Matthew M. Colville
01-06-1997, 12:00 AM
Ron Lundeen wrote:
> As a fellow DM who tried running the Night Below campaign in
> Cerilia, I must ask what major changes you found you needed to make? I
> only ran the first half of the boxed set (up until about the time the PC
> got to the Shrine of Juiblex), but I'd already had to make a lot of
> changes: 1) The Bloodskull Orc were Orogs. 2) Several of the NPCs,
> like Count Parlfrey and some of the underground "rulers" were Blooded.
> 3) The two dragons in the adventure were, or course, Cerilian Dragons.
> 4) Since the adventure involved extended periods of time underground, I
> allowed the players to make blooded characters, but not regents (who
> wouldn't be able to rule well while spending four months or more
> underground).
>
> Out of intense curiosity, what changes have you had to make? And
> where did you set Haranshire?
I made the same change you made vis a vis the Orc to Orogs. However,
my players aren't even done with the Trolls yet, so they havn't gotten
as far as yours.
I started the Boxed Set about 2/3rds of the way through the first book
of Night Below. One of the players is a blooded regent (The Duke of
Tuornen) who is exploring Night Below for several reasons:
1) Ranchefus kidnapped the wizard which the Duke was sponsoring at the
Royal College of Sorcery with the intend of making him the Ducal Wizard
once his studies were finished.
2) The Duke was the man chosen, instead of his other ambassadors, by
Prince Darian Avan to treat with the Dwarves when they approached the
Prince to establish trade with the humans for the first time in 1500
years. After impressing the Dwarves mightly with his nobility and
competance (he completed the task set to him by the Dwarves from Legends
Of The Hero Kings, Dwarved Steele) they named him Dwarvenfriend and,
later, impressed upon him their desire to head the expedition into the
underdark.
So far, the party has made Baruk-Azik (named, in my version of
Birthright, Thurazor) their base, often having to go all the way back to
Tuornen or the Imperial City to take care of business.
Further expeditions into Night Below will certainly take more of the
PCs time, but itonly takes four months if you, the GM, says it does.
You could just as easily say "four weeks" which is also a long period of
time to spend underground.
Haranshire I put in the Coeranys province of Deepshadow, and Broken
Spire Keep I put in the mountains on the border of Baruk-Azik and
Coeranys. This allowed me to integrate two other PCs, one a Druid
tasked by the Duchess of Coeranys to make sure the Duke of Tuornen is
happy in their Duchy (he's an important guy) and to monitor the party
and otherwise offer aid whenever it was needed.
That druid knew an Archer-Ranger (special class from an old Dragon
Magazine) who lived in the area and could guide the whole party to
Broken Spire Keep.
So, as you can see, I had to do a lot of work to bring everyone
together. But everyone's meshing well and is united of purpose. I had
to read the whole first third of Night Below just to figure out that
Ranchefus was the perfect 'in' to the adventure, so they skipped
everything up till then.
-Matthew
-
> As a fellow DM who tried running the Night Below campaign in
> Cerilia, I must ask what major changes you found you needed to make? I
> only ran the first half of the boxed set (up until about the time the PC
> got to the Shrine of Juiblex), but I'd already had to make a lot of
> changes: 1) The Bloodskull Orc were Orogs. 2) Several of the NPCs,
> like Count Parlfrey and some of the underground "rulers" were Blooded.
> 3) The two dragons in the adventure were, or course, Cerilian Dragons.
> 4) Since the adventure involved extended periods of time underground, I
> allowed the players to make blooded characters, but not regents (who
> wouldn't be able to rule well while spending four months or more
> underground).
>
> Out of intense curiosity, what changes have you had to make? And
> where did you set Haranshire?
I made the same change you made vis a vis the Orc to Orogs. However,
my players aren't even done with the Trolls yet, so they havn't gotten
as far as yours.
I started the Boxed Set about 2/3rds of the way through the first book
of Night Below. One of the players is a blooded regent (The Duke of
Tuornen) who is exploring Night Below for several reasons:
1) Ranchefus kidnapped the wizard which the Duke was sponsoring at the
Royal College of Sorcery with the intend of making him the Ducal Wizard
once his studies were finished.
2) The Duke was the man chosen, instead of his other ambassadors, by
Prince Darian Avan to treat with the Dwarves when they approached the
Prince to establish trade with the humans for the first time in 1500
years. After impressing the Dwarves mightly with his nobility and
competance (he completed the task set to him by the Dwarves from Legends
Of The Hero Kings, Dwarved Steele) they named him Dwarvenfriend and,
later, impressed upon him their desire to head the expedition into the
underdark.
So far, the party has made Baruk-Azik (named, in my version of
Birthright, Thurazor) their base, often having to go all the way back to
Tuornen or the Imperial City to take care of business.
Further expeditions into Night Below will certainly take more of the
PCs time, but itonly takes four months if you, the GM, says it does.
You could just as easily say "four weeks" which is also a long period of
time to spend underground.
Haranshire I put in the Coeranys province of Deepshadow, and Broken
Spire Keep I put in the mountains on the border of Baruk-Azik and
Coeranys. This allowed me to integrate two other PCs, one a Druid
tasked by the Duchess of Coeranys to make sure the Duke of Tuornen is
happy in their Duchy (he's an important guy) and to monitor the party
and otherwise offer aid whenever it was needed.
That druid knew an Archer-Ranger (special class from an old Dragon
Magazine) who lived in the area and could guide the whole party to
Broken Spire Keep.
So, as you can see, I had to do a lot of work to bring everyone
together. But everyone's meshing well and is united of purpose. I had
to read the whole first third of Night Below just to figure out that
Ranchefus was the perfect 'in' to the adventure, so they skipped
everything up till then.
-Matthew
-