Looking for a good ruined city adventure setting

[haakon1]

Another possibility is the Lost City of Gaxmoor, published by TLG and currently on sale for $1 on their site. Like I1, Gaxmoor was originally set in Greyhawk (in case that's of any interest).

I just picked this up. Where in Greyhawk was it originally set?

 

[S'mon]

Gaxmoor is good (apart from the 3e NPC stats, Heracules is way OTT as the BBEG); it's a nice Roman-esque classical city with some of its original inhabitants, plus hordes of goblinoids and sundry critters.

Caverns of Thracia is very good, the above-ground classical-Greek ruined city has more than one below-ground counterpart and various inhuman factions. Nice 'lost world' vibe.

B4 The Lost City has a nice underground desert city with weird human factions.

Barakus is a 5-level dungeon with little sign of its being a city; its a good campaign which I ran for 2 years, but more for the various extra adventures than the city itself.

If you want all above-ground I recommend Gaxmoor; for cool lost-city dungeon campaigns I recommend Thracia and B4.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Good call! My first thought on reading the thread title.

Same here. It furnished the finale of my first 3E game set in the Scarred Lands. Great module.

 

[grodog]

I just picked this up. Where in Greyhawk was it originally set?

I'll have to pull my notes on that, haakon1, but IIRC it was in the western Flanaess, near the Ket/Tusmit area. Scott Gregg posted about to Greytalk c. 2001 or so, and I have a printout with the info/details. Just need to dig it up

 

[S'mon]

I'll have to pull my notes on that, haakon1, but IIRC it was in the western Flanaess, near the Ket/Tusmit area. Scott Gregg posted about to Greytalk c. 2001 or so, and I have a printout with the info/details. Just need to dig it up

What, the imperials are Suel? Doesn't sound a very good fit.

 

[haakon1]

What, the imperials are Suel? Doesn't sound a very good fit.

Or the old Baklunish Empire? I dunno. I've only scanned bits of the adventure, and get the Greco-Roman nature, but not a Greyhawk tie-in. We'll have to see what grodog says.

 

[jinnetics]

I'm running a 3.5 version of Dwellers of the Forbidden City right now. The maps are excellent, and there is a lot you can do with it. The module itself is a bit lacking in details, but you can work up the city into what ever power struggle you want.

I turned the wizard Horan into a drow who uses the lesser beings in the city to run raids and made the Yuan-ti a powerful opposition to him as they use the city resources to try and rebuild their empire. I also added a pair of black dragons in the swamp, the pang lung was a bit "eh". anyway, I love this city and you can plop it down anywhere in your campaign world. A jungle region is best, but any place could work.

I wouldn't mind seeing your conversion notes on that one!

 

[S'mon]

Or the old Baklunish Empire? I dunno. I've only scanned bits of the adventure, and get the Greco-Roman nature, but not a Greyhawk tie-in. We'll have to see what grodog says.

Baklunish should be Arabic, or at least middle-eastern. Suel can be done as Roman at a pinch, though there was a poster on Dragonsfoot did them as Persian/Iranian/Aryan, using the Indo-European -> Aryan -> Master Race Nazi mythology to have essentially blond Nazi Persians, which I thought was a great approach.

Edit: Obviously neither the Romans nor Persians had any concept of racial superiority AFAIK - the Romans explicitly regarded the Germans & Gauls as physically superior to them, and to them it was a sign of Rome's cultural superiority that short stocky Romans dominated tall muscular Gauls & Germans. The Persians had a concentric model of cultural superiority (closer to Persia you were, the more superior) but AFAIK no racial element. So this is a-historical, but I think works well.

 

[pawsplay]

B4: The Lost City. An entire city underground, where the inhabitants have forgotten the surface world and are steadily losing their sanity as, generation after generation, their champions do battle with the servants of the tyrant Zargon, a thing of ancient evil.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

B4: The Lost City. An entire city underground, where the inhabitants have forgotten the surface world and are steadily losing their sanity as, generation after generation, their champions do battle with the servants of the tyrant Zargon, a thing of ancient evil.

Hot damn, that sounds cool. Gotta find that.

Found:
RPGNow.com - Wizards of the Coast - B4 - The Lost City