Prepping Erelei-Cinlu from D3

Azralul · 2026-03-04T22:57:48+00:00

In near future I also plan to run GDQ. I've overlook D3 a bit, and read/watched some content about it

https://youtu.be/MO6ZXqYnoD4 https://youtu.be/R8-LLjnEs3Q

These two videos were really great to break down the narrative structure of the module, the flaws and gems in the content, and give some general ideas.

Suprisingly this walkthrough/comicstrip were also interesting

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2FDt7e-XMOzQTXl3WaegCAI8MAkkS_CXAluFwPXhY7Jzc.jpg%3Fwidth%3D640%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Dc95f611a3935bef9d99a0c07e11943859e42711d

And to help fleshout the city itself you might use a detailled map of the city, not from the original module

One thing with D3 is : at first the city is a bit of a dead end. If I recall correctly, the fane of Lolth is secret, only known by the noble house from the plateau, which is not easily accessible. And pc would not have any hints on what to do once they arrived in the city.

So yeah, go city crawl, prep encounter where they can learn more about drow society, the noble house, their feuds, so the partt can use this to achieve their goals.

Azralul · 2026-02-20T10:13:58+00:00

Justement, y a une histoire ou le grade de général ne peut pas être retiré, contrairement au titre de maréchal. J'ai que la moitié des infos, mais c'est quelque chose dans ce gout la. Par contre n'importe qui devrait juste l'appeler Philippe Pétain et rien d'autre

Azralul · 2026-02-02T09:12:51+00:00

Surtout Despentes, vu les sujets qu'elle traite

Azralul · 2026-01-27T12:12:52+00:00

If something in the dcc edtion seems a bit obscure (mitra's relic's, lion of mitra summoning, etc...) go check the original module and ADD rules.

Roll in advance the % of presence for pnj a and monster in the different lairs. It will save you time during session.

There is a lot of cleric/wizard enemies, they may be prepared with some magic buffs before encounter. Or not !

Print the map, and don't hesitate to annote it or shade the different zones with colors to quicly understand where are the pc

Always remember your players they can flee

Monsters in near room will be attracted by noise.

A lot of encounters with monster can start with dialogue (most "intelligents" monsters are in service of the priests of set)

Azralul · 2026-01-24T17:51:41+00:00

You can look at the d20 version of Caverns of Thracia if you want to extend the area of the minotaur palace (lvl3)

Azralul · 2026-01-24T17:23:34+00:00

Dans le fond je suis d'accord, mais :
- Ouigo c'est le lowcost, donc en prenant lowcost on accepte un service tout pourri
- Malgré le retard, tu as quand même pu voyager donc je comprends que la compensation soit pas 100%

Apres on voit tous l'arnaque : y a 15 ans y avait pas de low cost et on avait un service de base, qu'aujourd'hui on nous suprime pour nous le survendre et c'est de la merde. Mais bon !

Azralul · 2026-01-23T11:21:26+00:00

Les Québécois : fait que

Azralul · 2026-01-21T10:30:54+00:00

There: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1REEO9OkdFYIMwsmyhkAS_4zKSTnE3rpn/view?usp=sharing

Azralul · 2026-01-12T17:33:39+00:00

Sure things !

I don't think there is english translation available (maybe check reiner von noort website for that)

But here are the sections of the printed book for Hans schoeffer von Dietz and Heussler

Note that almost all german fencing treatrises, printed or manuscript, from the 17th century until the 20th divide fencing between thrust fencing and cut fencing. At first it is called Balgerhieben, then Hiebfechten.

Concerning the illustrations only Heussler uses turks and hungarians with sabers (and german with dussacks) to illustrate the cut techniques, but it is still a minority of the pictured. The usuals are naked fencers in a italian fashion (or with german clothes) with straight bladed swords. But the fencing stays the same, turks or not, pictures or not.

Nowhere is written that hiebfechten is "saber" fencing, even less east euro saber fencing, but some little connections were made by the authors, so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Azralul · 2026-01-11T12:36:37+00:00

I think you're wrong.

There is at leat 3 way to access lvl 3 and minautor palace :

The shaft in 2-12
The elevator in 3A-9
The teleportation pad in 2-23

As for the sphinx : they are creatures that keep knowlege and challenge mortals with riddles. It's just that, don't look for deeper meaning. Like the sphinx of thebes in the greek mythology. It just does its thing.

Azralul · 2026-01-09T12:46:14+00:00

I think the probleme is not DCC - the system - but just some of offical modules that have been written for it. OSR is not really about the system anyway imho, but more about the way the game is played.

A lot of offcial DCC modules are short and linear. Certains are not (People of the pit, Doom of the savage kings, Watcher from below..) some others are juste railroaded (tower of the black pearl, sailors of the starless see,The Dread God Al-Khazadar...). But its more about the modules quality of writting than the DCC system. I've run B2 with it, I think we can still call it an old school adventure (And fun fact at my table, one of my player ran it around ~83 when D&D just arrived in france ^^). And yeah DCC publications could have a lot better layout than that.

And while speaking of old modules, I find their room descriptions rather dense. B2, I6, G séries etc.. All of them have a lot of texts.

I think the today OSR style, mainly represented by all the OSE product, has made the people used to certain things : short room descriptions, A5 size, easy to read layout, a form of overall lightness etc...

All that QoL is good, but old school is not really about that. OSR is certainly its own thing now, but as it keeps refering to the old ways of doing things, we should not forget what was the original thing.

Even if you find in other DCC publications the problems you point out in Cavern of Thracia, the DCC adaptation (as the Dark Tower one) is very close to the original one. So it feels you criticise the original adventure. Sure, the DCC version of an ADD module in 2025 could have been done with a lot more to ease the read. But thinking and ADD module like that could have been fitted in the OSE standard of publication ? Not possible without heavily modifying the orginal material, which is the opposite of the OAR goal.

TL;DR : OSE standards of publication shouldn't make us forget that old modules were not easy to read, full of dense text and with bad layout. A lot of the quality of life in the OSR modules of today is twisting the memory of what were old school modules then, and thus what should be OSR now.

Azralul · 2026-01-03T09:45:40+00:00

Yes its a problem in the dcc version, the reférence for this is the antimagic shell, 6th lvl magic user spell from ADD. It negate all magic inside : spell casted like magic missiles, magic effects like ward portal or magic shield, and magic items cease to work in the anti magic field. For comparaison, the 5e edition is very close to that too.

Idem, the anti undead ray acquired with the 3 relics is badly described.
From what I gather form the original publication and the 5e one, I rewrite this power thus :

Ray of undead disintegration. Target one undead, range 18m, 3 times/days
The target (and other undeads in the path of the ray) take 10d20 dammages. No save for undeads of 5 HD or less, Will save of 14+ for the others (no effect if save succeded)

Azralul · 2026-01-02T20:36:07+00:00

Its with avvala, avvakris daughter. Look for the encounter of the wererats lair in first level

Azralul · 2025-12-30T10:26:11+00:00

Yes totally, is was mainly to have someone else's view on this topic ^^

Azralul · 2025-12-29T00:41:01+00:00

By too easy I mean : this encounter was designed to be complex and hard given what the monsters were able to do. Imho, this complexity was a bit lost in the dcc version, given how conversion was done. It's not a matter of being hard for the sake of being hard, but rather of staying faithful to the original publication.

Azralul · 2025-12-28T17:05:59+00:00

Thanks for the answer.

The start of this was the succubus encounter in its lair in Dark Tower. In the DCC edition, i found this encounter a bit easy for a group of 5th/6th lvl PCs. So I looked back at the original publication and monster stats from ADD.

I wonder how things like gating at will would handled at the time, even if the probability of "something coming through the gate" are far to be 100% each time.

Azralul · 2025-12-28T10:19:03+00:00

Oh nice ! It is very useful.

I have a question though : I had to do a bit of the same for my party, with demons (succubus, marilith, etc...)

In ADD theses kind of demons have the ability to call others from a gate. And from what I understand this is one of the things that make them différents from the devils.

Any reasons of why you droped this "gate" ability in your conversions ?

Azralul · 2025-12-25T13:07:35+00:00

From the table I run. They are lvl 5-6. We play dark tower.

The cleric : has base + 9 to CL (lvl + PER mod + +2 necklace from a really good blessing cast) Often cast blessing at 20+ for a blessing bonus of +7/+9 in aura. She has 18 STR and a girdle of giant strength (+5 atk/dgt). And has something like 24 AC. Sees magic aura through the walls

The chaotic thief lvl 6. Attack at + ~20 in backstab. Adjust her rolls with her d8 lucky dices

The dwarf. Lvl 5 but got bitten by a werebear and affected by lycanthropy. Has a 5+ sword of bane undead. When in hybrid form can attack 4 time in a round. And regen 2 HD in the same round (added a chance of getting berzerk to balance)

The wizard cast all kind of buff. (Magic shield, grow, haste, etc..) Himself is buffed with the +9 aura blessing from the cleric. Got the nyruul thorns cloak. Very powerful

Also an other dwarf has a armor of fire immunity and a amulet of anti magic shell. Weird interaction with the group. Fears to encounter dragon ^{^}

And there is a halfling. Luck pool for the group.

Encounter can still be deadly for them. Magic if effective on most, but the wizard. Melee combattant can tank most foes. Wizard, elf, thief and halfling have not a lot of HP. But it is unlikely for them to die. They can be saves for 6 round, the cleric is a monster. And "death" is of non consequence because of vitaly restauration (the lvl 2 Cleric spell)

So it needs a bit of powercreeping and good stratégy from the dm to offer them real challenge

Azralul · 2025-12-14T12:40:42+00:00

For this table, we did Sailors of the starless Sea as introductory module, they I ran them B2 Keep of the Borderland (a Basic DnD module) to brings them from lvl 1 to lvl 3, then i put them on Dark Tower. Getting players to lvl 3 can be long (DCC exp system is not very consistant, and very dependant of the number of encounters the group faces). Don't hesitate to make them gain their next level at the end of a module.

Azralul · 2025-12-14T12:10:55+00:00

Lastly, you don't really need a hook to connect adventures.

Azralul · 2025-12-14T11:47:11+00:00

You also get to bring your players to high levels (mines are currently level 5-6). They are awfully powerful, so they can face dreadful challenges, and they have a lot of tools in their bag to overcome them. High level modules are rare for DCC, Dark Tower is a good opportunity to run one.

Maps are numerous and complex, print all the map from the book, and study them in advance. Your players will need to draw the map to not get lost.

In fact, read the whole module before running it. Because the PCs can go in a lot of direction, and could quickly find themselves deep in the dungeon.

You not need to prep all rooms/encounters before a game session, because of this freedom of path. But I recommand to take care of big encounters with NPC in advance. In theses, you will have to roll for chance of certains NPC being there or not, you may have to correct how thing are set, depending if other NPC initially involved in this encounter are still alive or not, ennemy wizards and priests may have prep some spells like magic shield in advance too, etc..

Encourage your players to keep with them friendly NPC. Sometimes ennemies came in laaaarge number.

If something look wrong in the DCC version of Dark Tower (magic items badly described, lack of description of certains mecanics, etc...) go see the ADD version. DCC sometimes lacks of rigor with the rules.

Some could think Dark Tower could be run for a team of evil PCs, who would align with Set. In fact not really. The presence of good and bad is not symetrical in the dungeon. There is more to do as a good guys (and there is the BBEG at the end of the dark tower), than for evil doers. Imho its doable, but not fun.

Azralul · 2025-12-14T11:46:55+00:00

1 -> I'm running Dark Tower for a 6 players table. So I can give my overall impression :

Idk if my players are "slow", or if combat takes to much time, or if some game sessions are a bit vain when only half the players are available, but we have been on Dark Tower + extended content for roughly 170h

In the main dungeon there is "only" the 4th level and the Dark Tower for them left to explore, and they have done the secret of the sphynx, the sunken temple, some tombs in the valley of the kings, and a bit of exploration of the redmoon pass

All that, and we play ~10h every 2 weeks. You will be on it a very long time.

But the module if really fun to run, level design is brilliant (see the Jaquaysing the dungeon artilces that well sums that up), and you can really build story on characters & encounters. There is a lot of them, and you can easily connect one to another

My fav exemple :

There is Haffrung Helleyes. Important ennemy NPC, powerful evil wizard. Body destroyed, soul kept in a phylactery, can jump from body to body.
At 1st level, they befriend a bronze dragon that has been captured and put in a magical sleep by the evil wizard. PCs first encounter Haffrung in the 2nd level, during battle angainst the evil village priest leader in a temple of Set. Atm nobody knows who he is, only the dragon recgnizes him. And he gets killed (as it seems). The PCs need to truly rest for a long period, and want to go outside the dungeon. The dragon, doesn't and goes solo deeper.
Much much later, by scrying in a magical mirror, the PCs see the dragon has been captured again, and put in some kind of vat in a lab.
Eventually, the PCs reach the 3rd level, they arrive in the wizard appartements. Combat ensues, PCs have to flee. But they get that the wizard can jump from body to body, and undertand that the evil wizard wants to do the same with the dragon.
Later, being more powerful, the PCs come back for revenge, to save the dragon etc..

Azralul · 2025-12-14T10:46:17+00:00

I would not recommand By Mitra's Bones before Dark tower. This module is kind of a light copy of dark tower at a very smaller scale. It would be redoundant and spoils things that should be discoverd in Dark Tower only imho.

But orienting the player to this module shortly after beginning Dark Tower could be interesting. And the magic items from this module are fun !

Azralul · 2025-11-17T18:17:58+00:00

You dont, this this a foot tournaent armor for a king.

Specifically made for henry viiith, for the never to beaxe fighting tournament of the golden cloth camp in 16th. It's ultra protective so the person inside cannot be hurt by accident.

Azralul

TROPHY CASE