Greg A. Vaughan's page

Nice move on having the first part for 2$ :P It was a great read.

*Enjoys his nice new PDF subscription.*
I think this might be my next campaign after my players are done with Kingmaker. :)

Too bad I can't download from Paizo now as I like having my downloads in fewer places, but the price was worth it.

Welcome aboard, and glad you liked it. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts/experiences as you read through or even GM the follow up chapters (plus maybe a running PC body count). ;-)

So, it begs the question for the masses: What sorts of things would you be looking for out of this kind fusion design, PF gamers and older edition gamers alike? What makes an adventure hit those cool old-school notes for you without seeming dry or overdone?

The dance is an always ongoing thing...in my head. It's personally satisfying but can make for an awkward first impression when the person I'm meeting realizes I'm picturing the death of his/her PC and doing an endzone dance over it in my mind.

And I will be sure to run several games for maximum death dispersal at PaizoCon. Try to get into my Call of Cthulhu game if you can. Last year's left the mutilated bodies of eight Boy Scouts on the table (only one of whom had his head bitten off by a giant bat and his body sucked dry of blood like a human-sized Caprisun right in front of his fellows), but I earned my merit badge in mayhem. :)

I'd have the player make a backup character, have Vord beef up security, and when they break back in find that he has eaten the brain of their barbarian friend. Let 'em take their frustration out on the lich and learnt he hard lessons of adventuring...you leave someone behind and they're probably toast. If the player would be too heartbroken by the loss of his/her character then throw in a resurrection magic item (maybe a once per 1,000-year function of the Eye of Abaddon) so the barbarian can be brought back but wiht the lesson still learned.

Now that's just me, I like to make it rough on my players, and they prefer that style of play where death is always just around the corner. Consequently they tend to go through a lot of characters, but I know it's not everyone's cup of tea so the resurrection option should salvage that. On the ohter hand I'm the guy that killed th wizard that got split up from the party, and then they made the mistake of leaving the body behind. Of course, whent hey returned it had been skinned and animated as an undead and then they got to fight the BBEG wearing their former comrade's skin (hey, it made sense in the context of the adventure--ST4 if you're interested), so that guy basicaly got to die three times--twice at the hands of his fellows--that got a few flinches from even the jaded players. heh, heh

P.S. I never knew that Dennis Sustare was the guy that invented the druid for D&D, but now that I think about it there was a certain chariot named after him in the 1e Unearthed Arcana. That's pretty cool.

Matt has described this perfectly, and in a way that I have been struggling to capture in words.

I had the privilege of developing the first adventure of the Northlands Saga (which is one of the series forthcoming from Frog God), written by an archaeologist named Kenneth spencer. It is really cool and really different. Its feel is like the Isle of Dread if it was written by Robert E. Howard and involved vikings.

While it uses PF rules and combats (for the PF version), its the kind of adventure I could totally see being run even with PF rules without a battlemat or minis. Sometimes you just land your longship and overrun the coastal village of degenerate cultists in a festival of slaughter and don't really need to set out a bunch of minis to show where you caught each of the bad guys with his pants down (so to speak).

I'm involved with the Northlands Saga series but haven't even seen the others yet that Matt is spekaing of, so I'm excited as much as anyone to see these come out.

I just saw the layout for ST6, and it looks nice. Meanwhile, I'm in the process of sending the maps for ST10 to the cartographer, and the art order for ST7 is underway. So things are proceeding nicely.

Greg A. Vaughan wrote:

Berselius wrote:

Caption for image 1: GO FASTER! GO FASTER! YOU FOOL! YOU FOOL!

Is that some Bill Cosby I'm hearing?

Old Weird Harold just don't run fast enough when faced with certain death... :)

Nice.

Caption for image 1: GO FASTER! GO FASTER! YOU FOOL! YOU FOOL!

Is that some Bill Cosby I'm hearing?

Here are the maps done in photoshop with 75pixels grid size to use in MapTool or any virtual table top :

Level 1 without grid
Level 1 with grid

Level 2 without grid
Level 2 with grid

Level -1 without grid
Level -1 with grid

Level -2 without grid
Level -2 with grid

That is super cool! I will use those.

Gosh, we don't want anyone's money... (rolls 16 on Sleight of Hands check to lift Sniggevert's wallet.)

The one and the same.

P.S. This is still unofficial, but FGG is also in talks about possibly inking a deal with a little-known author that goes by the name Pett. ;-)

Okay, so if you haven't noticed already, Frog God Games, that sleepy little vehicle used to finally get Slumbering Tsar published, has kicked it into gear and is pushing/is about push a lot of stuff that's been int he pipeline for awhile.

Slumbering Tsar 1-5 have been released on pdf and ST6 should be up in the next week or so. Also soft covers of Tsar 1-4 are now for sale with ST5 in soft cover just around the corner and ST6 and the rest to follow.

Oh and, apparently ST is getting the Swords & Wizardry conversion treatment as well and will be available for that game system at some point in the near future (this was news to me)! So all you old-old school fans have something else to sink your teeth into.

Fane of the Fallen and Splinters of Faith, two adventures written for Necromancer Games, like Slumbering Tsar and others, and then lost in the shuffle have now been updated to PF RPG and S&W and made available in soft cover and pdf versions.

Plus the Saturday Night Specials, One Night Stands, Northlands Saga, and Hexcrawl Classics adventure series are being released imminently in both PF RPG and S&W.

Oh, and a little book called the Swords & Wizardry Complete Rulebook gets released in limited edition hardback in November.

Check 'em out here at Paizo, at talesofthefrog.com, or at DriverThru RPG.

"You might think that, but I couldn't possibly comment . . .", eh? ;-)

Probably something like that.

And, thanks! I'm glad you liked it.

Considering there is about 500-1,000 words of space to develop hooks for a PF Module and we're talking about 17th-level PCs potentially well established from their own campaign over the last 17 levels and keeping the hooks generic enough that anyone wiht any party can basically plug and play, well there's really not a whole lot that can be done in those parameters. As written, they basically allow the adventure to be tackled from every motivation related to the major goal possible, but yeah it's tough to get specific in a short stand-alone. It's alos intended that you can make the hooks whatever you want them to be to fit your campaign (as previously mentioned).

If they're not your cup of tea, I'm sorry to hear that, but I would hope that someone wouldn't pass on a 17th-level adventure simply because of the hooks. However, that's certainly your choice, and I won't second guess you on it. Just wanted to give some explanation.

Greg

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it. It was a lot of fun to do.

Tashanna=Tasha=Iggwilv, eh? Hmmmmmmmmmm....

How did Nick Logue not get a piece of this pie?

Surely this AP is a perfect match for his sick & twisted mind, need I mention The Skinsaw Murders...

Pett wrote Skinsaw Murders; Logue wrote Hook Mountain, but your point is well taken. I'm sure, as was mentioned, it is because of his teaching job. He has stated on the Sinister Adventures website that once he gets Razor Coast out the door he is retiring from RPG writing. I hope (like many) that it is not as final as that and he can just step back for awhile and then come back when his time demands ease up some, but either way sadly I don't think we'll be seeng much from him for some time.

I agree.

P.S. If you want to read an in depth playthrough of Shadow in the Sky, we keep super detailed session summaries.

Way cool.

I was actually referring to The Emperor, the big stag some hunter blasted a few weeks ago. Geez don't you guys read the papers over there?

Meh, Logue works too I guess.

;-)

Very nice selections. Though I was never a big fan of the Black Sails adventure. It just seemed too off-the-wall for me.

As for Pett, keep your fat snake comments to yourself or I'll send one of my minions to shoot the second largest-animal in the British Isles...the Pett Id (ironically, known as The Princess).

Take a look at Tammeraut's Fate in Dungeon #106.

No problem. Not sure how that little tidbit got left out, but sorry for any confusion.

Is the Conflagration Gaze of the Pyrolisk suppose to be fire damage or untyped damage?

fire

Well said, Mr. Spalding.

D'oh, I thought that was directed at my answer. Sorry for over-answering after that. :-)

They could do the districts of the city in any order, but Event 1 and the conclusion of ST8 will eventually compel them to check out all the districts at some time or other for reasons other than simply XP gathering (though XP gathering is certainyl and intended component of it). So ultimately you would need all of the parts of Temple-City to proceed to The Hidden Citadel (if you intend to run it as written), but whether you have them all at once or in any particualr order will really depend on what you do with your game. If you inted to have them start from the top, then ST8 would be the first one you needed, etc. The terraces are intended to be a minor nuisance at best to encourage PCs to check out the lower portions first where things maybe aren'tquite as hard, but there's no reason they have to do it this way and you could certainly do it differently if you wanted. The terraces provide a logical order in which to proceed but certainly not the only order that it cna be successfully done.

Would I lose out on anything by doing this? Anyone who played book 3 have opinions?

Yeah, you're losing out on the best adventure in the AP. ;-)

Madness...madness, I say.

This artist is amazing and needs to be kept around for a long time.

Also, the way the 7 vaults are described makes me hopeful that this can be interlaced with the previous installment for a 2-book-combo uber-sandbox. Probably not, but that's where my dreams are at right now.

I have not seen the finished previous volume, but I actually think what you are describing might work quite well.

DM has hit it on the head. It's a big sandbox. If they can survive, they can go anywhere they want. So it's up to the individual GMs how much leeway they want to give their PCs in movement up through the city. If you want to give free reign (which is certainly a possibility) you'll want to make sure you have all 5 parts of Temple-City of Orcus to cover all their options before yu begin play of that adventure. So, yes, they can go straight from the gates of the city to the highest terraces if they want to. That said, as the fifth part of Temple-City comes out, you'll see that they can't proceed to the first part of The Hidden Citadel without completing all 5 parts of Temple-City, because the means to access Hidden Citadel are scattered throughout the city.

So in short, if the GM allows it, the PCs can go whereever they want and face the challenges in whatever order they want, but there are some built-in safety valves to keep them from going too far, too fast and getting totally in over their heads--the guardian of the tar pits in The Desolation, the means of accessign the Hidden Citadel in Temple-City of Orcus, and some stuff in The Hidden Citadel itself that causes the actual conclusion to tht sereis to be at the conclusion rather than just at some random spot during their explorations. I don't want to get spoilery, so I won't go into detail onthat here.

Keep in mind, that this series was originally just three BIG adventures, so it is written so it can be used in that way. The series breakdown was created in order to give us a workable sales and distribution model in order to actually get this thing into print. The big fat book at the end of it all is going to be AWESOME!

Glad to hear it, Elorebaen!

It would take some work, but I think it is doable. In most cases it can be accomplished by adding HD/class levels to the monsters that already exist, though adding numbers in some will also work.

Keep in mind that though ST 1-3: The Desolation ends at 11th. But ST 4-8: Temple-City of Orcus ends at 16th, and ST 9-14: The Hidden Citadel goes to 20+. So there's some high level play to be had even for parties that start at the prescribed level 7.

I should probably pay more attention to the campaign setting's idea of an afterlife, but I'll ask here while I am away from material:

Members of society with no connection to a god - what's on tap for after death? I'll go dig around when I can.

If not swayed to a particular deity in Pharasma's Court, then the Graveyard of Souls. (The Great Beyond, p. 33)

HPL!

HPL!

HPL!

That is all...

Greg A. Vaughan wrote:

1. Yeah, Mr. Bojangles. You probably ought to spoiler tag that quote you took from the adventure a few posts above. It's pretty revealing.

Spoiler tag added.

Thanks, Vic!

1. Yeah, Mr. Bojangles. You probably ought to spoiler tag that quote you took from the adventure a few posts above. It's pretty revealing.

2. As for the cover, I assume it's a frost giant with the gnarled template and some non-iconic adventurer, but I don't really have any more insight into it than you guys do.

3. Are my eyes deceiving me or did we just have an honest-to-gosh sighting of the elusive Steve Greer? Last time I saw him was in grainy black and white lumbering thorugh a pine forest.

Heathansson wrote:

I was rooting for Oklahoma

Yes, Greg, we both suck this year. How the hell does UT lose to UCLA? In OUR house?

I don't know, but I wouldn't ever schedule them to come back. Seems like bad mojo. Go play them at their house. You'll porbably beat them by 40.

Isn't it obvious? Why, look at how successful it is getting at a response!

Good point... :-)

They get 1/5, so I guess they were due.

Why only count back 5 years? Stoops has a winning record against UT Mack has a losing record against OU. Or go the whole 100-history history and UT is like 19 games ahead (I'm sure you can give me the exact number). My only point (in the friendliest of fashions, I assure you) is that there was an awful lot of noise made about preseason blah, blah, blah, and past record blah, blah, blah just cuz I got a pretty girl to do a downward Hook-em (or "F-em", if you prefer for the non-UT fans out there).

As much as Pierce enjoyed characterizing me as a "Horn hater", I'm just a 'Horn rival, that's all (though sometimes I may be a 'Horn-fan hater ;-) ) And I don't know where the "demonic" bit came from (unless he knows more than he's letting on).

Here's my take on this last weekend:

UT is horrible.
OU is horrible.

UT out-horribled OU despite OU's best efforts to turn the outcome otherwise (I mean seriously, Landry, you're just going to drop the ball like that?). Anyway, UT has a tougher schedule remaining than OU so this may be a good year for OU despite having a mediocre-at-best team. Fortunately, unlike traitor Nebraska, we'll see you all again next year and we can settle it all over again.

As for Florida, Heathy, I don't know what the heck that was all about. I can only assume that it is an anamoly because I don't think the power has shifted in the SEC that drastically and that suddenly. Saban may be the antichrist, but I don't think he's got THAT much power. Besides, Miles still wears the (big, puffy) hat of Luckiest Coach in the Universe.

So here I just want to extend the olive branch of peace to my fellow college football fanatics, lest they think hard feelings are in order. We are still all fans of the greatest game on Earth (that the rest of world just hasn't caught onto yet) and can enjoy the fact that we've still got 3 more months of the glory that is college football. And if my hapless Sooners can stumble their way into a conference championship and possible shot at the national title, well, it's been done before (I'm looking at you Buckeyes of 2001). Let's get on with conference play!

oops

Rahadoum ackowledges the existence of outsiders and Powers, they just outlaw religion. If the witch is just practicing her witchcraft to herself she's probably fine. If she tries to establish a coven and start religious services, she's likely to have troubles. Clerics on the other hand are inherently tools of the gods and are therefore, outlawed for committing First Heresy. Not sure how it would work for druids, but probably something like witches--keep it to yourslef and you're probably fine.

Both parts of the Heresy of Man series will be offered at U-Con in November.

There are three parts to Heresy of Man. Though I don't know if all three will be out by Novemeber.

The soul jars were added when Vordekai was changed from his prior unique undead form to a lich, so some of those details got overlooked. I would say put some used soul jars in the feasting chamber and assume that he just used the occulus again when they emerged for the feast but Willas made his save and faked it or something like that.

Seeing this scenario reminded me of something I've pondered before. The powers that be of Rahadoum do not allow divine healing, but how do they feel about bardic healing? A bard's powers are arcane in nature. You'd think bards would be in demand in the Nation of Man.

I know it's probably been discussed in great length before, just sayin.

Bards are cool with the folk of Rahadoum. In fact they're quite popular for that special healing ability that they bring to the table.

It is a little known fact, but at the beginning of the Age of Darkness, it was a single green slime that sank Azlant rather than Earthfall itself.

So as prolific as he is able to be, this explains that he is not super prolific.

That's a fact, Jack...er, Robert. I am actually a fairly slow writer unless I really get my muse on (which does happen occasionally).

Ok, I am now one of your PDF subscribers.

Can I just ask, are there any changes that you would recommend to the modules for a party of 8 characters?

Cheers

Richard

Add more monsters. :-)

Seriously, I'd probably increase the CR of each enconter by 1 or 2 to make up for the addiitonal characters.

Alternately, in my playtests I often had 8-10 players. So anytime I had more than 6 I gave the monsters max hp. When I had 8 or more, I just doubled their current hp.

Other than that, I had not planned any particular allowances for more than 6 players, though I can tell you it still works when you start adding hp like that.

Thought it sounded familiar... :-)