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WalkerNinja
Senior Scribe
USA
575 Posts |
 Posted - 13 May 2024 : 22:40:39
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I'm adapting this module for a West Marches style game and using the ShadowDark system for simplified play with my kids.
This module is arranged in a way that I can only describe as insane.
I've just about got the Vahlingen Graveyard put together, but there's a few items in the graveyard that feel like they need some lore.
If there's lore on these things, I'd like to know it. If there's not--help me make some!
quote:
1. There's a Vampire that's running the show. He has no name, background, or objectives.
2. There's a mausoleum of an unnamed Brave Knight who will give the party magic items to help fight the evil in the city.
3. There's another mausoleum of an unrelated unnamed Paladin that fought dragons. He's got cool stuff.
Assuming there's no lore on these guys--I think the Vampire should be a city leader from the Fall of Phlan who's trying to raise an undead army to drive out the army of monstrous humanoids who have taken over.
The Dragon Fighting Paladin--what if the Bronze Dragon possessed by Tyranthraxus was his special mount when it was a hatchling? He died before the army of monstrous humanoids came (that's how people had time to construct a mausoleum for him) and the Bronze Dragon stuck around, mourning him. Too long as it turns out--because he got possessed.
The Brave Knight--I have no clue. The way he's described, kinda sounds like a 1E Cavalier. It'd be cool if there was some sort of Helm connection (one of the players is a Helmite priest)
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*** A Forgotten Realms Addict since 1990 ***
Treasures of the Past, a Second Edition Play-by-Post game for and by Candlekeep Sages--http://www.rpol.net/game.cgi?gi=52011 |
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bloodtide_the_red
Learned Scribe
USA
302 Posts |
Posted - 14 May 2024 : 02:21:47
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So the adventure is based on the Pool of Radiance computer game or the reverse, and oh, there is a novel too. It is a bit of a mess. The computer game was typical of it's time: you just go on the quests and then the game is over.
There is no lore. Even in the Pool of Radiance novel, the vampire is just "the vampire".
So, really, add any lore you want. |
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7989 Posts |
Posted - 14 May 2024 : 07:29:51
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The Pool of Radiance computer role-playing game (CRPG) was first. It was so popular and successful that it was re-released a couple times and TSR commissioned both a novel and an AD&D product.
The novel was approximately the same story as the CRPG but the author did his own thing far too much and too often for it to really be the same thing. It was actually rather awful, in my opinion, a disappointment since the author wrote other things I liked.
The "Forgotten Realms" AD&D product was really more of a full campaign or a mini-setting than a simple adventure. The party is expected to start around level 1 then progress until they've reached high enough levels to take on a special dragon boss. The maps are all square blocks, the NPCs are all scripted, the "adventure" narrative is quite obviously structured in a contrived area-by-area way. Because it was basically lifted as-is from the CRPG. |
[/Ayrik] |
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
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Seravin
Master of Realmslore
Canada
1288 Posts |
Posted - 16 May 2024 : 23:09:10
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In Pools of Darkness, the follow up novel, they introduce Miltiades, an undead paladin of Tyr who helps the Phlan heroes and gives them magic items from his mausoleum. He had backstory and lore in that novel if it helps (but I don't have to hand!). He was buried in an area near Phlan that may or may not be the Valhingen Graveyard (what didn't get teleported away). I think he could be one of the knights who helps the PCs
Yeah, the AD&D module is more a hint book for the computer game than it is a real module. The lore book that came with the PC game is full of good stuff though and it's written by JEFF GRUBB himself:
https://www.c64sets.com/details.html?id=1886
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Edited by - Seravin on 16 May 2024 23:09:44 |
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nblanton
Seeker
USA
93 Posts |
Posted - 08 Oct 2024 : 00:57:13
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I'll only add regarding the rather weird things we see in the adventure being solely because it was transcribed from a pretty simply and linear CRPG (although for its time it was pretty revolutionary) is that the maps for most of the 1E era adventures were updated to a much more "modern" format around the earl 2000s with the last patch for the FRIA.
Similar old modules that were updated include the I-series Desert of Desolation both the FRC modules, Ruins of Adventure and Curse of the Azure Bonds. |
It is the spirit of the game, not the letter of the rules, which is important. Never hold to the letter written, nor allow some barracks room lawyer to force quotations from the rule book upon you, if it goes against the obvious intent of the game.
Afterword, DMG pg 230. |
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FRC1 Ruins of Adventure
