Wednesday, September 11, 2013

30 Day D&D Challenge: Day 11-Favorite Adventure You Have Ran

This one has to be the Castles Forlorn boxed set campaign set in Ravenloft, but admittedly that may only be because its the only successful campaign I've ever run to completion in Ravenloft.  I actually ran it as a 3e module and had to do a lot of stat conversions, plotline adjustments, and re-writing, but still it was oh so worth it.
This campaign had crazy stuff!  Hyper-dangerous face-eating Goblins (called "Goblyns"), Vampires, Ghosts, (including one Vampire-Ghost), wild mean Druids, a Loch Ness Monster, and Time Travel!  Yes, the campaign features a mechanic where while the players are exploring the main big-bad's castle, there's a percentage chance every time they enter a room they will travel back-and-forth through time 300 years.  This sounds messy, and it was difficult to keep track of as a DM at first, until I made three physical copies of the castle map for the various time periods and just switched between them so I could keep all my notes straight.  After that the time travel part played itself.  I even shoe-horned in a magical MacGuffin they had to find called "The Chronostone" to help justify the time travel effect (the original campaign didn't explain it as anything other than a "Ravenloft Curse").

Castles Forlorn is gotta be my favorite Adventure/Campaign I've ever run as a DM, and if you ever see it in a used book store I recommend picking it up and checking out the time travel stuff.  Anybody know of other great campaign boxed sets out there?


5 comments:

brando said...

1. Raven Castle.
2. Ruins of Kraklaka.
3. The Rescue of Dyson Hadrian.
4. Slaying the White Dragon.
5. Banshee Removal Team.

Cory said...

I played in all of those except "Raven Castle" I think. They were super fun. I'll be posting about Kraklaka in the near future, FYI.

Who else was on the Banshee Removal Team besides Quinn and his horse (powered up by Monkey's deafening elixir)? Was it Buster? Or was it an NPC? I don't remember.

brando said...

Raven Castle was the one where you guys got your black feathers. I can't remember what the name of the adventure was, but it was one of the central locations of your group. The one with the gorilla creature, and the kid who was a pumpkin (which you figured out), and the wereravens who were supposed to be protecting everything, but were doing a lousy job. I got it out of a Dungeon magazine. It was sort of the defacto base for your adventuring party.

For the Banshee Removal Team, I don't remember who all was involved. I thought maybe Quinn, Buster and Jerome. I'm not sure anymore. I liked that one because it was the friendly Banshee from the Drow books. Quinn's like "There ain't no such thing as a friendly banshee. Let's kill it."

I think you even went into the nearby town and was like "Hey guys! We took care of your stupid banshee problem. Are ya going to give us medals, or what? Andayou'rewelcome."

Cory said...

Oh yeah, Wereravens and pumpkin kid. I remember that one now. Good stuff.

Its just selfish to let an insane Banshee run free outside your town. Even if its your town's "mustard museum" or local attraction, you're letting unwitting travelers stumble across her and die just because you like idea that your town sounds cooler with a banshee around. Pricks.

brando said...

I actually laughed out loud at your last line. You sure can bring the Ha-has.