Post/Author/DateTime	Post
poeticyde 09-06-05, 02:44 PM	A while back, I remember someone mentioning how they used the map from the Forgotten Forge adventure in the Rose Quarry map room from Shadows of the Last War, in order to tie the two together and make the difficulty the Emerald Claw had with the map room more believable... ...but darned if I can find the thread that mentioned how they did it! Can anyone give me a hand, here?
Kid SixXx 09-08-05, 09:52 PM	A while back, I remember someone mentioning how they used the map from the Forgotten Forge adventure in the Rose Quarry map room from Shadows of the Last War, in order to tie the two together and make the difficulty the Emerald Claw had with the map room more believable... ...but darned if I can find the thread that mentioned how they did it! Can anyone give me a hand, here? The great majority of DM's found it pretty laughable that a boss villain like Garrow could not seem to deduce the location of Whitehearth. After all, the clues were right there in front of him. What was he? Slow or something? Some of us agreed that the best thing to do would be to use the old "Raiders of the Lost Ark Map Room" trick where the villains would not be able to locate Whitehearth because they were missing a piece of the puzzle. Therefore we deduced that Garrow failed to find Whitehearth because the map on the Rose Quarry Refinery floor had not be drawn exactly to scale by design, & it failed to incorporate a few key landmarks to aid in navigation. Garrow's calculations on the location of the secret Cannith facilities would always be off, because he relied solely on the clues in the Rose Quarry refinery. The Map from FF serves to help players to better estimate the locations of the Cannith secret bases.
MarkB 09-09-05, 04:59 AM	The great majority of DM's found it pretty laughable that a boss villain like Garrow could not seem to deduce the location of Whitehearth. After all, the clues were right there in front of him. What was he? Slow or something? Some of us agreed that the best thing to do would be to use the old "Raiders of the Lost Ark Map Room" trick where the villains would not be able to locate Whitehearth because they were missing a piece of the puzzle. One thing to note is that it's easy enough to accomplish this even if your players didn't keep the map, simply by having Garrow unaware that the name of the specific House Cannith facility is Whitehearth, only that it's an abandoned facility in the Mournland. In that case, he lets the PCs lead the way because it's faster and less dangerous than scouring half a dozen former Cannith sites dotted around the Mournland. My players did have the map, and the way I applied it was by having the map use the same symbols as those on the Rose Quarry map floor, but include a key showing what the different symbols meant. There were multiple symbols on the floor that were within the broad area defined by the inexact method of pacing out a distance, but only one of them was a Cannith research facility - and the key identified which one.
Kid SixXx 09-09-05, 06:45 AM	My players did have the map, and the way I applied it was by having the map use the same symbols as those on the Rose Quarry map floor, but include a key showing what the different symbols meant. There were multiple symbols on the floor that were within the broad area defined by the inexact method of pacing out a distance, but only one of them was a Cannith research facility - and the key identified which one. That works also. Some spoilerish DM info below: One bit of irony that I worked into the situation was the fate of one of Garrow's patrols. I had Garrow assume that he was on the wrong track because he had not heard from one of his expedition teams. The truth was that the expedition team had actually come close to finding Whitehearth via Garrow's directions, but hadn't counted on the Carcass Crab at the Charnel Pit (EL4) encounter. If the PC's had looked closely, they'd have found Emerald Claw troopers amongst the dead. I had Garrow animate the bodies of his dead troopers in preparation for the possible success of the PC's. The 4 skeletons that accompany Garrow in the Ambushed! encounter in Part Six are the remains of his team. Obedient even after death.
poeticyde 09-09-05, 08:29 AM	Great ideas, all, thanks! I too thought it a little ridiculous that Garrow couldn't decipher the clues...this will help a lot. Thanks again!
cmanos 09-09-05, 11:47 AM	Playing with the idea of the maproom from raiders, how about this scenario. The map they find is very odd in that it is drawn on an oddly-shaped pane of glass. When they get to Rose Quarry they find a window in the ceiling of the map room, which does not have the map on the floor at all, but rather just the locations of the facilities. The window is the same size and shape as the pane of glass. Insert the pane and put a strong light source behind it and now you have a map to go with the points.
Kid SixXx 09-09-05, 04:03 PM	Playing with the idea of the maproom from raiders, how about this scenario. The map they find is very odd in that it is drawn on an oddly-shaped pane of glass. When they get to Rose Quarry they find a window in the ceiling of the map room, which does not have the map on the floor at all, but rather just the locations of the facilities. The window is the same size and shape as the pane of glass. Insert the pane and put a strong light source behind it and now you have a map to go with the points. Ooooh. That's like in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, where Sinbad holds a pair of linked medallions up to a fire in the Vizer's chambers and the shadow from the medallions falls upon a wall. Suddenly, the "cool painting" on the wall becomes a nautical chart!