Any series of adventures I can use for a new campaign?

[Malleable]

So I haven't GMed since I as in junior high - 40+yrs.
But I figure I've rode on the coat tails of my gaming group for long enough.  I retire recently, and have plenty of time to put into developing a campaign.
Granted I'm lazy.  So I'd like to find a decent series of adventures I can adapt to an RMU campaign.  I guess they don't have to actually string together, but if I can have some low level, some mid level and maybe some high level adventures so I don't have to do too much development on my own that would be great.

Any suggestions?  Drivethrurpg is fantastic, so open to purchases through them.

Thanks,
Mal

[katastrophe]

Have a look at the RM Blog Fanzine starting at about #23. There is a string of adventures that run together as a mini campaign. it has about 12 parts so it runs to about issue #33 or something like that. It was created using the beta ruleset but is easily adaptable to the updated and completed rules.

It can also be strung into and added to the Norek campaign, which has stats for RMC and RMSS, on this website or the Discord for ICE I believe there is a RMSS/RMU conversion guide which explains which new skills replace old skills.
 
If you use the Norek mini-campaign, you can bring characters from about level 2/3 RMU to about level 6/7. I would not advise running the last adventure for a group less than that level since it is an old fashioned DnD dungeon crawl. The werewolf adventure I would not run for characters less than 4/5 and the assault on the house of the mage and the smugglers I would not run for a group of less than 4/5 as well. Therefore you will need to add in some additional adventures and the RMU blog ones are perfect to intertwine. If you want to run that characters even further, the Jaiman book has its own mini-campaign, the Sea Drake Crown Saga, which also occurs on the same continent and geographically not terribly far away.

If you read all of it together - I would definitely advise reading all of it in advance and planning out according to level - it can be quite an epic campaign for players starting at low level and moving into the mid levels (10/12)

If you are more inclined to use EMER rather than Jaiman as the place the players are located - some people care. Then you can instead start with the Eidolon/Sel-Kai book. The most recent version has about 5-6 adventures that can be strung together as a mini-campaign. It lacks a big finale (which you get with both Norek and with the Sea Drake Crown). But the adventures are interesting as they are big city crime activity based - like slave trade and kidnapping, revenge plots between nobles screwing one another and the PCs getting used as pawns. It requires more adventures as filler between the book adventures so the RMU Blog campaign can be used there as well. Though there are hooks in the main EMER continent book, unlike Jaiman it lacks a mini-campaign so it is not really my preference.

There are a few non-RM products out there that are their own mini-campaign but would require some conversion. Against the Darkmaster - a MERP derivative - has several adventures. They are pretty easy to convert since they look a lot like RMU except for AT and DB, which need adjusting. The OBs are quite similar. The spells are different but the general gist of the spell lists can be simulated in RMU. They have 2 campaigns with full adventures starting at level 1 in print. So you can actually, if you wanted to, just take either of their campaigns and run it from level 1 up. 

[Micael]

I would recommend highly Shadow World and the best and most supported starting adventure "Tales from the Green gryphon Inn"
1. You can buy it as pdf and in Fantasy Grounds making it easily the only online SW adventure available.
2. In the Centre of Jaiman you can use adventures from nearby "Haalkitain", "Cloudlords of Tanara" or "The land of Xa-ar"- all of them are mostly not older than 10 years (Norek is not far,too, but it's 30 years old).
Have fun!
3. You can read an epic saga about this adventure in another thread, here in the forum which help tremendously in preparing the right tone and side adventures.
4. There are podcasts available for every adventure I mentioned here in a forum Thread, on Spotify or ICE discord server.
Micael

[Namo]

I would recommend the XA'AR Sourcebook here. It's actually a campaign that comes with a lot of regional detail. You can, of course, also add the JAIMAN Sourcebook and the Master Atlas. That will give you a good overall view of Kulthea as a whole and Jaiman in particular. XA'AR is by far not as high-level as the older Shadow World books, but it still has an epic background. I only read it for the first time a few months ago, and I can definitely imagine building a great campaign with it. And if you even have time like you do, you could turn it into something much more exciting.

[MisterK]

Setting-wise, I would suggest Cloudlords of Tanara or Iron Wind hands-down. The problem is, they lack some kind of accessible semi-developed adventure seeds that can be strung together into a campaign. ANother issue is that their description is set at a different point in the timeline than the main SW timeline that appears in most later campaign books.

Vog Mur comes second. As a setting, it has well-defined boundaries, and there are plenty of things to do for low-level characters, even though it requires some prep to bring the locals and the village to life instead of being merely a pit stop for wannabe-looters. I would suggest starting here, and move to Sel-Kai after a while before going deep into the secrets of Vog Mur such as what is hidden on Ordye Throk - the characters can come back to finish the job when they have tasted the big city for a little while (and it can give a certain old man / scaly NPC opportunities to manipulate them into doing so) because Vog Mur is actually not that far from Sel-Kai.

Avoid the Shade of the Sinking Plain, both Tales of the Loremasters, the Orgillion Horror, Sky Giants of the Brass Stairs, and most SW products published during the time of "loose artistic direction and quality control" period. Shadow World worked best when TKA had a firm grip on what was worthy of being published and what was not (I don't agree with all of his choices and preferences, but the product quality and overall consistency were far higher when he was at the helm).

[Micael]

Setting-wise, I would suggest Cloudlords of Tanara or Iron Wind hands-down. The problem is, they lack some kind of accessible semi-developed adventure seeds that can be strung together into a campaign. ANother issue is that their description is set at a different point in the timeline than the main SW timeline that appears in most later campaign books.

Vog Mur comes second.

All of these timelines  are updated in 2ed products and are really nice, but for a starter who is lazy perhaps to much work for a campaign..
Just my two cents...

[MisterK]

All of these timelines  are updated in 2ed products and are really nice, but for a starter who is lazy perhaps to much work for a campaign..
Just my two cents...

Oh, I know the timeline has been updated in CoT when it was re-issued (I don't know about IW). However, the problem is, the setting is *exactly the same*, which makes no sense given everything that happened in the world at large between the time of CoT 1st edition and the official "now" of the official SW timeline. What would have been required was a complete overhaul of the regional setting taking into account everything that could have changed in the meantime, how, and why. It would have made a very different product.

But I agree: both CoT and IW are not for the GM who wants minimal effort. I still think that Vog Mur + Sel-Kai is worth it.

[Druss_the_Legend]

depends on your budget but i highly recommend Thieves World Sanctuary Boxed set with the separate 3 modules: Spirit Stones, Traitor and Assassin are all available on the resale market. Each module adds new lore to the setting (jubal, s'danzo and the palace/guest embassy)Iv used this setting since 1987 and its simply amazing. The maps in the boxed set are superb and the encounter tables in the GM guide have provided may years worth of adventures. I rebooted my campaign on roll 20 a decade ago and its still going strong. Added 2 more players to the OG foundation players. Im being interviewed for Brian Hanson's podcast 'In Search of Andraax' talking about my campaign set in Sanctuary and I will put a link here when its released. hopefully later this year.

[pastaav]

GuildCompanion did publish a number of adventures before they took over the whole of the Ironcrown business. Plenty of these adventures are quite good and can be inserted into other campaigns quite easily.

[Micael]

you can listen to summaries of these Guild Adventurer episodes here and on the Rolemaster discord thread oon the ICE servers: link to forum thread about podcast summaries

[Micael]

Oh, I know the timeline has been updated in CoT when it was re-issued (I don't know about IW). However, the problem is, the setting is *exactly the same*, which makes no sense given everything that happened in the world at large between the time of CoT 1st edition and the official "now" of the official SW timeline. What would have been required was a complete overhaul of the regional setting taking into account everything that could have changed in the meantime, how, and why. It would have made a very different product.

But I agree: both CoT and IW are not for the GM who wants minimal effort. I still think that Vog Mur + Sel-Kai is worth it.
[/quote]

Part of Vog Mur is included in EMER II and updated- I mixed it with Iron Wind sorry- the details of Iron wind are only summarized and the timeline updated in Land of Xa-ar and Jaiman 2ed, but the many details of the setting are not updated.