Hello all. Considering buying 121 and I want to know more about the whole mag as a package, as well as some specifics about the Styes. I mainly want to see how to make a good murder mystery type adventure, which is why the Styes appeals to me. To those of you that have it, what do you think?
Also, I am interested in the FR adventure that month. How good is that?
Thanks.
WaterdhavianFlapjack
Well....time for me to pay you back for the advice you gave me about Iron Heroes!!
I'm currently running my players through the "Styes." You can check out the Farewell2kings campaign Greyhawk CY 576 campaign thread over at the campaign log portion of the Paizo messageboards.
The whole issue is excellent, one of Dungeon's best. I've already run my players through "Fiend's Embrace" which is swampy, dark, demonic goodness with an evil adventuring party that can become major villains if any of them should escape (and all of them did escape when my party defeated them, but had to make a "deal" with them anyway, he he). I adapted Fiend's Embrace to 7th level, but I'm running the Styes straight up. The Styes is a very unique setting, kind of what New Orleans might look like right now, with all the toxic caked mud and vast tracts of destroyed buildings. I'm not going to go into the disease infested corruption comparison, but let's just say the Styes has that.
Most excellent adventure--I had put the Styes into my campaign long before I ran the party through the adventure. The city council of the Styes is going to become a major faction in my campaign.
Great stuff. I haven't read Skip Williams' adventure yet, but he has a pretty solid track record, you know?
Thanks, farewell2kings. "All debts have now been paid".
I'll make sure I pick up the lone remaining copy at my FLGS ASAP!
WaterdhavianFlapjack
I'll concur that the Styes is a wonderful adventure. The mood that gets set is spectacular, the story is excellent, and the plot is fun. My players are really creeped out by out. :D
I really like "The Styes"- A fun mystery, interesting foes, great atmosphere. Eventually I intend to use it in my Freeport campaign, changing the villains into cultists of the Unspeakable One. It will be a while though, the party is currently 3rd - 4th level, making their way through "Terror in Freeport."
I made some changes as well. I changed Tharizdun to Scahrossar, because the main bad guys in my campaign have been a cult dedicated to her. (she can be found in Book of Vile Darkness - but basically, she's Olidammara's evil sister and my players are all associated with a temple of Olidammara in one way or another).
SPOILER ALERT!!!
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I've also replaced the Kraken and aboleths at the end; I did so for a few reasons. First, my group is a bit low powered and I didn't think they could survive the encounter without me pulling a lot of punches. Second, I wanted a more direct attack on the cult of Scahrossar as the closure to this part of the campaign. So bascially, I'm going to keep the temple of Tharizdun - including access to the water. I'll run a big battle against the cult, and allow the PCs to finish what they need to (they're here in the Styes to recover a kidnapped young girl). I'll hint at foul creatures from the sea being involved, and if the PCs want to explore that hook later, I'll use the ending that's in the adventure at that point.
One last question; How easily adaptable to FR and Eberron?
Thanks.
WaterdhavianFlapjack
Creative Director
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One last question; How easily adaptable to FR and Eberron?
Thanks.
WaterdhavianFlapjack
See... the thing is this. If it's in D&D, it's in Forgotten Realms or Eberron.
If we publish an adventure for "Any Setting" it's going to be easy to adapt to Forgotten Realms or Eberron.
By "adapt," I mean run the adventure in one of those settings and have it not seem out of place. I do NOT mean going through an adventure and replacing all proper nouns for all NPCs, towns, street names, etc. That level of adaptation is as difficult as you want to make it.
One last question; How easily adaptable to FR and Eberron?
Thanks.
WaterdhavianFlapjack
Aha!
thanks for the kind words everyone, I must say I loved Fiends Embrace too - it has a great isolated fear about it - a brilliant adventure.
Styes has a little note at the start about locations in FR and Eberron - as an industrial sort of adventure it should work very well in Eberron.
The scary thing I can't work out about this post is that it vanished from the boards for a few days or so - I think it was either Steve Greer's demonic xorn familiar or Councilman Thornwell trying to protect his identity.
We'll see if it happens again...
Rich
I love Councilman Thorn--he's going to play a major role in my campaign. Is the Disciple of Asmodeus template in the BOVD?
I love Councilman Thorn--he's going to play a major role in my campaign. Is the Disciple of Asmodeus template in the BOVD?
Yep - its a great class - page 57,
glad you like him! Thornwell is still very much in the background of the styes campaign at present where the PCs, having started the campaign with nooses about their necks have escaped from the Styes Prison and are busy waiting with terror for every full moon when the moon rats emerge.
BOVD is a brilliant book, but I'm waiting with bated breath for Heroes of Horror.
Rich
Last night was the 2nd session using "The Styes" adventure, and it was awesome. My group has been playing monthly for almost 4 years, and this was the best session we've had in a long time. We started at 1:30pm, and we didn't stop till past 11pm. No pizza breaks, nobody left early, apologies to S.O.s were made. Nobody wanted to stop till they had defeated Councillor Dory!
The players loved the atmosphere, and the battle on the crane platform was a big hit. The golem room received a "this is a deathtrap!" comment. The walkway with the assassin in the pool got a "whoever wrote this is just plain evil!". Someone even said, "this reminds me of 'Predido Street Station'." That's when I knew it was working...
I rarely use published adventures, and just steal locations or NPCs from Dungeon Magazine. "The Styes" I used pretty much as written (I converted it to the Scarred Lands), and it worked just great.
Kudos to you, Mr. Pett. Can't wait for next month when they assault the Temple of Tharizadun (Gulaben)!
Thanks, everyone. I got it and read through it, and must say that I am very impressed with the Styes and the mag as a whole. Kudos to you, Richard!!
I can't wait to run it!
WaterdhavianFlapjack
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I totally agree with the praise for 'The Styes' and the issue in general.
Its hard to imagine a better issue of Dungeon.
@R. Pett: So you play a whole campaign located in 'The Styes'?
Sounds fun to me. I really liked the mood you created in the adventure.
Asylums, mad cults, a degenerated city on the brink of beeing swallowed by the sea.
This is exactly the stuff great adventures are made of...
Hello everyone,
thanks again for the kind words, and I hope you'll like the next adventure as much - the Styes was great fun to write despite being such a grim place!
I use the Styes campaign setting to playtest some things that may make it into submissions if they work well enough (and because the maps and artwork were so good in the adventure) and maybe some time in the future I'll be able to take you back to the Styes. Its really nice to see it runs well, and mentioning it had a feel of Perdido Street Station is great as that was my inspiration for this adventure - China Mieville is a dazzlngly good writer and one of my absolute favourites. I also agree that the other adventures in the magazine were brilliant although I have to be careful not to compliment Steve Greer too much or he'll make me do all the work on a submission we're playing about with at the moment.
And Joshwitz, hope your players survive the temple.
Rich
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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The whole issue is excellent, one of Dungeon's best. I've already run my players through "Fiend's Embrace" which is swampy, dark, demonic goodness with an evil adventuring party that can become major villains if any of them should escape (and all of them did escape when my party defeated them, but had to make a "deal" with them anyway, he he). I adapted Fiend's Embrace to 7th level, but I'm running the Styes straight up. The Styes is a very unique setting, kind of what New Orleans might look like right now, with all the toxic caked mud and vast tracts of destroyed buildings. I'm not going to go into the disease infested corruption comparison, but let's just say the Styes has that.
Very tangential, but...
I couldn't quite get into Fiend's Embrace for a very silly reason. The main dungeon, if I remember correctly, is Coldstone Keep. Here in southern CA, Coldstone is a chain of ice cream parlors that mixes candy bars and such with ice cream. So every time I read through the adventure, I can't help but think about the magical chocolatey treasures that await the party.
Irrationally,
Sebastian
My players finally finished "The Styes" last gaming session. They approached the underwater church from the ocean side and used some very good tactics to win the fight. The Whisperer would have escaped, though, had the party's barbarian not used a "hero point" to deal a critical hit at the end.
Very enjoyable stuff. I had actually read the adventure when the magazine first came out and immediately placed "The Styes" into my campaign, because I knew that even if I didn't run the adventure, I was sure as heck going to use the setting somehow, because it was so cool.
I spent ages wondering about that church setting at the end and whether I should have used it to more dramatic effect by having bells echoing underwater or graves being disturbed and bodies floating about.
Rich
The whole issue is excellent, one of Dungeon's best. I've already run my players through "Fiend's Embrace" which is swampy, dark, demonic goodness with an evil adventuring party that can become major villains if any of them should escape (and all of them did escape when my party defeated them, but had to make a "deal" with them anyway, he he). I adapted Fiend's Embrace to 7th level, but I'm running the Styes straight up. The Styes is a very unique setting, kind of what New Orleans might look like right now, with all the toxic caked mud and vast tracts of destroyed buildings. I'm not going to go into the disease infested corruption comparison, but let's just say the Styes has that.
Very tangential, but...
I couldn't quite get into Fiend's Embrace for a very silly reason. The main dungeon, if I remember correctly, is Coldstone Keep. Here in southern CA, Coldstone is a chain of ice cream parlors that mixes candy bars and such with ice cream. So every time I read through the adventure, I can't help but think about the magical chocolatey treasures that await the party.
Irrationally,
Sebastian
I'm sure Mr Greer will see the funny side of that Sebastian!
LOL. We have the Coldstone chain here in Las Vegas, too. I'm the proud inventor of Choco-ba-nickers flavor ice cream at my nearby Coldstone (don't ask). Sebastian, perhaps if you think of the keep in its separate words... Cold - Stones. Maybe that will help your irrational mind ;)
One of the pieces of a project I'm currently involved in writing has a place named Shambala'na, but I keep thinking Sha-na-na and Bowzer if that make you feel any better.
LOL. We have the Coldstone chain here in Las Vegas, too.
I chuckled when I read "Cold Stone" in the adventure, and knew EXACTLY where Steve got the name from. MMMmmmm.....Cold Stone.....
This is one of my favorite issues of all time from Dungeon.
The Styes are part of an exsisting city correct? (sorry, don't have access to my issue at the moment). If so, how hard would it be to connect the Styes to Freeport, as in replace Scurvytown. I only just got the Freeport tirlogy and don't have much info on the town itself just yet. I'm looking to do a gritty pirate adventure for a new player of my groups who LOVES pirates. The Styes has the perfect dark cultish atmosphere to go along with what I've read from the Freeport adventures. Excelent writing Mr. Pett.
I made the Styes the only surviving portion of a once larger city. You really don't have to make it a portion of an existing city, it can stand on its own. My players love the low prices on alchemy, although the two lady rangers are getting a little enviro-whacko on me and may leave soon to go hug trees or something.
Coldstone Keep reminded me of some place where your private parts would get a bit chilly, not the ice cream parlor. They have opened one just down the road from my house, so I might just have to see if Shplizzmak is working the counter.
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To answer an earlier question, I think this is a great port to Eberron. (I can't speak for the Forgotten Realms, not being a player or fan of it.)
The Styes could be placed as a district of the following cities: Stormhome (in Aundair), Regalport (in the Lhazaar Principalities), Newthrone (in Q'barra), Trolanport (in Zilargo), or Stormreach (in Xen'drik). My suggestion would be Regalport - the strong maritime tradition of the Lhazaar Principalities, combined with the more chaotic governance could easily lead to an urban blight like the Styes springing up. In this interpretation, Hopene'er Asylum becomes a House Jorasco establishment. Master Refrum becomes a priest of Onatar (male human expert 5).
SPOILER SPACE
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In Eberron, the aboleths are contemporaries of the Lords of Dust (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebee/20050704a). Rather than a plot involving a Greyhawkian deity, the aboleth has discovered something like a unique aberrant dragonmark on the kraken. Believing this ties it to the Draconic Prophecy, Sgothgah is planning on using the creature once it fully matures to take its revenge on dragonkind. The other aboleths are its allies and assistants, guarding the kraken until it is fully mature. Mr. Dory became part of a Cult of the Dragon Below, created by Sgothgah to forward his designs. No other statistics need to change.
I think the Mad Arab just showed a perfect example on how adaptable many good Dungeon adventures are, even with just a few sentences to address the specifics of your particular campaign world.
Oh no....I'm going "fanboy" again according to some constant critics of Paizo...can't have that.
"Ahemm.....yes, well this is not an adventure that I can use in my campaign, so I wish Dungeon would publish more Eberron adventures, 'cuz anything that even mentions Greyhawk or FR can't possibly be used anywhere else."
PS: I know I'm exaggerating, I apologize in advance--many of you constant critics have made some good points. I'm just having fun, don't sue me.
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I'm pointing out how it can be done. However, the adventure as written lacks some defining elements of Eberron, like warforged/shifters/changelings/kalashtar, the lightning rail (not a problem with Regalport since it's not on the line), and so on. Does it suffer for their absence? Not at all, I like the adventure quite a bit. However, if I ran a campaign arc with fifteen-twenty adventures, and not a single one of them had any of the aforementioned "Eberron elements," it would be a jarring note to my players. These elements have their place in adventures; without Eberron specific adventures, I'm forced to write them in. "You can always do that anyway," you say. Ah, yes, but that's why I buy Dungeon magazine - so I don't have to.
In Eberron, the aboleths are contemporaries of the Lords of Dust (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebee/20050704a). Rather than a plot involving a Greyhawkian deity, the aboleth has discovered something like a unique aberrant dragonmark on the kraken. Believing this ties it to the Draconic Prophecy, Sgothgah is planning on using the creature once it fully matures to take its revenge on dragonkind. The other aboleths are its allies and assistants, guarding the kraken until it is fully mature. Mr. Dory became part of a Cult of the Dragon Below, created by Sgothgah to forward his designs. No other statistics need to change.
*
*That is a very cool idea - I wish I'd thought of it...
Rich
When I ran the Styes, I ran it in Eberron, putting it as a slum in the Karrn city of Karrlakton. The Styes' level of degeneracy and decay was attributed to the proximity of the Mournland across the bay, and the murders were tied to aboleths manipulating cultists of the Dragon Below.
Unfortunately, I didn't get to run the majority of the module - the party pulled out after the first act. Due to poor percentile rolls with an eternal wand of fireball, the warforged ended up destroying the entire alchemical warehouse, and in the battle to capture Dory, a party member was slain. The party took Dory's head and left town, disgusted with the whole ordeal.
Of course, things will get a bit dangerous for Karrnath once that giant dragonmarked kraken bursts out of the harbor...