I'm not usually one to go for these blogger challenges unless I can somehow find a way to make a mockery of the whole affair. But lets face it, for the past 2-1/2 months I've had that lame-ass post about Castles & Crusades character classes headlining my stupid blog. I am deeply ashamed.
So I'm desperate to post something--anything!--and there's this A to Z challenge thing that goes on every April. Let's see what comes of this. I don't know if there are any actual rules for this challenge, but I gather from what I've seen on other folks's blogs over the years that each day during April you pick an alphabetically appropriate topic and write about it. Presumably, this forces you to write 26 posts over the course of the month. At the rate I work, I should be done by the end of April 2023. [Edit: April 2023 has come and gone, where's the rest of your work, you schmuck.]
Looking for a theme to guide my alphabetically inspired month of posting, I struck upon something I toyed with back in '12 but which has since lain fallow. That's right, I'm revisiting my "Rogues Gallery" idea where I was running through the AD&D rulebooks and shedding some light on the various named characters that appear in examples throughout the text. Notably I did a piece on Thigru Thorkisen, the misguided magician who tried to extort spells and magic items from a necromancer colleague, and Gonzo the ranger, possessor of +2 armor.
As anyone familiar with the DMG knows, there is a host of A-based material, as in the "Example of Melee" section there is a whole party--we'll call them the A-team--of players whose names begin with the letter A. There's also someone (or somewhere) called Alamanzaliz, famous for being the namesake of an unspecified artifact that may be in the possession of some island-bound fire giants. And, if we want to get real technical about his letter 'A' business, you could even designate Llewellyn ap-Owen -- his last name sort of begins with 'a', right? -- the Welsh Wizard who employs the treacherous Tregulish Mul as his manservant.
But I prefer the more intriguing--if less originally named--player A from the TIME IN THE CAMPAIGN section of the ol' Guidebook for Mastering Dungeons and those Encounters which happen Within written by E. Gary Gygax (page 37).
What
is known of player A? Not much. His race class and, likely even his name are a mystery to us. But we do know that he started adventuring on New Years Day of
the year 1000. He and his cronies B, C, and D spent 50 days adventuring
before they returned to town and, while his chums chose to rest for a bit, he felt compelled to go seek wisdom from an oracle. Perhaps not
coincidentally, on that same day that he left (February 19) new players E and F arrived in search of adventure. Shunned by the remaining party members, E and F set off to the dungeon on their own.
On his trip to the oracle, we learn
that player A is accompanied by an elven "companion" of whom no mention was made previously. Did A meet elf en route to the oracle? Were they friends from "B.A." (Before Adventuring)? Is the relationship, dare I say it, romantic? For that matter, is A also an elf?
Regardless of the nature of their relationship, the pair spend 11 days
traveling to the oracle, 3 days visiting said font of wisdom, and then trek back to town in a delightfully symmetrical 11 days, arriving back home on Day 75 (March 15th, year 1000 being a leap year) where they encounter the inert
B, C, and D who have yet to do anything since they returned from adventuring on day 50. That is to say, it is still February 19th to B,C, ad D. This leaves A in the peculiar position of having to wait for 25 days to pass before his compatriots are released from their temporal stasis.
Here the text of the DMG leaves us hanging: what happens from there? Will A and elf rent a room and further develop their relationship while waiting for the rest of the gang to come out of their amber cocoon? What will the rest of the gang think of A's burgeoning relationship with elf? Will they be resentful? Envious? Confused? And what knowledge did A gain from the visit with the Oracle? A prophecy of the future? Greater self awareness? Inside information on some stock market tips? This temporal quandary may be greatly to A's advantage, as even if the Oracle was just a copy of the Daily Bugle, it was the March 3rd Bugle and A will have had access to information and events up to a fortnight in the future.
Furthermore, back on Day 51, E and F wandered off to the dungeon where they spent a few days successfully clearing out the Big Bad. But when A arrives back in the past, E and F won't be back in town for a few days. Knowing that they will be laden with treasure on their return, A and Elf decide to set up an ambush. With the assistance of a gang of wood elves, they successfully surprise E and F, murder them and toss their bodies in a marsh outside of town. A then uses some of this ill-gotten treasure to place several substantial bets on racehorses that his "Oracle" has advised him will pay off handsomely. To further cement his reputation he successfully predicts a winter thaw that he already experienced during his travels, as well as the precise day on which the thaw ends in a blustering snowstorm, establishing himself as a bit of an oracle in his own right.
When B,C, and D finally do revive from their 25 days of stasis, they find a very wealthy A and his elven lover living in a fine house where he has gained the status of a village elder and nemesis to bookies. Also, and strangely, nothing is ever heard again of players E and F, which is fine because no one really liked them anyway.
Showing posts with label DMG. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DMG. Show all posts
Thursday, April 4, 2019
Friday, May 4, 2012
DMG Rogues Gallery: Gonzo, Ranger Knight
How Gonzo, Ranger Knight, came into possession of a suit of chainmail +2 is now the stuff of legend; the immortal saga is told on page 226 of the Dungeon Masters Guide. But little is known about other aspects of his career; his origins, his other armaments, and whatever colleagues might have accompanied him on his quest for magic armor. The only thing that fixes Gonzo's place in history is that majestic suit of chainmail.
In truth, Gonzo, as a character, barely coalesced in the gaming-verse. He was the creation of Trevor, a rather insouciant 19 year old attending a smallish midwestern university. Trevor, though an avid gamer throughout his youth, had not engaged in any gaming since matriculation. Rather, the drunken pursuit of fornication had preempted his gaming ambitions for the time being.
Early in the spring semester both of his interests--gaming and fornication--seemed to converge when his lab partner, a reasonably attractive sophomore named Jennifer, mentioned that she played in a regular Thursday night AD&D campaign. So, on a frigid evening in February he found himself in the cramped dorm room of a plump, bearded junior named Vincent along with Jennifer and two male adventurers, Drew and Scott.
Two things were immediately obvious to Trevor:
Introductions were made, a large pizza was ordered, and the gang got down to gaming. Vincent, in the most patronizing fashion possible, directed Trevor to Appendix P of the DMG: Creating a Party, so that he could roll up and equip a character of adequate level to join the existing gang which included Jennifer's Master Thief Serena, Scodrick the Necromancer, and Drelfig the half-elven Champion/Prefect/Enchanter. Seeing as the party was well stocked with spellcasters but lacked muscle, Trevor elected to run a ranger whom he gave the first name that popped into his head: Gonzo.
Anyone in possession of the ancient tomes can read about the succession of dice rolls that bestowed Gonzo the Ranger Knight with his suit of chainmail +2, but what goes unmentioned are the unwarranted sneers of Drew and Scott when Trevor announced his chosen class or the grimace of revulsion that wracked Vincent's face when Trevor named his character after the crook-nosed oddball from the cast of the Muppets.
Though pretentious and overbearing, Vincent was undeniably an evenhanded DM and a courteous host; he steadfastly refused payment from the others for the pizza and Mountain Dew when it arrived, and even tipped the frostbitten delivery guy generously. But Trevor's presence was obviously turning the party's chemistry into a volatile compound, and Vincent was unable to rectify the matter. Only limited progress was made that evening, and witnesses of the event remember little that happened beyond the sardonic jabs Drew and Scott directed at Trevor and the hubbub that arose when the precariously placed pizza box slid off the gaming table, taking with it the map and a 16 oz. glass of chartreuse-colored soda pop.
From the viewpoint of Serena, Scodrick, and Drelfig, Gonzo was a man of ill-defined features who never seemed to take full form; like an earthbound cloud formation that just sorta' looked like a dude in +2 armor. He seemed to have little understanding of where he was or what he was supposed to do, proved to be easily distracted, often professing interest in insignificant-seeming details of the dungeon. Though in combat he proved an effective comrade, when the action fell off he tended to lose focus and, in these moments, often acted in direct opposition to the other party members. Ultimately, he disappeared from the milieu as if he had lost his tenuous grip on the material plane and passed into another phase of existence.
Scodrick and Drelfig both reported uncharacteristic feelings of disdain toward the ranger and felt compelled to needlessly obstruct him whenever such would not result in harm to themselves. Meanwhile, Serena, a halfling, seemed to feel an unnatural attraction to this ethereal character. After his abrupt departure from the adventure, she seemed to lose focus herself and grew detached from the campaign and quickly she, too, disappeared... for a while. She returned some time later emanating a carefree attitude that was not reflected in her saddened eyes. Though rumors were whispered that she had gone in pursuit of Gonzo, it was quietly agreed not to mention his name in her presence. Soon, as seems appropriate when dealing with a luftmensch like Gonzo, he was forgotten entirely.
In truth, Gonzo, as a character, barely coalesced in the gaming-verse. He was the creation of Trevor, a rather insouciant 19 year old attending a smallish midwestern university. Trevor, though an avid gamer throughout his youth, had not engaged in any gaming since matriculation. Rather, the drunken pursuit of fornication had preempted his gaming ambitions for the time being.
Early in the spring semester both of his interests--gaming and fornication--seemed to converge when his lab partner, a reasonably attractive sophomore named Jennifer, mentioned that she played in a regular Thursday night AD&D campaign. So, on a frigid evening in February he found himself in the cramped dorm room of a plump, bearded junior named Vincent along with Jennifer and two male adventurers, Drew and Scott.
Two things were immediately obvious to Trevor:
- Vincent, despite effusive efforts to convey a good-natured image, was actually a pompous ass.
- Neither Drew nor Scott was at all happy to have Trevor in the group. Probably, he assumed, because reasonably-attractive Jennifer had asked him to join.
Introductions were made, a large pizza was ordered, and the gang got down to gaming. Vincent, in the most patronizing fashion possible, directed Trevor to Appendix P of the DMG: Creating a Party, so that he could roll up and equip a character of adequate level to join the existing gang which included Jennifer's Master Thief Serena, Scodrick the Necromancer, and Drelfig the half-elven Champion/Prefect/Enchanter. Seeing as the party was well stocked with spellcasters but lacked muscle, Trevor elected to run a ranger whom he gave the first name that popped into his head: Gonzo.
Anyone in possession of the ancient tomes can read about the succession of dice rolls that bestowed Gonzo the Ranger Knight with his suit of chainmail +2, but what goes unmentioned are the unwarranted sneers of Drew and Scott when Trevor announced his chosen class or the grimace of revulsion that wracked Vincent's face when Trevor named his character after the crook-nosed oddball from the cast of the Muppets.
Though pretentious and overbearing, Vincent was undeniably an evenhanded DM and a courteous host; he steadfastly refused payment from the others for the pizza and Mountain Dew when it arrived, and even tipped the frostbitten delivery guy generously. But Trevor's presence was obviously turning the party's chemistry into a volatile compound, and Vincent was unable to rectify the matter. Only limited progress was made that evening, and witnesses of the event remember little that happened beyond the sardonic jabs Drew and Scott directed at Trevor and the hubbub that arose when the precariously placed pizza box slid off the gaming table, taking with it the map and a 16 oz. glass of chartreuse-colored soda pop.
From the viewpoint of Serena, Scodrick, and Drelfig, Gonzo was a man of ill-defined features who never seemed to take full form; like an earthbound cloud formation that just sorta' looked like a dude in +2 armor. He seemed to have little understanding of where he was or what he was supposed to do, proved to be easily distracted, often professing interest in insignificant-seeming details of the dungeon. Though in combat he proved an effective comrade, when the action fell off he tended to lose focus and, in these moments, often acted in direct opposition to the other party members. Ultimately, he disappeared from the milieu as if he had lost his tenuous grip on the material plane and passed into another phase of existence.
Scodrick and Drelfig both reported uncharacteristic feelings of disdain toward the ranger and felt compelled to needlessly obstruct him whenever such would not result in harm to themselves. Meanwhile, Serena, a halfling, seemed to feel an unnatural attraction to this ethereal character. After his abrupt departure from the adventure, she seemed to lose focus herself and grew detached from the campaign and quickly she, too, disappeared... for a while. She returned some time later emanating a carefree attitude that was not reflected in her saddened eyes. Though rumors were whispered that she had gone in pursuit of Gonzo, it was quietly agreed not to mention his name in her presence. Soon, as seems appropriate when dealing with a luftmensch like Gonzo, he was forgotten entirely.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Where Are They Now: Thigru Thorkisen, Magician
When last seen, Thigru Thorkisen, a Magician (6th Level MU) and henchman to Lord Olaf Blue Cheeks (10th Level F) had been approached by Halfdan the Necromancer (10th Level MU), a professional colleague of Olaf's, who desired access to Thigru's Suggestion spell [See DMG page 39 "Spells Beyond Those at Start"]. The author of the tome--a one E. Gary Gygax--advises that Thigru, as an NPC, should "ABSOLUTELY REFUSE to co-operate freely with player characters, even their own master or mistress." Certainly the property of an NPC should be respected; but EGG goes on to advise thusly:
"If Halfdan has been at least civil to the magician, Thigru will ask for nothing more than a third-level spell in return, plus another spell, plus some minor magic item such as a set of 3 potions, a scroll of 3 spells or a ring of invisibility."
From a more experienced magic user? For a suggestion spell? On what planet would this not be considered highway robbery? And, assuming Thigru and Halfdan are to maintain further relations as members of the same adventuring party, isn't this a self-defeating policy? Presumably Thigru will one day want access to Halfdan's more advanced spellbook, no?
Anyway, during my recent absence from the blogosphere I came across the full story of the event, which has come to be known as the Thorkisen-Halfdan Summit. If you're interested in the fallout of Thigru's extortionary demands, please read on:
Naively taking the advice of the immortal sage Gygax, Thigru chose to eschew common sense, demanding two third-level spells, a scroll of Dispel Magic, a potion of polymorphing, and Halfdan's ring of protection +2 in exchange for his Suggestion spell. Halfdan was, of course, insulted at the outrageous terms offered him--by a lesser spellcaster no less. So offended was he that he cast magic jar on Thigru and, whilst occupying the magician's corporeal form, ravished Olaf Blue Cheek's teenaged daughter Helgina.
Olaf, on learning of the lechery of his supposed henchman, requisitioned Thigru's head for pike-decorating duty. Thigru's family was expelled from the castle with nothing but the clothes on their backs and banished forever from the realm. All of the erstwhile magician's possessions were reclaimed by his Lordship--except his spell books, which Olaf offered as a gift to his trusted adventuring companion Halfdan. Halfdan, in an act of unadulterated spite, tore out the pages for the Suggestion spell and, without ever reading them, set them afire at the base of Thigru's pike.
Monday, February 13, 2012
DMG Sample Dungeon Part 4: Cult of the Fiery Eye or Palimpsest of Hommlet
After much delay--my dissertation committee asked for some additional graphics before I put it out for publication--I'm finally getting to the conclusion of my analysis of the Sample Dungeon of the Dungeon Masters Guide. Today we're speculating what to make of the unfinished portions of the dungeon based on the clues provided in the few room descriptions, background, and the wandering monster tables. Without further ado...
The author provided wandering monster encounters for the two distinct areas of the Dungeon, the Non-crypt Area and the Crypt Area which conveniently included the room numbers of the wandering monster's lairs, a Gygax standard that I failed to appreciate for too long. Non-crypt area wandering monsters include bandits, goblins, giant rats, and fire beetles--the fire beetles emit a fiery red glow which illuminates a 10' radius; that's kinda' cool. But are there any running themes here? The only one that comes to mind is that these critters are all just looking for a quiet place to lay low, somewhere with a roof overhead where no one will ask any questions. So the non-crypt area is going to be filled with "volunteer" monsters; whatever manages to crawl, slither or hop down here from the swamp above. Giant snakes, lizards, ticks, maybe a pack of voracious giant frogs even. And lots of the rooms will just be empty old store rooms littered with moldy crap and the occasional fungus or slime.
Now let's see what the crypt area has going on in terms of wandering monsters: more rats, ghouls, skeletons--your standard crypt fare; one could expand on this a bit. But then there's the evil cleric with the hobgoblins in tow from areas 35-37. An evil cult in league with humanoids occupying several rooms; that's got potential. Let's say they're beholden to some demon lord and let's riff on Nunya's notion (from the comments section of Part 1 of this series) and say that the fire opal the monks were hiding was the prized jewel and symbol of power stolen from the temple of this demon lord and turned over to the monks for safe keeping. The enormous, smouldering opal represents the demon lord's baleful, fiery glare. Indeed, reflecting the significance of this symbol of power, the hobgoblins have an emblem of a fiery eye painted on their shields while the cleric has the same stitched into his robes.
So these cultists of the Fiery Eye have set up quarters here in the crypt area, perhaps because they're still looking for that damn fire opal. And since, as Zenopus points out, using the secret door to area 3 is not a very convenient means of egress--it being 10 feet above ground--they use the stairs up at area 39 which leads, as Zenopus further suggests, to a long tunnel eventually daylighting at a narrow opening amidst rocks and thick briars and brambles over at the stand of brush and tamaracks beyond the monastery. The cult uses this tunnel for occasional sorties to pillage passing caravans for supplies, treasure, and prisoners which they use for either ransom, slaves, or food. So a few of the other rooms are occupied by their humanoid allies, some gnolls, bugbears, and maybe an ogre who's got a few human or demi-human prisoners in his pantry. And perhaps the cult has contacts in the nearby village, other cult members who might feign to provide assistance to the PCs but whose real intent is to obfuscate and assassinate them...
Wait, what's that? This sounds exactly like the premise of Dungeon Module T1 The Village of Hommlet you say? Good! Now we can get to the real thesis of this post which is that the Sample Dungeon in the Dungeon Masters Guide was the original dungeon associated with Gary Gygax's Hommlet campaign back in the 1970s. For real.*
Monastery vs. Moathouse: One and the Same
Introduction
First, here's a little historical background for those unfamiliar or who've forgotten the details. In Gary Gygax's 1979 dungeon module T1 The Village of Hommlet, he included the following bit of background on the origin of the module:
Design concept
Each adventure is distinctly divided roughly in half between areas that are easily accessible from the obvious entrance to the edifice and those areas that are accessible only if you find a secret door. Thus, an uninspired or very unlucky party could easily wander through half the dungeon and think their work was done. Also, between the accessible portion of the adventure--we'll call it the Outer Dungeon--and the secret Inner Dungeon, there is a pronounced shift in the mood of the encounter milieu. In the Moathouse, it is the upper levels--those that are part of the moathouse proper, including the cellars directly directly beneath--that form the Outer Dungeons while in the Monastery it's the "non-crypt areas" on the north side of the map. In both cases, the Outer Dungeon is inhabited by whatever random outlaws and freeloaders moved into this subterranean tenement seeking shelter from the elements--bandits, giant lizards, goblins, fire beetles... it's your classic dungeon crawl. The Inner dungeon, however, is inhabited by those with a reason for being there; those who belong. In both cases there is a crypt area inhabited by the undead; both also are inhabited by an Evil Cult, the evil cleric and his hobber bodyguards in the monastery; in the Moathouse the cult includes Lareth and his gang of flaming stormtroopers, but also the various humanoids mercenaries--the ogre, gnolls, and bugbears--as well.
Clues to the Beyond
But Gygax was not willing to leave things purely to chance; in both adventures he supplies a hint that there is more to this place than a casual exploration might divulge. In the monastery, this clue comes in the form of the the map and key found amidst the abbot's skeletal remains in room 2. In the moathouse, this hint is the locked cache of food, weapons, and Flaming Eyeball sweatshirts in the storerooms (rooms 2 and 3, dungeon level). Also, to make it clear that this crap doesn't belong to the bandits above, he placed the green slime trap on the stairs up to their lair to indicate that they don't bother coming down here too often.
The Secret Door
In both the moathouse and the monastery the secret door to the hidden, Inner Dungeon is located in a room dedicated to death--the funerary room of the monastery where the passage from the world of the living was celebrated, and the torture room in the Moathouse where the same passage was celebrated in a much more pro-active fashion. More importantly, neither door is located in a typical fashion, each is positioned in such a way that a specific effort by the players will be needed to find it; nine feet above the floor in the Sample Dungeon or hidden in the column in T1. By strategically locating these secret doors, a generic, "we search for secret doors" is clearly not going to be good enough, no matter how well the dice work in your favor.
However, there are clues to be found that will lead the observant PC to the location of said secret doors--the wall sockets in the Sample Dungeon and the faint trail of blood to the pillar in T1. And on the other side of that secret door in T1 you will find the same 4 ghouls who ate the gnome in the Sample Dungeon.
First encounter
Monastery: Room 1 contains a large Spider lurking on the ceiling over a "a central litter of husks, skin, bones, and its own castings" patiently awaiting its prey. In the heap can be found a treasure of 19 sp and a garnet worth 50 gp.
Moathouse: Area 4 is likely to be the first encounter inside the moathouse (we can only assume that there was a gang of hungry frogs waiting in ambush along the causeway to the monastery) and it contains a huge spider lurking over "a scattering of husks and a few bones on the floor" and a small treasure trove of 38 sp, 71 cp and an ivory box worth 50 gp.
The descriptions are similar though not exact. "Husks" and "bones" are constant but the spider in the moathouse has been ratcheted up a notch and the treasure slightly increased: the silver has been exactly doubled and a few coppers have been thrown in for good measure, but the main treasure remains set at 50 gp in value, though its manifestation has altered from a garnet to an ivory box. On its own, this encounter doesn't carry much weight, but as the evidence mounts, the similarities are certainly worth noting.
Flaming Eye/Fire Opal
If you were a member of a cult whose emblem was a flaming eyeball, wouldn't the fire opal be the front runner as your candidate for sacred gemstone? (see comparison, Fig. 1.a.) Whether the cultists in The Monastery wore a flaming eye or not is impossible to say, but I think I made a pretty fair case back in paragraph 3 about how one might easily extrapolate such.
What is more, and this is the clue that sent me down this rabbit hole in the first place, in T1 Lareth's prized possession and the single most valuable treasure in the entire Moathouse is a string of matched fire opals.
Even Scully should be coming around by now but the best is yet to come.
Hall of Zombies
Check out these two maps, and read the description below as it might apply to area 4 on the left map and area 10 on the right:
The encounter description is from T1 area 4 of the dungeon level of the moathouse, the map on the left, while the map on the right is from the Sample Dungeon.** By now it has to be pretty clear that this description was originally written for area 10 of what became the sample dungeon of the DMG and was then transcribed word-for-word into T1--including hit points for all 12 zombies even though most people who ran T1 back in the day, lacking accommodations for the 6th pair, only threw 10 zombies at their players.***
Exit Strategy
Adjacent to Lareth's den under the moathouse was a long tunnel leading up to a concealed opening at the surface that allowed his cronies to come and go without disrupting the ecosystem of the moathouse above. The hobbers and cleric in the monastery presumably cannot live off of mold and ghoul-droppings and, as already mentioned, it's unlikely that they use the secret door in the ceremonial chamber, so it seems rather likely that they have a separate way out of the crypt area.
While it's not obvious that such an exit exists in the Sample Dungeon, several clues do allude to such an egress. As Zenopus Archives pointed out, there is mention of a "secret entrance/exit from the place" indicated in the background material for the Sample Dungeon. I had always, assumed that this referred to the stairs down to area 1, but since this area is not indicated to be "secret" it opens up the possibility that indeed, there is a separate, secret portal to the dungeon. And the conspicuously noted "fairly dense cluster of [brush and tamarack] approximately a half mile beyond the abandoned place" provides the most obvious location for such an emergency exit. Add to that the presence of a stairway leading up not far from the chambers occupied by the Cleric and his band of hobbers, you have some evidence that the Sample Dungeon had a similar escape tunnel.
And so forth
In light of this evidence, some things about T1 Village of Hommlet start to make a bit more sense. For instance, it always struck me as odd that Lareth--who we know has been going to great effort to throw off interest in his location by staging his caravan raids far away in disparate locations--would allow another gang of brigands to operate out of the same location. Possibly the Great Hope of Chaotic Evil isn't aware of the bandits in the moathouse above, but more likely these are the same bandits transposed from the areas 4 & 5 of the Monastery. Like the extra pair of zombies, they're a relic that doesn't quite fit into the New Order of Hommlet.
This might also explain why T1 was named the Village of Hommlet rather than the Moathouse of the Flaming Eye or some-such. When EGG decided to modulize the endeavor, he may have wanted to showcase the village as a setting, but also needed some sort of adventure to go along with it. By the standards of the time, a module with the entire monastery adventure would have been too large for a single module. Remember, the only other modules around at the time were the G and D series which were originally published as separate, emaciated adventures of only ~16 pages.**** So he took the first level of the monastery dungeon, re-worked it as the moathouse in T1 and used the affair as an outpost of the greater dungeon, which would eventually be the Temple of Elemental Evil which, by the way, had turned from a monastery sacked long ago by forces of evil to a temple sacked long ago by forces of good.
So if you've ever wondered what the original "Hommlet" dungeon Gygax mentions in the intro to T1 may have looked like before it was infiltrated with PCs, sullied by Lolth and/or Zuggtmoy, and afflicted with battles over at Emridy Meadows, the answer may have been right in front of you all along. This humble, seemingly unfinished dungeon hidden under a monastery is actually a vestige of the campaign that spawned one of the great modules of the AD&D era. The dungeon from which The Moathouse, Lareth, the Cult of Elemental Evil and its affiliated Temple all sprang from this unassuming labyrinth on page 95 of the Dungeon Masters Guide. Sadly, this connection to the very roots of the game was one of the things we lost as Gygax's creative impact at TSR diminished.
*Well, as "for real" as you can get without confirmation from anyone who actually knows the score.
**In T1-4 Temple of Elemental Evil the zombie:cubicle disparity was resolved by hiding the two extra zombies--who presumably had just lost a game of musical chambers--behind one of the pillars in area 21, nee area 4.
***Case in point: in the used copy of T1 I now own (acquired at a used book sale a few years ago), the previous owner left pencil markings recording the dwindling hit points and ultimate demise of the first 10 zombies while the last two zombies are unsullied by graphite. Perhaps the players suffered a TPK at the hands of Wimpy and Gimpy, or, perhaps, lacking a sixth cell to release them from, the DM never put them into action.
****This is based entirely on my recollection of how slender those modules were; I don't have the modules on hand and thus don't know the exact page count.
*******This wasn't intended to be a footnote but since you're here, it just so happens that monastery and moathouse have the same amount of letters. I am unaware of Gygax's stance on numerology or alphabetology or whatever, but I'm going to write this one off as coincidence and nothing more.
 |
| Sample dungeon site analysis. |
Now let's see what the crypt area has going on in terms of wandering monsters: more rats, ghouls, skeletons--your standard crypt fare; one could expand on this a bit. But then there's the evil cleric with the hobgoblins in tow from areas 35-37. An evil cult in league with humanoids occupying several rooms; that's got potential. Let's say they're beholden to some demon lord and let's riff on Nunya's notion (from the comments section of Part 1 of this series) and say that the fire opal the monks were hiding was the prized jewel and symbol of power stolen from the temple of this demon lord and turned over to the monks for safe keeping. The enormous, smouldering opal represents the demon lord's baleful, fiery glare. Indeed, reflecting the significance of this symbol of power, the hobgoblins have an emblem of a fiery eye painted on their shields while the cleric has the same stitched into his robes.
 |
| My eye! |
Wait, what's that? This sounds exactly like the premise of Dungeon Module T1 The Village of Hommlet you say? Good! Now we can get to the real thesis of this post which is that the Sample Dungeon in the Dungeon Masters Guide was the original dungeon associated with Gary Gygax's Hommlet campaign back in the 1970s. For real.*
Monastery vs. Moathouse: One and the Same
Introduction
First, here's a little historical background for those unfamiliar or who've forgotten the details. In Gary Gygax's 1979 dungeon module T1 The Village of Hommlet, he included the following bit of background on the origin of the module:
"The area here was developed to smoothly integrate players with and without experience in the Greyhawk Campaign into a scenario related to the old timers only by relative proximity... and many of the NPCs in the module are the characters and henchmen developed through play... the situation and surroundings have been altered because of the actual experiences of these participants." (Gygax, Village of Hommlet, pg. 3)Also in 1979, Gygax published the Dungeon Masters Guide which included an unfinished Sample Dungeon composed of a map of a single dungeon level underneath a ruined monastery, descriptions of 3 of the encounter areas, and some background info about the dungeon including a description of the adjacent terrain and a legend that there was an enormous fire opal of exorbitant value hidden within. I contend that the Sample Dungeon is the original dungeon that those "smoothly integrated players" of Hommlet went through. Check it out:
"After two miles of distance, the land begins to sink and become boggy... and tall marsh plants grow thickly where cattails and tamaracks do not... A side path, banked high to crossover the wetland to either side, juts north to the entrance of the ruined place."
"[A]fter about a two mile trek along a seldom used road, they come to the edge of a fen... with little to relieve the view save a few clumps of brush and tamarack sprouting here and there. A narrow causeway leads out to a low mound upon which stand the walls and buildings of the deserted mo*******. "Pretty similar, right? A "side path banked high to crossover the wetland" sounds a lot like a causeway through a fen, no? And those ubiquitous tamaracks. If you haven't already reached for your DMG, the first one is the description for the approach to the Moathouse in T1, the second is from the Monastery in the Sample Dungeon.
Design concept
Each adventure is distinctly divided roughly in half between areas that are easily accessible from the obvious entrance to the edifice and those areas that are accessible only if you find a secret door. Thus, an uninspired or very unlucky party could easily wander through half the dungeon and think their work was done. Also, between the accessible portion of the adventure--we'll call it the Outer Dungeon--and the secret Inner Dungeon, there is a pronounced shift in the mood of the encounter milieu. In the Moathouse, it is the upper levels--those that are part of the moathouse proper, including the cellars directly directly beneath--that form the Outer Dungeons while in the Monastery it's the "non-crypt areas" on the north side of the map. In both cases, the Outer Dungeon is inhabited by whatever random outlaws and freeloaders moved into this subterranean tenement seeking shelter from the elements--bandits, giant lizards, goblins, fire beetles... it's your classic dungeon crawl. The Inner dungeon, however, is inhabited by those with a reason for being there; those who belong. In both cases there is a crypt area inhabited by the undead; both also are inhabited by an Evil Cult, the evil cleric and his hobber bodyguards in the monastery; in the Moathouse the cult includes Lareth and his gang of flaming stormtroopers, but also the various humanoids mercenaries--the ogre, gnolls, and bugbears--as well.
Clues to the Beyond
But Gygax was not willing to leave things purely to chance; in both adventures he supplies a hint that there is more to this place than a casual exploration might divulge. In the monastery, this clue comes in the form of the the map and key found amidst the abbot's skeletal remains in room 2. In the moathouse, this hint is the locked cache of food, weapons, and Flaming Eyeball sweatshirts in the storerooms (rooms 2 and 3, dungeon level). Also, to make it clear that this crap doesn't belong to the bandits above, he placed the green slime trap on the stairs up to their lair to indicate that they don't bother coming down here too often.
The Secret Door
In both the moathouse and the monastery the secret door to the hidden, Inner Dungeon is located in a room dedicated to death--the funerary room of the monastery where the passage from the world of the living was celebrated, and the torture room in the Moathouse where the same passage was celebrated in a much more pro-active fashion. More importantly, neither door is located in a typical fashion, each is positioned in such a way that a specific effort by the players will be needed to find it; nine feet above the floor in the Sample Dungeon or hidden in the column in T1. By strategically locating these secret doors, a generic, "we search for secret doors" is clearly not going to be good enough, no matter how well the dice work in your favor.
However, there are clues to be found that will lead the observant PC to the location of said secret doors--the wall sockets in the Sample Dungeon and the faint trail of blood to the pillar in T1. And on the other side of that secret door in T1 you will find the same 4 ghouls who ate the gnome in the Sample Dungeon.
First encounter
Monastery: Room 1 contains a large Spider lurking on the ceiling over a "a central litter of husks, skin, bones, and its own castings" patiently awaiting its prey. In the heap can be found a treasure of 19 sp and a garnet worth 50 gp.
Moathouse: Area 4 is likely to be the first encounter inside the moathouse (we can only assume that there was a gang of hungry frogs waiting in ambush along the causeway to the monastery) and it contains a huge spider lurking over "a scattering of husks and a few bones on the floor" and a small treasure trove of 38 sp, 71 cp and an ivory box worth 50 gp.
The descriptions are similar though not exact. "Husks" and "bones" are constant but the spider in the moathouse has been ratcheted up a notch and the treasure slightly increased: the silver has been exactly doubled and a few coppers have been thrown in for good measure, but the main treasure remains set at 50 gp in value, though its manifestation has altered from a garnet to an ivory box. On its own, this encounter doesn't carry much weight, but as the evidence mounts, the similarities are certainly worth noting.
Flaming Eye/Fire Opal
 |
| Figure 3. Flaming Eye meet Fire Opal |
What is more, and this is the clue that sent me down this rabbit hole in the first place, in T1 Lareth's prized possession and the single most valuable treasure in the entire Moathouse is a string of matched fire opals.
Even Scully should be coming around by now but the best is yet to come.
Hall of Zombies
Check out these two maps, and read the description below as it might apply to area 4 on the left map and area 10 on the right:
If you had to choose one of these two as the map for the encounter area described wouldn't you choose the map on the right? It looks like a standard AD&D corridor--10' wide, leads to a room at the end--and it's lined with 3 cubicles on each side of the hall which provides exactly enough room for 12 zombies hiding in groups of two in each cell. Area 4 on the left looks more like a chamber than a corridor--what with its 20'-wideness, pillars down the center, and lack of a portal at the end--plus it's only "lined" with cubicles on one side. But most importantly of all, it has only five cubicles which leaves two of the zombies homeless!
CORRIDOR LINED WITH CELLS: Anyone entering this area will be attacked by the monsters lurking in pairs in these cubicles: 12 ZOMBIES (H.P.: 15, 14, 13, 12, 3x10, 9, 8, 6, 5, 4)
The encounter description is from T1 area 4 of the dungeon level of the moathouse, the map on the left, while the map on the right is from the Sample Dungeon.** By now it has to be pretty clear that this description was originally written for area 10 of what became the sample dungeon of the DMG and was then transcribed word-for-word into T1--including hit points for all 12 zombies even though most people who ran T1 back in the day, lacking accommodations for the 6th pair, only threw 10 zombies at their players.***
Exit Strategy
Adjacent to Lareth's den under the moathouse was a long tunnel leading up to a concealed opening at the surface that allowed his cronies to come and go without disrupting the ecosystem of the moathouse above. The hobbers and cleric in the monastery presumably cannot live off of mold and ghoul-droppings and, as already mentioned, it's unlikely that they use the secret door in the ceremonial chamber, so it seems rather likely that they have a separate way out of the crypt area.
While it's not obvious that such an exit exists in the Sample Dungeon, several clues do allude to such an egress. As Zenopus Archives pointed out, there is mention of a "secret entrance/exit from the place" indicated in the background material for the Sample Dungeon. I had always, assumed that this referred to the stairs down to area 1, but since this area is not indicated to be "secret" it opens up the possibility that indeed, there is a separate, secret portal to the dungeon. And the conspicuously noted "fairly dense cluster of [brush and tamarack] approximately a half mile beyond the abandoned place" provides the most obvious location for such an emergency exit. Add to that the presence of a stairway leading up not far from the chambers occupied by the Cleric and his band of hobbers, you have some evidence that the Sample Dungeon had a similar escape tunnel.
And so forth
In light of this evidence, some things about T1 Village of Hommlet start to make a bit more sense. For instance, it always struck me as odd that Lareth--who we know has been going to great effort to throw off interest in his location by staging his caravan raids far away in disparate locations--would allow another gang of brigands to operate out of the same location. Possibly the Great Hope of Chaotic Evil isn't aware of the bandits in the moathouse above, but more likely these are the same bandits transposed from the areas 4 & 5 of the Monastery. Like the extra pair of zombies, they're a relic that doesn't quite fit into the New Order of Hommlet.
This might also explain why T1 was named the Village of Hommlet rather than the Moathouse of the Flaming Eye or some-such. When EGG decided to modulize the endeavor, he may have wanted to showcase the village as a setting, but also needed some sort of adventure to go along with it. By the standards of the time, a module with the entire monastery adventure would have been too large for a single module. Remember, the only other modules around at the time were the G and D series which were originally published as separate, emaciated adventures of only ~16 pages.**** So he took the first level of the monastery dungeon, re-worked it as the moathouse in T1 and used the affair as an outpost of the greater dungeon, which would eventually be the Temple of Elemental Evil which, by the way, had turned from a monastery sacked long ago by forces of evil to a temple sacked long ago by forces of good.
So if you've ever wondered what the original "Hommlet" dungeon Gygax mentions in the intro to T1 may have looked like before it was infiltrated with PCs, sullied by Lolth and/or Zuggtmoy, and afflicted with battles over at Emridy Meadows, the answer may have been right in front of you all along. This humble, seemingly unfinished dungeon hidden under a monastery is actually a vestige of the campaign that spawned one of the great modules of the AD&D era. The dungeon from which The Moathouse, Lareth, the Cult of Elemental Evil and its affiliated Temple all sprang from this unassuming labyrinth on page 95 of the Dungeon Masters Guide. Sadly, this connection to the very roots of the game was one of the things we lost as Gygax's creative impact at TSR diminished.
*Well, as "for real" as you can get without confirmation from anyone who actually knows the score.
**In T1-4 Temple of Elemental Evil the zombie:cubicle disparity was resolved by hiding the two extra zombies--who presumably had just lost a game of musical chambers--behind one of the pillars in area 21, nee area 4.
***Case in point: in the used copy of T1 I now own (acquired at a used book sale a few years ago), the previous owner left pencil markings recording the dwindling hit points and ultimate demise of the first 10 zombies while the last two zombies are unsullied by graphite. Perhaps the players suffered a TPK at the hands of Wimpy and Gimpy, or, perhaps, lacking a sixth cell to release them from, the DM never put them into action.
****This is based entirely on my recollection of how slender those modules were; I don't have the modules on hand and thus don't know the exact page count.
*******This wasn't intended to be a footnote but since you're here, it just so happens that monastery and moathouse have the same amount of letters. I am unaware of Gygax's stance on numerology or alphabetology or whatever, but I'm going to write this one off as coincidence and nothing more.
Friday, February 3, 2012
DMG Sample Dungeon Part 3: Room 3 and the Portal of the Jerk
"You come into the the northern portion of a 50' x 50' chamber. It is bare and empty. There are no exits apparent. It seems to be a dead end place." Gary Gygax, DMG p. 99No exits are apparent. It seems to be a dead end place. If this isn't enough to make you search for secret doors, then maybe you're not playing the right game.
So you've just entered the nexus of the land of the living and the dead, wherein the deceased brethren of the monastery make their secret voyage to the under world. We know that the dead were lain in repose here on an elevated stage and, after some amount of time, they were taken through a secret door and lain to rest in a sarcophagus somewhere in a long, wide corridor in the crypt area to the south. It is telling that the entry to the netherworld is via a secret door rather than some grand, awe-inspiring edifice or even a modest tunnel. It is reinforcing an aura of mystery regarding the afterlife that most undoubtedly is of significance to their religious beliefs.
DM: "You might be in for a nasty surprise, so I'll let you roll a six sider for me to see your status."This is the equivalent of Javier Bardem showing up at your house with a compressed air canister in his hand and asking you to flip a coin.
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| Ghouls? What ghouls? |
And more dickishness: the secret portal is described as being only 8-1/2' wide in the room description yet the DM tells the party that it's 10' wide! You might ask: "Uh, now who's being a dick, Dice-chucker?" Too-shay, my friend.
As all y'all who've ever held the DMG in your hands knows, room 3 is where the description of the sample dungeon--and the accompanying narrative--ended, the rest was up to the reader to fill in if they so chose. I might be one of the rare old schoolers who never did fill in that dungeon, mostly because drawing maps was my favorite part of making a dungeon back in the day. And, like the Sample Dungeon, the descriptive text of my dungeons usually trailed off by somewhere around room 3. Now I've come to the complete opposite end; I much prefer taking other author's maps and descriptions, over-analizing their words to find meanings that probably shouldn't be there, and layering my own interpretation on top of their work. So that is what we'll do in Part 4 of the Series: What Lies Beyond Room 3.
Monday, January 23, 2012
DMG Sample Dungeon Part 2: Down the Stairs
Continuing where we left off last week, today we'll be looking at rooms 1
& 2 of the Sample Dungeon provided in the AD&D
Dungeon Masters Guide.
The Dungeon
Room 1. Spider webs including a large spider at 1A, some moldy sacks, a garnet in a goblin skull over in the corner (B); it all sets the tone of rot and refuse that permeates the place. That goblin may have been a member of the raiding army that took down the Monastery--or he could have wandered in at any time since. How the garnet got in his head is a curious mystery to consider. Also, please mind the yellow mold (25%).
One other thing of note is the oak door over at 1.C: Moaning can be heard behind it and, if opened, a gust of wind will extinguish all torches. Where did the wind come from? Sure, there's a subterranean stream running through the adjacent room--typically a great venue for creating air movement in a cavern, except that the stream "fills entirely" the tunnel through which it both enters and exits the room. Which is to say, there's no room for any air movement, much less wind forcible enough to extinguish all torches.
Those brave enough to enter the dark, windy cavern will find:
Room 2. WATER ROOM: Although the room is described as holding only "8 rotting barrels" (over at location A) from the hoard of casks and barrels which were once stored there, several of the barrels in the room "hold water" as they were "new and being soaked to make them tight" at the time of the downfall. This might give a sense of the passage of time to those familiar with the decay rate of wooden barrels.
2.B: The limed-over skeleton of the Abbot lies at the bottom of the stream that passes through the chamber. His corpse has undergone a "sea change," a reference, as the ensuing narrative example of play points out, to Shakespeare's Tempest:
Amidst the remains of the abbot the attentive adventurer will find a scroll tube and a key. Acquiring these items is not a sure thing as Characters who dislodge the scroll tube have to make a successful "to hit" roll as if hitting AC 4 in order to successfully grab the scroll before the current of the stream takes it down stream beyond return. Is this a nascent action resolution system using "to hit" as a means of determining success at non-combat actions? Sort of a proto-SIEGE engine for you C&C fans?
Inside the scroll tube is a map of the underground portion of the monastery, but it is almost entirely smudged beyond use; showing only the two areas that the PCs will already have seen by the time they find this map along with an 80' section of hall in the "crypt area" to the south with "miniature sarcophagi" depicted in it. Not super helpful, but it will definitely aid parties in finding the crypt area which is accessible only via the elevated secret door in room 3. (Or the stairs at are 39).
The key in the abbots calcified hand allows the secret door in room 28 to open toward the "treasure room" (29) rather than to the stairs (30) down to the caverns, which is, presumably, the default. Is this where the fabled fire opal can be found?
Of significance here is that the abbot's body is a) located where it would easily be found if it were still encased in flesh, and b) still in possession of the ring and scroll case. Presumably anyone who had reason to seek the Abbot out--such as would be the case if the besiegers were either politically motivated or looking for the fire opal in his possession--would have searched every corpse to find him; either to make an example of him by trying him posthumously and impaling his corpse on a stake for all to see, or searching his carcass for the gem or some clue as to its whereabouts--like, say, a key or a map. That his body is lying in what would have been plain sight at the time of the siege and yet retains these two possessions indicates that the marauders were probably neither aware of the fire opal nor concerned with the political significance the abbot's corpse. Rather, the raiders who took down the monastery were more likely foreigners looking for obvious treasure; much like the first Vikings who raided the Monastery of St. Cuthbert* at Lindisfarne in 8th century Britain. Whoever these dudes were, they were in it for a quick score; snatching gaudy, jewel-encrusted religious implements, potential slaves, and casks of wine and beer would have been their prime interest. Rifling the pockets of an ascetic monk probably didn't rank too high on their to-do list.
*Yes, I did intentionally reference the real St. Cuthbert as a not-so-subtle nod to T1 Village of Hommlet and its sequel T2 Temple of Elemental Evil. This place is a religious edifice sacked by an army years ago, now an unholy ground inhabited by lowlifes, critters, and the undead; doesn't it maybe seem like it might have been an early version of the Temple of Elemental Evil? Sure, pretty much every dungeon had a background that sounded a lot like that back in the day, but considering that the DMG was published around the same time as T1... maybe this is what T2 might have looked like before it spent the next 6 years simmering on the back burner.
Next up: Room 3 and the Wandering Monster Tables
The Dungeon
Room 1. Spider webs including a large spider at 1A, some moldy sacks, a garnet in a goblin skull over in the corner (B); it all sets the tone of rot and refuse that permeates the place. That goblin may have been a member of the raiding army that took down the Monastery--or he could have wandered in at any time since. How the garnet got in his head is a curious mystery to consider. Also, please mind the yellow mold (25%).
One other thing of note is the oak door over at 1.C: Moaning can be heard behind it and, if opened, a gust of wind will extinguish all torches. Where did the wind come from? Sure, there's a subterranean stream running through the adjacent room--typically a great venue for creating air movement in a cavern, except that the stream "fills entirely" the tunnel through which it both enters and exits the room. Which is to say, there's no room for any air movement, much less wind forcible enough to extinguish all torches.
Those brave enough to enter the dark, windy cavern will find:
Room 2. WATER ROOM: Although the room is described as holding only "8 rotting barrels" (over at location A) from the hoard of casks and barrels which were once stored there, several of the barrels in the room "hold water" as they were "new and being soaked to make them tight" at the time of the downfall. This might give a sense of the passage of time to those familiar with the decay rate of wooden barrels.
2.B: The limed-over skeleton of the Abbot lies at the bottom of the stream that passes through the chamber. His corpse has undergone a "sea change," a reference, as the ensuing narrative example of play points out, to Shakespeare's Tempest:
Full fathom five thy father lies:
Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Amidst the remains of the abbot the attentive adventurer will find a scroll tube and a key. Acquiring these items is not a sure thing as Characters who dislodge the scroll tube have to make a successful "to hit" roll as if hitting AC 4 in order to successfully grab the scroll before the current of the stream takes it down stream beyond return. Is this a nascent action resolution system using "to hit" as a means of determining success at non-combat actions? Sort of a proto-SIEGE engine for you C&C fans?
Inside the scroll tube is a map of the underground portion of the monastery, but it is almost entirely smudged beyond use; showing only the two areas that the PCs will already have seen by the time they find this map along with an 80' section of hall in the "crypt area" to the south with "miniature sarcophagi" depicted in it. Not super helpful, but it will definitely aid parties in finding the crypt area which is accessible only via the elevated secret door in room 3. (Or the stairs at are 39).
The key in the abbots calcified hand allows the secret door in room 28 to open toward the "treasure room" (29) rather than to the stairs (30) down to the caverns, which is, presumably, the default. Is this where the fabled fire opal can be found?
Of significance here is that the abbot's body is a) located where it would easily be found if it were still encased in flesh, and b) still in possession of the ring and scroll case. Presumably anyone who had reason to seek the Abbot out--such as would be the case if the besiegers were either politically motivated or looking for the fire opal in his possession--would have searched every corpse to find him; either to make an example of him by trying him posthumously and impaling his corpse on a stake for all to see, or searching his carcass for the gem or some clue as to its whereabouts--like, say, a key or a map. That his body is lying in what would have been plain sight at the time of the siege and yet retains these two possessions indicates that the marauders were probably neither aware of the fire opal nor concerned with the political significance the abbot's corpse. Rather, the raiders who took down the monastery were more likely foreigners looking for obvious treasure; much like the first Vikings who raided the Monastery of St. Cuthbert* at Lindisfarne in 8th century Britain. Whoever these dudes were, they were in it for a quick score; snatching gaudy, jewel-encrusted religious implements, potential slaves, and casks of wine and beer would have been their prime interest. Rifling the pockets of an ascetic monk probably didn't rank too high on their to-do list.
*Yes, I did intentionally reference the real St. Cuthbert as a not-so-subtle nod to T1 Village of Hommlet and its sequel T2 Temple of Elemental Evil. This place is a religious edifice sacked by an army years ago, now an unholy ground inhabited by lowlifes, critters, and the undead; doesn't it maybe seem like it might have been an early version of the Temple of Elemental Evil? Sure, pretty much every dungeon had a background that sounded a lot like that back in the day, but considering that the DMG was published around the same time as T1... maybe this is what T2 might have looked like before it spent the next 6 years simmering on the back burner.
Next up: Room 3 and the Wandering Monster Tables
Friday, January 13, 2012
DMG Sample Dungeon Part 1: Background
It should be no secret by now that I like to analyze the crap out of esoteric stuff that only a few members of our species care about (see The Restenford Project as further evidence), but that's kind of what the OSR blogosphere is all about, right? No, you say? My mistake.
Anyway, the latest object of my obsession is, if you haven't guessed already, the sample dungeon provided in "The Campaign" section of EGG's DMG beginning on page 94. As you're probably aware the sample dungeon included a map of a single "dungeon" level and a write up detailing the first few rooms along with a smattering of background information that indicates that the dungeon is beneath the ruins of an abandoned abbey.
To describe the sample dungeon as "unfinished" would be an understatement; on appearances, this thing was barely even started. But even in the tiny amount of material provided there is a wealth of detail that will help the obsessive DM to extrapolate an entire adventure out of this tiny fosselized finger bone of a dungeon. In today's edition, I intend to dig into the background information found primarily in the first three paragraphs of the "The First Dungeon Adventure" section on page 96.
Background:
Rumor has it that "something strange and terrible lurks in the abandoned monastery" located in a fen outside of town. The monastery was sacked sometime in the past and now lies in ruin, but we know not the identity or the incentive of either the monks who lived there or the marauders. Was the abbey a warren of heretics besieged by their own papal leader--a monastery gone wicked? Or were they the last true believers brought to ruin to erase the shame of the fallen majority? Or was it something entirely different?
There is another rumor circulating, though somewhat less well known--that there is treasure to be had as well:
Environs:
A "two mile trek along a seldom used road" brings the party to the edge of the fen. There is a causeway to a low mound on which lie the ruins of the monastery--sounds reminiscent of the approach to the moat house in T1. A few tamaracks grow sporadically on hillocks that barely rise above the mire of the swamp. There is also a "fairly dense cluster" of tamaracks and "brush" about "a half mile beyond the abandoned place" indicating another area of high ground nearby. There is no hint as to the significance of this "cluster" in the abbreviated text of the dungeon, but it seems unlikely that such a detail would have been included without some significance given to the matter. Perhaps it was once linked via underground tunnels to the monastery grounds? Just something to consider if you're re-creating this dungeon for your own use.
Also: It may be worth noting that tamaracks are unique among coniferous trees in that they lose their needles in the winter; an adaptation that makes them the most cold-hardy of trees. Which is to say we're probably talking about a boreal climate here. If you want to move this thing to a warmer clime you might want to change the trees to mangroves or cypress.
...
That's all for today but pack your gear folks cuz tomorrow--I use that term loosely--we'll be searching the ruins. Kind of feels like a real adventure, right?
References:
Gygax, G. Dungeon Masters Guide. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR Games, 1979
 |
| Class, please turn to page 95 of your Dungeon Masters Guide. |
To describe the sample dungeon as "unfinished" would be an understatement; on appearances, this thing was barely even started. But even in the tiny amount of material provided there is a wealth of detail that will help the obsessive DM to extrapolate an entire adventure out of this tiny fosselized finger bone of a dungeon. In today's edition, I intend to dig into the background information found primarily in the first three paragraphs of the "The First Dungeon Adventure" section on page 96.
Background:
Rumor has it that "something strange and terrible lurks in the abandoned monastery" located in a fen outside of town. The monastery was sacked sometime in the past and now lies in ruin, but we know not the identity or the incentive of either the monks who lived there or the marauders. Was the abbey a warren of heretics besieged by their own papal leader--a monastery gone wicked? Or were they the last true believers brought to ruin to erase the shame of the fallen majority? Or was it something entirely different?
There is another rumor circulating, though somewhat less well known--that there is treasure to be had as well:
"A huge fire opal which the abbot of the place is said to have hidden when the monastery was under siege... the fellow died, according to legend, before revealing it to anyone, so somewhere within the ruins lies a fortune."Always good to know. But this could be more than just a potentially apocryphal tale to induce adventurers to explore the region; this could be evidence that avarice had overtaken the monks and they had deviated from their monastic cause.
Environs:
A "two mile trek along a seldom used road" brings the party to the edge of the fen. There is a causeway to a low mound on which lie the ruins of the monastery--sounds reminiscent of the approach to the moat house in T1. A few tamaracks grow sporadically on hillocks that barely rise above the mire of the swamp. There is also a "fairly dense cluster" of tamaracks and "brush" about "a half mile beyond the abandoned place" indicating another area of high ground nearby. There is no hint as to the significance of this "cluster" in the abbreviated text of the dungeon, but it seems unlikely that such a detail would have been included without some significance given to the matter. Perhaps it was once linked via underground tunnels to the monastery grounds? Just something to consider if you're re-creating this dungeon for your own use.
Also: It may be worth noting that tamaracks are unique among coniferous trees in that they lose their needles in the winter; an adaptation that makes them the most cold-hardy of trees. Which is to say we're probably talking about a boreal climate here. If you want to move this thing to a warmer clime you might want to change the trees to mangroves or cypress.
...
That's all for today but pack your gear folks cuz tomorrow--I use that term loosely--we'll be searching the ruins. Kind of feels like a real adventure, right?
References:
Gygax, G. Dungeon Masters Guide. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR Games, 1979
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