).
In the Poison Pool cave, the PCs with the best poison saving throws decided to dredge the pool with grappling hooks. They were lucky and persistent and managed to gain Henadin's sword. In the Dungeon, they very nearly turned back, but finally decided to search for secret doors. Again, with a bit of luck, they found the door behind the manacles.
I had removed the zombies from their original position and moved them east to Henadin's cave. The door between these places is locked, and there is a long distance to the trapdoor into the Wraith Lord's abode. Having slow-moving zombies escape battle, open a locked door, shuffle a long way and go through a trap door without being intercepted seemed a ludicrous proposal to me. Instead, the PCs just battled the unded Chimera in "Cave of the Zombies". After that, they were exhaused and badly wounded, and they decided to sleep, spiking both doors shut. I decided that the Wraith Lord would not try to attack them during the night: his illusion monster would still be his best bet of gaining the Blackstick.
Next morning, the PCs battled the zombies and looted Henadin's corpse. They took long enough that the alerted fighter above the trap door managed to fetch a Lightning Bolt spell from his boss. So when the PCs opened the trapdoor, they were met by a nasty surprise. Some very bad Initiative luck there, and the spell caught the whole group – they lost one of their magic-users! (They have the Raise Dead scroll from the temple of Gefron, so later on they could resurrect their friend, if they survived.)
Next, the PCs had a choice, and they turned north, towards the Wraith Lord's lair. They fought the three unarmored guards and pressed on to the Throne Room. The Mummy was destroyed, but not by the Blackstick, and the fighters were killed. Then the illusionary shoggoth-like beast emerged (I screamed "Teke-li! Li!" at this point). The PCs were close to desperation. They tried many things, but the monster seemed impervious to their attacks. But they had great luck: their mage, even though she was a physical weakling, managed to hold on to the Blackstick long enough to allow a friend with Gauntlets of Ogre Power to help. So they did not lose the Blackstick. After a long and hopeless fight, they retreated.
A while later, they realised the illusionary nature of their wounds and returned. (Had they not, the Wraith Lord would have attacked them soon.)
They found the secret door and entered the Vault. As their first instinct was to try and destroy the spellbook, the Wraith Lord attacked. He was swiftly brought back to life, decaying. This was a close call. Landryn Teriak tried to go out with a bang by firing a Fireball in the middle of the chamber, which would have definitely killed several PCs. But he was killed before launching the spell.
After this, the PCs have a lot of looting and some potentially tough fights ahead of them, and they will have to get their resurrected and vulnerable friend home. But this is it, essentially.
This was the last commercial module I aimed to run in this campaign. It was a nice run: Keep on the Borderlands, Palace of the Silver Princess, Rahasia, Horror on the Hill, Journey to the Rock, one homebrewed scenario (the Lost Dwarven Mine), Chateau d'Amberville, and finally Saga of the Shadowlord (with a homegrown scenario in the middle). I had run some of them once before in late 80's or early 90's, but some of them I ran the first time (Keep, Horror, Journey). I think all of them have stood the test of time, more or less. "Palace" is a bit too silly at times, perhaps, but still I carry a torch for it. "Journey" I would not run again, I think, although there is something nice in the atmosphere, but I dislike the railroad structure. "Keep" and "Horror" were both great experiences, as was Rahasia once again. "Chateau" surprised me – it ran much more smoothly than I expected – and the players loved "Saga" for its depth.
The campaign will continue in the autumn, most likely with excursions to the Northern Wildlands, as part of an attempt to recover the lands of Nimbeth and Thalion, if the PCs manage to unlock the political standstill in Wendar (those opposing such excursions are now in majority). Another possibility is for the PCs to take part in the Braerj civil war (this takes place in 799) in order to open up Wendarian trading routes south – or there are possibilities in Heldann.