dyskko's page

It's a year later, are you still asking this question?

The short answer is, "I want to."

Anyone done any part of this task? Can you share? In return I can give you my conversion parts as they happen.

I've been playing 5th edition the last year. From 2010 to 2010, I DMed a weekly 3.5 and Shackled City game. This storyline is so full I want to relive it. I'm going to start teaching some new players and thought I'd see what I could come up with.

My party is about to undertake the Secrets of the Soul Pillars. Does anyone have a diary for Fetor? I'm trying to give my party more information about the composition and dealings of the Cagewrights than is available in the letter to Embril.

I don't have a diary for Fetor. But I do have a series of letters exchanged between Fetor and Embril. Give me an email an I can send them.

We've been playing the Shackled City for 1.5 years now, and we were all beginners when we started. As the beginner DM for this crew, it was definitely a lot of work when I started. But we've had a lot of fun, and we have 5 of the original 6 players along with two new steady players. We play once a week for a few hours.

As far as level progression goes, we've run a little behind. I don't know if it is because our group has tended on the large side. And we haven't had many character deaths. My inexperience playing all the monsters has probably worked to the PC's advantage. Since I don't know all the tricks the monsters have up their sleeves, I am probably not as ruthless as I could be.

Currently, the PC's are level 12 and we are in Chapters 8 and 9. I didn't want an entire series of rescue scenarios so I've been sprinkling the encounters from chapter 9 throughout chapters 7 and 8.

Also, we've had a few side trips. We fought some undead in Kingfisher Hollow, looked for the Mayor in Sasserine, and one of the characters ran for Mayor, then tried to reanimate all the statues in the garden.

It's been great. You can read all about it here: Dungeon Divas

I figured the hags would have been trying to figure it out as well at some point in history. So with the quarterstaff /alakast/ I included some crumpled up notes. These notes included a rubbing of the silver plate, just the numerical portion, and a bunch of lists of colors in various orders. Next to the lists, I wrote names of people and observations, like the hags were scientists watching a rat solve a maze "subject becomes distressed and bangs on the wall repeatedly." Then I crossed out the ones that didn't work. I ripped up the pages, crumpled them up and gave them to the players.

Another thing I did was cut up pieces of construction paper. When a character was in a room of a particular color, I put the mini on that color. As they moved from room to room, I placed a trail of papers.

Some players put the notes together and had fun with that. One player recognized the numbers, but didn't know what it meant. Some players tried a random walk through the maze. The players with the notes called hints "from red, don't go to green, that didn't work for Pywicket..." Eventually the table was covered with colored papers. When the color pattern was discovered, the players back-solved to understand the numerical notations and how it related to the floor.

It took about 30 minutes. And it never occurred to them to use magic.

@Ridtrouble - maybe one player can run across some crumpled notes next to a skeleton of a failed maze traveler? (search check!) And the colored papers worked out well. When a player got to a color another player had been in, they could see the previous choices that hadn't worked. If you are clever and lucky, you can even have the papers connect so they step onto a paper someone else used. Then they can travel through it like a maze.

Good luck!

The numbers and the statues are described (those which are in the manor at least)...

Yes, I feel like I've read descriptions before, but now I'm not able to find them. Is it in the original magazines or in the hardcover? I have both, can you give me some help?

I comfortable with 40-50 missing adventurers. And some unfortunate collateral damage (Ha! Moorluck!) I figure I only need a representative sample. Surely not _all_ the adventurers have been gifted as statues, just the _most_ prolific. And, some statues have of course been fallen, broken, attacked by lichens, petrified too long (like that twist, thanks Shimrath)etc. So 10 would really be plenty.

Dwen and Imogen Stormshield were named as the disappeared parents of one kidnapped orphan in Life's Bazaar, so that was easy. As a new player, I don't have a lot of experience to draw from, so if anyone has a hero they'd like to volunteer for the sculpture garden, I'd appreciate it.

My group has been playing Shackled City for about a year and a half. We are currently at the beginning of Secrets of the Stone Pillars. When this campaign started, I was using PDF's of the published magazines and not the hardcover version. It was also my first time as a DM, and I'd only learned to play a few months before. This message board has been a great help to me -- though I only discovered it after playing a few chapters.

I say all this to try to set up the question at hand.

The PC's met the Mayor in the first chapter, there was a description of the Mayor's statue garden, and the information that Vhalantru had "commissioned" statues of brave heroes. My players are pretty savvy, so when the Beholder showed up at the end of Chapter One, they put this information together and have been on a quest to free what they suspect are petrified heroes.

I won't go into the details of all four of the failed attempts they've used for the past year. Suffice to say they tried several methods that were underpowered magic. Finally, last night, they were powerful enough to cast the proper spell, and released Dwem Stormshield from his stony prison.

And now the questions I post to anyone who wants to help brainstorm:

1) How many heroes are in the Mayor's garden?
2) How many years in history has this been going on?
3) What are some background ideas for the characters who have been turned to stone?
4) What will be the range of attitudes of people becoming unpetrified? How many would want to help the PC's?
5) What will be the range of attitudes of Cauldronites?

Thanks for any help.

If you want to read the history of the Dungeon Divas campaign, you can read about it here:
http://blackmoonlilith.com/divas/