B5 Horror on the Hill - Finished!

After what feels like an inordinate amount of time, we finally finished Adventure B5: Horror on the Hill. We started this one back in the fall of 2024. My longtime gamer group is supposed to meet twice a month on Sunday nights, but most of the time we ended up meeting once a month. So, almost a year later, we finally finished.

I’m wondering if in the future we need to convert these guys to more of an open-table, West Marches style game and maybe open up the roster to more players. That way, whoever shows up to play can play and it’s more consistent. But that’s a thought for another day. I’m just glad we finished B5: Horror on the Hill – it’s a good one.

I had this module on my bucket list for a long time. It involves a small wilderness, a ruined monastery, a multi-level dungeon, and an innovative but controversial trap. The trap locks the players in levels two and three of the dungeons and forces them to keep going deeper to get out, culminating in a boss fight against a (young) red dragon.

After crossing this one off the “classic TSR bucket list”, it’s got me wondering if I should convert some AD&D modules to Shadowdark - like G1–3: Against the Giants or D1–3, the Drow modules. Those are also bucket list items I’ve never fully completed with a group. I don’t think they’d be too hard to convert. It does make me wish I had placed my campaign in Greyhawk instead of Karameikos.

The trap midway through the dungeon is interesting.  There’s no apparent way to get to level two (or even know the dungeon goes deeper) unless the players find the trap doors in the floor on the way to the hobgoblin king’s throne room.  The trap doesn’t trigger if the hobgoblin king is in his throne room, which is the case when the players pass over it the first time. But after they go in, defeat the hobgoblin king, and head back the same way, the trap springs.

Here’s my pro tip - and it was a little evil on my part - I had some hobgoblins peppering the party with arrows from the end of the hallway where the trap doors sit. My players are careful and I’m sure they would have searched the hallway, but they gave up on that plan and chased the hobgoblins instead, which led them forward to the throne room.  Our duty as a referee is to share information, including revealing the existence of the trap doors if the players search, but if they have a good reason to chase an enemy and skip the search… muhahaha.

In fact, it was entertaining trapping them on the middle level of the dungeon. (It felt almost like a James Raggi dungeon at that point). They tumbled down a giant chute in the darkness, lost their torch, and had limited food and water because they weren’t expecting to get dumped and trapped – it’s a great way to put pressure on the players.

When they fought the hobgoblin king and his bodyguards in the throne room, the hobgoblins failed a morale check and some of them fled. The king and one of his bodyguards fell down their own trap and ended up wandering the second level. The players eventually ran into them and formed an uneasy alliance! Together, they pushed through the second level and reached the third level.

The third level is a kobold lair, and the hobgoblin king and his bodyguard eventually died alongside the PCs in a cataclysmic fight against the kobolds over a lava chasm with rope bridges. It was all very epic.  Continuing forward, the players eventually encounter a young red dragon to escape the dungeon. I wonder if this adventure is where the kobold-dragon connection started (back in 1985) because it feels like that trope has stuck ever since – kobolds act as the outer defenses or back-door guards for the big bad dragon.

The climactic dragon fight had its quirks in Shadowdark. Since hit points are flat, the battle would be swingy. If the players missed too many saving throws (ability checks, in Shadowdark), it would easily be a TPK. On the other hand, if they made most of their checks, they would take no damage at all - unlike old-school D&D, where a successful save vs dragon breath still meant half damage, in Shadowdark a successful check completely negates the damage. Add in luck tokens, and the dragon’s breath weapon lost much of its teeth.

What happened was the dragon breathed fire for two rounds straight, but most of the players made their checks - or spent luck tokens. They killed the dragon in just two rounds. One PC had a dragon-slaying sword (+1, +3 versus dragons, the classic old-school style). Of course he rolled a critical, slashing the dragon’s neck. Their thief landed a triple backstab for about 40 points of damage. It was a little anticlimactic.

The players, of course, were jubilant. They were throwing gold and coins into the air. The dwarf fell backward into the pile, made snow angels, and pretended to swim the backstroke. Most of the group said it was one of their best gaming experiences in years, if not the past 10 to 15 years.

So, what’s next for them? They’ve earned fame and fortune. The captain of the fort sent them to the capital city of Karameikos, Specularum, with a letter of commendation and a request for an audience with the Duke. They’ll have to deal with the local thieves’ guild. The next adventure I have lined up is likely The Waking of Willoughby Hall. I expect one of the characters to be granted a small holdfast - including a mansion, which will be Willoughby Hall, and then offer some opportunities for other classic modules along the way.

We’ve been playing Shadowdark since last September, so next up will be our retrospective after using it for a year.  Back soon!

Progress Report - Horror on the Hill

I love the Jim Holloway art from this era of Basic D&D

We missed a lot of time with this campaign!  Several of the players are die-hard Eagles fans (go birds), and there was a run of late afternoon games on Sundays or Sunday nights which displaced RPG game nights, so I think we've only played 2-3 times since October when I last checked in on this campaign.  Our cast of characters has reached level 2 and has explored most of the surface ruins of Horror on the Hill and about half of level 1 of the dungeon.

Here are the characters:

• Skargold (half-orc fighter)
• Glo (dwarf fighter)
• Barlow (halfling cleric of Ord)
• Ithior (elf wizard)
• Malad (elf thief)

In Shadowdark, ogres are level 6 monsters, so one of the most dangerous surface encounters was with an ogre (rolled as a wandering encounter) which forced the players to retreat, put down caltrops as cover, put doors between them and the ogre, basically use good tactics to create distance and let them injure it at range before closing to melee when it was weaker.  There are some old school goodies in the module like a hidden sanctuary in the monastery with a magic fountain, and several characters got stat boosts drinking the enchanted water (2 ended up paralyzed for half a day).  Sleep took care of a barracks of humanoids, and then they were down some stairs to the dungeon.

Sleep is proving to be highly effective in a scenario featuring humanoids under the Shadowdark magic system.  Shadowdark is "roll to cast" instead of using spell slots, so if a spell is successful, the caster can try it again in a future encounter.  A few lucky spellcasting rolls and even a 1st level wizard can deploy multiple sleep spells, although it doesn't scale to affect higher level creatures like the classic sleep spell.  The players have rescued a dwarf prisoner, Gareth Ironhand, who was being forced by the hobgoblin king to make weapons for an army the hobgoblins are trying to raise (pictured above - I love the Jim Holloway art of this period in TSR).  The players have promised Gareth they're going to put an end to the threat.  They've also learned the hobgoblins revere a "fire boss" deep in the hill called "Rhazgar", an allusion to the dragon on the third level of the dungeon.

Magic items are fairly bland in old school adventures - lots of shield +1 and sword +1, for instance.  A simple hack I'll do is generate some possible cultures that could have generated the magic item in question, just to give it a modicum of flavor - it's not a well-made shield, it's an archaic shield with a double eagle crest that dates back to the Thyatian Empire, and appears good as new.

I'm running this B5 Horror on the Hill in Karameikos, part of the Mystaran "Known World" setting from the BX and Mentzer sets, so here's a simple table of nationalities for use as above:

Magic Item Flavor:

1. Ancient (Blackmoor)
2. Rockhome
3. Alfheim
4. Old Traladara
5. The Empire (Thyatis)
6. Glantri
7. Karameikan (elvish made or royal court/military)
8. Monster-Crafted
9. The Church
10.  Independent Wizard (Bargle et al)
11. Alphatia
12.  Distant land (Vestland, Ylarum, Darokin, etc)

In this way, they haven't found just a shield +1 or mace +1, but the aforementioned Shield of the Empire or a holy weapon that belonged to the Great Church of Karameikos.  It's low-effort but goes a long way to adding simple flavor to otherwise uninteresting treasures.

At this point I've probably refereed 10 games of Shadowdark between the two campaigns - enough to have a feel for it.  There are a few things I don't like about the system (not fatal flaws, but irritants).  I'll have to put together a gripe post, grognard means complainer after all.  Nevertheless, the system plays really fast at the table - very simple to adjudicate and run combats.  Obviously all OSR systems have this attribute; Shadowdark leverages unified mechanics based on 5E that make it even simpler to operate than the beloved Moldvay.  One of the biggest departures is what I alluded to above with sleep - by dropping Vancian magic, casters can sometimes go on a heater and punch hard.  A cleric (er, priest) can heal the whole group with a series of successful cure wounds spells, or the wizard can put the party on "easy mode" when facing off against goblins and hobgoblins by spamming sleep.  Maybe I'll do a "the good, the bad, the ugly" kind of post on Shadowdark in the near future, because there's a lot more to say.  I'll finish by saying both groups of players have given it an enthusiastic two thumbs up; I know they're enjoying the games and appreciate the system.

Horror on the Hill - New Maps and a Report

My youngest son's football team had a "bye" this weekend so I had some extra time Saturday and put together a few maps for our Horror on the Hill Shadowdark game.  ("Horror on the Hill" refers to the old TSR-era adventure module B5 The Horror on the Hill).

First up is Guido's Fort - a frontier stockade sitting across the river from the ominous "Horror on the Hill".  I put a small frontier settlement outside the fort, some fisherman, hunters, and loggers, along with a trading post, the Lion's Den Inn, and a stable master who supports also supports the fort.  I have some character sketches for them; since the stable master is a retired sailor (pirate), he could be a source for the rumor that leads a party to hunt for the Isle of Dread.  I'm thinking if this campaign sticks a little while, a classic Karameikan adventure like The Isle of Dread or Night's Dark Terror could be a nice follow-up to Horror on the Hill.

Guido's Fort for B5 Horror on the Hill

Here's the original wilderness map for Horror on the Hill - it might be one of my least favorite maps in the early B-series canon.  It needed something different.

Blech

At least for now, I've gone with a fun style reminiscent of a theme park map.  Maybe I'll do a Keep on the Borderlands map in this style at some point too.  I've lost some of the cliffs and elevation, so I may take another go but this made me chuckle and I had fun with it.

Horror on the Hill - theme-park style!

Here's the path the players have taken the first couple of games.  They cleared out a nest of killer bees (1), avoided a steamy geothermal cave (2), scouted an encampment of hobgoblins and avoided them (3), fought some ghouls in the graveyard (4), and then began exploring the ruined evil monastery on the top of the hill (5).

The trip to the top

We're enjoying Shadowdark so far - it feels like an OSR system, with a heavy focus on exploration, XP for treasure, and survival horror.  Player characters are very soft at level 1 and damage is flat, so the risk of TPK is ever-present.  Fighters are good, magic is powerful but unpredictable, and people drop to zero hit points a lot.  The "downed rules" do give the party a round or so to revive a dying character, which is both a little forgiving but creates a logistical challenge for the other players, so I'm enjoying the effects.

More to come on Shadowdark, but first I'll show how we wrapped our Death Frost Doom campaign.  Salut!

Making Karameikos Great Again

I started a second game a month or so back with one of my older gaming groups running Shadowdark.  We had all ended up at the same end-of-summer barbeque, started talking about games, and realized several folks in the old guard wanted to give Shadowdark a try.  I had recently become enamored of the rules as well, and so the idea for a new campaign was formed.  This is basically our first game report.

Shadowdark reminds me a lot of Moldvay BX.  Maybe because it's like what a BX version of 5E should have been?  The game embraces simple classes, simple action resolution, and dungeon crawling.  The Shadowdark community claims you can run classic BX style modules with the system mostly as is, only adjusting the treasure down a factor.  I was drawn to the idea of seeing how it handled classic modules from the 1980's that we haven't run before.  Thus germinated the idea of running B5 Horror on the Hill in my favorite setting from that era, the Grand Duchy of Karameikos*.

One other thing we talked about was running a "gauntlet".  Shadowdark borrows some ideas from Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC), including starting with a pile of 0-level characters, putting them through a horrendous situation, and the survivors get to pick classes as level 1 characters.  In DCC it's called a funnel, in Shadowdark it's a gauntlet, but the concepts are similar.  One difference seems to be in DCC, each player will run all 4 of their zero-level characters at once, so a 5-person table will have 20 peasants trying to survive the funnel.  There aren't a lot of published Shadowdark gauntlets, but the mind-set seems to be each player runs a single character at a time, and the back-up zero level guys are off-camera in reserve (depending on the fiction of the gauntlet).

I decided to use the gauntlet as the lead-in to Horror on the Hill and make it part of the same nexus of events.  In B5 Horror on the Hill, a remote outpost (Guido's Fort) sits on the near side of the River Shrill; across the river sits an ominous fog-shrouded hill with the rising threat of the goblin king in the dungeons below.  I took a gauntlet called Cry of the Stingbat and hacked it up.  In my version, goblins are sneaking across the river at night to kidnap traders and homesteaders and throw them down a huge hole to feed a colony of "stingbats" (stirges) which assail the inhabitants of the fort at night.  The players start as a group of such victims, needing to escape a fairly linear dungeon before dawn when the flocks of stingbats return home and kill them.  They also found and killed a few goblins hiding out near the entrance; the goblins were carrying foul-smelling smudge sticks and stink bombs that immobilize the stingbats and let them manage the horde.

I can see the appeal of running a zero-level gauntlet.  Characters die left and right, which allows for some gallows humor, and story quickly emerges around the exploits of the plucky survivors.  We ran a strict time clock on the gauntlet night, and the added pressure kept things moving briskly.  Finally, there's a useful community generator at shadowdarklings.net that quickly makes a page of zero-level characters fully equipped for game night.  It's all very convenient.  My players had doubts, but now they're believers - I'm sure we'll do a gauntlet every chance we can when starting a Shadowdark campaign.

Ultimately, the zero-level traders, soldiers, and homesteaders returned to Fort Guido after their ordeal in the stingbat hole; they let the fort commander know about the stingbat horde and turned over the stink bombs and smudge sticks so the garrison could take care of the monsters in the daylight.  Having tasted dungeon adventuring, the group promised to reform back at the Fort as level 1 adventurers and take the fight over the river to the goblins - and hopefully get rich and powerful along the way.  Game 2 involved poking around the Fort, collecting rumors from the tavern and talking to the local "old timer", and finally hiring a boatman to ferry them across the river.  They agreed the boatman would return in two-days time at the agreed upon spot for a pick-up, so the players are carrying just enough food and water.  We honestly didn't get too far in their exploration of the hill after game 2.

I have a range of opinions on Shadowdark - I want to give it a few more game sessions (and maybe even try it with the other gamer group) before rendering official judgment.  It's definitely a vibes game that is laser focused on evoking an old school dungeon crawling vibe, while embracing a lot of modern mechanics from 5E and DCC.  I've had great fun; I don't know if it will displace BX (or even needs to).  I also signed up to run a few convention games as Shadowdark in a couple of months to get more drive time with the rules.  More to come on that front.

I still need to build a map for Guido's Fort, it's not provided in B5.  However, I did put together a new map for Karameikos.  This will sound a bit sacrilegious to fellow Mystarans (?), Mystara-philes(?), but the old 8-mile-per-hex style of the Trail Guides was leaving me a bit cold so I made a custom map (above).  Halloween is coming up, and Karameikos is described as a misty, wild land with dark forests, haunted moors, and foreboding mountains, like something out of Eastern Europe.  Maybe I could put the hidden valley of Barovia in the Black Peaks or Cruth Mountains in time for a Halloween one-shot?  It seems like it could work.

* Apologies for the lame title, when your country's politics are as ridiculous as ours, you've got to find a way to laugh about it.