help with some issues in "Through the Dragonwall" adventure
Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2018 10:43 am
Hi, I'm judge of a group that's currently playing "Through the Dragonwall". We're a session and a half in, and I was just reading the rest of the adventure yesterday, when I got really confused about some things. And I realized it's due to errors in the module. Could you help me sort out what Daniel Bishop really meant, or at least share how you handled these when you ran it?
Spoilers beyond. Beware!
The first and biggest thing is the encounter areas in The Black Land, starting on page 17. The text on 17 lists three areas - Slough, Badlands, Magma Streams, and Badlands. The first Badlands description is clearly meant to be a different place than the second Badlands description. Maybe one of them was called something else in an early draft and then it got changed in some places? I don't know. But only one Badlands area appears on the map.
Second, related to that, the second Badlands description says, "There are no random encounters here." But the random encounter table on pages 18, 19, and 20 has a column for Badland. So I guess the random encounter table is used for the first Badlands area, but not the second. But again, since the map only shows one Badlands, it's a bit confusing. I'm not sure whether I like the random encounter table more or the geyser table more. Maybe I'll just randomly choose which to use.
Last, and this is a more minor layout problem, the section "Items Found in Mound of Graves (d7)" on page 17 is in the wrong part of the adventure. The Mound of Graves is in the Green Land, pages 10 to 16. But this list of items is in the Black Land section, page 17 to 22.
I guess that last one isn't really a question, just a suggestion that if GG ever does a second printing of this adventure, that would be a nice thing to fix, along with clarifying the first two issues.
Oh, one other nitpick: The map shows the Chasm of Bones as being about 20 miles long and 3 miles wide, sorta like a half size Grand Canyon. But the text says it's just a mile long and 1000' across. I understand the challenge of making a readable map that's also to scale, but if the text is to be believed, the whole chasm fits in one square, and probably isn't visible more than 1 or 2 squares away. I think I'm tempted to believe the text and not the map, since you're supposed to be able to see the phantasmal Valgazur wandering around the bones, and if the chasm is really 20 miles long, there's just no way anyone would see him from the edge.
Spoilers beyond. Beware!
The first and biggest thing is the encounter areas in The Black Land, starting on page 17. The text on 17 lists three areas - Slough, Badlands, Magma Streams, and Badlands. The first Badlands description is clearly meant to be a different place than the second Badlands description. Maybe one of them was called something else in an early draft and then it got changed in some places? I don't know. But only one Badlands area appears on the map.
Second, related to that, the second Badlands description says, "There are no random encounters here." But the random encounter table on pages 18, 19, and 20 has a column for Badland. So I guess the random encounter table is used for the first Badlands area, but not the second. But again, since the map only shows one Badlands, it's a bit confusing. I'm not sure whether I like the random encounter table more or the geyser table more. Maybe I'll just randomly choose which to use.
Last, and this is a more minor layout problem, the section "Items Found in Mound of Graves (d7)" on page 17 is in the wrong part of the adventure. The Mound of Graves is in the Green Land, pages 10 to 16. But this list of items is in the Black Land section, page 17 to 22.
I guess that last one isn't really a question, just a suggestion that if GG ever does a second printing of this adventure, that would be a nice thing to fix, along with clarifying the first two issues.
Oh, one other nitpick: The map shows the Chasm of Bones as being about 20 miles long and 3 miles wide, sorta like a half size Grand Canyon. But the text says it's just a mile long and 1000' across. I understand the challenge of making a readable map that's also to scale, but if the text is to be believed, the whole chasm fits in one square, and probably isn't visible more than 1 or 2 squares away. I think I'm tempted to believe the text and not the map, since you're supposed to be able to see the phantasmal Valgazur wandering around the bones, and if the chasm is really 20 miles long, there's just no way anyone would see him from the edge.