Anyone else finding a lot of the Neruzavin surface encounters a bit random? The inhabitants of the sprawl are interesting feel they are a bit of a menagerie and not sure they really add to the story as written. In particular they seem somewhat avoidable and irrelevant. I’m thinking of rebuilding this part to create more of a rationale for interacting with them and a bit more of a logical sequence in what is already a very unstructured part of the adventure
1) Remove or adjust Hoshbagh - I actually like the Otyugh but I’m playing this in 5e and so the assumptions about excess magic items don’t really fit this magic item vendor well
2) Possibly reduce the inhabitants of the Snarl to Aeptolinu and either the Saffron King or the Heresy Devil
3) Make the Saffron King more of an obstacle/ gate keeper - he bars access to the star stellae and must be either bargained with, circumvented or defeated
4) I like that Aeptolinu just wanders around like Marvin the paranoid android, spouting nihilisms and potentially going psycho
5) what prevents access to the star stellae and the Speaker of the Deep? perhaps it’s just the Saffron King blocks the way
6) perhaps keep the devil, the Necronomicon fake could be good fun, but why is he just hanging around in a side corridor?
Does the community have any thoughts on 1) for a 5e lower-magic setting and the other points in general?
I’ve been prepping the end of Thrushmoor Terror and planning ahead to Dreams of the Yellow King and I’m a bit confused.
Massive spoilers follow - you have been warned!
Spoiler:
At the end of DotYK the PCs, after long and arduous adventure in the Dreamlands, learn that:
- Lowls sacrificed their minds in the oasis of the Mad Poet;
- Lowls is seeking a forgotten city called Neruzavin;
- Neruzavin is the prison of Xhamen-Dor;
- Lowls intends to free Xhamen-Dor to become his champion;
- Lowls is looking for the Necronomicon in order to complete the last leg of his journey to
Neruzavin;
- the Necronomicon is kept in the Mysterium in the Qadiran city of Katheer.
So, that’s all lovely...except they find out pretty much all of this at the end of book 2: The Thrushmoor Terrror!
How?
Well, the note from Miacknian Mun in the library at Iris Hill (F3) reveals that Lowls is looking for the Necronomicon, and where it is. The library also contains a number of books that "contain information that could help the PCs figure out more about what has happened to them and about the Count’s destination if they spend time reading through them.” These include Lowls journals that "contains the Dreamlands excursion occult ritual".
Then, in the Master Bedroom (F10) we have a "disorderly stack of handwritten notes, drafted by Lowls in the immediate aftermath of his dream journeys. The last note mentions the Mad Poet, who told the count to look for a book called the Necronomicon.” And ïn the note, Lowls mentions the PCs as his companions in this revelatory dream and says that 'the sacrifice of their minds’ put them into ‘ a fugue state, but they lived unable to remember their lives or react to outside stimuli'
A DM who hasn't forensically studied the subsequent books is likely to think this is a good place to give an exposition of the count's plans as laid out in the adventure background of Book 2, especially as it is likely - is it not - that the Count would have mentioned the forgotten city, his plans to find and release Xhamen-Dor who he has obsssessed about in order to become its champion, and the identity of the lost city finally revealed to him by the Mad Poet.
So other than a very cool adventure to while away their time as they travel along the Selen to Cassomir, what really is the point of Dreams of the Yellow King?
Hey dude, sorry! Not ignoring you, just got a lot on at the moment. I'm just tarting up my notes to send on to you - as you can imagine, most of it is in written form, and my electronic notes are less complete than I remembered! Sorry for the lack of comms, though.
Should be out of the (deadline) woods by end of next week then will send you what I've got. Thanks for the continuing interest - really appreciated.
Back to SD, we're currently playing book 6 and it's going really well. I'm really enjoying it, but also really excited to bring it all to a close - it's been a long (and fun) haul. The main reason is we're all really looking forward to starting the next AP!!
Curse of the Crimson Throne (AE), or
Strange Aeons
Jason Bulman mentioned on the product page comments that they messed up the map. It was originally submitted 90o to how it is currently displayed (hence the horizontal reference made sense); it got turned 90o counter-clockwise. They also missed off the labeling.
The layout should be:
C | F
-----
B | E
-----
A | D
with the PCs entering into room F.
The other thing that threw me for a moment was reference to the bas-relief faces in room 2 being 30 feet below the floor. The other references indicate that this should read 30 feet above the floor (on the same level as area 1)...
Thanks for a lot of the interesting ideas here. I am running my second game of this particular book and was trying to work out the motivations myself and left a bit head scratching. But a lot of the ideas you guys present work. I'm also going to add a bit that Hailin may be more directly aligned with the Drow thus connecting the WC directly to the Drow.
This is a tough book to run.
You're welcome, J-Bone.
Actually, I've just finished running Book 5 (Which I was dreading because of a lot of the comments surrounding it), and actually found it worked out really well. Pretty much none of the oft-mentioned issues arose for us, and we had a really satisfying time and conclusion to the chapter. I'll be updating my thread at some point with what happened and what I did differently to the book as written (in the end, not that much!)
Shadow in the Sky
This first book turned out pretty complicated with many, seemingly unrelated threads running (eventually) together.
A few things to mention:
- Go mad on the first night! Use props. Don’t use skill checks. I created an actual casino in my house with the different games at different tables and poker chips in different colours for badges of hell. I made a skiff board and used gem tokens as skiffs, made a working ghoullete wheel and we also had golem and bounder. My players loved it! Just as they were utterly absorbed in winning (or losing) their fortune, I kicked off the Gold Goblin Job
- Don’t forget the blot and the strange events accompanying it. I decided on an order in which I wanted them to happen (gradually increasing in intensity and weirdness, but relevant to when and where they were encountered) and then every time the PCs went out on a mission, one of the strange events would happen
- Really play up the seedy, threatening nature of Riddleport. Not lawless though – every gang has its territory and pecking order. The gendarme maintains a brutal order and everyone is fine with that if they don’t stick their noses in where they aren’t wanted
- They didn’t like Saul right from the start but each had their reason for wanting to be in the Gold Goblin so they kept their feelings to themselves and loved the whole infiltration, espionage feel of this part
- Make them hate Bojask
- I made sure to play Clegg as a very intimidating figure early on – they’d heard about him even before arriving at the Gold Goblin. He was intimidating in the event “The First Night” and I continued to build his rep when I could. This paid dividends in Book 1 and by Book 2 their hatred had won over their fear and they really wanted to prove themselves by taking Clegg down
- I made Larur Feldin a very likeable fellow who the PCs immediately warmed to. They were distraught when he vanished and after confronting Lymas Smeed they were convinced Saul was behind it and nearly kicked off the end game early! Fortunately Saul managed to convince them that Clegg was the one responsible by a mix of truth, half-truth and lies. They thought he was scum but now they really wanted to go after Clegg!
- I had to think fast and so threw in the Foam Runner encounter (see below), Saul convinced them that a better way to win was to get Clegg to make a mistake – to do that they needed to make him mad…
- Don’t forget to introduce Samaritha – Xilo was convinced she was the renegade elf or working for him/her!
- The main events and encounters played out pretty much as written – each one was great fun. Reading them in the book really doesn’t do them justice for how they played out. For instance, the Attack on the Foamrunner reads like a rather short and vanilla encounter, but it turned out to be epic...
- When they heard about the shipment, they immediately hot footed it to the docks (convinced they could black Clegg’s eye by messing with the shipment). I really wanted the PCs to get there after Braddikar Faje as I felt it would make a more interesting tactical encounter. En-route they heard a cry from a ruined house – Alston wanted to ignore it, but the others went to investigate. The ensuing rescue of two orphans (dropping a seed for St Caspieran’s Salavation) from giant centipedes in the sewer delayed them long enough for Braddikar Faje to plausibly beat them to the Foam Runner. The battle of the Foam Runner was awesome as Clegg’s men had taken up defensive positions. It ended particularly dramatically when I had a tidal surge (blot strange event) hit and wreck the dock and overturn the ship as well as depositing several disorientated and angry reefclaws and a bunyip on the dockside!
Introduction
When I read about Second Darkness, it appealed to me. Its epic plot, the grand sweep of its scope, awesome backdrops and of course a chance to play with iconic baddies, all whispered to me in that darkly seductive way that no GM can resist!
In this thread, I want to share my take on Second Darkness, which I’ve been running since April 2016 (and planning for a lot longer) using the 5th Edition ruleset of Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t intend to go too much into the conversion from 3.5 to 5th Edition, but rather outline how I handled the plot and invested my characters in this wonderful story.
I hope it will be useful for other DMs running Second Darkness or those planning to do so.
Who this thread is not for
The adventure path, following on from the legendary Rise of the Runelords and Crimson Throne had a lot to live up to in terms of quality and expectations. It has long been maligned as the poor relation of the three, criticised as severely lacking or deficient in several areas.
I don’t agree (or entirely agree) with many of these criticisms, which are to my mind as much to do with the attitude and play styles of individual GMs and their groups as inherent deficiencies in the AP. In any case, I have no wish to rehash all that here - there are plenty of threads covering such topics on these boards and I point you to those. However, running Second Darkness 8 years after its release has afforded me the benefit of many these critiques and the great advice from other GMs who have run it.
Who this thread is for
This thread is for DMs who wish to run Second Darkness and are looking for examples and maybe inspiration on what can be done with this marvelous adventure. It is my and my group’s take on things so take what you want and leave what you don’t.
- If you would like to chip in with comments, questions, or other ideas and examples of your own for the benefit for GMs coming after, please do so!
- If you want to tell me how flawed Second Darkness is, please don’t. Start your own thread.
- If you are interested in my 5e conversion, PM me. I’m not sure what is legal to post on a public forum, and can’t be bothered to find out so I’ll just keep it system neutral for now
Credits
As I alluded above, I have benefited enormously from the collated wisdom of those who post on these boards. I will shout out where I can remember the specific thread or poster who inspired me, but if I fail to do so – please forgive me! It is not my intent to claim credit for another’s ideas.
WARNING: There WILL BE SPOILERS! If you intend to play this adventure path, stop reading now.
I completely agree that the art is fantastic. Which is why the maps are so disappointing. The maps are functional, sure, and in the case of the asylum map superbly so. The issue I have is with the style and the ambience (vs. the functionality or utility or challenge, which are pretty much spot on or excellent).
Cartography in RPGs is as much artwork as it is a functional representation of the encounter space. These fall short in that regard
The locations may be mundane but the adventure is far from it. The maps should be trying/helping to evoke a sense of cosmic horror and mounting dread - rain-smeared streets, ramshackle houses, dark waters of the lake, winding streets in a creepy little fishing town where sinister forces are growing. Our protagonists, recently returned from an asylum and recovering from amnesia should find the town strangely familiar but subtly wrong - is it the place or is it them?
The witches grotto should be creepy, root tangled, mushroom festooned and crawling with vermin.
The fort map is fine but meh! It should be a blocky, brooding structure glowering on the skyline. Inside, dark shadows crawl with menace and bloodstains tell of the violence that befell its occupants
These maps are altogether far too bright, clean and clinical for my tastes.
I get the encounters is where the money's at, but why not have both? For visual learners the artwork (which is great) and the cartography are really important..
Sounds like I may be in the minority here but I feel it's a missed opportunity and hoped providing some feedback to the developers might give them a useful different perspective.
Honestly ? One of the best APs I've played (GMed).
We're just starting book 4 and having an absolute blast. With all the advice on these boards for the more problematic areas (discussed ad nauseum) you can't go far wrong.
It is true that it requires a bit/lot of work, but then so does anything worth doing. We're playing 5e rules and it's been a dream to convert, actually. The other big prep aspect for me has been because of the lack of dedicated pawns, I've been doing a lot of miniature painting! :D
I used Last breathes of Ashenport as the bridge between bk2 and 3, setting it north of Rodderick's Cove as they returned via a circuitous route from 'that' island and got caught in an unnatural storm. It was perfect. Provided a nice break from the main plot whilst continuing the theme of creepy, wired and scary. Also put even more distance between the PCs and any remaining connection to Riddleport (I'd also dealt with this by providing very strong character motivation to continue on to the Meriani)
Book 4 has been the biggest challenge (it's super epic, but very light on scripted encounters. Not too surprising given the epic scope of the setting). However this has turned into a boon as I've had to really flesh out the characters and story lines - the book provides an extremely rich setting guide and a plethora of hooks, seeds and ammunition for great NPCs and adventure locales. I'm now convinced the authors made the correct call in how to deal with this part - bravo indeed Wesley, James and James!
This process also resolved the 'big problem' with this book as the story and plot now make sense to my PCs and story and won't feel contrived or railroading in any way. I think this is now the most anticipated part of the AP for me. Well, until I give book 5 the same treatment and embark on a tour de force of Treerazor's war-torn lands!
I have been making loads of conversion and plot notes. If there's interest I'd consider sharing them via PM or Googledocs. Let me know if you are a DM and would find that helpful.
In summary, definitely go for it. It doesn't really have any more issues than most published adventures or APs and has the benefit of years of real-world playtesting and is full of wonderful characters, settings and wrapped in an epic plot. Highly recommended.
As a huge fan of Lovecraft and everything Cthulhu Mythos, I and my group have highly anticipated Strange Aeons. So much so that I decided to stump up for an adventure path subscription. As DM, I have not been disappointed so far with the adventures.
With one exception.
I was somewhat underwhelmed by the cartographic style of the asylum map of In Search of Sanity, but having just received my copy of The Thrushmoor Terror, I have to say that I'm massively disappointed with the cartography.
The maps are functional - at best - and utterly at odds with the rest of the artwork and graphic design, which is sublime and oozes theme and character. The maps are utterly devoid of character and lack ambiance to inspire the DM. The maps on page 11 look as though they've been thrown together in PowerPoint! And this from the industry star of cartography, Robert Lazzaretti himself!
Very disappointing.
I hope the quality of the cartography will improve dramatically in the next issue.
:(
Asherick "Ashe" Whiteplume has not participated in any online campaigns.
