Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 chimpman Oct 17, 2007 12:09:41	Hi all, The advent of 4E got me to thinking about new adventures to run under that system. Yes, I know we are nearly half a year away from seeing any concrete material, but still 4E's announcement was the trigger for these thoughts. I don't have a regular group anymore, but still love the game, so I will probably end up running a PBP game when the time comes. Still it doesn't hurt to prepare ahead of time, and that is essentially what I am doing here. Anyway, rather than try to create something from scratch for the new system, I though I would revisit an old favorite of mine, the HWA series for the Hollow World. This series details a scheme by the Immortal Thanatos to corrupt both the Hollow World and the Outer World, and is broken up into three main plots. 1) HWA1 - Corrupt the rays of the red sun so that it disrupts the Spell of Preservation and turns it into a Spell of Corruption. 2) HWA2 - Weaken the World Shield between the inner and outer world (which would allow the corrupted red sun's light to reach even the known world. 3) HWA3 - Trap the other immortals long enough to pull all of this off. There are some really great things about this adventure series. It is especially a very fun read with a very engaging story. However there are also some down sides to the plots and adventures as written, and many of them being especially problematic for a PBP game (which as I mentioned above, I'll be focusing on). I've got some ideas for changes, and I'd really love to get some input from the Mystaran community. Hopefully many of these changes would also be germain to running a more conventional campaign (ie a face to face tabletop). I'll start listing some of my ideas and notes in subsequent posts.
#2 chimpman Oct 17, 2007 12:29:06	So last night I started re-reading HWA1 - Nightwail. The first thing I noticed is that the adventure starts off as a call to an investigation. The PCs are supposed to become invested in the absence of the goblin prince Kano and Glantri's treasure caravan and basically track them down. It's not until roughly half way through the 64 page adventure that the PCs have their first combat encounter (with the Azca in the Hollow World)! This would be death for a PBP game, so I'm going to have to spice things up a bit. IMHO the whole premise of war brewing between High Gobliny and Glantri is one of the softer points of the plot, so I'd like to refine that as well. As written, here is a list of the basic encounters
#3 slashnull Oct 17, 2007 13:49:27	When the characters start investigating Kano they can stumble across some minor plot he's been involved with. When he first arrived he made contacts with one of the guilds in Glantri which provides guards for caravans crossing the broken lands. When a merchant avoids using the guilds help and also doesn't hire too many guards then a member of the guild will mark the caravan in some way. When it goes through the broken lands the goblins can tell that it's poorly defended and will attack, sending some of the spoils back to glantri the next time the princes swap. When the PC's find out about the guilds involvement they send some heavy's round to pummel them into silence. When that fails the guild leaders will 'vanish' any leads from within that could tie them to the plot.
#4 slashnull Oct 17, 2007 13:51:58	Investigating Kaze could lead to a wrong conclusion... Although she is involved with a Thanatos cult it's all too easy to follow a wrong lead and end up tracking down clerical supplies that are going to a different cult, a small group of Alphaks worshipers from Caurenze. The PC's should be able to not only find this group, but stop their activities entirely, granting a nice victory to start things off with.
#5 slashnull Oct 17, 2007 13:53:38	How are you going to handle the cleric spell loss? When I ran these modules I didn't have any clerics in the party, but I'd imagine restricting the spells to 4th level or less (rather than 2nd or less) and dropping all domain spells may be a bit less of a kick in the teeth than what's written in the module!
#6 chimpman Oct 17, 2007 14:50:42	Hey thanks slashnull! These are some great suggestions. I'll give you a little bit more background on what I'm thinking. First off, I am planning to wait until 4E comes out, so that I can kind of test the system out using this adventure. So this leads me to two major thoughts. 1) Even though the HWAs are designed for higher level PCs, I would like to start out lower so that I can experience the full breadth of 4E level advancement. There are a couple of ways I could handle this. Since I need to convert the material anyway, I could just convert everything down to a low 4E level. What I'm leaning toward however, is padding the adventure with some lower level side trecks that forshadow the overarching plot. So Kano's thugs and Kaze's cult contacts fit in perfectly here. 2) The clerical issue has been something I've thought about, however since right now I'm not sure how clerics function in 4E, it's not something I've spent a lot of time dwelling on. Of course as written, the loss of clerical power can have a very minimal effect on game play if you allow Asterius to grant PC clerics their spells. This translates into roughly 2 days without power, and there are very few real encounters in that time period. I'd be against removing clerical powers for the duration of the adventure because I don't thinkit would be very fun for any clerics playing through. Another thing I've thought about doing is instead of removing spells above 2nd level, just remove all spells that deal with direct contact with the immortals (divinations, communes, and such). This will still cripple higher level PCs later in the adventure, but not as badly. - OR - rather than removing spell access, I might have the disappearance of the immortals affect the world in some different way (some way that does not directly impact PC abilities). Perhaps without the immortals, planar boundries begin to break down on the outer world. This gives the PCs another incentive to stop this plot, since if they don't it might mean a planar invasion of some kind. If I was planning this for a 3E game, I would handle it in one of those 2 ways. I would not limit PC cleric powers. **** So getting back to some of the suggestions you made about Kano and Kaze, how about this? To start things off, the PCs stumble across some dark cultists. Now if they are Glantrians they'll have more than enough reasons to want to wipe out this cult. If they are non-Glantrians, the cult can be despicable enough that they should want to remove it anyway (they are heroes after all...). In the cult headquarters the PCs should find some incriminating evidence that points to one or more cult members being in the Glantrian government! Shocking indeed! However before the PCs can show this evidence to anyone (and be rewarded for it), prince Kano and his thugs step in. Kaze sends them to retrieve the evidence and erase anyone troublesome enough to poke their noses in her business. The prince succeeds in the former attempt, but not in the latter, and now the PCs should at least be invested in finding this goblin rogue and punishing him for his theft. Unfortunately for them, by the time they figure out that the goblin is prince Kano from High Gobliny and track him down, he and Kaze have already left. At this point I can pick up some of the adventure material for tracking down Kano and Kaze, and then head off to following the caravan. Sound plausable?
#7 twin_campaigns Oct 18, 2007 1:19:22	I've never had the time to read the HWA series, so I can't offer any suggestions. But as inspirational reading I suggest you look up a pretty recent Call of Cthulhu adventure, which revisits the old Mesoamerican haunts. A lot of well-made handouts and background information on the smoking mirror etc. The adventure itself was a bit too railroading for my taste (I've played it, but not read it), but as sourve of inspiration it might work. I don't know the name, but it should be found pretty easily. It continues the material of the old module "Terror from the Stars"
#8 slashnull Oct 18, 2007 7:48:33	Unfortunately for them, by the time they figure out that the goblin is prince Kano from High Gobliny and track him down, he and Kaze have already left. At this point I can pick up some of the adventure material for tracking down Kano and Kaze, and then head off to following the caravan. Sound plausible? Sounds good to me! I can't remember who hires the PC's in the original adventure (Is is Haaskinz?) - but as well as finding out what happened to the missing caravan the glantrian's would also want Kaze brought back on clerical charges, and the PC's have their own very good motivations for going after her!
#9 chimpman Oct 18, 2007 11:53:57	I've never had the time to read the HWA series, so I can't offer any suggestions. But as inspirational reading I suggest you look up a pretty recent Call of Cthulhu adventure, which revisits the old Mesoamerican haunts. A lot of well-made handouts and background information on the smoking mirror etc. I haven't ever played CoC (so I don't have any of that material), but the suggestion is a good one. It actually brings up a point I was thinking about which is this: Thanatos is using the great annelids (one of the Burrowers in the HW trapped by the Spell of Preservation long ago) as part of his plans. I've been thinking that the Burrowers should be tied more to the Outer Beings, rather than to entropy. This would allow me to bring in some more Cthulhu/Far Realms elements into the adventure. It would also mean that Thanatos might be playing around with forces that even he can't control fully (which is alwasy fun ;) ). It's something I've actually been considering. Also I was not aware that the "smoking mirror" played a part in the Cthulhu mythos. If that's the case then thank you for bringing it up! I'm going to have to dig around the web a bit to see what I can find that will mesh well with the adventure. Sounds good to me! I can't remember who hires the PC's in the original adventure (Is is Haaskinz?) - but as well as finding out what happened to the missing caravan the glantrian's would also want Kaze brought back on clerical charges, and the PC's have their own very good motivations for going after her! Exactly what i was thinking as well. I'm a big fan of the re-occuring villian. If the PCs know Kano/Simm and have fought him before, it will make it all the sweeter when they finally defeat him at the climax of HWA1. And Kaze will continue to be the master villian that is always one step ahead of the PCs. They will know about her, but will not have encountered her yet. :D Actually after reading through more of the adventure again last night I stumbled upon a little jewel. Kano/Simm gives King Moctitlapac an artifact with which to perform the Cermony of the Flying Viper Spirit. It is a rod with a smoking mirror disk. This can be what the previously mentioned cult was crafting when the PCs come calling back in Glantri. Kano will then subsequently steal it from them and deliver it to the Azcan King. When the PCs see the king using it, they should be convinced that they are on the right track.
#10 slashnull Oct 18, 2007 18:34:55	It is a rod with a smoking mirror disk. This can be what the previously mentioned cult was crafting when the PCs come calling back in Glantri. Kano will then subsequently steal it from them and deliver it to the Azcan King. When the PCs see the king using it, they should be convinced that they are on the right track. That's a really good touch! I wonder if there are any other clues that could be found in Glantri (or on the journey to the HW) that are only revealed in Nithia or Shajapur...
#11 chimpman Oct 20, 2007 22:53:27	That's a really good touch! I wonder if there are any other clues that could be found in Glantri (or on the journey to the HW) that are only revealed in Nithia or Shajapur... Hmmm... That's a really good question. I still haven't finished re-reading all 3 adventures yet, so I'm sure I'll come up with other ideas later, but let's see. The obvious thing to do is leave plenty of clues around about some of the cultures that will be involved in the HW. Kaze especially may have been doing heavy research at the Glantrian Library on Sind (Shajapur), Atraughin (Azca), and Ylaraum/Thothia (Nithia). Leaving those kind of clues around for the PCs will at least let them know they are on the right track during the subsequent adventures. Books and scrolls. Stone fragments covered with hieroglyphics. Ancient coins. A Tiger Tribe (Atraughin) headdress. Another idea I had was to leave some small pieces of World Shield castings for the PCs to find (left by the now dead annelid) in the Barleycorn Monastery basement. It's the perfect thing for any PC spellcasters to get interested in and hopefuly take along to study. When they see the Nithians/Schattenalfen encased in armor made of the stuff in Colima, that's just one more bit of validation for them. I've also thought bout leaving some clues about Udan/Koresh Teyd and the feathered serpants, however this is more problematic since he is in the Broken Lands instead of Glantri. Something along the lines of grusome dissections of various snakes and birds. Perhaps they could stumble uon Udan's last camp (and fight his minions) and come across a scene like that. EDIT: I'm also thinking that prince Kano got a new tattoo while in Glantri. Perhaps a nice big flying viper that extends from his belly to his neck, with outstretched wings across his chest. It's just one more clue that the PCs can see when they confront him in Glantri, before they start chasing him through the Hollow World.
#12 chimpman Oct 21, 2007 22:57:25	Hey guys, there are some really great ideas so far. The next sticking ppoint in the plot for me is when the PCs finaly emerge in the Hollow World. The PCs emerge in the half-bowl HW map after their quickened journey through the world's crust. Once there, they and their Shattenalfen guides are attacked by hoards of Azca. Most of the elves fall in battle (one may get away to re-emerge later in HWA2), and when the PCs are close to being overwhelmed Asterious sends a portion of his powe to save them. After which the junior immortal marks 3 locations on the half bowl map indicating each of the three locations of importance for this adventure. Adding to that HWA2 paints a slightly different picture that involves more of the PCs earth elemental guide. The guide may be used to spark some interest in prince Udan and lead the PCs in the direction of Nightrage forge. So here are the elements of the encounter that I want to preserve (not necessarily in the order presented): 1) The earth elemental and his apparent betrayal of te shattenalfen 2) The Azcan attack and their use of the viper spirit zombies 3) Asterius marking the half map bowl with the 3 locations the PCs must visit 4) The possible betrayal of one of the shattenalfen who leaves the PCs and his comrades to die What I don't want is for the PCs to feel that they had to be saved. I definately don't want to pull Asterius out as a Deus Ex Machina. But I do want to be able to have him send the PCs the various dream visions that occur throughout the adventures. Anyone have ideas on setting this up without the PCs needing to be rescued?
#13 slashnull Oct 22, 2007 7:10:05	The encounter should be a challenging one, so if the Azcans and their zombie minions are numerous enough the battle should last long enough for the PC's to feel as if it's important. In order to make Asterius feel like the good guy you could have the thunder clouds appear as soon as the PC's do - building up in power until in round 5 say (or whenever is most appropriate) the lightning strikes - and hits the PC's! They then get a bonus to attack and damage rolls for the next 8 hours (and glow slightly with electical energy) - any cleric/mage PC will also have the ability (within the bowl) to strike one enemy target with lightning and automatically kill it. A big boost for the PC's and not a direct 'save you from impending doom'. The lightning can then hit the 3 spots after the battle is won.