While not adventures the Arduin Grimoire's Volumes 1, 2, and 3 offer some good inspiration for Swords and Sorcery adventures. In my opinion the adventures produced by Dave Hargrave were not very good. The Arduin books were also not that great if you were going to use them as written. With that said, Hargave sprinkled everything he wrote with great swords and sorcery ideas, the books are like  mountain of ideas to be mined!

Speaking of Underborea: 

Journey to the Center of Aereth: Has a cool Journey to the Center of the Earth feel. Though it makes some assumptions as to the nature of the inner world. The race found ruling the inner Aearth has a very H.P. Lovecraft vibe. Theadventure begins in a snow covered waste so it might fit well on the plain of Leng near the mountains, or better yet, The Ythaqqa Plateau!

I thought it might be a useful resource to list adventures that fit the Hyperboarea setting in one place.

The Maze of Screaming Silence - by Monkeygod enterprises.
This is a really great adventure written for 3e. It’s got a great swords and sorcery vibe. Takes place in a cold mountainous region. The main plot takes place in an outpost of a evil empire, which doesn’t really have a direct counterpart in Hyperboarea but would fit right.

S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks - TSR
A classic that needs no introduction. There have already been some suggestions about including this.

Grimmshade wrote:

First off, magic is actually more common in the Hyborian Age than most people seem to think. Beyond that though, learning sorcery generally requires a lot of work, like becoming a weapon master. If being a weapon master were easy, everyone would be one. It's the same with sorcery. It requires either a master, or books/scrolls of forgotten lore, or finding some artifact, demon, or god that will teach you or that you can force to teach you.
In the end it really all boils down to how you present your particular RPG world.

Edit: neat point about the Hit Points, Foxroe. I'll have to give that some thoughts.

I like the idea of casting spells costing hit points. I feel this would work well with the hit point system I posted above. This could be really fun with the other suggestion of having the option to pay hit points on a failed spell roll. More choices is more fun as long as it doesn't slow the game down too much. 
 

Blackadder23 wrote:

cudgel wrote:

For me corruption makes the idea of magic make sense. If there were no drawback everyone would be casting spells.

Unless only a small percentage of the population is capable of casting spells.

 
To me this feels like hand waving the idea to justify character classes and limit the number of wizards on the street.

I feel the same way about Vancian magic. It has the feeling of a rule to limit the number of spells a character has at their disposal in day. The idea that you forget the spell when you cast it and have to memorize it again is absurd.

The DCC magic system is far from perfect and has plenty of loopholes to be gamed. That said, for myself it is the most believable spell system I have played. It answers all of these questions.

Why do wizards guard their magic: other wizards might steal it if they see you cast a spell.

How many spells can you cast: as many as you know.

How often can you cast spells: until you run out of magical energies by botching your spell casting.

Why don’t wizards cast spells all the time: because of the risk of bad things happening.

Why can’t a powerful wizard cast a more powerful spell: they can! A powerful wizard casting the same spell casts a more powerful version, usually.

Magic is random and unpredictable why are spell effects always the same: they aren’t! Every spell has a range of effects every time it’s cast and each wizard casts it differently.

I think this also gives players more to work with. A first level mage, comes along for the ride until their sleep spell is needed then they hang out until they get a chance to rest. It’s much more fun if they can cast spells more often. Why let the fighters roll all the dice!

My house rules are: 

Hit Points 

Hit points are a measure of how much stamina and will to survive you bring to a combat situation. Hit points can be healed by rest or even a strong drink. Gain a hit die after drinking a flagon.

After a number of drinks equal to your Con bonus + 1 characters start to suffer from inebriation: -1 on all rolls except luck. This effect lasts until the character takes a long rest. 

When your hit points reach 0 you lose points from Con. These represent physical injury. When your Con reaches 0 you die. Taking Con damage can cause severe and permanent injury. Con points heal very slowly by bed rest, medical attention, or magic. When a character takes con damage they must roll on the major wound table. A major wound might be nothing or it might be a permanent scar, loss of an ear or a finger, or worse... 

Spells

I'm going to lift the DCC spells system entirely. Corruption and spell burn are fun and fit well with swords and sorcery. 

The idea that you can suffer a terrible permanent mutation from wielding magic is a great reason why not everyone does it everyday all the time. "Use the torch fool it's much safer!" 

The idea that you can learn a spell by seeing someone cast it says a lot about why wizards are not casting their spells out in the open. 

These two ideas make magic make a lot of sense. Plus, the randomness of the DCC system is really fun. I just wish there were more spells to choose from!
 

There are no racial attribute bonuses or requirements?