Greyhawk experts, help me fill in my 2nd Ed Boxed Sets campaign

[fletch137]

I'm looking at some of my favorite boxed sets from 2nd edition and I'm hell-bent on linking them into a campaign.

This campaign would start with "Night Below," transition to "Rod of Seven Parts" and cap with "Return to the Tomb of Horrors," all of it wrapped up in "Greyhawk Wars."

I understand "Night Below" gets really grindy by Book III (I even have trouble reading that far...) so my plan is to put an aboleth boss in the heart of the City of the Glass Pool and letting the adventure end there. Somewhere in theres, the PCs will discover the first piece of the Rod of Seven Parts which will ultimately lead them into that adventure. And once that wraps up, I'll find a way to get them started on the Tomb of Horrors.

By the numbers, that'll fit together really nicely, but what I *really* want is to flavor that with the Greyhawk setting and letting the Greyhawk Wars play in the background. So I'm looking for advice or ideas on ways to incorporate such things into the campaign.

Fer instance, if I place Haranshire in Furyondy, my PCs will be on hand to see the first stages of the war with Iuz after they resurface from the Night Below. While a world war is a big deal, I want the PCs to know that their quest for the Rod is even MORE important. Of course their travels around the Flaeness will allow them to experience the different fronts of the war (and I'd love to find a way to get them invited to the Pact signing in Greyhawk at the end) and maybe even have the defeat of Miska the Wolfspider impact Iuz' fiendish armies.

If there's a way to turn some of my PCs into landed nobles after this, I'll take it. I love the domain and mass warfare rules of 'Birthright' and would love to adapt them to a non-Cerilian setting.

Hopefully I'll find a way to have the PCs in place for the start of Tomb of Horrors over in the Vast Swamp.

That's my rough outline. I welcome all Greyhawk enthusiasts to educate me on ways I can weave these events together to give the best Greyhawk experience for my players.

 

[Schmoe]

I know I've seen other people discussing going from Night Below to Rod of Seven Parts. You can read some discussion here: http://forum.rpg.net/archive/index.php/t-150194.html I know that one poster was going to do exactly that, and had a few ideas on how to do it.

For Night Below, I would recommend leaving in Book 3, as that has some really great RP and adventure possibilities. There have been mixed reports on Book 2.

Unfortunately, I can't comment specifically on tying in the Grayhawk Wars, as I don't know much about them.

Edit: There's also a bit of discussion in this thread: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?186035-Rod-of-Seven-Parts-your-experiences

 

[fletch137]

Interesting. Book 2 didn't seem any more sloggy than Book 3. Between the Rock Elves, the Svirfneblin, and the Derro in-fighting, I figured there was a fine amount of RP potential in Book 2. Cap it off with the siege of the kua-toa city and it seems like a fine conclusion.

What are the highlights of Book 3 that I'd be missing out on?

 

[grodog]

I understand "Night Below" gets really grindy by Book III (I even have trouble reading that far...) so my plan is to put an aboleth boss in the heart of the City of the Glass Pool and letting the adventure end there. Somewhere in theres, the PCs will discover the first piece of the Rod of Seven Parts which will ultimately lead them into that adventure. And once that wraps up, I'll find a way to get them started on the Tomb of Horrors.

I haven't read these 2e boxed sets, but I would consider placing one or more of the rod of seven parts pieces in Acererak's tomb itself (perhaps in the final encounter, perhaps elsewhere in the tomb). You can also play with the Night Below underdark nicely by expanding to include the drowic underworld of D1-3 (and placing one of the rod parts in the possession of one of the noble houses in D3 is worth thinking about), which has been heavily added to and expanded as part of a Dragonsfoot project "Mapping the Depths of the Earth"; Maldin has a downloadable version @ http://melkot.com/locations/underdark/underdark.html along with his own maps of Greyhawk's drowic underworld. His maps also include options to use Wolfgang Baur's Kingdom of the Ghouls (Dungeon 70)/Empire of the Ghouls (OOP Open Design project), and the ghouls made a brief appearance in one or two of the AP modules in Age of Worms. So, lots of ways to spruce up or side-quest from Night Below if it gets to be a bit of a slog.

By the numbers, that'll fit together really nicely, but what I *really* want is to flavor that with the Greyhawk setting and letting the Greyhawk Wars play in the background. So I'm looking for advice or ideas on ways to incorporate such things into the campaign.

Fer instance, if I place Haranshire in Furyondy, my PCs will be on hand to see the first stages of the war with Iuz after they resurface from the Night Below. While a world war is a big deal, I want the PCs to know that their quest for the Rod is even MORE important. Of course their travels around the Flaeness will allow them to experience the different fronts of the war (and I'd love to find a way to get them invited to the Pact signing in Greyhawk at the end) and maybe even have the defeat of Miska the Wolfspider impact Iuz' fiendish armies.

You could have the Pact negotiations include one of hte pieces of the Rod of Seven parts, perhaps. FWIW, I've never been too inclined toward Miska the Wolfspider, so I'd likely replace him in the Rod background completely, perhaps with Kyuss or Dragotha (both in Age of Worms), or something else.

If there's a way to turn some of my PCs into landed nobles after this, I'll take it. I love the domain and mass warfare rules of 'Birthright' and would love to adapt them to a non-Cerilian setting.

IIRC Age of Worms does this as part of its higher-level AP modules, but it's been quite awhile since I read it. Should be manageable, assuming the PCs survive that long

 

[eondesigner]

Night Below for us was a great module and we ended it at the City of Glass Pool (negotiating with 'the locals' for safe passage to the surface). It is very removed from the surface world, you may as well be on another plane, so running the war above may be a little redundant, we played A1-4 the slave lords series during the greyhawk wars and this was quite successful. I'm not familiar with the rod of seven parts module, but I understand its an epic treasure hunt that could work nicely during the war. Finally, tomb of Horrors is brutal, you may need to do a lot of player hand holding so this doesn't end horribly. i.e. feeding the characters the knowledge and equipment to survive this killer dungeon.

 

[Starfox]

I'd exclude the Tomb of Horrors too - it is quite different in both feel and theme, and not something to do in a war crisis (unless you put some critical treasure inside, which is easy enough to do). If doing Greyhawk Wars, I'd try to involve the players in the recovery of the Crook of Rao somehow, if only as spectators. Perhaps the Tomb of Horrors is a suitable hiding place for that? Definitely important enough to raid the tomb for, but might feel cheap to get that war-ending artifact after only one adventure.

I'll also join in the recommendation of Age of Worms for this - tough that also involves the rod of seven parts, so it might be a redundant that way. It has lots of nice Greyhawk moments tough.

I'll also point to http://ghmaps.net/, really amazing Greyhawk maps.

 

[fletch137]

Ooh, that is a nice map. Zoom. Zoom. Have to bookmark that one.

Obviously it's been a while since I've looked at this project. At the time, I'd meant to parse through Night Below Book III and find some of those great moments people talk about and move them up to Book II. If you have any favorite moments from the post-Glass Pool setting, I'd love to hear about them.

My last thought was to have the quest for the Rod take place amid the background of the Greyhawk War. The globe-trotting aspect of RoSP would really showcase the development of the war as spelled out in the War boxed set. What I need to do is sit down with a timeline of the war and identify where (and when) the PCs would be at a particular area for the Rod quest. Having the Queen of Chaos (and/or Mishka) be part of Iuz' fiendish army attacking Furyondy would tie the conclusions together.

And THEN they could race back to Haranshire, turn back the fiendish army, and claim themselves some noble titles. A year or so down the road, their domains would suffer the dark incursion which would lead the PCs to gather together again and challenge Acererak. If I ever get a chance to run a 2e campaign, I'm determined to run Return to the Tomb of Horrors. The ToH is so iconic, I HAVE to run it, and the framework of RttToH is the only chance any PCs will have to survive.