3.5. Sunless Citadel to Nightfang Spire: Gulthias as BBEG (Spoilers)

[Mr Booze]

Hey, I'm running a campaign right now where I want to string together the old 3.0 adventure path from Wotc:

Sunless Citadel (SC)
Forge of Fury (FoF)
Speaker in Dreams (SiD)
Standing Stone (SS)
Heart of Nightfang Spire (HoNS)

They are all losely connected, the strongest connection beeing: Gulthias. The gulthias tree in the Sunless Citadel has grown from a stake driven through the heart of Gulthias, a powerful vampire who is the Final Boss in Nightfang Spire. from wikipedia:
In Heart of Nightfang Spire, the player characters are drawn to investigate Nightfang Spire, a lonely stone tower in a barren land. The vampire lord Gulthias, servant of the great dragon Ashardalon, has returned to the tower which was once the main cult temple of Ashardalon. The vampire prepares for the dragon's return by awakening the other cultists who had preserved themselves as undead creatures.

The connections to the other adventures are quasi non existent, so my plan is to connect them better with Gulthias beeing the BBEG and the campaign beeing finished after HoNS.

Has anyone ever done this? or has anyone some good ideas?

My players have just finished SC, where they poured lamp oil on the Guthias tree, set it on fire and left while it's still burning. They collected their reward from Kerowyn Hucrele, who introduced them to a business partner who is in some type of merchants guild, and among other things, helps Baron Althon in his search of the weapons of Durgeddin the black. He recognizes the smith's mark of Durgeddin on shatterspike and sends them to Blasingdellt. Baron Althon makes his offer of buying shatterspike +500GM over market value and gives them a map to the stone tooth, where someone found a broken blade with the smith's mark.

I have some loose ideas/points:

1)After the kobolds take over the Citadel and cut down the tree, Gulthias escapes the tree and kills the kobolds.
2)Meepo survises somehow (probably hiding somewhere :smallwink: ) and searches for the PCs and tells them what happened.
3)Gulthias somehow is somehow responsible for the events in SiD. Maybe the mindflayer there is his minion.
4)I fail to connect him to the FoF and SS adventures, but I don't know if this would be necessary


A Handbook in the style of the Red Hand of Doom Handbook would be a great thing btw. It could include a 3.5 conversion and a "how to" to connect the adventures. Ksbsnowowls work in both his conversions (SC and FoF) and his campaign journal (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=14113.0) are quite helpful, but maybe we should convince him to write a handbook for the SC adventure path :smallbiggrin:

(excuse my english, I'm a non native speaker)

[Elder_Basilisk]

I haven't played any of those adventures, but I do remember greatly enjoying Wulf Ratbane's story hour on ENWorld's message boards ten years ago. It described a campaign that went through all of those initial WotC adventures as though they were an adventure path. You might find them helpful if they're still available on the net.

[Mr Booze]

Thanks! I found it here:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?102-Wulf-s-Collected-Story-Hour-FINAL-UPDATE-12-25

Will try to read through it and maybe I find some usefull stuff. It seems quite long, so thats gonna take a while :smallsmile:

[Taffimai]

Spoilers galore.


There's another connection, Ashardalon. More about him in Bastion of Broken Souls. If you read Heart of Nightfang Spire attentively, you understand that Gulthias is actually the head of an Ashardalon cult, who seeks to either raise him or join him in death. That's why Gulthias' resting place is the dragon's old heart instead of a coffin like a regular vampire.

You'll also see that Vrocks are recurring vilains in these modules, and you can play that up. It's even possible to make them all the same Vrock (recurring villain wheee!), although that requires some rewriting in the Heart of Nightfang Spire.

I've strung these modules together before, filling in the gap between Heart of Nightfang Spire and Bastion of Broken Souls with yet another module, but I can't remember which one. I'll try to find my notes and post how I did it.

I remember indeed using Meepo, but that was easy since my party aligned with the kobolds. So when the party returned from Standing Stone they find that the villagers from their home town have captured a kobold that only wasn't killed because it claimed to be their friend. Meepo then tells them that his tribe, who only wanted to peacefully live in the Sunless Citadel now that the party had rid it of the filthy goblins, was attacked by [one of the enemies from Nightfang Spire] and could the heroes please, please help them because they took Calcryx.

I also reused the troll from Sunless Citadel to lead the party to Standing Stone (using the "you didn't kill it properly and now it's running amok, go clean up your mess" hook).

[ksbsnowowl]

Tagging to get involved later.

FYI, due to an unexpected planar banishment that hit my PC's, I'm using the second half of Speaker in Dreams as an impromptu adventure at 10th level. The first installment is posted, but due to a recently heavy workload, I'm about three weeks behind on my journal. The PC's just shut down the Gate to Hell last night.

[Mr Booze]

There's another connection, Ashardalon. More about him in Bastion of Broken Souls. If you read Heart of Nightfang Spire attentively, you understand that Gulthias is actually the head of an Ashardalon cult, who seeks to either raise him or join him in death. That's why Gulthias' resting place is the dragon's old heart instead of a coffin like a regular vampire.

Yeah, I've read HoNS in broad strokes, but I don't want the campaign to run till level twenty. I want it to stop after HoNS and Ashardalon has not even been mentioned in my game so far. This is kind of a introduction campaign for my players, who have never played d&d (or any PnP) before.



You'll also see that Vrocks are recurring vilains in these modules, and you can play that up. It's even possible to make them all the same Vrock (recurring villain wheee!), although that requires some rewriting in the Heart of Nightfang Spire.

I think the Vrocks are going to be a problem, because the powered up quite much from 3.0 to 3.5. From CR6 to CR9 IIRC.



I remember indeed using Meepo, but that was easy since my party aligned with the kobolds. So when the party returned from Standing Stone they find that the villagers from their home town have captured a kobold that only wasn't killed because it claimed to be their friend. Meepo then tells them that his tribe, who only wanted to peacefully live in the Sunless Citadel now that the party had rid it of the filthy goblins, was attacked by [one of the enemies from Nightfang Spire] and could the heroes please, please help them because they took Calcryx.
Hmm, that could work. But I still want to include Gulthias more for the motivations of the PCs.




I also reused the troll from Sunless Citadel to lead the party to Standing Stone (using the "you didn't kill it properly and now it's running amok, go clean up your mess" hook).
I almost replaced the troll because the thing is so illogical...



FYI, due to an unexpected planar banishment that hit my PC's, I'm using the second half of Speaker in Dreams as an impromptu adventure at 10th level. The first installment is posted, but due to a recently heavy workload, I'm about three weeks behind on my journal. The PC's just shut down the Gate to Hell last night.


Hopefully you'll find the time to write down the last sessions soon, I need my fix! :smallbiggrin:
Read everything from start to the last entry, was quite helpful and entertaining.