I mean to add notes to this post on my conversion, but right now I want to talk about the hook. I read the module previously, and yes, it definitely is Sword & Sorcery, but I passed it over because I couldn't see the roleplaying potential or the hook.
Now however, I will say that yesterday rumors started circulating about a large caravan being raided (in whatever nearby city the heroes are currently hung-over in). This morning the High-King is making a proclamation: A great caravan from XYZ has been raided, and that its greatest prize is his bride-to-be, Princess Elara. The High-King proclaims that the man who returns the Princess alive and well will be pardoned from all crime and be given his weight in gold... At least now I know how to use this module!
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
So first there can be minor investigation where the PCs rush to find one of the survivors that yesterday reached the city and started the rumors. They need to beat other rivals as well as the High-King's men.
- the first man was a merchant traveling with the caravan. He immediately celebrated making it to civilization alive by talking freely about all the wealth to anyone who buys him wine. The heroes will find him robbed and murdered in an alley (he did not actually bring any gold with him, he just made the fatal mistake of making cutthroats think that he did)
- the second man was a guard who proceeded to spend whatever loot he picked up on wine and women. This will ultimately be a dead-end since Adam did not stick around long enough to learn the identity of the raiders, but the heroes can still chase down the string of women he partied with last night to see where he went next and if he told them anything. The first girl Mya says he was an enthusiastic lover that did not discuss much of anything. Once they reached the next tavern, he went with Rosie, who says he was celebrating escaping with his life, and he got her very drunk. They should ask her friend Tanya next - she supplied a few euphorics but confesses she might have brought too many, he did her over so many times she had to ask Newli to take over. Newli fondly remembers Adam, and that yes, he did talk about raiders and blood and stuff, but then started to slur as if drunk and she had to most of the work herself. Afterwards she got Gwen to help get him into bed, but she hasn't seen Gwen today. Gwen is the last girl, and will flatly tell them he was very drunk and very boorish, and when he forced himself upon her, she simply waited until he fell asleep and stuck her dagger into his back.
- the third lead is that a slaver boasts of his new prize, Oneika is an exotic slave captive from a faraway land that the slaver claims "saw it all". She actually was part of the dowry. If the party purchases her (they can get a great price if they hint that the slaver might end up in the dungeons for "stealing" the High King's property) she tells her story: Her cage fell off a wagon and she managed to sneak away before the others were rounded up. She can say one raider caught her, and that he said he worshipped the "Bull God", but she managed to "win him over" to the extent he deserted his fellows, intending to take her and start a new life. Alas, he got an arrow in the back when they ran away, but lived long enough to successfully hide her and then draw away the others. When she reached the city, she realized that wearing only a slave collar and not looking like the locals, she would not be able to sneak past the guards. That's why she approached a nice-looking young nobleman asking if he would smuggle her into the city in exchange for her cooperation. However, after having his way with her, she realized he was double-crossing her when the slaver's men entered and grabbed her. If they promise to kill Lord Nrathis of House Gewli she will be in their debt. (Of course, technically she's their slave at this point but I digress).
- the fourth lead is another guard, who is dying from wounds during the raid. By now he's delirious and obviously talking nonsense. "There were war elephants and they were led by a magnificent Priestess with a long trunk for a nose" (all false and probably just religious imagery) But his wife Ketarr, who sneaked away with the stuff he carried, including a goblet (50 gp), can when forced at knifepoint tell them what the guard told her - [insert details about the raiders and where they were taking the Princess]. Her reason for taking the stuff is to pawn it, she's heavily in debt with an unsavory inn keeper named Celdis. If the party keeps the goblet from her, they will hear about her strangled body later (as well as the death of the guard).
- the fifth lead is just a trap. An entrepreneurish street gang hires a luxury courtesan to pretend she was part of the caravan and has information. Heroes will be ambushed, and a three way brawl will ensue. Heroes vs thugs vs the courtesan and her men. The courtesan is also a thief on the side, and when she realized there might be gold to be gained by taking this stuff to the High King she got greedy. Obviously she did not take into account how the thugs failed to limit their ploy to a single mark.
- the sixth lead is a young terrified boy. His fear has saved his life so far, since he's hiding in one cellar or another only emerging before dawn to scrounge up some food. Now, however, he's desperate and puts his money on one of the less fearsome heroes (one that actively participates in the clue search). He can tell them everything they need to know.
The first few leads basically leads nowhere but obviously they will catch up to someone still alive that can give them the crucial clues: who are the raiders and where to look for their camp. (That is the Bull God cultists and the canyon of the adventure). In the list above that would be lead #4 with lead #6 as the fall-back option should the party find itself in serious risk of missing the whole adventure...
Note: unless they ruthlessly kill their informant (or perhaps better, comes up with something clever other gangs will later learn the same info - and be hot on their heels to complicate matters. Maybe the heroes are attacked while still on their way. Maybe they need to take out the rivals once they stake out the cultist camp, before the others bungle an escape attempt in their gold-frenzy.
This gives the module a clear goal: To find and get away with the Princess.::! Unless and unless, of course, they realize they need to stop the cult from summoning the Obsidian Lord.
This should make it more likely there will be some infiltration and/or role-play, at least until they find out where the Princess is held (because if they attack before that time, who's to say the Princess won't be sacrificed?)
This also allows me a cool complication: the Princess doesn't want to get married! She's a free spirit and can become a capable warrior and she wants neither to go to the High King nor go back to her father in XYZ. She offers the heroes her entire dowry (which is here, looted by the raiders) if they escape and set her free. She even suggests taking one of her three maids and present her as the Princess; she's fairly sure the High King doesn't actually know what she looks like.
(There should only be at most a 50%-50% chance for gold versus death here, remember that DCC players might gladly risk the life of one of their characters if there's potential for that much gold. If you play a more traditional one-hero-per-player campaign, you can of course increase this, but personally I wouldn't - after all "more riches than you could ever want" isn't exactly how you motivate your heroes to keep on adventuring. In DCC however, you COULD even say one batch of heroes retire having "won" at adventure, if the players feel it is most fitting to roll up a new batch for subsequent adventures, perhaps even at the same experience level) Cue the choice between a) the timid maid that is the most likely to pass as a Princess both in body and in manners (except she does not want that life and will attempt to seduce a hero to have him take her away), b) the brazen maid that definitely wants a life of wealth and luxury and won't mind it if the High King turns out to be old or cruel (except while she has the body she's crude and crass and won't easily pass for high nobility) and the loyal maid, the "middle choice" who doesn't have the looks of a Princess but will gladly do everything (including sacrificing her life) for the Princess.
Assuming all three maids can be spared from sacrifice, that is! (I have not yet made up my mind where to best place these)
Addendum: As a last resort, there should be clues at the site of the attack. Describe the ruins of a great caravan, with scores of dead, some not just stabbed or hacked to death, but with gruesome injuries (to foreshadow the blood magics of the Cult). Most of the defenders are male, since the soldiers of the Princess' honor guard are male, and most caravan guards are male too. But of course there's the occasional body of a female cook or washer woman. As for the attackers there is a noticeable amount of female cultists/acolytes among the fallen raiders. In the middle of the caravan the bodies pile up high as the soldiers defended the Princess' honor to the last man; each soldier taking half a dozen raiders with him in death.
if you feel particularly gruesome you can have one or three combatants still clinging to life even though it's likely been two weeks since the battle. Maybe they can find a raider that will provide crude directions in return for ending his or her life. (Remember: fanatics are seldom concerned with the prospect of getting found out or losing) Perhaps more straightforwardly, they come across not just animal scavengers. For example, when they spread out to sift through the carnage, one hero turns a corner to suddenly be face to face with 1d4: 1) a middle-aged goat herder, 2) his peasant wife in her thirties, 3) a younger man* or 4) the oldest child, a teenage daughter. Altogether it's a family of nine (with five younger Oliver Twistian kids) that out of desperation dares to scavenge for valuables. The goat herder is prepared to fight using his pathetic staff, and the feisty young daughter draws a dagger. But they quickly realize there are more than just one hero, and surrender without a fight. The husband tries to explain in a hard-to-understand dialect they offer whatever stuff they have collected (1d100 gp) as well as information about where the raiders could have come from if they can leave safely. As a last resort he offers up his daughter to them if the heroes spare his remaining children. (She reacts with a mixture of consternation and exhilaration) I mean, the heroes probably aren't interested in killing defenseless peasants, but said peasants don't know that.
*) The family was in debt with their village lord, who offered to write off their debts if the wife agreed to dump her husband and marry his nephew. Thing is, this young man was kind-hearted and understood the wife loved her husband, despite him not being able to give her any children. So for the last 15 years or so they've all formed an ever-growing family. Why these peasants have fallen upon hard times recently I don't know. But of course the easy answer is that a raid from the Red Prophet wiped out their village...
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So about the "your weight in gold" thing... First off, DCC appears to not change the weight and size of D&D coins, so in d20 the standard is 50 coins per avoirdupois pound.
So if they send a beefy warrior to collect, that could easily be 220 x 50 = 11,000 gp or more. If your players will instantly spend this on luxury villas, huge tracts of land, or whatnot, then everything is fine.
But carousing it all up on the Balthazar tables, well, that won't work for obvious reasons unless you're fine with bleeding those tables dry and everybody leveling up possibly more than once.
Remember, I have added three maids that each could impersonate the princess with a varying degree of success - if they don't bring the actual princess against her will (actually they probably need to Charm her to make that work). My baseline is a 50% chance of success (or the hero or heroes will be killed).
But really I hope the players will agree skipping ahead levels will just rob them of adventure and make my job harder (since low level adventures are now out of bounds), so if they want property, titles, and so on, I will probably make success more likely and reduce the penalty for failure.
Of course, the easiest solution is for them to skip this reward and just go for the loot, which I have calibrated to be enough to pay for one weeks' worth of carousing for every hero.
Zapp
PS. I realized the conversion notes will be somewhat copious, so I put them in a thread of their own:
https://goodman-games.com/forums/viewto ... 60&t=49432