Play begins in Blackhawk Saturday night, with the wife and kids (16,13,9).
Not ready, but I gots to get my game on!  Loads of details to iron out, but I'm at my best at the table, improvising. So this setting will likely emerge from play, like most of them did back in the 70s and 80s.

First big change: Sea of Dust?  Naw...  Dragon's Wastes......

Last edited by francisca (1/15/2016 7:38 am)

Didn't come off this weekend, to much other stuff going on.

What I did arrive at is it is going to be centered around the woolly bay, initially.

T-1 will remain pretty much as is, including Lareth being involved with Lolth.
The U series will be pulled apart, sanboxed, and relocated to Hardby, and use Fishmen in the stead of Sahaugin, with the whole thing "Innsmouth"ed up.
B2, or at least the idea of B2, will be located almost due east of Hardby, where the small mountain range to the SW of Maure Castle meets the Abor-Alz.

The kids can pick a starting point from those 3, and will probably travel to one of the other two, if not both.  The general idea is that people are being taken and shipped off to somewhere, which of course will be Highport, as part of a torn apart, trimmed down, and sandboxed A series.

After that, clues will lead to S2, C1, or C2, followed by S4/WG4, then possibly S3 and the G/D (Fishmen replacing Kuo-Toa) series.

Gradually I will introduce Drow and the concepts of elemental evil, and wrap it up with some, anything, besides Q1.

So this is rolling now.  Kids are using AD&D rules (for now) and are investigating some activity in the foothills bordering the western edge of the Vast Swamp.  They snuffed out about dozen orcs, raiders who had plundered a village on the edge of the Menowood, and tracked them back to a cave system, and discovered the Orc tribe is the Rotten Eye tribe.  They have discovered a bigger, meaner Orc (2HD), with a different symbol on his shield, the a demonic face with ram's horns, carrying information about the tribe and local human strongholds, and some commentary about "converting" the Rotting Eye tribe.

Hope to start a parallel campaign using AS&SH with gizmo's group, set in the same time period, but probably somewhere else on the continent.

francisca wrote:

So this is rolling now.  Kids are using AD&D rules (for now) and are investigating some activity in the foothills bordering the western edge of the Vast Swamp.  They snuffed out about dozen orcs, raiders who had plundered a village on the edge of the Menowood, and tracked them back to a cave system, and discovered the Orc tribe is the Rotten Eye tribe.  They have discovered a bigger, meaner Orc (2HD), with a different symbol on his shield, the a demonic face with ram's horns, carrying information about the tribe and local human strongholds, and some commentary about "converting" the Rotting Eye tribe.

Cool! I love hearing stories of kids playing D&D. They always do the most hilarious and sometimes also cleverest things!

francisca wrote:

Hope to start a parallel campaign using AS&SH with gizmo's group, set in the same time period, but probably somewhere else on the continent.

How many people in that group?

gizmomathboy wrote:

Chainsaw wrote:

francisca wrote:

Hope to start a parallel campaign using AS&SH with gizmo's group, set in the same time period, but probably somewhere else on the continent.

How many people in that group?

There are 5 folks in the group, 6 with the DM.

Cool! Sounds like fun, man. 

man...

francisca wrote:

T-1 will remain pretty much as is, including Lareth being involved with Lolth.
The U series will be pulled apart, sandboxed, and relocated to Hardby, and use Fishmen in the stead of Sahaugin, with the whole thing "Innsmouth"ed up.
B2, or at least the idea of B2, will be located almost due east of Hardby, where the small mountain range to the SW of Maure Castle meets the Abor-Alz.

The kids can pick a starting point from those 3, and will probably travel to one of the other two, if not both.  The general idea is that people are being taken and shipped off to somewhere, which of course will be Highport, as part of a torn apart, trimmed down, and sandboxed A series.

After that, clues will lead to S2, C1, or C2, followed by S4/WG4, then possibly S3 and the G/D (Fishmen replacing Kuo-Toa) series.

Gradually I will introduce Drow and the concepts of elemental evil, and wrap it up with some, anything, besides Q1.

So, you have some great material there to work with, but if you want to HPL-ify GH, you can easily do so!:

- replace EEG and Tharizdun from GDQ with Azathoth, Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep, or whichever Mythos monster most terrifies your players
- T1 --> U1 --> A1 is a great flow (I'm particularly fond of U1 as an intro into the A series, and you can also leverage "Can Seapoint Be Saved" from Dragon if you like); A2 is an alternate lead-in to drow if you want to play with them; you can also introduce HPL True Ghouls via the Dreamlands, "Kingdom of the Ghouls" (Dragon 70)/Empire of the Ghouls (Open Design but OOP) and "Whispering Cairn"/"A Gathering of Winds" from Age of Worms
- N1 is a good addition:  I've talked in the past about how I HPL-ified it with deep ones replacing trogs, a shoggoth in the dungeon in addition to the dark naga, etc.; it's a good fit for a forlorn village somewhere along the Wild Coast or the southern domain of Greyhawk/Hardby
- the evil temples in B2, G1, and G3 culminate in WG4, of course (perhaps making the cultists in there worship a four-faced aspect of Nyarlathotep---perhaps he's the Bringer of Doom himself?)
- Maure Castle and WG5 offer further off-planar, Mythos-based madness if you're inclined to hack them into the mix

The other nice things about adopting CoC into your games is you've got a pile of other adventures to use:  The Golden Dawn fits its well as a sorcerous secret society or guild; Masks, Walker in the Wastes, "Grace Under Pressure", Spawn of Azathoth, and more can easily adapt to ASSH or AD&D; Delta Green becomes the anti-Mythos conspiracy where they have a chance to actually fight back (with magic weapons, fireballs, etc.), etc.

Somewhere I have various passages from the Necronomicon adapted into Greyhawk, basically the unpbulished Part 2 to my History of the Necronomicon in the Flanaess on CF! @ http://www.canonfire.com/cf/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=142  You might also find the al-Yasin materials of interest, as they have an HPL/CAS vibe to them:  http://www.canonfire.com/cf/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=104 but also be sure to search for "CthulhuHawk" in the search engine, since there are number of other related articles worth checking out too.

Allan.

Last edited by grodog (6/15/2016 11:06 pm)

My kids ended up starting in the Sundi/Idee area.  They were tasked with escorting a small party of surveyers from the Cartographer's Guild in and out of the hills which comprise the western border of the Vast Swamp. In the process, they found area A on the map below.  They have now returned to the area without the surveyers, and are figuring out how to deal with the Orcs.

The link below is a small snippet of the Meyer GH map, with some annotations.
A) Cave Lair of the Rotting Eye Orcs
B) A Tower/Keep complex, formerly the abode of some d-bag named Acererak.
C) Grand, worked entrance into an equally grand worked/expanded cave system.
D) Abandoned village with a small breakwater and pier system.
E, G) Abandoned small hill fort from which a path leads to a watchtower on the nearest hilltop.
F) Abandoned Temple of a Sea God/Goddess



 

Last edited by francisca (6/16/2016 10:52 am)

A view of Saturn from Blackhawk

Last edited by francisca (6/16/2016 10:46 am)

Rotting Eye Orc tribe
Once a prominent and infamous tribe, the Rotting Eye tribe has fallen on pretty rough times under it's current leader.  Once numbering well over 800, the tribe is now down to ~120 Orcs.  As a result, they are in a position where they could be annihilated  or assimilated by another Orc tribe, if not wiped out by humans or some other, more monstrous enemy.

Of late, a group of Orcs from the Chaos Lands to the far northwest, have insinuated themselves into the tribe and even erected a small statue/shrine to Orcus.  These "Black Orcs" are physically bigger and stronger than the rest of the Orcs, and have an unpredictable vicious temper to go with their great size.  As such, the current Chieftain is hard-pressed and at a bit of a loss regarding how to deal with the Black Orcs.  Until now he has only encouraged the tribe to remain true to He-Who-Watches, but it is clear to him that if he and perhaps his tribe is to survive, he must make a move soon.

The Chaos Lands
The center and seat of power of The Chaos Lands comprise all of what in standard Greyhawk, is Iuz and The Horned Society.

In addition, the following areas are under occupation/overrun:
Northern Furyondy north of the Crystal River
The Cold Marshes and southern Blackmoor
The eastern portion of the Wolf Nomads area (essentially everything directly north of the Vesve Forest)
The entirety of the Rovers of the Barrens
The Great Rift Canyon and Bandit Kingdoms

The entire area is occupied by demon worshiping humans, humanoids, and horrific monsters.  Particularly strong cults include those of Orcus, Demogorgon, Kthulu, Thaumagorga, Xathoqqua, and Graz'zt.  It is also rumored that there is active Devil worship going on is what was once more urban areas, with those cults trying to leverage the eventuality of Chaos undoing itself.  Some areas of The Chaos Lands can be safely traversed by strong parties of humans, but large swathes of the lands are overrun by hordes of chaotic and evil beings, some of which are new to this world, and some of which come from the outside of Oerth, and aren't fit for man or beast.