It's meant to cause squick.
I mean, I had the player of the halfling cleric in my Runelords game go "Nope nope nope nope nope!" and flee the Graul household. :)
Most amusing. ^^
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Yeah, I'd feel pretty weird running HMM for my mom. I think you'd probably be okay with any replacement of the Graul Homestead (even if it's just giving them a bunch of quest XP for freeing Fort Rannick and moving the Black Arrows elsewhere in the adventure).
That said, I found I could get by in my group with the opposite of the old writer's axiom: Tell, don't Show. A good description of a body is always stomach-churning, but flatly saying there's a body in the room barely merits an emotional response.
Just cut out any bit of description you don't want to say outloud and you're nine-tenths of the way there. The squick isn't really central to the plot, so you don't have to be worried about changing it.
Cheers!
Landon
What is squicked? Did I miss something? Am I behind the times? Man do I feel old:(
you could do a combination of Fellnight Queen followed by The Harrowing, i'm unfamiliar with the first but The Harrowing is for ninth level and can easily be put into any campaign, and it has that alice in wonderland weirdness your mom would love! plus it being penned by Crystal Frasier pretty much every encounter has a diplomatic way around it, its really, really good!
You can skip the Graul's 100% - if you are using exp just add in a few encounters - if not then just ignore it and move on - I'd keep the encounter with the graul and the firepelt - outside of that you could put the rangers in the fort still (less help) or move them to a typical camp in a forest - without any of the squick being present.
Up to you honestly - the rest of the adventure doesn't really have the 'ew' factor.
Changing the descriptions is alright as well...
Take for instance the description for A3
(spoiler obviously - and for those who might be sensitive as well)
Eight wooden chairs with grinning bleached
skulls crowning their backs circle a monstrous
four-foot-high oak dining table covered with a
crude tablecloth of crinkly human leather. The
centerpiece of the dining table-a rotting human
head, its stringy red hair thankfully draped over its
mutilated face-serves as a gathering place for a
host of buzzing, bloated flies.
So take that and change it to the following:
This room is dark and smells horrible. Eight wooden chairs are crowned with what look like skulls. They circle a monstrous four-foot-high oak dining table covered with a tablecloth that looks like it may be animal skin - or worse. The centerpiece of the dining table is the head of a human victim - recent.
I think this gets the same 'horror' factor without being too nasty - but that's me - everyone has different tastes - if you wanted to tone it down even more you could do this:
This room is dark and smells horrible. Eight wooden chairs are arranged around a large four-foot-high oak dining table covered with a leather tablecloth. The centerpiece of the dining table is a vile abomination.
Now IMO the third only really works well if you establish *once* that they eat humans - just as a dry fact - this lets you cut *all* the nasty out of the descriptions and let peoples imaginations run with the idea, but you could leave that out as well if you want - but I think you can back off what's written until you find a comfort zone for your group if you want - it *will* take more work for you - and I'd go through and rewrite the spots into a document to reference while you play so you don't have to be creative about it on the fly.
It's kind of a grind, but you could use elements from Seven Swords of Sin as a kind of side-trip to Kaer Maga.
It wouldn't really be less work in any meaningful way, but it would be a total change of scene.
The OP asked for something NOT a re-work of HMM, but I'm going to disobey. I think substituting something else for HMM cuts off a lot of connective tissue between the chapters and loses foreshadowing of later challenges.
- Barl and his guard introduces Stone Giants as enemies
- Barl is the first really powerful true Thassilonian specialist the player's encounter
- Mokmurian's note sets up the initial hook for Book 4
- Lucrecia builds a bridge with Book 2 and establishes Lamia's as key allies of Karzoug as will be seen in Books 4 and 6.
- Kevan's treason continues a theme of betrayal and corruption that runs from Tsuto and Nualia through Aldern and Ironbriar and goes all the way to Mokmurian (who has betrayed his own people and culture) and beyond to Xaliasa and the Vekker brothers.
- the boon of Myrianna aids the party in book 6 with Svevenka
- Jakardros connects Book 3 to Book 1 via Shalelu
I assume the OP is looking for something more PG and less NC-17. So I suggest:
- Drop the Graul's (as suggested above) - definitely not PG
- Rannick is deserted and in ruins but not occupied. The lizards and specter remain and perhaps a small group of marauding ogres or other scavengers. The Kreegs didn't come to kill and eat the Black Arrows but to capture and enslave. They've taken the rangers back to man the bellows and forges.
- You'll need a expanded map of the Hook Mountain area, a map for a camp or outpost for Jaagrath and part of his crew to occupy and a much larger dungeon complex for the bulk of the ogres and Hook Mountain encounters.
- The three black arrow survivors are being held by Jaagrath and crew. Kevan is still a traitor for whom things have gone wrong. Jakadros and his men were ambushed by the ogres while searching for their compatriots.
- The main Kreeg complex is hidden and unknown even to the Black Arrows (that's why they've never taken it out.) But the nymph Myrianna knows where it is. She tasks the group with rescuing the three arrows as a test. If they succeed, she leads them to the main Kreeg lair. In this version the nymph lives, perhaps Lamatar sacrificed himself to let her escape. If they save Lamatar and the Black Arrows, she provides the boon as described.
- There the pc's have to rescue the enslaved (and weakened) Black Arrows as well as Myrianna's lover. The rangers are in multiple places in the complex so stealth will be helpful. Also, they need to thwart the hags and defeat Barl and find Mokmurian's letter.
- I assume the Skull Crossing and Black Magga encounters are fine as is and the flooding of Turtleback Ferry can happen after the defeat of the Kreegs or at any point when the pc's might retreat to Turtleback Ferry for recovery or resupply.
This approach casts the pc's as rescuers, drops the more disturbing elements and if the pc's are successful, leaves the Black Arrows somewhat functional. And dodges some screwy logic in the AP. As written, Book 3 leaves the Black Arrows obliterated with a strange reference to the Mayor of Turtleback Ferry sending a new group of rangers to occupy the fort, which begs the question: why didn't he send these rangers in the first place or along with the pc's to help with retaking Rannick?
Re-working Book 3 will take some effort but the NPC's/monsters could be used as is. And working another module into the slot will also be some effort and has the chance of being a strange and inexplicable one-off.
I have to say, this sounds like a far more satisfying and interesting version for the module than what was given.
Spoilers below the fold.
Nor does the horror go away. You have things like a barrel full of eyeballs with the Stone Giants, a headless undead giant, redcaps, and more in Book 4. Book 5 includes necromancers and the body-horror of sinspawn. And Book 6 includes a start with even more cannibalism-themed story and the need to starve yourself to even GET to Xin-Shalast.
Horror is an integral element of Runelords. It is the mortar that holds the AP together. And it may very well be part of the reason so many people enjoy this AP so much. You are HEROES here. And your enemies are not ambiguous villains. When you have monsters that eat people, you know they are bad. No if. No and. No but. Just monsters that must be killed.
While you can tone down the horror... to try and cut out an entire book of the AP ultimately cripples Runelords. By the end of Book 3, your group has a firm idea that events at Turtleback Ferry are part of a larger plot. With this, the group hopefully no longer needs a bribe or to be sent on a mission. Instead, they are seeking the villain behind this... starting with Barl, going on with Mokmurian, and finally HIS master, Karzoug.
You're not cutting a branch by eliminating book 3. You're cutting the trunk itself. The story loses an essential element by substituting something else.