Click here to download “The Hidden Tomb of Slaggoth the Necromancer,” by Adrian Stone and LS

So, I wrote a small dungeon adventure module.

It started early this year when I stumbled on to the website of fellow D&D blogger, Stonewerks. Stonewerks primarily makes maps, and his work has heavily influenced the way I’ve drawn the Deadly Dungeons maps over the last few months. At the time, his newest post was “The Hidden Tomb of Slaggoth the Necromancer,” a map which caught my eye, both for its lovely design, and compelling description:

“The long lost Tomb of the evil necromancer Slaggoth, is buried deep with in a cavern complex. The caves have become the home of a trio of ogres and their band of goblin henchmen. The goblins guard the entrance by watching through a small crack in the rock above the entrance, alerting the other goblins when anyone approaches the entrance. The goblins will then unleash a small pack of wolves that they have chained in the front caves against the intruders. If the wolves are not enough to repel the intruders, the goblins will send a runner across the wooden rope bridge to the ogre lair to warn their masters and will use ambush and retreat tactics to slow down the intruders. In the ogre cave is a massive steel door that leads to the hidden tome of the evil Necromancer Slaggoth. They have never been able to breach the door, so the tomb has remained untouched. Rumors of a key to the steel door is hidden somewhere in the caves, but has yet to be found. What horrers lie within Slaggoth’s tomb? Who is brave enough or foolhardy enough to find out?” -Stonewerks

Stonewerks and I got to talking in the comments, and then via email. What started as me filling a lazy evening by keying an empty dungeon turned into a full-fledged attempt to write my first module based on Stonewerks’ seed idea. I dragged several people through playtests and proof readings, and even got cbMorrie and Jacob Rain (both of whom have been featured on P&P before) to provide some free art for it.

The module proper has actually been done for several months now. The work of getting everything written, tested, re-written, and edited only took a few weeks. The art took a few weeks more than that. The hard part, as it turns out, was making a PDF. It’s not something I’d done before, and I found it a frustrating process to start with. One which I procrastinated over and over again. I’ve got a pretty fair handle on how to do it now, though, so hopefully future attempts won’t take quite so ridiculously long!

So please, download it! Let me know what you like or what you hate. Run it for your group if you are so inclined, and if you do, let me know how it goes! This is an experiment for me. One which will hopefully pave the way to future products.

You may have noticed posting has dropped off rather suddenly here. Some large issues, and larger questions, have popped up in my personal life. Resolving them may require most of my free time for a little while. I considered putting the blog on a month-long hiatus, and I haven’t discounted that option entirely yet, but for now I think I’ll stick to a “post when I have a moment” schedule. Hopefully I can get back to games soon!

SO, this image.

Resurrection is a tricky concept in games. If a character can be brought back to life, then what is the danger of death? It’s a question as old as gaming, and one with a lot of potential answers. The question, and the various answers to it, are all very interesting. I’ll write about them another time.

For now, look at this picture of Orpheus bringing his dead wife Eurydice back from the underworld. The image is terrifying to behold. The juxtaposed affection and lifelessness depicted here are disturbing. And while “you must charm the god of death with your music” is perhaps too high a bar for character resurrection in a game, this painting expresses something I like to see in character resurrection.

It is a herculean task to accomplish, and even when it is done, the resurrected person is never quite the same.

Taken from Eulalia Hath a Blogge

The question of “what can my players buy in this town?” is an important one. The availability of equipment creates limits on the player which can force them to make more interesting choices. It can also spur them into traveling abroad, exploring the wider world in search of some place where they can find the things they need.

I’ve used a variety of methods to determine what can and what cannot be found in a given town. And I’ve read many more methods than I have tried using. I’ve never really found anything which worked well for me.

Often times, when my players have discovered a new town, I just wing it. I figure out roughly what kind of town it is, and how big it is, and from there it’s normally pretty obvious what can be bought and what cannot. In a farming village, of course you can find a pitchfork to buy. Sure, there’s probably someone with a sword who wouldn’t mind selling it. No, nobody here can cast healing magic for you.

I can think of no reason why this casual method of determining what is available for sale should not be formally adopted as my “official” method. The only hole are the few items which straddle the line between “obviously,” and “obviously not.” For example, a suit of chainmail armor. It’s possible one of the villagers has a set they’d be willing to part with, but it’s also possible none of them do. The logical thing to do is to roll to see if there’s a such a suit of armor available.

Here is what I propose: every town has a saving throw which is rolled when it’s not clear to the GM whether an item would be available or not. For 80% of what the players might ask for, the answer should be obvious based on the size, wealth, and function of the community. For anything else, 1d20 is rolled against the town’s saving throw. A roll equal to or higher than the target number means the item is available, less than the target number means none are.

The target number would get smaller, the larger a town becomes. An outpost or camp with 5-15 people in it would have a target number of 20. A small farming village where everyone knows everybody else might be 17. A town with a thousand or so people in it might be as low as 14. A major metropolis could get down to 9 or 10.

I’m going to start using this method in one of my campaigns, and see how it works out.