Falling Behind in Canada - What About The Prince of Red Hand?

[Cernunos]

Wow - I've only just received issue 132 (last week) and posts are already up about 133!

I haven't seen many posts about 131's Prince of Red Hand.

I have always wanted to see a higher level adventure that could challenge PC's in a Non Combat capacity. I was quite enthralled with this adventure. It had a bit of a "creepy circus" atmosphere to it (kind of a Jim Rose Circus Side Show feel with Prince Zeech as the ring leader and Lashona as some kind of star attraction) as well as dreamy quality. The dreamy quality is that surreal feeling that you’re stuck in a dangerous situation without a lot of control. Personally I really liked it but I think my players are unprepared for it due to lack of experience with this kind of game.

Two questions:

What do others think of this adventure; and,

What other experiences have you had or designed for a game that is non combat oriented?

I’d love to incorporate some of your suggestions into my AoW campaign prior to The Prince of Red Hand (plenty of time – my players are still trying to finish the Whispering Cairn) to give my players a bit of a background and some experience to gaming in a socio/political/intrigue capacity.

Cheers,
C.

[windnight]

I'd suggest beginning to forshadow Alhaster at some point in the near future. i've just begun doing so in my campain (we're currently on 3foe). I decided, once I read the Prince of Redhand, that it would be easier to get my characters to accept the realities of Alhaster if I'd already forced the to work with evil once or twice. getting my players into the frame of mind which says "roleplay, don't kill on sight" is probably going to be the most difficult part of this whole adventure.

I'm really looking forward to it...

[hanexs]

Yeah, I am definetley going to have a refined dinner encounter in greyhawk (during the champions adventure) to get my pcs ready for this...

[Greg A. Vaughan]

Having been in on the playtest of this, I must admit that it was a blast. We were a bit worried of the lack of combat for us barbaric low Int player types, but then came the TPK...and the second TPK...and then the dinner party where we all got poisoned and voila, TPK.

Okay, so it's been toned down (a lot), but we still found it a lot of fun. I actually ran a paladin of Heironeous and enjoyed riding that line of how much I could say or do before it was too much and the Angels decided to snuff me out. Even if your players are less roleplay oriented, you can downplay that aspect basically all the way up until the dinner. And if they really like combat...well you can get a lot more combat than you bargained for in a real hurry by doing or saying the wrong thing.

[Richard Pett]

Aha!

if you search on Prince of Redhand through these messageboards you'll see quite a few ideas about running the adventure, with some suggestions from Erik and co about handling Lashonna and the altogether reasonable, level-headed and just Prince Zeech.

Have fun with it.

Rich

PS - I've just discovered that if you put 'awful' and 'vaughan' in on the search you also get two results arf arf arf.

Oh wait, hang on he's being nice for once, erm...I'll remove that bit...

...nope, it's too good a chance to mention it.

[Hagen]

My two favourite adventures for Age of Worms so far have been "The Champon's Belt" and "The Prince of Redhand". Great stuff. Giving out XP for non-combat encounters at high level is quite refreshing.

I have yet to start AoW since we're still playing Shackled City. I was thinking a good way of introducing Alhaster early in the campaign would be to have one of the PC's be a Redhander. Since Redhand seceded from the Shield Lands 20 years ago during the Greyhawk Wars, the player's parents could have fled Redhand shortly after his birth to find a better life in Greyhawk. Unable to find work in the Free City due to the huge numbers of refugees, they relocated to the only place where work was available: Diamond Lake. To make that character's background even more depressing, suggest that one of his parents was killed by a black dragon named Ilthane.

[Richard Pett]

Hagen wrote:

My two favourite adventures for Age of Worms so far have been "The Champon's Belt" and "The Prince of Redhand". Great stuff. Giving out XP for non-combat encounters at high level is quite refreshing.

I have yet to start AoW since we're still playing Shackled City. I was thinking a good way of introducing Alhaster early in the campaign would be to have one of the PC's be a Redhander. Since Redhand seceded from the Shield Lands 20 years ago during the Greyhawk Wars, the player's parents could have fled Redhand shortly after his birth to find a better life in Greyhawk. Unable to find work in the Free City due to the huge numbers of refugees, they relocated to the only place where work was available: Diamond Lake. To make that character's background even more depressing, suggest that one of his parents was killed by a black dragon named Ilthane.

That's a really brilliant idea Hagen and should greatly add to the playing experience. Please let me know how it goes.

Rich

[Peruhain of Brithondy]

One of my PCs is a bard--so I included in his background that when he was an apprentice, he and his master were wandering in the northern part of the County of Urnst when they were captured by bandit raiders flying a banner with a bloody hand on it. He's going to meet his former master in Zeech's palace--sans mains. It seems Prince Zeech's new wife was jealous of the attention Zeech showered on his entertaining lutenist, and demanded the poor fellow's hands as a birthday present. Now he can sing, but not strum his lute. It will be interesting to see what kind of reaction this draws. . .