I've started a "campaign" (to use the term loosely, as it's getting cobbled together as I go..) trying to convert Heirs of Blood into the Genesys system. I think I've seen mentions that a couple of others might be doing the same thing. At the moment, I'm looking at Caladen's Crossing. The two part encounter seems like it could be rich in possibilities. But right now I'm kind of blocked by how to handle the PCs attempting to put out the fire that's spreading in the town. In the Descent version, it's just a case of objective tokens representing buckets of water from the river that the heroes have to carry to town and throw on the fire (which is represented by a different color of objective token), which is great for Descent. Are there any savvy role players who might have any thoughts as to how would you convert this action into role playing mode?

And in general, if anyone else is working on a project of this nature, perhaps we could compare notes as we go along. (I've only run two sessions so far...). Thank you.

There are many ways on how to represent the fire depending on what you want to do. Would you do as a separate encounter or something structed while combat is going on ?

Anyways i think a good way to handle it is through skill challenges besides the carry water to fire part you could set up things where its more rescue or making a fire belt, clearing rubble etc.

Anyways short version select a number of success like say 15 before 3-5 failed checks what ever you like and have the players take turns describing what skill they use and how it will contribute to putting out the fires or rescuing people. Difficulty on the rolls should be kept at average to hard. Use setbacks and upgrades as normal. You might want to autoupgrade something just due to fire if your so inclined. Use threats and despair for minor burns possible even minor crits or maybe you could spawn a fire elemental or other fire spirit attracted to the fire if despair is rolled. Now the players must decide if their turn is doing combat with this new threat or helping putting out the fire.

Decide what happens if they succeed and what happens if they fail.

Interesting ideas, thanks Archellus! In the Descent version of the quest, in Heirs of Blood, the putting out the fire problem happens with combat going on at the same time. I hadn't thought of making that a separate encounter. Some really good ideas here. That's really helpful. A fire elemental or other fire spirit (fire imp) being attracted to the fire if a despair is rolled. That's brilliant! Thank you for your response! It opens up some possibilities I would never have thought of..

I'm still chipping away at a lot of connected ongoing Descent projects too, gradually linking parts of the work in progress together and working on different elements such as maps, my project's quite a huge one (and some ideas will need checking permissions with FFG and looking into if certain things are possible with FFG and creatives I've got to know in the community including a few RPG artists.) Still sidetracked by some more important accommodation-related work at the flat I have to focus on first so hugely frustrating I'm mostly having to take a temporary break from it as I'm itching to get back to it, so dipping in now and again when I get the time. Good news is my work rota's less awful next month (days off have been too split up recently) which should help!

My project's a biggie as I'm linking the existing concepts to some new ones that join up the dots and thread the lore/stories together in an epic series of adventures with a few underlying mysteries, sometimes unexpected connections and twists the heroes are yet to discover.

I've already delved quite a bit into HoB (I'll try to avoid any major spoilers for my adventures!) I may alter a few of the non-major monsters used for various encounter adventures as the Descent adventures are somewhat designed just to use the various monsters, and of course HoB relies only on the core set, so it's not always the ones that most logically fit particular parts or that work as well with how I'm weaving the stories and characters together.

Re 'Caladen's Crossing' I was thinking of allocating the dice extra symbol-based roles (rolls *smiles*?) relevant to the symbol meaning and thematic links/ negative or positive effect so that each die roll covers the unpredictability of the fire as other events unfold, giving the fire an unnerving connection to the fortunes of the adventurers, as if it's some part of the evil descending on Terrinoth that almost seems to have a mind and a life of its own, as if it's latching on to the heroes to help defeat them and stop their interfering in some malevolent intent, perhaps, 'verses forbid, it actually does. Thus also meaning that the fire does its thing at the same time as whatever else is going on. I was looking to tie this into this module being one where it's a quite intense multiple challenges happening at the same time adventure- maybe even carrying over some ideas from fire control board games The Great Fire of London/ Flash Point Fire Rescue but in a Descent/ RPG way such as maybe something can become a hazard if the fire gets too close (explodey things ) , maybe the wind and weather is/isn't in the adventuring heroes' favor, the fire could actually help or hinder both friends and foes in various ways Fire can weaken or ultimately destroy walls, building supports, trees etc - making or blocking off entry/exit points thus changing the terrain and its smoke/clouds can be suffocating or even toxic.

Think it has quite a lot of potential to be done in a unique way due to this, and could be interesting. As Descent hinted at some elemental content (I'm sure from the various hints I picked up because of things that never made it to the game that there was going to be an elemental themed adventure that got dropped after the expansions got closed off with 'Lost Legends' grrrrr, especially with Shadar on the cover of that and they never introduced her in the game ), so there's also some scope to explore if elementalists / other elemental aspects/entities might be useful creatively in this scenario- maybe they want the fire to thrive or they oppose it or could help in so doing....

For me goblins may be underground-dwellers, which has some interesting maybes too- perhaps they are quite vulnerable to the fire but can flee to safety underground- as long as the smoke doesn't get them....

Not all of this has to be prescribed, it can just be there for gm/player ideas they may go with depending how the adventure plays out. Plenty of ways also the heroes could try to put out the fire, whilst others may have a vested interest in sabotaging their rescue/ fire extinguishing attempts- such as blocking access to water sources, or either side using powerful magics to control the weather- hey lets make a storm, the rains should help, well, that went rather badly- the storm's as much of a threat itself.... Or the best we can do is a few buckets of water, ever embarked on something that seemed a little optimistically ambitious? Especially with these goblins and whatever other monsters attacking us. And I'm VERY worried about Tyrus! Reminds me too much of Merick. The villagers have promised to help us if we can save any of them, but this place is fast becoming smoke and ash. I get a feeling we'll soon need all the allies we can get. Too much to do at once, need a plan....

So plenty of suggestions you can make for lots of possible ways this first part of the adventure could go, that may play into the second (such as the rescued villagers aiding the adventuring heroes as their guards, as best they can as everyday village folk rather than trained guards, maybe the numbers of minions alive to fight for the enemy- perhaps the fire basically won but it's actually dispatched or scared off some of the enemy hordes or / and affected the resources/ buildings they rely on- which could equally be true of the heroes. Or the fire was defeated- but was that more helpful or more harmful to the heroes' aims based on how things went? I'm saving Tyrus for later- don't think he'll have much of a role in this part of events- but gm's may want to make use of him if things go exceptionally badly, or too easily, depending on what feels right for the players and session.

One little teaser for my adventure project though (especially if you've read my rather rough first draft adventure series intro, I'll link it below): what if the fire is reflected in the eyes of Tyrus, Eliza and Merick..... Which is the reflection and which is that which is being reflected - the fire in their eyes or the fire itself or both- and what exactly is that which is being reflected - of whom or what? Where does it originate from and why is Eliza no longer married to Merick as we remembered? Something doesn't add up about the rumours and both seem even angrier of late.... Link: https://adobe.ly/2GxF9yr

Not really anyone at FFG to ask permission of anymore.....

12 hours ago, IamGazrok said:

Not really anyone at FFG to ask permission of anymore.....

That's a point - are any of 'Team Terrinoth' there still? FFG still own the copyrights in question though.

It's not great post-Asmodee at FFG, creatively smaller is sometimes better, big can mean downsizing teams, dropping big much-loved 'brands' and losing key people- wonder if that 'big Terrinoth project' they were working on will see the light of day after the recent changes. Recent news was a bit of a downer. Kind of hoping Asmodee don't vacuum up too many other games firms after how they've rather torn the heart out of FFG.

Oh well, if not, we've got our own projects

..although (well as I've wandered a bit off topic) I wonder if Asmodee are moving things over to being one business and the likes of FFG will be like their imprints or labels or whatever you wish to call them under that umbrella, they're still recruiting in similar areas under AMA's name and promoted through FFG, it's even possible some staff could eventually join the new 'body'- some people have said there was overlap between FFG and AMA so it could just be a bit of a restructuring now it's part of one bigger business.

https://www.asmodeena.com/en/careers/

https://workforcenow.adp.com/mascsr/default/mdf/recruitment/recruitment.html?cid=26b517cc-1528-4fba-8d5a-378e14033040&ccId=19000101_000001&jobId=308797&source=CC3&lang=en_US

Anyway, enough about heirs of Asmodee/FFG - back to Heirs of Blood....

Watercolour Dragon, thank you for the interesting response! I did read your intro to your first draft adventure series, thanks for the link to it. It's quite intriguing. I will certainly look forward to seeing more as you develop it further. I now see why you have some unique and innovative ideas about what might happen with the fire in Caladen's Crossing. Very interesting. I like the possibilities, but am probably going to end up with something more straightforward, for simplicity's sake. In fact I have already finished the rules for that encounter. We haven't played it yet. In the Descent encounter (#1) there are two buildings that are on fire. I expanded it to four in my version. Each house will start the encounter with one fire token. Every round the fire will spread by one token. That will be randomly determined by a d4 roll. If there are ever three fire tokens in a building at the end of the round, it will have burned down. The PCs can use an action fighting the fire. There are buckets available, and the river. But the players can present their ideas for how they will combat the fire. A successful check will remove one fire token from the building where the PC is fighting the fire. Threat for minor burns and despair for "minor crits" - per the suggestion from Archellus, thank you - will be used. If all fire tokens are removed from a building, the fire in that building is put out.

I will also roll a d4 for randomly placing two trapped children in one of the buildings (houses). On a Hard Survival check, they can be saved from a burning house. On a failed check, the PC can have the option instead of covering the children with his own body and taking 6 wounds ignoring Soak and Burn 3 to protect them for that round. Otherwise, if they are still trapped in a house with two fire tokens at the end of the round, they perish in the fire. Each PC rolls one boost die for the rest of the encounter if they are saved, or one setback if they die, to reflect the raised or depressed spirits collectively from each respective outcome.

By spending two story points, the PCs may request aid from Tyrus. If they do, remove any two fire tokens or ALL from any one house. Tyrus is then incapacitated by virtue of exceeding his strain threshold by one. For the rest of the encounter, an enemy engaged with Tyrus can spend an action to pick him up and start carrying him off. (Maybe I should require the enemy to have Brawn of at least 3 to be able to do that...). The enemies in the encounter will be Skeletons, Dark Priests (cultists) and Beastmen.

For each fire put out, one villager will join the "Village Guard" for the second part of the encounter. If ALL buildings AND the trapped children are saved, then each PC will receive a boost die on all checks for the second part of the encounter. I don't know if this is enough of a reward for all this, but that's what I've got..

Since I'm going to be travelling for two weeks, we're not playing this encounter for at least three weeks. So suggestions for refining it are certainly most welcome! Thank you in advance!

So far we've played the Acolyte of Saradyn, Siege of Skytower, Relegar's Rest and Blood Will Tell. Hopefully it's been getting progressively smoother. At least I know I've been enjoying it, along with the research for each encounter, and that's the main thing. Just kidding. Or not.

Watercolour Dragon, were you one of the PCs in the Dreamwalkers of Mennara? I believe you were. Before we started my "campaign", we played my interpretation of The Haunted City. For "research purposes", I listened to the entire adventure, from the R20 recording posted on this site. I know that's pretty geeky. Sorry, everyone is just going to have to live with that... But it was spectacular! All of you guys are brilliant role players and the GM was outstanding! I really learned a lot (this is my first attempt at being a GM - other than a few sessions of L5R) and it was very entertaining following that adventure.

I was indeed one of the 'dreamwalkers' - still learning the more advanced creative side of roleplaying games at the time (and still am!) - wanted to ask that group about incorporating some of the ideas from that into my campaign, but that was back in the pre-foundry days- the foundry complicates this a bit as certain things would need agreement and working out how to do things fairly, for example if anything is sold rather than shared free- someone may want to sell their project through the foundry or get some share in any proceeds should someone else get their agreement to use it so anyone who created something would need to be involved with any decisions as to how as it's theirs copyright-wise (like I say a few ideas would also need FFG's permission) - but some of the 'dreamwalkers' ideas are very good hooks for introducing things and linking things together, and the dreamwalking idea was already quite a key feature of my overarching story as it's very relevant with the primeval/ primordial , the Uthuk and the Ynfernael playing a key role in events as very much the ties that bind the five darknesses (that feels like quite a Schmiegel word as I seem to remember in LOTR he 'esses' a lot, with a sort of intentional snakelike quality, darkness-ssss!) of my five adventure series.

Realms of Terrinoth, p 33-35

"They were said to have been close to members of a distant Elven tribe who were so impressed
by their talents that they called them the Loth Caara, Elven for “dream walkers.” From this
term, the Loth K’har derive their name."

"The Loth K’har and their allies took on a new title, the Uthuk Y’llan, which means
“locust swarm” in the language of the plains people, as they conquered more and more of the Ru."

"The armies of the Uthuk Y’llan brought about the time of the First Darkness"

So the Uthuk are the dream walkers or the locust swarm by name, under whose corrupting grasp and tainting influence Mennara began to fall, if the tales of old are true...

I wanted to bring them quite significantly into my adventures as we've not seen so much of them in some of the Terrinoth games and I'd already been keen to bring them in to Descent, then Runewars Miniatures came along with some great Uthuk characters and beasts (I've just ordered a few more *please be in stock* ready for bringing my adventures to the tabletop!, hoping to complete before sells out- sadly the leonx elves set's already no more it seems but I've ordered a second elves core box for the extra leonx I was after, not too bad as was decent price and gives me an extra Aymhelin Scion and some more Deepwood Archers to bring to the table too Lovely minis in the RWM range, shame it seems Asmodee don't feel the same way, so getting them while I still can.)

If I did have some sort of links to some of the 'dreamwalkers' campaign 'd also want any other adventures to remain as standalones rather than parts of my adventure- so I'm not cannibalizing them and it would probably be something more like 'if you want to combine that other adventure into this series of adventures you could do this or this....' But those kinds of ifs, hows and maybes are for another day, shall ask people about them if/when the time comes. It may even be that the way I was going to overlap things works less well if I go more with the happenings at the manor as the entry point.

Back to the fire, I like how you're planning to use it and it should work well so I look forward to playing your take on it with friends at some point in the future. It has plenty of interesting options for players such as braving the danger to initiate a rescue or risking seeking Tyrus' aid- there could be some risk to this as 'the enemy' are (or will be) after Tyrus, although possibly not so much this early in the adventure, and there's a little hint that Tyrus might be just that bit more dangerous than your average citizen (if there is such a thing in Mennara!). You may wish to use the interlude 'Saradyn in Flames' next as it seems to me the 'best fit' featuring Tyrus and referencing the fires. Or it could work well to have that if the fire wasn't controlled, but 'From the Wreckage' if it was.