Night of the Walking Dead in Averoigne Part 10

Continuing my adaptation of the AD&D 2nd Edition Ravenloft module RQ1 Night of the Walking Dead to Clark Ashton Smith’s Averoigne, Robert E. Howard’s Cormac Fitzgeoffrey stories, and the mid-14th Century Petite Camargue region of France. Part One can be found here.

In this installment, I shall look at the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of Jean becoming a Zombie Lord. As you may recall, I discussed in Part II how Jean being bitten by a ju-ju zombie is problematic because ju-ju zombies are created by the use of the energy drain spell which is 9th level! Why would an arch-mage of 17th level or greater create a ju-ju zombie and leave it in a crypt in an obscure and out–of–the–way village?

A DEEP DIVE INTO THE ZOMBIE LORD’S ORIGIN & MOTIVATION(S)

Does this adventure depend on Marcel becoming a zombie lord? Yes, absolutely! Does becoming a zombie lord depend on getting bitten by a ju-ju zombie? Not at all. According to the AD&D 2nd Edition Monstrous Compendium Ravenloft Appendix (1992) by William W. Connors (Van Richten’s Guide to Ghosts & Masque of the Red Death: A Guide to Gothic Earth) :

“They [zombie lords] are formed on rare occassions as the result of a raise dead spell cast while in the demiplane of Ravenloft.”

So a ju-ju zombie is not necessary. However, the raise dead spell and Ravenloft requirements are of course problematic. In The Crusades Sourcebook Historical Reference for AD&D 2nd Edition, the raise dead spell is not available. However, miracles are. So in this scenario Frère Brucian prays for the miracle of resurrection on behalf of Jean Crapaud. The chance of success is -2% (base 1 %, +4% for 2nd level cleric, -7% for 7th level spells). If Jean had been a Good man, he would get an additional 5% chance for a miracle. Even if we generously give a 1% chance, Jean did not roll a double-zero (00). Now the module did say that Brucian had a scroll with 3 raise dead spells on it, which leaves 2 to use on the PCs. For me that stretches plausibilty too much. I do not deem it necessary to have a couple of raise dead spells just in case two of the PCs die or one dies twice. In fact when I ran this adventure back in 1994, one of the PCs did in fact die. After the remaining party members defeated Jean, the DM-PC priest of Serapis (Greco-Romano-Egyptian Hades) performed a ceremony whereby the PCs pleaded their case to the Lord & Lady of the Dead themselves. Serapis was unmoved by Sgt. Seamus’s unjust death but Isis (Persephone / Proserpina) took pity and convinced Serapis to give them a quest whereby success would return Seamus to life. For our purposes, it is enough to say that the 1% chance of a resurrected wicked Jean failed.

The Ravenloft requirement is of course not applicable in this case since the adventure takes place in a pseudo-historical Earth. So is it enough to say that Jean rolled a critical failure on his miracle check (01) and then backed it up with another critical failure (01) resulting in the Prince of Darkness himself responding with an anti-miracle of the un-resurrection? I am not so sure about that. Because that tells us that praying for the resurrection of an evil person runs the risk of creating an undead creature. Thefore, unless the petitioner is sure that the dead person was not wicked in life, they should not take the chance? Not only do I not want to get into theological considerations but it also does not at all sound like something Clark Ashton Smith or Robert E. Howard would have written or even H.P. Lovecraft for that matter.

Instead, why not something simpler? Perhaps Jean was killed by an entombed ancestral zombie lord (or lady) who then transferred their corrupted soul into his body? Or cast a kind of magick jar spell, transferring their souls shortly before the ancestor crumbled into dust? After all, a non-embalmed corpse would leave nothing but teeth and grave wax after a century in the mausoleum due to the humid air of the surrounding wetlands. So perhaps not even a zombie lord but some kind of evil spirit tied to the remaining teeth. Perhaps this is why “Marcel” is craving human life so that (s)he arrests the decomposition process. Jean goes crazy not just because Marcel died and became undead but also because of the evil spirit that has taken posession of Marcel’s body. Something inspired by The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H.P. Lovecraft perhaps…!

I definitely like the idea that Marcel is driven to murder and feeds on human corpses in order to arrest his decomposition and possibly even restore him (cf. Frank in Hellraiser).

Would Luc still have his twin connexion if Marcel was posessed? Not if the souls were switched (magick jar). If another soul was dominating Marcel then Jean would know that something was wrong — which is fine because Jean would be afraid that the foreign soul was hurting or would destroy Marcel’s soul. However, their link is empathic rather than sympathetic or telepathic so all Jean can know is Marcel’s feelings and impulses (anger, hunger, &c.). So it would not work for another evil entity to “kidnap” Marcel. Marcel must still be Marcel somehow.

So if not disposession (magick jar), then some kind of curse or disease caused by … what? Biten by an ancestor who then collapses into dust? Reading a forbidden scroll?

In either case (ancestor or scroll), a terrible secret is discovered by Marcel and Luc. One which has been literally entombed by centuries most likely by the founder Pierre de Tarascon. What terrible crime could Pierre have committed?

Perhaps Pierre was not alone when he first came to this land? Since he had to make peace with the Mother of Toads in order to domesticate the land, perhaps the price was his wife, Aradia? But if that was the case, how did she end up undead?

Or perhaps the couple did not make peace with the Mother of Toads initially? What if Aradia was a necromancer? Perhaps they brought some slaves to Le Petite Camarga to drain a portion of the wetlands. Those slaves died from the bad air (mal aria) and were animated to finish their work. Then they cross-bred the local wild rice with some Egyptian rice to create their soon–to–be–famous sanguine rice. But then they were attacked by killer frogs and animated vegetation sent by the Mother of Toads. The price of peace was the destruction of the zombies & the necromancer and the marriage of Pierre and the Mother. But Aradia the necromancer, determined to have her revenge on both her unfaithful husband and the Toad-Witch, did not remain dead but instead became undead whilst biding her time in the tomb. When Luc and Marcel discovered her, she cursed, bit, and/or embraced him as her final act.

And just to close the loop, why not connect the couple with the infamous Tarasque of Tarascon or of Noves, both of which are in Southeast France? Perhaps it was Aradia who summoned the tarasque that Saint Martha of Bethany subdued and the townsfolk (or villagers) ultimately stoned to death. Pierre and Aradia has to flee Tarascon before they were caught and executed. Perhaps Aradia animated the victims of the tarasque and took the zombies with them. All of this would have happened in AD 48 when Tarascon was under Roman rule, specifically Titus Vinius the proconsular governor of Gallia Narbonensis.

Getting back to Marcel & Luc, perhaps when they opened up Aradia’s tomb, they were shocked to discover a 13 centuries-old corpse. Marcel casts a speak with dead spell. If Aradia was actually dead, then the spell is successful. Whereas if she were undead thus “playing dead,” the spell fails. Or, the spell fails but Aradia acts as if it were successful and whispers the answers thus forcing Marcel to lean over close to her mouth, enabling her to bite him by surprise! Or to administer the Kiss of Death…!

I really like the idea of Aradia’s corpse kissing Marcel, swapping souls (or dominating Marcel), and then her corpse crumbling into dust. Luc and most any person would be horrified at watching a corpse arise, kiss their brother, and then crumble! Marcel-Aradia would then swoon and collapse at the shock of Aradia’s penetration. Luc runs to his brother Jean who then follows him back to the tomb. Jean assumes Marcel is dead and takes the body to Brucian. Frère Brucian, finding no pulse then prays for a miracle but it is not answered. Jean wails in agony at the death of his brother. Marcel is interred in the very same tomb that belonged to Aradia. Jean visits the body to mourn his brother’s death but “Marcel” speaks to him! Is Jean going mad? Marcel tells Jean of his chance to come back to the living if he can feed on the flesh of a living person. Jean denies this of course and flees. But the memory of their conversation haunts him and he can still hear Marcel’s voice in his head. Jean goes back to the tomb and speaks with Marcel again. Marcel is more insistent and pleads for flesh else he will decay and be dead forever. Jean gives in and leads one of the serfs (slaves) back to Marcel’s tomb. Marcel is grateful and proceeds to suck out the brains and vital fluids.

In other words, lift plot elements from my favourite horror film, Hellraiser and the original novella, The Hellbound Heart.

Once the serfs (slaves) are all dead but Marcel (Aradia) is not restored, Jean stops bringing victims. A heated argument ensues and Jean leaves. Marcel (Aradia) grows hungry and desperate and digs a tunnel out of the ancient cemetery. That night he (she) goes out into the village and feasts upon an unsuspecting victim — Gremin’s son! The next morning Gremin finds the withered husk of his son and has a flashback to a traumatic experience he had during his tour of duty in the Holy Land. His unit found an ancient tomb and decided to loot it only to discover the occupant was “alive.” All but Gremin were either captured or slaughtered by the walking corpse. Gremin managed to escape but only after watching his brother–in–arms get their fluids sucked out. He made the difficult trek back to camp and reported delirously what had happened. The knights in the encampment forced him to lead them to the tomb, but Gremin could not find it again.

Jean was shocked that Marcel had escaped and fed upon Gremin’s son. Since that discovery, Jean negotiated a deal with Marcel to bring him bodies. But instead of Marcel becoming human again, he became more powerful and began animating the unsuitable corpses into zombies and skeletons.

Are the ghouls necessary?

But what about the ghouls? Does Jean still force his servants to eat human flesh? Jean is at his wit’s end. He loathes himself for bringing victims to Jean but justifies it as saving both the village and his brother. 

The existence of ghouls in the original module has always been problematic. I have always found Slavicsek’s excuse of Jean being too cowardly to taste human flesh himself yet forces his servants to do in solidarity with Marcel as being distasteful (pardon the pun). It certainly is a good scene to have the PCs peek through the windows and see a ghoulish feast but does it have to be in this module? Having ghouls introduces competition for the corpses. Why would a zombie lord tolerate ghouls? A zombie lord wants to increase his dominion and cannot do that if ghouls are eating his rightful property and especially if the ghouls themselves are growing in number.

What if I removed the ghouls entirely? What then to do with the manoir house? Of course, why is there a townhouse in the first place? The purpose of a fortified manoir house is to have a fortress where the entire village can escape to in case of attack. It also serves as the residence for the local lord or administrator and the court of justice. Why would the manoir house be out in the fields?

So I can get rid of the townhouse and place the fortified manoir house between the village and the fields. The PCs can try to break into the fortified manoir house per the module but there is no need to have them witness a ghoulish dinner party (let’s save that for a ghoul-themed adventure, shall we?). It stands to reason that once Jean runs out of serfs (slaves) he then turns on his house-servants. Once they are all gone, only then does he stalk the village. The villagers have no truck with with serfs and little with the house-servants. So it is no surprise that there are only suspicions regarding the fields and big house.

Marcel’s Motivation

Since puberty, Marcel’s dreams have been haunted by Aradia. However, he did not recognise her as his ancestor but more like a succubus, that is to say with a sexual element. Her visitations also led him to search for magical tomes while at the Université de Montpellier (or at Avignon?) and to uncover his family’s history when at home. This search became an obsession which led him to the ancient cemetery and ultimately to Aradia’s tomb. Once he had learned the speak with dead spell, he became determined to speak with the ghost of Aradia and learn the truth about what happened.

Book of Eibon (Liber Ivonis)

Of course, the Book of Eibon has to have a place in this adventure if this is any kind of homage to Clark Ashton Smith and Averoigne. Ideally, the Hiscosa scroll should be a leaf taken from the Liber Ivonis (Latin translation of the Book of Eibon).

In the module, the prophet’s name is spelled Hyskosa. The Occitanian alphabet has no Y nor K, so they would spell his name as Hiscosa, Hischosa, or Hisqosa. My knowledge of Occitanian is extremely limited so I cannot offer anything close to a learned opinion. Hischosa will not work because the majority of native English speakers will pronounce the ch as in cherry rather then in achtung. I am attracted to the Hisqosa spelling because it looks quite exotic whereas Hiscosa looks rather mundane.

There is no need to give the Hisqosa page any magical properties as it is enough to come from the Book of Eibon and for Marcel to obsess over it.

NEXT UP: Click here for a deep dive into Brucian and the character Mordu–Harley Warren–Samuel Loveman (conspiracy theorist or prophet?).

Happy Birthday Robert E Howard

Robert E. Howard was born this 22nd of January in 1906 in Peaster, Texas. As a reader of this blog, you no doubt know him as the creator of Conan the Barbarian and the father of the Sword & Sorcery genre. But Conan was not his only Sword & Sorcery hero. There is also Kull, Bran Mak Morn, Cormac Mac Art, Turlough Dubh, Cormac Fitzgeoffrey, Dark Agnes de Chastillon (Red Sonja), and Solomon Kane just to name a few.

In honour of Mister Howard, I am reading the Spears of Clontarf. One of his many historical fiction stories that contained hints and suggestions of the supernatural as well as graphic violence. Nobody can describe a fight scen like REH!

Spears of Clontarf also gives us the infamous Dalcassian Axe, said to be able to cleave through mail and plate like cloth. It is a one-handed axe that does damage like a two-handed axe! In game terms, I give it a d10 for damage but restrict it to the Dalcassian Irish.

Another interesting item from the story is the contrast between the Christian Irish berserkers (Barbarians) and the Pagan Viking warriors (Fighters). The Irish eschew all armour aside from shields and tightly woven linen stiffened in vinegar (except for Turlough Dubh who fights in a full maille harness). Whereas the Vikings are armoured head to toe in maille and/or scale.

One of the characters I find fascinating is Eevin, a woman of the Dark Folk (Cruithni or Pict) who has prophetic visions and can either teleport or cast plant door because she can quickly move from the Viking “castle” to the Irish encampment and with great stealth as well. Howard told H.P. Lovecraft in one of his letters how the Picts hold a fascination with him. The Picts are the one “race” or culture that links the stories of Kull of Atlantis, Conan of Hyboria, Bran Mak Morn of Roman Britain, and probably Cormac Fitzgeoffrey of Ireland (I’m hoping to discover that in some of the unpublished fragments). Both Howard and Lovecraft subscribed to the theory that remnants of a prehistoric people gave rise to the legends of dwarves, elves, and fairies.

Howard eventually rewrote the Spears of Clontarf to give it even more supernatural elements (Eevin becomes a Sidhe) and retitled it The Twilight of the Gods a.k.a. The Grey God Passes which Roy Thomas presented as The Twilight of the Grim Grey God in Conan the Barbarian number 3. That was the very first comic book I purchased and yes indeed the name inspired Grymwurld™ and Grymlorde™.

Night of the Walking Dead in Averoigne Part 9

Continuing my adaptation of the AD&D 2nd Edition Ravenloft module RQ1 Night of the Walking Dead to Clark Ashton Smith’s Averoigne, Robert E. Howard’s Cormac Fitzgeoffrey stories, and mid-14th Century Petite Camargue region of France. Note that this post contains no “crunch” and thus is system and version agnostic. Part One can be found here.

Having finished my critical walkthrough of the module, I shall collect the ideas generated previously, refine them, and add some new ones. In this post I shall determine how to integrate the Mother of Toads and generate some additional sub-plots.

THE MOTHER OF TOADS

 Actually, I’m think less frog-like but fatter.

It is time to deal with the 800 lb. toad-mother in the room (to mangle mixed-metaphors). In Clark Ashton Smith’s short story Mother of Toads, the titular character is a witch or nymph who in her natural form appears as a large and very well endowed woman (with huge tracts of land) with decidedly frog-like characteristics who is lonely and/or sex-starved.

So this has inspired me to have a Heleionoma (wetland nymph) who is a manifestation of the locale’s flora & fauna. She appears as an almost inhumanly obese woman with features that are suggestive of frogs and toads, e.g. wide mouth, bulging round eyes, warts, clammy skin, et cetera. In order for Pierre the refugee of Tarascon to settle in this area, he must wed the mother of toads. All of their male offspring appear to be human (but with the “Innsmouth look”) whereas the female offspring are born as frogs. [In Northern French, the word for toad “crapaud” is masculine whereas frog “grenouille” is feminine.] The eldest son is always the heir to the land and must wed their mother. Yes, we are talking incest here.

Have you noticed that Jean, Marcel, and Luc are unmarried? Well, this is the reason why. Perhaps all heirs are forbidden from marrying anyone other than their mother, the Mother of Toads.

What is the Mother’s role in the story? First off, she is the witch that calls up a storm that wrecks the PC’s ship so that the PCs end up in her village to save her children. No doubt that she is upset and angry at their behavior but rather than giving up on them, she brought the PCs. Can she do anything else? If the PCs were to somehow find her and speak to her, could they persuade her to do anything? And if their persuasion were successful, what exactly could she do?

The land and her are interconnected, so she can animate any vegetation she chooses to. For example, if she were convinced to intervene then she could entangle the zombies when they attempt to ransack the village. As a life-giver, she could nurse the PCs back to health if they were injured. I am not sure what else she could do other than give advice perhaps. But her price is going to be sexual intercourse, being the sex-starved nymph that she is. This presents a fun rôleplaying opportunity for the GM to describe her in both alluring and repulsive terms, much like CAS did in his story.

What does Father Brucian think about her? At the very least he must acknowledge the reality of her existence. His seminary would have taught him to recognise her as a demon and so he would work very hard to free the Crapaud family from her embrace. However, he is not afraid to enter the wetlands and tend to Luc when the latter is convalescing there. Is it because he has faith that G*D protects him? Or perhaps he is one of those priests from the Early Middle Ages who reconciled with paganism rather than demonising everything that was not familiar? I have to suspect the latter rather than the former. The Mother of Toads is very real and has very real power. Smith demonstrates in The Colossus of Ylourgne that low-level monks with religious accoutrements (holy water & symbols) do not automatically turn undead, which of course D&D taught us as well. So Fr. Brucian has to take a pragmatic strategy and not directly oppose the Mother of Toads. Does he subtly oppose her or does he accept her and Christianise her? Given the Albigensian Crusade in the past century, could Fr. Brucian be a secret Cathar or a member of the Dominicans who served as inquistors? At the very least the memories of the crusade would still linger. Brucian as a Scotsman could have joined the Dominicans and eventually be assigned to Tolouse and somehow ended up here. In fact I think it is more likely for a Scotsman to have ended up here as a Dominican rather than for the Church to have transferred him here. While a form of Catharism did get a foothold in London, there is no evidence of it in Scotland. So as long as Brucian is a Scotsman, it makes the most sense that he is also a Dominican friar — but the fact that he is Neutral/Good also explains why he is only loosely attached (if at all) to the Ordo Prædicatorum.

What does the Mother of Toads think then about Fr. Brucian? She would no doubt accept him if he honoured (worshipped) her. But what if he were to attempt to proselytise her? From a Christian perspective, are nymphs in fact nephilim or angels who fell to Earth but not Hell? Do they have free will? First off, I think that the Mother of Toads as a heleionoma is probably Neutral/Neutral in alignment and intent as she is a manifestation of the land and the life upon the land. From a Greco-Roman perspective, the Mother is the daughter of Le Ròze (Fr. Le Rhône; L. Rhodanus; Gr. Rhodanós) river. Given Smith’s story as well as fairytale traditions, I think that the Mother of Toads embodies vanity, gluttony, and lust. So long as she is worshipped, flattered with praise, and gifted with food and sexual partners, she will respond in kind with her blessings. Whereas if she is denied, she will exact vengeance with a fury.

Heav’n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn’d,
Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn’d.

— From the play The Mourning Bride, 1697 by William Congreve.

In other words, she is good towards her worshippers and evil towards those who do not. And given that Brucian is Neutral/Good rather than Lawful/Neutral he is going to be more flexible and pragmatic in supporting and promulgating Goodness. Combined with the reality of her power over the local area, Brucian would either martyr himself by taking a hard opposition to her or flirt with heresy in order to accomodate her.

I think then this is the key: Brucian has had to compromise his religious tenets in order to accomodate the continued presence of the Mother of Toads and he feels guilty for that. He brings offerings to her and pushes Jean to satisfy her carnal desires all the while preaching Mediæval Catholic Christianity to everyone else. The heleionoma does not care one way or another what Brucian tells the parishioners, so long as she is treated as the (very minor) goddess that she is.

So what can the PCs do for her and get in return? Once they properly present themselves to her, there is the aforementioned healing & curative magicks as well as entangling the zombies (if they run to her rather than the cemetery). She could also send an army of frogs into the rice fields to fight the zombies, or at least slow them down — this seems more fitting than entangling the zombies. She could give the PCs information on the history of the manoir, the Crapaud family, and recent events. Or perhaps she could give them a potion of frog swarm summoning. Just pour the potion on the ground and a huge swarm of frogs will arrive. I rather like the idea of distracting the zombie army with an army of frogs!

IN SUMMATION

The Mother of Toads is a minor goddess who shipwrecked the PCs in order to save her village. If they approach her appropriately, she will reward them with druid spells and a potion of frog summoning.

Frère Brucian is a Dominican (Blackfriar) preacher who has compromised his faith in order to protect the village from the wrath of the Mother. He is wracked by guilt but does his best to hide it as well as hide the cult of the heleionoma from the PCs.

 Portrait of a Dominican Friar by Peter Paul Rubens

Click here for Part X wherein I perform an autopsy on Marcel, the zombie lord!

Night of the Walking Dead in Averoigne Part 8

This is Part VIII of my series on adapting the AD&D 2nd Edition Ravenloft module RQ1 Night of the Walking Dead to Clark Ashton Smith’s Averoigne setting, Rober E. Howard’s Cormac Fitzgeoffrey’s setting, early–to–mid 14th Century France, and using the NWN/D&D 3rd edition ruleset. In this post I will be looking at the Lair of the Zombie Lord section of the module. To read Part I of this series, click here.

LAIR OF THE ZOMBIE LORD

According to the module, this section occurs after the PCs have destroyed Jean sieur de Crapaud and crazed killer and of course have not broken into the Old Cemetery (or located the secret entrance) and dispatched Marcel. Like all good stories, the tension must recede before the epic zombie attack. The villagers are thrilled that the crazed killer is dead and throw a party for the party that night. If the PCs sneak out before the party, Luc (or his ghost) still follows them and just when they are out of sight and earshot of the village, Luc repeats a new verse:

“Look for the scroll where the old rest fine,
behind the stone where six stars shine.
The finding, however, will cause much pain,
beware the time of the falling rain.”

Whoa! Luke is lucid! I guess the adventure is not done after all. Actually I would think that crazy Luc still following the party would make that obvious but….

The Storm

That night during the party at the Full Moon Inn, the clouds burst with a torrential rainfail! Concidentally, that is also exactly when Luc starts reciting the Hiscosa verses correctly (see the module).

Finally the vicar, Father Brucian comes clean and tells how Jean brought Marcel’s corpse to him, how he prayed to Our Lady for a miracle but none came, and how heartbroken Jean became.

Fr. Brucian finally connects the dots and realises that their troubles began only after Marcel died and therefore Marcel is behind it all! And it took a guy with an Intelligence of 14 and a Wisdom of 16 this long to figure it out?!? Once again, Slavicsek stretches credibility quite thin in an attempt to be dramatic.

Naturally, the very moment that the vicar completes his tale, a villager at the party keels over dead and then rises up 1d4 minutes later as a zombie and “rushes” (a zombie rushes?!? Seriously?!?) over to grab Luc. If Luc is dead, then the zombie goes for the PC holding the Hiscosa scroll or the one who wrote down Luc’s verse. Once the zombie is dispatched, Luc repeats the Fay admonition to find Marcel (see above).

Zombies on the Move

Conviently, the door to the inn bursts open at the right dramatic moment and a villagers soaked to the bone and frightened out of his whits still manages to say:

“The dead are approaching the village! An army of the walking dead!”

Gremin le Bailif bolts out the door. If the PCs join him, the the following happens otherwise Gremin returns to tell everyone the following:

“At the eastern edge of the village, more than two dozen zombies are coming!”

Gremin implores the PCs to help him setup barricades. The vicar (who must have come along) urges the PCs to instead find Marcel.

“Find Marcel’s body. I am certain that it holds the key to the terrors which have befallen us.”

If the PCs head for the old cemetery, they can get there without molestation. If on the other hands, they head back for the Inn first, or if stayed at the end they must get through the zombies before the cemetery. For the Grym Zombie™ game statistics, please see the end of this post.

Lair of the Zombie Master Lord

As I detailed earlier, the PCs can break the lock, climb the wall, or search the hillside behind the old cemetery. If they search carefully (no roll, make the players explain how they are searching), they will find the stone slab with the six stars. Apparently the stone slab is easy to move because zombies have been moving hit. Looking at the map, it appears to be a tunnel that ends under a statue.

Why is this tunnel here? It is not like Marcel dug it out and then covered it with a stone slab and carved six stars into it. The six stars are supposed to represent the six verses of the Hiscosa prophesy, but why? And how in the world is a zombie (or anyone for that matter) going to get past the statue from below? I can understand a statue concealing the tunnel, but that makes it a one-way tunnel. It is going to be hard enough to move a presumably stone statue out of the way, but from below?!? Oh man, sometimes this module gives me a splitting headache! Hopefully I can fix this “tunnel” before I write up the inevitable pdf.

Note that I am not going to reproduce every building in the module, just the ones that merit a comment.

Ancient Gate: Two gargouille statues guard the gate. Are they just statues? Close examination reveals the name of the sculptor, Blaise Reynard (from The Maker of Gargoyles by Clark Ashton Smith). If the party is only 1st level, I would leave these gargouilles as statues but just give hints like ‘with each flash of lightning, the statues turn their gaze to you’ or something like that. If the party is higher level with enchaunted weapons, then absolutely have the gargouilles attack. And as for the heavy iron chains and padlock… this is supposed to be the Middle Ages, right? So instead of very expensive iron gate, chains, and padlock the “gate” is a heavy wooden door with a heavy wooden beam across it. The beam is swollen with moisture and stuck.

Nota bene: The following is — in my opinion — a pointless cemetery crawl because the Crapaud Tomb is quite visible no matter where the PCs enter.

Decrepit Mausoleum: The bats are not giant, they are in fact undead (thanks to Jean’s farts)!. Change the hit points to 1d3, damage is 1, and give them zombie immunities. The idea here is to annoy and slow down the PCs, giving Marcel and his gang to catch the PCs.

Flooded Mausoleum: Cool imagery but there is no way that enough rain has fallen to make a pool several feet deep. And the fact that the cemetery is built high above the water table also makes it very unlikely. And why does this mausoleum have three skeletons in it? I have to think about this one….

Tomb of Rats: For some reason a family of rats live here despite the fact that there have been no interments in a very long time. For the moment, they shall be zombie rats with 1d3 hit points, bite for 1 point of damage, and have zombie immunities.

The Crypt of Stars: Despite the fact that this is where Marcel died and Luc went crazy… there is nothing of significance at all. Just like there is no reason why a ju-ju zombie was created by an arch-mage and left here. Slavicsek!!!

The Final Battle

Consider the following read-aloud text:

“The ceiling is a glass dome, through which you can see the storm clouds parting to unleash a stream of moonlight.

A platform of bones lies in the middle of the chamber, flanked by two flaming braziers that are fashioned from stacked skulls. Atop the platform is a finely-crafted throne.”

While this is all very evocative of pulp horror, it is not at all appropriate. First off, a glass dome is an anachronism due to the expense and difficulty of getting such quality glass and supporting steel. Second, due to the age and neglect the glass dome would be highly damaged. Third, two flaming brazier made from stacked, presumably human skulls is there because Marcel wanted a pair of braziers? Because he is cold? Or it looks cool? And where did he get the throne? Is Marcel actually an expert at crafting braziers and thrones out of bones and skulls? This scene is described like the lair of a Pulp necromancer which is cool and all except that Marcel is not a necromancer and has only had three weeks to decorate the family tomb. I cannot imagine that the family tomb was originally laid out like this. As a side point, gothic architecure was quite uncommon in the Occitan region of Southern France, and given the age of this mausoleum (more than two centuries), the architectural style is most likely going to be First Romanesque, a.k.a Lombard Romanesque.

So there can be stained glass windows revealing the moonlight, but not a glass dome. And we have to dispense with the necromancer decor because it is silly in this context.

On the 6th round of combat or just before Marcel is destroyed, the eclipse must happen. After all, the PCs are fate magnets. Yes, it is contrived but the PCs are fulfilling a prophesy here after all.

The Eclipse

A lightning bolt shatters one of the stained glass windows and the moonlight turns crimson. Luc immediately changes his chant to:

“The light of the sky shining over the dead
shall gutter and fail, turning all to crimson.”

In spite of not knowing the Hiscosa prophesies, Marcel freaks out at the crimson moonlight and then he and his minions cower for 1d4 rounds:

“The character is frozen in fear and can take no actions. A cowering character takes a -2 penalty to Armor Class and loses her Dexterity bonus (if any).”

Note that Marcel et alia are not helpless nor paralysed, they are simply cowering.

According to the module, when Marcel is destroyed all remaining zombies wander off. Instead, I shall have the zombies who left their vaults return to them. All of the other zombies and ghouls collapse into a heap of rotting flesh (cf. The Thing on the Doorstep).

The Sun Returns

The storm has passed and the pleasant late Octobre weather of the Camargue returns. If Luc is alive, he comes out of his trance and if dead then his spirit is now at rest.

The PCs are given fresh food and supplies by the villagers. If Luc is alive, he is now the new Lord of the Crapaud Manoir and if dead, then Bailif Gremin will be the interim castellan. Fr. Brucian will contact Aigas Mòrtas to inform the council of Jean’s and Marcel’s deaths. He is not sure how to explain such deaths but will figure out some sort of explanation that will not warrant an investigation.

If Luc is alive, he will be extraorinarily grateful and offer the PCs their own plot and cottage rent-free, so long as they reside in the village.

FIN

Or is it? In the next post I am going to re-visit some of the NPCs and consider incorporating some ideas & imagery from Gothic literature, Clark Ashton Smith’s Averoigne, Robert E. Howard’s Cormac Fitzgeoffrey, and H.P. Lovecraft’s Shadow Over Innsmouth, Statement of Randolph Carter, & Call of Cthulhu. In the meantime, here are the promised stats for Grym Zombies™.

GRYM ZOMBIES™

Walking Dead

Size/Race: Medium Undead Construct
Hit Dice: 1d12 (12 hit points)
Initiative: -4
Speed: 20 ft. (no run)
Armour Class: 6 (-4 Dex), touch 6, flat-footed 6
Base Attack: -4
Attack: 2 Slams -3 mêlée (1d6)
Space/Reach: 5 ft. / 5 ft.
Special Attacks: —
Special Qualities: Single actions only, Undead/Construct qualities, Immune to Piercing damage, 75% resistant to Bludgeoning damage, Turn resistance +3
Vulnerabilities: Divine magic (2×), Positive energy (2×)
Saves: Fortitude auto success, Reflex -4, Will auto success
Abilities: Str 10, Dex 3, Con 10, Int —, Wis —, Cha —
Skills: —
Feats: Ambidexterity, Blind-fight, Blindsight, Weapon focus (natural)
Environment: Any
Organisation: None
Challenge Rating: 1
Treasure: None
Alignment/Intent: Usually Chaotic/Evil (see note below)
Advancement: See below
Level Adjustment: —
Faction: Hostile

The Walking Dead cannot fail concentration checks.

The Walking Dead can Sense Living Creatures 120' away. This prevents living creatures from moving silently or hiding from them within 120 feet.

As Grym Zombies age, they become more powerful. Walking Dead become the Risen Dead who become Rotting Skeletons, who become Bloody Skeletons, who finally become true Skeletons. Sages speculate that skeletons eventually become some kind of spectre.

Types & Causes of Walking Dead: Animating a corpse through the necromantic spell, animate dead, is not the only way of creating the Walking Dead. A person could be cursed to walk the earth after death or have unfinished business. In which case, those zombies are free-willed and have an intelligence, wisdom, and charisma ability scores.

Nota Bene: The animation rite (spell or ability) involves either summoning the shade from the underworld to return to its corpse or to summon a lost soul (one who didn’t receive a proper funereal). From a “rationalist” perspective, the lost soul posesses the corpse only when the original shade is not in the underworld, i.e. in heaven/paradise/elysium, et cetera. However, Christianity for most part suggests that the posessing spirit is almost always a malevolent spirit — a demon. Implying that the wicked are getting punished and the nigromauncer cannot snatch those souls, therefore a demon is enslaved instead. What I like to do is have a rule is that if the nigromauncer animates the corpse within three days of death, the soul is enslaved within its own corpse; otherwise it goes on to its just reward.

Necromancy (Gr. nekromanteia, L. necromantia) is the divination from corpses (e.g. speak with dead) whereas nigromauncie (L. nigromantia) is black magick. In 3e terms, spells with the Evil descriptor is nigromauncie but not all necromancy is nigromauncie. Confused? Do not be concerned as very few non-spellcasters understand the difference either.

On a related note, maleficium is harmful magick and veneficium is venomous magick. In Roman times up through Early Modern Europe, veneficium was highly feared and incurred the consquence of the most painful deaths imaginable. The modern term ‘voodoo dolls’ is an example of veneficium — magical pain & death from an unknown source.

So we end up with speak with dead is necromantia, animate dead is both nigromantia and necromantia but neither are maleficium or veneficium. Whereas a spell such as magick jar is necromantia, nekromantia, maleficium, and veneficium because it involves the transference of a spirits (necromantia), which is evil (nigromantia), harmful (maleficium), and done secretly from a distance (veneficium).

For Part IX, click here.

Night of the Walking Dead in Averoigne Part 7

This is Part VII of my series on adapting the AD&D 2nd Edition Ravenloft module RQ1 Night of the Walking Dead to Clark Ashton Smith’s Averoigne setting, Rober E. Howard’s Cormac Fitzgeoffrey’s setting, early–to–mid 14th Century France, and using the NWN/D&D 3rd edition ruleset. In this post I will be looking at the Village Events section of the module. To read Part I of this series, click here.

VILLAGE EVENTS

Bill Slavicsek writes in this adventure module:

“Speed or slow the events to match the pace of your players.”

Now perhaps it is because I started with the OD&D Whitebox + Greyhawk rules that I refuse to speed up or slow down events. I believe that the game world lives independent of Player Characters. PCs can most certainly influence events, but the world does not wait for the players to act. This is Grymwurld™ and not Schrödinger’s World. In other words, ‘you snooze, you lose.’

However, I also believe that all PCs have the Lucky trait from the AD&D 2nd Edition Skills & Powers book. “Lucky” in this case is a matter of ‘being in the right place at the right time.’ But I also believe that all PCs are also Unlucky and have a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. One might say that the party has a ‘reality distortion field’ around them. In this module there are several encounters that almost always happen to the PCs regardless of what they do or where they are. I am perfectly fine with this precisely because of them being both Lucky and Unlucky at the same time. Weird things always happen to PCs — that is one of the things that makes them PCs.

Day I: The Funeral (Rite)

The PCs basically have no choice but to attend the funeral simply because the entire village has shut down for this event. The way this scenario is setup, the PCs are expected to react as if the village was burying a man alive. The adventure does not explictly state that the PCs do react that way and it does describe what happens if they do not. Consider the following:

“The priest continues his liturgy, even though a muffled bang causes him a moment’s pause. The villagers flinch but quickly regain their composure. The bang sounds again from within the coffin. The coffin rocks back and forth, but the priest and the crowd ignore it.”

How can any first level characters react in that situation without metagaming? The characters are going to naturally assume that the villagers are burying a man alive whereas the players (other than truly novice ones) are going to assume that it is a zombie — especially if they know the name of the module or have seen the cover. I am very tempted to change this scenario to burying people alive rather than zombies! That of course would drastically change this module, but one of these days I will have an adventure like that just to mess with the Players!

There is also an interesting line that I bet all of us GMs have ignored or forgotten about:

“Once free, he [the zombie] attacks the party and tries to escape into the fields east of the village.”

Has any party ever let the zombie escape so as to follow him? Where in the fields does the zombie amble off to? The great house? The secret tunnel on the northeast side of the old cemetery? Here is what Slavicsek wrote:

“If at any time the PCs decide to follow a fleeing ghoul or zombie, they can easily track the undead creature to the fields beyond the Tarascon plantation. After that, the creature loses them in the rows of crops and backtracks to the passage in the side of the cemetery hill. Do not allow the PCs to discover the passage yet.”

Seriously?!? Bad game designer, bad! I really cannot believe that the party cannot follow a zombie. The ghouls are based in the manoir house and therefore would not lead the PCs to the secret tunnel. And why would the PCs discovering the tunnel early ‘mess up’ the adventure? After all, they could climb over the walls of the old cemetery!

So my ruling is thus: I will allow the PCs to follow the zombie to the secret tunnel.

Day II: Scene of the Crime

No matter where the PCs are in the village, at some point they will notice Gremin the Baillif (Constable or Reeve) kneeling in an “alley.” But as I mentioned above, I am okay with this because the PCs are ‘fate magnets.’ In the midst of the blood splatter is the réglisse sanguine (blood-red liquorice). The PCs can offer to help and the Baillif reluctantly accepts (unless the PCs roll a natural 1).

Night II: The Odour of Death (l’odeur de mort)

Some time during the second night while the PCs are relaxing in the common room of the Hospitale de Pleine Lune, Marcel comes up the window and lets out an epic fart! No, seriously!

“…a vile stench wafts into the building. It is the odor of the zombie lord.”

All PCs must pass a Fortitude saving throw versus Poison (DC 14). However for plot reasons, nothing untowards happens if they fail. A success indicates the direction of the miasma. Whereas a Hardcore Old School GM such as myself should never use plot to save the Player Characters. Here are the rules from the module:

“…the odor of death that surrounds Marcel affects all living beings who come within 30 yards [90' radius!] of him. Characters must save vs. poison [DC 14] or suffer one of the following effects:”

Please see the module for the six different possible effects, which range from Weakness to Dying instantly & Rising as a zombie under Marcel’s control. Note that this is a continual effect! Every single round that a living creature is within 90 feet of Marcel, they have to pass a DC 14 Fortitude saving throw versus poison!

Which begs the question, ‘how is it that the entire village has not succumbed to Marcel’s foul emanations?’ The DC for a 0-level character is 16 which guarantees that within 24 seconds (4 rounds) more than 99% of the victims will fail their saving throw. Furthermore, within 54 seconds (9 rounds), 99% of the victims will die and rise up as a zombie under Marcel’s control! So all Marcel has to do is stand next to a cottage for one minute and everyone inside that huge fart will die and turn into a zombie! Over the course of eight hours, the zombie lord can enslave the entire f!@#$%g village! Am I missing something here? Or did Bill Slavicsek and his editor Andria Hayday miss something?!?

One possibility is that once “poisoned,” the victim cannot be “poisoned” again until the effect wears off. For example, if the PC fails their saving throw and rolls a 5, they will be “unable to act for 1d4 rounds due to nausea and vomiting.” But what if the PC rolls a 3 (-1 Point of Constitution)? What is the duration for that ability score loss? In the 3rd Edition rules, PCs regain ability score loss at a rate of 1/day or 2/day if having full bed rest. (I couldn’t find the corresponding rule in the AD&D 2nd Ed. DMG.) So does that mean if a PC loses a point of Con, they are immune to Marcel’s farting for 24 hours?!?

I think it is better to treat repeated “poisonings” as making the effect worse, much like getting bit by multiple venomous snakes. However, this does not solve the problem of Marcel killing off and then enslaving the entire village in one night.

While ruminating on this, we should keep in mind another of Marcel’s abilities:

“Three times per day, Marcel can cast animate dead to create zombies. By using this power on living beings, he can also turn them into zombies. In either case, the range of this innate power is 100 yards [300' range]. If a living target fails a saving throw vs. death, he is instantly slain and rises in 1d4 rounds as a zombie under Marcel’s control.”

By comparison, the AD&D 2nd Edition spell finger of death is 7th level. Only after performing a necromantic ceremony and spending 1,000 gp + 500 gp/corpse, the wizard is able to animate the cadaver as a ju-ju zombie. The range is 60 yards (180'). So Marcel’s ability is perhaps 6th level, since slay living (reverse of raise dead) is 5th level and does not create a zombie. That means, that Marcel can cast a 6th level spell three times per day in addition to all of his other abilities. But why have both the necromantic miasma as well as the super animate dead? Does he animate the dead when he does not want to get within 90 feet and/or does not want to wait the one minute (10 minutes in AD&D 2nd Ed.)?

Now recall that the zombie lord monster first appeared in the AD&D 2nd Edition Monstrous Compendium Ravenloft Appendix in 1991 which predates this module which was published in 1992 and that

“Some of these powers have been enhanced by the Land of Ravenloft…”

In that appendix, a zombie lord’s odor of death only takes effect during the first round of combat. Did Slavicsek & Hayday intentionally remove the ‘first round of combat’ part of the effect or was it an editorial oversight? The special animate dead is only once per day in the appendix whereas Marcel has it thrice a day. I can see where changing from once to thrice per day is the Ravenloft enhancement. There is a long and storied history of D&D abilities being useable thrice per day.

In the Ravenloft 3rd & ½ Edition book Denizens of Dread (2004), the zombie lord’s emanations become the following:

“Aura of Death (Su): The first round that a living creature comes within 90 feet of a zombie lord, it must make a Fortitude save [DC 13] or be affected as if a contagion spell had been cast on it, inflicting a disease of the zombie lord’s choice. Those who fail their save by more than 10 [or roll a natural 1] die instantly and become zombies under the zombie lord’s control. This is a continuous effect that the zombie lord cannot suppress.”

So the zombie lord can choose the disease but cannot suppress the aura?!? While it retains the initial round of the AD&D 2nd Ed. rules, it loses the wild & woolly randomness quality that helps define Old School D&D.

So my ruling is thus: Marcel’s Odour of Death only takes effect during the 1st round of contact rather than be a continuous effect. The original 1–6 possible effects remain. The reasoning behind this ruling is A) too powerful if continous and B) Andria Hayday the editor probably missed this.

So does Marcel go around the cemetery and animate three zombies and then goes into the village each night? Under the AD&D 2nd Edition rules, out of the 300 inhabitants, 225 fail their saving throw the first night (0-level save vs. poison 16). Out of those 225 people, 37 or 38 die and turn into zombies! [Under the 3½ Ed. rules, 45 become a zombie each night.] Hokey smokes, Bullwinkle! After three nights, 1/3 of the ‘300’ are zombies!

This has been happening for three weeks?!? That means that there approximately 5,000 inhabitants three weeks ago for the population to drop to 300!!! Obviously the village was not 5,000 souls three weeks ago, so what is the controlling factor? It must be Jean. He must have been doing a great job of appeasing Marcel to prevent him from creating zombies from the villagers… for the most part. Marcel took Gremin’s son two weeks ago and François a week ago. Perhaps Marcel must create at least one zombie each week regardless of the victims Jean brings to him? Or rather, deposits the victims at least 90' away from Marcel’s tomb. I doubt very much that Jean is immune to Marcel’s farting.

Getting back to the Full Moon Inn, Duncan the Red Shirt (d’Lute) is sacrificed to the Plot God so that the PCs can see him rising as a zombie if they check his room (why?) or merely hear of his missing the next morning. And yet, if they are in the common room, they get to see one of the patrons sacrificed to the Plot God. So why is Duncan sacrificed? When I ran this adventure back in 1994, I changed Duncan’s name to Philippe and made him a troubadour [bard] and most certainly did not kill him off because he made his saving throw (I honestly don’t recall if I fudged the die roll or not). Naturally, he joined the party afterwards because it would be completely natural for him to do so, given the imminent threat. All elite/heroic NPCs would join the PCs to fight this scourge becaues that is what they do (or run away to save their skins…!).

So my ruling is thus: Everyone in Hospitale de Pleine Lune makes their fortitude saving throw versus poison and if they fail, roll a d6 for the effect. Nobody will have plot armour nor will anyone be sacrificed to the Plot God. The story will emerge on its own!

Night Evenfall III: The Madman Strikes

“Late in the afternoon…”

Ah, so this even happens during dusk or twilight and not at night. (*Sigh* Insert yet another snarky comment about editors.)

While this appears as a railroad/story to knee-jerk OSR true believers, let me assure you that it is not! If I wanted to be slavishly OSR, I would create an event table and then roll each day and night to see what happens. But that is just being slavish to a preconceived notion of what Old School “truly” is (cf. No True Scotsman). The purpose of tables with random events/monsters/et cetera is to aid the GM in weaving together the events of a story and not to have a completely random adventure! Nor is this a “quantum ogre,” meaning an encounter that the PCs cannot avoid no matter which direction they take because sooner or later the party will hear a victim screaming.

On Day Two, the PCs discover the scene of the crime. Now on (Day) Three they get a chance to confront the perpetrator. This allows for the build-up of tension. The GM is free make this encounter happen sooner or later which I wholeheartedly support. A very important skill for the GM is to manage the pacing. When the game bogs down, throw in a wandering monster or in this case a murder! Likewise, the players have to catch their breath between dramatic events (e.g. combats) else the game becomes a slog. So while Jean murdering Lillin the hostler’s daughter during evenfall is in the module, the GM is free to change the timing and the victim. And or course if the PCs caught Jean in the townhouse then this event would never happen.

What I also like about this write-up is that Jean does not automatically get away with murder. If the PCs pass the GM rolled listen check (DC 10), they get to stop Jean. If they fail, they hear a second scream but by the time they get there it is too late. Had this been a railroad, the PCs would always get there too late (AD&D 2e) or just in the nick of time (D&D 5e).

However, what I do not like is that Slavicsek gives Jean plot armour. While there is supposed to be an exciting chase scene if the PCs caught Jean in the act, it is impossible for them to catch him. The reasoning is that Jean knows the village better than the PCs, he drops the sanguine liquorice to distract them, and is skilled at hiding. In other words, Jacque le Ripper. There is one problem here and that is that Jean is statted out as a 4th level fighter/Madman but the only abilities beyond that of a fighter are the following:

“Jean is a convincing actor [Skill focus (Bluff) gives +3]. If he attempts to give the PCs a false sense of security, they suffer a -2 penalty to their surprise rolls. Victims thus surprised take triple damage, as if they had been backstabbed by a 5th-level thief.”

Perhaps the Ravenloft Powers (or Anton Misroi le Seigneur du Souragne) gave Jean a +5 to his bluff, hide, and move silently checks. However, he is decked out in studded leather armour which gives him a -3 to his stealth checks. And that is assuming that he simply hides behind a rainbarrel or something. If he slips into an abandoned cottage and closes the door, the PCs might hear the door shut and then Jean is trapped inside.

So my ruling is thus: Hearing Lillin scream is a DC 5 because this encounter will only occur when the PCs are inside a building. If they catch Jean in the act, he will do his best to run away and hide but success if not automatic.

ARISTOCRAT 4 (CR 4): Chaotic/Evil Human Crazed Killer
DETECTION: Listen +2, Spot +2; Init +3; Languages: Common, French, & Occitan
DEFENCES: AC 14 (heavy maille jack), touch 11, flat-footed 14; hp 36 (4d8+4);
ACTIONS: Spd 30 ft.; Mêlée Short-spear +6 (1d6+3; 20/×2); Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.; Base Atk +3
STR 14, DEX 10, CON 12, INT 11, WIS 9, CHA 9
FORT +5, REF +1, WILL +3
FEATS: Armour proficiency (All), Combat reflexes, Skill focus (Bluff, Hide, Listen, Move silently, & Spot), Stealthy &c.
SKILLS: Bluff +9, Discipline +8, Hide +2, Move Silently +2, Parry +7, Sense Motive +6
SPECIAL ABILITIES: Sneak attack +3d6
MAGICK ITEMS: Ring of Deflection +1, Short spear +1 (walking stick), & (2) Potions of Cure minor wounds

Event: The Dinner Party

This is not really an event per se, rather it is what happens if the PCs go to the manoir house around supper time. Note that Luc will not follow the party and stays far away. Yet I can think of no reason for Luc to avoid the house other then it reminds him of who he is but the village would do that as well, right? His traumatic event happened at the Old Cemetery so I can understand his staying away from the entire cemetery, but the manoir house? Luc must somehow know about the servants who became ghouls.

One of the things I like about the Ravenloft Ghouls is that they were once humans who became cannibals. The sin of cannibalism is what transformed them into ghouls!

The module states that Jean insisted that his servants eat human flesh, thus becoming ghouls. I think that in fact, he was much more subtle. After co-opting the local boucher, the cook was told to cook the “veal.” Once the servants had eaten the “veal” upon three different occassions, they became enamoured of it and began the descent into ‘ghouldom.’

The module further states that Jean’s motivation is to emulate his twin’s desire for rotting human flesh (and we finally learn the reason why Marcel goes hunting) yet he lacks the courage to do so. This strikes me as odd. Jean has gone mad with grief over his twin brother becoming a Zombie Lord and resorts to killing off the villagers to feed him yet also corrupts the house servants into ghouls as a twisted empathy with his brother. And yet, he will not taste the “veal”!

Lon Chaney, Sr. in London After Midnight

The way Jean is depicted in this module is a combination of Jack the Ripper and The Hypnotist from London After Midnight. In the latter, Chaney’s hypnotist is actually a vampire or a ghoul. What if Jean had in fact tasted human flesh? After all, he shares a very strong empathy if not sympathy with now–undead–twin, Marcel. And if Marcel lusts for rotting human flesh, then would not Jean feel Marcel’s hunger? Would not that hunger affect him as well? Perhaps when (or if) the PCs find Jean slaughtering Lillin the hostler’s daughter, the notice him hesitating as if to decide whether or not to taste her? Or would it be more horrible to find Jean actually tasting her instead? Perhaps there is an intermediate state between humankind and ghouldom, where the semi-ghoul has the taste for flesh but not the undead qualities of a ghoul? Perhaps a bite for 1d6 damage and two claws for 1d3 damage each but no disease, paralysis, or undead qualities? And also grant an extra hit die to represent the semi-inhuman resistance to pain and burning hunger? But in this case, does it make Jean any more powerful? He uses his cane-spear +1 which is more effective than a bite although without the cane, he gets three attacks (bite, claw, claw) with the multiattack feat. Perhaps he carries the cane during the day but at night eschews it? Something to chew on…! (Sorry, I could not resist!)

Day IV: Facing the Madman (Crazed Killer)

Yeah, his garb is anachronistic but man, it’s cool!

By this point, Jean is fed up… [We apologise for the bad puns in this blog. Those responsible have been sacked] with the PCs’ meddling and decides to kill Luc…? I think it more like Jean is afraid that Luc is close to dropping enough cryptic hints for the PCs to figure out that Marcel is in the ancient… crypt. [We apologise again for the fault in this blog. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.] Finally Jean pursues the party around town, waiting for an opportunity to pick them off one by one. And yet, his stealth skill is actually pretty bad because he is not a thief er rogue. But the Plot God shall not let such minor details get in the way, because it has been decreed that there will be the following dramatic moment:

The madman stands before you, completely enshrouded by a black, hooded cloak. Only the curved dagger in his pale right hand is visible. Then he tosses back the hood, revealing a face twisted by madness and eyes lit by the fire of insanity. That fire is clearly consuming him, burning away what is left of his mind and humanity.

“You should not have come to Marais d’Tarascon,” the madman hisses. “And you should not have brought that whelp of a brother with you!” he shouts, waving his dagger at Luc. “You have forced this confrontation! Let the blood be on your hands as you taste the blade of Jean Tarascon!”

With that, the madman attacks.

I have to wonder if after Jean became crazed, he approached Toma Levi and requested a ‘night-black travelling cloak’ be made? And how convenient is it that before becoming traumatised, he just happened to posess a magical dagger concealable within a walking stick?

Honestly, this whole Jean le Ripper shtick has bugged me from the very beginning. I get that Jean and Marcel have the whole ‘twins empathy trope’ and that Jean is traumatised from Marcel’s horrible undeath. I also like the desperation of Jean bringing a victim to Marcel in order to both keep Marcel “alive” and also to protect the village from Marcel’s predation. But would it not make more sense for Jean to lure the victim to Marcel instead of butchering them in the village? And turning the household staff into ghouls as a sort of twisted sympathy for Marcel yet not “courageous” enough to taste human flesh himself? I have a very hard time buying that. As I mentioned earlier, I think that Jean developing a craving for human flesh certainly ties in with the ‘my–twin–is–undead empathy’. And if Jean did indeed in that taste for human flesh, then he has become some kind of a transitional ghoul — a goule, perhaps. How about the following:

Goule (maneaters)

Goules are creatures who have acquired a taste for the flesh of their own kind and thus have become cursed for comitting the sin of cannibalism. Once a goule dies, it rises three days later as an undead ghoul.

Creating a Goule

“Goule” is an acquired template that can be applied to any living, sentient creature (referred to hereafter as the base creature).

Hit Dice: Add one additional hit die of the base creature’s type. For example, humanoids get an additional d8.

Attacks: Goules retains all the natural weapons, manufactured weapon attacks, and weapon proficiencies of the base creature. A creature with hands gains one claw attack per hand as well as a bite; the goule can strike with each of its claw attacks at its full attack bonus.

Damage: Natural and manufactured weapons deal damage normally. Bite and claw attacks deal damage depending on the goule’s size. (If the base creature already had claw attacks with its hands, use the goule claw damage only if it’s better.) Exempli gratis, a medium-sized goule does claw damage of 1d4 each and a bite of 1d6.

Special Attacks: A goule retains all of the base creature’s special attacks.

Special Qualities: A goule retains all of the base creature’s special qualities.

Saves: A goule gains a +1 bonus to Fort, Ref, & Will saving throws over and above that of the base creature’s.

Abilities: No change.

Skills: Bluff, Climb, Hide, Listen, Move silently, & Spot become class skills and the goule gains 1 additional rank in each of those skills.

Feats: A goule gains the following feats — Alertness, Multiattack, Skill focus (Bluff, Climb, Hide, Listen, Move silently, & Spot), Stealthy, and Toughness.

Environment: Same as the base creature.

Organisation: Solitary.

Challenge Rating: Depends on Hit Dice.

Treasure: Depends on the base creature

Alignment/Intent: Always chaotic/ evil.

Advancement: As base creature.

Level Adjustment: None.

Jean, Sieur de Crapaud (Crazed Human Goule)

Size/Type: Medium Aristocrat 3/Humanoid 1 (Human)
Hit Dice: 4d8+8 (40 hp)
Initiative: +3
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares)
Armour Class: 14 (+1 ring, +3 heavy maille jack), touch 11, flat-footed 14
Base Attack/Grapple: +5/+3
Attack: 2 claws +3 mêlée (1d4+2 / 20 × 2)
Full Attack: Bite +3 mêlée (1d6+2 /20 × 2) and 2 claws +1 mêlée (1d4+2 / 20 × 2)
Space/Reach: 5 ft. / 5 ft.
Special Attacks: Sneak attack (+1d6)
Special Qualities: Rise as a ghoul 3 days post mortem
Saves: Fort +4, Ref +2, Will +4
Abilities: Str 14, Dex 10, Con 12, Int 11, Wis 9, Cha 9
Skills: Bluff +9, Climb +6, Hide +6, Intimidate +9, Listen +5, Move silently +6, Persuade +5, Spot +5
Feats: Alertness, Armour proficiency (Light), Multiattack, Skill focus (Bluff, Climb, Hide, Intimidate, Listen, Move silently, & Spot), Stealthy, and Toughness.
Environment: Le Village des Crapauds
Organisation: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 4
Treasure: Ring of Deflection +1, (3) Potions of Cure Minor Wounds
Alignment: Always chaotic/evil

Jean prefers to use his bluff skill to lure unspecting victims and then attack them while they are flat-footed.

Nota bene: In the Neverwinter Nights videogame, the toughness feat adds +1 hit point/die rather than a flat +3.

POST SCRIPT

After sitting on this for a couple of days, I am still not comfortable with the depiction of Jean. In the original module, he acquires 5 levels of thief (for all intents & purposes) over the course of three weeks. Perhaps we can hand-wave that away by calling it a gift from the Ravenloft Dark Powers. In the pseudo-historical world of Averoigne and Cormac Fitzgeoffrey, I suppose we could call it a gift from Satan — but in both of these instances, it feels like a cheap excuse. So then I created a Crazed Human Goule as an interim step between Human and Ghoul with a bite, claws, and 1st level Rogue abilities. It does not feel as contrived but it still stretches credibility a bit. So I reserve the right to change Jean’s statistics later.

Next up: Night of the Walking Dead in Averoigne Part VIII.

Night of the Walking Dead in Averoigne Part 6

Continuing my series on adapting the AD&D 2nd Edition Ravenloft module RQ1 Night of the Walking Dead to Clark Ashton Smith’s Averoigne, 14th Century France, Grymwurld 3rd Edition™, and the Neverwinter Nights videogame. Plus I am trying to link in Robert E. Howard’s Cormac Fitzgeoffrey stories as well. Part One of this series can be found here.

The Owls

In shelter of the vaulted yews,
Like alien gods who shun the world,
The flown owls wait with feathers furled,
Darting red eyes. They dream and muse.

In rows unmoving they remain
Till the sad hour that they remember,
When, treading down the sun’s last ember,
The towering night resumes its reign.

Their attitude will teach the seer
How wise, how needful is the fear
Of movement and of travailment:

For shadow-drunken wanderers bear
On all their ways the chastisement
Of having wished to wend elsewhere.

— by Charles Pierre Baudelaire, translated by Clark Ashton Smith and published in the Auburn Journal on the 1st of Octobre, 1925.

PART II: LE VILLAGE DES HIBOUX

I changed the name of the village from Marais d’Tarascon (Swamp of Tarascon in bad French) to Les Hiboux (The Owls) because A) Bad French, B) Les Hiboux is the village on the edge of the wetlands in Averoigne, C) Tarascon is a real city in Southern France and this is not it, and D) I think ‘Swamp of Tarascon’ is a stupid name for a village. Granted, Averoigne fits central rather than Southern France but I want a direct link to Averoigne yet I want to place this adventure in the Ille de Camargue (between the La Petit Rhône and La Grande Rhône rivers) or La Petite Camargue (West bank of La Petit Rhône) because the Camargue is the largest wetland in all of France. Perhaps I will change the name of the village by the time this is all over or perhaps the Grym™ version of Averoigne will be in Southern rather than Central France. I reserve the right to let the story sort it all out, as I am a huge fan of emergent gameplay.

This part of the module assumes that the party has met Luc and that either Luc is following them or that they killed him and his ghost appears at the plot–appointed–times to deliver the necessary–plot–hints. Here is an interesting quote:

“As soon as the PCs enter the village, Jean Tarascon [Luc’s elder brother] learns of their arrival.”

How in the world does Jean immediately learn of their arrival? Is Jean actually a Ravenloft-style domain lord of the village?!? No doubt the villagers would start gossiping as soon as strangers emerge from the swamp and news does travel fast in tight-knit communities. Does the plot require Jean to know of their arrival immediately? No, of course not. I point this out as one of my many frustrations with this module and how it does not hurt the plot to remove it. However, in all fairness to Slavicsek, he does not give Luc “plot” armour (as NWN frequently encourages us to do):

“If the PCs have killed Luc, Jean doesn’t become overly concerned with the party until they try to find the murderer (him), get too close to Marcel, or until Luc appears as a ghost….”

The Village

Les Hiboux consists of 300 souls which makes it a hamlet according to the D&D 3rd Edition DMG. As a hamlet, it has a GP Limit of 100 gold deniers (pennies) which means that nothing is for sale that costs more than 100 gp. [I’m using the Carolingian currency system, subtituting gold for silver.] Also, there are no more than 1,500 gp (½ gp limit × 10% of pop.) worth of any one item for sale and the hamlet cannot purchase more than 1,500 gp worth of goods from the party. — I like the gold piece and population limits of 3rd Edition, They are similar to what C&S did but are in D&D price terms. However, I am not enamoured of 3rd Edition’s non-adventurers with levels. I prefer the older edition’s use of 0-level characters (“monsters”).

“East of the village is the Tarascon plantation. From a distance it looks impressive, but on closer inspection, it is obvious that the fields have not been tended in weeks.”

This is another anachronism we need to deal with. This usage of the word ‘plantation’ dates to the 18th and 19th centuries. Les Hiboux must be part of a manour. Instead of plantation, we shall refer to it as fields. Interestingly, the English word hamlet comes from the Old French hamelet which is a diminuative of hamel which is a diminuative of ham. A diminuative of a diminuative! According to Etymology Online, hamlets are typically small villages without a church whereas according to Wikipedia, villages in the UK without a church are called hamlets. It goes on to say that hamlets with churches are actually villages that have become depopulated. A hah! This makes a lot more sense for us. The population of 300 souls are what is left of the original 401+ inhabitants. Given that the fields are untended tells us that the serfs are all dead which would certainly account for the population disparity.

As an aside, at one point I thought very seriously of having zombies working the fields. The Camargue, as with the swamps of the Southern United States, are rife with mosquitoes. Malaria plagued the Mediterrean until recent times. Not surprisingly, the Camargue was sparsely populated until the last century as well. Zombies, of course, cannot catch malaria and ignore mosquito and midge bites. So an enterprising necromancer could set-up and run a large scale salt mining and rice farming operation in the wettest parts without losing the workforce. Even as the zombies decayed, they would just become skeletons. New slaves could be brought in and when they died, just animate them as zombies. Somewhat related to this, Charles Mann in his book “1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created” cites sources that speculate the driving reason for importing West African slaves was because of their natural resistance to malaria. Malaria, by the way did not exist in the americas prior to African slavery. Chicken or the egg?

But if I put zombies to work in the rice fields and salt mines, that drasically changes the story. Instead it becomes one of the PCs stumbling upon a Village of the Dead where they must fight to escape because the zombie master does not want his secret to get out! Which could be an interesting adventure itself…!

“The PCs can wander freely, speaking with whomever they wish. Murders, zombies, disappearances — the events of the past weeks have caused a fearful mood to settle over the village. (Assume that Marcel died three weeks ago, regardless of how long the PCs have spent in the swamp.) Everyone is nervous and more than a little afraid. Some have spoken of fleeing to Port d’Elhour, but at the moment such a course of action is still only talk.”

Why are the villagers still there?!? Yeah, I know that in Ravenloft everyone is trapped although in this case there really is a Port d’Elhour and the villagers could have fled there. So why did they not do so? They are free peasants, not serfs. Which also begs the question — what happened during the Black Death? Did villagers flee? Did they adopt a fatalist attitude and stay? Did they believe that the plague was everywhere and so it did no good to flee? It has been years since I read The Black Death by Philip Ziegler but I think the answer is ‘all of the above.’ However this case is different. Between the murders, farting zombie lord, and servants–becoming–ghouls–because–of–forced–cannibalism, I would pack up everything and leave as would you, right? If only one of those three currents of death were happening, then people staying is more believable. After all, a murderer on the loose would cause a self-imposed curfew but not flight from the village. Likewise a zombie whose farts create more zombies but only at night would also cause a curfew (except we learn later on that those farts can permeate the walls through the cracks & crevices). The disappearance of servants by themselves would make everyone nervous but not flee. But all three together?!? It drove me crazy 26 years ago and it still drives me crazy!

The Manoir or Manorial Estate

So if we expand the “Tarascon Swamp-Village” to be a proper manour, it would be appropriate to base it on four different economic activities: (1) Rice farming (riz sanguine or ‘blood rice’), (2) Salt mining, (3) Animal husbandry (semi-feral Camargue White Horse & wild Pink Flamingos), and (4) supplementary food (vegetables, chickens, & pigs) and goods (leatherworking, smithing &c.) for strictly local consumption. On the other hand, if the manoir has declined over the last two centuries, then it first lost the animal husbandry. This adventure takes place shortly after the rice farming has stopped. There is historical support for a declining manoir, in that there was a population boom during the 11th, 12th, and mid-13th centuries followed by several famines, being the 1304, 1305, 1310, and the Great Famine of 1315–1317, which was part of the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages. Given that Pierre founded the manoir more than two centuries ago, there has been plenty of time for a rapid growth followed by an even more rapid decline.

Mesne Lordship: The “d’Tarascons” are lords of the manour (seigneurs du manoir) who are enfeoffed to a mesne lord. They hold a fraction of a knight’s fee and can be thought of as country squires or gentlemen. Their lord may be a knight, an abbey, or a church, who is a vassal or a great lord or tenant-in-chief who in turn is a vassal of a king. The Mesne Lord in this case could be the Archbishopric of Arles, Psalmody Abbey (Abbaye de Psalmodie), the Bishopric of Nimes (Nîmes), or the town of Aigas Mòrtas (Aigues-Mortes). I find a number of things interesting about Aigas Mòrtas. First off the name, comes from the Latin Aquae Mortuæ which means ‘dead water.’ Granted, the name refers to the numerous salt marshes and ponds which are not potable, but a name like Dead Water? How grym is that?!? In 1240 (future Saint) Louis IX bought the town from his brother Charles d’Anjou who was king of Agde, Aragon, & Naples as well as the count of Montpellier & Toulouse. Aigue-Mortes is where the Louix IX and his crusaders departed for the seventh and eighth crusades. And it was at Aigue-Mortes that Philip the Fair incarcerated the templars at the Tower of Constance in 1307.

So what I am thinking now is that two centuries or so ago, Pierre of Tarascon acquired land from the Psalmody Abbey in return for paying rent. In 1240, the King of France acquired the land as part of the purchase from the monks. The “Tarascons” have either been so successful that they are left alone (so long as they pay their taxes) or they do so poorly that they have been largely forgotten. Given the small population of 300, I am inclined to go with the latter.

The “Tarascon” Family

At this point, I have to ‘bite the bullet’ and come up with a replacement name for “d’Tarascon” because A) Bad French and more importantly B) Tarascon is a real place (famous for the Tarasque attack) and while their ancestor Pierre may have been born in Tarascon, it makes no sense at all to retain that name. If anything, they would take their name from the land where Pierre founded the village, namely Les Hiboux or The Owls. Which gives us Jean de les Hiboux or John of the Owls. Alternatively, if we link in the Mother of Toads (la mère de crapauds) or the Mother of Frogs (la mère de grenouilles) then we could have Jean de les Crapauds (John of the Toads) or Jean de les Grenouilles (John of the Frogs). [As always, my apologies as my French is only slightly better than Slavicsek’s.] This still sounds weird. John of Owls or John of the Owls; John of Toads or John of the Toads; or even John of Frogs or John of the Frogs. I have to think about it. For the time being, I shall use the name of the village. Thus we get Jean de les Hiboux.

Village Buildings & Inhabitants

Villager–PC Interaction: Except for the shopkeepers, villagers are wary of strangers and are feeling trapped. Thus they have a -5 penalty versus Charisma & Charisma-skill checks. Retries are allowed every every day but with a cumulative -2 penalty. In D&D 3rd Edition terms, the DC is 15 and increases by +2 with each retry. [Man, that is harsh! Let’s hope there is no critical info needed from the non-shopkeepers!] Note that a DC of 15 is actually the standard & normal DC for indifferent NPCs!

As an aside: This is another example of where D&D 3rd edition changed the baseline difficulty from a DC 10 (roll under your ability score or no modifiers to an AD&D 2nd Ed. skill check) to a DC 15. I suspect that the reasoning is that because in 3rd Ed., PCs can pump their skills (4 at 1st level) and ability scores have greater bonuses, that the number are equivalent. While that is true for core skills (Rogues with a Dex of 15 and 4 ranks in Open Locks have a +6 to their roll), it is not true for all other skills. Consequently in 3rd Edition, 1st level PCs in general have a more difficult time doing almost everything compared to their counterparts for the previous 16 years! So my advice is to decrease all DCs by 5 points for all skill checks not covered by core skills (open locks, disable traps, &c.); in other words set the default to DC 10 rather than 15. For that matter, for skills that can easily take 20 (again locks & traps) the base DC should be 20.

Full Moon Inn (Hospitale de Pleine Lune): An unusually large inn (two-storey; attached stable) for a decaying village of 300 souls. I would describe it as being a mouldering, crumbling, and decaying inn that is long past its heyday. The module describes the food service in anachronistic terms (“Food is served from early morning until a respectable night hour…”). In the 14th century, an inn operates more like what we know as a Bed & Breakfast in that it is family-run and they serve a common meal at breakfast, dinner, and supper. If the guests are late, then it is too bad for them. And also that supper and the following breakfast consist mainly of the leftovers from the previous dinner.

One of the barmaids is “a chatty young woman named Katha”, i.e. a Chatty Cathy. Hey! This would not be D&D without bad puns right? She has an interesting and useful story to tell the PCs. That being the case, is a die roll necessary? I think that so long as the player makes a sincere attempt to talk to her, no roll is necessary. Likewise if the player is being an ass, he automatically fails.

Duncan d’Lute: An “agent for several businesses in Port d’Elhour” or a Scottish minstrel? Apparently he has no useful knowledge at all and is wearing a red tunic [obligatory Star Trek reference].

Boulangerie [Bakery]: Louise [d’Cann] la Boulangère has a rumour and she makes red liquorice in addition to various & sundry baked goods. Red liquorice is an important clue but it is also an anachronism. Liquorice (a.k.a. black liquorice) dates back to ancient times but red liquorice is a 20th century [even if 17th C. is still an anachronism] invention from what I can determine. Since the red colour of the liquorice is also important, How about blood liquorice as a compromise? The PCs can enquire of Louise her secret but of course she will not divulge it. And as with Chatty Katha above, no roll is necessary. Any halfway decent rôleplaying will succeed in learning about the rumour and réglisse sanguine (blood liquorice).

Clue: Jean Sieur des Hiboux, the Carpenter’s children, and Samuel all love the blood liquorice.

Charpentier [Carpenter]: Marcus [Bordell] le Charpentier has a rumour to share. No skill checks necessary. Given that his children run are running around, there is an opportunity for the PCs to offer some blood liquorice or to enquire is they would like some.

Sacrestain: Pierrot le Sacrestain is the goundskeeper & gravedigger (sexton) for the church. Pierrot prefers to keep to himself but if influenced (DC 15), he will share his plans to leave after the storm has passed. Now it is not spelled out in the module, but I think that Pierrot knows a lot more about what is happening in le cimetière. This is exactly the kind of NPC where some careful roleplaying (bluffing, bribing, intimidating, & persuading) will reap rewards. Note that the module spells his name as “Pierot” but I very strongly suspect it should be Pierrot which is the diminuative of Pierre. Much like Pete is to Peter.

Constable [Reeve]: Constable Gremin, like everyone else has both his office and residence in a single building. There is a small gaol next door. Is Gremin a Russian? There is a Prince Gremin in the opera, Eugene Onegin and I can find no other Gremins. Now in the early–to–mid 14th Century, “Russia” was the Grand Duchy of Moscow and a vassal of the Golden Horde. Perhaps Gremin is an exile or a former mercenary or both.

But more importantly, Gremin has been traumatised by his son’s death from the miasma (Marcel’s exhalations) and subsequent animation. He is very frustrated by Jean’s refusal to speak to him, the murders, and the missing house-servants [& probably the missing serfs]. Gremin is a man on edge. Rather than seeing the arrival of the PCs as an aid to him, his attitude is more like “Oh great, this is the last thing I need now!” Gremin’s inclination is to throw the party in the gaol but he will not do that without cause. I do not think that Gremin is someone who can be brought over to the PC’s side with some compelling arguments; rather I think the PCs have to prove themselves.

WARRIOR 2 (CR 1): Lawful/Good Human (Russian)
DETECTION: Listen +1, Spot +1; Init +1; Languages: Common, French, & Russian
DEFENCES: AC 17 (heavy maille byrnie & buckler), touch 11, flat-footed 15; hp 11 (2d8+2);
ACTIONS: Spd 30 ft.; Mêlée Falchion +5 (1d8+3); Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.; Base Atk +5
STR 16, DEX 12, CON 14, INT 15, WIS 13, CHA 10
FORT +6, REF +1, WILL +1
FEATS: Combat Reflexes, Power Attack, et alia.
SKILLS: Discipline +8, Parry +6, Sense Motive +1

Samuel’s Cottage: Samuel (Shmu’el) des Garrennes is a Sephardic Jew who studied magick in the Kingdom of Toledo and fled due to the anti-Jewish pogroms conducted by the king of Toledo with the approval of the archbishop. Samuel is very friendly to the PCs as he is starved for news of the outside world as well as a new audience for his (conspiracy) theories. He is not in the least bit frightened by recent events but in fact believes that they are all connected to a pagan Toad Mother cult. Given the opportunity, he will offer some blood liquorice to the party and regale them with his tale:

Pierre left Tarascon shortly after his family and home were destroyed by the tarasque — one of the Adversary’s children. He wandered from town to town as a vagabond, but was not able to settle into a regular job. In the course of his wanderings he ended up in the marshland near here and that is where he met La Mère des Crapauds — an enormous nymph with … huge tracts of land. I believe that the Greeks would call her an heleionomai — a wetland nymph. The Toad-Mother was lonely and offered Pierre a deal. If he would be a husband to her, then Pierre and his descendants could grow a bountiful crop from the land. Thus Pierre and the eldest son of each generation would marry the heleionomai. Have you not noticed that Jean has no wife, mother, nor grandmother? That is because he is married to the Mother of Toads like his father and grandfather before him. Alas! The land is suffering because Jean has not been a dutiful husband, son, and grandson to her. He allows Brucian to spread the religion of the false messiah and so La Mère is neglected. Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned and now she takes her revenge!

Any further discussion with Samuel is useless as he just cackles on and on about the Toad-Mother taking her revenge. Perhaps once the PCs return with new information, Samuel will be more helpful.

MAGUS 1 (CR 1): Neutral/Good Human (Sephardic Jew)
DETECTION: Listen +0, Spot +0; Init +0; Languages: Common, French, Hebrew, Spanish, & Arabic
DEFENCES: AC 11, touch 11, flat-footed 10; hp 14 (1d4);
ACTIONS: Spd 30 ft.; Mêlée Dagger +0 (1d4); Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.; Base Atk +0
STR 8, DEX 10, CON 10, INT 16, WIS 10, CHA 9
FORT +0, REF +0, WILL +2
FEATS: Combat Casting, Skill focus (Concentration) et alia.
SKILLS: Discipline -1, Parry +0, Sense Motive +0
SPELLS: Charm person, Sleep
MAGICK ITEMS: Scroll of (1d6+1) Comprehend Languages

Note: Slavicsek uses the name Mordu which means “bitten” in French. The character of Mordu reminds me of Harley Warren who appears in Lovecraft’s short story “The Statement of Randolph Carter” (1920). Apparently Warren is based on Lovecraft’s friend Samuel Loveman. Given that Mordu has a conspiracy theory about The Cult of the Swamp God, I figure that this is a perfect opportunity to introduce the Mother of Toads. Is it true? By the end of this series of posts, we shall know for certain!

General Store: Now the name ‘general store’ itself is an anachronsim dating to 19th Century United States. However, it is such a useful stand-in for a variety of shops that I am inclined to retain it. A dwarf Human named Deruno and his average-sized family run the shop. If the PCs have established a good reputation for themselves, Deruno will offer to loan them his personal collection of magick items — (3) potions of Cure Light Wounds, Bracers of Deflection +1, and a Longsword +1.

Note: The only reference to “deruno” I can find is “deruño” which appears to be a Cuban-Spanish word for “ruin.”

Blacksmith: Jordi le Forgeron is the stereotypical “strong & silent” type. Small talk makes him feel uncomfortable. When he does speak, it is with a Catalonian accent. Jordi fears Luc and cry out while backing away clutching his hammer when he sees Luc with the party. There is something about Luc that induces panic in Jordi. My guess is that he had a traumatic experience with an insane person when he was a child, a parent perhaps. Upon hearing the commotion, Jordi’s wife Nadine comes running into the anteroom.

Nadine explains that Jordi and herself are agrieved over the disappearance of their son Colin who worked in the big (manour) house. Constable Gremin is investigating Colin’s disappearance. Nadine begs the PCs’ assistance. If the PCs agree, then Jordi shares one of the rumours.

Notre Dame des Hiboux: Father Brucian is the vicar of the Church of Our Noble Lady. Brucian is the son of a Scottish mercenary who settled in Southern France. Brucian treats the PCs with polite reticence. Similarly to Constable Gremin, Fr. Brucian is initially suspicious of the PCs suspecting that they may in fact be bandits or brigands set to rob the village. And also like Gremin, sweet talking the vicar will not change his disposition but actions will.

Christian, Pagan, or both? Here is an interesting opportunity. Is Father Brucian a Christian priest, assigned to this village by the Bishop of Ximes? Is he actually a priest of the Toad Mother cult? If what Shmu’el said about the Mother of Toads is true, then would not Brucian be the head of her cult? On the other hand, the story of Marcel is that Fr. Brucian attempted perform the miracle of raise dead and it failed. Or perhaps he prayed for a miracle and it was not granted. After all, why did he have a scroll with three raise dead spells on it? He is only 2nd level. Recall that in Part II of this series, I found the entry in the Realm of Terror boxed set that said “The shaman is not afraid to enter the swamp.” If he was a priest of the Toad Mother, he would have no fear of the swamp. But as a Christian priest, he could also be full of faith and likewise go forth with no fear (or at least a deep knowledge of the swamp). There is also precedence for being both. There are stories of English priests who were nominally vicars of Christ yet paid homage to the local nature spirit(s). For the moment, this will be Fr. Brucian and we shall see how that works out.

Les Hiboux or Les Crapauds? As I work through the incorporation of Clark Ashton Smith’s Mother of Toads, I wonder if it might make more sense to name the village Les Crapauds (the toads) rather than Les Hiboux (the owls)? Owls hunt toads and frogs, and a village called “The Owls” probably has a lot of owls in it. Hardly a place held in dominion by a Frog-Nymph. Also, by no longer setting the story in Les Hiboux then it no longer has to be exactly in Averoigne but can be contemporary with it or adjacent to it; id est, inspired by it. The downside to this is that it becomes much harder to reference Averoigne and part of the fun is to make it feel like the PCs are in fact adventuring in Averoigne. Of course, we could go back to my original idea of Averoigne overlaying the Southern Rhône watershed…!

ADEPT 2 (CR 1): Neutral/Good Human
DETECTION: Listen +3, Spot +3; Init -1; Languages: Common, French, Latin
DEFENCES: AC 9, touch 9, flat-footed 10; hp 5 (2d4);
ACTIONS: Spd 30 ft.; Mêlée: Dagger -1 (1d4+1); Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.; Base Atk -1
STR 13, DEX 8, CON 11, INT 14, WIS 16, CHA 12
FORT +0, REF -1, WILL +6
FEATS: Weapon finesse, et alia.
SKILLS: Discipline +1, Parry -1, Sense Motive +3
SPELLS: Bless, Cure minor wounds, Protection from evil, & Purify food & drink

Cemetery Hill: Instead of Claudine the mother of Jean, Marcel, & Luke, their immediate father Claude is interred there. This will reinforce the weird lack of women in the Crapaud family.

After Dark: It strikes me as a bit odd that two ghouls are opening up the newly interred zombie. In fact the text states the following:

“If the PCs pause to watch the disinternment, then they must deal with the newly-freed zombie as well as the ghouls.”

Why are the ghouls freeing the zombie? Do ghouls hunt down and eat zombies? Since Marcel is a zombie lord, why does he not open the vault himself or get one of his zombies to do it? After all, the ghouls are nominally under the control of Jean. But would it not be cool if ghouls hunted zombies for food? It would probably screw up this module, but it is certainly food for thought (*groan*)!

The Old Cemetery: Abandoned over a century ago. There are three ways to enter: over the 10' high stone walls (DC 20 or DC 5 when using a grappling hood & knotted rope), through the secret passage, or through the heavy chains, lock, & iron gate (Open Lock DC 26 or Break the lock hardness 15, hp 30).

Why not break into the Old Cemetery & end the adventure quickly? If I was playing this adventure, I would certainly break into the Old Cemetery as soon as possible. After all, the boss monster and the best loot are always in the ancient unused and forgotten cemetery, right? Thankfully, Slavicsek thought of that:

“If the PCs decide to explore the old cemetery before all the “Village Events” have occurred, go to Part III and run the encounters listed there. You’ll have to make two changes. First, the zombies have not yet been unleashed upon the village. As a result, there will be more at Marcel’s side; double the amount of zombies listed in each encounter. Second, Jean is still on the loose. He comes to Marcel’s aid and fights alongside him in the final battle unless the PCs have dealt with him beforehand.”

Doubling the number of zombies because they have not gone out into the village makes perfect sense. Jean coming to Marcel’s aid… well I think the reasoning is that because they are twins, they share a magical empathy which still remains even during undeath. Jean’s empathy with his undead twin brother is part of the reason why Jean has gone mad. However, Jean cannot teleport! Even running at top speed, surely it would take Jean at least 15 minutes to race through the village, push the rock aside, scramble through the tunnel, and push the statue aside in order to join the fight. Any faster and he would be exhausted. Given how fast fights run in 3rd Edition, 15 minutes is 150 rounds! From the time Marcel notices the PCs to Jean arriving, it will be too late. So I think the plan should be just as the PCs are looting Marcel’s lair, Jean leaps from the shadows to take his revenge!

Fiora’s Cottage: Fiora is the old woman that Chatty Katha said had also smelled the mal aria (malevolent air) that turned Francois into a zombie. Fiora has barricaded herself in her cottage yet calls out for her daughter Thérèse, who until her recent disappearance worked in the ‘big house’. If successfully influenced (DC 15), Fiora will tell of the frightening flesh eaters who haunt the cemetery at night and also that it was been two weeks since she has seen her beloved Thérèse.

Crapaud Townhouse: The Crapaud family maintains a townhouse in the village in addition to their fortified manoir house out amongst the rice fields and herds of semi-feral white horses. During the daytime, there is an 80% chance to find Jean here but only a 20% chance at night.

The townhouse is locked up tight and all the shutters are closed. The locks are “masterful” with a -12 penalty to pick. If the doors are knocked, nobody answers. The doors are made of heavy wood reinforced with iron. They have 30 hit points with a hardness of 5. Every time a door is struck there is a 50% chance of a villager noticing and bringing Constable Gremin. The module says that Gremin can arrive in 1–6 minutes! I find that very hard to believe given that a villager has to first find Gremin, tell him that the PCs are trying to break into the townhouse, and then he has to jog over there. I think it is more likely for 5d4 minutes to find Gremin, 1d4 minutes to explain what is going on and 3d4 minutes for his arrival which works out to 9d4 (9–36) minutes before he arrives. This sets up an interesting problem for the PCs. Breaking into a home is illegal so of course Gremin has to stop them. If they resist arrest, one of them may get killed before Gremin is killed.

Killing Gremin is a Chaotic/Evil act and will have their alignment/intent adjusted accordingly (I’m thinking one full step in both directions; e.g. L/G becomes N/N). The villager who reported the PCs will be a witness and will tell all the other villagers unless the PCs kills that person as well (another major C/E act). There is a 50% chance that the murder of Gremin will have another witness and the murder of any witness will have a 50% chance of being witnesses, et cetera et cetera. The end result will be the “angry villager rule.”

Running away from Gremin is fairly easy to do since they have a head start and Gremin will not step outside the village. However, Gremin will quickly spread the word and the entire village will turn against the PCs. After all, the PCs were suspected of being bandits and this only proves the suspicion.

Go Directly to Gaol: Not only is this the non-violent option, but it gives everyone a chance to cool off. Gremin needs some sort of dialogue such as “STOP IT! STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING RIGHT NOW! NOW GET YOUR ARSE IN GAOL! C’MON, STEP TO IT!”

Nota bene: According to the module, the PCs can prevent an arrest by influencing Gremin (DC 20) or by charming him. Each sucessive infractions increases the DC by 5. Once in gaol, the PCs can retry the influence. There is no penalties for retry however the attempt may only be made once each day. When the zombies attack the village, Gremin will release them regardless of how he feels about them. Alternatively they could pick the lock (DC 24; rogue gets a -2 for improvised thieves’picks) or break it (hardness 5, hp 10). But if they do escape from the gaol, the entire village will treat them as bandits.

Inside the Townhouse: If the PCs break-in while Jean is there, he will attempt to avoid them. The DC to spot or listen is 20 because Jean knows all the hiding places, soft carpets, and squeaking floorboards. The module says that Jean will not attack even if he has one of them alone (e.g. the wizard) but will do so later. Why would that be? Given that he knows the layout so well, he could easily kill one of the PCs and slip out without getting caught. Especially if the PC is unarmoured (e.g. the wizard). I will let this one slide for the moment in the hopes that it will be explained later but I reserved the right to have Jean murder a PC and then hide. Imagine the terror!

Murder Evidence: If the PCs search behind the bookcase in Jean’s study, they will find a small alcove and inside is a scroll tube containing the Hiscosa scroll and a black hooded cloak with blood liquorice in the pocket. — An Jean allows the PCs to take the scroll?!? Seriously?!?

Tomas le Tailleur: Toma Levi and his family are Maghrebi Jews recently from Marseille. The Levi family perform all sorts of tailoring work from repairing gambesons & haquetóns to making new clothes in the Marseille fashion. Toma will softly complain that not even mon sieur Jean will consent to wearing a cotehardie. Hopefully the PCs are not so conservative.

Toma has a rumour to share and if show the piece of cloth ripped from the ghoul in the cemetery, he will identify it as part of the Crapaud livery; most likely from the servants in the big house.

Crapaud Fortified Manoir House: Like the townhouse, the manoir house is shuttered and locked (DC 32). If the PCs arrive at night, they experience the “Dinner Party” event.

NEXT: Click here for Part VII.