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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8845509" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dungeon Issue 65: Nov/Dec 1997part 2/5Knight of the Scarlet Sword: Some towns, it's not the monsters outside that are the real trouble, it's the people in charge. In their trek across the borderlands, the PC's pass through Bechlaughter, which is run by the Red Knight, a guy with a serious grudge against arcane magic, summarily executing without trial anyone who casts wizardly spells or uses magic items to emulate them anywhere near town. This seems likely to result in conflict with the average adventuring party. If that or the demand to pay taxes as soon as they enter doesn't get them engaged, maybe appealing to their sense of justice will, as there's a wrongfully accused guy in the jail who's going to be hanged tomorrow. Either way, they'll find themselves dragged into a small town conflict with dark roots. The Knight is being stoked into ever more fanatical acts of witch-hunting by an imp pretending to be a holy goat, the mayor is a doppleganger taking advantage of this to live a life of luxury off the possessions of the people executed, the imp is servant to a powerful wizard who's currently in the middle of becoming a lich, but will be back to take over the town in a few days and the wizard also has a homunculus, which is much more loyal to the wizard's agenda than the imp, also spying around the edges. That's a lot of plates spinning in the air at once and some of them are almost certain to get smashed in the next few days. This feels like someone has taken 4 different side trek ideas and stitched them together into one larger, more complex adventure where they can interact in lots of different ways depending on how the PC's react. It's interesting precisely because I have very little idea how it'd turn out in actual play, whether it'd be best solved with combat or roleplaying, at least without knowing the group I was running it for. Not entirely certain if it's a successful experiment or not but it definitely earns points for being distinctive. Goes to show that it gets easier to make an adventure unique the more elements you add, particularly when the ways they can interact multiplies out quadratically rather than just adding more rooms, each with a different monster that just attacks anyone who enters and never leaves.Side Treks - Flotsam: A nautical scenario three issues in a row? That is mildly surprising. Are people including lots of sea journeys in their campaigns lately? I guess they did just do the quartet of sahuguin based monstrous arcana books. But there's no sea devils in this one, merely a pair of castaways on a wrecked ship that aren't what they seem and will cause all sorts of trouble for the players if they rescue them. They pretend to be just a textile merchant and noblewoman fallen into a bad situation needing a lift, but they're actually scheming pirates who messed up their last raid, and will pretend to be comically incompetent until they have a chance to steal something and make a getaway, maybe manipulating you into doing all the work of finding some famous bit of buried treasure then striking while you're worn down or asleep. Not so much an adventure in itself as a complication to be added to another one, as these guys tag along and act superficially helpful in a way that isn't actually that useful until they get caught out or think they're in a good enough position to betray the PC's. If you've already run Isle of Dread several times for different groups that could keep it from getting boring as a DM. Like adding metamagic feats to customise spells, I wouldn't mind seeing a few more things like this.</blockquote>

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