Curse of Xanathon Part II: The Playtest

If you read part 1 of this endeavor, you'll already understand that the action of this module hinges entirely on whether the PCs can be baited into storming the barracks of the city guard in hopes of finding the secret note from the Big Bad that will crack this case open. What case? Yes, that's the thing. 

Curious as to whether PCs would actually follow the lead provided in the module, I decided to run a
playtest. And thanks to a Perfect Storm© of events  I was able to run not one but two separate groups through part 1 of X3 Curse of Xanathon. The groups were: 

Group 1: the now-teenaged kid who lives in my house and his likewise-teenaged cousin, playing in person and using DCC Lankhmar characters (and rules).

Group 2: my old gang from the cenozoic era playing AD&D/Castles n' Crusades mashup rules online via Roll20--what a pain in the ass that was.

Group 1

Despite all my griping, it was surprisingly easy to get the Youth Group to follow the plot. They immediately decided that they would break into Draco's quarters in the barracks based solely on these three morsels of knowledge:

• Draco Dreamsailer is a dick
• A drunken, ranting dwarf at the tavern says "I've seen people at the barracks who shouldn't be at the barracks" and then promptly runs away
  
• A heretofore unnoticed beggar says "Wisdom hides behind a hairy face" before running away. 

--which is exactly what the module wants you to do. Weird.

To be fair, this group is made up of characters from my Lankhmar campaign, which is to say, they are experienced urban adventurers.  Every adventure intro they've heard has just been a set up for breaking into someone's place. And they treated the mission not so much as "let's find out what's going on in the barracks" but as "Draco sounds like a big jerk, let's rob him blind." And so they did, stealing everything they could carry and defacing anything they couldn't. Punk kids. 

The session ended with them still in Draco's quarters strategizing how to get their booty out of the barracks without anyone noticing. They had not yet deciphered the secret note.

Group 2

Probably a misstep, but I told the old timers that this was an "Expert" module; it should be noted that these cronies of mine are all AD&D snobs, most of whom skipped Basic D&D entirely--Holmes or otherwise--back in the day and thus have always looked down on B/X as training wheels for real D&D. This attitude has not softened one iota in the ensuing 40+ years; knowing that this is an Expert module immediately put them in a mood.  

 

And so, the cranky old dudes were downright offended that they should give a shit about the fate of a crapwater town and its lunatic Duke. Furthermore, they nearly assaulted Erik the Beggar-Priest for refusing to elaborate on his inanely cryptic "advice" about hairy faced wisdom. I wrote a piece about Gingerbread Man NPCs when I covered A3 Aerie of the Slave Lords many years ago, these are (most of) the same dudes who were present that night 40 years ago.

They did, however, cooperate enough to proceed with the adventure. Based on the Dwarf's comment about people coming and going at the Barracks, they decided to stake out the place posing as workers sent to repair the rickety catwalk on the walls of the barracks. The way the modge is set up, staking the place out will never provide any info, so I improvised: a messenger with a shaved head and black robes appears, enters the main building then leaves shortly after. They decided to follow him, and he leads them back to the Temple of Cretia--the map of which I didn't have ready in Roll20, so at this point we were theater-of-the-mind-ing it. That's ok, because when they walked in and saw the demon statue of the god of chaos right there in the main worship hall, they correctly assumed that these guys are the baddies and set fire to the joint. Holy war anyone?

The PCs returned to the scene of the crime the next night to investigate the ruins and--as it was the only portion still mostly intact--found Xanathon's secret lair. At this point we're playing this for laughs, so I had Xantho still holing up in his den even though his temple was in ruins around him. He immediately attacked because that's what the key to his lair says he's gonna do. 

Invincible! For now...

Following the script of the modge, the invincible Xanathax tells the PCs that their only chance of defeating him must be found "Deep in the earth and high in the sky at the same time!" Because his kryptonite is in a cave in the mountains. Clever, right? And this message is delivered while he is beating the crap out of the party with his super-mace (2d6+2 dmg). I had him side-eyeing the map hanging on the wall as he said this--the map that shows the location of the Shrine where his soul can be found. Yes, that is in the module. The PCs took the hint and pulled the map off the wall--revealing a door which leads to Xanthanon's lab. 

Anyone who's read the modgel will know that there is no door to Xanthimitar's lab. What there is instead is a Module Writers Fiat (MWF) proclaiming that the lab cannot be discovered until after the PCs have retrieved Xanistan's soul.  Readers, if you have any question how I feel about MWFs, let me assure you that I loathe them. So I placed a hidden--not secret--door behind the map. (I also generally feel that secret doors are waaaaaaay overused in D&D). Up yer's Module Writer's Fiat!

Anyway, they went off and found Xinnabon's soul in the chimera cave--I mean, it's on the cover, it must be an important scene, no? No, it's just a cave on the way to the Shrine that the PCs probably won't even encounter. But I didn't have the Shrine map set up in Roll 20 so I just dumped Xanithan's soul in the chimera cave to speed things along.

 

The posse brought X's soul crystal back to Rhoona, but were unsure how to use it. Or, frankly, why to use it, since they never bothered to search Draco's pad and don't know about the whole curse plot. Breaking back into Xan-n'-tonic's burnt-out hovel, they whip out the Soul. Xanathon cringes away from it like a vampire to daylight [this is a DM embellishment that is not in the module] so they torment him by bringing it closer until he's in agony [further embellishment]. With the X-man writhing in pain, they negotiate a deal: as long as he does everything they say whenever they say it, they won't kill him. We ended with the Party deliberating whether to murder the jerk anyway. Ruthless bastards.