During the late era of 1st edition AD&D, the Dragonlance
adventures (and, to a lesser degree, adventures like Ravenloft) set the scene
for a different kind of large-scale storytelling. Adventures prior to Dragons
of Despair had back stories, of course, but Dragonlance brought the
PCs along for a ride where large-scale events were going to happen regardless
of what the players decided to do. Dragonlance provided the thrill of a
larger narrative, where both the DM and the players were discovering “the story”
as it was revealed with each module released, and I think that there will
always be a place for adventures set up in this manner…but it did lead the next
edition away from “Here is the situation; let’s find out what happens” far too
deeply toward “Here is the situation, and here is what is supposed to happen.”
At the same time, Dragonlance taught TSR that there was a lot of money to be
made in selling setting materials as well as adventures. The World of Greyhawk
was, of course, the baseline setting for 1st edition, but there was an expectation
that most DMs were going to create their own worlds. Modules tended to be more
modular, in that they could be placed in any world with only minimal changes. By
the time the new edition rolled out, adventures became more tied into setting
lore – even when the setting didn’t tie directly to the adventure itself. Forging
these ties sold more products, in the same way as comic cross-over events sell
more comics.
Finally, the human-centric world of earlier D&D was
giving way to a fantasy game where PCs might be not just humans and
demi-humans, but a great many types of humanoids. One might argue that the
minotaurs of Dragonlance were influential here as well, but having drow and
duergar PCs in the original Unearthed Arcana opened that door
for others to follow. While 2nd edition did not go as far down this road as
subsequent editions, some of the weird fantasy vibe of the earlier game was
lost to treating monsters as simply part of the fantasy milieu – subjects for
natural histories and anthropological studies rather than creatures inimical to
human (and demi-human) civilizations.
Consequently, while 2nd edition adventures are statically as
easy to convert as 1st edition modules, the structure of the adventures
themselves require more work. It is not that there is anything wrong with
lizardmen being set up by other monsters, or with an adventure where lizardmen
are relatively peaceful if left alone. An adventure where said lizardmen are
set up by rakshasas, which punishes players failing to take the “correct”
course of leaving the lizardmen alone, is a bit of a challenge once you step
away from 2nd Edition assumptions.
This era of the game is also, shall we say, a bit
railroad-y. To wit:
It is up to the PCs whether they
agree to aid Chala. If they appear indecisive, Vant suggests that Chala is only
the beginning – other cities in the area will be visited by disaster as Tefnut’s
rage grows. He says even adventurers such as themselves will not be safe. It is
better to right the situation now.
Chalans come forth and plead with
the PCs to help their cause, promising the player characters what wealth they
have stored away in their homes.
Eventually, the PCs should agree.
In the event they do not, the rakshasas may disguise themselves as lizard men
and attack or kidnap the PCs.
It is up to the PCs. But, if they don't decide the way you want, decide for them. It is this sort of thing which led certain individuals to argue that even including a module perforce meant you would railroad your players.
Fixing the Story
There is great potential here, but first we have to fix the
story. There is a mystery; we must make sure that the players have the chance
to realize that things are not as they seem. Instead of trying to drive the
narrative into “Heroic adventurers save the Chala and the lizardmen!” we can
bring the adventure right back to the game’s Sword & Sorcery roots by
making the idol of Tefnut the prize and being relatively indifferent to the
fate of human city, lizardman village, and rakshasa encampment alike.
The first step might be to replace the lizardmen with more technologically
primitive humans. Suddenly, the PCs have a motive to talk to them. More, if
they are captured, the PCs will not be eaten in a lizardman feast, and might
even get a chance to learn something before they escape. The idol becomes the
prize – whether it remains in the “lizardman” village, is returned the Chala,
or is taken by the PCs to melt down or sell as treasure becomes the players’
decision (if they can recover it). Stealth, magic, diplomacy, or brute force
might be used.
The idea that a god pays attention to what occurs around
their idol is great, and is certainly in keeping with Sword & Sorcery
fiction, but let’s not be subtle about it. Instead of slowly debilitating
characters, let’s go with something dramatic. Rains and flooding come directly
to mind considering the god involved. There might be some loss of Luck involved
because this is, after all, DCC.
Speaking of thematic appropriateness, let’s fix the
inclusion of an Egyptian god, Indian demons, and generic lizardmen. You can go
any way you want with this, but I think that the Egyptian theme fits in well
with a great swamp. The “lizardmen” can then be human worshipers of Sobek (the
Egyptian crocodile god), which both accept Tefnut (after the miraculous
appearance of his idol) and Sobek. Captured PCs are to be ritualistically fed
to the sacred crocodiles at the new moon (to give them time to escape in
Tarzan- or Conanesque fashion). We’ll make the rakshasa demons of Set, which is
a lot stronger thematically to my mind. That this means we can use a Lawful, a
Neutral, and a Chaotic god our divine wrangling is icing on the cake!
Dealing With Treasure
As with earlier editions, we want to remove unnecessary
and/or bland magic items. Some magic items appear only to make certain parts of
the story possible – the rakshasa might need boots of varied tracks to leave misleading footprints; we can just
give that ability to our demons of Set. Monetary rewards should be reduced to
10%. Gold becomes silver, silver becomes copper, and so on. We could choose to
halve the value of Tefnut’s idol and it is still an amazingly rich prize!
Let’s go back to story considerations for a minute, because
Chala should not be showing off this valuable chunk of metal to all and sundry.
Nor should the Chalans be encouraging every ne’er-do-well with a sword to go
after that idol. After all, there is no reason to believe they will return with
it. Instead, let us create a few rival parties of Chalans to be seeking the
idol. Let’s have the Chalans discourage
the PCs from pursuing the idol as a local matter (although the judge makes sure
the players know the idol’s value).
Hazards
There are a number of hazards in the blackwater swamp which
can be converted. It should be noted that a judge doesn’t need to use the same
mechanics for quicksand or bogs in all adventures. Sometimes, a mechanic can be
specific to the unique conditions of an adventure location. Lightning sand in
the fire swamp does not have to follow the same rules as quicksand in
blackwater swamp.
I mention this because there might be an impulse to scour
DCC adventures, looking for the “correct” way to stat out a hazard. The goal
here, unless you are being paid for your work, should be to convert without
undue work. For instance, take this hazard from Swamplight:
Bogs in the swamp range from 4 to
nine 9 feet deep (1d6+3). Characters who fall in a bog might or might not be
submerged based on the depth of the bog. They must roll an Intelligence check
at -3 on 1d20 (rangers pass this check automatically). Failure means the character
has panicked and must be rescued. Characters who are successful with the saving
throw can attempt to swim to safety at a -3 proficiency penalty because of the
weeds and roots. Characters can be rescued with the methods suggested under
“quicksand.” Characters who are submerged or who cannot swim can hold their
breaths for one-half their Constitution score rounded up before they are considered
drowned. Characters in heavy armor or who are heavily loaded down cannot swim
in a bog.
In DCC terms, this might look like:
Bogs are 1d6+3’ deep. PCs who fall
into a bog must attempt a DC 10 Intelligence check (characters without
appropriate “outdoorsy” occupations roll on 1d10). Success allows a DC 10
Strength check to swim to safety (armor check penalty applies), but failure
means the character must be rescued. If the bog is deep enough to submerge trapped
characters, they suffer 1d3 temporary Stamina damage each round until rescued
or they drown. This temporary damage is fully healed with 10 minutes of rest
and unobstructed breathing.
Monsters
Most of the monsters in this adventure are already converted
in the DCC core rulebook, which will make things easier when converting the
adventure. The judge may wish to replace some creatures with more thematically
appropriate (Egyptian) ones, or reskin existing monsters to make them fit
better. Some of these monsters originated in the Fiend Folio. You can find
conversions of the algoid
and fog
giant in this blog.
Converting monsters from 2nd edition Dungeons & Dragons is
very similar to converting monsters from 1st edition. The biggest change is
that 2nd edition monsters now include THAC0 in their statblock. THAC0 means “To
Hit Armor Class 0”, which is equivalent to 20 in DCC. So, one can use 20 minus
THAC0 to determine a monster’s base attack bonus.
For this module, the obvious monsters to convert are the
rakshasas, which we are going to make into demons of Set. In Swamplight,
they are given these stats:
Rakshasa (3): AL LE; AC -4; MV 15;
HD 7; hp 35,38,42; THAC0 13; #AT 3; Dmg 1-3/1-3/2-5; SA Illusions, spells; SD
+1 or better weapon to hit; ML 15; XP 4,000 each.
Rakshasa #1 wizard spells: enlarge, grease, protection from good,
spider climb
Priest Spells: cure light wounds, entangle,
faerie fire
Rakshasa #2 wizard spells: dancing lights, protection from good, spook,
ventriloquism, detect invisibility, invisibility,
whispering wind, fly
Priest spells: cure light wounds x2, invisibility
to animals
Rakshasa #3 wizard spells: burning hands, color spray, detect magic,
magic missile, blur, fog cloud, web, hold
person, suggestion
Priest spells: entangle, pass without trace,
protection from good
Before breaking this creature down into a DCC statblock, let’s
jump over to the Purple Sorcerer Demon Generator
and create 10 Type II demons. We are creating 10 because we want a 7 HD demon
for a baseline (to match the rakshasa’s Hit Dice). What I came up with is:
Lion, Horse, Clay Demon (Type 2)
Init +2; Atk Constriction +7 melee
(1d6+2) ; AC 14; HD 7d12 (37hp); MV 30'; Act 2d20; SP Drain ability score +6;
Drain blood +6, Drain blood +6 Target Save 18, demon traits; SV Fort +6, Ref
+5, Will +8, AL C.
Traits: Horns, Antennae
Standard Type 2 Demon Features
Communication: Speech, ESP (read
minds but not converse)
Abilities: Infravision, darkness
(+8 check)
Immunities: Immune to non-magical
weapons or natural attacks from creatures of 3 HD or less; half-damage from
fire, acid, cold, electricity, gas
Projection: Can teleport back to
native plane or any point on same plane, as long as not bound or otherwise
summoned
Crit Threat Range: 19-20
I cannot overstate the value of using free tools like this.
Even though we are looking for a very specific thing, it is incredibly useful
to have a baseline creature to look at…especially when converting demons,
dragons, and the like.
Now that we have some idea where we are coming from, we can
look at the statblock in DCC terms:
Init: No Init bonuses are supplied in our original monster, so we
will use the +2 from the sample demon.
Atk: Our rakshasas attack with two claws and a bite. From their
THAC0, we know that the base attack bonus should be +7 (20 minus a THAC0 of
13). This is right in line with our sample demon, so we are good to say “claw
+7 melee (1d3) or bite +7 melee (1d4+1) or spell.”
AC: 2nd edition D&D still uses descending AC, and the easiest
conversion is still 20 subtract the given AC. In this case, we would get AC 24,
and our sample demon is AC 14. I think it would be fair to use an average AC of
19.
HD: The listed HD is 7, which is indicated 7d8 in AD&D 2e. In
DCC, this becomes 7d12.
Hp: 7d12 yields 7 to 84 hp, with an average of 42 hp. The original
creatures have 35, 38, and 42 hp. 7d8 would have yielded an average of 28 hp,
so our rakshasas were above average as originally presented. I am going to give
each one +6 hp, so they are 41, 44, and 48 hp.
MV: The 15 MV in AD&D 2e is faster than a human’s speed of 12,
so I will give our demons of Set a MV of 40’.
Act: The original had three attacks, so 3d20 seems appropriate.
SP: In addition to our standard demon traits, our demons can take
on the appearance of other humanoid creatures (including individuals). Let’s
say that they can shift appearance using an action die. They can also cast
spells, so we need to think about that. The three original creatures had
different spellcasting abilities, so we might as well make our demons of Set
have variable spellcasting as well. Do we need to cast wizard and cleric
spells? That seems like overkill to me, so we can just say “Casts spells as a
level 1d4+1 wizard with an additional +2 bonus to the spell check”.
SV: The original creature doesn’t really help us here, but the
sample demon has Fort +6, Ref +5, Will +8. We can swap Fort and Ref because our
demons are a bit snake-like themselves.
AL: Rakshasas are Lawful Evil. In nine-alignment systems, it is
easy to peg Lawful Good and Lawful Neutral as Lawful. It is easy to peg Chaotic
Neutral and Chaotic Evil as Chaotic. Neutral is, of course, Neutral. All other
alignments have some wiggle room, and I am going to make our demons Chaotic. First
off, that matches demons normally in the core rules. More importantly, it
follows the Tefnut = Lawful, Sobek = Neutral, Set = Chaotic that I had pointed
out before.
Crit: Following the table on page 385 of the core rulebook, we get
a result of DN/1d8.
Put altogether, our DCC statblock looks like this:
Demons of Set (3):
Init +2; Atk claw +7 melee (1d3) or bite +7 melee (1d4+1) or spell, AC 19; HD 7d12;
hp 41, 44, 48; MV 40’; Act 3d20; SP demon traits (converse with ESP; infravision
90’; cast darkness with +8 spell
check; immune to non-magical weapons or natural attacks from creatures of 3 HD
or less; half-damage from fire, acid, cold, electricity, gas; can teleport back
to native plane or any point on same plane unless bound or otherwise summoned;
crit range 19-20), illusions (can use action die to appear as any humanoid,
including individuals), spellcasting (as level 1d4+1 wizard with additional +2
bonus to spell check); SV Fort +5, Ref +6, Will +8; AL C; Crit DN/1d8.
Demon 1 (CL 3, +5 spell check): charm person, chill touch,
mending, spider climb, patron bond/invoke patron (Set), and shatter.
Demon 2 (CL 2, +4 spell check): animal summoning, flaming hands,
read magic, ropework, spider climb,
and patron bond/invoke patron (Set).
Demon 3 (CL 2, +4 spell check): comprehend languages, Ekim's mystical
mask, magic missile, sleep, and patron bond/invoke patron
(Set).
I would use Set-Utekh the Destroyer from Angels,
Daemons, & Beings Between as a reasonable stand-in for Set.
Conclusion
This is a 16-page adventure in 34 pages (including maps).
This is not the fault of the author; like wearing an onion in your belt, it was the style of the time. Although it
may seem that I am looking down on the adventure, I am not. This would be a
great adventure converted well to DCC. The rallying cry of 3rd Edition (“Back
to the dungeon!”) came about at least partly in response to the criticisms I
have made here about 2nd Edition, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t strip
any 2nd Edition module back to its core elements. It just takes a little more
work.
Next: D&D 3rd
Edition: The Forge of Fury
