"Sweagledactyl": swan stuffed in giant eagle inside a pterodactyl

January 13, 2013 5:45 PM

Courtesy of that saint of old school gaming and dark god of the underworld Jason Sholtis, who runs the awesome, previously-posted blog The Dungeon Dozen, it's a new adventure to run using the game system of your choice: THE SECRET PARTY-HOUSE OF THE HILL GIANT PLAYBOY (PDF viewer w/ available download). Looting, slaying, and party crashing beckon to the bold!
Also from Sholtis: the one-page dungeon FLESH FOR THE WITCH QUEEN. (PDF viewer with download)

Be sure to keep reading until you get to the stats for the new monster, the slugbear.

posted by JHarris (11 comments total)

I'm so charmed by the titles alone.
posted by Mezentian at 6:28 PM on January 13, 2013

I'd totally eat that for Thanksgiving.
posted by littlesq at 6:55 PM on January 13, 2013

Oh. It's a game.

Stupid titles on the front page.
posted by fshgrl at 8:08 PM on January 13, 2013

Actually, the sweagledactyl is in the adventure, under the What's On The Menu table. I would have explained that in the title, but like, 72-character limit.

Look, I can't always come up with a good title, I didn't need one before, blame mathowie.
posted by JHarris at 8:13 PM on January 13, 2013 [7 favorites]

Long ago I came to the realization that I greatly preferred reading supplements for role playing games to actually playing them. These are some excellent examples. Settings and situations are fascinating to read especially when separated from all that tedious working out of the plot. It is a similar genre to Borges' trick of writing reviews of books that never existed.
posted by Perfectibilist at 8:13 PM on January 13, 2013 [5 favorites]

Perfectibilist, are you familiar with Gary Gygax's own Tomb of Horrors? It's an astonishingly sadistic design, a long string of jokes at the expense of the players.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 10:13 PM on January 13, 2013 [2 favorites]

Perfectibilist, are you familiar with Gary Gygax's own Tomb of Horrors?

I'm pretty sure, after reading the preamble to this adventure, that the Playboy got his fortune after ambushing a party exiting said Tomb.

This is exactly the sort of thing I wanted for a campaign, and a great way to start things off. Now to just convince people that a silly campaign is just as good as a serious one. Serious campaigns always devolve into silly campaigns, anyway, I just want to be honest about it from the start.
posted by thanotopsis at 8:49 AM on January 14, 2013

Spear of the Righteous Throw +2: automatically hits for maximum damage once per day when hurled for a damn good reason

Every home should have one.
posted by delfin at 4:27 PM on January 14, 2013

I remember the tomb of horrors but I didn't know there was a free version of it online. Thanks! I am tempted to read it but part of me worries that it is all a trap left by an undead sadist and when I click download the ceiling will fall on me and explode with cursed, poisonous, diseased, radioactive shards inflicting 578567957d6 damage to me...and then the floor will turn into acid.

My personal favorite supplements for reading were the judges guild stuff, particularly the outdoors ones. like Witches court marshes.The maps alone were worth the price.
posted by Perfectibilist at 9:19 PM on January 14, 2013

Tomb of Horrors is not a silly campaign or a great way to start things off. Experienced players exercising extreme caution would survive only with a great deal of cleverness and quite a lot of good luck. It's as silly as a WWI cavalry charge. Expect humiliating, unfair deaths, possibly before they even find the entrance.

I'd suggest running it with throwaway characters that your players do not care very much about. You might need to let them generate character after character as they die off (premise: evil dictator is trying to seize the treasure by sending in wave after wave of condemned criminals in a human wave attack?).

It's probably more fun to read than to play.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 10:52 AM on January 15, 2013

Tomb of Horrors is not a silly campaign or a great way to start things off

Perhaps I wasn't clear: I was mentioning that the Playboy referenced in the OP ambushed a party of characters laden with treasure while returning from a tomb. I was surmising that they were returning from Tomb of Horrors.

I wasn't stating that S1 was "silly and a great way to start things off." Dear god, man. I was talking about the adventure noted in the OP.
posted by thanotopsis at 6:01 PM on January 16, 2013