DCC #43-The Curse of the Barrens, My C&C Game

[JediOre]

[This thread was previously titled, "Needed: A pronunciation guide for #43, Curse of the Barrens"]

Hello Goodman Games forum folks.

I've been away for a very long time tackling my Masters degree. I'm done and ready to get my gang back together on a monthly basis!

The plan is to "re-launch" my group who completed "Sellswords of Punjar" and half of Necromancer's "Coils of Set." I'm going to have them head north and tackle The Curse of the Barrens. However, I would be extremely grateful to this module's author, Greg Oppedisano, providing a pronunciation guide to aid those with thick Mid-Western tongues to say names that look un-pronounceable!

Thanks & I'm happy to be back!

JediOre

P. S. -- After looking at the levels of my friend's PCs, if all of the gang shows, I may have to select something different, but this is a module Ragnar1965 requested back when we gamed (pre-Masters) so I would like to let him go through this before they get beyond it.

[goodmangames]

I'll pass the word on to Greg for his feedback. But don't worry too much...if you can pronounce "Vecna" and "dweomer" then how hard can it be?

[JediOre]

LOL!

Just ask my wife & friends how I pronounce "brazier" when I'm tired!

I need all the help I can get.

[boneguard]

Brazier ia pretty much

Bray-ger
(for the Ger think oF German pronounce by a Frenchman (so no 'd' sound at the start)

[JediOre]

*Bump*

I need this for the last weekend in October!

I'll run this module regardless, but I really want to get the names spot on.

Thanks.

P. S. -- boneguard, my mouth will, on occasion, utter a woman's undergarment instead of a container of fire.

[boneguard]

Yeah I know, they are pretty similar...then again it's better then nothing.

[goodmangames]

No word from Greg, the author - I don't know if he's busy or what. I'll ping him again...

[gargoyle]

I am honoured that you think I know how to pronounce all of the different words I use when writing these things

As a general guide most of the words are Anishnabe (Ojibwa) indian or Blackfoot Plains Cree, and they did not have a written language so the English spelling of the words is very phonetic.

Can you give me a list of words you would like pronounced and I will write you up a guide.

Greg

[JediOre]

Thanks for the reply Mr. Oppendisano!

You answered my question when you wrote "the English spelling of the words is very phonetic."

I'll do my best, and now I know the spelling is phonetic.

This is going to be the module that follows up our Treasure Map quest and the star of our 2-day game fest on October 29 and 30. I think this module will be "just right" for our two 5th level and one 4th level PCs, assuming they all survive the completion of their current adventure.

I'll attempt to post their adventures on the forum boards when the time is right.

[Harley Stroh]

Per Jedi's request, I moved the thread here:

http://www.goodman-games.com/forums/vie ... 37&start=0

//H

[JediOre]

Thanks Harley.

[losloris]

We spent all day in a canoe together, Rhiannon the druid and I. So, I have decided to put her through a side adventure, this one, while the rest of the party does the Fane of the Egg.

So far, Doc the Titan at Doc Island has asked her to find out why the Skirfiblin (just as good as the name given I the module) are late in paying their regular homage. She accepted the offer of adventure and has set off in an all half elf group ( one fifth level cleric, two third level ftrs) and just arrived at the abandoned village.

losloris

[losloris]

Quick note:

Every year I go camping with Rhiannon. Last year she took out the Gulthias Tree, which lead to an amazing reappearance of Gulthias at the end of DCC 17!

This year it will be the Barrens which will segway nicely into icy mountains that will be the home of DCC 30!

No one, not even Melodoculous the Titan who is hosting the Fane of the Egg will see that coming.

It is awesome to see a line through which a number of modules can be connected.

Losloris

[losloris]

The main party is deep within the Fane of the Egg, leaving Rhiannon and Wasabi plenty of time to contemplate their own logistics along with the particulars of the Olympic Rings found at the Sunless Garden; how do they work in order to properly summon Ogremoch to our own ends.

Time is such a funny thing. While we were off finding the Egg of the Phoenix on Sepulcher it seemed as though only hours had passed,. Yet, six months had elapsed in everyone else's timeline. So to with the party in the Fane, and, those without. One day, Doc came to visit upon Rhiannon, mentioning how he needed a favour. The Snerfiblin, a native tribe up in the hills, paid tribute to Doc every three months in thanks for his benevolence, and, they were meticulously on time. Not anymore; they were currently seven days late. Could you go investigate. Amongst the locals and guests here to witness the Fane of the Egg (henceforth, FotE) were Quicksilver (MU) Geraldil & Lyras (ftrs) who could easily be geared up and ready on the hour. Done.

A day and a half later the party was at the frontier rendez-vous point meeting with two guards to discuss the what. No word at all from the snirfiblin, whose village was two days on from here. Fine

All of this worked very well in with the story line provided in the module. We went to the village, found it abandoned, dealt with the crazy snirf, noticed the totem and moved deeper in. The party is a bit weak for the designs of the module which has required a few cutbacks. But good adventuring so far. Rhiannon's shape change usage (8th level Druid) has come in handy. She is usually a secondary character to Embla but that will likely change as a result of this adventure. Turning into a bear twice and bird once has worked out well - and, it is nice to have an outdoor adventure that allows for this.

We have gone left to the tribe, scared the crap out of them, located, but not touched, the totem, and, are now heading left. The trap is not really well detailed. I ended up going by the image of rocks falling to provide what was going on.

We stopped after that as I needed time to figure out what to do now that Quicksilver has fallen - what impact would that have and how could she be recovered (again, I as not happy with how that was detailed in the module as so was flat footed to provide a good answer). I foresee the need to reduce the badies found at the end of the adventure. Also, my aim is to have this connected with DCC 30 and need to link the two modules up. I would like to have Rhiannon return to the party (once they have completed the FotE) with some compelling reason for the party to head up the hills.

Losloris

[losloris]

Well now, that wasn't quite what I had in mind, but it will do.

My aim has been to connect the Barrens to DCC 30 as part of the next step for the party that s battling Archomentals.

We recovered from the falling ice trap, continued to harangue the snirfiblin so they would stay away, and, using all of our ropes and spikes, continued on into that vast ice cavern.

From the entry portal we could see how big the cavern was. We could also see that there were snirfiblin huts in the ice, as tho there had been a vaster society that was caught in an advancing wall of ice. The cavern had a shoulder ridge on this side, another on the other side, and a flowing river that had worn its way deep into ice/earth. Scouting about revealed a portal on the other side. Here I took liberties to ensure that which ever portal was found it would be room D-12. Rhiannon and all got across after a bit of a hassle from frosty stirges (who did more squawking and flapping). Because of the stirges some guards came out and there we met a language barrier. Two more guards came out while the party kept their shields up but hands away from arms. Ultimately, out came a frog man (I said, Velder) who seemed affronted by having their work delayed. 'Deryn' had been told how long the excavation would take and there was no need for this extra hassle (?)!

(Deryn is Deryn the Black found in room 3-6 of DCC 30, the 10th level Mage)

We were issued away and the lighting had turned poor, so we were able to stay safely back on our initial side of the cavern, which we explored and found D-13. In this room, which was difficult to actually get into, there were many arcane writings on the wall and a pedestal that looked like it supported a goodly sized piece of art. Hmm.

Back across and under better conditions, we approached the lit doorway (unguarded) and into a chamber where clearly work was being done to excavate something. The four guards we had seen were hard at work under the direction of frogman and a skimpy witch looking woman, none of whom were happy to see us. Here, much like Khalil the other night, Rhiannon's die were awesome, with low percentile when needed and high to hits almost upon demand.

The bad guys dispatched, we had a look at what they were doing. Locked in the ice was some type of stone head. Rhiannon punched some spikes into the ice and the used heat metal to easily release a goodly sized dragon head made of stone. Back across the other way, the head was put on the pedestal, text in the wall became more prominent, lights were released and, once touched, bestowed a permanent skill upon the recipient (I am saving you a bother of how this was worked out).

We opted to camp out in this room, now being seriously depleted of spells and such. After a spell (ha) part of the wall faded out of existence revealing a space in time that was not of where we were from. IN walking into the glacier and all we certainly have an idea of how the surrounding geography is/was, and, this was totally different. Then, looking high up, we saw a dragon fly across, landing on a ledge 150 feet above an escarpment.

There was no way we were able to address anything like a silver dragon and/or a 150 foot climb.

So, we have captured the idol and now the head and are returning to speak with Doc who may know more about all of this than we.

Losloris

[losloris]

To finish up on the Barrens;

I thought the information was well laid out. We went straight for sections 3 & 4 with a few random encounters tossed in. The encounters were light, which fit my needs as this was not a looking for combat all the time type of party.

I thought the totem pole was a dead giveaway to the whole story, but that is clearly because I had read the whole story. The totem pole turned out to be very handy to guide the actions and arrive at a successful conclusion of the water being poisoned and such. I always look at the background story to use as a guide one what type of story is needed to have the environment make sense, and, it was.

There were a few little things that could be considered glitches. For example, having the egg nest in the ice glacier so far away from family didn't make sense. I made that a garbage chute. It was handy to feel free in determining whichever cave at the end the party discovered that it would be this room first, that one second. Never like the remorhaz coming out on when the party passes trick. I have seen that in four or five different modules and it never struck as realistic.

That notwithstanding, very user friendly.

Follow up notes on this campaign will shift over to the DCC 30 thread

Losloris