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The Challenge
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You ever read something and think, "Man, I'd like to adventure there" or "I could plop this into my game!"? It turns out that I've had that come up twice! The first with Scarlet Citadel and the second with Moon of Skulls (Both by Robert E Howard).
The skinny of Scarlet Citadel is that King Conan is lured into a trap and chucked into a dungeon connected to the underworld. In it, Conan must escape among hellish fears and grotesque abominations created by an evil Sorcerer. If you ever have need of an antagonist or need help understanding Dungeon as Underworld, this is the story for you.
On the flipside, you have Moon of Skulls which takes the crusader Solomon Kane into the halls of an ancient race in search of his friend's daughter. Kane scales a sheer cliff-face, ventures into black caves, and wanders through lost passages while avoiding death at the hands of the fanatical, bloodthirsty residents.
Each stands on its own as a seed for adventure. Moon of Skulls features mix-raced madmen consumed by bloodthirst, their leader, Kane, a lore dumping Atlantean, and our damsel. Scarlet Citadel has several traitors, but our Sorcerer and his playthings are the real meat. What if I tried to turn them into an adventure site?
The Scarlet City
A mountain of scarlet floats atop the canopies of a great jungle, its peaks casting long, cold daggers toward the horizon. Where there is shadow, untold horrors await.
Short and simple. Our floating mountain is surrounded by deep ravines with only a narrow bridge giving access. We'll populate jungles with abominations ala Scarlet Citadel; reskin or add some simple powers to already existing monsters for simplicity (in ACKS II, just borrow some abilities from the MM). Limit their movements to the shadow of the mountain and you've got time pressure; but crossing the jungle is only the first obstacle.
A narrow stone bridge is the only obvious entrance, but in Kane's case, he stumbled upon an unseen cave that followed one of the many lost secret tunnels. This is already a natural hazard, and could serve as a means of skirting around a defensible front gate; but let's borrow a bit from Citadel and add more entrances, winding paths, and a prison for failed experiments! Oh, and the well to the Underworld. Gotta give adventurers opportunity to take risks for great rewards, right?
What about the city itself? Factions! The Tigress and her half-bloods venture out for slaves and "product" and relish in the tortures Master Sorcerer commits to the hapless victims while searching for Atlantean secrets. Meanwhile, the Ageless Antlantean Sages use their knowledge of the secret tunnels to evade capture and execution, while using their own dark magics to create or possess their own allies, perhaps through some psychic prowess. Is that why the abominations go mad? What about the Dark God from Moon of Skulls? Remember our Well to Hell? He's itching to make a deal and break his chains.
