Goodman Games

I noticed there wasn't a thread for this specific module. I just got it from Tabletop G&H. I got one leetle scenario and then the group will be just perfect in level range.
Total roster for the team:
Half-Dragon Paladin8
Goliath Barbarian10
Human Rogue10
*Human Fighter10
*Half-Elf Bard11
*Half-Dragon Fighter7 (with Human cleric6 cohort)

* part-time player, participates in 3 out of 5 game sessions average.

Neat! and good luck.

What kind of plot are you going to use to hook the players into the module?

Rob Conley

The players live their D&D lives in a psuedo-Hyborian Age world. They have just had a less then successful adventure where they killed a beholder (expanded on by the CG to Beholders ) and recovered the ultra-powerful Book of Skelos (rumored to be able to destroy the world). But they had it pilfered by their guide who turned out to be a big red dragon.
This all happened south of Stygia (REH Egypt) deep in the jungles. So now they are trekking back north to track down Khyron (the dragon). They are trying to circumvent Stygia due to animosities there. This takes them across Punt and into Shem. Shem is REH Mesopotamia.
Now the locale is perfect.
They are going to hear some of the rumors from the module (they have friends in Shem). One or more of them are going to hint at a possible dragon lair under Fortress Badabaskor. Shem is not the most authoritarian culture so it is now a perfect flavor fit.

Nice using it in Hyboria. On reflection it would be a good fit for Conan's world. Glad I could write a two for one.

I take it then they will hear of Badabaskor as an ancient temple ruins. The trick here is to think out how you are going to handle the brigand impersonating the priests of Angall. You will need to deal with either the player just walking up to the gate. Or sneaking up and scouting the place.

Complications could be bandit gang patrols sent out from Badabaskor. Also there are latifundas (roman style slave farms) within several miles of Badabaskor that they could stumble on. The farmers have been given a cover story about how they are under then thumb of Angall but they aren't the greatest actors in the world you know

Hope this helps.

In REH novels there is a pre-Hyborian empire called Acheron (with a purple towered capitol called Python). I was going to place the origins of Badabaskor as Acheronian. The players only real experiencewith it is with Acheronian relics. So this will be their first actual Acheronian ruins.
I already planned to populate the area with several bandit groups (mostly nomadic Shemites.) The heroes are well aware of this since they have encountered a few before. They should be intrigued to stumble upon a 'lost colony' of Acheron (Badabaskor).
That is where I will play a lot by ear for a bit. Something along the lines of the Bandit king dude getting the heroes to help clear the dungeons/the heroes getting into trouble and sneaking through the city part to get into the dungeons and look for Khyron. Whether they take the bait (Bandit Kings request for aid) they will want to get the Book of Skelos (and personal vengeance) on Big Red Khyron before this adventure is through. All that's left is the 'how' they manage to get through Badabaskor to do it.

Khyron took advantage of and humiliated the heroes (robbed them and gloated right after their battle with a Beholder sovereign). But he may or may not need to kill them. He possibly just needed the Book of Skelos to quell a war brweing in the Underdark (and thus disturbing his lair).
Khyron also may or may not be the dragon under Badabaskor. Rumors have been known to be wrong. And who can blame someone for not catching a BigRed Dragon's name as he cruises by? (or for that matter , accurately judging the color. I wouldn't have honestly)

Absolutely great stuff!

Sometimes I think that people don't realize how easy it is to take something like Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor, read it, customize it (slightly or greatly, whichever you desire), and to come up with something really cool like this.

Well, now they are actually in the dungeons. Took awhile to get there so this was where we ended the session. Most of the game was the players wandering around interacting with the town. They were waiting for the "High Priest" to let them know if their terms for clearing out the dungeon below was acceptable. I kinda wanted them to try and sneak past so I could run the first two levels. However they showed up openly and basically sold their services to the BadaBaskorans. That's cool ,too. I can't remember when I ran so many NPCs in succession before so quickly. Having a town laid out for you really does help. They seemed to have a lot of fun just exploring it.

Welcome to the world of sandbox gaming.

Great stuff, I wonder how confused they will be when they get to the real "High Priest" in the fourth level.

One thing you will have to decide is how the players will get back out. There are two death wards that are passworded on the 2nd level. You will have to decide how to handle that.

Some possibilities

1) Talgorken sends a trusty to escort the PC through the wards while the trusty whisper the passwords.

2) Talgorken tells the PCs the password. I would say this is unlikely but it is your call. The reason it is unlikely because Talgorken will figure that the PCs may be captured by the priests or just join forces with them.

3) Talgorken hand the PCs a six inch long wooden dowel. Tells them to snap when they are ready to come out. It will snap a corresponding dowel so they know to come and get them through the wards.

It is something to think about beforehand.

Oh, I was thinking an escort would take them to the doorway leading to the last couple unfinished rooms on the second level and wave as the heroes went through. They ,for some reason, think it is going to lead straight to the dragon's lair. They also think they just outsmarted me and skipped the whole dungeon and went straight to the big boss bad guy.

LOL

Good Job

Rob Conley

Last night some little progress was made. We had a brand new player (with only WoW experience with RPGs, so not totally new). We'll see how he changes team dynamics if he continues to game with us. We rolled up a 10th level cleric for him. We kind of needed one since the 1/2Dragon Fighter's Cleric cohort died in a random encounter in the desert. The new guy played a healer on WoW and asked to play a cleric. He is still getting used to the idea of 'healers in armor'. Kind of skittish around melee.
Laughed my arse off when he charged the Rogue for a spell.
Anyway not much has slowed the team down really. The trolls got off a few hits and the orcs are fodder. The medusae tripped them up pretty badly. Petrified the rogue and the new cleric didn't have dispel memorized that day.
They took a few of the human bandits (the ones getting sauced by an orc)as prisoner/loot carriers. They have been pretty docile so far. But then again all they are carrying is an extra shield and a painting.
The mapper got confused in the twisty caverns. Got the team lost. After we poked fun at him I made a note on his map (I ain't wasting time watching them run in circles for a couple of hours) and they righted their course.
We had to wrap up earlier then usual when two players conked out on us around 3 or 4am. The rest of us had a tournament of Strange Synergy till 7am (our usual wrap-time). I won after I betrayed my partner and made it back to my base first.
He really should have seen it coming though. I'm the DM

Thanks for sharing that. Looking forward to more.

Rob Conley

Okay, made a lot more progress now. Though in two different directions. The team plunges on.
Two players didn't show tonight. The paladin and the cleric. They were having a divine conference call. That left the fighter, the rogue, the barbarian, and the bard.
From last week they had three captured bandits they drafted into loot-carrier duty. Well, first big fight and a monster attacked one of the bandits. All three fled, with the loot they were carrying. And the team didn't finish the monsters off for about six rounds. The bandits were long gone with the loot.
Undaunted the team presses ever onward. After a couple more encounters they captured a priest of Angall and interrogate him. He reveals (under great duress) some of the secrets of the fortress. The players realize now that the crew up on the top levels are pretty good bluffers.
The team then strikes a deal with the priest and releases him and combine forces to attack the crew on the top two levels. Back on level two the priest turns on the players and shatters much gear from the fighter.
The fighter then went into a rage ,killed the priest and charged off in an almost random direction to "kill everybody".
He ran right into the barracks rooms. The ensuing melee attracted not one but two patrols and/or other room occupants. The players actually were doing pretty good until the bard ran out of spells and the barbarian took a nasty critical cut from a berzerked orc. They then beat a fighting retreat back across level two and past the threshold to the unfinished portions.
That was where we wrapped for the day. The rogue rolled pretty high on a disable device check to a door. The guards are on the other side trying to beat it down and mustering their best troops for another showdown with the PCs.

Wow that a direction I would not expect. The ways of PCs I wonder if they are going to try to fight the whole town.

So did they meet the priest on the 3rd or 4th level?

It was one of the ones from the third level. They have pretty much cleared that entire level except for where I placed Khyron (the red dragon the PCs have history with, and whom is sitting in for Thasokkar the young red in area 1) and that section.
I rolled a natural 19 for Ashalon's bluff check when he suggested the PCs unite with him and strike at the 'defilers' on the top two levels. It was a desperate move on Ashalon's part, mostly because the party had already slain Berak and Lodon. When the team captain failed to overcome this with sense motive (and my eager roleplay on behalf of the priest) they accepted.
They had planned on turning against their 'employers' already and figured this priest was just the ally they needed. He wasn't. Right when the players emerged into the fortress proper I had Ashalon use his domain shatter and make a run for it in the confusion.He didn't make it but it was fun.
I can always count on PCs coming up with unexpected means.
This module rocks!

It will be interesting to see how they handle the 4th level. If anything it could offer them some opportunities for creative revenge.

Wheeeeeewwww! Tore through about half of the fourth level.
I'm thinking trolls make good foot soldier types for dungeon dwelling evilness. They're turning into speed bumps for the players.
Let me back up and start from the beginning. The PCs were fleeing from the bandits on the second floor. They had beaten a fighting retreat back across the unfinished tunnels in the second level. I had the bandits give up the chase at the stairway going back into the third level.
The team then found a room of gargoyles (almost too easy) and got lost again. The mapper actually made one tunnel too short and so he had two of the same area. He didn't notice until they hit the steps again.
They found the big dragon lair but pretty much just turned around and went the other way. The scenery scared them off.
Then we start onto the fourth level. A new mapper had taken over and the team found their way along to the sarcaphagus room. The troll was a speed bump but the temple guardian thingy was a good fight, mostly because it was new and they didn't think it would go *fwoosh* like it could. Also, it started flipping those sarcaphagus lids off, making the fight interesting.
But, interesting was still rather light for the team, and they pressed on. They made it straight ahead to the big temple room. Here they had trouble. They got bottlenecked at the end of the hallway by the wraiths. Then when they went into the room they hit the dread wraiths (immune to the trap's magic effects for the most part). The dread wraiths were a nice surprise for me because the team started getting lax mentally thinking this was going to be an easy fight like the previous room.
Boy, those dread wraiths knocked them out of that frame of mind! I had the spectres move through the walls to box the team into the room threshold. Then I had the Angall priestesses move up in formation. Hit the entire party with shatters, wrecking all kinds of potions and alchemist's fires.
One other thing they blew up was the fire elemental gem that the paladin was carrying. I think that surprised the spectres more then anybody else, as it tore right through them and the last of the dread wraiths.
That was my cue to step up with the head priest dude and start spell casting on the PCs while they tried to get around the priestesses (I changed most of the cult of Angall's gender as it seemed more sinister to have a feminine cult of destruction). I didn't get off as many offensive spells as I might have liked, but I killed two PCs with that maximized flame strike (the cleric and the barbarian).
So without a cleric the bard is almost crippled (Con drainage down to 4 with 12hp). No one can raise the barbarian (and obviously that applies to the dead cleric as well). The two other survivors are the paladin (can't cast restoration) and the fighter.
And all the riches they can carry. They are taking a break in this room for the night. The patrol was killed off a long time ago and they made some traps along the hallways.
They need a plan to carry all this loot past the hornit's nest they stirred up on the top side. They have gathered up a few clues from here and there to discover the tome of Skelos (the object duQuest) was given to someone called "the librarian" who dwells in the library (of course ). They have not recovered this tome and are actually really tempted to abandon quest. (Especially now that they discovered what the throne was made out of). The paladin and the fighter have split the vote with the bard's player taking the week to mull it over.
I also have to figure out how to insert two PCs into the dungeon to replace the guys who died last night. I'm thinking the monk (whom the PCs have not yet encountered) can be replaced with a PC monk and finishes his meditations early. But that still leaves one out. Maybe an escapee from the bandits above?

Wow, sounds like a heck of an adventure.

As for replacement I think the monk is a good idea.

Other possibilities can be a lost gnome explorer. A bandit escapee. There are adventurerers on the 5th level so is not beyond the realm of possibility there could be yet another party in the dungeon say a two man one.

An interesting thought would be a priest(ess) of angall desiring to defect.

MrsCharlie puts her foot down, and all gaming grinds to a halt.

What the heck was on her foot!?!

The words "Rock Crusher", LoL

Well, not much to say about how this module ended. The barbarian's player rerolled a sorceror and used scry and teleport to get around the rest of the dungeon. The black pudding got split into about five pieces before somebody realized what to do against it. A red dragon (young adult) decided to wander around after she noticed that most of the denizens were now missing and chased the PCs around for a bit (the sorc was entirely useless against this reddy since all his spells were either transportation or pyromancy.) They basically hit a few more rooms (the secret door to the armory led to a pretty neat encounter), popped over to the library and sent the sorc in there to scoop up the magic book/quest item and popped out of the dungeon.

It wasn't the most spectacular ending. The sorc kind of ruined it. But all in all the players had fun.

It happens but it sounds like fun was had by all. I have a players who continually abuses the GURPS Magic system in a similar way. His trick is teleport and daze which stuns the target.

So did the sorcerer meet Stephan of Cobaer?

He did. I got some laughs from the team role-playing him for a few. But the Sroceror made his save and the guy turned into scenery when it came time to move on.

The team was scandalised when the rogue killed the kitten. The fighter was under the mistaken assumption it was a Guardian Familiar and was more trouble then it was worth. The rogue just stabbed it though. Horrifying the rest of the team (thankfuly). Then the rogue grabbed the sword and got hit by the insta-negative level (made instantaneous by me because I was still in so much shock at the kitten getting killed so callously that I forgot how Negative levels worked).

This all worked against the players though. Our next adventure started with them counting their gold and getting the hometown (Messantia of Argos, perfect for a coastal nation)hit with a tormenting hurricane. Segue into DCC#21. They cocky band of heroes marched right up to the Stormbringer's Castle Gates. And avoided a wipeout by mere luck. (it's in the DCC subforum).
I couldn't figure out what they were thinking except that they got overconfident after getting "over the hump" in the Fortress of B-kor. Since the last session was such a stroll they strolled right up to the bad guys front door like they were Joe Fridays.

So, wait... Stephen Colbert (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJvY_RftA4I) is in this module?

Now, I'm even more interested in getting it....