Desert of Desolation...sort of

Kheti sa-Menik

First Post
Hi folks. I've always wanted to run the Desrt of Desolation module for AD&D 2nd edition. It's got some good flavor and a great story. I'm currently running a D&D 3.5 campaign in Magnamund (from the Lone Wolf RPG/gamebooks). Though there is two large deserts I could use to run this module, I was thinking because the PCs have been running around one of them for a month and are sick of the desert, of turning DoD on its head and running it instead in a different wasteland: a tundra/arctic one.

Magnamund has a vast arctic/tundra region near its north pole called Kalte, large enough to host a DoD style quest. The Raurindi inhabitants of the desert and their fringe dervishes become the Kaltese Ice Barbarians. The Dupari become groups of renegade Drakkarim settlers fleeing their war torn, Darklord-allied homelands in search of somewhere new to call home, even if it is the vast cold bleakness of Kalte.

The efreet becomes a powerful ice demon prince who could, if he escapes Kalte, cover all the lands of Northern Magnamund in an eternal winter.

The sunken City of Pazar, the Pyramid (which I would put at the foot of a mountain range and invert it, so it is an upside down pyramid cut from the rock, stone, and ice of the mountain), would become ruins of the ancient cities of the Majhan.


Of course, winter/snow creatures could be substituted for desert ones. But I think overall it could work. It's still about the PCs, struggling against a bitter environment, trying to assemble the pieces of an ancient puzzle and defeat a creature of malovolence. And some of the features that are part of a desert setting would be very interesting when transferred to a winter one.

What do you think?
 

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Change the overtly desert nomad (Persian/Arabic types) for Mongol type tundra people. In the latter portion, change the glass sea into an actual vast ice sheet.
 

Why not? :)

The Persian to Tundra people may not be such a difficult change as you think. Both were horsemasters. :D

I like smootrk's idea about the ice sheet though....
 


Inverting the pyramid might be tough, since you'd have to rework all the floor plans (since, if it's at all like any dungeon I know, the big stuff will be at the tip of the pyramid, which is now the entry point).

I'd either set it up where the PCs come in from the top (which might be a bit lame), or make the "pyramid" a small mountain or glacier.
 

It's interesting. There are some similarities to what the RPG Live! community over at WotC is doing right now.

WotC has put the Knowledge Arcana staff in charge of helping the community build a setting in which online play can take place. The players have, through chat, submitted their ideas and are slowly putting together a world. They've chosen a world locked in an ice age.

The sketchy and preliminary details are here: http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=836492.

Dave
 


sydbar said:
Very cool idea, it might even be different enough for people to not be able to identify it.

My players aren't really the types to be conversant with modules from editions past to a great depth so I'm not really worried about it.


Hey, folks who know about such things: Can horses be used in extremely cold environments? Are they a viable draft animal or mount in an area of tundra/frostfell?

Interestingly, I see some horses that seem developed for extremely cold environments, like Icelandic horses.
 
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Kheti sa-Menik said:
My players aren't really the types to be conversant with modules from editions past to a great depth so I'm not really worried about it.


Hey, folks who know about such things: Can horses be used in extremely cold environments? Are they a viable draft animal or mount in an area of tundra/frostfell?

Interestingly, I see some horses that seem developed for extremely cold environments, like Icelandic horses.

Regarding horses in extremely cold environments ... not too well at all ... umm ... except maybe as extra food. :confused:

As for cold weather riding mounts.... I guess Dire Rams would work. :\

Hmm ... what else ... Bantha? :heh:
 

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