Project Slaughterhouse: Converting I1 - Dwellers of the Forbidden City

[Pbartender]

The goal will be to convert the 1st Ed. AD&D adventure module I1 - Dwellers of the Forbidden City to 4th Edition using The Angry DM's Slaughterhouse guidelines.

This will not be a direct conversion, but will will stay as true as possible to the original version, while adapting it to my "Athas is actually a far-future post-apocalyptic version of Earth that was invaded by H. G. Wells' aliens and is now partially inhabited by Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoomian Martians.

I'll be keeping track of the whole process in this thread... Comments, questions, complaints and suggestions are more than welcome.

 

[Pbartender]

The first step is the map of zones in the Forbidden City...

The majority of the zones correspond to the general encounter areas on the wilderness map that comes with I3. I've renamed some areas to jibe my campaign and its setting, and added in the "Noble's Quarter" and the "Slums" to fill things out just a little.

 

[Pbartender]

Next, the factions...

• The Shruzgrap Gang On the run from the authorities for banditry, they stumbled upon the Forbidden City while hiding out in the mountains.
• The Tasloi A wild tribe of tree-dwelling halflings have made the city parks their home.
• Kwairno, the Mad Wanderer An ambitious Wizard, his Apprentice and their menagerie of semi-intelligent beasts have come to rediscover the arcane secrets of the Sorcerer-King who once ruled this city.
• The "S-Lazy-K" Mercenaries Hired to kidnap or kill the Wizard and his Apprentice, and steal what ever secrets they've found.
• The Children of Bullywug Force-evolved frog-men, whose "God" has made its home in the swampy lake at the eastern end of the valley.
• Aratheas' Survivors The last, pitiful, mutated survivors of the original population of the city. Their "Queen" is a centuries-old Barsoomian (elven or eladrin) princess, formerly a Templar of the City before it fell to ruin, and now she's gone round the bend a bit.
• Wandering Monsters Unaligned denizens and beasties inhabiting the Forbidden city.

[-]Incidentally, I could use some better, less blah, names for some of the factions, if anyone's got any ideas.[/-]

 

[Arlough]

I would give you XP for this, but it says I can't, yet.

Next, the factions...

Incidentally, I could use some better, less blah, names for some of the factions, if anyone's got any ideas.

• Bugbear Gang On the run from the authorities for banditry, they stumbled upon the Forbidden City while hiding out in the mountains. I don't really have anything for this one. Perhaps give them a leader and name the gang after him, kinda like a mafia family.
• The Tasloi Halflings - A wild tribe of tree-dwelling halflings have made the city parks their home. They know they are halflings, so they would not feel obligated to spell that out.
• Kwairno, the Mad Wanderer - An ambitious Wizard, his Apprentice and their menagerie of semi-intelligent beasts have come to rediscover the arcane secrets of the Sorcerer-King who once ruled this city. Keep this one, it's great as is. Maybe his followers would be A <Apprentice/Beast> of Kwairno.
• The Yuan-Ti Mercenaries Scaled Hand - Hired to kidnap or kill the Wizard and his Apprentice, and steal what ever secrets they've found. Or something like that, a name that is their brand. They are mercs, they know how important it is to have your name come up when a client needs you.
• The Bullywug Tribe Children of <insert god name here> - Their "God" has made its home in the swampy lake at the eastern end of the valley. or, if they are being referenced by another faction, call them the Mudsuckers.
• The Mongrelmen Survivors or The Remnants - The last, pitiful, mutated survivors of the original population of the city. Their "Queen" is a centuries-old Barsoomian (elven or eladrin) princess, formerly a Templar of the City before it fell to ruin, and now she's gone round the bend a bit. Another option is just to name them after their queen.
• Wandering Monsters Unaligned denizens and beasties inhabiting the Forbidden city.

 

[Pbartender]

On to rosters for the factions...

The "roster" from the original adventure for Aratheas' Mongrelmen was something like this:

81 Mongrelmen
4 Mongrelman Bodyguards
1 Mongrelman Chief
1 Giant Hedgehog
Aratheas, Elven Wizardess

4th Edition doesn't have Mongrelmen. In my version of Athas, Orcs (and their sub-races) are Barsoomian Martians (elves and their sub-races) who were unintentionally mutated into savage grotesqueness by the alien biological, chemical and radioactive fallouts that the Defilers used during the War of the Worlds. So, I'm going to use orcs, half-orcs, orogs and ogres in place of the Mongrelmen.

For Aratheas, I think I want to use an Eladrin -- something arcane or psionic.

And I'll need to find a suitable substitute for the hedgehog...

 

[Arlough]

On to rosters for the factions...

The "roster" from the original adventure for Aratheas' Mongrelmen was something like this:

81 Mongrelmen
4 Mongrelman Bodyguards
1 Mongrelman Chief
1 Giant Hedgehog
Aratheas, Elven Wizardess

4th Edition doesn't have Mongrelmen. In my version of Athas, Orcs (and their sub-races) are Barsoomian Martians (elves and their sub-races) who were unintentionally mutated into savage grotesqueness by the alien biological, chemical and radioactive fallouts that the Defilers used during the War of the Worlds. So, I'm going to use orcs, half-orcs, orogs and ogres in place of the Mongrelmen.

And I'll need to find a suitable substitute for the hedgehog...

Can you give us (who do not have access to that old playbook) an overview of the Giant Hedgehog.

 

[Pbartender]

Can you give us (who do not have access to that old playbook) an overview of the Giant Hedgehog.

Stats are given as follows:

AC 5, MV 6”, HD 6, hp 37, #AT 1, D 2-8, all within 6‘ may be hit by 1-4 sharp bristles that do 1-4 points of damage​

Essentially, it's a big beasty that can shoot quills (more like a porcupine, really, than a hedgehog). The closest thing I've found, stat-wise, is a kruthik adult. This is going to be one of those instances where it won't be a perfectly accurate conversion.

That's okay.

For my own sanity, I want to stick with creature stat blocks that are available in the Compendium. Although, I am not adverse to making cosmetic changes (it fights like an orc, but we're describing it as a mongrelman), or very minor changes to stats (such as simply changing damage type).

 

[Spatula]

Bump?

Thanks for the introduction to the Slaughterhouse rules. What an elegant system for handling PC assaults on fortified positions without having to map every encounter out. I will definitely be using this in the future.

What level are you aiming the conversion for? Low-mid heroic, I am guessing?

I tried to do a mostly faithful conversion of I1 for low paragon, as that was where the group was at, and it seemed like a good fit given the level of 4e yuan-ti. But of course the other creatures in the city are all low heroic by 4e standards, so I replaced the bugbears with ogres/hill giants and the bullywugs with troglodytes. The tasloi I designed as minions and swarms, but was never entirely satisfied with that. The mongrelfolk were custom-made, as well.

I printed out a copy of the map from the original module, scrubbed off the encounter keys, and handed it to the players. The party became fixated on the pyramid on the eastern side of the ruins, which led to a lot of improvisation based on one of the story ideas in the module (something about a struggle between ghouls that turn you into slime and subterranean humanoids). It also led to the party skipping over most of the ruins.