I happen to have copies of these sandboxy, old-school quality dungeon crawls from Frog God Games. I'd like to run them on the forums, if there's interest for it.
The first adventure is an excersize in spelunking and evil frogs, while the second features the adventurers delving into the ruins of evil Minas Tirith.
There's also fluff blurbs from both adventures here, which are longwinded as all getout.
Gate at the founding of that great city that still stands today. The priestly
followers of these noble gods erected smaller duplicates of the twin
temples in a small, secluded valley to the north of the city, adjacent to a
lake of crystalline clarity. This valley became known as the Valley of the
Shrines. In the nearby hills they also carved burial halls to house their
fallen heroes and worshipers. For years the worship of Thyr and Muir
thrived, producing heroes and paladins of legend, some of whom are
entombed in the burial halls.
But new gods came, replacing the older gods. And the worship of Thyr
and Muir in the secluded valley — both demanding deities — waned in
favor of the more liberal gods of song, craft and commerce in the city of
Bard’s Gate. Unable to maintain both the twin temples in Bard’s Gate and
the complex in the Valley of the Shrines, the priests of Thyr and Muir
sealed the northern shrines in the valley and returned their worship to
the temples in the city. Abandoned, the burial halls still remained sacred
places, and small groups of pilgrims continued to make treks to the sealed
temples to pay respect to their fallen predecessors and to peer into the
crystalline lake.
As the years passed, the shrines in the northern valley increasingly fell
to disuse and ruin. Only a handful of devoted priests, led by the high priest
Abysthor, were left to continue the elaborate rituals of their gods. Even the
great twin temples in Bard’s Gate began to deteriorate. Despite Abysthor’s
devotion, his temple and the worship of his gods in general waned. In his
final years, Abysthor spent many hours in the main temple in Bard’s Gate
in communion with his deity. Declaring he had received a great vision, he
traveled alone — aged and infirm — to the Valley of the Shrines, claiming
he would return soon and that the glory of Thyr and Muir would be
restored. Abysthor never returned. Some said he had gone there to die and
had done so alone because no other priest could cast the spells necessary
to consecrate him properly. Many groups of priests followed after him,
though none could brave the corruption that had infested the burial halls
since they had been abandoned.
Abysthor’s failed quest was taken as a sign of decline. It has been some
twenty years since Abysthor disappeared. Only a handful of priests remain
in the temples in Bard’s Gate, their cavernous temples falling to disuse,
bereft of worshipers.
disappearing into purple hills in the hazy distance. The mighty gates fi xed
in that wall rarely open anymore. On the few occasions when the north
gates do open to allow entrance to the occasional merchant caravan or
especially daring traveler, they reveal a wide road, paved with great stone
fl ags forming a smooth and level traveling surface striking due north
for the hills. However, closer inspection reveals the signs of a lack of
maintenance, and after a few miles the road deteriorates into little more
than a wide dirt track, overgrown with weeds and with only the occasional
stone paver visible in the hard soil. It obviously sees little travel and even
less care.
Few stand atop Bard’s Gate’s north wall and gaze out upon that hazy
vista or care to think about what lies beyond those distant highlands.
Fewer still are brave or foolish enough to make the journey in that
direction. Bard’s Gate relies on its commerce from other roads in other
directions and pays no mind to the north, for to the north, beyond the
village of Taverlan and the distant purple hills and across many leagues,
lies the reminder of one of the most tragic moments in the history of the
civilized kingdoms. To those who even care to remember, the north gate
leads only to bad memories or mournful legend. To the rest it leads to
where only madmen would dare to go—the ruined city of Tsar and the
great Desolation that surrounds it.
Tsar, the great temple-city to the Demon Prince of the Undead, stood for
centuries as a bastion of evil and hate. Foul beings of all kinds fl ocked to
its mighty walls and found succor and purpose within. At its heart stood
the great Citadel of Orcus, the black heart of Orcus worship on earth.
Countless evils were perpetuated in those corrupt precincts, and equally
countless wicked plots were hatched and carried out therein.
Finally the goodly kingdoms could stand the presence of this festering
boil in their midst no longer. The churches of Thyr and Muir led a
delegation of good and neutral faiths to Graeltor, the last overking. Only
with the backing of the nations’ secular armies would the holy churches
be able to erase such a blight. In his last major pronouncement before the
overthrow and fracturing of the kingdoms into the independent nations
they are today, Overking Graeltor called for a mighty crusade to tear down
the walls of Tsar and forever end the presence of Orcus worship in the
world.
This crusader army, raised from all nations and almost every nonevil
faith, became known as the Army of Light and marched for Tsar.
In command of this army Graeltor placed his most trusted advisor, the
archmage Zelkor. Supported by innumerable knight commanders,
wizards, church patriarchs and scores of heroes of renown, Zelkor quickly
advanced his army from its staging ground of Bard’s Gate, through Tsar’s
outermost defensive positions and into the great plain that surrounded
the temple-city itself. Flush with their many quick victories, the Army of
Light suddenly found arrayed against itself seemingly endless legions of
every sort of vile warrior-race and fell outsider imaginable called up from
all over the multiverse and lining the battlements and fields before their
redoubt—one of the greatest fortresses and citadels ever erected in that
time. The beginnings of doubt seeped into the ranks of the Army of Light.
However, hope was not lost as the heavens opened up and flight upon
flight of angels and celestial beings descended from on high to swell the
ranks of the Army of Light. With grim determination in both camps, battle
was joined on the plain before the gates of Tsar. The war raged for over a
year, the Army of Light advancing to the very foot of the walls and then
being pushed back by a new surge of demonic power. The disciples of
Orcus led by the Grand Cornu, Orcus’s single highest-ranking priest on
the mortal planes, threw every vile attack they could at the Army of Light
in defense of their city. Rains of horrific fire and acid fell from the skies
or belched from fissures in the ground, great constructs crushed their foes
before them, terrible clouds of poisonous gas choked entire regiments, and
heretofore unknown plagues swept through the troops causing thousands
of horrible deaths among the Army of Light. Nevertheless the forces of
good persevered and fought on.
Finally, though the battle seemed no closer to victory, the fates seemed
to smile on the Army of Light. Unexpectedly the city fell. In a single night
the entire city virtually emptied of defenders as they all were magically
transported to a point several miles outside the city’s walls, complete with
baggage train and mounts for many. The magical expenditure necessary
to complete this miraculous maneuver cost the Grand Cornu his very life
in sacrifice to Orcus, but the legions of the demon prince had broken free
from the Army of Light’s cordon. They immediately took flight before the
stunned Army of Light, heading south.
Zelkor and his fellow commanders were immediately suspicious of this
sudden retreat but could not afford to allow the combined followers of
Orcus concentrated in one place to escape and spread their insidious evil
again. A cursory sweep of the city by scouts proved that the withdrawal
was no ruse, so Zelkor left one of his most powerful knights, the paladin
Lord Bishu, with a company of knights to secure the citadel and hold it
until the Army of Light could return and properly destroy it. Then, still
with a seed of doubt niggling in his mind, Zelkor ordered the Army of
Light in pursuit of the fleeing legions.
The tale of that long pursuit is an epic in and of itself. Finally the Army
of Light cornered the forces of darkness in a forest near a rugged coastline.
In anticipation of a great victory, the forest was prematurely named the
Forest of Hope. The naming proved to be a cruel irony, for in the forest
the followers of Orcus had been preparing a great trap for years in case
just such an occasion ever arose. Both armies disappeared into the forest.
Neither ever emerged. The Army of Light was lost to a man.
The shock of the loss of so many heroes, nobles, and leaders of renown
reverberated throughout the kingdoms. The overking was overthrown in
the unrest that followed. Minor wars erupted as new factions took over
old power bases bereft of their leadership. When all was done and a
semblance of peace returned, the lands looked much more like they do
today. Some said the loss of so many was worth it for the eradication of
the foul cult of Orcus. Others said it had been a scheme concocted by the
demon prince all along to destroy his most powerful enemies and sow
hate and dissension throughout the civilized nations. Years later when a
terrible graveyard and thriving dungeon complex devoted to Orcus was
discovered in the Forest of Hope, popular opinion agreed with the latter
theory. It seemed Orcus had not been eradicated after all, just relocated,
and once again his insidious evil began to spread throughout the lands.
For the past century some attention has been turned to delving into the
so-called Dungeon of Graves and rooting out the evil now entrenched there.
However, what remained of the temple-city
of Tsar was a vast, abandoned ruin surrounded by miles and miles of
poisoned and scarred wasteland left behind by the battling armies. It was
all but forgotten as a bad memory of despair with no value save as an
eyesore and wilderness home for strange and fearsome beasts that moved
into the desolate area. The knights of Lord Bishu, left behind at Tsar, were
likewise forgotten as they, too, were never heard from again. In the wake
of the great tragedy at the Forest of Hope, no one thought to check into
the ruins themselves, and all who knew about this relatively small group
that had been sent to the city had perished in Orcus’s trap. The people of
the civilized nations went on with their lives with, perhaps, a little less
hope and optimism than before. Tsar was forgotten, and the land around it
shunned and remembered only as the Desolation.
While the rest of the world looked southwards for the future, some
few remembered the distant exotic markets of the far north. Those brave
or foolish enough to try reopened the trade road that passed through
the Desolation to once again reach those far lands. Those that survived
such treks and were able to trade the rare items they brought back made
fortunes, but most who attempted the dangerous passage died—lost to the
hazards of the Desolation. Eventually a small settlement of cutthroats and
the worst kind of profiteering entrepreneurs sprang up on the southern
fringe of the Desolation. This hole-in-the-wall known simply as the Camp
serves as a staging ground for travelers to hire mercenary guards or fast
mounts for the perilous run through the Desolation. Likewise it serves
as a point of relative safety for those few managing to make it through
from the north with or without goods in tow, often with denizens of the
Desolation in hot pursuit. There is little to this unruly, fringe settlement,
and many meet their fates on its dirty streets without ever making it to
the Desolation. Regardless, it manages to just barely eke out an existence
serving as a stopping point for those few travelers who dare to make the
run.
Now no one but these miscreants and fortune-seekers pay any attention
to the area and then only so they can pass through the Desolation as quickly
and safely as possible. The temple-city’s ruins are universally avoided
and little thought of. Why would anyone wish to go to almost certain
death? What could still exist in the unknown holes and broken towers
of Orcus’s greatest earthly bastion? What could lie undisturbed, awaiting
some possibly preordained time to awake in the ruins of slumbering Tsar?
I'll need at least six people to do this, and given the nature of the campaign, I need people who're cool with dying and making up new characters from time to time.
Hence the interest check. If people want to play this, I'll DM.
challenging dungeon crawls where the challenge is to see how few times I could die. I'm in. Do you want us to write up good backstories, or would you rather not have us waste our time with it considering the nature of the dungeon?
Backstories and roleplay are never a waste of time.
If you provide plothooks in your backstories (rivaling adventures, siblings being held captive in the dungeon, a spirit telling you to go on a quest) I will change the dungeons to accomodate them. Not perhaps exactly as you planned, but I'll have something in there.
Slumbering Tsar sounds amazing, I'd be interested. What level do these start at?
I'm currently thinking I'll run them back to back, starting with the Tomb.
The Tomb of Abysthor goes from level 2 - 7, while the Slumbering Tsar goes 7 to, possibly, 21+.
In the interest of actually getting to play the second one in a reasonable timeframe, I may split the two into seperate games, or simply ignore the Tomb adventure if there's more interest in Slumbering Tsar.
I, for one, would love to play in some Frogs stuff. XD Going as an Ethermancer would be the best, but I'm happy to work with most any build rules.
I, for one, would love to play in some Frogs stuff. XD Going as an Ethermancer would be the best, but I'm happy to work with most any build rules.
I would most likely be using paizo rules only in these, adding what's in the books themselves.
Oh well. Can't exactly fault personal preference on that sort of thing. XD Fortunately, I have plenty of other ideas for characters.
Both sound interesting to me. I love abandoned temples/shrines as a setting for adventure and dungeon crawling so Tomb of Abysthor sounds like a lot of fun to me. Plus it seems like the two campaigns could connect well and lead to one giant crazy adventure.
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Having reread the two descriptions (sheesh!) I think starting with Tomb of Abysthor would be better, if only to get a better feel for the world. I also find that shorter adventures are much more likely to get completed--assuming we don't TPK at some point :p So I'm would make a submission to either/both.
I decided to go ahead with the project. The recruitment thread can be found over here.