Adventures for Archaeologists?

[Dave G]

My game is starting soon and the PC's have decided to be members of the Archaeologist's guild of Bluffside. While I have some stuff for them to do around town, I was wondering if there are any adventures out there that would be suitable for a group of Archaeologist PC's.

I'm thinking that this campaign will be heavily influenced by the likes of Indiana Jones and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. I know it might be hard to base a whole campaign off this, but I think it might be a good way to have a non-traditional game.

Any ideas are appreciated!

 

[Hand of Evil]

Check the Vault out to see if there isanything, don't think there is but...

 

[Nifft]

I've got a party exploring an ancient settlement on the Elemental Plane of Ash. I'm planning on writing it up as a freebie module -- I've had to make quite a few maps, and someone else should get good use of them.

-- Nifft

 

[Drawmack]

That big black pillar that sorcerers can't get near.

There is an adventure on their site that takes place in the cracked earth beneath that bar as well.

Lots of adventure for these type of people in bluffside.

 

[GMVictory]

I don't have a lot of d20 adventures myself. However, as Dave knows, I am an OD&D fiend.

I would recommend the following (with the proper changes of course):

B1 In Search of the Unknown - Finding and searching a lost castle
B3 Palace of the Silver Princess - Finding a lost kingdom!
B4 The Lost City - Discovering and searching the lost city
B10 Night's Dark Terror - Discovering civilization in hiding
X1 The Isle of Dread - Classic island exploration
X6 Quagmire - Overland travel and swampland settings
X9 The Savage Coast - More travel and coastal settings
The Knight of Newts (from the Thunder Rift series) - A lost fort
Hail the Heroes (from the 2E Mystara series) - A hidden temple.

My own ideas:

The Guild has a list of objects that are highly sought after.
A blacklist of treasure hunters and thieves.
A list of forbidden items and knowledges that no one is to seek.

 

[seasong]

One way to do it:

Take any reasonably small dungeon module. Bury it about 50 feet. Remove all denizens, but leave their remains.

Sprinkle some clues to its existence around its perimeter. Hide some ancient secrets in the map, like some cool artifact that is going to destroy the world if its activated (takes 100 days of ceremony to activate), and maybe some instructions in a language almost entirely forgotten.

Repopulate it, but with only a few guardians, weakened by the passage of time. Let the players figure out it's there, arrange the dig, get down to it, face off with the guardians, and then deal with the artifact (and the cult who have sensed its release and are on their way to take and use it).

 

[Cedric]

I'm sure my answer is more generic then you wanted but...

DUNGEON CRAWL!!!

I suggest..snakes, spiders, pits, traps, undead, secret doors, slime, bones, remains, crypts and very cool stuff.

Cedric

 

[fba827]

you may invariably end up doing a quest for the artifact of great power that might come in more than a couple pieces ...



Jackie Chan adventures and Relic Hunter are other "archologist gone adventuring" like Dr. Jones and Laura Croft... in case you were looking for other inspirations..

The interesting thing about this type of model is that you can think of the relic / artifact first (get to find a nifty one) then uild an adventure around it (who would hide it, why, what sorts of defenses, etc).

(as opposed to making a dungeon and sticking a magic item in there as treasure..).

 

[Norfleet]

Relic-hunting is an incredibly silly business. Always, it involves hunting down the parts of some thingy, which, when assembled, does something which is clearly no good. If it's powerful, the drawbacks invariably make it not-worth-using. What sensible DM would let a player have that free ultimate power?

Therefore, the smart, sensible thing to do, upon recovering that vital component, is to immediately destroy it.

Wouldn't life have been so much easier for characters in movies and many games if they had thought of that first?

 

[fba827]

Relic-hunting is an incredibly silly business. Always, it involves hunting down the parts of some thingy, which, when assembled, does something which is clearly no good. If it's powerful, the drawbacks invariably make it not-worth-using. What sensible DM would let a player have that free ultimate power?

Therefore, the smart, sensible thing to do, upon recovering that vital component, is to immediately destroy it.

Wouldn't life have been so much easier for characters in movies and many games if they had thought of that first?

But what if the power is needed on a short-term / temporary basis to stop the great and power evil thing from happening?

(though, you are right, in most cases the explaination in movies is "to keep it out of the bad guys hands" not realizing that they are basically getting it out of a secure dungeon where it has been for centuries because their egos make them think they can keep it more safe in the vault behind their library.

but this is getting off topic .. sorry...