Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Jasper DMs Princes of the Apocalyse
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Staffan" data-source="post: 9662455" data-attributes="member: 907"><p>I've run almost the whole campaign (the campaign got put on hiatus on account of Covid as the PCs were getting to the final Node, and we didn't start it back up when we started playing in-person again) and, to be frank, I would not want to repeat the process. The early stages with searching for the missing delegation are fun, and take PCs to various places in the region, but once you start hitting the Haunted Keeps things start getting kinda dull. Well OK, the Spire is kinda fun with the air cultists trying to trick the PCs and such, and Rivergard Keep and whatever the Burning Man place is called aren't too much, but the Monastery gets the slog going by being a relatively big dungeon (at least compared to the other Keeps).</p><p></p><p>I'd probably strip it down for parts and split the main dungeon into several parts that are located in different places. I'd make getting to the dungeon part of the adventure, and cut down on the size of the various Temples. Having more travel also makes it easier to include the various side treks in an organic manner. Plus, if the different Temples are separate places rather than each being a quarter of the ruins of the Mighty Dwarven Outpost of Tyar-Besil, you don't have to concern yourself with Tyar-Besil being physically smaller than Red Larch*.</p><p></p><p>Another idea I had would be to make each cult deal with two elements, because I think that would make it easier to find thematically appropriate locations. Air/Water could be somewhere in the Sea of Moving Ice, Water/Earth could be in a swamp, Earth/Fire is naturally somewhere volcanic, and Fire/Air sounds pretty deserty so maybe Anauroch? But at that point, you're basically taking some ideas and concepts from the module and building your own.</p><p></p><p>Going back to the module as-is, one narrative problem I had was that while the cultists have all these nefarious plans, there aren't many opportunities for the PCs to learn what's going on. It's basically just "Oh look, here are some evil elemental cultists, let's murder them. Hey look, this one had a fancy spear, I wonder if that does anything useful... oh, mostly just being able to command air elementals and make Orbs of Devastation, though the latter seems like something where the name is writing checks its stats can't cash."</p><p></p><p>* OK, that's a little unfair. Tyar-Besil is basically a square filled with lots of stuff, while Red Larch is cross-shaped with all the houses being along the roads, so there's a lot more empty space in Red Larch. But edge-to-edge, Red Larch is bigger than the four maps that make up the four Temples.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Staffan, post: 9662455, member: 907"] I've run almost the whole campaign (the campaign got put on hiatus on account of Covid as the PCs were getting to the final Node, and we didn't start it back up when we started playing in-person again) and, to be frank, I would not want to repeat the process. The early stages with searching for the missing delegation are fun, and take PCs to various places in the region, but once you start hitting the Haunted Keeps things start getting kinda dull. Well OK, the Spire is kinda fun with the air cultists trying to trick the PCs and such, and Rivergard Keep and whatever the Burning Man place is called aren't too much, but the Monastery gets the slog going by being a relatively big dungeon (at least compared to the other Keeps). I'd probably strip it down for parts and split the main dungeon into several parts that are located in different places. I'd make getting to the dungeon part of the adventure, and cut down on the size of the various Temples. Having more travel also makes it easier to include the various side treks in an organic manner. Plus, if the different Temples are separate places rather than each being a quarter of the ruins of the Mighty Dwarven Outpost of Tyar-Besil, you don't have to concern yourself with Tyar-Besil being physically smaller than Red Larch*. Another idea I had would be to make each cult deal with two elements, because I think that would make it easier to find thematically appropriate locations. Air/Water could be somewhere in the Sea of Moving Ice, Water/Earth could be in a swamp, Earth/Fire is naturally somewhere volcanic, and Fire/Air sounds pretty deserty so maybe Anauroch? But at that point, you're basically taking some ideas and concepts from the module and building your own. Going back to the module as-is, one narrative problem I had was that while the cultists have all these nefarious plans, there aren't many opportunities for the PCs to learn what's going on. It's basically just "Oh look, here are some evil elemental cultists, let's murder them. Hey look, this one had a fancy spear, I wonder if that does anything useful... oh, mostly just being able to command air elementals and make Orbs of Devastation, though the latter seems like something where the name is writing checks its stats can't cash." * OK, that's a little unfair. Tyar-Besil is basically a square filled with lots of stuff, while Red Larch is cross-shaped with all the houses being along the roads, so there's a lot more empty space in Red Larch. But edge-to-edge, Red Larch is bigger than the four maps that make up the four Temples. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Jasper DMs Princes of the Apocalyse
Top