Shackled City Adventure Path in Exalted

[crashmurdoch]

For those who don't know it, the Shackled City Adventure Path is a series of Dungeons and Dragons Adventures that were first published in Dragon Magazine, and then later joined together in a hardcover volume (dam expenisve one too!).  


Anyway I'm thinking of converting it to Exalted for use in my current campaign when the PCs head North.  I believe that with some heavy modification it will prove to be one hell of an Exalted Cronicle.  


Since I'm in the planning phase right now, I'm wondering if anyone else has attempted this, or has any suggestions that might help?


I'll probably post some more specific questions as they pop up.

 

[crashmurdoch]

Dealing with D&D races in Exalted.


Okay the first and most obvious problem that popped up was Fantasy Races.  Since Exalted is not inspired by the writings of JRR Tolkien it has an obvious lack of Elves and Dwarves, not to mention Gnomes, Halflings, and Half Orcs.  So I'm trying to figure out how to convert some of these characters over to fit in Creation while still being memorable.


Any suggestions?


For example, later in the campaign a group of Half-Orc Mercs is brought into the city to help enforce the new taxes.  I suppose I could use a group of Dragonbloods, but does anyone have an alternative?

 

[Jakk Bey]

Beastmen.  Fae Blooded.


Dwarves are pretty easy, what with Mountain-Folk.  Or just another variety of Beastmen, God-Bloods, or Fae Blooded.

 

[crashmurdoch]

The city is in the crater of an extinct volcano, so I'm thinking that there was once a Red Jade mine in the mountain.  After the jade dried up, some folk still mined obsidian and such.  The "old dwarven stronghold" will most likely be a former Mountain Folk keep, though it's been long abandoned due to the Jade mine shutting down.  The Mountain Folk returned to either the wild or the Imperial mountain depending on their views.

 

[Persell]

Magical races of the woods, such as elves and halflings, could be converted as Fae in Exalted.  Evil races, such as orcs and gnolls, could be wyld barbarians or beastmen.  Dwarves are mountainfolk.  Anyone of noteable power can be Exalted.

 

[The Scorp]

isnt there already a shackled city up north in exalted?  Bastions of the North.  Check that book out and see if there any similarities.

 

[The Scorp]

Also for the races, remember that there are half bloods or people with certain traits that you can just make up.  Sky's the Limit honestly. If you want you can have a race of people that have extended lives, maybe because of their diet, or maybe because of certain breeding like beastmen...

 

[Solfi]

... Out of curiosity, could you do a short recap of the idea of the campaign in question?

 

[crashmurdoch]

The city is actually called Cauldron, Shackled City is the name of the Campaign. It has more to do with the storyline than with the city itself.


Here's the link to the actual page for the book, though I recommend looking on Amazon if you want to buy it for a better price.


http://paizo.com/dungeon/products/books ... rce=search


As it is written by its creators for the D&D game, the entire Adventure Path consists of the following adventures:


Life's Bazaar By Christopher Perkins, Dungeon #97. In this adventure the player characters investigate kidnappings. The trail leads to a slaving operating from Underdark passages below the city.


Drakthar's Way, added for the hardcover collection. In this adventure small bands of goblins raid and vandalize the city. The player characters track the goblins to a hideout in a series of caves below the city that lead out the side of the mountain. The goblins are led by a vampiric bugbear.


Flood Season By James Jacobs, Dungeon #98. In this adventure the city of Cauldron is threatened by flooding during the rainy season. Magical wands of "control water" normally used to control the flooding are stolen and taken to a lair below the city. The player characters presumably track down and recover the stolen wands.


Zenith Trajectory By David Noonan, Dungeon #102. The player characters are asked to rescue Zenith Splintershield, a dwarf who has been missing since heading into the Underdark to fight evil. Zenith has gone insane and is treated as prophet by the kuo-toa (fish-people) who captured him.


The Demonskar Legacy By Tito Leati, Dungeon #104. In this chapter, the heroes must find a missing paladin to stop an incursion by Cauldron to nearby Redgorge. After retracing his steps through a jungle, a giant-controlled cavern, and an otherworldy maze, they must face the demonic architect of the area's strife.


Test of the Smoking Eye By David Noonan, Dungeon #107. Following their warning from a dying paladin to "seek the sign of the smoking eye", a mysterious plane-wanderer asks for their help in completing a series of test to redeem an abandoned layer of the Abyss.


Secrets of the Soul Pillars By Jesse Decker, Dungeon #109. After several assassins attempt to kill the heroes, they are traced back to the temple of Wee Jas. After assaulting the temple and fighting its undead inhabitants, they are led to an ancient frozen spell weaver complex, where a powerful oracle is guarded by a horrific undying dragon.


Lords of Oblivion By Christopher Perkins, Dungeon #111. An ally of the heroes is kidnapped and taken to a safe house of the Last Laugh, Cauldron's thieves guild. Once they break in and rescue him from the den of thieves, they learn of a secret meeting among some of the realm's most horrific criminals at a noble's mansion. In addition, their beholder overlord is practicing unholy rituals in the complex below.


Foundation of Flame By Chris Thomasson, Dungeon #113. The Cagewrights begin their plans in earnest now, awakening the volcano on which Cauldron is built. Spewing lava, earthquakes, and collapsing buildings require the heroes help to get everyone evacuated. Worse, demodands begin to emerge from a planar rift already building, and a certain local dragon gets riled up by it all.


Thirteen Cages By Chris Thomasson, Dungeon #114. The heroes must march on the Cagewrights' headquarters, in the heart of a volcano, before their ritual is complete and a permanent gate to Carceri is opened above Cauldron.


Strike on Shatterhorn By Christopher Perkins, Dungeon #115. What few Cagewrights remain must be hunted down and exterminated in their jungle retreat.


Asylum By Christopher Perkins, Dungeon #116. When the twisted mind of Adimarchus, imprisoned Demon Prince of Madness, leaks into Occipitus and begins resurrecting his followers, the heroes realize they must go to the otherworldly asylum of Skullrot where Adimarchus is imprisoned and destroy him utterly.


During the course of the adventure, the city is nearly destroyed by an eruption of the volcano under it, which is triggered by magical forces. Shattered, but still inhabited, the city of Cauldron still exists at the end of the adventure.


Keep in mind this is a D&D Campaign set in the Greyhawk world, so there is a lot of conversion to do.  I've already established some of the villains that the group will face, so I'm gonna have to rearrange the plot a bit to make everything work out well.

 

[Sherwood]

One hint I'd like to give you is to make some basic changes that may seem small to you but can throw off your players.  I've taken ideas from books or movies before and been irritated when someone recognizes the source material and starts screwing the game with knowledge of what the plot is down the road.  So I started doing things like changing the gender of the NPC's.  You would be suprised at how such a simple little thing can confuse a bunch of people.  "It sounds like that movie, but it can't be, because it has a guy in it and there isn't one here."

 

[wordman]

An alternate way to handle races is just to give each race a bundle of free Merits and Flaws, perhaps making up a few. A halfling, for example, has a number of racial traits, which can be mapped to Exalted with Merits and Flaws:

• +2 Dexterity = Legendary Attribute: Dexterity (3 pts)
  
• -2 Strength = Deminished Attribute: Strength (-3 pts)
  
• Small = Small (-3 pts)
  
• +2 on Climb, Jump, and Move Silently = three free +1 athletics specialties that don't count towards max.
  
• +1 on all saving throws = Lucky (1 pt)
  
• +2 morale bonus on saving throws against fear = Virtue Speciality: Valor vs. Fear (2 pts)
  
• +1 on attack rolls with thrown weapons and slings = Perhaps forcing halflings to choose Thrown as a favored ability, or a free specialty or something, or ignoring this one.
  
• +2 on Listen checks = Acute Sense: Hearing (1pt).

 

[crashmurdoch]

Okay here's one for you guys:  the first two "boss characters" the the PCs will encounter are a Half-fiend Dwarf and a Bugbear Vampire.   I've got a couple of ideas for replacements, but do any of you have one?

 

[Haku1]

Okay here's one for you guys:  the first two "boss characters" the the PCs will encounter are a Half-fiend Dwarf and a Bugbear Vampire.   I've got a couple of ideas for replacements, but do any of you have one?

Well... a half-fiend dwalf = Demon-blooded shrimp! (or one of them pyschotic mountain folk)


Bugbear Vampire = Ancient ghost whose used ALOT of moliation!

 

[crashmurdoch]

I made the Half-dwarf just a regular Demonblood.  In the book he's secretly selling slaves.  So I figure since slavery is legal in the realm, he's working against the guild and he's selling slaves to some one nasty, like the Fae Folk.    


Still working on the bubear Vampire.  I might make him a powerful beastman or some kind of rogue spirit that is leading a bunch of goblins.

 

[Shicato]

The bugbear might be an abbysal with an odd apperance who also likes to use wierd little zombies.


But the bugbear sounds kind of like a Fae to me, which follows on nicely from the last villain who was possibly selling to the Fae bugbear. especially with the goblin henchmen

 

[crashmurdoch]

I hadn't thought about changing the link between the two adventures since they aren't connected in that way in the book, but that's not a bad idea.  And I might make him a Fae, after all they are kinda vampirish in a way, feeding off of the emotions of their victims.