This has always been my favorite module. First time I played D&D back in 1980 in college, the DM used this module. I would go on to DM it too. It's just such a great setting to begin a campaign.
My take on the "plot" is this: The Keep is divided by two political factions, one loyal to the Duje back home, and one who wants to be independent. There is also religious strife between the Clerics and the Druids. Meanwhile, the cult in the Temple of Evil Chaos is attepting to unify the monster tribes into a force to attack the keep; so he is behind the increase of raids as he tries to get vitories to increase his power, and he is trying to sew strife among the political factions of the keep.
A lot of these are nice for 5e. But this was meant to be played with B/X D&D, OSE, or DCC. This module is supposed to be an untamed wilderness. Without a high reaction roll most creatures in the cave are going to and will kill you. 0 HP isn’t unconscious, it’s death, no saving throws, negative HP, reducing to 0 HP is dead. So a lot of the ransoming of Heroes would be really hard when L1 adventures having 1-6 hit points plus the rare + 1 - 3 hit points for a grand total of maybe 9 if you’re lucky. So I was hoping to see that. Preparing how to run it for that.
one thing he missed was in old school playing you have hired hands like spearmen along with you. I think the 0 hp = knocked out is a 1e DMG rule, and it's not really a bad idea. I play a wargame where only "star" creatures can kill a PC. If you lose a battle the next one is an escape. If you lose that , well, youre toast. Might be interesting to apply to this. People don't like to go through stacks of characters like we used to lol
My 2 cents worth. I placed the keep at the Dukes Road keep rather than the Castellan keep as it makes more sense in regards to the road and caravan route in my opinion. I used Von Hendriks (The Black Eagle Baron) and his Iron Ring guild as the force behind the evil cult in the caves. The Black Baron is cultivating a hoard via this cult amongst the humanoids for the coming war as detailed in X10 Red Arrow Black Shield. His efforts hope to raise the Chaos Legion from amongst the humanoids to either besiege the keep or occupy and block the road south of the keep to disrupt trade from the north (Darokin) and draw the Karameikos relief force into battle and away from his attacks on Luln, in the west. The Chaos Legion consists of around 250 troops drawn from the caves under 3 sub units called Skulls. Green Skull: Goblins/Hobgoblins Red Skull: Kobolds/Orcs Black Skull: Undead/Evil Clerics and a HQ unit consisting of Gnolls and the raiders (from encounter 3 wilderness) who are a detachment from Von Hendriks Lance of Doom units as detailed in X10 and spying on the keep in preparation for the attack. The force is lead by the Minotaur and the Ogre as his second in Comd, under the watchful eye of the Master Cleric. Also the evil priest within the keep is an agent of the Iron Ring. The keeps defenders are a standard battalion of the Dukes army albeit slightly under strength as listed in the module personal numbers.
I was just about to put a reply (onto your very own kind reply) to say "it's been 4 months dude! Keep going!" (I didn't want to say "where's the rest?" Or anything else that seemed entitled or intimidating) But lo and behold you're back on the horse! Good to hear your voice again buddy. Keep up the good work 👍
you could always put the minotaur cave somewhere else. I may run Into the Borderlands in the future and I think I'm gonna tie it in with the A series Slavers. Rogan and Zelligar will have been the original slave lords and the barbarians eventually overran their fortress because of it. I also like to turn the mad hermit into a witch and have her be a shapeshifting druid (mechanically shes a druid but shes a witch) and can function as a quest giver. Another thing I always thought was the critters in the caves were like an advance party for a larger force of humanoids. Honestly even if they all attacked the Keep at once they wouldnt be able to take it over, but if they could get the Keep to attack the caves and take some casualties in their garrison a large force could march right in THat being said , another idea is to add a lower town outside the keep and you can have goblins that ride dire wolves raid it. I have wolfriders use lassoes and they will pull someone out of a formation , then run off with them. Thats why you want to find the goblins in lair, as they dont have their mobility. A good exercise is to think of each group of humanoids and what they would do if they chased a group of adventurers to a river that they had to cross to attack. The different tactics can reveal the monster's personalities. Like kobolds would back off and not follow them. Goblins would go downstream and try to cross. Bugbears are cowards , they would try to bully other humanoids into crossing and fight for them. Stuff like that.
I'm a little confused. You refer to 2nd edition? I suppose you are referring to Moldvay's Basic D&D as 2nd, the 1st being the little Brown books OD&D? Otherwise, I have to agree with you. Those very early modules are spectacular, and VERY dense with possibility, despite their meagre 30ish page count. They are meant to be expanded upon, because a lot was left out and inferred, and often written as such. See above comment on page count. TSR was a small, young company, printing prices were daunting, and boxed sets even more so. So it's no wonder the page counts were as they were. They did not want to price themselves out of the market they were selling to, and creating. Fun video. Keep up the good work. I'm looking forward to more from you. :-)
This has always been my favorite module. First time I played D&D back in 1980 in college, the DM used this module. I would go on to DM it too. It's just such a great setting to begin a campaign.
Same here, but 1981. Definite replayability - for years. Gary Gygax was a genius.
My take on the "plot" is this: The Keep is divided by two political factions, one loyal to the Duje back home, and one who wants to be independent. There is also religious strife between the Clerics and the Druids. Meanwhile, the cult in the Temple of Evil Chaos is attepting to unify the monster tribes into a force to attack the keep; so he is behind the increase of raids as he tries to get vitories to increase his power, and he is trying to sew strife among the political factions of the keep.
i really like the idea of going through the back catalog, and looking at dm's guild titles. looking forward to the videos.
Hope you have a lot of patience 🤣
This module and "The Palace of Ontoncle" and "Secrets of the Ancients" (GDW Traveller) were the foundation modules in my RPG life
Nice job.
A lot of these are nice for 5e. But this was meant to be played with B/X D&D, OSE, or DCC. This module is supposed to be an untamed wilderness. Without a high reaction roll most creatures in the cave are going to and will kill you. 0 HP isn’t unconscious, it’s death, no saving throws, negative HP, reducing to 0 HP is dead. So a lot of the ransoming of Heroes would be really hard when L1 adventures having 1-6 hit points plus the rare + 1 - 3 hit points for a grand total of maybe 9 if you’re lucky. So I was hoping to see that. Preparing how to run it for that.
one thing he missed was in old school playing you have hired hands like spearmen along with you. I think the 0 hp = knocked out is a 1e DMG rule, and it's not really a bad idea. I play a wargame where only "star" creatures can kill a PC. If you lose a battle the next one is an escape. If you lose that , well, youre toast. Might be interesting to apply to this.
People don't like to go through stacks of characters like we used to lol
My 2 cents worth.
I placed the keep at the Dukes Road keep rather than the Castellan keep as it makes more sense in regards to the road and caravan route in my opinion.
I used Von Hendriks (The Black Eagle Baron) and his Iron Ring guild as the force behind the evil cult in the caves. The Black Baron is cultivating a hoard via this cult amongst the humanoids for the coming war as detailed in X10 Red Arrow Black Shield.
His efforts hope to raise the Chaos Legion from amongst the humanoids to either besiege the keep or occupy and block the road south of the keep to disrupt trade from the north (Darokin) and draw the Karameikos relief force into battle and away from his attacks on Luln, in the west.
The Chaos Legion consists of around 250 troops drawn from the caves under 3 sub units called Skulls.
Green Skull: Goblins/Hobgoblins
Red Skull: Kobolds/Orcs
Black Skull: Undead/Evil Clerics
and a HQ unit consisting of Gnolls and the raiders (from encounter 3 wilderness) who are a detachment from Von Hendriks Lance of Doom units as detailed in X10 and spying on the keep in preparation for the attack.
The force is lead by the Minotaur and the Ogre as his second in Comd, under the watchful eye of the Master Cleric.
Also the evil priest within the keep is an agent of the Iron Ring.
The keeps defenders are a standard battalion of the Dukes army albeit slightly under strength as listed in the module personal numbers.
That's great advice 🙂
This is my favorite module! Thanks for posting.
You touched on the essentials of that classic module. Thank you!
I was just about to put a reply (onto your very own kind reply) to say "it's been 4 months dude! Keep going!"
(I didn't want to say "where's the rest?" Or anything else that seemed entitled or intimidating)
But lo and behold you're back on the horse! Good to hear your voice again buddy. Keep up the good work 👍
Thnx for this video on this fantastic nostalgic module! 👍I'd you're so around, please do more old school module coverage like this for us!!
My start was B! in 1977
you could always put the minotaur cave somewhere else. I may run Into the Borderlands in the future and I think I'm gonna tie it in with the A series Slavers. Rogan and Zelligar will have been the original slave lords and the barbarians eventually overran their fortress because of it. I also like to turn the mad hermit into a witch and have her be a shapeshifting druid (mechanically shes a druid but shes a witch) and can function as a quest giver.
Another thing I always thought was the critters in the caves were like an advance party for a larger force of humanoids. Honestly even if they all attacked the Keep at once they wouldnt be able to take it over, but if they could get the Keep to attack the caves and take some casualties in their garrison a large force could march right in
THat being said , another idea is to add a lower town outside the keep and you can have goblins that ride dire wolves raid it. I have wolfriders use lassoes and they will pull someone out of a formation , then run off with them. Thats why you want to find the goblins in lair, as they dont have their mobility.
A good exercise is to think of each group of humanoids and what they would do if they chased a group of adventurers to a river that they had to cross to attack. The different tactics can reveal the monster's personalities. Like kobolds would back off and not follow them. Goblins would go downstream and try to cross. Bugbears are cowards , they would try to bully other humanoids into crossing and fight for them. Stuff like that.
Thanks for the advice, great comment
I'm a little confused. You refer to 2nd edition? I suppose you are referring to Moldvay's Basic D&D as 2nd, the 1st being the little Brown books OD&D?
Otherwise, I have to agree with you. Those very early modules are spectacular, and VERY dense with possibility, despite their meagre 30ish page count.
They are meant to be expanded upon, because a lot was left out and inferred, and often written as such. See above comment on page count.
TSR was a small, young company, printing prices were daunting, and boxed sets even more so. So it's no wonder the page counts were as they were. They did not want to price themselves out of the market they were selling to, and creating.
Fun video. Keep up the good work. I'm looking forward to more from you. :-)
OD&D is 0e , 1e is AD&D , 2e is the rewrite of AD&D
That first rumour being true is a bit funny if you think about it. Like... How?
Audio is cutting out.
F+#*