Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
Wing Three
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6034343" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 13 - PEER AMID THE WATERS</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>"Peer Amid the Waters" was another one of mine, this one from <em>Dungeon</em> issue #78, written right at the end of the AD&D 2nd Edition era. It took a little bit of effort to convert it not only to 3.5 but also to a higher level than it had originally been written for, but it wasn't all that difficult. The basic premise is that a magical item, one of a pair of <em>conduit bracelets</em>, gets accidentally activated underwater by a pair of nixie sisters, which opens a portal leading to the interior of an Egyptian-style pyramid. The pyramid fills with water, the nixie girls get sucked into it, and nobody's seen them since. The nixie scout party that went in to rescue them hasn't been seen again either. Worse yet, these young nixies are the only daughters of the tribe's leader, so the tribe's pretty desperate to find some assitance.</p><p></p><p>That was the plot hook I had originally devised for the adventure, and I stuck pretty close to it this time around as well, although I had come up with what I thought was a humorous way of getting the plot hook started. As the PCs travel down the road, I'd have a pair of nixies hail them from the shore of Stillwater Lake. The adventure calls for them to tell their story and ask for help, but I had decided in the meantime that these nixies only spoke Aquan fluently, and had only a smattering of knowledge of the Common tongue. Here's what I had envisioned:</p><p></p><p>The whole point was that at first it would sound like the nixies were simply looking for dates, and that it would take a little bit of time (and roleplaying) to figure out exactly what it was the nixies were asking the PCs to do for them. However, Vicki inadvertantly put the kibosh on my whole plan. Once I started in with my "pidgin Common" act, she piped up with, "Wait, they live in the lake, right? So do they speak Aquan? I'll try greeting them in Aquan." Sure enough, Feron's Intelligence bonus had allowed her to choose several different languages at character generation, and she had learned Aquan before even starting her adventuring career. Oh well, flexibility is the key to good DMing....</p><p></p><p>I don't recall much about the specifics of how the adventure played out this time with this group, other than (unlike with my original playtest group, back when I originally wrote it) everybody got out of the pyramid alive, including the two nixie children. In fact, the most important factor in this whole adventure was that by the time it was over, all four of these PCs had attained 6th level, which meant that the next adventure would unite the two groups into one, and from that point on we'd be able to have each player decide which of his or her two PCs would be going through any given adventure. (Recall that Vicki would be making up a new 6th-level PC for this event.) Everyone added a sixth level of the character class they already had attained five levels in, with the exception of Chalkan, who was now a 4th-level ranger/2nd-level cleric. (Now that I mention it, I do seem to recall Jacob's disappointment that Chalkan had been unable to singlehandedly turn the mummies in the pyramid with his single level of cleric; he was already noticing that a multiclassed PC wasn't going to be as good at class abilities as was a single-classed PC.)</p><p></p><p>I can also pin this adventure down to a specific year, if not an exact date. This would have been somewhere around the vicinity of August 2007. At the time, Dan and I were still working in the same office. We had started working in that office together when he was transferred over from his previous job, sometime in 2004. (I had been in that office since the previous year.) At that time, both he and I were Air Force Majors. I officially retired as of 1 March 2007, but as luck would have it they were looking at converting one of the Major's billets in my little six-person office over to a civilian slot, and the timing worked out just right that I was hired to effectively replace myself. Dan retired from the Air Force in the late summer of 2007, and did me the honor of asking me to officiate at his retirement ceremony.</p><p></p><p>The ceremony went well - I gave my little speech encapsulating his 20 years of dedicated service to his country, he gave his speech thanking his family for supporting him throughout his career - and it was at the reception afterwards, when we were all snacking on cake, punch, and various delicious nibblies that Vicki came up to me and told me, with great excitement in her voice, that she had pretty much decided on either a barbarian or a wizard for her next character.</p><p></p><p>Since we're on the subject now, let's discuss her next PC. After puzzling which of her two character concepts she wanted to run with, the fact that we already had a barbarian, Slayer, in the group led her to try out a wizard PC. (That, and I think Vicki enjoys the flexibility of running spellcasters.) She had a condition, if it was okay with me, though: she wanted her to be called a "witch" instead of a "wizard." I was aware that Pathfinder had come out with a witch character class, and I also knew that Mongoose Publishing had come out with a book entitled <em>The Quintessential Witch</em>, but I resisted the impulse to pull either of those into the campaign, and stuck with my campaign decision that this would be Core Books only, for the ease of my new players. Plus, I think the desire to be called a "witch" mostly stemmed from Harry Potter fandom, which was fine by me.</p><p></p><p>So, Vicki's second D&D PC was a human witch (wizard in all but name) by the name of <strong>Delphyne Babelberi</strong>. For her backstory, we jointly decided that her parents had been killed when she was little, she had been raised by her maternal grandmother (a "witch" herself), who had taught her all she knew of magic and had now sent her off into the world to make her own way and find her own destiny. She had a raven familiar named <strong>Ignacious</strong>, or <strong>"Iggy"</strong> for short.</p><p></p><p>Next adventure, I'd have to find a way to get these two groups (three groups, really: the original group of three, the second group of four, and now Delphyne) of adventurers together into a unified whole.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6034343, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 13 - PEER AMID THE WATERS[/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] "Peer Amid the Waters" was another one of mine, this one from [i]Dungeon[/i] issue #78, written right at the end of the AD&D 2nd Edition era. It took a little bit of effort to convert it not only to 3.5 but also to a higher level than it had originally been written for, but it wasn't all that difficult. The basic premise is that a magical item, one of a pair of [i]conduit bracelets[/i], gets accidentally activated underwater by a pair of nixie sisters, which opens a portal leading to the interior of an Egyptian-style pyramid. The pyramid fills with water, the nixie girls get sucked into it, and nobody's seen them since. The nixie scout party that went in to rescue them hasn't been seen again either. Worse yet, these young nixies are the only daughters of the tribe's leader, so the tribe's pretty desperate to find some assitance. That was the plot hook I had originally devised for the adventure, and I stuck pretty close to it this time around as well, although I had come up with what I thought was a humorous way of getting the plot hook started. As the PCs travel down the road, I'd have a pair of nixies hail them from the shore of Stillwater Lake. The adventure calls for them to tell their story and ask for help, but I had decided in the meantime that these nixies only spoke Aquan fluently, and had only a smattering of knowledge of the Common tongue. Here's what I had envisioned: The whole point was that at first it would sound like the nixies were simply looking for dates, and that it would take a little bit of time (and roleplaying) to figure out exactly what it was the nixies were asking the PCs to do for them. However, Vicki inadvertantly put the kibosh on my whole plan. Once I started in with my "pidgin Common" act, she piped up with, "Wait, they live in the lake, right? So do they speak Aquan? I'll try greeting them in Aquan." Sure enough, Feron's Intelligence bonus had allowed her to choose several different languages at character generation, and she had learned Aquan before even starting her adventuring career. Oh well, flexibility is the key to good DMing.... I don't recall much about the specifics of how the adventure played out this time with this group, other than (unlike with my original playtest group, back when I originally wrote it) everybody got out of the pyramid alive, including the two nixie children. In fact, the most important factor in this whole adventure was that by the time it was over, all four of these PCs had attained 6th level, which meant that the next adventure would unite the two groups into one, and from that point on we'd be able to have each player decide which of his or her two PCs would be going through any given adventure. (Recall that Vicki would be making up a new 6th-level PC for this event.) Everyone added a sixth level of the character class they already had attained five levels in, with the exception of Chalkan, who was now a 4th-level ranger/2nd-level cleric. (Now that I mention it, I do seem to recall Jacob's disappointment that Chalkan had been unable to singlehandedly turn the mummies in the pyramid with his single level of cleric; he was already noticing that a multiclassed PC wasn't going to be as good at class abilities as was a single-classed PC.) I can also pin this adventure down to a specific year, if not an exact date. This would have been somewhere around the vicinity of August 2007. At the time, Dan and I were still working in the same office. We had started working in that office together when he was transferred over from his previous job, sometime in 2004. (I had been in that office since the previous year.) At that time, both he and I were Air Force Majors. I officially retired as of 1 March 2007, but as luck would have it they were looking at converting one of the Major's billets in my little six-person office over to a civilian slot, and the timing worked out just right that I was hired to effectively replace myself. Dan retired from the Air Force in the late summer of 2007, and did me the honor of asking me to officiate at his retirement ceremony. The ceremony went well - I gave my little speech encapsulating his 20 years of dedicated service to his country, he gave his speech thanking his family for supporting him throughout his career - and it was at the reception afterwards, when we were all snacking on cake, punch, and various delicious nibblies that Vicki came up to me and told me, with great excitement in her voice, that she had pretty much decided on either a barbarian or a wizard for her next character. Since we're on the subject now, let's discuss her next PC. After puzzling which of her two character concepts she wanted to run with, the fact that we already had a barbarian, Slayer, in the group led her to try out a wizard PC. (That, and I think Vicki enjoys the flexibility of running spellcasters.) She had a condition, if it was okay with me, though: she wanted her to be called a "witch" instead of a "wizard." I was aware that Pathfinder had come out with a witch character class, and I also knew that Mongoose Publishing had come out with a book entitled [i]The Quintessential Witch[/i], but I resisted the impulse to pull either of those into the campaign, and stuck with my campaign decision that this would be Core Books only, for the ease of my new players. Plus, I think the desire to be called a "witch" mostly stemmed from Harry Potter fandom, which was fine by me. So, Vicki's second D&D PC was a human witch (wizard in all but name) by the name of [b]Delphyne Babelberi[/b]. For her backstory, we jointly decided that her parents had been killed when she was little, she had been raised by her maternal grandmother (a "witch" herself), who had taught her all she knew of magic and had now sent her off into the world to make her own way and find her own destiny. She had a raven familiar named [b]Ignacious[/b], or [b]"Iggy"[/b] for short. Next adventure, I'd have to find a way to get these two groups (three groups, really: the original group of three, the second group of four, and now Delphyne) of adventurers together into a unified whole. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
Wing Three
Top