| Douglas Muir 406 |
Has anyone ever done a Pathfinder conversion of this old (2003) Penumbra module?
This was the journeyman effort of Rich Baker, who went on to write Eberron. It throws the PCs into a mirror universe, where magic works backwards, alignments are reversed, and races are their twisted opposites (kindly orcs, savage elves, etc.) People tend to either love or hate it; I recognize its flaws, but I still like it a lot.
"A billowing cloud of multicolored, clashing blobs of energy foams forth from your outstretched hand, surrounding the strange attackers..."
[long pause] "That's not Order's Wrath."
-- The module gives you proposed reversals for some of the most common spells, and general rules on how the backwards magic works. It can't possibly give reversals for every spell, though, so so you must be ready to improvise (you really should review a copy of the PC character sheets). My players started casting all their low-level spells to see what would happen -- fun, but taxing for me as DM!
"I cast Low-Light Vision."
"It's like putting on a very heavy pair of sunglasses."
"Ghost Sound."
"It muffles sounds in the target area, though it doesn't quite silence them."
"Okay, I cast Melf's Acid Arrow."
"Hmm... okay... you get a laser-like beam of multicolored light. Sort of like a Color Spray, but it looks more powerful." (Because evocations and summonings tend to become illusions, and vice-versa.)
"I cast Message, and start talking to the dwarf."
"Um... he doesn't hear anything. But you hear him grumbling and muttering to himself." (Reversed Message -> you hear what the target is saying.)
"Silent Image of a dragon."
"You get a real dragon, but only a teeny one." [holds hands out, perhaps a foot apart. The module specifies that illusions turn into summoned creatures of roughly appropriate level] "It immediately begins howling at the top of its lungs. BLAATT! HOOOONK!!" (Silent Image -> Real, but Really Loud, Summoned Creature.)
"I cast Dancing Lights."
"Three black blobs of stinking slime appear in midair, then splash to the ground, befouling you with a spatter of goo."
"Sheesh... okay, Unseen Servant."
"Oh. Um... you, uh..." [pause] "Okay. Back when you were an apprentice, you used to wonder if there really was such a thing as an Unseen Servant, and if so, what it really looked like if you could see it?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, now you see it."
"No way!"
"Yeah!" [quickly, before he can ask what it looks like] "But... it doesn't want to be your servant! It's the, uh, Seen Free Thing That Serves No One! It sticks its tongue at you -- at least, you think that's its tongue -- and runs away into the trees."
This sort of thing is not everyone's cup of tea (and, as noted, the adventure has some other flaws) but we liked it. Also, it builds up to a climax that consists of the PCs confronting aligment-reversed Evil Kirk versions of themselves, and who doesn't love that?
Anyway -- I'd like to run my current group through it when they gain another couple of levels. So I was just wondering (1) whether anyone here has run it lately and has any thoughts about it, and (2) whether a PFRPG conversion exists -- I can do it myself on the fly, but there's no point in duplicating effort if someone's done it already.
Doug M.