[No-Artpunk] #14 Xantal of Dreams Pt. I (S&W)

Xantal of Dreams (S&W)
Swords & Wizardry
Gabor Csomos (Chomy)
Lvl 9 – 13
Pages: 45 (+4 maps)
Classification: Dreadnought

I have stated previously that I think this NAP is significantly stronger then the already spectacular previous ones and with the return of none other then NAP I’s esteemed Champion Elect this trend can only continue. Xantal of Dreams is a sword & sorcery hexcrawling tour the force, with savage deserts, fetid jungles, winged ape-men, alien super-science, sorcerer-kings, dinosaurs, ghoul-monks, tribal chieftains and necromancy. Its howardian pulchritude is diminished by only two factors: 1) It is merely the first part, and the actual city of Xantal shall be described only in the (presumably) even more ferocious sequel! and 2) it bucks a little against the contest stipulations. Naughty!

Encountery!

The premise is pure S&S. The evil wizard Merikh Thrice-Damned and his retinue of ne’erdowells sets out for the ruins of the fabled city of Xantal in search of the ancient Crown of Domination, using a mystic jewel known as the Stone of Dreams, to conjure it and its terrible priest-king Uthammazor back from the distant mists of antiquity! The adventurers and their retainers enter the jungle, either in search of the fabled Crown themselves, or the wizard’s head and its bounty of 100.000gp! Enter the PC’s.

This, ladies and gentlefurs, is what they call the real deal: A 30 location hex crawl, complete with a time-table for when the wizard enacts his sinister ritual and calls back the forbidden city, soldiers and its dinosaurs back. Many of the encounters have notes on what happens after the change. Large groups of henchmen, nomads and sellswords that may be hired by the dozens, factions of inhabitants at war or at peace with eachother, elaborate notes on the information that each of the factions has on the rest, traps, obstacles trails, sprawling random encounter tables. This, combined with a writing style which is not quite verbose but not le terse either, means you will have to read it, let it simmer a little while, use the calender for tracking time provided in the back of the book.

Meaty!

Chomy gets it. When you do hexcrawls, locations need to be interconnected. I do not simply mean it should all be embedded in a framework of gygaxian naturalism. I mean that locations lead into other locations via rumors, there’s subquests to get the loyalty of factions, sometimes there’s relatively obscure leads, like a tribe of warthog-faced orcs (great!) have an orange cargo mech ah la aliens (great!) as an idol and they use it during an attack on their camp, but the robot is FROM somewhere, a space alien base deeper in the jungle. Events are connected so exploration is not aimless. The opponents are intelligent, coordinating using a scrying mirror wielded by the necromantic mistress of the evil wizard. There is an objective, a way to disrupt the magic realm conjured forth by the ritual, but this too gets harder to disrupt as time goes on. You get something that is rich and varied without being overly complex. You get this principle, similar to the Whistle of Cerunnos, of degrees of freedom. Settlements have a lot of attributes and how you interact with them (diplomacy, war, theft, espionage) is up to the players.

Very based

Now, for the high level part that sets it apart from your garden variety 5-7 module, Chomy tackles it in a multitude of ways. The first is mass combat. The sample PCs start with a large retinue of followers, the neighbouring nomads of the oasis can be hired, there are major settlements in the jungle with hundreds of warriors etc. Even for powerful PCs, this feels like a major undertaking, a situation where multiple combatants are truly warranted. The second is general monstrous threats. Xantal pulls some nasty punches. Dinosaur encounters, a chameleon basilisk, the robotic laser beam defenders of an alien supply base, a coven of ghoul monks that force the characters to join under pain of death or a hextad of mummified medusae with intact gaze attacks. Dragons. Stone giants. Demons wandering the wastes. Kala, the Red Abomination, an honest to god CRIMSON DEATH! Orders of battle are provided for intelligent opponents where applicable. Traps are a bit nastier: an explosive gemstone in a treasure hoard, pit traps filled with spikes and cobras, a tasteful sprinkling of save or die traps, appropriate for a system with Neutralize poison. Occasional interesting high level logistical challenges too, like a spaceship buried under the mud in a lake, or the more low level blocked passage.

Patrician

In rare occasions I feel that paradoxically, a tad more information would have improved it. Take, say, the City of Apes. You have yourself this ruined place, a schedule of when people go out, but how long, say, would it take the entire settlement to converge upon the players if an alarm is sounded. There is an orc camp but no little map. But these are tiny warts, easily compensated for, and do not detract from the strength and vibrancy of the adventure.

Reward levels are appropriate to the character level, with several large hoards spread across the domain, interspersed with powerful magic items, consumables, precious and beautifully customized art objects. Intricate and rich with context without being overly verbose or overstaying its welcome. A gigantic golden crown hidden under guano on an ancient statue was a nice touch. To get an idea of the density of the treasure, the village of local primitives has about 40k, the villain’s camp has another 40k, the androsphinx another 50k etc. I estimate the combined total will be somewhere on the order of 300 – 500k, with some of it concealed or difficult to find, very reasonable for what is only the first part of the adventure.

The adventure, spectacular as it is, is not without some magyar trickery. Mr. Csomos was kind enough to outline all the monsters and new items that he had included in his adventure but he did also off-handedly mention that he had included some technological items that were ‘technically’ not magical. I love myself a good tech-base as much as the next guy and I can handle an occasional reskinned magic item but a laser beam, night-vision goggles, gas mask and jet pack are sort of pushing it. I think with a bit of Dragon magazine legerdermain or a gander at the Gamma World conversion rules in AD&D this could have been partially avoided, and it does the adventure no disservice, but I have to be strict or the next entry will see even more rules violations. A frown and a dissaproving tut tut. The rest of the adventure sticks close to the letter and spirit of the rules, pregens are delightfully included along with procedures for the generation thereof (excellent idea to have a sort of magic items shopping list and giving everyone 1 pick from 3 categories) and in general, you get a sense of scope, vision and genuine creative spark.

Though the winner of the NAP III contest is by no means certain, one thing is, 2024 will be an absolutely grand year for old school gaming with all the grand high level adventures that have been on display this contest. This entry is great and I look forward to inspecting the 2nd part! A formidable publication-level entry by the NAP Champion.

Harcolj tovább!