Let's Rock The Star Cairns and other Misadventures Part 2: Hurry Up and Do Nothing

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After giving us a short background for the adventure we enter into the Recent Events phase of the module. Like most published adventures I've read over the years this one suffers from the flunky syndrome. 

. . . Jallarzi Sallavarian of the Circle of Eight has recently discovered omens that predict imminent doom for Greyhawk. Among the more mundane omens are an increase in the number of derro sightings in the Abbor-Alz, and the uppermost sail of the mysterious Doomgrinder approaching the zenith by another degree. Other signs indicate that one of the ancient cairns known as the Star Cairns may be the key to averting the doom. The Eight have warned the city about the possible doom (and its possible prevention); they urge adventurous souls to scour the Abbor-Alz for anything that might be the key to saving the city . . . (Reynolds, pg. 2)

This first paragraph is a prime example of the sort of foolishness that made me hate the Forgotten Realms and has me agitated two pages in. Instead of telling us that a low level mage - someone who is essentially powerless to do anything about the oncoming doom - is prophesying the utter destruction of Greyhawk we're told that a member of the Circle of Eight is sounding the gong; only they're not going to do a thing. For my non-Greyhawk readers let me put that a different way. The Circle of Eight finding out that Greyhawk is about to be destroyed and doing nothing is the equivalent of the Justice League finding out that Las Vegas is about to be destroyed and sending Aquaman to take care of it. 

This is how I picture Jallarzi Sallavarian (source)

When I run this module I'm utterly abandoning this connection with Jallarzi Sallavarian as the discoverer of the upcoming cluster. It makes far more sense to have a scribe or local eccentric that the players have made a connection with to discover the troubles than to have one of the planet's most powerful magi. That doesn't mean that I'm not going to bring her in later in the adventure. The players will need someone to confide in and they need someone who will be able to help funnel them resources during key times. 

The next portion of the module deals with establishing the power groups in each of the cairns and foreshadowing a possible war between a group of bandits and a beholder; because if you're a group of bandits the first thing you think about doing is killing a damned beholder. I realize that this background conflict is designed to provide a greater depth to the module and to create a sense of verisimilitude in the world but it makes about as much sense as having the Circle of Eight knowing about a major threat to the world and deciding to do nothing about it.

 The Rumor Mill

Bandits with magic weapons and humanoid allies have been attacking caravans and travelers near Hardby; sometimes the bandits just take the cargo and let the caravaneers go on their way, sometimes the travelers are dragged away; other caravans have simply disappeared completely. (Reynolds, pg. 3)

This first rumor has been used so many times that I think people forget that it occasionally has to make sense. How would we know that the travelers are dragged away? Are their survivors? Or are there witnesses? And if their are witnesses, why isn't anyone actively trying to stop it?

Remember, at this point in the actual module the Circle of Eight and presumably the Lord Mayor of Greyhawk knows about the portents of doom. Yet that isn't even the biggest concern in this regard. The powerful Merchant's Guild has to know about these events and I can't imagine a scenario where these guys are willing to let people mess with their money. Instead I'm seeing armed caravans and trapped caravans heading down that path looking for a fight. I'm seeing big named adventurers and people just starting out heading out looking to earn some serious coin and to put some bad men in the ground. This isn't a rumor, this is a god damned gold mine.

A necromancer has broken into one of the Star Cairns and plans to use the dead buried there to start an undead army in order to sack the city. (Reynolds, pg. 3)

If I drop this rumor then you can damned well bet that every temple and church for a hundred miles is going to be talking about this. Every passing conversation will have someone talking about the son of a bitch raising the dead in the cairns - and there will be blood. Oh, glorious fountains of blood as every fanatic on the continent moves south in a holy crusade against that necromancer whether or not he's even there.

Stone statues of animals and humanoids have been found in the southern Abbor-Alz; a medusa or basilisk is suspected to have moved into the area. (Reynolds, pg. 3)

So far this is the only rumor that doesn't require me to beat the bushes. Essentially it's a meaningless rumor that might have some rich merchant concerned enough to hire a group to clear the area out. Not very inspiring. Though I wonder if one of the best ways to spring a major adventure on everyone is through this path?

A dozen rampaging golems have attacked Hardby, sent by a vengeful wizard living near the desert; Greyhawk is his or her next target. (Reynolds, pg. 3)

Unless the Golems look like this I'm not getting excited. (source)

While this has the same sort of appeal that the medusa has as far as an adventure hook go it seems more like something that the guard should take care of than something my group of adventures should really be involved in. After all, the better part of valor is discretion . . .

Greysmere is A dwarven stronghold at the tip of Cold Wash Lake, South of the Mistmarsh, South East of Greyhawk City and West of the Abbor-Alz Mountain (map originally drawn by Darlene)

A beholder attacked Greysmere and was last seen heading north. (Reynolds, pg. 3)

That's good information to know. 

It's also the sort of information that would send every party I've ever been a part of, or Dungeon Mastered for, in the opposite direction. In fact I ran this rumor by one of my players and he said, "Beholders are the sort of thing you survive when you run across, not something you go out looking to fuck with."

 Lizardmen in the Mistmarsh have been seen patrolling the borders of the swamp. (Reynolds, pg. 3)

This is the sort of thing that isn't going to even phase my players. That means this rumor is useless for me. 

The Rhennee have started to drop pearls and jewelry into the Nyr Dyv, suspecting doom will come from the depths of the lake. (Reynolds, pg. 3)

Now we're fucking talking. 

This is the sort of rumor that sends chills down the spines of my players and gets them racing off for a source. You can kill all the babies you want; burn down entire villages in front of them; they'll pass on by without so much as a second look. But you start throwing treasure into a bottomless lake and they'll get to the bottom of it before you can say, "How much is this pearl worth?"

Dropping Adventure Hooks

The next section we're going to cover is the Adventure Hooks. Reynolds does a really neat thing where he provides the Dungeon Master with three levels of hooks (low, medium, and high difficulty). They range from the mild bandit attack to a direct confrontation with the Beholder. Each hook is only a line or two so there's a lot of room for the Dungeon Master to take off and do his own thing. Personally, though, I'm more likely to use that first rumor and let the players push themselves into the adventure as they seek easy money. 

Next time we'll be looking Common Features of the Cairns, The Rune Pairs, and Encounters in the Abbor-Alz Mountains. See you then!

Works Cited

Reynolds, Sean K. "The Star Cairns." TSR, Inc. 1998: 2, 3.

Let's Rock The Star Cairns and other Misadventures (Part 1)

I'm getting ready to run a new adventure for my group and I've decided that I'd like to run something I've never heard of before. I started off looking for something from the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons line of modules, but most everything in there I had either heard of or my players have played before. So I moved into second edition and ran across the Lost Tombs series of adventures which begin with The Star Cairns (TSR 9579), continue through Crypt of Lyzandred the Mad (TSR 9580), and conclude with The Doomgrinder (TSR 9581).  This group of modules builds on material found in From the Ashes (TSR 1064).  In From the Ashes author Carl Sargent describes The Star Cairns as follows:

The four cairns . . . are 400 to 500 years old. Each is the burial site of a Suloise wizard.

Although they are termed cairns, each burial site is a complex dungeon in itself. The four sites shown have all been plundered, although by no means completely; interdicted chambers, myriad secret doors, and traps have kept some secrets from tomb robbers in the succeeding centuries. Sympathetic magic attracts monsters to the area (50% more likely for an encounter within six miles of each cairn). The dungeons are known to hold undead, oozes and jellies, and even derro in one instance.

Fiends are said to stalk the dungeons, seeking clues to the whereabouts of the reputed fifth cairn that would complete a star pattern if located. The fifth Star Cairn has never been found; old legends tell that a magical teleporting system would operate between the sites, and beyond, if the last cairn were discovered and a control system therein activated (Sargent, pg. 36)

This original vision for the Cairns created a complex series of discovered, and largely explored, dungeons with a fifth dungeon awaiting discovery. While this provided Dungeon Masters and Players with a potent area to adventure little specific information was provided in From the Ashes. For more we would have to wait until The Star Cairns would be published six years later in 1998.

The use of Suloise wizards would provide a fertile framework for The Star Cairns as it would provide +SeanK Reynolds with a place to start as we would find in the background information:

In 167 CY [Common Year], a copy of the Tome of the Scarlet Sign was delivered to Murtaree, a court wizard of the Malachite Throne of the Great Kingdom. The tome was a treasure of the fallen Suloise Empire, and the wonders of that lost realm struck a chord within th dark heart of the Suel-born wizard. The man was fascinated by the tales and information about his ancestors, and was especially intrigued by the depth of hatred his people felt for their enemies, the Bakluni. The tales of ancient and terrible feuds kindled in him the fires of hatred, and he resolved to bring back to life the ancient war and destroy the Baklunish people. Counsulting his peers - other wizards of Suel heritage, working as advisers to various members of the Aerdi court - he found that there were others who felt similarly, and he easily talked them into joining his personal crusade. 

Seeking a quiet place where he and his cohorts could study and grow strong enough for such a venture, he was lucky enough to find two great veins of magic rock in the western arm of the Abbor-Alz. These veins enhanced different sorts of magic in ways that suited his purposes, and so the wizard hired dwarves and men to dig out lairs in these places, first breaking ground in 169 CY. When the hidden tunnels were completed, Murtaree cast a great forget spell on the workers to preserve the secret of their location. There were five locations in all - arranged on the crossing ley-lines like an enormous victory-rune (its apex in the lower Abbor Alz and its nadir in the Bright Desert), which the mage though was most appropriate. The ambitious magic-users got to work creating items and spells of great power to use against their racial enemy. 

Although Murtaree died in 174 CY when his transformation into a lich failed, his first students continued to work, teaching their ideals to new students. Great works were made in these dungeons. More importantly a powerful destructive artifact of unknown origin was kept here for safekeeping, divided into three pieces, each stored in a different cairn for greater security. 

A great ball of fire appeared over the Oljatt Sea in 198 CY, passed over the southern Great Kingdom, and vanished beyond the Sea of Gearnat . . . Selvor the Younger, an Aerdi astronomer, extrapolated its path back to its celestial origin and declared the fireball to be an omen of "wealth, strife, and a living death." This pronouncement caused a panic in Rauxes and throughout the Great Kingdom, where it was interpreted to mean the end of the world. The subsequent incidents and unrest foreshortened the Age of Great Sorrow to come, in 213 CY. 

Unknown to the people of the Great Kingdom, the shooting star struck the ground in eastern Abbor-Alz. The impact was felt several hundred miles away in Murtaree's southernmost site, momentarily distracting the attention of the mages working there. Mysteriously, the site vanished a few seconds later -- with it, three well-known wizards of the Great Kingdom. Even worse, one of the pieces of the ancient weapon had been stored in the lost site. The remaining wizards abandoned for a time their plans of Bakluni destruction to deal with the troubles in the east, and fled the laboratories, some taking the time to activate magical and mundane defense to protect their research. 

Eventually, the wizards who knew the true purpose of the dungeons were scattered to the winds or dead; the items found inside sparked their own legends, leading people to believe that he ruins were merely burial sites for great mages. They came to be called the Star Cairns, after the star-shaped entrances, and the belief that they were mausoleums. Monsters and other undesirables began using the cairns as lairs, the great plans of the Suel wizards forgotten . . . (Reynolds, pg. 2)

Carl Sargent placed the creation of the Cairns between four and five hundred years before the events described in From the Ashes. Sean Reynolds followed this time scale by placing the ground breaking for the Cairns in 169 CY and having the events of the module occuring after Rary committed his treachery in 584 CY, 415 years later. So our time scales are incredibly consistent which isn't that surprising considering that Reynolds had the services of +Erik Mona.

The Bright Lands Map from Wizards of the Coast

This map of the Bright Desert shows us the area where the Cairns are going to be located according to the description we've just read. Yet the map included in The Star Cairns actually has all of the Cairns located in the northwestern portion of the Abbor Alz, south of the Greyhawk Plains. I far prefer having the Cairns spread out across the Abbor Alz and the Bright Desert so that's what I'm going to be doing in my home campaign.

Lingering Questions 

What caused the fireball to crash down on the Cairns in 198 CY? Were the three great wizards of the Great Kingdom a part of that action or were they actually the victims of that attack as it's currently presented?

Why have monsters find the Cairns instead of having them populated by the Wizards? Wouldn't it make more sense for those wizards to have found protectors for their most powerful artifacts? Or were they run off too quickly (only 29 years after ground was broken)?

Wrapping Up

There's a lot I don't know yet and I'm already starting to change things so that it fits more in line with the sort of adventure I'd like to have my players enjoy. There's no doubt that Rary's forces will play a minor part in this adventure; but in my mind, at this time, they're going to be playing a major part. I want to have stealth missions, rival explorations by Rary's adventurers, and close calls with the Traitor himself. I want there to be a race to the finish with my players catching their breaths as they hope against hope that they beat Rary to the last Cairn. 

See you with the next part.

Works Cited

Reynolds, Sean K. "The Star Cairns." TSR, Inc. 1998: 2

Sargent, Carl. "Greyhawk Adventures Campaign Book." TSR, Inc. 1992: 36