Hello

I caved in and buyed th Dwarfen Hall.
I had tried to not build new sets, simply because I have no storeroom and no time. Had enough sets that rot on my harddrive, unused.
But I have to trie out TLX.

Since the dwarfen halls look really dwarfish I think about a adventure that is about this halls. Do some of you know about a adventure (preferable a pdf) that involves a old dwarf city that need to be explored.
Preferable a really large, lost city that need severall expeditions into the ruins to clear it?
Are there a good RPG-writeup of Moria somewhere?

Thanks

How important is system? If so, which one?

Leaping into the Wayback Machine - (C.1981 - been a while ) available as a PDF for $3.50. A sprawling dwarven mine, lots of fun in a hack 'em and slash 'em sort of way.

a dwarven city under siege from above and below, set in the Scarred Lands setting for D20. (Scarred Lands had some high points, and some low points - this was one of the high points. ) The PDF is $5.

And a 4e adventure that I know nothing about, other than a promising title .

I thought that there was an old Gamelords adventure as well, but I can't find it at Different Worlds. *EDIT* Heh, found it - Different Worlds has sold out, but you can find it It was part of the old Thieves' Guild series of adventures.

There was also a dwarven city in one of the Dragon Lance Classics, but since WotC has pulled the plug....


The Auld Grump

Whow, fast and meaty.

I will check it out.

Thank you

Continuing....
- an adventure centered around Glimmerhold, a dwarven city-kingdom. I have not either run or played in this, but I can tell you that Paizo adventures generally fill me with jealousy and annoyance that I didn't write them. At $10 for the PDF I would consider it a fairly safe bet. (Enough so that I have just clicked the 'Purchase' button.)


The setting book for the - dwarfs for the Pathfinder RPG. (D&D 3.75.... )

The Auld Grump

If you want to hop in the WAY back machine, and do quite a bit of conversion: has served me very well in the past as the basis of a dwarven adventure module.

Warning, it's a BASIC D&D Solo adventure (If you've never seen one, think of it like a choose your own adventure book with D&D fighting rules) where you are a dwarf asked to recover a magic hammer from a long abandoned dwarven stronghold. So you don't get a nice map and room by room descriptions, You really almost have to play through it to get a feel for what goes where. But the module does give a much better balance between exploration and combat them most of what you see out there today.

It's probably the closest I've ever played to the mines of Moria type feel I know of. The total map is not huge but the way the flow is layed out, my group had to enter and leave multiple times to accomplish a number of missions.

Ah, one short e-mail ('Doooode! You should totally dooooo her!' ) and one long phone call later, my equilibrium is returning.

Jackie accused me of being 'so Catholic' (which I can't really argue with, a decade or so of parochial school leaves a mark, especially since at one point I was considering going for the collar), with my replying that given my public confessions more of a Northern Baptist. This led to Jackie checking the forums - I found out that Jackie did not know of my online persona as The Auld Grump - we only share one web forum (Mudcat) and neither of us are all that active there. On the flip side, she could tell that I was the one posting, once she read the posts.

She made one major correction - Jackie and I met in 1990, we have known each other for twenty years, and have been seeing each other for sixteen. The girl in my steampunk game is as old as I was when Jackie and I first met. I remember the day and the month clearly, but am a decade off on the year....

Jackie pointed out that while I mentioned that 'if the girl had been ten years older' several times, I never once wished that I was ten years younger - that I am happy and secure in being the older person that I am. She also made some suggestions that I will take under advisement, but most likely not act upon. (Seriously suggesting that I take the girl up on the offer - that I am in a rut, am content in the rut, and this might get me out of the rut. I do not understand Jackie, I agree about the rut, but I am content with just Jackie, thank you ever so.)

Part of me wants to give Jackie the girl's phone number, so they can talk it out (i.e. Jackie frightening her off), and part of me is afraid that they would end up comparing notes....

Jackie has a BS in Psych, sometimes it shows... Other times it leads to her setting up a date between me and her sister, leaving two confused people going 'what the Hell was she thinking?!' (This was about fourteen years ago, going by the timeline that Jackie hammered home. Jackie was going to Sterling College in Vermont at the time.) Jackie has an odd and widespread education, nutritional sciences, dendrology, and psychology. Much odder than my focus on history, military history, and religion. (Jackie is actually much more religious than I am, for me religion is a puzzle, for her it is a part of her life.)

In any event, I will be seeing Jackie on Friday, and then doing character generation for the Gargoyles game on Saturday. By then I should be mostly sane again.

The Auld Grump, I really don't deserve Jackie, but I am ever so glad that she is there.

. . . you'll take pictures this time, right?

What?!?!
Pictures and Grump go together like fire and water!!!!

I spoke with the girl tonight - she had broken up with her boyfriend a couple of weeks ago, and wanted someone 'safe'.
Conversation:
'Safe?'
'You might as well have Lawful Good written on your character sheet.'

Awkward as I found it after the game, I found out that it could have been more so - she almost asked me a few years ago, the last time I ran a game at a pagan retreat.... Then I would have had a naked young woman asking to share a sleeping bag, and no convenient job the next day. I'm only human, that would have been a bit harder to ignore.

I told Jackie about the follow up, and mentioned that the girl had almost made a play about five years ago, and Jackie said 'wait, is she the girl who' - and proceeded to describe her, amazingly well for someone she has met once, about three years ago. 'I could have told you that'.

I think Jackie had a 'that's why' moment, when she realized who the girl was. I also think that she was suddenly a bit less alright with it, given that the girl had been thinking about it all that time ago.

And Jackie made certain to tell me that 'forgivable' does not mean 'okay' - that she would forgive me if I lapsed, but that she would not be happy about it. Since I had not lapsed I felt pretty relieved, actually. Her telling me that it was okay had bothered me a good deal. It really shouldn't have been okay - in retrospect, I wonder if Jackie thought that I had slept with the girl, and was saying that she could live with that, rather than giving me permission for the future. It seems to make more sense to me, that way. I may ask her on Friday.

So, it does look like I missed some serious warning signs - Jackie picked up on them three years ago. I also had one of those 'that's why' moments - I had wondered why Jackie had stuck so close to me when I introduced her to my players, since Jackie is by no means shy, and hadn't acted at all the same way when I introduced her to my folk group. I think she was feeling territorial. For some reason, that put a silly smile on my face.

I need to put some points into Sense Motive, I guess.... I wonder if I was the only one in the group who was taken by surprise. It wouldn't be the first time.

Hopefully everything will get back on an even keel now, though I am going to be a good deal more cautious around the girl for a while.

I had been considering running a game at the pagan retreat again, since my summer job is no more, and Gooche Island has been granted to the town, leaving a largish gap in my summer. I now think that it might be best not to take the chance, this year.

The Auld Grump, and that is quite enough of that topic.

Don't worry Gump, you aren't the only one who has missed the signs in the past. One time I actually was so clueless about the intentions of a female friend, that a second female actually came up and smacked me on the forehead and told me "think about what you just said".


I'm under the impression that most men need more points in sense motive when it comes to the thought process of the fairer sex.

Even though I'm currently very happily married, I *still* occasionally look back at some of the blatant missed opportunities to score in my past and go D'Oh!!!!.

Semi-pseudo-sorta back on topic -
I am considering a dwarf adventure for either Fantasy Craft or Pathfinder.

What are other people's feelings about dwarfs and canals? For some reason I have had this mental image of dwarfs and canals where sun never shone since Adam was born. Based in part on 'living' caves. (I.e. caves that still have running waters.) I can picture great underground locks - and a fallen dwarf empire that was once connected by the vast network of waterways.

Above ground - five heavily damaged towers - two on the far side of a shattered bridge, three directly above the dwarfhold. A fourth tower is completely collapsed.

Far down below is another entrance to the Deeps, connecting the canals to the river - blocked with an enormous stone disk, half submerged, set so that once upon a time it would be very easy to seal the entrance, but a pain and a half to reopen it, though much easier if it could be opened from the other side.

Wildlife includes a nesting wyvern and her young, that have claimed the towers as their own.

Critters inside include mine goblins - territorial, nasty things. Traps and ambushes. Trolls lurk in the waters, and things are hidden in the eaves.

Another encounter is the Enormous Spider that I think I have mentioned before, on another thread. Best way to handle the encounter? Don't - the spider enters a threat display, and sidles away from the adventurers. If the adventurers also sidle then they can get through the room with no battle at all. If they fight it is quite likely that someone will end up quite dead. If they pass through the room several time the spider will eventually start ignoring them, and finally may even start following them. Not helping, not attacking, just curious about what these strange, non-spider creatures are. They don't look like goblins....

It has learned to run from goblins, but really, it's just a sweetheart. Its preferred prey is giant rodents, which are plentiful. Not smart enough to become an animal companion, but really not a danger, unless the PCs are foolish enough to attack it. (If shot with arrows it will charge, biting with poisonous mandibles. While it has learned to run from goblins the goblins have learned to run from it.

Lower levels... I have no idea at this point. The only thing that I am certain of is a sleeping dragon - raised by the dwarfs, and whom wants the dwarfs to return. (Yes, if the team encounters the dragon they may be sent on a quest to save the dwarfhold by the dragon, not to slay the dragon.) Once upon a time the dragon's fire fed the flames of dwarven forges, and together the dwarfs and the dragon created marvels. To the dragon that was a time of glory.

Treasure includes an enormous enchanted adamant fist - once part of an orcish battering ram, lost when the bridge it was on was shattered, casting the ram, the orcs, and the dwarven priest-king into the waters below. The waters were much deeper then, and in full flood, the ram head is almost a mile from the ruins. (Yes, one of the major treasures is nowhere near the dungeon. ) It is also a treasure that is, perhaps, of limited use to the adventurers, intended to be part of a half ton piece of siege engineering. (As for why the head is the only part that was enchanted - the ram was built on site, only the hardware needed to be enchanted.) If the party is willing to have it melted down (and its current enchantments destroyed) then there is enough metal to forge five longswords.

The canals would likely connect the Deep to another dwarfhold, most likely one of those that have fallen to the goblins and their kind.

The Auld Grump

l was pretty boring gimmick moderatley dungeon crawl, which makes it usable. I think I worked in black and its rectory to another adventure and shooting of one of the many desert desert light traveling party was involved, the desert light actually pretty weak, although the scenario of factory freak, but worked as half of the session or half-know travel. I played last one of them was 11 or 12 years then.