I ran "The Last breaths of Ashenport" written by Ari Marmell for my group and had a great time with the Cthulhu-esque adventure very similar to "The Shadow Over Innsmouth".
I've skimmed through this adventure before, I'll have to give it more thorough going over.Did you try any of the ambiance enhancing suggestions? How did the adventure work out overall?
Thanks for the suggestion!
I run my game at my FLGS, so I cannot modify the ambiance like the adventure suggests.
The players loved it when I finally dropped the name "Father Dagon" on them, though they did force it out of me sooner than I would have wanted.
The final battle was loads of fun, The Voice stayed in the water and would charm the Barbarian who had a low Will Defense. While the barbie was pounding on his friends, The Voice of Dagon kept to the deeper water and would use it's swim 10 to get away from anyone who got close.
Oasis of the Golden Peacock is pretty fun with some different enemies. I admit I changed some things around (as I always do with Dungeon adventures) so that the central island had an actual dungeon on it and the party wasn't necessarily at odds with the main bad guys right fromt he start.
Oasis of the Golden Peacock is pretty fun with some different enemies. I admit I changed some things around (as I always do with Dungeon adventures) so that the central island had an actual dungeon on it and the party wasn't necessarily at odds with the main bad guys right fromt he start.
Author of the "Oasis of the Golden Peacock" here, I'm glad you liked it and mentioned it amongst your favorite 4e DDI adventures. So how did you adaptation go?
Oasis of the Golden Peacock is pretty fun with some different enemies. I admit I changed some things around (as I always do with Dungeon adventures) so that the central island had an actual dungeon on it and the party wasn't necessarily at odds with the main bad guys right fromt he start.Author of the "Oasis of the Golden Peacock" here, I'm glad you liked it and mentioned it amongst your favorite 4e DDI adventures. So how did you adaptation go?
We are actually finishing it up tonight. The setting is Mystara and the PCs went there (I placed the Oasis in the Alysian Desert where the Ylarum Empire is) seeking an alchemical item called Dragonfire Tar (this replaced the obelisk in the original). They are actually on an alternate timeline where memory of the 'Dawn War' and the Eternal Compact is common whereas on their home timeline there is almost nothing known. I plan to run them through Revenge of the Giants when they hit Paragon but they first have to find out why knowledge of the Dawn War doesn't seem to exist on their timeline. In actuality a chronomancer wizard is pushing them along behind the sceens as he has seen what will happen if the PCs do not stop the giants in RotG.
The Eladrin are seeking the DT to use as a 'terror weapon' in their war with the Shadowelves. Of course I kept the animosity between Hazar and Emeritt and the PCs were undecided whose side to be on for a while. I didn't have the Eladrin be quite as hostile as originally written and they had conducted no raids on outlying settlements. Voor I kept too as he was a perfect vehicle for explaining how the Obelisk was a marker for the tomb of the ancient Druids and it has since been damaged & corrupted so now it produces DT. He also teaches the PCs something about the Dawn War which is unknown in their timeline. The tomb underneath is wholly my own invention but Emeritt has beaten the PCs there and is making her way into the tomb to steal the secrets the ancient Druids took with them into it. While it seems like I changed quite a bit the primary encounters (and that awesome skill challenge with Hazar - I mean it that thing was outstanding!), NPCs and even most of their motivations remain. Its a great setting and has fun, interesting NPCs & encounters. You should be really proud of it!
We are actually finishing it up tonight. The setting is Mystara and the PCs went there (I placed the Oasis in the Alysian Desert where the Ylarum Empire is) seeking an alchemical item called Dragonfire Tar (this replaced the obelisk in the original). They are actually on an alternate timeline where memory of the 'Dawn War' and the Eternal Compact is common whereas on their home timeline there is almost nothing known. I plan to run them through Revenge of the Giants when they hit Paragon but they first have to find out why knowledge of the Dawn War doesn't seem to exist on their timeline. In actuality a chronomancer wizard is pushing them along behind the sceens as he has seen what will happen if the PCs do not stop the giants in RotG.
The Eladrin are seeking the DT to use as a 'terror weapon' in their war with the Shadowelves. Of course I kept the animosity between Hazar and Emeritt and the PCs were undecided whose side to be on for a while. I didn't have the Eladrin be quite as hostile as originally written and they had conducted no raids on outlying settlements. Voor I kept too as he was a perfect vehicle for explaining how the Obelisk was a marker for the tomb of the ancient Druids and it has since been damaged & corrupted so now it produces DT. He also teaches the PCs something about the Dawn War which is unknown in their timeline. The tomb underneath is wholly my own invention but Emeritt has beaten the PCs there and is making her way into the tomb to steal the secrets the ancient Druids took with them into it. While it seems like I changed quite a bit the primary encounters (and that awesome skill challenge with Hazar - I mean it that thing was outstanding!), NPCs and even most of their motivations remain. Its a great setting and has fun, interesting NPCs & encounters. You should be really proud of it!
Thank you for the kind words. "Oasis of the Golden Peacock" was my very first published RPG work and it had a very long gestation (if you search through the archives of this forum, you may find references to it in posts I made in 2006 and 2007 when I first submitted the query to Paizo), so its quite literally my baby! Your adaptation sounds very cool and its interesting that you added a tomb because my original concept included ruins haunted by an ornery crypt thing and lacked the obelisk (despite my love of the crypt thing NPC, the ruins were just not working out very well, so I sacrificed them early for space).
I'm glad you liked the skill challenge. Its one of the first I wrote in 4e and I spent a lot of time on it; I do have to give credit to Steve Winter, who was my editor, as he really smoothed out some of my clunkier mechanics in the second part of the skill challenge. So how did your party do?
I ran "The Last breaths of Ashenport" written by Ari Marmell for my group and had a great time with the Cthulhu-esque adventure very similar to "The Shadow Over Innsmouth".
Second this. I think I have the original seeing as it was a conversion of a Dungeon 3rd edition adventure I believe. I was also fond of one of the adventures that was in the early days of the digital initiative, something to do with a corrupt Paladin who was sending cultists on raids against border settlements and the like. I thought it was surprisingly well constructed.
Personally I think the Dungeon adventures, on average, were just better that their published mods as far as story content but I've had a long standing bias in that regard so *Shrug*
Spoiler tags, folks, please!
Thank you.
Monument of the Ancients by Brian and Matt James is probably my favourite so far. I also like Remains of the Empire and its sequel The Tyrant's Oath, both by Kolja Raven Liquette. Web of Chains is also quite good, but my bias in favour of neogi should be declared.
Monument of the Ancients by Brian and Matt James is probably my favourite so far. I also like Remains of the Empire and its sequel The Tyrant's Oath, both by Kolja Raven Liquette. Web of Chains is also quite good, but my bias in favour of neogi should be declared.
"Monument of the Ancients" and "Remains of the Empire" are some of my favorites too.
I ran "The Last breaths of Ashenport" written by Ari Marmell for my group and had a great time with the Cthulhu-esque adventure very similar to "The Shadow Over Innsmouth".
I've skimmed through this adventure before, I'll have to give it more thorough going over.
Did you try any of the ambiance enhancing suggestions? How did the adventure work out overall?
Thanks for the suggestion!
Just coming to the end of running it as a PbP here on Paizo. Brilliant adventure.