Last Friday, I took my players on an excursion to a great peak in the Yatil Mountains – that’s just to the north of where they’re staying in Veluna. Why were they going there? Well, while they were staying in the Deepfathom Mine (found in Sly Flourish’s Fantastic Adventures), a stranger came to them with a tale of a friend who had disappeared on that peak. Her friend had heard that there had been a shrine of the Wind Dukes of Aaqa there, gone to investigate, and not returned. Could the adventurers rescue her friend?
Of course they could! And so started an adventure of mostly wilderness encounters (including getting lost!) and one short adventure location taken from the newly-released Tactical Maps: Adventure Atlas.
Because, as readers of this blog may have noted, I tend to include a lot of published work in my home game. I delight in short adventures that are easily adapted to an ongoing campaign, of which I make use of many. There’s been a lot of Mike Shea’s work used recently, but I’ll also dip into Kobold Press’s products, as well as other adventures that seem fitting. Now it was time for the Adventure Atlas!
I hadn’t yet read all the adventures, but the first one in the book looked promising – a jaunt to a great peak that was once the lair of a genie to rescue a wizard. However, using a genie didn’t fit my campaign very well. The encounters in the adventure were all air-based, however. Which brought me to the realisation that the Wind Dukes of Aaqa would be a good fit. Never heard of the Wind Dukes? Here’s the passage that introduced me to them:
Rod of Seven Parts: The Wind Dukes of Aaqa are the legendary creators of this artifact. It is said that they constructed the Rod to use in the great battle of Pesh where Chaos and Law contended. There, the Rod was shattered, and its parts scattered, but the enchantments of the item were such that nothing could actually destroy it, so if its sections are recovered and put together in the correct order, the possessor will wield a weapon of surpassing power.
AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide
Not much more has been written about them. I got a brief glimpse in the Dungeon magazine adventures The Whispering Cairn by Erik Mona and A Gathering of Winds by Wolfgang Baur, but that’s about the limits of my knowledge. Which, of course, make them perfect for a D&D campaign where I feel very free to bend, spindle and mutilate D&D lore to fit my whims!
This wasn’t going to be a deep dive into the lore of the Wind Dukes, though. I used it as a nod to the past, with the possibility of it becoming more important later on. My more lore-knowledgeable players certainly pricked up their ears when they heard the name, however!
The session was comprised of these sections:
- The introduction to the adventure, where the heroes were recruited
- The travel to the encounter locations – five days through rough, mountainous terrain
- The actual adventure in the location
- The travel back home
- Final resolutions and payment
Introducing the adventure was easy: there’s a quest-giver provided. My emendations to make it better fit the campaign was to make the mage a worshipper of Boccob, who had passed through the town of Brusinton recently, and there met the worshippers of the god of magic. Which included two PCs, of which one was being played in this adventure. So, Adam’s PC, Cedric the Amazing, already knew the lost mage, giving another tie to the adventure.
The travel to the location was conducted using random encounter tables. It should have also included Survival checks to see if they got lost. I forgot those were a thing, though, and so they go to the destination without getting lost. Random encounters were drawn from the AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide. Though this is a 5E campaign, I use the older material extensively while running the game. The encounters typically started at long range (200+ feet), so there were opportunities to evade if necessary. However, lots of ranged attacks – weapon and spell – put the players in good stead against the monsters they faced!
The location encounters were fun. My one complaint is that they don’t integrate quite so well into one location; for an open map, the encounters don’t use it very much. A golem is in the entrance, and after that there’s a few mephits here and there (role-playing, mostly), and some dangerous pits – but the fight against the golem is mostly static and doesn’t use the map. I was hoping for a battle using manoeuvre like those found in the original Fantastic Locations products most of the maps were drawn from, but such was not the case. I’m hoping that the other adventures use the tactical possibilities of the map better.
What was great was the Gem of the Wind Dukes, a relic left here many years ago. (It’s a genie’s gem in the printed adventure). The strong-willed could touch it and gain a wish! However, this doesn’t apply to my party. They touched it, rolled poorly, and were hit by lightning, blinded… and, in one case, transported to a random part of the Elemental Plane of Air! We’re not sure where Paul’s character has ended up. I’m interested to see if anyone chooses to search for him. (I have an idea where he might be found… could be fun!)
The other very nice thing about the adventure was the fate of the wizard: she’d fallen into one of the pits, then accidentally petrified herself! Luckily, this group had the equipment to lift her out of the pit (and the Strength scores!) Getting back was going to be challenging.
The trip back proved to be more challenging than the trip to. I remembered the checks for being lost, and the scout of the party (with a +7 Survival bonus) managed to fail 10 checks of DC 15 before making 5 successes. A trip of five days became fifteen… and they ran out of food as well, so had to forage to survive. Luckily, few random encounters happened – when foraging and navigating, characters are more easily surprised!
So, the group returned successfully, were rewarded, and Cedric the Amazing is now the owner of the magic item that petrified the wizard – a wand of wonder. Oh, boy!
The session was a mix of material from several sources, and ideas from the Adventure Atlas inspired more play as we move forward. Will all the plot threads be taken up? Unlikely – I’m very fond of having them just sitting there in case we need inspiration later – but it helps make the world feel richer than it would if it were only my imagination populating it!
