From Kuroth's Quill -
grodog's AD&D blog

"From Kuroth’s Quill" is grodog's regular design column covering the elements of adventure design (and more-specifically dungeon design, given my interest in that topic). I will also wander through the design of spells and magic items; monsters, traps, tricks, and treasures; PC and NPC classes; planes and pantheons; and likely other topics as well. In the blog, I hope to provide practical examples that will be useful in campaign play, to show theory in action.

14 October 2018

Kellri's 18 Module Challenge - Day 13: "The Ruins of Andril" by Ian Melluish

Day 13 - A Module I Like from the 1980s: "The Ruins of Andril" by Ian Melluish

I'm picking up Kellri's 18-Day Module Challenge again today, a few days after my last entry (Day 12 - A Module From My Youth: "Treasure of the Dragon Queen" by Rutgers University Gamers). I got busy with work, and my need for sleep time outweighed my need to write ;)

Dragon Magazine #81 (January 1984) front cover

"The Ruins of Andril" cover art by Roger Raupp

"The Ruins of Andril" was written and designed by Ian Melluish, and published in Dragon Magazine #81 (January 1984) as the winner of the Dungeon Design Content (category A-3, a dungeon adventure for 4-8 AD&D PCs of levels 8-11 ) announced in Dragon #65 (September 1982).

The Egyptian-themed desert adventure is set in the ruined (and cursed!) desert city of Ruatha within the "Sea of Dust" (not Greyhawk's, though), followed by four small dungeon levels with 42 total encounter areas. The curse was laid upon the city and its peoples by Thoth, Egyptian god of knowledge, and nerfs divination spells cast within the ruins.

Why I Love "The Ruins of Andril"

Despite the nerfing of divinations (a school of magic I'm quite fond of as a player and DM), "The Ruins of Andril" is probably tied with "The Garden of Nefaron" in Dragon #53 (September 1981) and "The Dancing Hut" in Dragon #83 (March 1984) as my favorite adventure published in Dragon during it's heyday.

I enjoyed running it a few times back-in-the-day, and these aspects still stand out to me as cool today:

"The Ruins of Andril" is written for higher-level PCs (8th-11th), and could easily be expanded to include the desert wilderness surrounding the ruined city, as well as the ruins themselves (and the nearby town, for that matter)
I like desert settings, and this adventure would combine nicely with I9, X4-5-10, UK6, I3-5, and/or C2 (among others!), if desired
The dungeon site rises from the sands only once every two years, and if the PCs don't escape its confines before it sinks, then they're stuck for two more years (a bit of a Brigadoon-like environ...)
Three of the levels are connected by shafts rather than stairs
Well-illustrated by Roger Raupp---I've not always been a big fan of his artwork, but it fits the scenario, setting, and tone of the module fabulously
Gates to the four elemental planes and excellent monsters selections and tactics round out the scenario

The doesn't really sound like it adds up to much, I suppose, but "The Ruins of Andril" does play well!

Three Runners Up

While I enjoy and admire many TSR module designs, I'm going to highlight three non-TSR ones this time around, to help feature a trio of perhaps-less-well-known adventures:

Beastmaker Mountain by Bill Fawcett (Mayfair Games, 1982): a classic delve into the lair of an experimenter wizard who married a demon-conjuring wife!; Fawcett's ]article "Orlow's Inventions Can Liven Up Your Life" from TD#30 (October 1979) is also included for use with the module, and he also wrote a sequel to Beastmaker in 1983, Tower of Magicks
CH-2 Seren Ironhand by Tom Moldvay (Challenges Inc., 1986): the middle of a three part module series, but the only title published (the other two are CH-1 The Morandir Company and CH-3 The Halls of the Mountain Kings), Seren Ironhand lures PCs into a raid on some river pirates, who live in the site of an ancient dwarven mountain kingdom
Garden of the Plantmaster by Rob Kuntz (Creations Unlimited, 1987): a magical garden grown twisted through demonic influence, Kuntz originally created the Garden for Castle Greyhawk, and expanded it in conjunction with the Lost City of the Elders

My other posts in Kellri's 18 Day Module Challenge:

10 October 2018

Kellri's 18 Module Challenge - Day 12: "Treasure of the Dragon Queen" by Rutgers University Gamers

Day 12 - A Module From My Youth: "Treasure of the Dragon Queen" by Rutgers University Gamers

I'm kind of cheating again in today's entry, since "Treasure of the Dragon Queen" isn't a commonly-known or published module, but it's still near and dear to my heart, so I'm writing about it anyway!:

Origins IX 1985 convention program event listing for TotDQ

The actual event we played featured a slightly different description in the 1984 Northeaster 2 convention booklet:

Event - 19. RUG Treasure of the Dragon Queen

A fortnight of silence is all that is left of your predecessors who set off across the river to find and secure the fabled treasure. Now you must complete the quest before the forces of darkness subjugating the region stumble across it. For God only knows what horrors would be unleashed on the world in their hands in this FRP event.

Why I Love "Treasure of the Dragon Queen"

"Treasure of the Dragon Queen" is my white whale: my monomaniacal quest to find and recreate the perfect adventure from my youth!

The original pre-registration event description appears at the top of the page, and the original background sheet (preserved with my brother Phil's pregen PC attached!) appears below:

If that adventure description doesn't get your blood roiling for adventure, then nothing will! I have a lot more detail about "Treasures of the Dragon Queen" on my site, where I describe what I recall about the maps, the factions in the adventure, the environs where we adventured, etc.

The pregens PCs were higher-level characters, and were quite well-equipped! I believe it was after attending this event that our players at home began to demand to purchase grappling hooks, and manufactured their own continual light gems (or coins, for the paupers in the parties ;) ).

The pregen PC sheets themselves are also interesting: they were blown-up photocopies of a filled-out 1978 DEL Enterprises Fantasy Role Playing Card, a generic PC sheet:

Turpin Masewelder, LG Human Male Cleric 9

DEL Enterprises 1978 Fantasy Role Playing Card

I will eventually get around to re-creating Treasure of the Dragon Queen based on my memories of it (but I'm still not giving up hope of finding a copy, either!).

Three Runners Up

A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity by Dave Cook (TSR, 1980): the first module I bought on my own, and the launching point for the Slavers series; I remember running this for my brothers and friends more than once, and doing so in both tournament and campaign modes (we always liked campaign mode better, since there was more treasure to be looted! ;) ).
"Chagmat" by Larry DiTillio (TSR, July 1982 in Dragon Magazine #63): this adventure was published in one of the first two issues of Dragon Magazine that I bought (the other was #58, and contained "In the Bag" by John Eric Holmes). It featured the strange spidery title-creatures in a cavernous mountain dungeon spanning three levels (one of caverns, two of the upper and lower levels of the temple). I remember playing the one-armed fighter NPC, and the forlorn inhabitants in the town of Byr, but I think that I changed the name of Little Boy Mountain to something more evilly-apt. (Oddly, I also bought another spider-themed module at Northeaster #3 or #4, Mercury Games' Lair of the Spider Mother, and it seemed to me at the time that way too many adventures focused on spiders!)
D1-2 Descent into the Depths of the Earth by Gary Gygax (TSR, 1981): I remember my friend Mike Barber running these adventures, and the epic battles we had, including with Asberides and oodles of trolls and troglodytes while drow sniped at us from the sidelines, and us screwing around in the Kuo-Toan Shrine, setting off alarms, and battling monitors and hoards of gogglers! I also recall trying to recruit with group of svirneblin to join our crusade against the drow (I don't think we were successful, or they wanted more money than we would pay, or something), and negotiating passage across the Svartjet with Thoopshib and him attacking our PCs, and being ambushed by a large group of jermlaine (who seemed like they should have been far less effective against the G-D pregens than they were at the time ;) ).

My other posts in Kellri's 18 Day Module Challenge:

09 October 2018

Kellri's 18 Module Challenge - Day 11: S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth by Gary Gygax

Day 11 - A Module You Never Tire Of: S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth by Gary Gygax

The S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth adventures began life as one of the bottom-most levels of Rob Kuntz's Castle El Raja Key dungeons, before Gary imported the level into the 1976 MDG Wintercon tournament adventure, Lost Caverns of Tsojconth (where it became the Greater Caverns):

Lost Caverns of Tsojconth - 1976 tourney version, front cover

That tourney was later expanded and published in the more-commonly-known 1982 edition:

Why I Love S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth

My love for and abiding interest in the Lesser, Greater Caverns, and Other Named and Unnamed Caverns of Tsojcanth is well-documented, so I won't dwell too much on that here (although my page does need some updating in light of Kuntz's manuscript sales over the years since I first published the page, and in particular the El Raja Key Archive contents).

I love S4 on so many fronts:

Its design practically forces me to explore it closely as a DM, and to expand it further to detail the various levels named and/or mentioned in passing and/or implied and/or hinted at obliquely:
I love the Greyhawk lore introduced in both versions of the adventure, in particular about Iggwilv, the various new demons, lords, and princes introduced in the module, (as well as, of course, how to summon and bind them!---my entire Demonomicon series on Canonfire! only exists due to S4!), and, lastly, Drelnza herself, too:
I love the gates-focused nature of the Lost Caverns, and the implications that Iggwilv's lair is itself separated across many hundreds leagues and only stitched together via gates---a World of Tiers-meets-Moorcock's multiverse-meets-The-Lion-Game
I love that the old campaign map of the Great Kingdom from Domesday Book #9 allows the understanding the Tsojconth background locations/details in the proper context, from before the 1980 Greyhawk Folio was published:

Three Runners Up

A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity (TSR, 1980) by Dave Cook: the first module I bought on my own, and the launching point for the Slavers series; like S4, it demands that Highport be built, that the DM breathe life into the nameless slave lords in the scenario
The DMG Monastery Dungeon (TSR, 1979) by Gary Gygax: this can be expanded in scope and designed so many different ways, it's a pleasure to reinvent it over the years via new variations across different campaigns
WG5 Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure (TSR, 1985) and Maure Castle (Paizo and Pied Piper Publishing 2004-2007), both by Rob Kuntz: Kuntz's classic and updated dungeon designs, that continually lure me back to Garden of the Plantmaster, The Lost City of the Elders, Tharizdun, Castle El Raja Key, and the World Kalibruhn

My other posts in Kellri's 18 Day Module Challenge:

08 October 2018

Kellri's 18 Module Challenge - Day 10: Return of the Eight by Roger E. Moore

Day 10 - A Module I Have Big Problems With: Return of the Eight by Roger E. Moore

Return of the Eight by
Roger E. Moore (TSR, 1998)

Today's topic was another difficult one to wrestle with, since there are so many problems with so many published RPG scenarios! However, I decided to focus on flawed scenarios that I like despite their failures, and then added three more scenarios that have worse flaws (in my mind, anyway) but can be salvaged, and three stinkers that are total garbage, too!

What I Love and Loathe about Return of the Eight

Roger Moore's Return of the Eight launched TSR's re-focus to the World of Greyhawk campaign in 1998, and inaugurated the "Greyhawk 98" era of products, several of which were quite good. Perhaps even more importantly, Greyhawk 98's successes led directly to Greyhawk becoming the "core setting" for D&D Third Edition, and the founding of the Living Greyhawk campaign---the most-successful program run by the RPGA.
I also like several elements within Return of the Eight (this link goes to Adrian Newman's newer site that includes the back cover page scan too), in particular:

Tenser's Fortress of Unknown Depths---an inspired site that's placed into the broader context of key locations in Oerik where artifacts can be created; as Tenser's fortress, it is also a bastion for the forces of good; Moore also alluded to concepts from Gygax's TD#37 article "Greyhawk: the Shape of the World" (May 1980), WG6 Isle of the Ape, and the Gord novels in how Tenser was portrayed, which was a nice touch
The concept of Oerthblood, a magical substance created by Moore as a key ingredient in the manufacture of certain magic items, artifacts, and relics (it also appears in my article on artifacts co-written with Erik Mona in Dragon #294's "Artifacts of Oerth"); I keep thinking oerthblood was mentioned in Return to White Plume Mountain too, but I think that was my own association and never appeared in published canon)
I like that the module breathes some life into old names like Tuerny as new forces/players, rather than leveraging the same old stand-bys like Iuz, Vecna, Acererak, the Slave Lords, etc.---inventing new villains, or at least defining them based on old names, is something Greyawk needs more of!
But speaking of those stand-bys, I do like Rot8's use of Iggwilv as a force machinating behind the scenes, and the fact that the PCs never actively engage against her directly--that she's a shadowy force operating in the background that they may never encounter directly
Iggwilv's moon base is a great idea, and could be built out further; Guy Fullerton has a module that he's been playtesting based on the moon (his sequel to F1 Fane of Poisoned Prophecies), but that's the only lunar-themed adventure that I can think of off the top of my head (other than Gygax's aborted one mentioned in "Fly Me to the Moon" in Dragon #301 (November 2002)

On the downside, Rot8 (as we referred to it back on Greytalk in the day) has a number of serious flaws:

It is built around one of the most railroady plots I've seen outside of the RPGA
It is grounded firmly in the Greyhawk Wars background stories which turned Lord Robilar and Rary against the rest of their friends and allies within the Circle of Eight
The cover art is abysmal; the cartography is, at best, bad; and the layout is worse
Tuerny is basically a throw-away villain---boss for the moment, but gone when when module's back cover is closed; building him out (perhaps in conjunction with his infamous Iron Flask) would have been nice to see

Three Runners Up x2

This time around, I decided to six list runners-up in the format of The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly!

The Good...

Like Return of the Eight, these scenarios are rife with really bad ideas, but some decent ones that can be extracted, improved upon, and/or salvaged from amidst their published wreckage. They're basically poor scenarios that I like in spite of their flaws:

Ivid the Undying by Carl Sargent (unpublished in print by TSR but excerpted in Dragon Magazine in 1993-1994, and later published online for free, along with a wonderful map by Kent Matthewson): Sargent's capstone to this 2e-era Greyhawk work was supposed to focus on the Great Kingdom, but he really bungled it through the introduction of the animus undead creations that ran rampant through its noble houses (not unlike GRRM's later novels in A Song of Ice and Fire, come to think of it...). That said, if you ignore that aspect of Ivid (along with some others, like Philidor the Blue Wizard), there's plenty of usable content in Ivid that won't ruin your game, and some quite good ideas that I rather like, too (the Isle of Lost Souls and Causeway of Fiends, in particular).
WGA4 Vecna Lives! by David "Zeb" Cook: nearly as railroady as Return of the Eight, I still like some of the background and concepts Zeb defined for the cult of Vecna, even if the idea of turning Vecna into a god isn't something that I like at all; and while the railroady nature of the introduction isn't something I like (or find terribly credible, as a regular player of high-level characters), I do enjoy the shock value of killing off important PCs/NPCs as a way to put the players on edge!

That these four pariahs number among my most-loathed from a potential cast of hundreds should not make you think that they're rare exceptions to the norm, merely that they're not only NOT worth the effort to salvage, but they're probably only good for recycling!:

...The Bad...

Cloudland by Tony Fiorito (Grenadier Models, 1984): unfortunately despite some promising features (perhaps most prominently its five dungeons levels), this module doesn't live up to the premise in its name---it's not a cloud castle, or otherwise really connected to cloud castles in any way---and the encounters throughout are completely forgettable; this was also a missed opportunity by Grenadier to create a dungeon adventure centered on new monsters from their miniatures lines, which would have been a natural crossover product (they did include some RPG scenarios/scenes in many of the inserts from their Dragon Lords and Fantasy Lords boxed sets, but that was as far as that kind of design work ever went)
The Doomgrinder by Steve Miller (TSR, ): this one never grabbed me despite its use of the derro, a monster I've been fond of since its appearance in S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth: I'm sure the lame execution and wasted potential of Sargent's hook from From the Ashes were contributing factors (it was a toss-up for me to list this module or Sean Reynold's Crypt of Lyzandred the Mad here, but in the end I think Lyzandred is more-salvagable than Doomgrinder...)

...and The Ugly!

The Ruins of Undermountain II: The Deep Levels by Donald Bingle, Jean Rabe, and Norm Ritchie (TSR, 1994): a total crap paint-by-numbers waste-of-poster-paper mega-dungeon almost as bad as Castle Greyhawk below, and equally a let-down based on expectations going into the product; it's probably debatable about whether RoU2 is worse than WG10 Child's Play, but either way they're a waste of good ink
WG7 Castle Greyhawk (TSR, 1988): TSR's disgraceful hack-job on Gary's and Rob's Castle that mislead fans who'd been waiting for its publication for years, so nothing more really needs to be said