Campaign ideas- jungle/ lost city

[Stefan]

I am planning a new campaign that will most likely use 1E or 2E rules, and will start out in a trading post on the shores of a southern jungle continent (a la Hepmonaland in Greyhawk). I'm thinking of linking together Dwellers of the Forbidden City and Lost Shrine of Tamoachan, along with possibly some of the old David Howery Dungeon adventures from the late '80's. Yuan- ti will probably figure prominently as recurring villains. Problem is I haven't read those Howery adventures in years and need to track them down at one of the out of print shops. Anyone have any ideas for how to link these elements together, and/ or any thoughts on the Howery adventures? I'm just looking for ideas/ inspiration.

Thanks

 

[Corathon]

Sounds like a very cool idea for a campaign. I ran both "The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan" and "Dwellers of the Forbidden City". I assume that the Dungeon adventures that you're talking about are "The Elephant's Graveyard" in Dungeon #15 and "The Leopard Men" in Dungeon #22? I have no personal experience with those as a DM or player.

From a purely logistical POV, the "Hidden Shrine", the "Forbidden City" or "The Elephant's Graveyard" should come before "The Leopard Men" as the latter is for level 8-10 and the other three are for levels 4-7 or 5-7. The "Forbidden City" module allows for a huge amount of expansion (there's an entire city map in the module, and some cool throw-away ideas for further adventures.

 

[Wik]

Tamoachan is AWESOME. It's by far my favourite adventure in the 1e era. Personally, though, I'd get rid of the "poison gas" bit, to allow the PCs more time in exploring the ruins.

You should do what STAP did with their remake of Tamoachan, and make the goal of the adventure the acquisition of some special item that will make their later adventures (perhaps "the leopard men"?) easier - a special magical instantly springs to mind.

 

[Ycore Rixle]

I ran both Howery adventures and Tamoachan back in the day, although the Tamoachan one was in a separate campaign. The Howery adventures were super. Lots of flavor, lots of action, good characters. They are the kind of adventures that are not only good in and of themselves, they make other adventures better by providing a sense of contrast.

As for linking them all together, you could go the classic "Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now" route of searching for a renegade commander who has "gone native" and is now a liability to his former bosses. But probably the best thing to do is to look at the characters the players are creating and find out what motivates them: perhaps a cure for a dying relative is in the jungle somewhere, perhaps a fortune in gold from a lost previous expedition, perhaps a king wants to arrange a marriage and forge diplomatic ties with the jungle dwellers, and he sends the PCs in with a beautiful young woman... who is, in fact, only an ambassador, and it turns out the dwellers get their choice of which PC to wed.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

There's also Tomb of the Lizard King but warning: it's a killer. It starts with an ambush by a Black Dragon. It only gets nastier after that. (Vampiric Lizard King as the big bad at the end.)

Bullywugs and cultists of Wastri. These racial supremicists have a nefarious plan... usually their plans involve genocide of demi-human races so they make easy to hate vilains. Maybe they intend to wipe out a colony on the coast or take over some local human tribes and convert them (forcibly!) to Wastri worship.

I like the Heart of Darkness idea. very cool. And you can start each session with the Doors' The End.

 

[Aholibamah]

Maybe throw in "Tomb of the Lizard King" elements for the climax?

One thing you might do for unifying elements could be to have there be a particular focus on the god Tlaloc in Tamoachan that links that serpent headed god to the discovery of the Yuan-Ti in "Dwellers of the Forbidden City".

 

[roguerouge]

Try adapting these two 3.5 modules:

River into Darkness http://paizo.com/store/downloads/pathfinderModules/v5748btpy82qf

Crucible of Chaos: http://paizo.com/pathfinder/pathfinderModules/v5748btpy81qt

 

[Stefan]

Thanks for the suggestions.

Some more background- I'm kinda going for a lost city of Opar vibe for the Forbidden City. Instead of La and the Flaming God though I'll have the yuan- ti lording it over some degenerate human inhabitants or whatever.

I like the idea of needing to find an item of power in Tamoachan too. When I ran this mod years ago, I tweaked it and had the party encounter an imprisoned couatl who was being held by serpent men. Back in those days I ran Greyhawk and had the Scarlet Brotherhood riddled with yuan- ti/ serpent men and they were active in Hepmonaland having enslaved and decimated the Olman tribes. I may do something similar this time, swapping some item for the couatl.

Also if anyone has any details on the Howery adventures please feel free to share, I have to track those down and I remember almost nothing from them.

Thanks again, keep the ideas coming!

 

[grodog]

Also if anyone has any details on the Howery adventures please feel free to share, I have to track those down and I remember almost nothing from them.

You can check out my page on GH adventures from Dungeon @ http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_dungeon_adventures.html#dungeon and you can also get some additional details from Jay Hafner's Dungeon Index @ http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=186857

Since you're leveraging GH, you could also do something with the idea of the "Lost City" of the Suel and transplant that from the Suss to the jungles of Hepmonaland or wherever you're setting the game now.

 

[Lidgar]

I had worked up the same scenario as well (although converted to 3.5). The PC's were searching for a lost nephew that went exploring into the Forbidden City. There was a rival exploring party of yung-ti (led by the wizard from the Forbidden City module - Horad?). The party eventually stumbled onto the Hidden Shrine - the top room held the artifact of legends - a sphere of annihilation, guarded by the bat-god aspect (pictured on the front cover - I stated this creature out myself). BTW - I substituted the nephew for the "chieftain's son" captured by the yung-ti. To top it all off, the Forbidden City was located on the Isle of Dread! Good fun.