Anyone done anything with this place?

According to the Isle of Dread 'place guide' in Dungeon #143, it was the last retreat for those who survived the destruction of Thanaclan. Locked in time, mystic fountains, sleeping Olman princes etc.

My PCs are 13th level (between Lightless Depths and CoBI) and have decided they want to look for it.

I've decided to run with that (one player will miss the next two sessions and I don't want to start CoBI til he gets back), but I'm not really sure what to do. They just had a nice looting session at a ruined temple of Huitzilopochtli, so I don't really want to do another dungeon crawl. And I'm not sure two sessions will be enough to do something like the Lost Citadel justice anyway. And I don't want to get too distracted from the main plot, so just a sidetrek of sorts is in order.

Maybe the Citadel only exists one day in the year, sort of a Brigadoon type thing? Maybe the PCs find a place where it once was, or a place where it might one day be again?

And whay's in there? Wealth and sleeping princes, as advertised? Or are the 'sleeping' Olmans actually dormant vampires, or maybe the place got shuffled into some other plane and was taken over by the denizens, or maybe the inhabitants are dead and gone and only their magic traps and constructs remain?

Something short and sweet and a little weird. I'm just drawing a bit of a blank on this at the moment...

May I suggest taking Crucible of Chaos and tweaking it to suite your 13th level group? A module I believe typically takes two sessions to run...

Our group finished the campaign over a year ago so my memory may be a little rusty but I'll give it a shot. I think I'd have the place be somewhere the group could get some information on what is ahead of them. Perhaps along these lines-

1. Information about the inhabitants (I can't remember if this is available or not). Khala, Xerkamet (sp?), etc.
2. How to unlock the Nimbus Bow and how it can help the group.
3. Information about the city itself.
4. Anything else you'd like to give them as assitance.

If I think of anything else I'll post it later.

Good luck!

I suggest Lost Temple of Demogorgon from Dungeon #120.
It is designed for 14th level characters, but shouldn't be hard to adapt;
and it would fit perfectly into the theme of STAP.

JollyDoc (Savage Tide Story Hour on enworld) used The Coming Storm from Dungeon 136 to great effect.

JollyDoc (Savage Tide Story Hour on enworld) used The Coming Storm from Dungeon 136 to great effect.

I'm going to use the Coming Storm map, which is amazing, but tweak the inhabitants fairly heavily to make it a bit more Isle of Dreadish. Will post the resultant adventure on here when I'm done.

(Kinda inspired by this one actually!)

Yeah - the Obeah-blessed template could easily become Ancestor-blessed... or you could give them all two heads and an extra std action and call them Demogorgon-blessed. The Scorned are a great alternative to, say, Olman Mummies and will freak the players right out.

The Children from Sehan (Dungeon 145) might make nice alternatives for the Chokers/ Assassin Vines - creepy plant critters fit in STAP nicely. Come to think of it, you could just give everything a Savage template and have it be a recent back pearl testing ground.

Can't wait to see what you do with the place =D

When I say 'tweak' the inhabitants, it would probably be more accurate to say 'entirely replace'.

I've decided that there's plenty of minions of Demogorgon and carnivorous plants in STAP as it is. I'm going for a bit of a change of pace. Elementals and fey and perhaps a giant or two. I'm a big fan of the multiple-factions-fighting-over-the-monastery thing though, so I'm keeping that, plus there still does need to be a solid Isle of Dread feel.

I'm actually getting really excited about this. Going away on business for a few days, so I'm going to bring my books and work on it in the plane, and maybe post it when I get back...

For the Lost Citadel, I was thinking about using the adventure "Tomb of the Mud Sorcerer" (I forget which Dungeon issue it was) that would be the "underground" levels of the Citadel and use another adventure to serve as the "surface levels" of the city. Granted, it sounds like a lot of extra adventures but I wouldn't have to change much.

At least I will be able to use the materials sooner than 10 years down the line, ;)

CB Out.

I used teh "Palace of Plenty" Dungeon adventure for this. The survivors had closed themselves off in their own sub-realm.