|
Author
|
Comment
|
errant42
Memunite
(11/10/03 4:29 pm)
Reply
|
mAdddddnESs in RttToEE
At the same as I run a sort of sequel ("Attempt #002"), I'm also considering running the campaign again from the beginning with another group. I played briefly with this group when another DM started RttToEE a while back, but we only got through Hommlet and the Moathouse.
So I'd like to start again from square 1 (run them through a slightly beefed-up Sunless Citadel to get them to 4th), but I will need to rewrite the early chapters. In addition to changing the Hommlet cultists around, I'd like to play up the theme of madness throughout the module.
The first notable effects will be in the Moathouse. By the time that the PCs arrive, everyone alive in the Moathouse is totally unhinged from some combination of the obelisk's emanations and the dragon's arrival. This will make them no less dangerous, just less organized.
In this interest, I've re-written Geynor Ton's journal handout to display his decaying sanity. In the actual handout, I used different fonts to help emphasize a change in his handwriting toward almost incomprehensible. Has anyone else had ideas to emphasize insanity throughout the campaign?
|
errant42
Memunite
(11/10/03 4:32 pm)
Reply
|
Excerpts from the journal of Geynor Ton (revised)
May the baleful gaze of the Eye of Fire scorch this wretched town from existence! May the Eye of Water wash it away with floods! I long for the day when the Doom-Dreamers tell us we can ride into Hommlet and put its pathetic inhabitants to blade and torch. How I hate hiding in this musty, rat-infested cellar, cooped up with these smelly brutes. At least the ale is good. If the Eye favors me, Master Dunrat will send me with Master Thaque and Festrath to the Moathouse to begin excavations.
***
Great Elder Eye, I praise You! I have been chosen to accompany the Moathouse party, though I would have preferred different company. Ysslansh is the name of the foul-smelling lizard man from the Earth Temple. He is a thug, nothing more, who thankfully respects Master Thaque's authority.
***
We have arrived at the Moathouse, and found it abandoned of all but the restless dead. They mostly stay in the catacombs, but there have been packs throughout the dungeon complex. I can hear them scraping, all the time scraping at something.
***
We have found it! Beneath a pool of stagnant water: The Black Obelisk, just as Master Dunrat said! The fools from Furyondy never suspected its presence, so ingenious was the construction of its hiding place! I cannot fathom the Obelisks purpose, or that of the writhing purple veins within. Such a terror clutches at my soul when they reach for me that I shrink away. Forgive me, oh Elder Elemental Eye, for not trusting in Your Wisdom and Power.
***
The emanations of the Black Obelisk, the soul-numbing chill that cuts through cloak and fur, I feel it ripping at my soul like a black gale. Dreams come at night, dreams of the reaching things. Everywhere there are ghouls, ghouls that scrape, scrape, scrape, always scraping! Why? Do they do some unknown work for the Eye? Do they heed Its Power? Power, such power, comes from the Obelisk, such power I have never felt and cannot imagine! Oh Great Eye, spare us from your wrath! Angry Eye, we serve you! Let your frightful power fall on the pathetic weaklings of Hommlet! Not us! NOT US!
***
Ysslansh has gone mad mad. He killed Dorun and some gnolls two gnolls or three gnolls but they will wake up again. They will wake up and they will hunger. He’s out there still I can hear him and smell him and he’s looking looking for me to eat me. They are out there too and hungry and rotten dead not dead and they want to eat me too. I can’t get out because a dragon is outside from somewhere I don’t know where and it will eat me too so I must hide hide hide
***
mother, when do Witch lights play?
When Night has smothered out the day
Mother, Why do wiTch lights hide?
they wait for us to come outside
MaSster Thaque iss deaddeadeadeadeaadd, went outside and DRAGON ate him up crunchcrunchnonohelpplease aaahhhhcrunchcrunchgulp I can hear it laughing at us heeheehee! they are funnnnY, the little ones trapped! We are funny and trapPed and dyingdYingalldying and Waking waking up again
HUNGRYHUNGRYHUNGRYHUNGRY
SCRAPESCRAPESCRAPESCRAPE
so so many are dead dead not dead and hungry so hungry and they are looking looking like Ysslansh is looking to kill and eat and there is no way out we will all die here and wake up again and again and Festrath went into the hole down down cold dark and something ELSE IS IN HERE HELP HELP ITS ON ME GET ME OUT OF HERE
Mother, Where do witch lights go?
Follow them and You will know
The Great EYE looks upon us and we despair and soon all shall join us in unending sorrow and pain and despairandanguishandtormentandpainandsufferingandfearand
Edited by: errant42 at: 11/20/03 1:09 pm
|
msherman
Kalkydrite
(11/10/03 5:45 pm)
Reply
|
Re: Excerpts from the journal of Geynor Ton
Nice feel, but I'd replace "the First" with "Master Hedrack" or perhaps "Holy Father Hedrack"... I don't think that a 2nd level nobody out in the sticks would know about the doomdreamers in any detail.
|
JRedGiant
Memunite
(11/10/03 6:10 pm)
Reply
|
Hedrack
I think it's probably too early to even give away Hedrack's name...perhaps just "the Holy Father" or some such.
|
deafdungeonmasterRIT
Cherub
(11/10/03 7:35 pm)
Reply
|
hmmmm
How will you beat up Sunless Citadel?
It may be a good idea to replace Berlak the OUtcast with Dunrat, or Dunrat can be a representative of Temple of Elemental Evil..
As Hedrack.. he should be called
"The Guilding Shade"
or
"The Void Representative"
|
errant42
Memunite
(11/10/03 11:30 pm)
Reply
|
Re: mAdddddnESs in RttToEE
I picked the First because it's anonymous and inconclusive, though I might replace it with something even more vague. Maybe "The Unholy Ones" (refering to the Doomdreamers in general).
As for my plans to enhance Sunless Citadel, I'm mostly just adding a few class levels to many of the bad guys.
I made twig blights more powerful (adding a blood-sucking ability that's hinted at in their descriptions) and made some larger varieties. Overall, I tried not to add to much to any one encounter, but ramped up the difficulty of several encounters slightly, so that the PCs will gain XP more quickly.
If you want the gory details: I'm weaving some subplots involving other demon-cults that the Doomdreamers have been manipulating for their own ends, like they did those of Lolth and Zuggtmoy. So Dunrat sent some (new) cultists to Oakhurst to help an ally in the cult of Orcus obtain a peice of the Gulthias tree, for the eventual purpose of resurrecting Gulthias (who will then show up in the Heart of Nightfang Spire as a side-trek down the road). Successul PCs will find letters hinting at some strange activity in the area of Hommlet, but nothing specific other than Dunrat's name.
|
errant42
Memunite
(11/20/03 1:29 pm)
Reply
|
Re: mAdddddnESs in the Moathouse
The party is almost ready to begin the Return, and I've done some work to crazy-up the Moathouse. I expanded on Geynor Ton's journal (above), and made the following changes in the NPCs/encounters.
Utreshimon (now a black dragon--it just made more sense given the swampy surroundings) no longer attacks anyone he sees; he retreats into area 7 and watches them. If spotted, he is friendly and helpful, but seems very eager for the PCs to enter the dungeons-- he even points the way, and answers simple questions (though he may lie just for the fun of it). Once they enter the dungeons (or if they refuse to do so), this all ends-- they are now more playthings for him, and he will do everything in his power to keep them there, laughing with sadistic glee and killing them if they try to escape.
Ysslansh (who I gave a few Bbn levels) has reverted to a feral states, and now stalks the halls of the dungeon, killing and eating anyone he finds. He doesn't remember how to get through the secret door into area 24, however.
Most of the gnolls have died (and are now ghouls); Garrik the gnoll leader has barricaded himself into his bedroom, and attacks anyone who tries to get in. He is paranoid to the point of hallucination, and no attempt at parlay or reason will work.
Gren has reverted to childhood, calling herself "Madeline." She plays with the artifacts she is supposed to guard and has a "tea party" with the two (dead) gnolls that keep her company. Any time one of them starts to awaken as a ghoul, she rebukes it, then bashes it until it stops moving with her mace, shouting "Lie back down!!" in a stern voice. She also has alarming habit of doing that to living people as well (10% chance per minute). She also enjoys playing childish games and pranks that are often dangerous to herself (she has lost an eye and three fingers) and others (she killed the gnolls).
Geynor Ton hides (in area 32A) from the ghouls and troglodyte, whimpering and muttering to himself. He can be questioned, and may provide some information in the form of incoherent babbling, but there is a 10% chance per minute that he decides that the PCs want to eat him, and flees, jumping into the hole in area 32.
Festrath calls for help from the hole in 32 (Geynor Ton ignores him), claiming to be trapped, in effort to lure others down, and cackling maniacally when the grell attacks them.
|
errant42
Memunite
(11/20/03 1:36 pm)
Reply
|
The Moathouse Scroll
Rather than a description of the Black Cyst, I decided to have the scroll in area 24 of the Moathouse be fragments of some ancient gospel written by Tharizdunites of the past. The PCs will have to translate it somehow, and this is what it says:
-ness that is our destiny and liberation. We raise our voices in the Name of the Nameless, He Who Whispers to us the Truth. We exalt in nothing that is not His Undeniable Will, and hold sacred only that which pleases Him. He is our Master and we His wil-
-il older than Time, for before Time was His Time, when His Will was Rightly the Law, and All That Is was y-
-nable to slay Him, they instead banished Him with Baleful Cunning. Pushed beyond the very horizons of All That Is, past the Lands of the Dead and beyond the Burning Places, locked outside of Existence. There, Oblivion ate at Him, should have consumed Him, but such was His Power and Ma-
-spers to us in the Darkness of the Night, shows us the Truth that others would keep Hidden, tells us Secrets of That Which Was and Will Be, of the final Do-
-s the Voice of Nightmares, the Unnamable Horror in the Dark. To know even His most distant Dreams is to know Malice and Madness without bounds, and Pure, Unreasoning Hate such that the World itself withers away to reveal t-
-ting the very Laws of What Is, by bringing into convergence the powers of making and unmaking, by changing that wh-
|
errant42
Memunite
(11/20/03 1:39 pm)
Reply
|
Hommlet Cultists
Finally, I've decided to give Dunrat the potential to be a recurring villain; the letters that the PCs have found are all from him, and in them he makes it sound like he is the mastermind behind the whole scheme.
He is utterly two-faced, acting the imperious overlord when he can get away with it, and the whining bootlicker when he can't. The PCs already dislike him from the letters they've found, and should absolutely hate him by the time they encounter him.
I shifted around his levels a bit in the interest of working toward Mystic Theurge, and tried to provide him with some escape routes for the confrontation at the Mill (actually, I've switched it to the Brewery). I also included a chapter from his "Memoirs," an ongoing autobiographical project that he indulges. It gives very little new information, and mostly just takes credit for others' work and extolls his own brilliance.
|
errant42
Tolling Bell Cultist
(1/7/04 10:36 pm)
Reply
|
Moathouse handout... too much too soon?
Here is a handout that I plan to give the PCs in the moathouse (in the black case, subbed for the Black Cyst ritual). Is this too much info at this point? Is it enough? Thoughts?
Quote:
(an ancient and crumbling scroll, found in a black metal tube in the Moathouse)
-ness that is our destiny and liberation. We raise our voices in the Name of the Nameless, He Who Whispers to us the Truth. We exalt in nothing that is not His Undeniable Will, and hold sacred only that which pleases Him. He is our Master and we His wil-
-il older than Time, for before Time was His Time, when His Will was Rightly the Law, and All That Is was y-
-nable to slay Him, they instead banished Him with Baleful Cunning. Pushed beyond the very horizons of All That Is, past the Lands of the Dead and beyond the Burning Places, locked outside of Existence. There, Oblivion ate at Him, should have consumed Him, but such was His Power and Ma-
-spers to us in the Darkness of the Night, shows us the Truth that others would keep Hidden, tells us Secrets of That Which Was and Will Be, of the final Do-
-s the Voice of Nightmares, the Unnamable Horror in the Dark. To know even His most distant Dreams is to know Malice and Madness without bounds, and Pure, Unreasoning Hate such that the World itself withers away to reveal t-
-ting the very Laws of What Is, by bringing into convergence the powers of making and unmaking, by changing that wh-
Edited by: errant42 at: 1/7/04 10:38 pm
|
Cordo Crowfoot
Deathmantle Cultist
(1/9/04 6:55 am)
Reply
|
Re: Moathouse handout... too much too soon?
Very well done! And, no, I don't think it gives away too much.
|
|
Okay -- Your Turn
Email This To a Friend
Topic Commands
Click to receive email notification of replies 
Click to stop receiving email notification of replies