From Kuroth's Quill -
grodog's AD&D blog

"From Kuroth’s Quill" is grodog's regular design column covering the elements of adventure design (and more-specifically dungeon design, given my interest in that topic). I will also wander through the design of spells and magic items; monsters, traps, tricks, and treasures; PC and NPC classes; planes and pantheons; and likely other topics as well. In the blog, I hope to provide practical examples that will be useful in campaign play, to show theory in action.

Showing posts with label drow. Show all posts

06 August 2021

North Texas RPGCon 2021 - grodog's games recap

As usual, I had a wonderful time at the North Texas RPG Con this year (3-6 June 2021)---in particular since this was the first in-person convention that I attended since NTX in 2019!

Some quick NTX info, for those who are unfamiliar with the convention:

Black Blade Booth

These pictures showcase our Black Blade Publishing booth this year:

While it was a transitional and rebuilding year, we did well at the con, and it was great to be able to showcase so many new and cool products to the attending gamers!

grodog's Events

Knights & Knaves Alehouse Social

I played in the K&KA Social on Thursday night, and had a wonderful time. It's always fun to play with a very large group (15-25 players) each year and to see what mayhem erupts! This year we were slated to play OD&D (we alternate between OD&D and AD&D each year), and Nathan "tetramorph" Jennings DM'd again.

We picked up from where we left off two years ago. Here are my player maps from the 2019 session:

and alas, my hapless PC---who used efreeti-granted wishes to become the Lord of the Manor last time---was laid low by those meddling kids! Rest in pieces, Lord Merrak the Perspicacious, and know that you will be avenged! (In the meanwhile, he and his efreet did kill the dragon and go down in a blaze of glory! =)

Nathan posted his DM-POV event summary at K&KA at https://knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?p=281522#p281522, with some follow-up comments in the next page too. General discussion of the social begins on the page at https://knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16739&start=135

Here are a few pics of the K&KA crew in the boardroom where we played:

K&KA Social 2021 -
picture by Keith "Welleran" Sloan

K&KA Social 2021 -
picture by Chris "benjoshua" Fuller

"Treachery in Erelehi-Cinlu!"

I ran "Treachery in Erelehi-Cinlu!" twice at the con, with a fine set of players in each. These were smaller events than I normally run through my Castle Greyhawk levels, with just six players per event, which allowed for a bit more focus on role-playing with and among the players.

Here's the long event description:

The drowic sage Erastoriûl Ka’arndrik has betrayed your masters, Lyme, Lord Mage of House Eilservs, and Lady Eclavdra, self-styled Queen of the Vault. Eclavdra and Lyme have sentenced the sage to vengeance and unholy death, and you are to be the instruments of their vendetta! Invade the sage's home, slay him, and return with baubles, secrets, and magics that will enrich the coffers and standing of your masters (and yourselves!). Bring your graph paper, dice, and a healthy dose of paranoid courage! 5th-7th level pregen drowic PCs will be provided. Please note: in grodog's version of the World of Greyhawk drow are chaotic evil, demon-worshipping villains, including the pregen PCs and their masters.

Session #1 ran on Friday night, and Session #2 on Saturday night.

Session #1 players: Dex Briggs, Mark Greenberg, Jim Kitchen, Keith Sloan, Wade Stalcup, Troy Stearns

Session #2 players: Corwin Getty, Stephen Getty, Marian Hershberger, Natalie Hershberger, Shannon Hardt, Darren Moura-Smith, William Meinhardt

I didn't end up playing any other events at the con this year, and both sets of players ended up succeeding in the mission for the scenario, which was a bit of a surprise to me. I may playtest the lower dungeon level for this at Virtual Greyhawk Con in October, we'll see how the rest of my summer design/editing/relaxing time goes....

grodog's NTX Loot

Adventurers and gamers are all about the loot, so here's what I scored at NTX this year.

My purchases from the con include stuff bought actually at the con, as well as some items that arrived in the mail while I was away for the con, and some items recovered from our inventory that were buried in storage the past 18 months ;) :

Highlights include

finding a copy of Dungeon Crawl #3 thanks to the vasty stores of Mike "Badmike" Badolato (I had bought a copy of #2 from Wayne Rossi while home visiting South Jersey several years ago; these are still available in PDF via DriveThru)---the Ballantine Adult Fantasy books were from Mike, too!
the pulps-inspired Creature Compendium volumes 1-3 (all Special Editions for NTX), and the Fifty Fiends books, all from New Big Dragon: I'm a sucker for demons, as well as pulp monsters!
the new expanded edition of Rob Kuntz's "Beyond the Living Room" set-piece encounter from Castle Greyhawk, recently released by Rob via Paul Stormberg's Legends of Roleplaying

When I returned home, my copies of Through Ultan's Door #3 and (unpictured, but there in spirit) Gabor Lux's Helvéczia arrived, too!

See!---I'm Not Dead Yet :D

I finally got this out the door, in the waning days of my first vacation this summer, and have some more news and events to share on the blog soon!

Allan.

22 March 2021

Canonfire! Postfest XIX - Greyhawk's Drowic Underworld - deadline to submit 15 April 2021

As announced by Gary Holian (PSmedger) on Canonfire!:

Drow by Bill Willingham, in
TSR's D1-2 Descent into the Depths of the Earth (1981)

It's been a long time coming, but due to popular demand, Canonfire has decided to revive the Postfests!

What is a Postfest? A Postfest is a shared design project where members of Canonfire (or anyone who wishes to participate) agree to write articles on the same topic. They are turned in by a deadline, then shared all at once. Reading and goodness ensues.

For example, here was a Postfest on Villains from the early days of Canonfire: http://www.canonfire.com/cf/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=18

Inspired by this weekend and Lord Gosumba’s fundraiser topic, “Underdark Uprising”, this Postfest will focus on Greyhawk’s Underdark. We’ll use a broad definition of the Underdark that includes hollows within mountains (i.e. Slerotin’s tunnel), caverns below the earth (i.e. Vault of the Drow), the Rift Canyon, and ancient underground ruins upon which new cities have been built (i.e. Narwell).

Topic ideas might include:
New or Existing Entrances to the Underdark
Mysterious Places in the Underdark
Underdark Races and Monsters
Ecology of the Underdark and Wilderness Survival
NPCs from the Underdark
Magical Items or Artifacts that focus on the Underdark

We’ve made a few changes to the traditional Postfest:

First, we won’t be voting on the submissions anymore. It's all in good fun, but if people want to give writers some feedback, I’m sure they’d love it.

Second, we’re going to post the submission to Canonfire as usual, but we also plan to compile all the submissions into a Greyhawk Underdark PDF that will be available for everyone to download. We are considering compiling some of the old Postfests, likewise.

Third, if you participate, we are thinking of giving back some suitable loot (perhaps a printed copy of the PDF) for some randomly selected participants, or everyone if we can swing it.

Due date is ~~March 19th~~*, about a month from now, a week before Gary Con. Any questions, send them to [email protected]

* The editors extended the submission date to 15 April 2021, given the overlap with GaryCon's Greyhawk-heavy tracks.

If you're looking for submission ideas to riff off of, check the Dragonsfoot "Mapping the Depths of the Earth" project, which is also coordinated by Denis "Maldin" Tetreault at http://melkot.com/locations/underdark/underdark.html. You can also read through previous postfests on Canonfire!.

My submission will be a drowic trading hub, and is 1725 words to date, with probably another 1000 or so to go in tables and such before it's done. We'll see....

Allan.

17 October 2018

Kellri's 18 Module Challenge - Day 16: G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King by Gary Gygax

Day 16 - My Favorite Gary Gygax Module: G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King

Whither Day 15?---Blogger ate my post on The Court of Ardor for MERP, and I've not recreated it yet. Trying to stay as on-track as possible....

G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King (TSR, 1978) is Gary Gygax's final adventure in the initial trilogy of GDQ modules that made him a household name among every generation of D&D players.

"The Battle for Snurre's Hall," a play account from all three rounds at Origins 1978 was published in The Dragon #19 (October 1978), and it speaks well to the trials and tribulations faced by the players in this scenario.

Why I Love G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King!

It's a meat-grinder, it's a small moon, it's a TPK trivializer!

G3 is a wonderful capstone to the G1-3 Giants series of modules, while at the same time it acts as the introductory bridge into the even-more-brutal threats to be faced in its sequels, the D1-3 drowic underworld trilogy. (Perhaps Gary intended the final series of Q adventures to be a Q1-3 trilogy as well?; hmmm....). G3 pounces upon the PCs who've progressed through G1 and G2, ratchets up the level of challenge, and spits them back out by introducing many new and horrific ways for the players to bemoan the beat-down it delivers:

King Snurre Ironbelly (who fights as a storm giant!), his delightful, decapitating wife Queen Frupy, their pet hell hounds, pyrohydra (!!), and huge ancient red dragon (!!!), and other courtly attendants
A series of interesting prisoners who may, or may not, aid the PCs in their pursuit of vengeance against the giants, including:

An olven noble and her retinue
Obmi, the infamous dwarf from Castle Greyhawk and the Gord novels, first sees print here, complete with his now-under-powered gnoll retinue ;)
A stupefied titan
A comely human female thief, likely to ally with the PCs in the short-term
And various other monsters that are likely to attack and/or betray their rescuers at the first opportunity

The Temple of the Eye---a fully-functioning temple to the Elder Elemental God, complete with Lovecraftian tentacles, madness-inducing/wish-granting sacrifices, and more!
Ropers, gnolls and trolls en masse as shock troops, wererats, ettins, and of course fire giants and hell hounds by the dozen!
As with each of the previous adventures, careful players' PCs will learn more about the fountainhead behind the incursions of the allied giants into Geoff, and are likely to come face to face with pure, unadulterated EVIL (don't touch it!)---of course, the drow!:

The drow are, naturally, one of the highlights of the entire series, but in G3 they offer a first, befuddling taste of what is to come in the characters' insane descent toward Erelhei-Cinlu and beyond:

Eclavdra, Evil High Priestess of the Elder Elemental God and House Eilservs (in anagram, "serviles"?)
Nedylene, Despana second-in-command, and foe to the Eilservs
Mind flayers spying on both, and being ignored by the drow!

Three Runners Up

This selection is more difficult than it should be, since Gygax wrote so many great modules, but I'll go with these as my selections:

D1 Descent into the Depths of the Earth (TSR, 1978) - Picks up the gauntlet the drow throw down in G3, luring the PCs deeper beneath Oerth to their (assumed) doom!
EX2 Land Beyond the Magic Mirror (TSR, 1984) - I love Murlynd's home, and the whimsical play of romping around in Alice's Wonderland (here as well as in EX1 Dungeonland!)
S1 Tomb of Horrors (based on the ideas of Alan Lucien) - Classic, classic, classic!

More-properly D3 Vault of the Drow, S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, and WG4 Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun also deserve places on this list, but since there are only three slot, and I've already featured some in other entries....