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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6034339" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 12 - EX LIBRIS</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Akari, elven paladin of Hieroneous</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Chalkan, half-elf ranger/cleric of Corellon Larethian</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Feron Dru, half-elf druid</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Rale Bodkin, human rogue</p><p></p><p>If you have a copy of <em>Dungeon</em> issue #29, then I'm sure you remember "Ex Libris" - it's the one with the the shifting rooms that you have to move around in the correct fashion, like one of those number puzzles with 15 squares in a 4x4 grid that you have to move one square at a time to get the numbers all in the correct sequence. Written by Randy Maxwell, it's one of the coolest adventures from the early issues of the magazine, and one I had flagged as an adventure I definitely wanted to use in the campaign. Although the dungeon complex was a temple devoted to Oghma the Binder, a deity from the Forgotten Realms pantheon, it was easy enough for me to co-opt Oghma as an aspect of Boccob and call it good.</p><p></p><p>The temple ruins topside had some carrion crawlers roaming around, which gave me an opportunity to use the two green caterpillars from my plastic bug collection. Similarly, I was able to use the plastic skeletons from my HeroQuest game as the huecuvas, so from an "appropriate miniature" aspect I was doing just fine. Then the PCs went to the lower levels of the complex, which is where the shifting rooms were located.</p><p></p><p>I did some heavy modifying to the shifting rooms in this adventure. To start with, I cut the size of each room's dimensions in half, so instead of 16" by 16" square rooms, I had 8" by 8" square rooms. The reason for this was purely from a practical aspect: I knew that I could fit an 8" geomorph into a 9" by 12" manila envelope for storage (both to and from the game session and for posterity afterwards), which was much better (and less expensive) than had I made the squares the size called for by the author. (I'd have needed 15 pieces of posterboard to get 15 appropriately-sized squares had I done it the "accurate" way.) Also, since this was an AD&D 1st Edition adventure, I made quite a few alterations to the monsters encountered. One room was filled with various carnivorous plants, and where 3E didn't have stats available for a given plant monster I used another that was thematically appropriate.</p><p></p><p>Likewise, there's a room with another group of adventurers who join up with the party and then try to betray them when it's convenient; not wanting to have to run four additional NPCs (and knowing full well from past experience that Dan wasn't going to trust any of these new guys any farther than he could throw them), I replaced the whole group of them with one lone doppelganger, taking the form of Old Clem. When they met up with this phony Old Clem, I gave a plausible explanation as to why he was down here instead of upstairs guarding the horses: he said that a group of "squid cats" had shown up from out of nowhere and started eating the horses, and there didn't look to be much that he could do to stop them so he hightailed it down where he'd hopefully be safe. I was counting on Dan or Logan to know that a "squid cat" was likely to be a displacer beast, and to fill in the other players (which they did). This gave them something to worry about when they eventually left the underground complex, and took their minds off of any suspicions that Old Clem might not be who he said he was. Happily, it worked like a charm.</p><p></p><p>In any case, the players all loved the adventure (as I had been pretty sure they would), even with the prospect of a long walk home without their horses. However, when they got back to their encampment, hoping to find the "squid cats" already gone and keeping their fingers crossed that maybe some of their equipment would be in salvageable condition, they found their horses tied up where they had left them, placidly eating grass, and Old Clem sitting up on a tree branch with a fishing pole in his hands. (He had just invented "squirrel fishing" and was pretty pleased with his success thus far.) The other "Old Clem" - the doppelganger - had gotten stuck in the shifting rooms below and needed help to get back topside. It didn't really mean the PCs any harm, and while they were all walking over to the campsite, he had taken off at full speed in the opposite direction. Once the PCs saw the real Old Clem in the tree, they just had time to see the fake version running into the forest, shifting forms as he ran. They worried a bit about having released a doppelganger into the world to cause whatever mischief it might get itself into, and they were more than a little concerned about it coming back to get them, but they needn't have worried - it stayed as far away from the area as it could.</p><p></p><p>As a plot hook for this adventure, I had used <strong>Altamaic the Calm</strong>, an NPC cleric of Boccob from "The Mad God's Key." This gave the campaign a little bit of verisimilitude, and I already had an initiative card for Altamaic - wanting a hooded, robed monk (not a D&D monk, a historical one), I scanned in a picture of Destiny of the Endless from Neil Gaimen's "Sandman" comic book and used him. (Later, I'd return to the same source and use Matthew when I needed an initiative card for a raven familiar.) Anyway, I had Altamaic provide the PCs with the rumored location of a forgotten temple of Oghma that was said to contain a bunch of otherwise lost books and tomes, and ask them to go check it out and return any books and tomes that they found to the Temple of Boccob in Greyhawk City. This they did, establishing Altamaic as a recurring NPC, and one who would have many dealings with the PCs in the years to come.</p><p></p><p>Another recurring NPC I created at somewhere around this time was a gnome wizard/cleric who ran a magic shop, one <strong>Piddilink Dundernoggin</strong> by name. (I preferred the earlier editions' version of the gnomes, with their prodigious noses and ridiculous names.) He sold mostly potions and scrolls, with the occasional magic item thrown in for good measure (and he would often purchase unwanted magic items the PCs discovered in their adventures). Best of all, he often took shortcuts in his magical item creation, so you could occasionally find a really good price on a potion if you were willing to live with the unfortunate side effects (like a potion of <em>cure light wounds</em> that turned the imbiber's skin green and warty for 1d4 hours, or the potion of <em>cure serious wounds</em> that tasted so bad you had to make a Fortitude check to drink it all down, and then another to keep it from coming back up).</p><p></p><p>By the end of this adventure Chalkan, Feron, and Rale were just about at 6th level, with Akari (who had spent half an adventure being dead) lagging just a little bit behind. Still, I figured that one more adventure ought to get everybody up to 6th level, at which point we'd have seven 6th-level PCs and it would be time to merge the two parties (and allow Vicki to make up a new 6th-level PC, so they'd all be on an even front). Since the PCs were already away from Greyhawk City, it only made sense to throw an adventure at them that they could stumble across on their way home....</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6034339, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 12 - EX LIBRIS[/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Akari, elven paladin of Hieroneous Chalkan, half-elf ranger/cleric of Corellon Larethian Feron Dru, half-elf druid Rale Bodkin, human rogue[/INDENT] If you have a copy of [i]Dungeon[/i] issue #29, then I'm sure you remember "Ex Libris" - it's the one with the the shifting rooms that you have to move around in the correct fashion, like one of those number puzzles with 15 squares in a 4x4 grid that you have to move one square at a time to get the numbers all in the correct sequence. Written by Randy Maxwell, it's one of the coolest adventures from the early issues of the magazine, and one I had flagged as an adventure I definitely wanted to use in the campaign. Although the dungeon complex was a temple devoted to Oghma the Binder, a deity from the Forgotten Realms pantheon, it was easy enough for me to co-opt Oghma as an aspect of Boccob and call it good. The temple ruins topside had some carrion crawlers roaming around, which gave me an opportunity to use the two green caterpillars from my plastic bug collection. Similarly, I was able to use the plastic skeletons from my HeroQuest game as the huecuvas, so from an "appropriate miniature" aspect I was doing just fine. Then the PCs went to the lower levels of the complex, which is where the shifting rooms were located. I did some heavy modifying to the shifting rooms in this adventure. To start with, I cut the size of each room's dimensions in half, so instead of 16" by 16" square rooms, I had 8" by 8" square rooms. The reason for this was purely from a practical aspect: I knew that I could fit an 8" geomorph into a 9" by 12" manila envelope for storage (both to and from the game session and for posterity afterwards), which was much better (and less expensive) than had I made the squares the size called for by the author. (I'd have needed 15 pieces of posterboard to get 15 appropriately-sized squares had I done it the "accurate" way.) Also, since this was an AD&D 1st Edition adventure, I made quite a few alterations to the monsters encountered. One room was filled with various carnivorous plants, and where 3E didn't have stats available for a given plant monster I used another that was thematically appropriate. Likewise, there's a room with another group of adventurers who join up with the party and then try to betray them when it's convenient; not wanting to have to run four additional NPCs (and knowing full well from past experience that Dan wasn't going to trust any of these new guys any farther than he could throw them), I replaced the whole group of them with one lone doppelganger, taking the form of Old Clem. When they met up with this phony Old Clem, I gave a plausible explanation as to why he was down here instead of upstairs guarding the horses: he said that a group of "squid cats" had shown up from out of nowhere and started eating the horses, and there didn't look to be much that he could do to stop them so he hightailed it down where he'd hopefully be safe. I was counting on Dan or Logan to know that a "squid cat" was likely to be a displacer beast, and to fill in the other players (which they did). This gave them something to worry about when they eventually left the underground complex, and took their minds off of any suspicions that Old Clem might not be who he said he was. Happily, it worked like a charm. In any case, the players all loved the adventure (as I had been pretty sure they would), even with the prospect of a long walk home without their horses. However, when they got back to their encampment, hoping to find the "squid cats" already gone and keeping their fingers crossed that maybe some of their equipment would be in salvageable condition, they found their horses tied up where they had left them, placidly eating grass, and Old Clem sitting up on a tree branch with a fishing pole in his hands. (He had just invented "squirrel fishing" and was pretty pleased with his success thus far.) The other "Old Clem" - the doppelganger - had gotten stuck in the shifting rooms below and needed help to get back topside. It didn't really mean the PCs any harm, and while they were all walking over to the campsite, he had taken off at full speed in the opposite direction. Once the PCs saw the real Old Clem in the tree, they just had time to see the fake version running into the forest, shifting forms as he ran. They worried a bit about having released a doppelganger into the world to cause whatever mischief it might get itself into, and they were more than a little concerned about it coming back to get them, but they needn't have worried - it stayed as far away from the area as it could. As a plot hook for this adventure, I had used [b]Altamaic the Calm[/b], an NPC cleric of Boccob from "The Mad God's Key." This gave the campaign a little bit of verisimilitude, and I already had an initiative card for Altamaic - wanting a hooded, robed monk (not a D&D monk, a historical one), I scanned in a picture of Destiny of the Endless from Neil Gaimen's "Sandman" comic book and used him. (Later, I'd return to the same source and use Matthew when I needed an initiative card for a raven familiar.) Anyway, I had Altamaic provide the PCs with the rumored location of a forgotten temple of Oghma that was said to contain a bunch of otherwise lost books and tomes, and ask them to go check it out and return any books and tomes that they found to the Temple of Boccob in Greyhawk City. This they did, establishing Altamaic as a recurring NPC, and one who would have many dealings with the PCs in the years to come. Another recurring NPC I created at somewhere around this time was a gnome wizard/cleric who ran a magic shop, one [b]Piddilink Dundernoggin[/b] by name. (I preferred the earlier editions' version of the gnomes, with their prodigious noses and ridiculous names.) He sold mostly potions and scrolls, with the occasional magic item thrown in for good measure (and he would often purchase unwanted magic items the PCs discovered in their adventures). Best of all, he often took shortcuts in his magical item creation, so you could occasionally find a really good price on a potion if you were willing to live with the unfortunate side effects (like a potion of [i]cure light wounds[/i] that turned the imbiber's skin green and warty for 1d4 hours, or the potion of [i]cure serious wounds[/i] that tasted so bad you had to make a Fortitude check to drink it all down, and then another to keep it from coming back up). By the end of this adventure Chalkan, Feron, and Rale were just about at 6th level, with Akari (who had spent half an adventure being dead) lagging just a little bit behind. Still, I figured that one more adventure ought to get everybody up to 6th level, at which point we'd have seven 6th-level PCs and it would be time to merge the two parties (and allow Vicki to make up a new 6th-level PC, so they'd all be on an even front). Since the PCs were already away from Greyhawk City, it only made sense to throw an adventure at them that they could stumble across on their way home.... [/QUOTE]
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