Summary of The Return of Stezen D'Polarno (RPGA MODULE)

[Daisu]

I notice you do not have a summary up yet, I thought I gave one before but I will offer another. Plus weird tie in with starwars!

The Return of Stezen D'Polarno (Or 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Necromancer') (1992) by James Lowder
Summary: Sequel to dance of the dead. PC's goal is to steal back the painting from the vistani and return it to Stezen. Pc were just taken from Toril, so Stezen is offering a way home. After getting back the portrait, Stezen uses it on them. Once in the painting they find themselves in another dimension built around the history of Stezen D'Polarno and the rules of art. The PC's escape but are spirits similar to haunts but can only possess objects (specific wooden game pieces attuned to spirits) and must strike while Stezen is vulnerable.


Game featured within the adventure which later they take over its pieces reminds me of starwars chess

[alhoon]

I have no idea what you're talking about, what this book is, how it's tied to the excellent "Dance of the Dead" Book and if you mean the same dance of the dead.

All I know is that JL wrote knight of the Black Rose that I liked and SotBRose that I liked less. And Ring of Winter that I liked and Prince of Lies that I didn't.

And I want to know more. So... could you be a little more specific?
Who is Stezen, what Portrait?
Is it about that darklord that steals souls with a magical portrait?

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

you are correct... here's the previous thread.
http://fraternityofshadows.com/forum/vi ... f=1&t=4247

I remember, I had kept it in an open tab for a while, intending to put those summaries into Mistipedia, but lost the tab at some point and forgot to dig it up again. Let me go ahead and copy them in now while I'm remembering...

Thanks for the reminder, and the summaries (and welcome back!)

ETA: OK, there are a lot of them... I did some. will do the remainder later. (hopefully won't lose the tab this time.)

[Daisu]

Sorry Alhoon, forgot to mention it referring to rpga modules. I was looking at the site trying to see what I missed this past decade and notice no summary.


Though the module does have something about Souragne~

The table is empty, except for a leather-bound box and a wooden doll. He getures for you to sit, still chattering: "It's an interesting game I got from a Souragien boatman, called Spirit Battlers. They're magical fighting dolls you animate with a bit of your own fighting aura. All you need to do is touch 'em with this powder, and they take on your smarts and your fighting skill. If you're clever or good with a sword, you're sure to win a round or two. It's a good way to prove to your fellows which of you is the best warrior."

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Sorry Alhoon, forgot to mention it referring to rpga modules. I was looking at the site trying to see what I missed this past decade and notice no summary.


Though the module does have something about Scouragne~

The table is empty, except for a leather-bound box and a wooden doll. He getures for you to sit, still chattering: "It's an interesting game I got from a Scouragien boatman, called Spirit Battlers. They're magical fighting dolls you animate with a bit of your own fighting aura. All you need to do is touch 'em with this powder, and they take on your smarts and your fighting skill. If you're clever or good with a sword, you're sure to win a round or two. It's a good way to prove to your fellows which of you ois the best warrior."

Interesting... (it's Souragne, by the way. is the misspelling yours or in the module?)

Thanks again for these tidbits from these VERY hard to find products.

[Daisu]

misspelling is all mine ^_^

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

OK, all the summaries from that thread and this one are now entered in Mistipedia for posterity. Thanks again!

[Daisu]

Will you update http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/Maus ... _List.html and maybe make it easier to read?

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Will you update http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/Maus ... _List.html and maybe make it easier to read?

ah, good idea. Will throw that on the to-do list...

[alhoon]

Aside of everything else in the story... that powder sounds good way for harmless PvP.
Want to know (in game) if the fighter COULD take down the ranger? Set up the "chessboard" put some "terrain tokens" and use the powder. Exactly the same way you would do it in an off-game mock battle, but now your PCs know the results.

Is there more info on that powder? Like what despicable curse it (obviously) has for those foolish to use it? How much a "game" costs?

[Daisu]

Spirit battlers consist of six wooden figures with movable joints (like artist's mannequins), and a jar of magic powder. The player's can each choose a figure, then place their thumb in the jar of chalk and smear the powder on the figure's head. The figure, now animate, will move under its own power, towards an opposing doll and begin fighting till one of them falls in which time both figures deactivate.

Game itself is rigged in the adventure like rock, paper, scissors no matter how one rolls, man and woman defeats all. Players place bets and get conned of course.
The figurines include Man with sword, woman with knife, boar, bear, wolf, snake, crocodile and panther.

I can compile info of when PC haunts take over the pieces to figure to get stats.
2nd edition stats:
Figurines have AC5, take their owner's THACO, attributes (max of 20), Humanoid figurines cannot cast spells that require material components well animal ones cannot use spells but have special attacks as well as bonus to attributes.


This RPGA adventure is really thought-up well and has more then just this mini-game! Just wanted to mentioned this one due to upcoming starwars and we needed more Souragne stuff.

All I know is that JL wrote knight of the Black Rose that I liked and SotBRose that I liked less. And Ring of Winter that I liked and Prince of Lies that I didn't.

I have all those books, I loved ring of winter! I like the early trilogy before prince of lies but still better book then a lot out there.

[alhoon]

I understand that the adventure has more than the minigame. I was just most intrigued by it, cause at the time I'm not drawn to Ghastria and being inside the painting.

Also, unless WotC releases the adventure as a PDF in DrivethruRPG I can't buy it.

Thanks for the info on the figurines. I'll use the seed in my games (which are outside of Ravenloft), but modified. A few such magical sets would be in circulation in the world, the fight would be fair, there'd be more humanoid figurines and they would have armor sets of 13, 16, 18 and hp, saves, stats etc from the user.
And since creating this magical set and powder would need heavy use of magic jar spell... there will be side-effects that I haven't thought of yet.
Certainly nightmares and easier possession through spells\monster attacks for a period of time to be determined.

[The Giamarga]

Wow Daisu, thanks for sharing.

Are there any NPCs in there? Or anything on the lands or the Marquis' history? Locations featured?

[EO]

Are there any NPCs in there? Or anything on the lands or the Marquis' history? Locations featured?

The second round of the Return of Stezen d'Polarno presents the history of Ghastria but there's nothing drastically different from Darklords. There seems to be a minor continuity error between the adventure and Darklords but it may just be a bit of false history from the Dark Powers. In the adventure, it's implied that the Marquis came from East Riding and that both were taken by the mists whereas in Darklords, East Riding was created for the Marquis.

Otherwise, the two adventures give some more details on Ghastria's geography: lots of forests outside of East Riding, ghouls and Vistani brigands haunt the woods, villagers are afraid of going in the woods because of that. In the first adventure, the villagers seem to have dealt more than once with undead and know to burn the corpses before they rise again. The Dark Heart inn is described in a paragraph as well.

The guards wear chainmails with red tabards bearing the design of a stallion rampant, bracketed by a pair of leafy branches all worked in gold thread.

There are a few named NPCs in both adventures; none are really crucial for a DM wanting to run a game there.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Will you update http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/Maus ... _List.html and maybe make it easier to read?

ah, good idea. Will throw that on the to-do list...

Done! Phew... it was a bit of a bigger task than I'd thought, but I've compiled everything I could find from here and elsewhere and updated the list, as well as Mistipedia. Enjoy!

ETA: And... there's still more. I'd missed some of these:
http://fraternityofshadows.com/forum/vi ... f=1&t=7838
D'oh... OK, more to add soon.