“Begin, be
bold, and venture to be wise.”
― Horace
 |
| Slave Pits of the Undercity |
It is time to put a stop to the marauders! For years
the coastal towns have been burned and looted by the forces of evil. You and
your fellow adventurers have been recruited to root out and destroy the source
of these raids. But beware, hundreds of good men and women have been taken by
the slavers and have never been seen or heard from again! [A1 - 1]
For those of you who are of a certain age, or those who have
read my thoughts on A0 Danger at Darkshelf Quarry, and Lowdown in
Highport, you know the events leading up to this module. For those who
haven’t, this is how the adventure was introduced:
For several years, organized bands of pirates and slavers
have made a living by raiding the coastal towns on the Sea of Gearnat. Ranging
from Onnwal to the Wild Coast, they have descended quickly and ruthlessly on
the small towns and villages, and carried off innocent citizens into the night.
Although these marauders were not approved of by the lords and rulers of the
lands they raided, they were allowed to continue their depredations. Feuding
amongst the lords and lack of funds prevented all but an occasional naval
battle with the villains and the slow fortification of towns. Bribery was often
a more effective method of protecting one’s lands from the incursions of these
avaricious seawolves.
Recently, however, the slavers’ attacks have become
more frequent and vicious. Believing their prey to be weak and helpless, the
raiders have burnt entire villages and pulled down the walk of towns. Women,
children, and whole families have disappeared; and though bribes are accepted,
the agreements are ignored. Vast tracts of coastline have been reduced to
ashes, left barren except for packs of wild dogs.
The lords have finally become determined to take
action, forgetting their petty squabbles to unite against the marauders of the
yellow sails. Through information gained from escaped slaves, and those
fortunate enough to have been found and bought by families or friends, the
lords have traced the slavers to a port from which they launch their swift
attacks on the coast – the despoiled city of Highport in wasted Pomarj. Some
who have lost kin and fortune to the reavers have advised taking a fleet and
crushing the outpost, but cooler heads have prevailed. They have pointed out
that such a base is undoubtedly well-defended and that the slavers, if alarmed,
might arrange that loved ones and kin are never seen again. Instead, they have
chosen a plan of stealth. Several bands of adventurers have been gathered
together and will be sent to infiltrate the base and destroy the leaders of
this evil band. Caution is recommended, for the true strength and extent of
this slave ring is not known, but they seem to be stronger and better organized
than encounters with their small raiding parties would indicate.
Highport was once a human city, but the land and town
have been overrun by humanoids - orcs, goblins, kobolds, ogres, and gnolls.
Looted, burned, and ill-kept, the city has become a base for human outcasts
wishing to deal with these unsavory creatures. Your party, provided with
transport, has managed to arrive in Highport and pose as one of these groups
come to deal. [A1 - 2]
The PCs have been hired to investigate and put an end to
these dastardly foes. Sounds exciting.
It’s
been forty years since David Cook penned Slave Pits of the Undercity.
Has it held up? That’s a matter of opinion.
Modules
have certainly evolved since it was released, WotC preferring to publish long
adventure paths in preference of their shorter cousin, the tournament module.
In truth, the tournament module is alive and well, and has evolved as well,
leaving their initial format behind long ago.
Personally,
I don’t think that A1 has aged well. It was released during the Monte Hall era,
when PCs required a lot of magical items to face down those enemies they were
sure to meet. But that isn’t, exactly, what dates it—although that does, as
well, when one considers the lack of magic treasure to be found in those epic
modern adventure paths; it’s the lack of verisimilitude and what we might call
dungeon ecology.
Tournament
modules were meant to be short, completed, if possible, in the four-hour
timeslot allocated it at a convention. (Full disclosure, I’ve never been to a
gaming convention, let alone participated in one of these competitions, so I
can only repeat what I’ve heard from those who have.) They were meant to be challenging.
To be so, the designers invariably included a couple new monsters to trip up
those players who had memorized the Monster Manual. Those monsters were pretty
“trippy,” in my opinion, many of them never to see the light of day again,
except maybe in someone’s home campaign.
Upon
rereading the module recently, I was of mixed mind as to how it held up. It’s
not horrible. It’s not bad, either. For a classic tournament module, it’s
really good, in fact.
But I
must say that I was never a fan of dungeon crawls, and far too many classic
modules were inundated with them.
Don’t
get me wrong, I loved them when I began playing AD&D all those years ago.
And were I thrown back into one, I’d likely feel the same thrill I did then,
too. But why are they there? Was there a classic period of dungeon building
when all kings and nobles and Ur-Flan priest-wizards wouldn’t be caught dead
without having one tucked under their estate?
“How’s
the dungeon coming, Acererak?”
“Great!
I’d love to tell you about it, but…secrets, traps, you know the drill. I wish
you could see it; it looks like a grinning skull when viewed from on top!”
“Cool!”
“I shouldn’t
have told you that.” Casts Finger of Death.
So, if I
were to run this classic now, what would I do to “fix” it? I’d ditch the
dungeon. Keep the action above ground. Okay, I’d throw in a basement or two, if
you must know. Nothing scales a PC more than plumbing the depths.
My
complaint aside, is it good? I thought there was a lot to recommend it. Hordes
of orcs guarded it; there were a number of undead scattered about it. Tortured
slaves to rescue. And dastardly villains to defeat.
But the
layout has to go. The temple looks like a dungeon and not a temple. And don’t
get me started on the aspis. Were they ever used again?
No
matter. It was always meant to be a one-off, but what if it weren’t? It needs
greater depth. It needs greater continuity beyond a simple map pointing the PCs
in the right direction, to the next module, to the next dungeon. Luckily,
everything needed to do just that is already included in the A-series. I would
not rewrite it so much as retool it.
Firstly,
the cleric and the Slave Lord (thief) ought to play a greater role in the
narrative, and in keeping with such, they ought to be named. In 1986’s A1-4 Scourge
of the Slavelords, the thief Slave Lord was named Sturm Blucholtz (a member
of the Slavers’ outer circle), and then in 2000’s Slavers, they were
referred to as Dirk (we’ll assume that’s Sturm’s alias) and Pieta. How ever you
choose to name them, I’d make Pieta an acolyte of the Elemental Eye (and not a
cleric of Grummsh as suggested online in the Great Library of Grehawk) for
continuity and simplicity’s sake. Why? Because I really like the Elemental
Evil, that’s why. And because it was referenced in A0 Danger at Darkshelf
Quarry.
Secondly,
there should be cameos to link this narrative with those that follow. One
might be Nerelas of A3 Assault on Aerie of the Slave Lords, there to
inspect Highport’s efficiency of operations.
Thirdly,
Highport needs to be developed. Unless you are running this module as a
tournament and start the PCs at the foot of the temple, they are going to
explore it. There’s a fair description of the sundered city in Dungeon
magazine’s Lowdown in Highport.
The town of Highport sits on a small sheltered inlet
along the northern coast of the Pomarj peninsula, facing the Wooly Bay. It is
divided into two main parts: numerous docks and a port district right on the
shore, and a walled urban area at the top of a steep bluff. When humans
controlled and lived in Highport, both sections of the town were kept in good
order. Since the humanoid invasion, much of the place has fallen into ruin,
either razed during the initial attacks or through subsequent neglect.
The port district is little more than a shanty town,
filled with ramshackle wooden buildings constructed out of spare planks,
boards, and netting. The unstable structures often lean at odd angles, and the
“streets” are really narrow, twisting alleys that frequently dead end. Only a
handful of original structures still stand, including a couple of inns and
several warehouses. Life in the port district is a dangerous, vermin-filled
affair that frequently ends in bloody death.
The High City, as the upper area is known, has more
breathing room, although its conditions are little better than the port
district below. It was once surrounded by a high stone wall to protect it from
the depredations of the marauding humanoids that roamed the hills beyond, but
much of that protective barrier was demolished in the attacks. The High City is
now a wasteland of rubble-strewn streets, and one building in three is a
burnt-out shell.
A switchback road cut into the face of the bluff leads
from one part of Highport to the other, still protected at each turn by a gated
guardhouse. Though sufficient for all the foot traffic that once traveled along
it, the road was too narrow to handle all the merchant wagons that needed to
move between the two sections of the town, so a number of stout cranes of
dwarven design were installed along the bluff to hoist cargo up and down. These
are no longer functioning, and only two even remain in place. The rest were
cast down during the invasion, crushing hundreds of refugees waiting to flee
Highport by boat in the port district below. Those have since been
disassembled, their parts used for constructing hovels. [Dungeon #221, Lowdown in
Highport - 4]
Finally,
and most importantly, the temple and surrounding buildings need to be re-mapped
and fleshed out in detail. That’s where the action is, after all. It was, but I don’t like the
look of the layout. The temple and the surrounding structures look like a
dungeon, and they most assuredly would not. I’d move the Slave Lords to the rectory and
develop that even more fully. Infest the cemetery with undead; have quite a few
of them milling about, guarding the approaches. Fill the temple with too many
orcs to fight, and the basement with too many slaves to liberate. Would there
be traps? Not in the temple, surely. In the rectory? Maybe on doors barring
personal quarters and chests, to safeguard their personal treasures from the
orcs, but not in many other places; the Slavers ought to feel secure here, if
they were to feel secure anywhere. They are in the heart of the Pomarj, after
all. Who could possible attack them there?
So, once
again, the question need be asked. Did I like A1 Slave Pits of the Slave
Lords?
I did.
It might not sound like it, but I did. David Cook did a hell of a job.
The Art:
Cover Art, from A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity, by Jeff Dee, 1980
Temple Cartography, from A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity, 1980
Two Adventurers Fighting Aspis, from A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity, by Bill Willingham, 1980
Sewer Orcs, from A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity, by Jeff Dee, 1980
Sources:
9039A
A0 Danger at Darkshelf Quarry, 2013
9039
A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity, 1980
9040
A2 Secret of the Slaver’s Stockade, 1981
9041
A3 Aerie of the Slave Lords, 1981
9042
A4 In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords, 1981
Lowdown
at Highport, by Thomas M. Reid, Dungeon magazine #221, 2013
