INTO CASTLE BLACKMOOR
Back to the beginnings again!
Going to be venturing into Castle Blackmoor via (FFC) to dispose of an ancient relic. Reading Tonisborg, and Dragons Beyond has me pumped to run it. Dragons Beyond in particular has some nifty rules I want to incorporate.
After reading through my birthday haul of old-school gaming goodness I decided to get an impromptu game up and running. The reason being is that well
I’ve always wanted to run Original Blackmoor. Not the BECMI modules released later on in the 80’s, nor the 3.5 & 4th edition lacklustre releases. Nope I mean OG Blackmoor using only the 3LBB’s, OD&D Supplement II: Blackmoor, and the The First Fantasy Campaign.
My second reason is because I am working on my own Castle Dungeon and will be using Castle Blackmoor & The Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg as a learning/study aid for my own heavily inspired works.
Now I did of course have to run it on one of the Moons that makes up our setting MOONS OVER CALABETH, of which both our Autumn Lands game, and our Silver Hawks game takes place in.
For these sessions the players will be part of a Mercenary Company known as The Hounds Of Droga. They will be playing within the Hegemony Of Uhr where Castle Blackmoor will be situated in a long abandoned region of the land that has recently been re-occupied. Well at least the vicinity below the castle.
To get things started I rolled on this table I put together for the game.
1d6 Castle Blackmoor Adventure Seeds
Although Castle Black is intended as an adventuring locale, a place that entices the players to explore again and again in search of glory and plunder for glory and plunder’s sake, the following adventure seeds can be expanded on and used to entice the players to explore the dungeon’s deepest depths.
d6 Roll
Beastman Raids. Merchants travelling to Crozlow have recently fallen victim to beastman raiders. Evidence indicates that these raiders are emerging from Castle Black. The party is hired to find and eliminate this menace so that travel to the town is safe once again.
The Vorpal Pool: A magic-user believes that there is a “vorpal pool of un-created light” within Castle Black—an eldritch magic pool of sorts. She asks the characters to find this source and bring back a water sample in exchange for a hefty fee or the deed/title to a large abandoned fortification and its lands nearby.
Bands of Trolls are spotted in increasing numbers across the lands, bound for Castle Black. Whatever or whomever is gathering them and attracting them to the castle, surely it must be for some fell purpose, and the local baron wants someone to find out why since the Trolls were all believed to have been wiped out during the Troll-Wars.
A dwarven emissary has arrived in the region seeking to discover why contact with a reclusive enclave of dwarves has ceased. He is hiring adventurers to protect him as he travels to the Astral Forge of Gorta to re-establish communications with his kin. What fate has befallen the forges custodians.
The local magic-user has heard legends that a gateway between worlds exists in the bowels of the Castles dungeons. He is paying a small fortune to anyone who can locate the portal and determine its function. The scholar seeks to dispose of something (a cursed magical artefact) and wants it thrown into the portal to banish it to another world before it re-awakens.
The Legendary Ensorcelled weapon Froglicker. Sordid disappearances haunt the town of Crozlow, as a forgotten order rises beneath the old walls of Castle Black, while a local Seer proclaims that an older evil has returned and stirs in stone grottoes and underground sanctuaries rumoured to exist below the Castle. Worse he claims that only the Legendary blade Froglikcer can put and end this evil. The party is hired to investigate by the local Baron who seeks to pacify the minds of the townsfolk and put and end to the Seers mad ramblings.
Froglicker: This longsword is a +1, +2 vs. Amphibians/Frogs. It also has the power to heal its wielder on a successful strike, restoring health equal to the amount of damage inflicted. This power may be used once a day and its command phrase must be invoked before the ―to hit roll is made. If the strike misses, the day‘s use is lost. Any health drained by the blade that exceeds the wielder‘s normal maximum is lost.
A FIVE WAS ROLLED
The local magic-user has heard legends that a gateway between worlds exists in the bowels of the Castles dungeons. He is paying a small fortune to anyone who can locate the portal and determine its function. The scholar seeks to dispose of something (a cursed magical artefact) and wants it thrown into the portal to banish it to another world before it re-awakens.
The portal Old-Man-Quest-Giver seeks must be deeper than the 3rd level, or any mercenary company would have already taken the job.
The nature of the cursed item doesn’t matter until a party agrees to accompany OMQG to the portal.
Does the portal lead to the lower planes (e.g. Hell or the Abyss) or does it lead to a land of sunshine, rainbows and legally distinct small horses? Whose backyard is about to become an illicit dumping ground for cursed objects?