Lost City of Barakus Users - A question....

[Water Bob]

I've been thinking of converting the Lost City of Barakus as a Khor Kalba-like Archeronian ruin for my new Argos based Conan campaign.


Has anybody played through Barakus? I hear it's pretty cool.


Could I easily convert it to the lower magic Conan setting?

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

It's absolutely one of the best sandbox adventures out there -- lots of plot options for many, many adventures.

It's been a while since I cracked it, so I don't remember a lot of specifics. I don't recall anything that would specifically prevent you from converting it to a lower magic setting, though since it was designed for 3E it will require some tweaking.

 

[Crothian]

It is great fun. I wish we could have finished it.

 

[Celebrim]

I own it, but haven't played it.

There are many elements of the design I approve of though. In particular, I like the sandboxish structure combined with a central plot element designed to be 'epic' but which considers an adventuring career with a fully epic plot to be 1-5 rather than 1-20. The half-normal awards for XP is right in line with my preferred pacing and desire to avoid the problems with large math, multiple statuses, imbalance between class tiers, and routine save or die, that start up somewhere between 11th and 13th level (assuming you otherwise have tight hold of the reigns).

The hardback format though is not particularly ideal in my mind for a module though, and the module is a bit on the primitive side, so I'd mostly recommend it as an introductory text for a new DM/group of players with the recommendation you print out/photocopy maps separately. You don't want to be flipping back and forth between a map and the text.

Could I easily convert it to the lower magic Conan setting?

Well, that depends on what you mean by that.

You could easily run the adventure with the assumption that there are no party spell-casters, and sense it is sandboxy and only assumes the party will hit 5th level or so before finishing the main plot line it would work.

But you can't easily divorce magic itself from the setting, as the BBEG is a spellcaster and magical items and effects abound. So on the whole, it could be considered reasonably to simulate some of Conan's magical foes with the exception of the fact that the PC's are likely to end up with the usual allotment of magical treasures (many of which are rather clever and interesting, but not 'low magic' except in comparison to what D&D is capable of).

 

[Water Bob]

But you can't easily divorce magic itself from the setting, as the BBEG is a spellcaster and magical items and effects abound. So on the whole, it could be considered reasonably to simulate some of Conan's magical foes with the exception of the fact that the PC's are likely to end up with the usual allotment of magical treasures (many of which are rather clever and interesting, but not 'low magic' except in comparison to what D&D is capable of).

I was worried about that. I usually strip out all but the most important magic items from a D&D adventure when I convert them to Conan. The Hyborian Age is not about finding magical boots or rings of invisibility. If there's a magic item, it's usually epic in nature and typically very evil.

I also usually strip out all the demi-humans and many of the monsters, replacing them with more Conan-friendly alternatives. Sure, the evil Conan Sorcerer may have some lizard-men like henchmen that the mage has brought from the Outer Dark to serve him, but most of Conan's foes are human. Orcs become Hillmen, and the Orgre becomes a big, bad Brythunian Pit Fighter.

If the adventure rests on its magic item drops, then it's not a good one for me to convert. But, I can use some of the monsters. I probably won't use a gelatinous cube, but I'd definitely allow a wyvern to be stalking the wooded hills. I'll change a lot of the more fantastic creature encounters to more normal creatures, too--like wolves and bears and such. I might take an Umber Hulk and make it an over-sized mountain boar with piercing tusks. A dragon can become a dinosaur.

Typically, I cut down on the number of encounters, too. D&D adventures, I find, are sometimes just listings of one incredible creature followed by the next, sometimes just in the next room. I try not to do that in my Conan games.

 

[Celebrim]

I was worried about that. I usually strip out all but the most important magic items from a D&D adventure when I convert them to Conan. The Hyborian Age is not about finding magical boots or rings of invisibility. If there's a magic item, it's usually epic in nature and typically very evil.

I also usually strip out all the demi-humans and many of the monsters, replacing them with more Conan-friendly alternatives. Sure, the evil Conan Sorcerer may have some lizard-men like henchmen that the mage has brought from the Outer Dark to serve him, but most of Conan's foes are human. Orcs become Hillmen, and the Orgre becomes a big, bad Brythunian Pit Fighter.

If the adventure rests on its magic item drops, then it's not a good one for me to convert. But, I can use some of the monsters. I probably won't use a gelatinous cube, but I'd definitely allow a wyvern to be stalking the wooded hills. I'll change a lot of the more fantastic creature encounters to more normal creatures, too--like wolves and bears and such. I might take an Umber Hulk and make it an over-sized mountain boar with piercing tusks. A dragon can become a dinosaur.

Typically, I cut down on the number of encounters, too. D&D adventures, I find, are sometimes just listings of one incredible creature followed by the next, sometimes just in the next room. I try not to do that in my Conan games.

Well, keep in mind that the scenarios are largely for PC's of 1st-5th level, so the vast majority of encounters are with low level NPCs, lesser undead, and demi-humans and similar monstrous humanoids.

It's funny that you should mention a ring of invisibility though...

Still, the problematic items like the ring of invisibility and the broom of flying are largely just props for NPCs. The vast majority of the items are easily in the spectrum of 'epic in nature' and problematic if not down right evil. There is for example a +1 ghost-touch greataxe that I think could easily fit in Conan-esq setting. Again, the vast majority of encounters assume 1st-5th level PCs, and so the vast majority of items are low level potions and arcane scrolls. None of them could be considered critical provided that your PCs are rugged enough to do without the small boosts they provide. I don't think conversion would be that difficult - it would be amusing for example to turn the Arm of Gromm into the Arm of Crom. More problematic is that these are typical (if well designed) 'retrieve the golden dingus' quests. The whole module amounts to a large number of interlocking quests to obtain various arcane items. It's the fact that you are retrieving the golden dingus to open the iron doors again and again and again that I think is problematic and not the actual nature of the golden dingus.

So a bigger problem for me would be capturing the feel of Conan in an adventure that is quintessentially a D&D dungeon crawl, no matter how you paced the encounters. I'd be more worried about converting Hobgoblins and Drow, the editing errors, the dungeon crawl plot, and the somewhat confusing layout than converting the magic items.

 

[Water Bob]

The whole module amounts to a large number of interlocking quests to obtain various arcane items. It's the fact that you are retrieving the golden dingus to open the iron doors again and again and again that I think is problematic and not the actual nature of the golden dingus.

Yes, thanks. That's the exact type of info I was looking for. There's too much magic in it to make it a Conan adventure, it seems. I can get away with one epic magic item as the goal of a quest, but not several. That type of thing just doesn't fit into Conan's universe.

I do usually find it easiest to convert the lower level D&D adventures to Conan, though. I converted Scourge of the Howling Horde to my previous Conan game, and we all had a blast. I was able to keep most of the monsters. The giant spider fit in perfectly. I cut out the Shriekers and the Gelatinous Cube, and I made the all the goblins and such warriors from a rival Cimmerian tribe. The site based adventure became a Cimmerian cavern that these tribesmen had found. The young dragon in the climax of the adventure became a demon that was influencing the Cimmerians. And, I turned the elite Hobgoblins and Ogre into Hyperboreans who were there attracted by the demon. It worked out nicely.

Some D&D adventures convert to Conan, but many don't. It sounds like Barakus would not be a good choice.