DothL is not just a Dylan Thomas quote, but also a nice little campaign from the first edition days.

In my experience (3/4 through) it ties in nicely with the published 3rd ed material. The adventure has no world-sweeping impact so is you are willing to use some 1st ed tropes, you don't have to change much. The campaign has Fimir and references to gods of law and a more obscure chaos god. I welcomed these things mostly for sentimental reasons.

The adventure ties in nicely with 'The Witch's Song" due to proximity (DothL starts and ends in Marienburg witch the rest of it set in the Wasteland). In my game, I had the group finish "Winds of Change" which promoted our Wizard's apprentice, who then was asked to get a book of lore in Marienburg. On the way there the group stopped in a little town called Faulingmere…..

Finishing The Witch's Song they thus had ample reason to continue to Marienburg which sets DothL in motion.

DotL features a giant octupus pretty eartly on, which is an opportunity to let the "Beast of Faulingmere" reappear (severly wounded from the tunnel collapse).

Happy gaming!

It is a very interesting adventure with several really nice thematic things and set pieces, "dance, dance wherever you may be…", with the ultimate "plot driver" rivalry being nice.

I likely will not run it anytime soon just because I'm running 1000 Thrones and coincidentally both turn around "a special child" and too many "special children" strikes me as jarring (not that they aren't all special to someone, hopefully, of course).

I will want to run it sometime though, just because as they finally left Fauligmere behind them in Witch's Song, my players had experienced so much of the Cursed Marshes "favour" (Witch's Song's effects for it are fun) that they vowed, " We're never coming back to the Cursed Marshes ever again! "

I agree if you have Witch's Song there's lots of "background stuff" about the marsh and critters you can "port over". 1000 Thrones has a marsh jaunt as well and it too can be dipped into for more ideas to make marsh trips fun.

In order to prep this scenario, I decided to write up an outline summary. It helps me find the areas that need PC choices increased (i.e. reduction of linearity/railroadness). I'll be adding to this and expanding it as I go along.

Scenario Flow Summary: The Dying of the Light

NPC/Nemesis/Organization Summary
Vogelsgang - the astronomer who discovered the Moon's fearful orbit
Zahnarzt (not yet manifest)
Muuthwag, the Piper
Goffman - Vogelsgang's comrade who has the tooth and will hire the PCs

The Order of Illuminated Readers
Brotherhood of the Forgotten One

Prologue - Error of the Moon
Party is traveling by coach to Marienburg (7p.) -- Read Aloud Text
City Tension is noted
Arrive at House of Vogelsgang you were supposed to meet, no one home. Talk to staff and get leads on where he may have gone to.
Visit Jermains house - his ex staff (Leather shop)
City Records Hall to search for recent records of Vogelsgang (taxes etc.)
last minute anderson
Council Meeting (outside)
Peasants want to burn farmer
(Pcs intervene or Goffman intervenes)
Cant enter the city council
Quiz experts leaving (Clestial wiz, astro guilder, andersen, conspiracy theorist) p.13
Announcemnt of eclipse
Piper plays at the PCs tavern (actually Muuthwag)
Address Vogelsang -options to get there
-pugilists going to V's house ahead of the pc's p.15
PCs go to Vogelsgang's house (p.14)
Getting into the house isn't easy
Interview V, but assassins arrive
Do post mortem
-if assassins chased, go to tobacco shop
PCs go to Goffman's house (p.21,17)
Goffman's Answers about Vogelsgang, Muuthwag, and Zahnzart p.22
Find out about Muthwaag
Get demon's tooth from Goffman
Hired by Goffman and Klaus is "assigned to the PCs"

Head into the wasteland 25 (PCs have map and/or the tooth)

Ch 1 p.25 - Watery Grave
Travel
Klaus gives PC a tooth
Enter Valley p.25
Cultist causes flood on PCs
PCs flee up staircase
PCs run through the machine
Arrive at Village (27) and check it out
Spot dying agent 28
Fight giant bog octopus
Klaus flees
Cross mud (29)
Fight wights in flooded village

Ch 2 p.31 - Wherever you may be
See flock of birds
Recently abandoned village
Old woman's tale
Confront muuthwaag 34
Quiz muuthwat 37

Ch 3 .39 - Burn Them! Burn Them!

(to be continued)

..

Our group just escaped from Grimpengratz after the Fimir attack. They only lost one PC this session (I think 6 so far in 15 advances..I don't fool around with holding back on killing PCs so that when they see even a little girl, they FLEE! (see below).

Escaping from Grimpengratz, 3 of 4 gained diseases while wandering out of the swamp (through the sewer channel). Plague, Red Pox, and one of those diarrhea diseases. All told, they spent 200 silver healing up.

They made it to the farm after helping to bolster up the Unnamed Village against the mutant pigmen while having the Druid help them recover from their diseases. At the farm: pumpkins and gourds with legs, water than runs through the air over the trackway, all the trees of the hill face inwards..and then the little girl called to her parents..the PCs ran like frightened kittens. It was awesome. They were hoping to keep heading to the southwest, but dread set in when they activated the tooth one last time and it faced back towards the farm… Now the forces of chaos have been alerted to their presence and all will converge there.

Here's the WFRP scenario link at rpggeek: rpggeek.com/rpgitem/43666/the-dying-of-the-light

jh

..

The journey takes them southwest out of Marienburg towards the pale sisters…

One thing to bear in mind is that the map above and the map in the actual scenario contradict one another in some really key areas, such as the extent of the Curses Marshes.

Yes, true. I couldn't find a scenario map online (but I have one in my scenario). I've given my players both maps and they fumble frustratedly over them

jh

Rack 'em up: 2 more characters obliterated off the face of the old world in Chapter 5. One was killed by the FimmDaemon, the other by falling off the monolith, into the Ponds of Blood..and then the Fimm Daemon threw a giant stone on his head…his life is in limbo.

Next, The Colony.

jh

Here's the artwork from the session:

Thirsty mutant pumpkins are worthy of their own adventure this time of year.

More seriously, I sometimes do summary of "key points" the way you have above. To see the structure in an adventure I didn't write, think about 3-Act structure (rally steps, end of episode recovery) in WFRP 3 etc., and see which is really critical "hard point" in my notes or just "damned fun" (drive to point)

Well, we finished up the fimir place of testing. We only lost one character (the roadwarden). The ratcatcher was possessed by the fimm demon specter so I gave him doombolt and set him loose on the rest of the party. Lucky for everyone, the elven mystic managed to ride a wave of mutilated bodies across the field of corpses (I made it like a waterbed, with a membrane under it that drains into the fields of blood..), but anyways, he clocked the ratcatcher enough to take him down, bind and gag him..

..next thing you know they're at THE COLONY being saved by mutants. When Otto von Lufthanser(the witch hunter) arrived to burn out the priestess of Shallya and her peace colony, the party happily offered up the ratcatcher for exorcism in order to give the mutants enough time to escape (HERESY!!!!). Only Willi Veli was burned at the stake that night and the Priest let off with a warning. The Egg of course was not pleased.

Back to the Giseroux - Marienburg road to ride with the Theater troupe in the next episode.

My ratcatcher died in epic fashion to conclude this campaign last week. Overall I really liked the variety of the various adventures. Lots of combats, sure, and LOADS of fun role-playing opportunities. The rail-roading was very strong but I didn't mind it that much. And hey, we saved Marienburg!

How about a quick write-up, Emirikol?

OK, here's the quick write up:

4 red shirted characters accepted a 50 silver assignment (no advance) to take this demon tooth thing and search out this egg-thing so that this demon dentist (thing) can't be reborn. Turns out that the egg is a nice 7 year old girl.

So, with ease, (and a couple TPK's), the entire group goes out through about 8 chapters of completely easy, cake-walk encounters; gets the girl, comes back to Marienburg, but loses her to the book ninjas, who are about to perform a nasty gutting ritual on her, all the while the evil cultists are chasing the PCs through this ginormous' library, when suddenly, the ratcatcher (with the demon tooth fused to his arm as a mutation..long story), pokes the little girl in the stomach just as she's about to be gutted by the book-ninja..the demon tooth explodes taking the dwarf with it, floods the library (drowning the elf), and the ogre has extra meat for his lunch tomorrow.

It really was that simple..and with only what? 7 PC deaths? I must be getting soft.

I can't wait to see if The Enemy Within perhaps refers to little demons of Nurgle that like to exit the body through random orafices…

jh

Emirikol said:

Poor Durgun! I'm going to miss my ratcatcher!

Just to be careful…

My group, back then when we were still studying maths…in the last milennium… did two things to shorten the adventure decisively….

Here be the map.

activate tooth, record direction on map

travel on the road for a day

activate tooth second time

record direction on map.

travel to crossing of lines and BYPASSING MOST OF THE ENCOUNTERS IN THE SWAMP!!!! BY FOLLOWING THE ROADS.

granted they just got "near" the actual location and had to activate the tooth 2 more times but, well what a little educated guesses and mathematics can do.

And yes they had a wizzard who a) came up with the idea and has educational background….

Of course noone in their right mind will say… oh it points in the middle of nowhere, lets go cross country through the CURSED MARSHES….

And the whole scenario went downhill from there…

Cheers

OctoLux said:

Interesting. Our GM presented the tooth this way: activation caused potential corruption/mutation and/or a magical black haze indicated the attraction of nearby Fimir thus our party was loathe to activate the tooth unless it was a last resort. That and yes, we were dumb enough to go through the cursed marshes and I lost my dockhand. Poor Jurgen!!

Aye, there were many graves dug into the wastes those tortured days under Morrsleib's baleful gaze…

Eradico Pravus said:

Jup…. that's why they said, just two to get the location… If you track cross country you need to get more bearings as the tarrain leads you astray and you do not know how far you need to go…

In the end I just moved the encounter or some of them to happen to them anyway…

anyway the water got them in the end, or rather some of them nearly drowned.

By the way:

TPK := total party kill?

Cheers

Olaf

OctoLux said:

Unfortunately, yes! Grrr…

Bump for a recent map thread