Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="DayTripper" data-source="post: 5159212" data-attributes="member: 23440">I ran a wilderness campaign based around an ice age world sometime ago. One adventure I didn't get to run (as I moved away from the area) was an adventure inspired by a scene from Robert Holdstock's "Celtika" novel.  The adventure was based around a "haunted" frozen lake.  The lake is guarded by totem-worshipping shaman.  The PCs have come to lake to find something under its frozen surface - in the book it was the remains of the Argo, in my adventure it was a portal.  This immediately poses a number of problems for PCs:1) Getting through the thick ice without attracting the attention of, or dealing with, the surface residents (see 6 below).2) Diving into the lake & surviving the environmental hazards - cold, dark, wet and depth.3) Diving into the lake and surviving the monsterous hazards - the haunted lake is teaming with undead (drowned ones, aquatic ghouls etc).4) Searching the lake floor for whatever it is they're looking for in the cold, wet, dark depths. The BBEG lives at the bottom the lake in some ruins, of course.5) Did I mention there was a dragon that lived in the surrounding mountains?6) Did I also mention the lake shore has a number of mystical wackos, treasure hunters and adventurers living along it waiting to figure out how to liberate large quantities of treasure/magic/eternal life from the lake?Clearly the solutions to some of these problems require magical rituals, some of which the PCs may not possess but they can deal with the local residents to obtain missing items.  Other problems, such as swimming in cold dark water may require awesome skill checks along with magic or novel equipment (homemade diving bell anyone?).  Loads of ways the problems can be solved depending on the set-up. I was pitching this adventure around 10-15th level, which would have given the PCs some good magic to help and some good skills to attempt some heroic stuff: I calculated that a swimming barbarian might be able to swim several hundred feet down into the depth just by holding his breath with an good endurance roll.</blockquote>

Verification