Dungeon Crawl in Barovia/Gundarak

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Ail
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Dungeon Crawl in Barovia/Gundarak

Post by Ail »

Hello again,

I have put my PCs after the Effigy of Ivan Szimin (by Stuart Turner, Book of Secrets). They're a level 3 party, and I've estimated the golem at CR8, so I have frankly warned them (out of character, even) that they had to investigate and research the golem before going head on against him. I have prepared a few things for the first (and I hope not last) session of their chase, that will be tomorrow, but I think they'll be needing extra help, mostly in form of magic. There is a potion brewer in the party, but I think I should give them some extra money for them to pile on potions quicker and perhaps a magic protecting item... I'm not sure I want to give them a magic weapon, though.
The players are located in an uncharted (literally) village between the forest and the hills around Zeidenburg and Teufeldorf. They are on the eastern side, if that matters, and Teufeldorn is nearer than Zeidenburg. Also, I believe that's where Ivan's residence was, and they should actually go there to understand the Golem's creation (I'm not counting on them going there, however. I know them by now). I thought they could find the extra potions in Teufeldor, that it will be big enough to have some kind of market for this.

But as for the extra cash and perhaps magic items, I was thinking of doing a mini-dungeon crawl in the hills, but I'm out of ideas. I don't want a ruined dwarven city there! A mine could be used, but what would be the reason for there being forgotten treasure, even if it is well hidden and old?
First of all, do these hills have a name? Is the forest on the eastern side Tepurich Forest too?
Now, the real hard questions:
Is there something in the old history of Gundarak that justifies someone using the old tunnels / mines (or building them herself) as a treasury / stronghold / fortress ? I wanted this to be old enough to give the players that feeling of 'sacred/mysterious' as when we in our world talk of another Egyption Tomb (of course, it couldn't be as old as an Egyptian Tomb, but something with 2 or 3 centuries would qualify already).
Finally, what kind of magic items should I have there? Thanks.

As for the way of getting there, I'll have the Ravenkin give a hand and point to them an entrance in the hills.

thank you all in advance.

Ail
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Post by Bloody Morgan »

How about:

It's an abandoned mine all right. Abandoned when the ore ran out, and when the cave-in killed all those miners, and it was declared cursed and haunted. Which makes it a great hide-out for those on the run. Such as the thieves who held up on of Narov Gundar's tax collectors seventy-five years ago. Laden down with the stolen wealth, but knowing full well what fate would await them if they were ever cought by the Duke's men, they took refuge in the mines overnight, planning to flee the land forever at dawn. But no matter how many times the sun rose or fell, no-one ever left the mine...

What happened can vary of course. Perhaps there was something already in the mine. Perhaps the vengeful ghosts of the miners possessed them and turned them against each other. Or perhaps they just got greedy, and slew each other for the lion's share. But their haul is still there. Along with that trinket that the old man had tried to pay his taxes with when he fell short of the mark, the one he claimed was made by the fae, and had been in his family for generations. The old man whom the tax collector had hung as an example, and took the gift anyway.

How's that?
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Post by Ail »

Bloody Morgan wrote:How about:

It's an abandoned mine all right. Abandoned when the ore ran out, and when the cave-in killed all those miners, and it was declared cursed and haunted. Which makes it a great hide-out for those on the run. Such as the thieves who held up on of Narov Gundar's tax collectors seventy-five years ago. Laden down with the stolen wealth, but knowing full well what fate would await them if they were ever cought by the Duke's men, they took refuge in the mines overnight, planning to flee the land forever at dawn. But no matter how many times the sun rose or fell, no-one ever left the mine...

What happened can vary of course. Perhaps there was something already in the mine. Perhaps the vengeful ghosts of the miners possessed them and turned them against each other. Or perhaps they just got greedy, and slew each other for the lion's share. But their haul is still there. Along with that trinket that the old man had tried to pay his taxes with when he fell short of the mark, the one he claimed was made by the fae, and had been in his family for generations. The old man whom the tax collector had hung as an example, and took the gift anyway.

How's that?
Wow!!!
That's all I can say. It fits the bill perfectly. I was counting on some corporeal undead inside, so that it wouldn't be a freebie, instead of ghosts, and I like the idea of them slaughtering each other.
Now, some retrocomputing. 75 years ago was in 685. Is that the event that the Black Box refers to when the folk took the taxes and Gundar hang their leaders in an orchard? It is just right in the mark.

A side note that sprang to mind: since the tax will be mostly wealth, all coins are minted as belonging to Gundarak, that is, money without valid course nowadays. That might not be a problem if they are made of precious metal, but authorities might be suspicious and force them to deal with an underwolrd broker. I've still to think on the implications for this.

As for why no one left the mine, I'll try to elaborate:
after the mine was abandoned, a sect or Erlin followers found what remained of it the perfect place for them. They were not miners and so could only profit what had remained. They found one of the rooms to be perfect for their inner sanctum, and set a host of zombies and / or skeletons as permanent guard. They were few and had to do most of the groundwork themselves. When their activities became too aparent, Gundar found they could become a threat, with their god being associated to Death and all, for they were learning to control more and more powerful undead. He betrayed them and killed to the last of them... the undead, though, remained faithfully at the inner sanctum, guarding it until so dispelled by their creators.

It doesn't take much to guess what happened when in the middle of the strife between the looters some of them tried to flee from the others and found the inner sanctum.

Ail
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Post by The Lesser Evil »

How are you going to motivate the party to go there?

Perhaps one of the Erlin clerics tried to summon a fire elemental and got a pyre elemental instead. Perhaps nows its loose and nearby locals have mistaken it for the effigy. It frequently returns to its place of origin to brood: the mine.
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Post by Bloody Morgan »

Ail wrote:Wow!!!
That's all I can say. It fits the bill perfectly. I was counting on some corporeal undead inside, so that it wouldn't be a freebie, instead of ghosts, and I like the idea of them slaughtering each other.
Now, some retrocomputing. 75 years ago was in 685. Is that the event that the Black Box refers to when the folk took the taxes and Gundar hang their leaders in an orchard? It is just right in the mark.
I'd actually forgotten that rebellion when I was writing. It could be the same event of course - if you want to run a game focusing strongly on the history of Gundarak then it would work nicely. Go my subconcious.
A side note that sprang to mind: since the tax will be mostly wealth, all coins are minted as belonging to Gundarak, that is, money without valid course nowadays. That might not be a problem if they are made of precious metal, but authorities might be suspicious and force them to deal with an underwolrd broker. I've still to think on the implications for this.
The biggest upshot to this is that it lets you control what they spend it on. The current Ravenloft books make it pretty clear that a gold piece is a gold piece in most places, though you get less value for having foreign coins, they're still accepted. Now if you give the PCs a lot of coins, it could unbalance the game as they start buying stuff you never expected. But if they're using Gundarakite coins, then if things look like they're going off the rails, you can bring in local authorities asking questions, that kind of thing. And when leaden down with several chests, it's a bit of a pain to have to keep running.

On a similar note, in my latest game my very poor PCs finally went through some loot they got from a break-in months before. One of the items they had been unable to identify at the time was a bag of small, black, dessicated, sweet-smelling pods. They ate one, and ignored the rest. In this game, they found out that the pods were in fact vanilla - a good half-pound of it. They could probably buy a house for the cost of the bag. Only problem it, how do they find someone with enough money to buy it? Especially as they're wanted criminals.
As for why no one left the mine, I'll try to elaborate:
after the mine was abandoned, a sect or Erlin followers found what remained of it the perfect place for them.
Sounds good. Remember that in canon, Erlin has only been granting spells and taking on a following for about the last three or four years though, which kinda limits the timeframe on that. But that's assuming you're following canon.

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Post by Ail »

Bloody Morgan wrote:
Sounds good. Remember that in canon, Erlin has only been granting spells and taking on a following for about the last three or four years though, which kinda limits the timeframe on that. But that's assuming you're following canon.

Bloody Morgan
Hmmm.... I had thought that Erlin had been 'suspended', so to say, that is, it had granted spells in the past, ceased, and then restarted. I'll assume so, anyway ;-)
Plus, I have already designed the map for the dungeon crawl. I'm eager to send my players there :-)

Ail
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