I have started running a mini-campaign with two new players. This group is not the same for which I am writing the campaign chronicles. We use to play session every Monday at 7.30 pm, every session lasts two or three ours.
To run this game I have been looking for a pre-generated adventure. My pick, due to compatibility reasons with my mini-setting, is Stele of the Silver Thane, written by Greg Daley. The adventure module employs AD&D 1st edition ruleset.
We are playing in D&D 5th edition, so, as you can guess, the whole work requires conversion.
TRAITS OF THE ADVENTURE MODULE
It employs AD&D 1st edition rules, so we have to readapt the content for a 5th edition game.
It is designed in old school style. Indeed, it looks more like a mini-setting with an adventure embedded. You will find the entries of many location, however not all of them are essentials.
Random tables for wondering monsters are related to a general environment (forest, swamp, scrubs, mountain, etc.) and not to each specific location. This because the adventure assumes that the characters will be wondering and exploring the area even when the goal of the adventure is not clear to them.
It is a non-linear adventure, with an attempt to create the basis for a sandbox mini-setting.
ADVENTURE STRUCTURE
The author describes the structure, but we are going to make a resume anyway.
Keep in mind, being a non-linear adventure you do not have chapters, instead, you have parts (other authors call them sections, it is the same).
The adventure module is divided into three main parts:
PART 1 – THE WILDERNESS
It is composed of different terrains. Part 1 of the adventure employs six terrains (mountain, scrub, hills, forest, swamp/marsh, plains) and twenty-six locations. The twenty-six locations are assigned to a different terrain and every location comes with a description.
PART 2 – THE VILLAGE AN THE GNOME STEADING
Both locations are mentioned in Part 1. What Part 2 does, is to unzip them.
The Village contains eighteen locations; the village is the place where the adventure starts and it offers the adventurers the opportunity to buy stuff and discover tips to introduce them to the adventure goals and paths.
The Gnome Steading contains twenty-one locations; the steading and the gnomes are a faction of this mini-setting. They may be turned into allies, or become adversaries, depending on the characters choices.
PART 3 – DUNGEONS
This section describes two dungeons, the Egrel’s Estate and In the vicinity of the Stele.
The dungeon named Egrel’s Estate, is the headquarters of a wizard known as Egrel; he may become the employer or the villain of the adventure, always depending on characters choices. The estate contains twenty locations.
The dungeon named In the vicinity of the Stele is the final dungeon, the one that represents the true goal of the adventure. This dungeon contains forty-five locations.
TRIGGERS
If you want to know more about non-linear and matrix adventure design read this article
Adventure Design – Non-Linear Adventure Review – Shipwreck at Har’s Point
Part 3 describes four events that may triggers specific consequences. Some are time triggers, others are event triggers. Non-linear and Matrix adventures work on triggers, by handling them properly you create dynamic situations.
Running this kind of adventures usually produces complex situations, so you are advised to carefully keep track and take note of every important event and its trigger.
ADVENTURE GOALS AND SYNOPSIS
Egrel, the villain and potential employer, is an ambitious, powerful and evil magic user that wants to seize this small region to expand his dominion. He is hiring, and the characters may work for him or not, betrays him later or not. Every scenario is possible.
Personal note: We have to decide what kind of magic user is appropriated for a D&D 5th edition game. The options available are wizard, sorcerer and witch (or warlock if you prefer). At the same time, we have to define a proper level. The better pick will probably be wizard.
The Stele of the Silver Thane is a dungeon that the players can loot, it does not seem to have connection with Egrel and his schemes. This dungeon is not easy to find, and the players need to put together some scattered clues to find its location.
Personal note: In pure old school flavor, the dungeons of the Stele offers the characters resources to face the villain when the time will come, or complete the adventure once the dungeon is looted. I think we will have to tune the objects inside the dungeon to fit the adventure conversion. As you know, balance in AD&D is not the same as in D&D 5th edition; actually AD&D does not care much about balance.
Beyond goals above mentioned, the Game Master is let free to add, change, modify and improve whatever he/she wish to. Indeed, to fully taste these kind of adventures, the Game Master is encouraged to employ his/her spices.
We have not told everything of course, many detail have not been mentioned but will they will be during the conversion process. The purpose of this article is not telling in advance all the content of the adventure module, it is learning some tricks to put in place a decent adventure conversion.
I almost forgot…while converting we will make some improvement.
Also, the adventure does not provide a full map, the author assumes you are going to draw one according to your needs. If you do not draw a map, the whole thing becomes chaotic.
CONVERSION OF PART 1 – THE WILDERNESS
As said before, the wilderness contains 26 locations, including the village and the gnome steading (both described in detail in part 2). If the characters decide to explore the wilderness, then the random encounter tables come into play.
What connect a location to a random encounter table is the type of terrain.
In other words, you pick the proper encounter table by approximation.
For example, if the characters decide to explore the Pond (wilderness location #13) , then what encounter table are we going to employ? I would pick the Swamp/Marsh encounter table, but it is just my personal evaluation. Another Game Master may pick a different encounter table. In such a case, most depend on how you built the general map.
Personal note:Separating the location and the encounter table is another trait of old school adventures, as far as I remember of course. Modern adventure design – and with modern I am not saying better – prefers to assign a specific encounter table to a specific location, or many times it just assign a fixed and planned encounter that triggers only once. Again, I am not saying that modern adventures are all made this way, I am saying that it is a trend.
So, now we know that we need to make some changes in the random encounter mechanics. We are going to dismantle the encounter tables, employ some of the monsters suggested by the author and assigned them to a specific location. At the same time we will change some monsters that are too strong for a 5th edition characters, and if we find some unknown monster we will convert it to 5th edition.
#1 VILLAGE OF HADD (or whatever name you will pick for your town)
Personal notes: The village is detailed in Part 2, and includes 18 locations, so we are going to analyze it later.
#2 RIVER JUNCTION
“Here the sound of rushing water loudly fills the forest. Two streams meet to form a larger river, some 60 feet across, running fast and deep. No obvious means of crossing is apparent, though a strong animal or man could perhaps swim”
Conversion: A DC 10 athletic skill check is required to cross the river. If a character fails the skill check she is dragged 2d6 x 100 feet away by the water currents, at the point she is entitled to roll a new athletic skill check.
Personal notes: AD&D 1st edition do not mention skills, we have to wait until AD&D 2nd edition to see proficiencies. Proficiency looks like skills, but without including the concept of DC (difficulty class). Obviously, if the characters want to cross the river, then they have to swim. Swimming fits inside the Athletic skill. I would assign a DC of 10, because the author suggests us that, the environment surrounding the village, is composed mainly by swamps and marshes. Still and calm waters.
#3 FORDING
“The old road disappears into the river here and emerges again on the other side. Water foams over protruding stones, but the flow is slow and shallow enough for it to be fordable. At this point the river is about a hundred feet wide and three feet deep; it will take ten rounds to traverse on foot and five rounds by horse. Encumbered animals or men take twice as long, and must make a saving throw to avoid being swept off their feet during the crossing. Should they fail, there is a one-in-five chance of their pack being washed away or else splitting open and spilling its contents into the water with predictable consequences”
Conversion: A character crossing the fording must roll a DC 7 dexterity saving throw due to strong water currents. If the saving throw fails, then there he must roll a D100 for every object he is carrying. There is a 10% chance for the object to be lost and dragged away by the waters.
Personal notes: Encumbered is a condition that triggers a saving throw, this works for AD&D, but not for 5th edition. I would say that, to cross the fording, the characters must roll a DC 7 dexterity saving throw due to strong water currents. Stop.
#4 NEAR BRUSH
“An undeveloped area to the southwest of Hadd; heath and gorse cover the ground. The villagers sometimes make use of the land to graze their animals, but the nearby marsh requires them to exercise some caution when doing so”
Conversion: Roll a D20 the first time the characters explore this area. On subsequent times, roll once a week.
1-13: Cattle and shepherd (1d4 x10)
The paragraph clearly states that villagers graze animals, but that the area is not very safe. If the characters encounter a shepherd he tells them about the Goblin Dogs and the Stirges that, from time to time, prey upon the cattle.
12-14: Goblin Dogs (2d4)
A pack of goblin dogs is attacking a cattle of cows. When the shepherd spots the characters, he immediately asks for help. I have not mentioned it, but goblins play a role in this adventure module. They are unstable and unreliable allies of Egrel the wizard. They employ goblin dogs in their raid, and the animals occasionally escape and raid the nearby land. The presence of goblin dogs may represent a hint of a massive presence of goblins.
15-18: Stirge (1d4+4)
Stirges occasionally leave the marshes to search for food. Cattle, and why not people, represents a good source of blood. At Game Master discretion you may have the stirges attacking a shepherd and his cattle.
17-19: Zombies (1d4)
Zombies, like goblin dogs, are not here by chance. Egrel the wizard, according to the adventure module, is a good necromancer and employs zombies for hard labours. It seems plausible that some zombies run out of control and wonder the region. This encounter may represents another hint for the characters.
20: Ghouls (1d2)
Where there is rotten flesh, ghouls are present. Egrel’s traffic of corpse to fuel his undead work force attracted these undead creatures.
Personal notes: We come across the first location that has no significant connections to the adventure goals. It is described as land to graze. We assume that the characters may encounter sheepherders and occasional cattle. However the paragraph refers to the marshes for dangerous encounters. If we were to employ the swamp/marsh encounter table, we would run the risk to roll ridiculous encounters for a party of low level characters. Creatures like black dragons, diplodocus, giant otter, giant beaver and many other in the same pot does not work. Not anymore at least. Things have to be a bit more elegant and structured. So, we are going to build a shorter and more useful encounter table with different wondering monsters.
#5 OPEN WOODLAND
“East of the river the forest begins to thin out and the land starts to slope upwards to the northeast. The area is dotted with trees and shrubs of various sorts, before giving way to the thick brush that covers the lower slopes of the mountains”
Personal note: This seems to be nothing more than a transition area. The adventure module provides a short description and nothing more. Being absent any map, I assume it is an area next to #2 Fording and #3 River Junction. The fording and the river junction are both a mean to cross the river that side the village of Hadd.
#6 CURVE IN THE ROAD
“Here the road curves between a line of low hillocks, and the verge narrows to less than twenty feet on either side. Of course, this makes it a natural place for an ambush, so random encounters here are potentially more dangerous”
Conversion:
A renegade bandit, known as Grady the Swindle, is lurking in the
area. He usually attacks goblins and those he knows are collaborating
with Egrel. He is aware that the wizard will bring nothing but
troubles to the village of Hadd and he decided to take action on his
own. The characters may decide to befriend him or capture him and
cash the bounty on his head.
Personal
note: The paragraph
just suggest that a hostile encounter is more dangerous due to the
feature of the terrain. We have to make a decision here. Is there or
not something or someone lurking at the curve preying upon unwary
traveler? I would not roll for a random encounter. Honestly, I do not
like the idea. I would pick a creature, or why not a NPC, that wonder
the area to assault or prey upon the travelers. So, the final
decision is this Grady the Swindler, a renegade bandit. We take note
of this when we will rewrite the paragraphs of the village of Hadd.
We must not forget to include a bounty on the head of Grady.
#7 SWAMP
“These low lying lands are flooded by nearby rivers and springs. Silty mud covers the ground, interspersed with open stretches of water. Many wading birds can be seen feeding on the various invertebrates that live in the mud”
Conversion: Roll a d20 the first time the characters explore this area, at any moment during the crossing. On subsequent times, roll once every 24 hours.
1-5: Stirge (2d4)
6-8: Giant Frog (1d4)
9-11: Crocodile (1d3)
Encounters from 1 to 11 are classical creatures characters encounters in a swamp. Nothing special to add about it.
12-13: Zombies (1d6)14-16:Goblin Dogs (1d4)
Zombies and goblin dogs are encounters that may contain hints to what is going on in the area.
17: Marsh Jelly (1d3) not converted
18: Muckdweller (1d4) not converted
19: Giant Leeches (1d2) not converted
20: Catoplebas (1) not converted
Encounters from 17 to 20 are a bit more dangerous, especially the catoplebas. The Game Master may decide to trigger such encounters only if the characters spend more than one day in the swamp or venture to far.
Personal note: This area is quickly dismissed with a paragraph. Of course you can refer to the wondering monsters for encounters in the swamp. At the same time the module let understand that the swamp is relevant area of the region. Yet, nothing special is mentioned. Add to this that a regional map is totally absent and no one knows what is the purpose of describing the swamp. Again, it is up to us readapting this area. When we will draw the regional map we will place the swamp in the middle of two area of interest so that the characters will have to cross it unless they want to take a longer road. For sure, we must include a wider list of wondering monsters that dwell in the swamp, possibly avoiding black dragon as the original encounters table suggest. I would avoid intelligent creatures also.
#8 OPEN WATER
“Eventually the marshland gives way to a large expanse of water. A faint salt spray blows off the surface and the far shore cannot be seen. The water is brackish, but supports freshwater fish, and is in fact an arm of a much larger inland body”
Conversion: Nothing special to add I would say. Just a quiet place.
Personal note: The adventure module does not include a encounter table for aquatic creatures. This area represents the end of the river, the one that begins from the location #3 River Junction. We just assume that if the characters decide to follow the river then the trail will lead them right here.
#9 END OF THE ROAD
“The road here turns to ruts, potholes begin to appear and tufts of grass spring up in its middle. After a way, the road dwindles to an animal track, and wends its way through high grasses. Wagons passing here are likely to get bogged in the ruts”
Conversion: later.
Personal note: This is nothing more than a messy road. According to the description the road seems to lead nowhere. Beside that the author does not spend a word more to say something about it. Well, the road is not easy to cross by wagon. We have two options here; we delete the paragraph and dismiss it as useless or, we wait once a map is made and then we try to figure out what to do. I prefer to wait, may be I will have some ideas later.
We are done, at least for now. The conversion is not over, but we will work on it from time time. Stay tuned.