Necropolis

[Messageboard Golem]

A sweeping source book and high-level epic adventure by the master himself-Gary Gygax-set in the desert lands of Khemit. Can the characters thwart the plans of Set-Rahotep himself? Designed for characters level 12 to 18. Features maps of the lands of Khemit, details of its cities and culture, new cleric domains, over 40 new spells, over 40 gods, over 40 new monsters and templates, new character classes and races-all the material you need to run a campaign in the lands of Khemit-plus an epic high-level adventure over 100 pages long! Gary Gygax is back! 224 pages (hardback).

 

[MerricB]

It's odd to see a book as thick as this one and realise that it's actually an adventure. It has more than 280 pages that describe both an epic adventure and the lands of Egypt - or at least, a fantasy version of the same. The Temple of Elemental Evil was a mere 128 pages, and I used to think that was Gary Gygax's greatest work in the art of module writing. It wasn't, for this surpasses it by far.

Comparing it with the Temple of Elemental Evil may have some relevance - in both, the adventure begins in a small community. The village of Aartuat, which is amply described in the text, has factions of NPCs working for either good or ill, in addition to other features which make it an interesting place to begin the adventure. From there, the characters will set out to the main place of the adventure: the Gorge of Osiris - the Necropolis, the Valley of the Dead. However, where the bulk of the action of in the Temple was in one dungeon complex, the action in this adventure varies much more in approach and location.

This module is a conversion of one that Gary Gygax put out for his ill-fated Dangerous Adventures RPG; the d20 conversion has been done by the folks at Necromancer Games, and is excellently realised. Because of the confused rights to the product (WotC hold them due to various factors), not all that much of the product is Open Game Content, unfortunately. However, it's primarily useful as an adventure, so that doesn't bother me much.

Breaking down the book into chapters, this is what you get:

Chapter One: Introduction, 2 pages: what the book is about.

Chapter Two: Beginning the Saga, 9 pages: notes on getting the characters into the action, and on the plans of the villains.

Chapter Three: Aartuat Village, 22 pages: a small village where the characters get introduced to the land, and find their first allies and enemies.

Chapter Four: The Pool of Hapy, 8 pages: an encounter location near the village.

Chapter Five: The Road through the Gorge, 14 pages: the wilderness travel to the Gorge of Osiris.

Chapter Six: The Temple of Osiris, 38 pages: the first major encounter area within the Gorge.

Chapter Seven: The Gorge of Osiris, 17 pages: the lesser tombs within the Gorge and other encounters.

Chapter Eight: Rahotep's Tomb, 58 pages: the goal of the quest, and the climax of the adventure.

Chapter Nine: Epilogue: 2 pages: wrapping up the adventure.

Chapter Ten: The Blemmysh Tribesman's Account, 2 pages: this details information that will get the party interested in the adventure in the first place.

Chapter Eleven: The Temple of Set, 10 pages: an additional encounter area that the party might stumble into.

Appendix A: NPCs of Necropolis, 12 pages: stat-blocks and personality notes for the major NPCs.

Appendix B: Monster Appendix, 46 pages: a host of new monsters - more than fifty of them - and two monster templates.

Appendix C: The Lands of Khemit, 8 pages: details on the land of fantasy Egypt.

Appendix D: The Gods of Khemit: 10 pages: details on over fifty gods of the land.

Appendix E: Classes, Spells and Items of Khemit: 12 pages: a ranger variant, plus many new items, spells, cleric domains, and notes on other classes in Khemit.

The rest of the book is taken up with the maps, pictures and the legal appendix. As you can see, there's a lot of material here.

Above all, what strikes me most of all is the amount of advice that Gygax gives the DM about running the adventure - in scaling it to meet the needs of the players. "Are the PCs virtually unscathed?" he asks at one point. "If so, you've been too lenient, they've been too clever, or I've not made this adventure as deadly as I intended... Is the group nearly destroyed? That's no good, either." The sheer bulk of the material here is going to make this a true challenge to DM, but Gygax helps as much as he can to make it easier for you.

The actual adventuring areas throughout this module are fiendishly inventive, and often deadly. The module's cover says that it's "An epic adventure... designed for 4 to 8 characters of 10th to 18th level." This isn't really a module for novice players with high-level characters. Inexperienced players are likely to find this adventure too difficult without much adjustment of the challenges on the part of the DM; however, it is a superb challenge for experienced players.

With regard to the storyline of the module, well, it's epic. An ancient evil is stirring, and it's up to the PCs to stop it. I don't want to detail that much of it, in case a player is reading this that shouldn't be. (Go away! Get this module for your DM to run!) However, I can reveal that finishing the quest will require some crawling through the ancient trap-filled tombs of a fantasy version of Egypt, as well as role-playing, problem-solving, and actual fighting!

Gygax broadly details a couple of methods for which the characters can enter the story: the Direct Mission, where they're sent by the Archpriest of Thoth to the area to find out what's going wrong, or the Casual Approach, where the PCs are simply looking for treasure in the fabled Necropolis, having discovered certain papers suggesting that such a treasure is available. (The Blemish Tribesman's Account, detailed in Chapter Ten).

I should point out that, strictly speaking, this isn't an adventure in Ancient Egypt. It's in a fantastical version of the same, with a recent history that diverges from our own. It is long past the days of the building of the first pyramids, and many of the tombs have been plundered. Compared to our own history, it seems as if the year is about 870 A.D. or so, but Khemit has not fallen to the Greeks and later the Romans - it remains its own country.

Physically speaking, this is an extremely attractive book. It is a hardback, printed on a superior quality of paper; the internal layout is excellent and eminently readable. Very little of the module is actually Open Gaming Content, even though this is produced as a d20 System module, due to the fact that Wizards of the Coast actually own the original material from which this module was converted. We must greatly thank Necromancer Games for doing the conversion - which is excellent - and Wizards for allowing it to be published.

Are there things about this module that I don't like? Well, I haven't found very much - perhaps more will reveal itself to me when I finally get to DM it, but, as of yet, not much has become apparent to my reading. Two things come to mind: one is that it's deadly, though that's not much of a blemish. It will require experienced players, though. The other is that it may be hard to fit into an ongoing campaign, for Egypt is a little outside the parameters of normal fantasy campaigns. To solve the latter will probably require some individual DM ingenuity, but such effort will be fully paid off.

The most important thing about this module for me is that I can't wait to DM it. With a lot of adventures, I think "that's nice", and may draw inspiration from them for my campaign, but I don't have a real desire to run them. I want to run this adventure, and that's pretty much the highest praise I can give.

I've tried to shy away from giving too much away of the adventure details, but it's worth mentioning the Temple of Osiris section. As one might expect - this being an adventure - the Temple has a few problems of its own. There is plenty of opportunity for fighting and role-playing here, and the characters are likely to find themselves descending to the Underworld! Once they get there, the sense of wonder steps up a notch. The place is dangerous, but Gygax carefully makes it possible for the characters to succeed, even if they have been tricked into entering it. As he writes, "It will then take a lot of skill, hard fighting, and luck to get them back above ground safely, but that's what dungeon adventuring is all about, isn't it?"

It certainly is, and the Underworld section (not the actual Land of the Dead, but it might seem that way to the players) is fascinating to read. Deadly, certainly, and the players must avoid various magical areas and traps as well as defeat the forces of Set if they are to survive. However, it is to be hoped that in the end they will restore the fallen statue of Osiris to its place of honour. The action is interesting throughout this section - as it is throughout the entire adventure - and of a grandly heroic style.

If you haven't realised it by now, I strongly recommend that you put down whatever you're doing, and rush off and purchase Necropolis. This is one of the all-time classic adventures, finally made available to the wider gaming world under the aegis of the d20 system. It presents opportunities for dungeon delving, treasure finding, monster slaying, role-playing, town adventuring, wilderness adventuring, intrigue, magic, wonder, and most importantly of all, a chance for the players to be heroes.

What more could you ask for?

(This review was originally published on rpg.net)

 

[blackshirt5]

Bravo. That's all I can say. You somehow encapsulated everything I would have said about Necropolis, and then added a little bit more. The only thing I didn't see in this(and it can be inferred from the price listing and the fact that you mention the page count) is what a complete STEAL this book is at it's listed price. It gives you an epic adventure and enough info to run a continuing campaign in Khemit. All I wanted to say.

 

[Hammerhead]

First, I have not thoroughly looked through Necropolis; I've only read it in a store. However, aren't many of the encounters simply arbitrary that ignore 3ed conventions like skill points, saving throws, or ability checks? Aren't some of the traps impossible to find by any rogue. And, progressing later into the Necropolis, do rogues have anything to do? Its not much of a spoiler to reveal that the bulk of enemies faced in Necropolis are undead, and combined with the arbitary traps, it seems that most rogue just get to plink away for 1d6 damage a round.

 

[MerricB]

The traps aren't entirely arbitrary. The vast bulk of the traps are locatable by a Rogue, and there are also plenty of other Open Lock, Search, Disable Device, Spot and related skill checks to keep a Rogue busy.

There are one rather nasty set of traps that no-one can detect, but the reasoning behind them is totally in keeping with the spirit of the module and the game... they are avoidable only if a certain set of conditions are met beforehand.

Although there are a lot of undead, there are also outsiders and magical beasts for the rogue to sneak attack. You might want to go through Necropolis without a rogue... I certainly wouldn't!

The conversion is masterful, and skill points, saving throws and ability checks are definitely included. As I mentioned, there is one sequence where the rogue's skills will be in vain... but even then, Mr Gygax gives suggestions for toning it down to suit your playing group.

Cheers!

 

[ASEO]

Questions:
Is the theme of this adventure Egyptian in as far as the characters are expected to have an Egyptian background, Egyptian equipment and the like?

Since this adventure is for levels 10-18, do characters need to get into that level range by having prior egyptian adventures, or can you just take any 10th level party (D&D tends to have a European tint to it) and set them running?

If prior Egyptian adventuring is required, anybody have any suggestions on modules to get characters from 1st to 10th level in an egyptian type setting?

How does the party's background fit into the campaign? What about playable races? Would a Dwarven Paladin in Plate Armor fit in (that sort of thing)?

ASEO out

 

[MerricB]

Answer the first: No, you are not required to have Egyptian characters. Most likely you are explorers/treasure hunters from another land.

Answer the second: Any party.

Answer the third: Not required.

Answer the fourth: For the DM to decide. A dwarf in plate armour is likely to fall over in the desert from heatstroke, but no races are denied - they just might not be common in Khemit and so have come from outside.

Cheers,
Merric

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Gary Gygax's Necropolis
By Gary Gygax, with additional material by Bill Webb, Scott Greene, and Clark Peterson
Necromancer Games

Overview
Gary Gygax's Necropolis (or simply, Necropolis) is two parts module to one part sourcebook. This is a huge hardcover book, weighing in at nearly 300 pages, with a cover painting by the well-known fantasy illustrator Keith Parkinson.

The first 200 pages of the volume include a mini-campaign of linked adventures for 4-8 characters of level 10-18. This mini-campaign takes place in a unique setting, the lands of Khemit - a land very similar to ancient Egypt. The latter fourth of the book is a sourcebook for the campaign setting, with about 65 new monsters and templates, new classes and PrCs (including an ever-popular ranger variant), a pantheon of deities, new clerical domains, spells, magic items, maps, a brief rundown of the history and geography of Khemit, and so forth.

The book uses a small font, and reasonably-sized margins. As a consumer with sagging bookshelves who despises books that use excessive font sizes, margins, and so forth used as "padding" to inflate page count, this is a plus in my book. The artwork is nicely done, black-and-white illustrations from multiple artists, embodying the "first-edition feel" that is Necromancer Games' motto.

The book is a D20 conversion of an original module by Gary Gygax for his short-lived "Dangerous Journies" RPG that he produced shortly after his departure from TSR. I have never seen the original, so I cannot compare the faithfulness of the D20 conversion to the original. Unfortunately, since this book was produced under license from Wizards of the Coast (I assume they ended up purchasing all the DJ materials as part of their settlement with Gygax in the 1980s), relatively little of the content is designated Open.


The Adventure
The adventure is intended for levels 10-18. The first chapter of the actual adventure (chapter 3) is actually a little under-challenging even as an introduction to the storyline. There is lots of roleplaying potential, and a chance to become familiar with the culture and history of Khemit. The players may have to discover who is telling the truth and who is lying, and are ultimately confronted with a rather lackluster CR-7 demonic crocodile. From a storytelling perspective, it isn't inappropriate - the enemies are just beginning to gauge the competence of these new heroes. There's a metagame reason for starting off so easily as well - it is intended to give the players a bit of false confidence for the adventure ahead, so that they will feel even more "shock and awe" when the bad guys start bringing their full forces to bear.

The adventure very quickly scales up in difficulty, to the point where I feel that a party of level 10 adventurers would be hard pressed to survive even with expert play without a lot of "side adventures" created by the DM between the chapters. Shortly after the roleplaying-heavy, trivial-combat first segment, the party starts hitting encounters averaging EL-15. While level 10 adventurers could survive and contribute in these encounters, the average party level should be a few levels higher than this. I think the average party level starting Necropolis should be closer to 12 - and even that should be with a minimum of six party members. Either this, or the DM should prepare several side-adventures in advance to help the characters "level-up" between chapters. With the wealth of source material contained in the latter third of the book, the DM has quite a bit of material to draw from.

Players approaching Necropolis with a "hack & slash" mentality will probably not last very long. As is typical with many of the "old school" classic adventures, parties wading in with guns blazing (er, or swords swinging) with little thought to tactics, leaving no stone unturned in their search for treasure, will soon find themselves rolling up new characters. Necropolis has a reputation for being incredibly lethal, and was billed at one point as "Tomb of Horrors" on steroids. Many of the worst traps and fights can be avoided simply by the party sticking to their mission plan, and not getting so greedy that they are poking around at everything in hopes of finding hidden treasures. Of course, parties that do that will miss some of the best treasure in the game, so there's a risk / reward factor that often amounts to little more than blind luck. Many times it requires the players to pick up on subtle hints or clues from earlier patterns or tidbits of Khemitian culture and history that they pick up during the earlier parts of the games. Your players DID take time to talk to villagers and roleplay and learn about local customs and lore, didn't they?

Unfortunately, many of the hints and clues are so subtle that the solutions to puzzles or traps border on pure luck. During play, my players picked up on this and began basing nearly every action or sequence of actions on previous patterns or coincidences that they discovered. After a full chapter, they were taking copious notes and seeing obscure patterns EVERYWHERE. Most of the time, their efforts were useless and had no bearing on what would happen next. But every once in a while they'd guess it right, and avoid what I'd have considered unavoidable. It helped that they were multi-year veterans of classic modules and knew what it meant when they were going through a Gygax-written module.

Another big plus for this type of adventure design is that the most powerful spells are NOT the massive-damage, massive area-effect offensive spells that some players tend to overuse. Based upon the reports I have heard and my own playtest experience, many of the most powerful spells in this adventure are actually divinations and other "utility"-type spells, as well as defensive spells like Death Ward. While some "spoiler"-style spells are prevented in some parts of the module (like plane-shifting abilities), many times they remain a viable option to get past what seems an otherwise insurmountable problem. Players may complain about the high difficulty levels and DCs of some of the thornier parts of the module, but in every case I found there was some sort of Achilles Heel (usually several) the players could exploit through cleverness and "thinking outside the box". Make no mistake - while there is plenty of high-level combat and "hack & slash" opportunities, Necropolis is a "thinking-man's dungeon."

The module is rich in flavor and has a solid "feel" of ancient Egyptian mythology. The adventures are not linked too tightly, which is advantageous if you are planning on providing lots of side-quests, or (as I did) you are using the adventures separately rather than as one full campaign. There are lots of suggestions for story-based awards, including XP "penalties" which are frowned upon in 3E. There are also plenty of suggestions for adjusting the difficulty and lethality of the adventure to suit the DM's campaign. The sourcebook, while not quite worth the price of the book by itself, has proven itself to be a very useful in my own campaign even without the included adventure. The monsters are all illustrated nicely, and are mostly quality work. In playtest, they seem to be appropriately balanced for their challenge rating, and have given my players quite a run for their money.


Some Problems
There's much good to say about this module, but I have some issues with it as well. The module is guilty of "railroading" the adventure in spots. The players are expected to play a particular way, and while the module allows for variation, it slaps them down pretty hard for such deviations. There are places where the rules and DM recommendations seem arbitrary and heavy-handed. Some consequences result in "irrevocable" death, with no explanation or justification for why death is irrevocable, or any reason why the players would expect or predict this in advance. There are also places in the adventure where the DM is told to encourage players to use metagame knowledge to figure things out... the old, "We didn't get enough XP - there HAS to be more to it than this!" trick.

There are some puzzles or challenges that simply don't have enough "set-up" for the players to be adequately prepared for them, requiring the DM to either let them fail or be a little generous with hints. There are also parts of the adventure that lack sufficient rhyme or reason - really bizarre "traps" with no explanation as to who put it there, why they put it there, and how they did it. You can fall upon the default answers, "The bad guys did it - to vex adventurers and because they are EVIL - and they did it through REALLY POWERFUL MAGIC," but that gets kind of weak after a while. Dropping a PC on a giant Senet board is a cool idea; I'd just like a little more explanation behind it as a DM.

Is It Worth It?
The frequency of the above flaws hurt the book for me, but not as much as it would a module that is not nearly so ambitious and original (or as HUGE). In practice, I had to do a little bit of the "DM Two-Step" to keep ahead of the players and fix potential continuity problems. There were lots of spots that I originally believed to be overly difficult or arbitrary, but my players proved to be far more resourceful than I'd have expected.

The module is ripe for plundering ideas and full adventures for DMs wanting to add some Egyptian flavor to their campaign. Those wishing to use the campaign in its entirety could run a game for months straight out of this book.

In the end, the adventure is fun, and full of variety. There's plenty of roleplaying opportunities, some mystery, more than a little combat, and lots of traps, puzzles, and other challenges requiring more "problem-solving" skills than good dice rolls. It's a "thinking man's dungeon," rewarding players who are resourceful and creative rather than those who simply took the most munchkinny feats and prestige classes. It is a high-level adventure, which seems to be a harder find than adventures for levels 1-10. The "new monster" section has nearly as many new creatures as a small standalone D20 sourcebook.

I've gotten my more than my money's worth out of Necropolis so far, and I'd love to see another Gygax / Necromancer collaboration in the future.

(Note: In the interest of full disclosure, I should note am the winning author of a module contest for a Necropolis "prequel" module, coming soon as a download from Necromancer Games. However, I have no financial stake in sale of Necropolis, nor was I member of the development team of the module.)

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Gary Gygax's NECROPOLIS

CAVEATS
This is not a playtest review. There are fairly extensive spoilers.

OVERVIEW
This is a 288-page hardbound Egyptian-style adventure and accessory set in the land of Khemit. This accessory was originally published as part of Gary Gygax's Dangerous Journeys game system, but has been expanded, edited, and updated to Third Edition D&D.

The bulk of this book is devoted to the adventure, which involves a quest by the PCs to find and explore the lost tomb of Set-Rahotep, though simply reaching it will be a major challenge in and of itself. They will need to secure a home base at a local town, travel to the Gorge of Osiris, make their way past a temple blocking their access, including exploring its underworld, then pass through the gorge itself. Though the overall thrust of the adventure is linear, many of the stops along the way are full-sized dungeons in their own right, with several avenues of exploration available. The adventure culminates in the deadly tomb of Rahotep.

In addition to the adventure, a large section near the back contains dozens of new Egyptian style monsters, a rundown of the many deities of Khemit, and a very brief overview of Khemit itself.

Formatting and font are a bit of a departure for Necromancer Games, without the usual sidebars, and while the space is used well and the appearance is slick, it also feels more impersonal than a standard Necromancer Games product.

POSITIVES
1. There is a vast wealth of information here, both in the adventure itself and in the appendices at the back of the book. I found the section on Khemitian deities particularly interesting. The many monsters provided are useful for an Egyptian campaign, but the vast majority are "animal part" style abominations-crocodile-headed camel, multi-snake-headed crocodile, etc.-along with various types of mummy or desert undead.

2. The adventure is huge and deadly, and should provide both DM and players with many great gaming moments over a long span of time. There are numerous impressive sites (and sights) to fill the PCs with awe and terror, and the areas themselves, written by Gygax, definitely have that old-school lethality, though it has been tempered somewhat with the inclusion of deity-specific figurines.

3. The figurine system is another of my favorite parts of this adventure. Each character can acquire one early on, and depending on which you have in your possession, you may gain insights or protection from that deity to help you in certain encounters. This is a great way to work the Khemitian gods into the game as well as alleviate the sometimes nearly arbitrary lethality of the adventure.

NEGATIVES
1. My biggest complaint with this book is its relative lack of organization; while I understand this is a pretty traditional style for Mr. Gygax, due to the sheer size of this tome and the wealth of information it provides, a more aggressive editing and organization of the material would have greatly facilitated its usefulness.

A few examples: First, in the Temple of Osiris, there is a boat that is activated by not one, but several keylike components, and the locations of these defies my understanding; one component is located within a construct that the PCs must destroy to retrieve, and I wonder how the locals manage to make use of the boat without needing to kill it. In the same section, a room has an alarm trigger that causes "the employment of magical forces outside [the room] to change the hue of the lighting in the chamber within and also make a plangent sound emanate from the gong in the library (Area 10)." Yet there is no mention of a gong anywhere in the description of Area 10.

Another example of lack of organization: The term "Duat" (the Khemitian heaven/afterlife) is mentioned early in the book, but not explained as to what it is until later. Necropolis would have been well-served with a comprehensive glossary of terminology used, as well as more specific information of the Khemitian pantheon overall in relation to the afterlife. In addition, there are a number of evil artifacts the PCs must collect, but there is no specific location where they are all described and their abilities listed.

Related to the issue of disorganization, many parts of the overall adventure can be quite complex to run. For example, in the final tomb of Set-Rahotep, as you progress you may activate certain curses whose effects will vary depending upon whether or not you possess evil items from earlier in the adventure; you actually want to be holding these to stave off the ill effects. Keeping track of who has what items, and how the PCs are influenced by the curses, is challenging due to the lack of an easy-to-follow overview of this.

Another facet of this problem: Most of the maps appear in the body of the adventure and are collected at the back of the book, but a few only appear at the back (notably the regional map), while others only appear in the body of the adventure (notably the Gorge of Osiris map).

2. While the maps look quite nice, they show almost no interior detail, and I would have liked to have seen a more significant indication of the furnishings in various rooms to make reading the map easier. And while area keying overall is decent, there is a significant keying error in the Gorge of Osiris; individual areas within the Gorge on the maps each have lettered headings beginning with "A", but the text starts with A and does not restart with each new area, so "N" in the description might correspond to "A" of some area deep within the gorge on the maps.

3. Though it is vintage "first edition feel", I thought some of the encounters were bordering on outright unfair in the arbitrary nature of the consequences of not performing the right action. For example, a statue of Set might pose a riddle, and PCs need to be smart enough to somehow realize that they should deliberately not give the right answer (since it is an evil deity posing the question). Fortunately, the inclusion of the deity figurines as mentioned above helps to alleviate this problem somewhat and keep it under control.

4. Another minor but nagging problem: Near the beginning, the book advises visiting the Necromancer Games website for a download adventure that will help you bring characters from a non-Egyptian campaign setting to Khemit. Despite the fact that nearly a year has passed, and the fact that I know that such a download has been written, it has yet to appear on their website.

RECOMMENDATIONS
Despite its long-winded narrations, seemingly needless overcomplexity, and lack of organization, there is a terrific, old-school adventure to be found here in Necropolis, and enough material for many further adventures in the land of Khemit. I would recommend this book to experienced DMs and players. The DM should be willing to invest enough time and effort to fully absorb the material in the book, and how the statuettes, evil items, curses, etc. work. If you are pressed for time or looking for something light and breezy to run, this is not the book for you.

 

[simon]

I agree re the poor layout - Gary Gygax's name prompted me to get Necropolis, but I found the turgid prose and execrable layout have rended it almost unplayable, so Gary wouldn't be an auto-buy anymore, although I mostly blame his editors - there's clearly a good scenario in there, it's just that during play I can't find it! In particular it was the encounter with the boat in the Temple of Osiris that brought my game to a juddering halt and destroyed my faith in the module.