Wednesday, February 24, 2021

The Abbey of St Martin, an experiment in scaled adventure.

When I populated my three little towns, I had intended them to be part of a hex, with a few adventure locales to explore and exploit. I'd grabbed a few Jackson locales that seemed to fit the bill, but when I filled them out, the adventures didn't seem to gel, or have a consistency that would place them in a close region. Or maybe it's just me. So no hex got filled, and the four adventures idled.

So out they go - either as standalones, or maybe somehow connected. We're not sure. 

First up, the old abbey off the road, haunted by its former tenants, and perhaps a more malevolent force. 

A couple of design notes. First, this is an experiment in a 'scalable' adventure. For two of the encounters, I've modded them for a solo PC, a few 1st level mooks, or a few 2nd-3rd level adventurers (assuming a B/X or similar system). At each level, they should still be a hazard, but (I loath to use the term) 'balanced' to give the respective parties a good go. The remainder of encounters and traps remain the same. Let's see if this works.

Source

The old abbey is a two-story affair, with damage and decay appropriate for a place abandoned a generation or two ago. There's a scary baddie in there. And while there isn't a significant treasure lying about, the value of the place comes from a potential resource. Something to return to periodically, provided the PCs interact with the resource appropriately... The PCs may also choose to use this structure as a retreat or base (temporary or permanent) as the campaign requires. Like a 'ruined tower' or similar, having a place in need of restoration can jump-start a bit of domain thinking.

Anyway, enough woolgathering.

Who's living in the Abbey?

2 comments:

  1. Short and neat and also sweet.

    In particular, I like that you've included unscaled encounters. This would also drop almost seamlessly into a C19 to modern day game.

    Like.

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