Your Grand Conjunction

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Quinntonia
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Your Grand Conjunction

Post by Quinntonia »

You know, a thought occurred to me:

I am running the Grand Conjunction adventures, mostly as written, but I am making the following changes:

1. I ran them out of order, so the I am running them in order to lowest player level to highest rather than the actual storyline.
2. It occurred to me that vast power blocs should be interested in what is going on, so there has been a lot of interaction with the Vistani (Strahd) the Kargat (Azalin) and others that have put the characters in a constant state of paranoia/being watched.
3. Each module will have to include a magical artifact of great power, that is currently useless to the players, but that they seem to be collecting that everyone is really interested in, especially Azalin, who wants them for his nefarious plans.
4. Occasionally I have changed a minor detail to make it cooler/make more sense.


Other than that, I am really running them as much "as written" as I can, which at first I thought I was ruining everything.

However, I have come to realize that I am something of a traditionalist as it pertains to the Conjunction. Most people make vast, vast changes in the storyline, order, and even importing entire modules and places that don't exist in the original.

So what's yours like? Have you ever run it? How did it go?
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thekristhomas
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Re: Your Grand Conjunction

Post by thekristhomas »

I'm in the final stages of running the Hexad, and I've made a few changes.

Like you I've run them in order of level rather than order of release, also because several of the modules have been played thru by my players before (ToD, SoH and FoG) I've altered those adventures thusly,

ToD didn't need much altering as my players had only got halfway thru their first time, but I made the gypsy girl's ghost a harbinger of the Hexad, whenever one of the couplets is fulfilled she appears and repeats the rhyme.

SoH, I completely rewrote, keeping the couplet the same, I made it a haunted house adventure, with the family of ghosts being trapped by an evil spiritualist who was trapping ghosts to power a "spiritual a-bomb"

FoG, I changed the couplet to "in Gundar's court there lies a viper, gain the crown or pay the piper" and made the adventure about the killing of Duke Gundar. My PCs remembered Dominiani well, so I made the doctor a good guy,not a vampire (he was a dhampir though), and leader of the resistance/rebellion against Gundar. The Crown was needed to neutralise (turn to goblyns) Gundar's household guard. Radaga was an Ancient Dead priestess, that gained power and beauty every time she rejuvenated.

Also I've added a whole mini-campaign within the time-travelling section of FtS, so that, as well as experiencing the wedding of sergei and tatyana, the PCs have also played thru Strahd's revenge against Leo (this was the last session we've played) and will also meet Madame Eva and Azalin during their early days in the demiplane, explore the newly formed Forlorn (Castles Forlorn), invade Castle Ravenloft (House of Strahd) and play a much altered version of I10: The House on Gryphon Hill.

I'm also going to change RoE, cause there's a lot I don't like about it. Mainly it assumes a home world exists for the PCs, and my PCs are native to the domains, but I don't like Inajira's use (he seems like he's the "Death" that Strahd made his deal with, but he's not) and Azalin feels wrong the way he's portrayed. Also the GC has massive effects on Markovia and G'Henna and I feel they should be involved more.

So, while I thought I was being pretty traditional, it turns out that the only module I haven't deliberately altered is NotWD, and when we played that I accidentally added a rain of blood where there wasn't one.
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Re: Your Grand Conjunction

Post by vachtor »

I've spoken about how I'm running my Hexad before, but I always enjoy talking about my game and getting feedback, so here goes...

Apologies in advance for the long post (TLDR, I love Ravenloft). These are the main plot points.

I'm running a modified hexad, both in changing the order to match levels and replacing one of the modules. I took out Touch of Death because I had a hard time reconciling getting my players into the desert (mists notwithstanding) and have replaced it with Death Unchained as a showcase for Azalin shenanigans.

My order, not including interludes and detours, is:

Night of the Walking Dead
Ship of Horrors
Feast of Goblins
Death Unchained
From the Shadows
Roots of Evil

Like Quin, I'm trying to use major players and certain "artifacts" that are included in each module. I am modifying the modules slightly to account for this. The running theme is that as Azalin can't learn new magic, he is having a hard time researching a way to get out of the mists, so he is depending on these items to work out how to do it.

1) Night of the Walking Dead - The crew finds an amulet on one of the zombies (dressed as a courier). A traveling priest (of the Eternal Order) offers to buy it as it was intended to reach his masters in Darkon but it never arrived, causing him to investigate. The players also meet the Carnival before they leave Souragne. They may show up again later as a means of travel or a side event.

2) Ship of Horrors - My crew started this campaign with a 4e adventure, Keep on the Shadowfell, where the party, and the main villain, were sucked into a portal at the end. Unfortunately for the villain, he arrived about two decades prior to the heroes and was trapped on an island (replacing Meredoth). He has been researching methods of escape and, in his madness, is using souls to power an orb that will breach the barrier. Shockingly, this fails. He does have a tome that he has recorded his research in, which the party grabs after he is killed. The island is enveloped in mists and the party wanders...

2 a) Interlude - Until they find a small campfire and a vardo... With an old woman named Eva... She hands them some tea and they all pass out. Finding themselves viewing another party from long ago trying to pull a heist of on the tower of a wizard named Hazlik. The end result of this will be the leader of the group ending up with an amulet (the one from NOTWD) that will not be very healthy for him...

This is where my party is right now.

3) Feast of Goblyns - The party, after having awoken and spoken with Eva a bit about what is happening and what they are mixed up in. They emerge from the mist apparently a full year after the entered it and now in Kartakas. They will meet up with the same priest in Harmonia who will take the evil tome off of their hands for "safekeeping". Rest of adventure follows as normal. Depending on how the ending goes, they will create and possibly destroy Daglan, but the crown will still be with them and will be of great interest to their priest friend.

3 a) Interlude 2 - The priest will take the crown from them and explain that he has a request from High King Azalin of Darkon for the group. Retrieve the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind from Castle Ravenloft, and if possible, kill Strahd. This is meant as a fools errand to eliminate the heroes and pester Strahd. What Azalin doesn't know is that Strahd is well aware of the party due to their conversations with the Vistana and he is waiting for them. Strahd let's them into his castle and clues them in to who they have been working for and what they have given him. He then sends the heroes to Falkovnia to exact a little revenge on Azalin by messing up one of his schemes.

4) Death Unchained - Azalin is using what he gathered from the tome to steal and bind souls into an immense magical skull which he will attempt to use to pierce the mists or at the very least, empower himself. Azalin knows of the prophecy and this is how he thinks he will complete the fourth line of the modified hexad "Life is gathered from shards of death Until release of skull's last breath". The plan is for the heroes to destroy the skull and fulfill the hexad in that way.

4 a) possible interlude, maybe including the Carnival

5) From the Shadows - Party is killed as revenge for turning on Azalin, continues as normal. The fact that the mists play with time (villain arriving early, emerging from mists a full year later, etc.) will set it up for the time travel aspects.

6) Roots of Evil - as normal

For any that have read this far, any thoughts?
Have fun,

V
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