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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6036427" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 18 - RANA MOR</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Akari, elven paladin of Hieroneous</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Feron Dru, half-elf druid</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Slayer, half-orc barbarian</p><p></p><p>NPC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Balama Theron, human rogue/wizard</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Hurm Feros, half-orc fighter</p><p></p><p>I absolutely loved "Rana Mor" from the very first time I read through it, and was absolutely determined that I was going to run it one day. That day finally came when it was time for us to go through our 18th adventure. "Rana Mor" was written by Rich Baker and appeared in issue #86 of <em>Dungeon</em>, and to this day remains one of my favorite adventures of its level. I loved the way it used an exotic locale (a set of ruins in a steaming jungle) and the way that it created different aspects of the standard 3.5 pantheon. I appreciated the variety of monsters it managed to fit in, and the very scale of the ruins themselves.</p><p></p><p>In fact, the scale of the ruins caused my first decision on how to deal with the maps. The maps in the magazine were all on a 10-foot scale, whereas I (and my players) had become used to an inch representing a 5-foot square. I knew if I simply drew up the geomorphs showing 1-inch squares representing 5-foot squares, I'd make a hash of things in no time at all, forgetting that one square on the map in the magazine was not equal to one square on the map on the table. My solution was to draw out the geomorphs in 2-inch squares, so that a square on the geomorph exactly corresponded to a square as drawn on the DM's map in the magazine. It was easy enough to look at where in the 2-inch square your PC's miniature was located and decide what actual "5-foot-square" he was on.</p><p></p><p>However, I tried something else new with the maps of the ruins. This time, taking a cue from the "fill it in as you go along" method I had used for "The Butterflies of Doom," I plotted out large areas of the Rana Mor ruins (as much as I could fit onto the back of a page from a desk calendar), drew the outer walls, and brought along a Sharpie marker so I could draw in the interior walls of each room as the PCs explored it. I figured the PCs would know the general shape and structure of the building they were entering, but wouldn't know the interior layout, and this method worked out pretty well for this adventure.</p><p></p><p>I stocked some magic items of my own creation into the ruins of Rana Mor. One was a stone carving of a winged tiger; if you channeled a 5th-level (or higher) <em>summon monster</em> or <em>summon nature's ally</em> spell into it, it would become an actual winged tiger, much in the same way that a <em>figurine of wondrous power</em> comes to life but then later reverts to statuette form. I also created a staff that did the same deal with <em>flame blade</em> by channeling an appropriate level spell into it. Both items ended up with Feron Dru, who to this day...has never used them. Wait, I take that back - she may have used the staff once. [Edit: This was true for the majority of our campaign, but in our last adventure session I ran an adventure written specifically around the stone tiger carving, and a band of Rana Mor ghosts that were trying to get it back. So Feron's been prompted to remember she has this, and even named the winged tiger "<strong>Linus</strong>."]</p><p></p><p>To get the PCs on the adventure, I actually used the Adventurers Guild. The adventure's supplied plot hook is a quest to find the "Rain Tiger," a magic gemstone with mysterious powers; I actually made it a Guild-sponsored quest that had been assigned to Wing Three. It turns out that there's a hidden <em>teleport circle</em> in the bowels of the Adventurers Guild Headquarters of Greyhawk City; stepping through it leads to a similar circle in the Adventurers Guild Headquarters on another continent entirely. The adventure calls for an NPC named <strong>Balama Theron</strong> to take the PCs on her ship as far down the river as she can and then leave them to follow the rest of the way on foot; I made up a character sheet for Balama and let Vicki run her as well as Feron. (Balama was a fairly low-level rogue/wizard, but she had a <em>wand of magic missiles</em> that was put to good use.) I turned Balama over to Vicki not only so our only female gamer could run the female NPC, but so Vicki would have the experience of running a second character at a time; Dan and Jacob were getting that experience in spades by swapping off who got to run Akari each session.</p><p></p><p>There was a memorable quote in this adventure. While the PCs are still on Balama's ship, the <em>Starchaser</em>, they are attacked on two sides by a group of natives (some of them spellcasters) in their canoes. Dan, who as you may recall chose to create a cleric PC specifically so he could keep his son Jacob's half-orc barbarian "in the fight" for as long as possible, used some "buff up Slayer" tactics instead of going for the offensive spells. Slayer soon found himself not only the proud recipient of an <em>enlarge person</em> spell (boosting Slayer's strength and making him Large sized) but a <em>water walk</em> spell as well. That was all it took for our little half-orc to regain his long-forgotten taste for front-line fighting; the natives soon found themselves up against an evilly-grinning, 12-foot-tall half-orc racing across the river at them, brandishing a greatsword as long as their canoes. After chopping one canoe up into kindling, Slayer grabbed up one floundering native by the ankle and used him as a club against his cohorts. And that's when Jacob ad-libbed his now-immortal line for the hapless native/club: "I hate my job!"</p><p></p><p>The whole table, players and DM alike, burst out laughing, and Jacob basked in his moment of glory. It was one of our funniest lines, and I'm glad it was Jacob who came up with it, because I had been worrying a bit as to whether he was enjoying the game.</p><p></p><p>I also had a bit of preparation fall flat on its theoretical face. One of the natives, <strong>Saeng Ki</strong>, was a woman wearing face paint that made her face look like a skull, and she had a tiger animal companion; I even went to the trouble of making her her own initiative card, since she had been depicted in the issue's artwork. Since Slayer had brought along Fang by this time, and Jacob had evinced the same sort of "I don't want anything bad to happen to him by bringing him into combat" attitude that had been plaguing Slayer for some time, I gave Saeng Ki's tiger animal companion a magic collar that he could activate once a day by swatting its gem stud, which would then heal it to its full hit point total. (I had intentionally created the magic collar for Fang's benefit, realizing that he'd be the only one who could use it after they slew the tiger.) Well, the "magic collar" of my plan went exactly as anticipated, but the "make an initiative card for Saeng Ki" I could have done without, as she stepped into view and was promptly cut down before she could do so much as utter a single word.</p><p></p><p>"Rana Mor" took us four sessions to finish. Those ruins were huge, and there was plenty of action before the PCs even got to the ruins (plus some extra action after they had finished up in the ruins, like being chased by a reserve troop of natives all the way back to Balama's ship, and an encounter with a Huge fiendish spider that had created a web across the river since they had last traversed it. (Logan had been purchasing D&D Miniatures by the boxload and had scored a Huge Fiendish Spider with one set; I couldn't resist.)</p><p></p><p>Perhaps because I enjoyed this adventure so much, it ended up sowing several different future plot hooks. I liked the fact that the Adventurers Guild had expanded into this other continent and vowed to do some more with the concept. I liked Balama Theron, her half-orc first mate <strong>Hurm Feros</strong>, and the <em>Starchaser</em>, and vowed that our campaign had not seen the last of any of them. (In fact, I had an immediate idea as to how I could incorporate Balama into a future adventure, although it would be years before that idea got implemented. Still, into my campaign notebook it went.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6036427, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 18 - RANA MOR[/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Akari, elven paladin of Hieroneous Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord Feron Dru, half-elf druid Slayer, half-orc barbarian[/INDENT] NPC Roster: [INDENT]Balama Theron, human rogue/wizard Hurm Feros, half-orc fighter[/INDENT] I absolutely loved "Rana Mor" from the very first time I read through it, and was absolutely determined that I was going to run it one day. That day finally came when it was time for us to go through our 18th adventure. "Rana Mor" was written by Rich Baker and appeared in issue #86 of [i]Dungeon[/i], and to this day remains one of my favorite adventures of its level. I loved the way it used an exotic locale (a set of ruins in a steaming jungle) and the way that it created different aspects of the standard 3.5 pantheon. I appreciated the variety of monsters it managed to fit in, and the very scale of the ruins themselves. In fact, the scale of the ruins caused my first decision on how to deal with the maps. The maps in the magazine were all on a 10-foot scale, whereas I (and my players) had become used to an inch representing a 5-foot square. I knew if I simply drew up the geomorphs showing 1-inch squares representing 5-foot squares, I'd make a hash of things in no time at all, forgetting that one square on the map in the magazine was not equal to one square on the map on the table. My solution was to draw out the geomorphs in 2-inch squares, so that a square on the geomorph exactly corresponded to a square as drawn on the DM's map in the magazine. It was easy enough to look at where in the 2-inch square your PC's miniature was located and decide what actual "5-foot-square" he was on. However, I tried something else new with the maps of the ruins. This time, taking a cue from the "fill it in as you go along" method I had used for "The Butterflies of Doom," I plotted out large areas of the Rana Mor ruins (as much as I could fit onto the back of a page from a desk calendar), drew the outer walls, and brought along a Sharpie marker so I could draw in the interior walls of each room as the PCs explored it. I figured the PCs would know the general shape and structure of the building they were entering, but wouldn't know the interior layout, and this method worked out pretty well for this adventure. I stocked some magic items of my own creation into the ruins of Rana Mor. One was a stone carving of a winged tiger; if you channeled a 5th-level (or higher) [i]summon monster[/i] or [i]summon nature's ally[/i] spell into it, it would become an actual winged tiger, much in the same way that a [i]figurine of wondrous power[/i] comes to life but then later reverts to statuette form. I also created a staff that did the same deal with [i]flame blade[/i] by channeling an appropriate level spell into it. Both items ended up with Feron Dru, who to this day...has never used them. Wait, I take that back - she may have used the staff once. [Edit: This was true for the majority of our campaign, but in our last adventure session I ran an adventure written specifically around the stone tiger carving, and a band of Rana Mor ghosts that were trying to get it back. So Feron's been prompted to remember she has this, and even named the winged tiger "[b]Linus[/b]."] To get the PCs on the adventure, I actually used the Adventurers Guild. The adventure's supplied plot hook is a quest to find the "Rain Tiger," a magic gemstone with mysterious powers; I actually made it a Guild-sponsored quest that had been assigned to Wing Three. It turns out that there's a hidden [i]teleport circle[/i] in the bowels of the Adventurers Guild Headquarters of Greyhawk City; stepping through it leads to a similar circle in the Adventurers Guild Headquarters on another continent entirely. The adventure calls for an NPC named [b]Balama Theron[/b] to take the PCs on her ship as far down the river as she can and then leave them to follow the rest of the way on foot; I made up a character sheet for Balama and let Vicki run her as well as Feron. (Balama was a fairly low-level rogue/wizard, but she had a [i]wand of magic missiles[/i] that was put to good use.) I turned Balama over to Vicki not only so our only female gamer could run the female NPC, but so Vicki would have the experience of running a second character at a time; Dan and Jacob were getting that experience in spades by swapping off who got to run Akari each session. There was a memorable quote in this adventure. While the PCs are still on Balama's ship, the [i]Starchaser[/i], they are attacked on two sides by a group of natives (some of them spellcasters) in their canoes. Dan, who as you may recall chose to create a cleric PC specifically so he could keep his son Jacob's half-orc barbarian "in the fight" for as long as possible, used some "buff up Slayer" tactics instead of going for the offensive spells. Slayer soon found himself not only the proud recipient of an [i]enlarge person[/i] spell (boosting Slayer's strength and making him Large sized) but a [i]water walk[/i] spell as well. That was all it took for our little half-orc to regain his long-forgotten taste for front-line fighting; the natives soon found themselves up against an evilly-grinning, 12-foot-tall half-orc racing across the river at them, brandishing a greatsword as long as their canoes. After chopping one canoe up into kindling, Slayer grabbed up one floundering native by the ankle and used him as a club against his cohorts. And that's when Jacob ad-libbed his now-immortal line for the hapless native/club: "I hate my job!" The whole table, players and DM alike, burst out laughing, and Jacob basked in his moment of glory. It was one of our funniest lines, and I'm glad it was Jacob who came up with it, because I had been worrying a bit as to whether he was enjoying the game. I also had a bit of preparation fall flat on its theoretical face. One of the natives, [b]Saeng Ki[/b], was a woman wearing face paint that made her face look like a skull, and she had a tiger animal companion; I even went to the trouble of making her her own initiative card, since she had been depicted in the issue's artwork. Since Slayer had brought along Fang by this time, and Jacob had evinced the same sort of "I don't want anything bad to happen to him by bringing him into combat" attitude that had been plaguing Slayer for some time, I gave Saeng Ki's tiger animal companion a magic collar that he could activate once a day by swatting its gem stud, which would then heal it to its full hit point total. (I had intentionally created the magic collar for Fang's benefit, realizing that he'd be the only one who could use it after they slew the tiger.) Well, the "magic collar" of my plan went exactly as anticipated, but the "make an initiative card for Saeng Ki" I could have done without, as she stepped into view and was promptly cut down before she could do so much as utter a single word. "Rana Mor" took us four sessions to finish. Those ruins were huge, and there was plenty of action before the PCs even got to the ruins (plus some extra action after they had finished up in the ruins, like being chased by a reserve troop of natives all the way back to Balama's ship, and an encounter with a Huge fiendish spider that had created a web across the river since they had last traversed it. (Logan had been purchasing D&D Miniatures by the boxload and had scored a Huge Fiendish Spider with one set; I couldn't resist.) Perhaps because I enjoyed this adventure so much, it ended up sowing several different future plot hooks. I liked the fact that the Adventurers Guild had expanded into this other continent and vowed to do some more with the concept. I liked Balama Theron, her half-orc first mate [b]Hurm Feros[/b], and the [i]Starchaser[/i], and vowed that our campaign had not seen the last of any of them. (In fact, I had an immediate idea as to how I could incorporate Balama into a future adventure, although it would be years before that idea got implemented. Still, into my campaign notebook it went.) [/QUOTE]
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