Conanizing Published Modules...
- Thread starter damiller
- Start date
damiller said:
Some quick tips:
* Remove 95% of the magical items. Give the important NPCs masterwork items, Akbitanian weapons, alchemical items, etc. instead.
* Reduce the amount of treasure (money, jewelry, gems, etc.) significantly; the amount is usually quite ridiculous in D&D modules. Also replace coins and gems with more unusual but flavorful treasures, such as rugs from Iranistan, wine from Kyros in Shem, Stygian amulets, well-bred horses from Turan, etc.
* Change humanoids such as orcs, trolls, ogres, etc into barbarians, soldiers and thieves of various appropriate races. This depends on the setting, it might be Picts or neanderthals if the humanoids are primitive, or more civilized races otherwise.
* Remove most of the monsters, put in monstrous animals (bats, snakes, lions, etc) instead.
* Leave one or two types of supernatural monster. Remember Terror checks for those!
* And remember that in swords & sorcery, there should be no clearly defined struggle between good and evil. Everything, including the actions of the PCs, should be in some shade of moral grey.
- thulsa
FailedSpotCheck
Mongoose
It would be FAR easier for you to homebrew your own. 8)
Just read some good ole REH Conan yarns (or HP Lovecraft) and write away!
Just read some good ole REH Conan yarns (or HP Lovecraft) and write away!
In response to Thulsa's post; Humans as adversaries are far more dangerous than most other creatures, after all if you see a bunch of orcs you know they are fodder for your atlantean blade, but a bunch of humans can be deviously tricky they may appeal for your aid and security and then stab you in your back as you sleep or are in the midst of carnal knowledge with a temptress within their group. Unless you are running a bandit campaign, most of your PCs wont outright kill other humans on the spot.
Spectator said:
Isn't it food for thought how in these high-fantasy, good-vs-evil settings, it's okay for the supposedly "good" people to slaughter other intelligent beings on sight, just because they are "evil" ?
Orcs have babies too, you know!
I much prefer the sword and sorcery settings where no one can hide behind their "alignments". For a longer rant about this, see an article I wrote a few years ago:
http://hyboria.xoth.net/gods/good_gods.htm
- thulsa
vince the french
Mongoose
Picts do as wellthulsa said:Orcs have babies too, you know!
I'm also using pre made adventures and I convert them to Conan. There's nice inspiration to be found on this forum (although resarching info on this forum can be quite a strenous task!). Dungeon Magazine has offered many adventures quite adaptable to Conan. There's a thread about it but many others can be used too....
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=15310
Here's some pre made adventures used in my campaign. Of course, there will be changes to be made and almost none of it can be played "by the book", but many are worth the effort and make a nice change from homebrew adventures:
Conan Unchained(AD&D). Ok, it's Conan, so there's not to many changes to do...With some fleshing out, it can be a real nice campaign start.
Ancient Kingdoms Mesopotamia(D20). A favourite, and it's from Thulsa. Go for it.
The Dark Place (Dungeon). Short, deadly, Howardish...
Horror's Harvest (Dungeon). Fantasy version of Body Snatchers, strong HPL feel.
Rana Mor (Dungeon). Jungle, agressive savages, lost temple. Do we need more?
Mysterious Ways (Dungeon). A quest for a Holy Relic. Turanian flavour.
Elephant Graveyard (Dungeon). Riches of the Black Kingdoms.
The Leopard Men (Dungeon). A sequel to Elephant graveyard.
Arena of Thyathis (D&D). Gladiator adventure that can easily be set in Messantia.
These are just samples, but there can be many others. (Al quadim, Lankhmar, Necropolis, old wilderness modules and so on...)
Plunder other gaming worlds and systems. Don't hesitate!
Maybe curiosity killed the cat, but it sure helped this poor Conan GM...
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=15310
Here's some pre made adventures used in my campaign. Of course, there will be changes to be made and almost none of it can be played "by the book", but many are worth the effort and make a nice change from homebrew adventures:
Conan Unchained(AD&D). Ok, it's Conan, so there's not to many changes to do...With some fleshing out, it can be a real nice campaign start.
Ancient Kingdoms Mesopotamia(D20). A favourite, and it's from Thulsa. Go for it.
The Dark Place (Dungeon). Short, deadly, Howardish...
Horror's Harvest (Dungeon). Fantasy version of Body Snatchers, strong HPL feel.
Rana Mor (Dungeon). Jungle, agressive savages, lost temple. Do we need more?
Mysterious Ways (Dungeon). A quest for a Holy Relic. Turanian flavour.
Elephant Graveyard (Dungeon). Riches of the Black Kingdoms.
The Leopard Men (Dungeon). A sequel to Elephant graveyard.
Arena of Thyathis (D&D). Gladiator adventure that can easily be set in Messantia.
These are just samples, but there can be many others. (Al quadim, Lankhmar, Necropolis, old wilderness modules and so on...)
Plunder other gaming worlds and systems. Don't hesitate!
Maybe curiosity killed the cat, but it sure helped this poor Conan GM...
FailedSpotCheck said:It would be FAR easier for you to homebrew your own. 8)
Just read some good ole REH Conan yarns (or HP Lovecraft) and write away!
I know it may seem easier, but for me it is not. I find myself obsessing far to much about things that dont' matter, and it literally sucks away any desire to game.
I happened to use a pre made adventure for the first time in literally years and I cannot tell you how much stress it took off of me.
So no going back to homebrews for me, now it is Pre-Made modified adventures for me!
d
Bjorn the Barbarian
Mongoose
As far as pre-made adventures go, I have found that with just a little tweeking, the old Lankhmar modules from TSR work fine for Conan.
I have had a lot of fun running my players through the streets of Lankhmar and its surrounding environs. :twisted:
I have had a lot of fun running my players through the streets of Lankhmar and its surrounding environs. :twisted:
librarycharlie
Mongoose
Good discussion. I just did this with "White Plume Mountain"
http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20030530b
Which is a quest for three powerful magical artifacts. I transposed the dungeon so that it's the twisted menagerie of a formerly-sleeping Acheronian sorcerer, filled with his centuries-old abominations and a handful of adventurers who have approached in the past year only to be hired or dominated by the sorcerer.
What helps me is the abominations rules from Scrolls of Skelos being so open, almost any D&D creature can be made from it. Gnoll? A huge human with a hyena's head. Kobold? Dog/lizard. Etc.
As a bonus, Keraptis (my Acheronian) is releasing several of his abominations into the world where they will wander and perhaps be later found by the party.
I replaced the magic items with either herbs, potions, or semi-cursed items. And it's not too terribly difficult to imagine that the strange magics of the dungeon are simply Acheronian in design (symbols of pain, etc.).
It did take a LOT of conversion, and the 3 artifacts at the end were made so that they can only be used by Acheronians or Demons... but the benevolent sorcerer who sends the party to retrieve the items has the "Spawn of Dagoth Hill" feat, so the items are valuable to him.
I strongly recommend herbs and potions, especially giving two DIFFERENT craft (alchemy) difficulties to each potion. Someone who fails has no guess, someone who succeeds at the easy DC misidentifies it, and someone who gets the high DC recognizes it correctly.
I can't wait for the characters to drink their "Wine of Xuthal" when hurt only to find that it's Purple Lotus Potion, for example.
http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20030530b
Which is a quest for three powerful magical artifacts. I transposed the dungeon so that it's the twisted menagerie of a formerly-sleeping Acheronian sorcerer, filled with his centuries-old abominations and a handful of adventurers who have approached in the past year only to be hired or dominated by the sorcerer.
What helps me is the abominations rules from Scrolls of Skelos being so open, almost any D&D creature can be made from it. Gnoll? A huge human with a hyena's head. Kobold? Dog/lizard. Etc.
As a bonus, Keraptis (my Acheronian) is releasing several of his abominations into the world where they will wander and perhaps be later found by the party.
I replaced the magic items with either herbs, potions, or semi-cursed items. And it's not too terribly difficult to imagine that the strange magics of the dungeon are simply Acheronian in design (symbols of pain, etc.).
It did take a LOT of conversion, and the 3 artifacts at the end were made so that they can only be used by Acheronians or Demons... but the benevolent sorcerer who sends the party to retrieve the items has the "Spawn of Dagoth Hill" feat, so the items are valuable to him.
I strongly recommend herbs and potions, especially giving two DIFFERENT craft (alchemy) difficulties to each potion. Someone who fails has no guess, someone who succeeds at the easy DC misidentifies it, and someone who gets the high DC recognizes it correctly.
I can't wait for the characters to drink their "Wine of Xuthal" when hurt only to find that it's Purple Lotus Potion, for example.
I'm gonna disagree. Let them have all the loot they can carry! It will just provide more adventure hooks later when they have to try to hold on to it, or else spend it on something that then turns out to be more trouble than they anticipated, natch.thulsa said:
If nothing else you can always enforce the Rule of High Living.
Some other advice
-Invest some time making some "generic" stat blocks for people like thugs, assasins, bodyguards, etc. Then substitute these guys in for encounters in the module you either don't think are appropriate or else don't want to take the time to convert the DnD stat blocks to Conan stat blocks.
-For fast conversions simply increase the damage die of any attack by one category. Monsters with good reflex saves get a good Dodge DV (as Barbarian). Officially monsters with a poor reflex are supposed to have a poor Dodge DV (as Scholar) but I usually find that makes them way too easy, particularly at higher levels, so I usually give them the middle Dodge DV (as Borderer). Usually you can take the DnD Natural Armor value and convert it straight over to Conan Natrual Armor (ie: DR). You will have to get used to eyeballing the DV and DR though, as these are only guidelines.
-Beware monsters who rely heavily on spell-like abilities or supernatural attacks. Often they are balanced in DnD on the assumption that the PC's will have to spend magical resources to A)protect against the attack, B)recover from the attack, or C)equip themselves with a way to bypass the magical defense. Conan PC's have none of these options.
Hope that helps.
For Warzen:
I located Rana Mor on a lost island of the Vilayet Sea. I included this side adventure during my adaptation of CB1, when the heroes join the Red Brotherhood. I mixed the adventure with a Black Vulmea novel ("Black Vulmea's Vengeance" if I remember well). More details for french readers on the Ubik Conan Forum (the french editor) where I posted my campaign under the tile "Des Ombres Sur La Vilayet" ( look for a chapter called "La Chose Dans Le Temple"). Here's the link:
http://www.editions-ubik.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=f22f8269b46ed91a5e3a9429c232bb72&board=42.0
I located Rana Mor on a lost island of the Vilayet Sea. I included this side adventure during my adaptation of CB1, when the heroes join the Red Brotherhood. I mixed the adventure with a Black Vulmea novel ("Black Vulmea's Vengeance" if I remember well). More details for french readers on the Ubik Conan Forum (the french editor) where I posted my campaign under the tile "Des Ombres Sur La Vilayet" ( look for a chapter called "La Chose Dans Le Temple"). Here's the link:
http://www.editions-ubik.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=f22f8269b46ed91a5e3a9429c232bb72&board=42.0
Warzen wrote:
I "conanized" some other stuff that I might post someday (mostly in English),
such as some Al Quadim adventures, material from Dungeon Magazine and an old TSR module, Arena of Thyathis. There's and old thread about this last one here:
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=28414
Of course, most of my stuff remains amateurish and cannot compare with more "professional" adaptations, like Thulsa's.
Anyway, I guess it wasn't a matter of language...
I "conanized" some other stuff that I might post someday (mostly in English),
such as some Al Quadim adventures, material from Dungeon Magazine and an old TSR module, Arena of Thyathis. There's and old thread about this last one here:
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=28414
Of course, most of my stuff remains amateurish and cannot compare with more "professional" adaptations, like Thulsa's.
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