[OSSR] Shackled City

[RelentlessImp]

The thing I always liked was showing the party there was a powerful villain in play, to cast a shadow on the campaign for them to deal with later. Maybe this isn't a great idea like I first thought, but all of my players have enjoyed the shock of it.

The thing is, by every right and every explanation of Vhalantru's motivations, the moment he shows up he should kill the PCs before they grow powerful enough to become threats to him. Here's the full explanation from the character creation.

The Shackled City Adventure Path is a tough campaign. Vhalantru understands that adventurers are his greatest enemy, and for the past few decades has developed an excellent eye for appraising the potential of beginning adventurers. Under the ironic mantle of patron, he offers his aid and support to new adventurers, guiding them toward quests of great danger. He keeps the threat of highlevel adventurers at bay by encouraging lower-level adventurers to take on quests that they cannot possibly handle. By the time the PCs finish Chapter One, they have caught his attention in this manner and he hopes that by encouraging them to take on the more dangerous adventures in Chapters Two, Three, and Four that they'll perish.

Now, here's the thing about that. Not only have the PCs gotten involved and disrupted the slave trade by going to the Malachite Fortress - which Vhalantru is getting a cut from, and Kazmojen knows Vhalantru as Orbis (having only seen him in his beholder form) but they also interfered in the Cagewrights' plans, and now know that Terrem is important enough to warrant a fucking beholder and 13th level wizard coming to collect him. By all sanity, Vhalantru should just kill the PCs for knowing too much.

Also, even though Paladins are shitty classes (and character creation says they're "excellent choices"), this is supposed to be an adventure even they can go on. What the fuck are they supposed to do when presented with the opportunity to cut a deal with a beholder? Take the 50 platinum pieces and lose all their powers?

Then again, this is a Beholder who secretly controls Cauldron, and his big evil plan (not involving the Shackleborn, that is) is a 20% sales tax on all adventurer purchases (gear, spells cast, etc) and a 30% property tax on all home owners and businesses come the end of the year. Maybe he's just defective and stupid. A defective and stupid 15HD beholder with 20 INT. Are these stupid decisions supposed to come from his 12 Wisdom? Because that's still above-average Wisdom.

[Longes]

The Shackled City Adventure Path is a tough campaign. Vhalantru understands that adventurers are his greatest enemy, and for the past few decades has developed an excellent eye for appraising the potential of beginning adventurers. Under the ironic mantle of patron, he offers his aid and support to new adventurers, guiding them toward quests of great danger. He keeps the threat of highlevel adventurers at bay by encouraging lower-level adventurers to take on quests that they cannot possibly handle. By the time the PCs finish Chapter One, they have caught his attention in this manner and he hopes that by encouraging them to take on the more dangerous adventures in Chapters Two, Three, and Four that they'll perish.

You know, when La Croix did that in Bloodlines - it worked, because La Croix had little personal strength and was bound by politics. You can't really do that with a high level beholder.

[erik]

All beholders are a bit crazy I thought. Especially one that disguised its perfect form as a disgusting human. Maybe it sees the killing of adventurers via adventuring the cleverest challenge?

[Omegonthesane]

All beholders are a bit crazy I thought. Especially one that disguised its perfect form as a disgusting human. Maybe it sees the killing of adventurers via adventuring the cleverest challenge?

That's... a line of reasoning that could have been used to justify Vhalantru's actions.

Could have been. Was not.

[Whipstitch]

Even then I think we can all acknowledge that you're literally running the Doctor Evil playbook.

[RelentlessImp]

Again, that's mind caulking to make it make sense with the information given. That's sort of the point of the Adventure Path system - the entire thing is self-contained, even giving you details about creatures and spells ripped out of Monster Manuals. With the information given, Vhalantru's actions make zero sense.

[codeGlaze]

This section fails on scope and scale. Again, FIRST LEVEL CHARACTERS in a SIXTY-THREE ROOM DUNGEON. That said, that's really the only level traps are a danger, so it seems Christopher Perkins at least understands that much, but still.

I was thinking it might be interesting to have a grading key with OSSRs after reading this.

[erik]

I should clarify that I was doing my best to really reach for it as devil's advocate. I totally think the authors were morons is the most likely explanation.

[Zaranthan]

For what it's worth, erik, I'm stealing that for a villain motivation in my next campaign.

[SlyJohnny]

I dunno, it doesn't seem implausible to me that he has a policy of putting his more powerful employees to good use by using them up on missions too difficult for them, but it backfires because one group manages to get more powerful than he calculated.

Sure, wiping out anyone who makes mid-level with his eye-beams would probably be safer, but this method was probably more rewarding up until the PC's came along.

If you really want to follow the "CR 13 monsters who are also geniuses and therefore don't ever make stupid mistakes" thing to it's logical conclusion, then there isn't even a game. Beholders and dragons already wiped out humanity sometime around the time those uppity monkeys developed fire, and there's no infrastructure for humanoid PCs to be relevant protagonists at all.

[TOZ]

It worked out in my one game, because one of the PCs was Shackleborn. So suddenly he sees another candidate, closes his antimagic eye to avoid anyone else noticing, and lets them go so as to avoid alerting the one sucker that he's important.

Of course, he should just stone the one and disintegrate the rest. But whatever.

[Starmaker]

There is one outstanding bit of art in this section, though; Lord Vhalantru's human form. He looks like a goddamned GUMMI BEAR.

He looks trustworthy. I approve.
Cauldron also has a minor NPC named Zanathor (store owner). One group I ran this with suspected him to secretly be the beholder for the longest time, due to Eye of the Beholder 1's Xanathar. (No, I didn't name Vhalantru "Orbius".)

You get a permanent telepathic bond with Meerthan, which is supposed to be used to make reports, but you can call for help from Meerthan, who is a half-elf Wizard 14. ...Who could destroy absolutely everything in the first few adventures, but still comes to the PCs for help at some point. What? Anyways, call for help three times and your membership is revoked.

I don't remember anything about membership revocation from the magazines, but one of the things the guy does is bind people onto his bracelet of friends, which is really damn helpful.

And so much of this history isn't the least bit relevant, like who originally ruled the area Cauldron is in and the last of the kopru being driven off by spell weaver explorers and ugh. SPEND MORE TIME ON WHAT ACTUALLY FUCKING MATTERS TO THE PLAYERS, PLEASE.

Maybe it's just because this was the first time I've seen spell weavers, but this is one of the few settings which managed to imply a really interesting ancient past to the D&D world that's worth discovering and researching.

It opens up with saying that Vhalantru has his eye on your characters by the end of Life's Bazaar, and will be sending them on quests in hopes of getting them killed because he sees potential for them to become a threat to him. Fair enough. Wait. He's a fucking beholder. He can disintegrate them at will. WHY IS HE NOT JUST KILLING THEM BEFORE THEY BECOME A GODDAMNED THREAT?!

Must be a hardcover fuckup. The magazine has "uses adventurers, then destroys then if they become a threat". Rays only get you this far; as a damn beholder, he does actually need help with longbows and shit, and information gathering should be crowdsourced.

Captured thugs (they're not captured. They get CDG'd)

Sleep lasts a minute and doesn't have the check each round to awaken bullshit, so some thugs can absolutely survive long enough to get tied up and questioned. Don't bash the adventure for trying to provide enemy interactions beyond stabination.

will reveal with a DC 25 Diplomacy check or a charm person that they're not actually members of the Last Laugh

Now this is bullshit. I know torture and death threats aren't good questioning methods, but "we aren't career thugs, we're just local chavs" is a reasonable thing to say to avoid getting killed straight away without a check.

No, the gnome wizards who built this place didn't figure this out, which makes me wonder how the PCs are going to figure it out.

Well, to be fair, it's 63 rooms. If the wizards fucked off after building the place and let the DMG population guidelines take over, the locals were lucky if they had someone skilled in wiping his ass. (Then again, they did place a permanent image of the gnome king mourning the demise of the city.)

Ahem. Anyways, a nice point is that this dungeon tells us the actual size of the dungeon passageways, which is nice because the map does that stupid fucking 1 square = 10ft thing that INFURIATES ME. It can't be used as a goddamned battle map. Why not draw it to fucking scale, save your MCs some goddamned effort?

5ft squares are too small to look good in a printed magazine. They should've done this for the pdfs, though.

This section fails on scope and scale. Again, FIRST LEVEL CHARACTERS in a SIXTY-THREE ROOM DUNGEON. That said, that's really the only level traps are a danger

As TOZ pointed out, there's a secret door making it 4 rooms and no traps; coupled with a hint to beware the trapped cog doors (which is every regular door) it's pretty findable. I like that the dungeon is hueg; it feels more like a city it's supposed to be.
Also, the PCs are supposed to get the map of the layout with all rooms shown (no skulk tunnels or secret doors), so it's way easier to crawl than a smaller dungeon but with a hand-drawn map.

There didn't need to be a giant penis-waving encounter with the fuck-off Beholder, nor a level 13 Wizard, and especially not both at once.

She's invisible and doesn't really contribute to the fuck-off quota unless the PCs have see invisibility on (they're 3rd level so they don't). (The beholder alone is enough to meet it, though.)

They have eleven of the thirteen Shackleborn they need for it, and Terrem is the 12th Shackleborn, hence his abduction.

If Vhalantru is fine with Terrem staying at the orphanage until he's needed for the ritual, WHY ABDUCT HIM AT ALL. Must be a hardcover fuckup, because I distinctly remember that in the magazine the skulks/creepers kidnapping him was an honest mistake.

All this just so Terrem can be mysteriously returned to the Orphanage without the PCs. Just... augh. Why did this even need to be here?

I can't find the quote now, but apparently, meeting the beholder on the first adventure was supposed to be a selling point. I...sort of can see why, it's an iconic monster after all, and they are setting him up to be killed later. I also think that "yes, there are totally evil societies, and no, you can't take on the whole Underdark as third-level characters" is fine as messages go.

In addition, given the way that it talks about Vhalantru in the character creation section, and the fact that he was getting a slice of profits from the slave trade

I ran it like "the kidnappers specifically tried to fuck with Vhalantru and he didn't like it". As written, the PCs stopping the slavers makes them priority Disintegrate targets.

Oh yeah, he looks like he'll become a productive member of society.

That's actually unironically true if he grows up to become an evil adventurer.

[RelentlessImp]

Must be a hardcover fuckup. The magazine has "uses adventurers, then destroys then if they become a threat". Rays only get you this far; as a damn beholder, he does actually need help with longbows and shit, and information gathering should be crowdsourced.

So you're telling me I should be reviewing this out of the Dungeon issues this was published in because the hardcover seems to be doing everything it can to fuck it up.

[Longes]

Must be a hardcover fuckup. The magazine has "uses adventurers, then destroys then if they become a threat". Rays only get you this far; as a damn beholder, he does actually need help with longbows and shit, and information gathering should be crowdsourced.

So you're telling me I should be reviewing this out of the Dungeon issues this was published in because the hardcover seems to be doing everything it can to fuck it up.

Obviously not, since the more fucked up one is the more interesting one.

[Omegonthesane]

If you really want to follow the "CR 13 monsters who are also geniuses and therefore don't ever make stupid mistakes" thing to it's logical conclusion, then there isn't even a game. Beholders and dragons already wiped out humanity sometime around the time those uppity monkeys developed fire, and there's no infrastructure for humanoid PCs to be relevant protagonists at all.

I dunno, half the colours of dragon are Good as opposed to Evil so would probably have genius countermeasures on principle. Whether that leads to them all dying because they're outnumbered, or the Evil ones all dying because they can be turned against eachother more easily than the Good ones, or some kind of détente in which the dragons and beholders only unite against threats that just pinged CR 13 without signing the secret nonagression pact between geniuses of CR 13+, I dunno.

Must be a hardcover fuckup. The magazine has "uses adventurers, then destroys then if they become a threat". Rays only get you this far; as a damn beholder, he does actually need help with longbows and shit, and information gathering should be crowdsourced.

So you're telling me I should be reviewing this out of the Dungeon issues this was published in because the hardcover seems to be doing everything it can to fuck it up.

Obviously not, since the more fucked up one is the more interesting one.

Although if you can *trivially* source the original Dungeon issues, a double-check of "this is how the hardcover went out of its way to fuck it up" might be interesting too.

[Starmaker]

So you're telling me I should be reviewing this out of the Dungeon issues this was published in because the hardcover seems to be doing everything it can to fuck it up.

No, because
1. there's plenty of shit in the magazines, too, and
2. I don't have the hardcover (it was always prohibitively expensive) and I'm curious. There's added content, there are added references to future adventures, and there are most likely missed references / hooks and other inexplicable fuck-yous (as in the magazine). For example,

Fario and Fellian might try to rescue them, but otherwise they get sold in chains to some namedrops that won't be relevant until later. Keep an eye out for the names Pyllrak Shyraat and Vervil Ashmantle to see how long it takes them to show up, because it suggests once they're sold as slaves they might find it easier to escape from those names.

only Pyllrak Shyraat, who appears in this very chapter, is mentioned in the magazine as a probable purchaser. Vervil Ashmantle only shows up as a throwaway villain in the adventure where Vhalantru finally bites it. So that's one call-forward they inserted for the hardcover. But did they remember to edit in the dwarf kid's parents into Vhalantru's mansion? Did they ever come up with an explanation for killing a just-rescued character by handwavium? Did they ever realize "your PC isn't present for the final adventure of the campaign, go play Smash Bros" isn't exactly satisfying?

[RelentlessImp]

I'm still downloading the Dungeon stuff so I can get the maps out (because seriously, this version of the PDF doesn't fucking HAVE THEM, and I can't tell if it's the source or if this problem is present in the hardcover collection) and the process is going pretty slow; expect this to update probably tomorrow once I get it.

In the meantime, I've started a Tumblr collecting my OSSRs, because I want to piss off Paizil-loving Tumblrites and have people to call stupid.

[deaddmwalking]

There are things I really like about Shackled City, but it failed in a lot of places. This has been an enjoyable review so far. I applaud your decision to present it as 'high level overview' and not 'room by room'. Jazidrune or whatever is bad enough PLAYING it that way, reading a review of it would be too much.

[Starmaker]

I have a love-hate relationship with this AP. In 2003, an issue of Dungeon cost $17 where I live and was like a fourth of my disposable income for the month, so an adventure taking up a large chunk of the issue, with various supplementary materials (there was a poster map of Cauldron in the first issue), felt like a disappointing waste of cash that'd never result in any sort of payoff. At the same time, the level of detail was refreshing, rarely seen in standalone adventures. Somehow, I managed to buy every relevant issue except the one with Flood Season (the 2nd one), but the quality of adventures went downhill because of course it did, and I kept hoping to the very end that maybe, just maybe, it'd get better and I could recoup my 'investment'. (Haha nope.)

However, despite the many faults of this particular path, and the problems with no right answer inherent in the format, as adventure paths go it's one of the best ones. The idea of sticking around and being Cauldron's heroes is a one-time buy-in, and it's easier to sell to the PCs than swallowing one contrived hook after another.

So, to quote Andri Erlingsson here, I like it enough that I'd rewrite it if given the chance, but I dislike it enough to think it really needs a rewrite (yet another rewrite, judging by the apparent quality of the hardcover).

[RelentlessImp]

Alright, so I've learned my PDF is, in fact, "incomplete". The hardcover version of the book included an additional booklet with all the maps; not including them in the book is still a sign of things being fucked up the ass. So I've trawled the web to find the maps.

Pro tip: Making things harder for your buyers is asinine. Make the goddamned compilation actually all-inclusive. Maybe strip out some of the bullshit word salad that the PCs don't care about and don't interact with to make room, if you're actually giving a fuck about page count and not padding it out.

So, let's get started with this.

Drakthar's Way
by Christopher Perkins

Drakthar's Way was not, in fact, originally a part of the Shackled City Adventure Path. It was written for the compilation hardcover/PDF. You were supposed to fill in the gaps between Life's Bazaar and Flood Season with random bullshit, as Flood Season supposes your PCs are 4th level and Life's Bazaar in its 97-room dungeon crawl only brings your PCs to 3rd level. So enter Drakthar's Way, a mercifully brief adventure with a host of problems. Let's have a look at it, will we?

There is a full page worth of background information detailing a few things. First off, there's a crime wave breaking out - this is the sort of thing that third level adventurers actually care about, as they're still on that narrow focus of how they interact with the world. Random goblins are mugging people who wander down dark alleys, committing B&E, and tagging walls. And now I can't think of anything but a D&D version of Jet Set Radio and I want to play it so bad, with either the original composers or Ronald Jenkees.

Anyways, there's one paragraph that the PCs actually interact with; the rest is behind the scenes bullshit that the MC might care about, but probably not. This was obviously written to try and seed early signs of later chapters, but there's so little that the PCs get to see of that. It's basically pointless. You know what else could have taken up this page? A FUCKING MAP.

There's a brief sidebar that is incredibly stupid. It says the PCs should be third level, but if they're finding Life's Bazaar too difficult then it can be put on hold and you can run Drakthar's Way concurrently with it. Which makes no goddamned sense, if the events leading into Drakthar's Way are supposed to start after you break up the slave ring.

Anyways, shortly after returning to Cauldron (during which the PCs get some downtime beforehand), the PCs get a letter from Terseon Skellerang waiting for them at the Church of St. Cuthbert or their private residence, bearing the seal of the Office of the Lord Mayor. Long story short, the Captain of the Guard wants to hire the PCs to investigate what he thinks is a goblin infestation, and offers to pay them 5gp per goblin ear they bring back. (Nevermind the PCs could earn a lot more money just selling their spell slots every day - first level spells earning them 30gp and second level earning them 60gp at 3rd level.)

He offers them a few bullet points of information; the goblins appear at night,typically on cloudy, overcast, or foggy nights, in groups of three to six. Armed with short swords and light crossbows (a switch from their mace/javelin MM entries), have no real pattern to their attacks, have robbed, broken and entered, and tagged some buildings, but haven't killed anyone yet. And apparently nobody wanted to fucking translate the graffiti written in Goblin. Okay, this guy is a dumbass.

Terseon gives them "a few days to a week" before looking into the matter; he doesn't consider the problem urgent, and knows they need some downtime after trawling through two dungeons.

And a bit of thinking; remember that artifact that can 1/week divination? The PCs get to ask Jenya to break it out again! And the answers are fucking useless. "Where is the goblins' lair?" "Ask the red-eyed dwarf, and he'll lie." "What do the goblins want?" "To play like rats, steal coins, and please their master." "Whom do the goblins serve?" "Drakthar the Bloodmonger."

No in-town investigation will turn up anything about that last name, but the red-eyed dwarf with DC 20 Gather Information or Knowledge (local) points the PCs to a retired dwarf adventurer missing an eye, whose eyepatch has a stylish red gem sewn into it. This retired adventurer... runs a bathhouse. Okay then. That's at least more original than running a tavern. They also learn the dwarf has stopped visiting his favorite tavern, which should be a red flag given D&D's propensity for reducing dwarves down to fucking drunkards and not, I dunno, mighty wizards.

The goblin graffiti is kind of fucking important. While it says stuff like "Drakthar owns this" and "Who builds town in volcano? Stupid humans." it also has clues to who, or rather what, Drakthar is, like...

"Hail Drakthar, lord of the rats." "Drakthar is the fog!" "As a wolf, Drakthar hunts."

So, aside from finding out about the dwarf adventurer, Orak Stonehaven, the PCs can also track goblins during one of their nightly excursions and follow them back to Orak's bathhouse.

Remember Jil, from the last chapter? She makes an appearance while the PCs are investigating. She disguises herself (with disguise self) as a plump young woman wearing a sword and whip, and gives anyone touching her a DC 12 Will save to pierce the illusion. She basically just shows up to be mysterious and point the PCs to Orak's bathhouse.

It also suggests playing up romantic tension between Jil and "a charismatic PC". I believe I made my feelings clear on that during the Savage Tide review, so this can go fuck off.

Orak is, truthfully, under domination from Drakthar, the Bugbear Vampire. So he doesn't like the PCs showing up in his bathhouse... nor do a group of wererats who follow them inside.

While investigating the bathhouse, the PCs are being shadowed and stalked by a group of four wererats, who attack the moment they go inside. These are bog-standard wererats who attack in hybrid form and utilize their bite attacks.

Remember how I bitched about the savage template in Savage Tide? It's not as bad here, but 4 Wererats using bite attacks is probably going to infect someone and render them unable to level, and give them an useless fucking animal HD and +3 level adjustment. It's a DC 15 Fort save on being bitten, and the PCs are third level, and the wererats have DR 10/silver and magic at a level that actually matters. That said, they each only have 2HD and Will saves of +2, so a pair of sleep spells can remove a lot of the problems.

Here's the bathhouse, by the way:



One amusing point that I want to point out: The bathhouse charges 1sp for a bath, and 1sp for soap. Free towel use. Also Orak has a decanter of endless water that allows him to constantly have fresh water for baths. It's not a bad little setup, all told. The PCs can steal the decanter but will have to kill Orak for it, and he's a dwarf fighter 4.

There is a locked door down the descending staircase on the map that leads to Drakthar's Way.

Part Two: Drakthar's Way

There are THREE maps associated with this place.

There is a lot of page space dedicated to detailing what it calls a "living dungeon". Drakthar has a makeshift tribe of goblins, consisting of goblin adepts, goblin rogues, goblin skirmishers, and goblin ranger/rogues. The hideout also has no lights, so if the PCs enter with lights they are immediately attacked by a pair of sentries. They can also step on a tripwire when they enter. I can't really tell where the PCs enter due to these maps; again, a compilation should be fucking ALL INCLUSIVE so that people can more easily tell where the ever loving fuck they are in relation to text and map.

So I'll spare you the blow-by-blow; the PCs are meant to go through this place, killing goblins and collecting loot, until they find their way to Drakthar. Now, let's be honest here; just because you take away Create Spawn (and replace it with a disease that rots the corpse if killed by level drain) does not make a vampire "underpowered", which is how Drakthar is written up ("underpowered bugbear vampire").

Aside from the vampire, Drakthar's Throne is an undead creature on its own that sprouts four skeletal legs and two skeletal arms when it spies people that aren't supposed to be in Drakthar's throne room. It's a 6HD Medium undead that is boring, with two +5 slam attacks. Drakthar himself, however... hoo boy.

First off, Drakthar is a fully fledged vampire. Get that "underpowered" shit out of here. While spawn would be more powerful than the goblins, it's not the point; not when he still has an at-will dominate and can call 1d4+1 bat swarms, 1d6+1 rat swarms, or 3d6 wolves once per day. Oh, and his slam still deals negative levels. He is a legitimate threat and can probably straight up kill a PC or two before he goes down, especially if encountered with his Throne. He is legitimately dangerous, and I respect that. Killing Drakthar un-dominates all the goblins and other people under his mind control.

There's even a note saying that the adventure can continue if Drakthar dominates the PCs, and turns them into his spies to investigate the Cagewrights, demanding a report every seven days (presumably so he can refresh his domination).

There are also some encounters with mercenaries; a sorcerer and halberd-wielding warrior in one room, and a group of half-orc mercenaries and their leader. The mercenaries drink potions of bull's strength if they fight, which makes them rather dangerous.

This adventure is... short. Most of the page space is devoted to describing the dungeons room by room, and dropping clues for foreshadowing future racism. Mostly it serves to introduce the Captain of the Guard to the PCs and get them friendly with him, but... I don't know. It's boring, dry, and yet another long slog through a too-large dungeon, which ends with an encounter with a fucking horrifying foe who engages in hit-and-run tactics against the PCs as they work their way through the dungeon. Drakthar, as written, can end the adventure right here all on his fucking own.

No, seriously. He has three tactics for his hit-and-run; wading into combat, killing someone, then going gaseous and escaping; summoning rat or bat swarms and sending them after people and dominating one of the PCs to turn against their friends, and leaving once someone is killed; or turning into a dire wolf, tripping and pinning someone and draining them of blood before running away. And there really isn't much PCs can do against it, especially ones built under Paizo and/or WotC's delusions of what an actual PC party is supposed to look like.

So yeah, it's boring, a slog, and Drakthar is not in any fucking way "underpowered" just because he can't make spawn. With the right MC, it can be creepy and atmospheric as anything, or it's a straight up TPK. It's actually kind of insulting, and I don't see how this could have added anything to the path aside from a way to get to 4th level or so.

You know what the page space could have better been dedicated to? FUCKING MAPS. No, I'm not fucking letting that go. 18 pages that could have been better utilized by making this thing EASIER TO FUCKING READ in the compilation. Which is touted as making the path easier to use by having it all in one place.

[GâtFromKI]

[...]

Ok; how could this piece of shit possibly gain the best cartography award ? There are two maps, and none of them make any sense.

Why is there 12 docks around the crater lake ? Do they really need to construct docks and boats to transport merchandises, instead of just using a cart around the Ash avenue ? Is there so many fish in the lake that they need (at least) 12 fishing boat ? How do can there be any fish at all, with a town 10 times larger than the lake and no connection to any fucking river ? Do fishes come with the rain ?

And now the region map: why does all those roads go to Cauldron, as if it was the fucking center of all commercial roads ? Cauldron is at the fucking top of a mountain ! You construct a fortress at the top of a mountain, not a town ! The whole point is to make the access to your fortress as hard as possible, and the access to your commercial town as easy as possible, not the other way around ! Commercial towns naturally develop around rivers and in mountain pass, not around a fucking lake connected to nothing on the fucking top of a fucking mountain !

Seriously, was it the "best cartography" award, or the "best pretty drawing" award ?

[hyzmarca]

Then again, this is a Beholder who secretly controls Cauldron, and his big evil plan (not involving the Shackleborn, that is) is a 20% sales tax on all adventurer purchases (gear, spells cast, etc) and a 30% property tax on all home owners and businesses come the end of the year. Maybe he's just defective and stupid. A defective and stupid 15HD beholder with 20 INT. Are these stupid decisions supposed to come from his 12 Wisdom? Because that's still above-average Wisdom.

As big evil plans go, that's actually a sign of intelligence and wisdom. Instead of living alone without any comforts or amenities in a dungeon under a sewer like some beholders, the guy lives the life of luxury. 20% sales tax on adventuring gear? He doesn't have to fight adventurers at all. They fund his lifestyle. 30% property tax? That isn't even excessive, but it adds money to his coffers.

Smart successful evil isn't the evil that tries to destroy the world, it's the evil that sets itself up in government and takes its cut.

[Maxus]

Then again, this is a Beholder who secretly controls Cauldron, and his big evil plan (not involving the Shackleborn, that is) is a 20% sales tax on all adventurer purchases (gear, spells cast, etc) and a 30% property tax on all home owners and businesses come the end of the year. Maybe he's just defective and stupid. A defective and stupid 15HD beholder with 20 INT. Are these stupid decisions supposed to come from his 12 Wisdom? Because that's still above-average Wisdom.

As big evil plans go, that's actually a sign of intelligence and wisdom. Instead of living alone without any comforts or amenities in a dungeon under a sewer like some beholders, the guy lives the life of luxury. 20% sales tax on adventuring gear? He doesn't have to fight adventurers at all. They fund his lifestyle. 30% property tax? That isn't even excessive, but it adds money to his coffers.

Smart successful evil isn't the evil that tries to destroy the world, it's the evil that sets itself up in government and takes its cut.

There's a couple of fantasy novels which touch on this subject. It runs like this:

There was once a people enslaved, and then a child was born and as she grew up she led her people to freedom and performed miracles. She was a living saint, and her people revered her.

The place they settled at was a huge forest, at the center of which was a mountain. The Master of the Mountain was a wizard who commanded not only the obedience, but the loyalty of demons, who were said to be his kin. He harrassed the Saint's people until she went up and offered herself up as a hostage, if he would leave her people alone. And her people were very touched by her sacrifice.

They were a bit surprised and increasingly discontent when she came back for the rest of her stuff, moved in for keeps, got married, persuaded him to give up the Evil Dark Lording and start insurance companies, and they're now happily married and having a huge brood of semi-divine, quasidemonic kids.

Anvil of the World, Kaje Baker, if anyone wants to go read it. It's good.

[Lokathor]

@*#@&# I was almost done with the Foreword and Introduction and the power went out. Guess I'll have to start using OpenOffice and praying for autosaves.

Google Docs works wonders. Cloud, and all that.

[Chamomile]

There's a /tg/ greentext about an accountant who saves a village from a dragon by convincing the dragon invest his wealth in the region and make it back with loan repayments made possible by his investments for greater longterm profits than regular pillaging.