What are "The Styes"?

catsclaw227 · Jan 10, 2007

OK -- I am hearing somethings about The Styes, apparently it's a location/adventure or something from Dungeon Magazine.

I have a subscription, but I rarely read ALL the adventures in each issue and more than often I only focus on the adventure that I am currently running. Since we are now doing STAP, and I was doing a Wilderlands/Goodman/Barakus campaign before, I am sure that I missed it entirely.

What is it? Where is it? What is it's flavor like? Are there multiple Dungeon adventures written for it? Who is the primary author?

Heathansson · Jan 10, 2007

The author is Richard Pett. It is heavily influenced by China Mieville's The Scar and Perdido Street Station.
The environment is gritty, steampunky, gnarley fun.
It's a scungy section of a D&D city that is designed to be able to be added to a city in your campaign world. Muddy sections are polluted by alchemical waste.

Richard Pett shows up a lot over at Paizo.com on the messageboards, he and Nicholas Logue have a fun ongoing rivalry.

Heathansson · Jan 10, 2007

The adventure "The Styes" in Dungeon 121, and "The Weavers" in Dungeon 138 both take place there.

I'm a Richard Pett fan.

+5 Keyboard! · Jan 10, 2007

The Styes is from Dungeon #121 by my favorite brit writer, Richard Pett. The city the adventure gets its namesake from is a gritty, corrupt place. Others have compared it to China Mieville's works. Solving a murder/clearing the wrongly accused of it leads the PCs into the mechinations of a cult following of Tharizdun, an encounter with an aboleth, the bone creature councilman behind things, and perhaps a young kraken (not sure about that last part, though it figures prominently in the story).

Richard returned to The Styes with The Weavers in Dungeon #138. I haven't read that one through, but there are Kenkus and some nasty spiders predominantly. Both adventures have received a lot of praise. Richard Pett has great reputation for intriguing stories and memorable NPCs/villains.

+5 Keyboard! · Jan 10, 2007

Damn! Heathanson, what are you doing over here? You beat me to the punch.

Heathansson · Jan 10, 2007

+5 Keyboard! said:
Damn! Heathanson, what are you doing over here? You beat me to the punch.

I get around. Actually, I hear "Richard Pett's" name mentioned and I'm there.
Who are you at Paizo?

catsclaw227 · Jan 11, 2007

Heathansson said:
I get around. Actually, I hear "Richard Pett's" name mentioned and I'm there.
Who are you at Paizo?

I see you at the Paizo boards too.

I LOVE running STAP (you can see my party in my sig)

+5 Keyboard! · Jan 11, 2007

Heathansson said:
I get around. Actually, I hear "Richard Pett's" name mentioned and I'm there.
Who are you at Paizo?

Myself... see my signature line above... or below if you're feeling lazy

Steve Greer
Father, husband, aspiring writer... INSOMNIAC!!!

catsclaw227 · Jan 11, 2007

+5 Keyboard! said:
The Styes is from Dungeon #121 by my favorite brit writer, Richard Pett. The city the adventure gets its namesake from is a gritty, corrupt place. Others have compared it to China Mieville's works. Solving a murder/clearing the wrongly accused of it leads the PCs into the mechinations of a cult following of Tharizdun, an encounter with an aboleth, the bone creature councilman behind things, and perhaps a young kraken (not sure about that last part, though it figures prominently in the story).

Richard returned to The Styes with The Weavers in Dungeon #138. I haven't read that one through, but there are Kenkus and some nasty spiders predominantly. Both adventures have received a lot of praise. Richard Pett has great reputation for intriguing stories and memorable NPCs/villains.

I'm gonna have to check out if I have Dungeon #121 at home. I know I have #138, but I think I might be missing that one.

I like Mieville, though I have only read Perdido Street Station. I took a break and read the George RR Martin books (these are VERY different writers.

)

I prefer those adventures that have memorable NPCs, since we are typically more of an RP group than an encounter/tactical group.

+5 Keyboard! · Jan 11, 2007

catsclaw227 said:
I see you at the Paizo boards too. I LOVE running STAP (you can see my party in my sig)

Cool. That's great to hear. I'm actually running the same adventure you're on right now. My players have just reached Tamoachon. We'll be going in to explore it this Friday. These same guys did the playtesting of Tides of Dread, so I'm going to have to make a few changes here and there just to throw them off a little when we get to it.