My 4th Campaign on Roll20

 

So as of last night my new 5th ed. campaign, The Lost and The Lurking (yep, title totally stolen from a Silver John novel). Well, actually, the first session zero was a couple weeks ago, but out of the four in that (long time player Terry could not make it) only two remain, the eager and adorable noob couple in their 20's who I, as I often do with couples, refer to as "The Twins." One guy seemed promising, but he wanted both a more dark ages setting, and he wanted orcs to be like Warcraft orcs. Well, my setting has progressed (after over 100 years of character continuity) to being sort of post Italian Rennaissance-like, and pre-industrial Britain-like. Strike one. And Strike two was my orcs are nasty, stinky, rape your wife and eat your guts Tolkien orcs. Warcraft? As if. Those are just big humans with tusks. Fucking boring. The worst thing to ever happen to orcs.  So he was out. The other was a girl who seemed great, I hit it off with right away, and immediately thought of her as player numero uno. The others were mostly new to the game, so it's always helpful to have a seasoned vet. Especially since I haven't exactly memorized the PHB. 

But then after the session zero, she started being problematic. She was running an Eloquence Bard. I didn't study up on it at first, because she was talking up how she was sort of an acrobat high wire performer. That sounded cool, but I should have seen a red flag when she kept asking about running some sessions featuring her circus family as the NPC's. Hm. That was usually a mistake in the past. OK. Maybe. But then another new guy told me "hey, do you know what you are in for with that class?" 

So I looked it up and was like "wow." This bard by third level will pretty much be successful with every persuasion roll. Its called "Silvertongue" or some such. Plus the character will get the ability to reduce the saving throws of foes, a lot, and will also be able to give almost endless bardic inspirations. So I was a little concerned. I told her so, and though I won't nerf it, we need to be on the same page on how some of this stuff would work. I was being nice about it, but she seemed offended. Accused me of calling her a power gamer (which she was being...she was also asking to start with a powerful 4th level feat). It was getting negative, so I bailed on her. I felt bad about it. Almost sad. I went from being excited she would be involved to in a week not wanting to deal with her. So out out out. 

More humorously, another girl, an 18-year-old, contacted off the forum practically begging to be in the game. I much prefer folk 25 and older, but she said she did art and likes to make images throughout a session. That was enticing. But when I let her into the Discord to talk more, she started demanding written up setting information. Well, I have an "info dump" setting channel for random thoughts on my setting I post, but she was all like "no, if people are going to play in your world you need organized and detailed info on politics, important families, etc etc." Sorry kid, I don't keep piles of notebooks anymore. I've had this setting since I was a kid. It mostly lives in my head. And that she should maybe be more concerned about what happens in the course of the campaign than detailed background durp. Then she started demanding to know what the "story" will be and was name dropping Critical Role. Ah, that makes sense now. I told her that CR is actors pretending to play D&D as a performance and there are plenty of groups doing that out there. So lotsa luck.

Ah well. I promised myself I would heavily vet the group, so that was what I was doing. But with a couple more dudes on board, and Terry doing her dwarf from the previous campaign, we were up and running. I used Marge, the major caravan master from the last campaign, as a sort of patron for this one. This would not be a caravan campaign. The NPC is simply taking a couple seasons off to invest in some expeditions. I'm using LOFP's Death Frost Doom as sort of an inspiration. I personally find that adventure to be sort of Unrunnable as is, but there are gems in there, including the Lichway rip-off ending. I love Lichway. 

From DFD I'm mainly using the mountain, town below, graveyard, and cabin. I would be using my own, decently smaller, dungeon map for the temple (I will show in a later post). The temple in this case will be a temple of Orcus. Here's is the information Marge will show the party next session (this session was mostly dealing with some town thugs and a kobold cave).

This cult arrived at the pass some 100 years ago (year 1 of the New Age), when there was still a well-trod overland trade route between the West and The Acherian Empire to the northeast. 

At that time in the area it had a force of several Orcus  (a foul devil lord who has nothing to do with orcs) clerics, a few dedicated and well-trained guards, and always a dozen or so slaves, and with the fierce power of the cult protector and anti-paladin Atrigan the Deathdealer, they carved a hidden complex on the top of The "Broken Spine," a local mountain with a high peak and a rambling trail that lead up to it. It was what the religion of Orcus called "a material plane undeath garrison", a place where worldly worshippers of the Demon God tortured living humans to drive them chaotic mad, and then murdered them to temporarily lay them to rest, seizing their souls so they could be unleashed to help create an undead army at such time as when Orcus decided he wished to conquer the living world with a great force. The bodies of most of the priests, after they passed away for whatever reason, would also share this fate. Even his worshippers will serve Orcus in death.

Apparently, there are many such temples and "garrisons" across the lands. And perhaps waiting undead armies of a variety of Lords of Hell. The thought is chilling. Perhaps many of the hostile undead encounters in the dark corners of the earth are souls who have awakened early to inhabit their devil-cursed material forms. 

In the 100 years since the creation of the temple at the top of the "The Broken Spine" the dead where never called upon. But over the years the progeny of Atrigan and the other priests continued to slowly accumulate victims from the trade pass and remote villages, and eventually bury their bodies in the dirt consecrated for Orcus. 

Captive non-humans, elves and dwarves, were unwanted as soldiers of the future undead army of Orcus (for Orcus was a devil brought about by human sin), so after proper torture, degradation, and murder, the bodies of any non-humans were burned in a kiln that the Orcus priests trapped a fire elemental within.  

In the year 40 of the new age, 60 years ago, the cult got greedy and instead of the usual furtive and secret capture of a select few unwary folk from year to year, attacked a well-guarded Acherian noble caravan going through the pass, as they had a surplus of living slaves to force into battle. A dozen captives were taken. Among them was Grunhix Maxima, the young niece of the then Acherian Emperor Decemberious Maximus The Third. Grunhix was on a sightseeing tour of the trade roads to the west.

The Emperor back in Acheria met with his royal Oracles,and was told of the cult and what they did with captives. The forces he sent to destroy the cult on the top of the mountain found the trail up The Spine to be treacherous, as both guards, slaves, and landslides were sent down to rain devastation upon them. The troops camped at the bottom of the mountain, and the emperor sent them three high priests of the Acherian Empires cruelest and most powerful gods of the time. A priest of Borias, God of the North Wind and Winter, a priest of Jubilex, lord of slime and corrosion, and the priest of Flambix, Goddess of flames and wartime destruction. The powerful Flambix priest personally killed the Orcus priests and their mad slave defenders, the priest of Jubilex cursed the underground temple with acidic green slime to keep the complex uninhabitable, and the priest of Borias covered the mountain top and its graves of woe with eternal winter. 

Ironically, it was a few handful of years before the Kingdom of Tanmoor ousted Acherian forces from the western kingdom and gained independence, and the great East/West pass became far less travelled. 

Apparently, there is a village at the base of The Broken Spine Peaks that was founded by the last freed slave of the Cult. 

But the temple of Orcus at the top of the spine still sits, quiet and undisturbed.  Only fear, and the constant chill of never-ending winter on the mountaintop, keeps the greedy away from any possible wealth there.

So a nice sense of grittiness there. This will be the first several games. I purposefully have no plans yet for the rest of the campaign. I wanted it to be open depending on the characters and hooks they get and so forth. So the characters are:

Female dwarf fighter

Female gnome wizard

half elf ranger (grasslands)

human fighter (cavalier)

Half elf warlock

(Pic unavailable)

I think it's an interesting and diverse group. More to come

Cheers

"Relics of The Dungeon Age"

Note: I'm not going to do session reports on the current ongoing dungeon jobber, though some of this post will seem kind of like its going that direction. As if. But I do want to get into what its about a bit, more or less, to point out some thoughts and ideas in relation to such a campaign. It seems every campaign these days has me getting the privilege of touching upon beloved old school notions, while also exploring new things with the latest edition. Yes, I do believe these things can live together.

So,

One of my "things" as a DM of old school persuasion who is doing a dungeon-as- tentpole campaign is to delay the actual dungeon crawling for several games (at least). There are a lot of reasons for that. Sometimes it's to let the characters settle into the campaign, and maybe go up a level or two. An extreme example would be my Night Below campaign for the old ongoing group back in my home city of Los Angeles almost 10 years ago. It was maybe a 30-session campaign of almost a year, with the characters, when all was said and done, were in the neighborhood of 8th or 9th level (traditionally high levels in my post-teenage years). And the first three or four of those were just bumping around the surface towns and villages getting to the point of being strong enough to go into the Night Below (which I believe counts as a dungeon as much as the old Descent into the Depths was). 

So, a little Roll20 campaign with a handful of my besties. A journey to one of the last remnants of the time of dungeons, or the Dungeon Age as I like to call a time period now mostly past (in my setting and in D&D in general). And I love the title "Relics of The Dungeon Age" because I can kind of see it having multiple meanings. The dungeon itself a relic of a time past. Old relics you actually find in the dungeon. And perhaps the players themselves, wanting to delve into a dungeon, are themselves relics of that age in an analogical sense. 

As a nice change from dealing with often oddball strangers of the Roll20 forums, this is an intimate little campaign with my very closest friends. 

 Best friends. Almost family. There is no more comfortable gaming than with people you have known for a long time, or feel close to for whatever reason. Not "D&D" people, but just some people who sometimes play D&D. That was always my sweet spot, especially in the 90's. Private groups filled with people you already know who want to play. 

So yeah, several games of just travelling south to get to the dungeon. So the deal with the delay is: B &L are new to Roll20, so I thought a series of basic overland and town encounters would kill some time till they were up and running with it. But I also wanted them to be a little higher in level than 1st when they entered the dungeon for reals. Why? I mean, a classic dungeon is just made for, you know, 1st level dudes on the first level. 2nd level on the 2nd level. Rinse and repeat. 

But c'mon. Does it have to be that ginned up for fairness in leveling. Was it ever? Back in the day in the Caves of Chaos you would) fight kobolds and goblins at 1st level?  2) orcs and gnolls at 2nd? 3) ogre and Medusa at 3rd-4th?

OK, CoC really isn't a levelled thing classically. But you know what I mean. 

Naw. I mean, when trying to go full classic every few years with a self-designed magical dungeon, it was fun to go "ok, rats and kobolds on 1st level, the orcish clan on the 2nd, a 3rd level with minor undead, blah blah blah." That is fine for the oldest of old school. But with this edition I think I can stray from the formula. You know, what they consider classic dungeoneering gold on old grognard sites such as Dragonsfoot.

"...AND EVERY THIRD ROOM SHOULD BE
EMPTY AND FULL OF DUST!"

So these guys would eventually enter the dungeon, probably through the entrance that goes to the 1st level, and they shall be around 3rd level when they do. 

So we started the campaign in a rural hillside town in the human shire south of the kingdom proper. Overtown in the shire of Overton. 

A location I have used for decades. I love rustic shires as a break from city games or deep wilderness slogs. Out in nature but still in civilization. 

And just to the south the halfling shire of Bundtland. But Overtown was the furthest south human dominated town. The last before things get all hobbity. With B's young sorcerer Ruvan, and L's wood elf ranger Myrnigan (a gal running a male character...grrrr) a team was forming. 

Ruvan the sorcerer. 

Myrnigan the wood elf

Ruvan is from the sparsely populated Riverlands just east of the shire, and Myringan from the nearby Blackwood Forest; a far cry from the metropolitan wood elf community/city of New Denaria a few days east of the city Tanmoor. These are areas I wanted to develop for a long time. My setting has been built in large part from character backgrounds and birthplaces, and these are two new towns/villages I can put on the map. 

T was not present for the first session. I wanted to do a little work on getting B and L up and running with characters with the nifty Charactermancer, and some character set up. They were knew to Roll20.

With an eventual party of 3, I need a 4th. So in comes the DM NPC, Evador, who is a young cleric of the healing god Billick. She is "a Blue Heart on the Red Path," a cleric of Billick who wished to be an active field cleric for the faith. So she chooses a dangerous mission of a personal nature to complete as sort of a thesis to impress the leadership at the Billick cathedral. She hooks up with Ruvan and Myrnigan during a barfight at the tavern they get swept up in. Evador explains her mission, to go and enter one of the worlds last true mythic dungeons. She asks them to accompany her. 

I have fun with this NPC. She is a former rich party girl from the city, who had a year or two of college then discovered the religion of the healing god Billick. Despite her rich kid rearing, she is taking the religion seriously, but I also have her dealing with physical stats that are not optimal for fighting monsters. I portray her as a tall girl who is a little awkward physically (in the most recent encounter she missed with her mace five times in a row). 

T's (wood elf) character Xanthia, playing tunes as a bard at the tavern, would be there to meet the other characters in the second game. Evador was seeking her out, because Xanthia had been to the dungeon before.

 

..and looked fabulous doing it.

Yeah, my very first little Roll20 campaign where T first ran Xanthia about 3 years ago was to this very dungeon. They got to the second level, and got to mess with its magical pool room, a staple of my mythic dungeons going back to In Search of The Unknown. I thought it would be fun for her to go to The Meadowlands Dungeon again as the sort of mentor about it to the other characters. In the first game she was still 3rd level while the others were 1st. It was a fun dynamic. Both T and I played with the notion of her coming off as the seasoned vet and Defacto leader. 

Off they went, heading south into the halfling shire of Bundtland. I already posted about their encounter with the halfling witch Emerelda, and their starring in a dating game show at her festival.

Fun in the chill halfling shire. Xanthia knew Governess Cymbaline Garlandheels from the previous campaign and ran into her and her entourage at the festival. This time there was to be a party at the estate. After helping out with some giant spider problems in the area, they boogied down (more or less) with local personages and interesting locals. A halfling high society deep dive. Good contacts. And a good way to gain a quick 5 lbs. 

I'd had Cymbaline as the governess of the shire forever. Tall and more slender, I always referred to her as a "Manling," a rare half hobbit half human mix. Be when all is said and done probably just a "Tallfellow."

So the party was swell. Xanthia playing tunes with the band. Myrnigan dancing with the young halfling gals with a crush on him. 

It was cool, but there would be more parties before the dungeon was delved. 

Next: Overdoing it with a DM NPC

 

Trade & Turpitude

 

GAME 2: "Roads Hold the Gold" - so, you are going to be a worker on the trade roads? Well, keep in mind, they still building the southern shire portion of The Great Tanmoorian Highway. For 20 years the queen been paving trade roads and promoting the highway. It's not all fine stone and slurry. When going south it won't be long past River Town that the paving stops and you start to see the kingdom's best road workers taking long lunches and holidays off where the pavement meets the country soil. Don't fool yourself. The Kingdom doesn't care where the pavement starts and stops. When it comes to the Southern Shires, it's profit that moves the maps..."

-Overheard from a seasoned caravan worker...

(above: campaign front page blurb for next weeks game)

So just like that I'm running a campaign again. 

After a handful of years working non-stop in health care, including a major regional hospital during the deepest parts of the pandemic, I decided to take a few months off from work. I live in a beautiful mountain area, known for plenty of outdoor activities. So I want to smell the roses, NOT have to get up early, be able to do some things during the week, and chill out. But this also makes me wish I had some extra gaming to do outside my XBOX. 

So on a lark I posted a "want to start campaign" comment in the Roll20 forums. I didn't have much hope. I have had only moderate success sourcing from the forum.  It's a place rife with Critical Role wonks and people who are looking for games where members are all into "alternative lifestyles" and require you to learn a list of ways they need to be referred to. Not that I'm biased against anybody. The first person to call me when I moved to a new city to see how I was doing was a transgender neighbor of mine. I'm good with anybody who is a good person. But the general populace of that particular forum are very particular about what they want in a game, and what they want you to refer to them as (and god help you if you get it wrong). 

I was clear about my background and how I go about DMing. Long and short of it, I eventually had 4 great sounding players wanting to be in a new campaign all within a week or two. It happed very fast. The first person I was contacted by was a gal (who I will call "M") who as it turned out was in my very same neck of the woods! Most of the rest are actually in different time zones. I rounded out the group by of course inviting my long time player and one of my best old friends, "T", to come in and play. Though not exactly a techie, T seems to enjoy the Roll20 stuff I did in the past. Once she gets up and running at game time she's loving it. 

My interactions with most of the folk in the days before the game made me hopeful. Flakes abound off of the forums. But man, everybody showed up. 

I ran Roll20 games very low rent in the past. Throw some maps up, move tokens around. Maybe a little jukebox music. But M was very helpful with some basic stuff. Helping me use scripts to set up a player welcome package which shows them the fillable character sheet right away. 

It had been awhile for both me and T in the format. The usual opening night technical issues slowing things down a bit. When T went into Roll20 she was confused to see herself still in the old campaign pages haha. 

Everybody had cool characters. Nothing too outlandish. I did expand on the material I was going to allow as far as characters (I still only own the PHB and Monster Manual. Oh, and the DMG which in 5th ed is next to useless. Summer reading material maybe). There was a shadow elf dude, a halfling druid with some dream connection thing, T ran a female dwarf, and there were two young commoners who decided they would be from the same local village. A male fighter and a female paladin. The paladin was outside the usual form you expect a paladin to take (at least in old school). Just simple townie clothing and a sword. No real deity. Just a connection to the cosmos. Maybe because she is, in part, one of those Assimer(sp) semi-angel people.

So there were no Cyborg Ninja Minotaurs, which was nice. But everybody had way more 5th ed experience than me (and also Roll20 experience, which is a little intimidating to a noob). But for their sake I had to start allowing going out in the weeds a bit with character gen.

I had this campaign idea for a long time, one where after a few games I would have the characters arrive at my D&D version of Runequest's Apple Lane, one of my favorite old modules. Get them all caught up in the pawnshop attack and eventually to The Rainbow Mounds. 

But I figured a caravan thing for the first couple of games. My style has evolved to where I like the first couple of sessions to just be "settle into our characters games," and caravan guard situation is kind of perfect for it. 

 I decided to focus on the trade season atmosphere for the entire campaign. Late fall where the last caravans of the year are getting in some last of the year travel. The towns and roads busy with profiteers. I can fit in flavor for this all over the place, in many situations. And make the characters want to earn more and more money by letting them see cool, expensive stuff to buy.

And while my urban city games might have a lot of Tarantino and action movie influences, I like to go with a David Lynchian vibe for the country. You know, everything looks nice and innocent, so the odd and terrifying things are all the more so. "Look at that lovely field of grain; oh shit, and Ankheg just popped up and ate that farmer!" 

That, and some things I was planning had me land on what I think is kind of a unique (if not clever) campaign name. "Trade and Turpitude." 

They all started in River Town, "the gateway to the southern shires." It's the next largest community after the main city, and in the decades of my game I have grown it bigger and bigger. 

The couple of commoner characters are on a quest to find a friend of theirs who ran away months ago based on dreams of a beautiful woman he felt was actually out there somewhere. So as they got to know the characters (the ones who were at the table anyway, The shadow elf lurker in a balcony nearby) they also inquired around about their friend. 

When I had the obligatory tavern fight go down, it was a table full of locals who were arguing over the towns bid to have the Queen of Tanmoor declare it a sister city to the capitol. A portrait of the queen was above the fireplace, and a single derogatory remark about her got the fight going. 

Even in campaigns where characters are never going to meet the queen, I like to get some lore in about her. Even minor mentions. This was an NPC in my game going back decades. She was around player characters since childhood (her father, the late King, tapped into player characters frequently for secret missions). Even my pal "T" has history with her. She has an old high level druid character who is Queen Libertines best friend going way back. 

Anyway, these days I like to have a tavern brawl act as one big, possibly growing creature, and I use a cartoon fight cloud to represent it. 

PC's can interact with it in various ways as it rolls around and endangers others. It will grow if others dive into the brawl, or it will shrink as parts of it are knocked out or brawlers removed from it. It always seems to get a hearty chuckle out of the players who see it for the first time. 

Caravan leader, Marge (who T's dwarf had already hooked up with) got the characters together to offer them a job. She took them to a secluded upper area to eat, drink, and makes some deals to work for her small caravan concern. 

I got my second chance to have another fight here. A mysterious figure who I won't go into in this post was at the bottom of the balcony area and started playing a spooky flute. There was a big stuffed bear up there with the characters (it just so happened the tavern map I sourced had it there!) and it very atmospherically (the wood and plater frame creaking and rubbing as a disembodied bear spirit was heard growling) animated to attack them.

 It was of course less deadly than a real full bear, but the characters were nicely freaked out by the sudden situation. Very out of place in a nice, busy inn. David Lynch, yo!

We ended the night with that crazy stuffed grizzly fight.

As I stayed on Roll20 to work on a few things, and hearing from some of the players seems to have us locked in for a second session next week. So far so good! I always figured that if you make it past a 1st session ionto a 2nd one then you know you have a campaign. If I do what I usually do, that is to try to top each previous game, it should be in the bag. 

But man. It's interesting how a group and a campaign can come out of almost nowhere in online formats. Sunday early Mary is doing some one shot thing with some of her regular players and I'm invited to join in for the day, so I'm going to get a chance to finally see Roll20 working from the players side of the screen. I feel not having done that is a major weakness in my own use of the format. The more I learn, the better I can be. 

Cheers

The Lichway - "why are they here?"

 

The Lichway is a dungeon that originally appeared in issue #9 (Oct/Nov 1978) of White Dwarf magazine out of England. It was an old favorite of mine, and over the decades I've now used it probably 4 or 5 times. It would have been more than that, but my groups tended to be long lasting, years, and I could only spring it on an entirely fresh group of players. 

Many old schoolers probably are more about using Keep on the Borderlands and the Caves of Chaos multiple times (I've used them maybe twice since I was a kid). But while KotB is about as basic and vanilla as it gets (just fight endless caves of humanoids and maybe a nice-seeming cleric is a homicidal asshole), Lichway is an artifact of old indy style D&D like Arduin Grimoire and Judges Guild. The old school common dungeon elements are abundant:

The location has a gritty background (necropolis for deceased undead worshippers).

It has a shallow waterway running through it.

A deep variety of mostly offbeat monsters inhabit the area. 

There is plenty of grim mood and dungeon dressing (hundreds of open crypts, worms that will choke you in the fresh water sources, vampire statues, a long-ranging rustling sound emitted by a unique creature, a horrifying possible no-win scenario...think quick!).

But most iconic to me is the fact that several (and by several I don't mean like just 2) different groups/gangs are currently inhabiting the dungeon with for the most part no real goal or purpose other than await murder hobo's a'coming to call. I mean, there are a pair of Man Beasts (character class out of White Dwarf and another favored old school thing of mine)  just sitting around in a small enclosed hallway. Just like old school you need to inject your own motivations and reasons, whether the designers planned it like that or not (I suspect in most cases not. The style was just to give little description, because D&D was once a game about just killing monsters. Period.). 

I always injected a little of my own juice here and there since the first time I used it as a teen. It was easy just to assume the 2nd level Man Beast, a male, is training his lower level female follower, and a crypt with all kinds of creatures in it seemed like a good spot. 

I think that in all but one of the times I used it, the party manages to release the Sussurus, the ape-shaped thorn creature that emitted a windy sound that put undead in earshot to sleep. In my second to last use around four years ago back in LA the MU cast silence on it. So I've experienced that joy of playing out the party running away in chaotic "every man for himself" style through the part of the dungeon they hadn't explored yet to get away from hundreds of angry undead. Always a hoot. I think a player or two has been lost over the play through due to a bad decision or delay (describing a body being torn to bits by a howling mob of skeletons never gets old), but so far no TPK. but its come close almost every time.

So anyway, my first campaign in my new town the other year ended up geared towards Lichway. It didn't start out that way. This was an entirely new group and I was using 5th edition for the first time. To say I went into it NOT studied up on the rules in an understatement. Since all my players were newish to the edition, I used that as a way to learn. As the players learn while using their characters I would tap into that and learn along. 

And to be honest, on an old school note, I was able to wing things much more than I thought I could. Just tap into the stat base save mechanics for everything and you are good to go. Really, outside of magic use the system is pretty easy peasy. 

But since I was new to it I started slow. Running each game in sort of a simple episodic manner. At first not really looking to the future, but as time went by, the characters made contacts and friends in the way of NPC's, I had to start looking at a direction. And I knew I wanted to use an old school module, in part because I knew the players would not be familiar with anything I had from the old days. They were all a good bit younger than me. 

So first thing was to be prepared to use Lichway for 5th editon. No worries. Really nothing in there was too out of the ordinary. Man Beasts and the Susurrus were needing to be adapted. Not much else. 

But this time I decided to do something entirely different. This was a twist for me, and since it might be for you, you might want to consider it if you ever use this really excellent dungeon setting. What did I do?

Two things. First I decided to give all the groups in the dungeon an actual reason, and actual purpose, for being in the dreary place. A convergence of coincidence for good reasons.

Second, I would have the party, early on adventuring a hundred miles south of the Lichway in the big city Tanmoor prior to the Lichway delve, actually meet and interact with some of the inhabitants whom I had yet to set up shop in the Lichway. There would be a variety of things ahead of time that would set up the dynamic elements within the necropolis. And in so doing quadruple the feeling of gravitas once the location was reached. Sort of a prequel to Lichway as presented, starting  maybe a month before the actual dungeon delve.

I switched the female MU gang leader Dark Odo from a human to a young drow magic user. Highly charismatic and specializing in charm magic, the dark elf enchantress' gang was almost complete as shown in the module.. The Man Beasts were paid scouts and body guards working for Odo, hirelings more than charmed henchmen, while all the other members of the gang were recruited by Odo's considerable, manipulative charms.

Why would Odo go to the Lichway? And who where the unrelated thieves who were exploring the Lichway? Not to mention the former adventuring party that was slaughtered except for Odo's gangs captives. How did the character party get involved in all this? 

In my next post I'll lay out how I took my first 5th edition campaign towards the Lichway, and why all the NPC's are in it when the party finally shows up at the Korm Basin necropolis. 

Cheers

Kevin Mac