Thoughts of LF1 The 9

“O, be some other name!

What's in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet”

– Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare

LF1 The 9

The Great Empire once stood as a testimony to the heights to which man might aspire – but no more. Decades of corrosion from within the realm and the weight of a terrible war left the once-proud nation’s common folk helpless prey for the nightmarish horrors that now stalk its bounds. While few remain to defend these innocents, one such group is the 9^th Division of the Sign of the Crimson Wyvern.

This is their tale.

– The 9

Those who read my blog regularly will know that I’ve been doing a deep dive into the See of Medegia these past weeks; so it’s fortuitous that Carlos Lising has published a module – a bit if a gazetteer, really – set within the ill-fated province of the See of Vanthrace – that rose by any other name.

I’m pleased that he did, because modules set in the east map of the Greyhawk setting are few and far between; so sparse, in fact, that I’ve resorted to listing generic adventure modules from Dragon and Dungeon Magazines under the headings for “Adventures in this country…” and “… in nearby areas…” for more than a few of of my Primers for regions along the Solnor coast.

That lack has been addressed in The 9.

The rotting corpse of the Great Empire spans much of the continent’s eastern coastline, the vast expanse of the Sollonor Ocean lapping upon its rocky shores. At one time, this was a land of peace and plenty. […]

Horrors Aplenty Stalk the Land

Horrors aplenty stalk the land, now, picking the bones of the skeletal farms and homes for what scant valuables might remain within them. These humanoids, once set upon them by even more wicked men, have entrenched themselves in these places, ever eager for the fray – for the chance to kill and to take whatever might be of use from the cooling bodies of those so foolish as to challenge them. Worse, even the humanoids must fear the unspeakable horrors of that given birth in the most terrifying of places within this cursed land – that place known as the Womb of the Black Goat, which must be the very heart of darkness itself. [LF The 9 – 1]

That passage sums up what we know about the See of Medegia, doesn’t it?

Medegia passed into history. […] [T]he Overking ordered an orgy of brutality and destruction inflicted on it and its inhabitants. Rape, pillage, torture, and the suffering of every man and woman in Medegia were what Ivid ordered, and his army was pleased to obey. Medegia was utterly despoiled, and what remains of it is barren and underpopulated. Its few surviving inhabitants are bitter, twisted, and half-mad people tormented by fiends and petty despots.

Throughout the remains of the Great Kingdom, the ordinary people are wretched, desperate, and embroiled in chaos and madness. The rich resources of the lands are utterly neglected, despoiled, or ignored. Mutual trust is virtually nonexistent, even within the ties of blood and family in many instances. Aerdy is in utter turmoil, and perhaps even Istus herself knows not the fate of these lands in such times. [FtAA – 27]

Medegia is thus a land of absolute anarchy. Its population is decimated. Only the pathetically poor, feeble-minded, aged, infirm, and those too sunk into despair and stricken with terror remain.

Outside of Pontylver, not many fiends stalk the lands. However, there are orcs, deserting soldiers, and ex-mercenaries who have taken to a life of pillaging what they can from this land.

Fields are unsewn with seed and tuber here, and most livestock has long been eaten. Many of those left are close to starvation, and they suffer deficiency diseases (scurvy, rickets, and the like) as a result. Medegia is grim indeed. [Ivid – 104]

Beset by Chaos and Banditry

That paints a rather grim place to place a campaign setting. Who would wish to adventure there? None – or very few – I expect.

Perhaps one ought to, though. Why? Because The 9 is very much like an earlier adventure module we all know and love.

I speak of B2 The Keep on the Borderlands.

The Realm of mankind is narrow and constricted. Always the forces of Chaos press upon its borders, seeking to enslave its populace, rape its riches, and steal its treasures. If it were not for a stout few, many in the Realm would indeed fall prey to the evil which surrounds them. [B2 Keep on the Borderlands – 6]

The two bear striking similarities. They ought to because Carlos Lising has said as much. The 9 is his homage to that very adventure, to that lone keep on a hill, beset by Chaos and Banditry; and those who stand against it.

[T]here are always certain exceptional and brave members of humanity, as well as similar individuals among its allies — dwarves, elves, and halflings — who rise above the common level and join battle to stave off the darkness which would otherwise overwhelm the land. [B2 – 6]

The Keep on the Borderlands

Ahead, up the winding road, atop a sheer-walled mount of stone, looms the great KEEP. Here, at one of civilization's strongholds between good lands and bad [.] [B2 – 6]

The place is known as Bulwark.

It is said that the edifice has gazed down upon the countryside within the region for hundreds of years. [LF – 10]

This whole place is well-organized for security and for defense. In time of need, many civilians will arm and help man the walls, while non-combatants bring ammunition, food, and water to the walls and help the wounded. Sentries are alert. A party of guards patrols the walls irregularly, and a commander checks every half hour to hour. [B2 – 6]

So it is that Bulwark still gazes down upon the lands of Vanthrace from the heights of the stones from which it was raised. But any joy or merriment that might be found there has long fled the fortification. Instead, it has been replaced by a grim, fatalistic reality. Vanthrace is yet overrun by bandit gangs, rapacious humanoids, fiends hailing from the deepest bowels of Hell itself, and unknowable creatures that seem to rebuke reality for their very existence. [LF – 10]

There are differences, obviously. The Keep on the Borderlands did not guard against such horrors as Bulwark does, but the intent is very much the same. Bulwark is the vanguard. Should it fall, the entire countryside would fall with it.

That said, The Keep… and The 9 are very much alike in that they are written for low level play. How might that be so?! Medegia… Vanthrace is overrun by devils and demons! How might low level characters survive against such foes? Because they shouldn't have to, not at first; because once upon a time there was a little thing referred to as the Flight of Fiends.

 Fiends Stalk the Lands

In Coldeven of 586 CY, word spread through Furyondy of an extraordinary event. [TAB – 19]

In a stirring private ceremony attended by the entire College of Bishops, Canon Hazen (along, it is said, with help from the archmage Bigby of Mitrik) employed the fabulous artifact to trigger the Flight of Fiends, a wholesale purge of demons throughout the Flanaess. [LGG – 130]

There are still fiends in Vanthrace, however. Not many, but some lesser fiends still stalk the land.

Although few fiends stalk the lands here, bloodthirsty humanoids, amoral deserters from the Emperor’s armies, and cutthroat bandit gangs are plentiful across the See’s landscape, pillaging what they can from this land in order to survive. [LF – 6]

It is against these that Bulwark stands: orcs, hobgoblins, bandits, mercenaries, slavers, and imperial soldiers. All low level encounters. And in that The 9 most resembles The Keep on the Borderlands.

The Keep on the Borderlands, INTRODUCTORY MODULE FOR CHARACTER LEVELS 1-3

Lord Morrow Lyrwick

The 9, INTRODUCTORY MODULE FOR CHARACTER LEVELS 1-3

The 9 has been designed to allow four to seven 1^st level PCs to play out many adventures, gradually working up to second or third level of experience in the process. [LF1 – 8]

So yes, even the fiends and are low level encounters.

Both B2 and LF1 are mini gazetteers, both are sandbox adventures, and both are designed for low level play.

Both have a keep on a hill, both have a number of overland encounters, and both have a dungeon to be explored. Carlos Lising’s The 9, to my mind, is a little more focussed than Gary Gygax’s Keep on the Borderlands, insofar as it appears that the residents of Bulwark are far more desperate and thus all are pulling together in the same direction (kind of); but that said, any sandbox gazetteer can be what you make it to be.

What The 9 has that Keep lacks is pregens. There are 7 all told, each with a backstory that helps fill in local lore. I love that; it reminds me of those in Tamoachan and Isle of the Ape.

Bulwark takes up a sizable chunk of the early pages. NPCs are named and detailed. They are given a backstory and motivation – something buried in subtext in Gygax’s Keep.

Beyond Bulwark...

Beyond Bulwark’s formidable walls are a number of encounter areas, none mapped but one. One could criticize this lack, but Carlos has focussed his energies on where he believes most of the action will revolve around: the Keep and the Dungeon. How are those maps? Serviceable. There are better out there (check out early TSR UK modules for those keeps I consider the best); and I have yet to encounter a D&D Mine that I would call realistic (mining was my stock in trade, so don’t argue with me; I know of what I speak); that said, the maps are at the very least on par with those in B2 (and I wonder how many people criticized those, then or now?).

Carlos does detail wandering monsters admirably, most of which are of the “Use Standard Encounter Table” variety, or Human in nature. Fiends are few and far between, as they should be – they will likely probably never even be encountered, in fact.

Most of this weighty tome features Caldera’s Burrow, the dungeon. It is there that this module heats up. And it is there that only the truly cautious should venture.

A word to the wise: This can be a very lethal module. Can be? It is. But it is a very satisfying one, too.

There are rumours to entice, new spells, new monsters, those aforementioned Lesser and Proto Fiends. Some are created for the DM, but there are tables on how to create new ones, too.

So, how can there be fiends in Vanthrace when they were put to flight? That is explained within. To mention how, here, would be to spoil Carlo’s adventure – and we can’t, and shouldn’t have that, should we.

The 9 was written with the OSRIC game system in mind, most easily adapted to AD&D 1e.

The 9 has been designed in such a way that it can be placed in any published or homebrewed Campaign Setting with little difficulty. It has been written so as to be usable with the OSRIC™ Role-Playing System and is thus easily adapted to many of the most popular fantasy RPG rulesets. It can easily be adapted for use as either a one-shot adventure or worked into an ongoing Campaign with little in the way of alteration on the part of the Game Master (GM). [LF – 1]

Hell-on-Oerth

The question is: Should one drop their hard-earned money on Carlo’s The 9?

Well… do you adventure in Greyhawk? Have you though about adventuring on the east side of the map? If the answer to either of those questions is yes, I would say the answer is yes. The 9 is more than just an adventure module. It’s a gazetteer. And it’s a teaching tool, too. It takes the terror out of the supposed fiend-infested province of Medegia and makes it manageable. Realistically. Imagine, if you will, if there truly still were fiends ravaging Medegia (or Vanthrace, if you will); how long then would it be before those fiends overwhelmed the whole of the Flanaess? Who could stop them? Most men-at-arms are only 0-level, and even most adventurers less than 5^th (realistically); so, how long then could they stand against that unrestrained Hell-on-Oerth? Carlos levels the field, so to speak, but he does not make Medegia a cakewalk. Far be it. Doom looms over Vanthrace. You'll understand why when you read The 9.

I must say that you get a lot of bang for your buck in this publication! At the time of this posting LF1 is $20-26, depending on your choice of purchase. That’s cheap for over 100 pages of content. It does lack interior art, but which would you rather, a page or two of illustrations or text? It does have excellent regional and local maps, and exhaustive maps of both Bulwark and Caldera’s Burrow.

Perhaps the most important reason to purchase this publication is that Carlos Lising is creating new content that can be slipped into Greyhawk. Few others are.

So, what say you? Will you answer the call? Will you rise up and face the evil that has laid Medegia so low?

“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

― Winston Churchill

Or is Medegia to be lost for all time?

“There are no heroes...in life, the monsters win.”

― George R. R. Martin

One must always give credit where credit is due. This piece is made possible primarily by the Imaginings of Gary Gygax and his Old Guard, Lenard Lakofka among them, and the new old guards, Carl Sargant, James Ward, Roger E. Moore. And Erik Mona, Gary Holian, Sean Reynolds, Frederick Weining. The list is interminable.

Very special thanks to Carlos Lising, without whose efforts, this piece could never have existed.

The Art:

The 9, by Daniel Govar, from LF1 The 9, 2021

Fiends!, by Daniel Govar, from LF1 The 9, 2021

The Caves of Chaos, by Jim Roslof, from B2 The Keep on the Borderlands, 1980,1981

The Keep on the Hill, by Erol Otus, from B2 The Keep on the Borderlands, 1980,1981

Flesh-Monsters-Sleazy-Geezer by misterfeelgood

Lord Morrow Lyrwick, by Cayde Anderson, from LF1 The 9, 2021

The Hermit, by Erol Otus, from B2 The Keep on the Borderlands, 1980,1981

Zombies by duster132

Source:

1015 World of Greyhawk Boxed Set, 1983

1064 From the Ashes Boxed Set, 1992

2011A Dungeon Masters Guide, 1^st Ed., 1979

2010, Players Handbook, 1^st Ed, 1978

9025 World of Greyhawk Folio, 1980

9032 C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, 1980,1981

9034 B2 The Keep on the Borderlands, 1980,1981

9153 WG6 Isle of the Ape, 1985

9577 The Adventure Begins, 1998

WGR7 Ivid the Undying, 1995

11743 Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, 2000

OSRIC, 2006