Cool thread!
I have plans very close to yours. I'm using AS&SH to run a Hyborian Age campaign. The heroes are heading towards Khitai and the Eastern coast which is where I will run Forgotten Fane. On the way, in the jungles, they will encounter the Forbidden City.

(I'm running a campaign about the history of the Lemurians as they existed in Howard's Hyborian Age.)

Last edited by Grimmshade (2/04/2018 8:17 pm)

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with. I'll post my changes to the module when I get around to reading it thoroughly.
Funny that we both decided to use it as a lead in to Forgotten Fane.

This is my favorite module of all time. I've planned to run it in several systems, but never got to the point the characters actually get there. Paizo's homage for Pathfinder was the Serpent's Skull path, though I've heard that some staff conflicts caused them to drop the ball on the meat of the path which was (part 3) exploring their forbidden city itself--in this case Saventh-Yhi. There were some great seeds of ideas there though, and I've spent a great deal of time fleshing out those ideas.
So, my advice: Give the whole thing meat. If your players are more exploratory, give the city some cool history to discover. Make piecing it together fun, interesting, or important enough for the players to want to pay attention to things like the remnant art and architecture. That also informs the why's and wherefores of the mini-dungeons you'll want to pepper throughout the site. For example, maybe they see a figure using a powerful magical sword on a mosaic in some temple they are looting. In an old library, they learn that the sword was used by a saintly figure of the late period against the serpent invasion. A  bas-relief elsewhere gives an indication that said hero was buried in the catacombs of his obscure church. Finally finding the church, excavating the entrance to the catacombs (requiring an alliance with, say, the mongrelmen--who required the heroes to find a cure for a plague that had been troubling them) the PCs are finally on their way to finding the sword that can kill a certain yuan-ti leader!
Definitely think about fleshing out the various intelligent monster races that squat throughout the ruined city, give them their own intrigues and troubles, places they'll want the PCs to go and things they'll want the outsiders to risk their lives for, and emphasize that alliances among the races will enable the characters to build a staging ground on their way to "conquering" or taming the city.
No such thing as "badwrongfun" but imho just making the whole thing a grind against the bad guys is a missed opportunity. Oh! also, track down "Wilderlands of High Fantasy" which is an old Judges Guild supplement. It has some very useful quick tables for generating ruined structures (your mini-dungeons and monster lairs) on the fly.
Hope that helps!
 

nemomeme wrote:

I have a lot of affection for "faction play" 

So do I.  You may want to take a look at Barrowmaze. It is a classic megadungeon with factions. The nearby town has a boomtown feel with rival adventuring bands. 

nemomeme wrote:

Life got and remains busy so I've not been able to get back to this thread. Map and adventure "seeds" soon, I hope.

Please pose when time permits, I am looking forward to your updates. 
 

Great thread. This is also one of my all-time faves! At one point I had been trying to develop a "secondary delve' into the Forbidden City. There are so many unmarked buildings on the map to play with. One is a Tamoachan-like pyramid that I started fleshing out. Sadly, I never finished it... Maybe I'll dive back into it one of these days.