Author Topic: Recount Shadow World Adventures!  (Read 2343 times)

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Offline Terry K. Amthor

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Recount Shadow World Adventures!
« on: October 13, 2020, 12:18:59 AM »
In this dark time, I'm inviting Shadow World fans (and even all Rolemaster fans) to recount some of their favorite adventures. I might even bring back some of the infamous T'revor's Tales, of my character's adventures in Pete Fenlon's amazing Rolemaster campaign.

If it is any inspiration, consider it a birthday present!   ;)

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Terry K. Amthor
Shadow World Author, Rolemaster & SpaceMaster Co-Designer, ICE co-founder.
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Offline metallion

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Re: Recount Shadow World Adventures!
« Reply #1 on: October 13, 2020, 10:05:51 PM »
Just ran a session tonight.  The party had returned to Sel Kai after a successful run in the newly survivable Zinvar only for Ravasz D'Argent Seliasta Hiradora Kard to discover that his favorite Red Door Courtesan couldn't relieve him of his treasures on account of being missing after a Moralisite customer gave her a serious scare and she went into hiding.  He became greatly concerned with her safety and brought the matter to his companions.

The party is staying at the Inn of the Dusken Shield, half an hour outside the city, where they find welcome because Terenor Coran is a Paladin of the eponymous order that maintains the establishment.  During their breakfast, they discussed the vivid dreams they had while in a Reanite holy place and as they were finishing Loremaster Luronen Moje entered on his regular rounds of significant establishments.  Of course, the only person who recognized him was THOG - That's Therril Ogrim Marai-Tasaka to you - the Half-Lugrok Magician being the only Sel Kai native, let alone Black Oak resident in the bunch.  Caeleis Vikanira greeted him as a fellow Loar, all Elves being kin in the lands of humans; and Moje introduced the party to the tradition of a breakfast cocktail.  In exchange for stories of their travels, he gave them advice on places to look into what had happened to Sharise, the courtesan in question.  The party spent the day talking to people in places high and low:  The Church of Moralis, the Kaitaini Embassy, the Red Door itself, the Canal Maze, and put together several observations and reports:
- The man who had upset Sharise was not a Moralisite, and the Church is not pleased when outsiders attach their name to unsavory deeds without leave.
- The man was Kaitaini, and a known assassin of some talent.
- Sharise survived her encounter with an assasin of some talent.
- Sharise has contacts with the Red Dragons, and some emnity with the Black ZZ over a matter that left two of them floating with sword wounds.
- Sharise is good enough with a knife to put off intemperate clients; and good enough with a sword to put two Black ZZ in the canal.

The party now sets out to hatch a plot to keep Sharise alive and the assassin in a less exalted state.

Absent from tonight's sesion was Brother Edwin, an Andarasi Mystic and Nara, a Rhiani animist.

Offline markc

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Re: Recount Shadow World Adventures!
« Reply #2 on: October 14, 2020, 09:47:10 PM »
I do not really have any Shadow World stories but I do have one for dark times.


I as a GM had 6 orcs (IIRC) vs the 4-5 players and they players did not hit them until the last one. But I as the GM rolled 5 fumbles followed by hits and then crits to the other orc's that killed them. Then as I said above the players suddenly found their dice worked and quickly finished off the last orc.
As you can imagine this was often talked about with other classic's such as how many shots in a double barrel shot gun, using grenades' in the cargo hold of a ship and fumbling a maneuver 3 times to get a dropped weapon before knocking it into lava and destroying it.


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Offline Majyk

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Re: Recount Shadow World Adventures!
« Reply #3 on: October 15, 2020, 07:11:25 AM »
Nice topic!

After 30 years or so, towards the end run of SW for RM2s heydays, Norek and Jaiman were the modules we used in their entireties - every single adventure and hook within it!

The ‘02’ Comeliness/Appearance, Dwarven Bashkar, and "pretty" High Elven Ranger in the group ended up in a love triangle with Dehl the Barmaid and she ended up giving birth to a Half-Elven kiddo along with an "afterbirth that moved" child, also.
This ended up being Half-Dwarven(thanks RMCI stats for half-dwarves!).

*So* not PC or scientific but we were twisted teens back then...

Got the most play out of this and Land of the Silver Mists.

Offline Spectre771

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Re: Recount Shadow World Adventures!
« Reply #4 on: October 16, 2020, 05:21:12 PM »

Quellbourne is my absolute favorite companion.  I bought it when I was just starting off in gaming (i.e.: Rolemaster).  I had already purchased all the books and Companions to date and I came across Quellbourne which had been very recently released.  It just immersed me even deeper into the RM system and I immediately fell in love. 

Over the years, I've used different "portions" of the book in my campaigns; Kelfour's Landing, Shrine of Hrassk, Trelkinaark and the Krals, Soultang Language, etc.  I even used the Soultang words as the seed words and generated a 4000 word dictionary with the help the the Vulgar Language Creator last year (https://www.vulgarlang.com/).

I've not used the Companion to run a full campaign though.  I've used the material as feeder modules to inject into our gaming world.

Tales from the Green Gryphon Inn are now popping up in the gaming world and I've shifted the focal point of the gaming world to Gryphonburg as it sits so nicely in the area of Quellbourne and I now have completely new gamers from when I first started gaming back in college.  The party doesn't know it yet, but they are working their way north into the region of the trolls and Kelfour's Landing and eventually over the frozen sea.

A favorite adventure hook I use is the Shrine to Hrassk.  I've used it as-written in the book as a stand alone adventure for players.  I've had other groups run into the Shrine as part of their travel in other parts of the gaming world.  Most recently, for the Grand Campaign I've been running for several months now, I've placed the Shrine in its proper location with respect to all of the above mentioned locations.  However, I've set it at a time when the shrine is not yet completed.  The main building (a giant spider shape) is still under construction.  The first two pairs of legs are completed but not finished to final product.  The next pair of legs are in rough form and is the current concentration of construction.  The main entrance is nearly fully finished as it was the first portion built.  Most of the main body has been roughed out and hollowed.  Part of the adventure they are on is to find out what has been happening to the dwarf elemental forge masters.  The party mistakenly believes the worshipers are responsible for the abduction of the earth element spell users and the elemental forge masters to drive the construction.  They also believed the worshipers were abducting and holding some local townsfolk as prisoners.  After slaughtering a good portion of the worshipers and finding out some real facts about what was happening, my daughter let out a plaintive sigh of "Oh why do I get the feeling we just did something really really bad?"  As a few more gaming sessions were run, the party slowly noticed that the supply of venom antidotes was becoming very scarce, the cost for the remaining doses was increasing, and the spider population was growing at an alarming rate... along with the attacks of large spiders in the forest area.

Soooo... they now have a very angry group of spider worshipers who breed spiders and who are very proficient with poisons chasing after them... they just don't know that part yet.  I swear, sometimes these adventures just write themselves!
If discretion is the better valor and
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let's all be heroes and run away!

Offline Garnaal

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Re: Recount Shadow World Adventures!
« Reply #5 on: October 21, 2020, 03:05:56 PM »
We started playing in the early 90s and completely played the Jaiman Kier campaign over a period of over 15 years. We played with two groups; one every thursday and one every other Saturday. This resulted in multiple intertwined story lines. One of the greatest moments was when one of the PCs attuned the access orb in the tower of the third moon with a roll of 497. Those are the rolls that mess up a GMs story line. In this case I decided that he'd broadcasted his presence to all who have an orb. He was an arch mage, which are pretty rare, so he'd get offers to join several groups. The player instantly decided to go with Sulton Ni'Shaang because he promised him "power beyond imagining". So much for loyalty. Later in a different story line he picked up the Scepter of the god-king (Demons of the burning night) confessed all his sins and helped the Kier party to steal the crown from his former boss. Karma.
Week x Player decides his character joins the dark side.
Week x + 1: New character: player comes out of the sewer, wants to run through a house and is stopped by a little lady that says: "you are not getting doodoo on my clean floor". PC: I attack her with my sword, rolls a 99 on the crit stabbing her in the eye, killing her instantly. He's later arrested and hanged.
Week x + 2: New character. On a random encounter the party meets an Olthoi. It's hungry and decides to eat the PCs horse. Player:"I use my cloak of flying, land on it and stab it". GM: "Are you sure? It's an airborne jellyfish, 30meters in diameter and has 10meter tentacles. It's frigging huge". Player: "I attack". GM: "you do 10 hits. it notices you, cast paralysis on you and thinks: ah desert!". Other player: "Let's run while it eats him and his horse". 

One off player: In RL he's big and loud and boasting and his character has to be even bigger, even louder and even more boasting; way over the obnoxious line. The PC is called "white mountain" and he has to be front and center in every fight, has to get the best loot, has to hoard all the attention. And when they have fought through the dungeon, he has to be the one that wakes up the paladin fulfilling the prophesy. It turns out the paladin is actually an anti paladin. He graciously thanks the party for waking him up and teleports away. The look on the braggarts face: priceless. I can't remember what source book that was in, but it was awesome.

PC: "I'm the windblade, I'm the windblade, I'm the windblade...what a stupid sword. Let's throw it off a cliff" GM:"nonononono"

You have given me and my friends some of the best memories. Thank you  :)

Offline Majyk

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Re: Recount Shadow World Adventures!
« Reply #6 on: October 24, 2020, 01:31:35 AM »
Nice Norek story re: the Paladin=AntiPal, if memory serves.

Spectre: love it - always thought about the Grand Campaign and running it. 
Even non-canon, it was a great sweeping epic adventure for our beloved RM with SW flavour!

How has it been for you and the players?

Offline Spectre771

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Re: Recount Shadow World Adventures!
« Reply #7 on: October 24, 2020, 09:21:54 AM »
Nice Norek story re: the Paladin=AntiPal, if memory serves.

Spectre: love it - always thought about the Grand Campaign and running it. 
Even non-canon, it was a great sweeping epic adventure for our beloved RM with SW flavour!

How has it been for you and the players?

My players have been having a blast.  The majority are new-to-RM and don't know what is SW material, what is my made-up world, or what is a scenario I injected into the game.  As I mentioned, the adventures seem to write themselves.  I learned a big lesson during my first few goes at GM-ing... the players never do what you imagine they will do!  When I plan a campaign or even a session, I lay down a skeleton framework with possible encounters waiting in the wings.  For the Shrine of Hrassk scene, no one (out of a party of five players, four of whom were decades-long veteran gamers) bothered to ask the townsfolk why they were there or why they were working for the Followers.  By slaughtering the Followers, the party set in motion an entirely new chain of events I never even thought of doing.  I had originally planned on the party doing some quests for the Followers, garner some good favor, get access to extremely cheap or even free poison antidotes, use the shrine as a source of info, etc.  They turned that plan upside down and now the remaining Followers want revenge and are actively seeking the party, there is an antidote shortage, and the wild spiders that were being held in check by the Followers are starting to encroach on the town creating a greater demand for poison antidotes. I'm sure Terry didn't have that in mind when he wrote up the content for the Shrine. :)

When I received the Tales From the Green Gryphon Inn, I immediately threw a fully developed Gryphonburg into the world as it is perfectly located on the map and is an excellent base of operations for what the party is embarking on at the moment.  I was initially going to use Kelfour's Landing as the the base of operations and had the party en route as it's on the water front, but Gryphonburg is ideally suited and is a great base of operations now that I have the Haalkitaine book. :D   The party may be heading out that way for some fun too.  Right now they are still exploring the city, making contacts, and getting to know some of the factions so it's a new adventure for them and for me.  I'm introducing the NPCs as Terry has them described in the book, but I'm letting the interactions develop based on what the players do, so the NPCs will surely evolve from what is in the book.  For the number of years I've been playing RM, these adventures and this material is going to be all new for me as well as the players and that makes it more exciting for me.  I'm going to say I am more excited to see what happens next than my players are just to see how the new material evolves into the existing game world.
If discretion is the better valor and
cowardice the better part of judgment,
let's all be heroes and run away!

Offline GMsShadow

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Re: Recount Shadow World Adventures!
« Reply #8 on: October 24, 2020, 10:56:24 AM »
RM2 was the first game I ever GMd. And as it happened I ran The Islands of the Oracle using that and the Master Atlas. I'd basically stumbled across them together in a shop so picked up both the Rolemaster boxed set and SW. Being my first go at running a game it didn't last until the end but I had a blast playing it, and the players loved my very bad lizard people impersonations.

Some friends and I  have recently been getting beeb getting bacj into ICE products and I have suggested RMC for the system (we're messing  with MERP at the moment), and I've just suggested that we play in SW. I'd love to dive back into Kulthea.

Offline GMsShadow

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Re: Recount Shadow World Adventures!
« Reply #9 on: October 24, 2020, 11:00:22 AM »
If anyone's interested we have been podcasting our experiences.

Offline Hurin

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Re: Recount Shadow World Adventures!
« Reply #10 on: October 24, 2020, 12:30:47 PM »
If anyone's interested we have been podcasting our experiences.

This might be a good opportunity for the moderators to add a new section to the forums for people who are recording/broadcasting their games. I think this is becoming more common every day, and would be a good reference for people who want to hear what ICE games sound and play like without formally joining a group.

Also, welcome to the forums GMsShadow! We are glad to have you.
'Last of all, Húrin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and wielded an axe two-handed'. --J.R.R. Tolkien

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Offline Majyk

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Re: Recount Shadow World Adventures!
« Reply #11 on: October 28, 2020, 05:37:06 PM »
If anyone's interested we have been podcasting our experiences.


Post the link, Sir!


Also, if not already done - join the Official I.C.E. Discord server and chat live with folks or post your latest stream into the ICE-related section.

EDIT: Oh yeah, AND ADD THE LINK as a Signature.  ;)

Offline RandalThor

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Re: Recount Shadow World Adventures!
« Reply #12 on: October 28, 2020, 08:33:47 PM »
You got an invite to the ICE discord server? I am currently in a MERP 2nd edition campaign, set in the 1690s of the Third Age, called Pave the Way. (I assume it is referring to the fact that our group will "pave the way" for the Fellowship in some way.)
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Scratch that. Power attracts the corruptible.

Rules should not replace the brain and thinking.

Offline Garnaal

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Re: Recount Shadow World Adventures!
« Reply #13 on: October 29, 2020, 06:19:48 AM »
GM to Player: "I've gone over White Mountain and ..... don't you think he's been minmaxed a bit too far? I think I'd be hard pressed to minmax him any further. You don't even have riding. How did you intend to travel?"
Player: "White Mountain will run along side the horses. He can run like the wind!"
GM:"Really? You're a big guy. How far can you run? White Mountain is a least twice your weight. How long do you think it'll be before this 300KG albino blob will expire in a heap?"
Player: "I see. White Mountain will ride a donkey! He'll have the toughest donkey in the world!"
GM: "You're bigger than the donkey. The poor animals spine would snap"
Player getting really fired up: "White mountain will have and ox cart! A gilded ox cart! With a throne! And a dozen little boys that can feed me grapes!"
GM: "You do realize that in any sane universe, you'll be locked up as a pervert if they don't hang you by your balls first.
Player: "White Mountain has the biggest balls...."
GM: /facepalm

Offline Mider

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Re: Recount Shadow World Adventures!
« Reply #14 on: November 04, 2020, 12:06:26 PM »
Wow, thinking back over two decades ago, I loved Quellborne and the other source materials. My favorite adventure was where my group of adventurers gathered together a bunch of items, didn't pay attention to the description of the guy they were handing them too, they thought it was to a high priest but didn't put together the hints and handed them off the an agent of the big bad guy.  They left the inn where they had met the guy, not the temple, that should  have been a big red flag, and as they walked away they heard a town cryer asking for the city to pray because the high priest had slipped and broke his leg and might not be able to do the ceremony for the mid-summer holiday.  They than spent 30 minutes in RL cussing and comparing what they had missed about the hints.

Offline Roll 3d6

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Re: Recount Shadow World Adventures!
« Reply #15 on: November 15, 2020, 12:17:28 PM »
I remember posting this story in the "Rolemaster Moments" section years ago and am glad to share it again:

Our party was returning from their adventure in the Uj desert and were glad to see the City of Kaitaine across the bay...well, all but one of the group was.
The party members involved here consisted of Codi the Sorceress, Arn the Druid and Denroth the Rhiani Bounty Hunter.

During their adventure, the party's Sorceress had claimed a ring as her portion of the booty. It had some value to it, but it also was cursed. Codi is now deathly afraid of water. Anything more than a waterskin-full and she starts getting the shakes. Being out in the desert, the curse had laid dormant. Now, with the bay stretched out in front of her, the hydrophobia kicked in high gear.

Now to complete the scene, please note that there is a LARGE tent-city full of Kaitaine refugees on the continental side of the bay due to martial law being declared (my storyline). Hundreds of people are milling about and that means there are guardsmen milling about with them, trying to keep the peace. The following action takes place in front of some of these guards:

"Guys, I don't think I want to go home, just yet." Codi said.

Seeing the Sorceress is being hesitant, possibly ensorcelled, Arn the Druid attempts to knock her unconscious with his staff. With a successful Perception roll, Codi sees the blow coming and takes it on the shoulder instead of the skull. On pure instinct, Codi pulls out her Wand of Lightning and proceeds to blast a fist-sized hole through the Druid. This same Druid was the only Channeler of the group!

Without missing a beat, Codi walks right up to the guards and asks, "Excuse me? Do you have a Healer? I just shot ours.”

Offline foilfodder

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Re: Recount Shadow World Adventures!
« Reply #16 on: November 17, 2020, 08:15:54 AM »
I ran a quick single-session game back in October, just an old college friend and his teenage son. Neither of us had played MERP, or RMSS since 1999, but we wanted to introduce his son to the game system.

The PCs were warriors sent by their leige lord to a "village hardly worth noticing" to deal with brigands that had taken over a lighthouse high on the shore cliffs. I warmed them up with the locals and a pickpocket at the local tavern.

Setting out for the lighthouse they sensed an ambush but decided to split up, one (our young player) drew his sword and begun to climb the tower, the other (veteran player) began to scout around the lighthouse tower with his bow. This worked out poorly for them.

Inside the tower the PC found three bandits. The interior stairs limited movemen to single-file. What would have been a turkey shoot if the second PC was there with his bow was now a desperate fight. Fighting cautiously (by allocating OB to defense) he downed the first bandit after three rounds without taking too much damage. The second bandit introduced him to the pain that is opened-ended-rolls. Using HARP instead of MERP or RMSS meant he was stunned into uselessness instead of receiving an instant death crit.

Outside, our veteran player dispatched two attack dogs and their bandit handler with his bow. Rushing into the lighthouse to aid his fallen comrade he dispatched the remaing bandits.

Duty to king and country completed. Hopefully our younger player was not as horribly scarred by the session as his fighter was.

Offline Bryanicus

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Re: Recount Shadow World Adventures!
« Reply #17 on: January 21, 2021, 09:44:17 PM »
I'm a bit late to the party but here is one of the funny occurrences that happened to us.

near the start of our shadow world campaign the party was sitting in the tavern enjoying breakfast when a man barges in claiming to be one of the guards of the first speaker for griffin college and that a strange group trapped her in a tree when she attempted to escape.

The animist (the fasted person in the party at the time) Runs out the door without saying a word. We can already tell that something is going to go down. The guard leads us to where the tree is, 2 unlife messengers, along with 2 earth elementals.

Not particularly hard of an encounter, but worrying that we don't have our healer. As the party is planning our attack the dwarf alchemist runs off into the clearing after failing his self discipline save vs his fearless flaw.

Things only get worse from there as one of the messengers shoots him with their crossbow. Natural 100 on the crit, instant death. The party starts to panic after seeing one of the members go down. I rush in and engage one of the messengers we go back and forth neither one of us being able to really hurt each other. The other one hears some rustling in the bushes and fires his crossbow at it. Guess who it was, our animist who thought they'd do some scouting ahead without telling the party and is now down and will die in 12 rounds from blood loss.

At this point the rest of the party has run away and I quickly follow them the GM is astonished at the disaster that just unfolded and decides to call the session there before anything else bad could happen to us and decides from that point forward to ban the 'fearless' flaw.

Offline Bryanicus

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Re: Recount Shadow World Adventures!
« Reply #18 on: January 21, 2021, 10:18:11 PM »
Another story coming from about 4 years later in that game.

By this point the party is 18 level and recently took over Ardan City after the Armsmaster converted half of the army from a natural 66 on his leadership roll, but that's a different story. As we were at the harbor I ran into someone getting off a ship reporting that they had been attacked by pirates, but while repelling them they had kidnapped one of the passengers. I gather some general information, and walk along the beach using passing lore to find out if there were any suspicious characters had been down there.

I find out where they had landed and track them down to an inn in town the worst tavern possible, dubbed approximately "The Desperate Cockroach" the GM then described the sign as being an anthropomorphic cockroach with a hook on one of it's hands, a wire hanger replacing one of it's antennae, bit taken out of one of its wings. The smell coming from it was only masked but the rotting fish guts nearby. I merge through the door (since it was the middle of the night) and am immediately greeted by the sight of hundreds of cockroaches.

Now, my character has a fear of large amounts of bugs. I fail my resistance and faint on the spot. I wake up about an hour later and manage to continue, having to make several con saves along the way to avoid vomiting. I make my way down towards the cellar, which notably has fewer bugs where I find the 2 pirates, I use adrenal speed and reduce them both to nothing but splatters on the wall using from 2 NATURAL 100s On the griffin sword's internal disruption criticals! a thin layer of blood coated everything in the room, with the exception of me because of the griffin sword's ability to block organic projectiles.

 After a small bit of searching I find the girl and get her back with us and the rest of the party. After that, I go up to the magician and start discussing plans for Urban renewal. After that outright traumatic experience for my character. The GM then reviled that the only reason that they were able to stay in business is do to the fact that everything in there was so horribly kept that it provided thrill to teenagers challenging each other to try and eat their food and drink their beverages.