Early Adventures

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Chagmat Dungeon

The Chagmat Dungeon was the first adventure we played in Kevin's campaign. This module came from the July 1982 issue of the Dragon (#63), the same one that had the Theives Cant dictionary (if anyone can remember that). It was nothing overly special, being filled with intelligent spiders who liked eight-sided rooms:

"Chagmat look like humanoid spiders. They have six arms branching off a human-like torso, two legs supporting the body, and eight eyes clustered where a man's eyes would be located on a human head."

Because a group of almost a dozen people were playing, we decided to split into two seperate groups. Myself, John, Steve Hart, and perhaps a few others formed one of the groups. After playing for an hour or two, we ran into the second group who promptly nuked us with a fireball, incinerating my character Elric. We promptly ran away, leading us to the Valley of the Ogres, Farcad and Hurlee, and the Tower of the Roc.

David; January 27, 1997

Hi John,

I remembered two things about our D&D adventures that we didn't talk about over christmas.

After we completed/were ejected from the Shagnat(?) dungeons, there was "the tower of the Roc". As far as I can rember, this was our first adventure as the group of you, me and Cyril! That would have been the last or second last week of September, 1982. It wasn't until after that that we went after that Tower (which sucked the Magic items out of you, and where we fought the Pit Fiends in the basement.

David; January 29, 1997

Of course, at that time we were also (stupidly) obsesed with the other, pre-splinter, group. We never did get a chance to kill them all (deservingly, of course). We used to scry on them all the time also. Initially, we were in a different "world", something about a giant plateau or something. We were always scrounging around for Spell Gems, blue for Magicians, purple for Illusionists. Fortunately, accounting errors always seemed to leave me with more than I found. About midway through the fall of 82, Kevin decided to move us to the current world.

Valley of the Ogres

We fought some ogres concealed in a valley. Not inherently interesting in itself, except for the fact that we were out-numbered and out-leveled and still managed to win.

Farcad in Hurlee

David; January 29, 1997

I thought that Farcad went on to work for some nasty Lord or King that we always scryed on. I thought that Fashar also worked in/for that group. Didn't they have some castle in the Quagmire, up where the Acars initially came from?

John; January 29, 1997

What was the name of the city from which we had just come from prior to the Tower of the Roc? If memory serves Cyril's thief went and did some thieving for the local Thieves Guild which he wished to join. His membership initiation was to perform a theft anf give the proceeds to the Guild. He entered as building and encountered Farcad on a bed with some women. Cyril's thief snuck and put a dagger in his ass and then stole his property. This was our first contact with Farcad. He was probably 5th or 6th level at this time as we were in the range of 3rd - 4th. Farcad I assume found out who had robbed him and had sent some of his men to follow us.

Daemon being his usually "kill them first and then try and find out what they wanted after" killed the 3rd level and two 1st level fighters. They had a note from Farcad requesteing the return of one of the items which Cyril's Thief had taken. I don't believe this was ever followed up on by either Kevin or us as we considered Farcad a waste of our not to be ignored attention.

Tower of the Roc

David; January 28, 1997

I remember it being important to reduce it below 50% hit points, as then it lost it ability to fly. Why was Farcad involved at this point?

Also, we used the Crystal Ball quite a bit to scry on various NPCs. Did we take this from Fashar at the same time that we almost got our hands on that very nasty psuedo-Magic Missile wand. We were playing at the Health Sciences Center, and we used Cyril's leatherish Hex pad to map out the battle.

John 13 June 2021

Daemon was thrown of the Tower of the Roc. His Hammer spoke to him and said it would save him if he offered 5 magic items.

May 12 2001 - David / John - recovered June 14 2021

Can you confirm: On the Tower of the Roc, Daemon fell off the side of mountain (I beleive the tower was a tall steep mountain, no?) and was rescued by his hammer, which spoke to him.

Yes, we weren't that far up the mountain as there a steep path running up the side which you could traverse in a few hours...but the area was, as you say, steep. This was the first time that the hammer made itself know to me and said it would make me fly if I gave it my magic shield to consume for energy. Wasn't much of an option the shield or a 120 mph impact. i landed and saw two humans in armour advancing up the path. they were dresed in the livery of Farcad. They were o levelers who were conveying a message to the party. Which I discovered after killing them and rifling the bodies.

After we defeated the Roc, we were travelling through a valley and we were attacked by Giants or something large enough to throw rocks at us. Did we counter attack or did we just run away.

We ran.

Spiders in the Great Forest

David; January 27, 1997

Hi John,

I remembered two things about our D&D adventures that we didn't talk about over christmas.

We also went into a forest and fought a whole bunch of spiders. I remember it being cool, but I don't remember the details. I know Cedar "Called Lightning" to blast a bunch of them.

John; January 29, 1997

The Great Forest where all the spiders lived was a good adventure. The reason we went in there was there was supposed to have been a city in the centre and it was heavily populated with green dragons. green dragons breath chlorine (spelled incorrectly) gas which of course we could not magically protect ourselves from.

The running battle with the spiders was a very close affair. We had that tea from the plians horsemen which countered the effect of the spiders knock out poison. Daemon with his plus 5 versus poison on saving throws was the only character not affected. We made it to a underground complex which the spiders semi inhabited. While there we saved a high level Elvish Ranger and some weird sword. We escaped by entered a magic circle on the ground which was a teleporter which the spiders could not use and which the wierd sword could not enter. As we would never have survived travelling out of the forest on foot we decided to enter the circle. The sword had something to do with giving the spiders the ability to speak or some other power so we used in as leverage to get to ,the teleporter ie.stay back or we destroy the sword. Just as we entered the circle we threw the sword at the king spider and Glimmer fried him with a huge damage lightning bolt which brought him into the single digits for hp's. Then we stepped into the teleporter. I just remembered that the sword was a Singing Sword or something.

What was the green dragon cave all about. I think that was simply a random encounter. We entered this down sloping cave which was covered in slippery mud. Within minutes the entrance to the cave darkened and a huge green dragon breathed gas all over us. I seem to recall that someone died.

David; January 29, 1997

It was Cedar the Druid that "Called Lightning" to blast the spiders. It's about the only really decent spell that lower level druids get.

Didn't we get Divine Intervention when we fought the Dragon, or was that another incident? I remember that some god another appeared as blinding blue light, when Cyril rolled a 97 or 98.

Aracus' Tower

David; January 27, 1997

... It wasn't until after that that we went after that Tower (which sucked the Magic items out of you, and where we fought the Pit Fiends in the basement.

May 12 2001 - David / John - recovered June 14 2021

Do you remember why we went to Aracus' Tower in the first place. Was it that Maddox and Saddalas promised us something in return?

There was something in the top of the Tower we were after. Didn't we free Maddox and Saddalas from a magical imprisonment in the Tower?

What was it in the Tower that sucked the magic items out of us? A mirror? I regret that we didn't put all our magic items on one person and let them go through! Yes it was a unbreakable mirror.

Was it Pit Fiends that we were fighting in the tower? I justed pulled out my MM and saw that they have 13HD, plus they regernate 2HP/round, which seems somewhat beyond our ability to fight

For the record, Glimar used a "Staff of Dispacement" to (effectively) teleport without error 40 feet. The combat with the Pit Fiends was in the basement of the tower. The combat was done around a pit which was 50' deep. I remember that Glimar used to staff to displace downwards 4" and fall only the remaining 1" to minimize the damage.

Are you sure they were pit fiends? I thought they may have been Bone Devils as I have a memory of characters being caught on these huge hooked things.