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Skulldance Castle
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Author:  Cobwebbed Dragon [ Wed Apr 19, 2017 5:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Skulldance Castle
I like dungeons. What old-school gamer doesn't?

And, whilst I was idly reading through the Dragon Warriors Rulebook recently, I came across a doozy that has all the elements for a fantastic Dragon Warriors adventure.

Skulldance Castle in the Sleetmarsh, home of Cathedon the Unbidden (one of the seven immortal wizards of Legend) who wields the Ebon Staff, itself plundered from the otherworldly hoard of the demonlord Feshtis...

I can almost imagine the fun I could have leading my players on a long sea voyage to Selentium followed by a peril-filled barge journey down the River Felda, and that's before they've even begun to face the dangers of the Sleetmarsh itself. Encounters with cultists of Feshtis, strange creatures and customs, and capped at the end with a jolly old-school dungeon bash in the Castle.

I could see it being a high-rank, slightly higher fantasy campaign than my normal fare, but it might be worth trying to find the time to put an outline together :)
Author:  howareyou [ Thu Apr 20, 2017 5:56 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Skulldance Castle
Sounds like a pretty sweet campaign...though the dungeon would be much more interesting if designed as part of a bigger campaign with intrigue and other stuff...
Author:  Cobwebbed Dragon [ Thu Apr 20, 2017 6:15 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Skulldance Castle
howareyou wrote:
Sounds like a pretty sweet campaign...though the dungeon would be much more interesting if designed as part of a bigger campaign with intrigue and other stuff...

I couldn't agree more - the internal politics of the Cult of Feshtis and the seething hotbed of political antics that is Selentium (through which any adventurers would likely have to pass to get to the Sleetmarsh) would provide plenty of opportunities for more social adventures as part of the campaign. Off the top of my head, imagine a cultist who got swept away by the demagoguery of their leader but is now having cold feet about reclaiming the Ebon Staff for their demonic master. How can the PCs exploit this doubt and get him to trust them? How will the PCs react if his betrayal of the cult, at the PCs' urging, gets him killed? What if this person has already done terrible things - can the PCs forgive them to bring him in as a (temporary) ally? And so on.

I think that's where adventures like The Reeve's Tale lose a few points - throwing a few dungeons together without embedding a narrative with which the players can interact is the easy bit - drawing a contained map of an underworld, concocting a few encounters, and pointing the characters in the right direction with a story is fine and a few clues dished out by NPCs is fine, but I like there to be a few social encounters, too - and I don't just mean the conversation the PCs have to have with NPCs to get information, but meaningful social interactions that have impact on the game and consequences for the characters. They tend to be much harder to write, though, 'cos people are less predictable than dungeons.
Author:  Dreadnought [ Thu Apr 20, 2017 10:59 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Skulldance Castle
I have a feeling I started writing this up a few years ago. Not sure how far I got, will have to look out my notes.
Author:  hermes421 [ Thu Apr 27, 2017 12:43 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Skulldance Castle
I am eager of any new campaign, :)
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