What was to be, what was, and what never shall be

I should have written this long ago. John recently sent me a summary of the D&D adventure that he designed and ran last year, and that got me thinking about writting a summary of the Zanzer campaign. Also, I hope to get a new campaign started later this summer, so I'm reflecting on what I've ran in the past. Maybe the players will find it interesting, also.

Whereas John's adventure is built from scratch, the Zanzer campaign is a patchwork of published adventure modules, connected together and customized with my own creations, many of which were inspired by the players' actions and ideas. The campaign started as just a basic adventure: escape from Zanzer Tem's dungeon. After that was accomplished and Zanzer had fled, there was player interest to continue on. So...not having anything prepared, I choose a few modules from my shelf and pieced together a simple plot that would get the party from one module to the next, with plenty of flexibility and room for expansion.

Here's the general chain of events that I originally planned for after their escape from the dungeon:

1. PCs rest briefly in the wacky town of Verbosh (1979, Judges Guild) and outfit for an expedition back to Mt. Carnage to find the secret entrance to the abandoned dwarven colony and mine: Stonefast. The original Zanzer's Dungeon module mentioned the existance of Stonefast and provided a simplistic but unstocked map for it. I wanted something a little more extensive and detailed. For this I choose Glory Hole Dwarven Mine (1981, Judges Guild), but retained the name of Stonefast in the campaign. The Glory Hole is actually an extensive and deep construction that was to serve as the campaign's "megadungeon", which the party could revist periodically to gain XP and treasure by successively delving further and further.
   
2. In Stonefast, the PCs can find loads of treasure, gain XP, and find Gorgo Kermit. Zanzer's former eunuch, Gorgo Kermit crossed his master and was imprisoned in Stonefast. He likely knows the location of Zanzer's secret lair, Xitaqa. Gorgo Kermit's cell is on level 2 of the mine. so no need to explore the entire megadungeon at this time, thankfully. Stonefast may have contained other clues to Zanzer, too.
3. Potential side-trek in Stonefast: Find the hidden level that holds Kish the Gnome and his powerful, but cursed, artifact that Gearmaster Willy told legend of.
4. Travel to Xitaqa (maybe after resting and refitting in Verbosh or Bayside) and defeat Zanzer. Xitaqa is Part Three of B10 Night's Dark Terror (1986, TSR).
5. If the players are still interested in continuing the campaign, the PCs can learn of Zanzer's goal of discovering the Lost Valley of Hutaaka and claiming its riches. The Lost Valley is Part Seven of B10 Night's Dark Terror.

The Lost Valley. It and its inhabitants have somewhat of a Cthulhu freaky vibe to it. Click to enlarge.

The deepest level of Stonefast, a.k.a. Glory Hole Dwarven Mine. You don't want to delve this far until your PCs are about level 10 or higher.

From the Zanzer's Dungeon intro adventure: the original wee Stonefast that I replaced with the whopping Glory Hole. This was almost entirely unstocked except for the baby white dragon in room 30 with 16 hit points. I'm all for having dragons in low level adventures, but having it be a weak, baby dragon is a cheesy way to accomplish that.

That was the plan, at least.

Things suddenly changed (though perhaps became more interesting) when the party marched in Stonefast and immediately suffered near total party kill to a three-headed ogre. I thought the players would employ more strategy in bypassing or defeating the ogre. Maybe I had been too soft on them up to that point, or perhaps they figured the possiblity of multiple PCs dying at this point in the campaign was unlikely. Actually, the dice had been good to them earlier in the campaign, but their luck changed in this combat. Only Fura survived, felling the ogre with repeated ranged attacks. Fura then decided to immediately leave Stonefast and not return. This removed Gorgo Kermit as a plot device, since he would likely be dead from thirst or hunger by the time any PCs found their way back to Stonefast.

The other players rolled up new PCs, so I created a new plot link to Zanzer and his secret lair: Guy Fox the assassin-mage. The Verbosh module is mostly just location description and doesn't have much in the way of plot. One of the few plot hooks it mentions is that the Lord Hargor of Verbosh is unpopular and many people want him dead, but Hargor is so sly and brutal that no assassination attempts have yet suceeded. For some reason, Zanzer wants Hargor dead and for the task he hires Guy Fox, the only assassin crazy enough to pull off the job.

Guy Fox. I was hoping to use this pic during the campaign, but the opportunity never arose.

The new PCs interacted with Lord Hargor and Guy Fox in Verbosh, but ultimately didn't follow the link to Zanzer's secret lair. So, I created two more plot links: Zehnder Tim and Gearmaster Willy. Unfortunately, the campaign closed shop before getting any further.

Meanwhile, as the new PCs were still hanging around in and near Verbosh, Fura decided to find a high level cleric to help resurrect her lover, Latifah, who had died against the three-headed ogre. For this purpose she traveled to the large city of Bayside (City State of the Invincible Overlord, 1977, Judges Guild), since there were no clerics powerful enough in the vicinity of Verbosh. In Bayside, she took up a quest to find the Lost Temple of Halav and recover the Shield of Halav (Hail the Heroes, 1994, TSR). Successfully completing this quest would earn her favor with the High Priest of Halav. The campaign ended just before the quest was completed.

What would have been next if the campaign had continued? Maybe Latifah would have been resurrected, and maybe Barab (another victim of the ogre) too. Zanzer's secret lair was in the general region of Bayside and The Lost Temple of Halav. Being a secret lair, Xitaqa was still remote and hidden, but Fura probably would have learned of if eventually. Meanwhile, maybe the other PCs would have followed the plot links and also made their way to Bayside to search for Zanzer. Maybe all the players PCs would reuinite into a single, powerful party again. Maybe they would have gathered strong new allies, such as the Cult of Halav, Zehnder Tim, Fonzazzle, or Willy's army of gnomes. Maybe Kish's powerful artifact would be recovered and the campaign turns truly epic. Would they have defeated the creepy, alien evil in the Lost Valley of Hutaaka, become filthy rich, return to their long forgotten homes, and establish new kingdoms?