To Cure A Kingdom - Dungeon Magazine 57

A Mind Flayer, exiled from its kind for attempting to take over control, has concocted a plan to get back in with its kind and finish the coup it previously started.

In the original adventure, the Illithid used psychic surgery to remove this one Mind Flayer's ability to Plane Shift, and then set it loose to wander among lesser beings. During its travels it kept seeking a cure for the punishment enacted upon it by the others, and eventually captured an alchemist. The alchemist, while in forced servitude, eventually discovered the cure, but the final ingredient was something difficult to get. 

As written, the final ingredient are some leaves off of two magic trees. This sparked a thought that in Ptolus, there might be a rare tree or something else of value, that can be found at Iridithil's Home. Maybe a few drops of Moonsilver.

The plan to get its hands on the rare item involves finding a hidden temple to a god of disease, taking over by masquerading as an avatar of the diety, crafting and unleashing a disease on the city, then offering the cure in exchange for that rare item.

A religion dedicated to the spread of disease would find itself quickly outlawed in Ptolus, so this place would likely be in the dungeons or caverns below. Once located, the City will want to send forces there to destroy the place and put the adherents to the sword.

The Commissar and City Council would be quick to put up a reward for a solution. Churches would be doing their best to stem the spread of this ailment. It wouldn't take long before Doraedian Mythlord would be called upon to help, and that is where the player characters can be brought into the equation.

An emissary of the evil temple has arrived claiming the disease as their doing. The emissary brought along a list of ingredients for producing a cure, but is withholding the one rare ingredient it can provide in exchange for the one rare thing the Mind Flayer seeks. 

The mission is to take the Moonsilver to the temple to trade for the rare ingredient of the cure, and come back. Simple, right? Nah, never that easy.

You'll want to replace the over-land travel with underdark travel encounters and locations. The temple is a pretty straightforward conversion. 

Temple defenders will work mostly as described, but beefing up the lizard folk might help a bit. Undead in the lower temple level are difficult to turn (impossible in the scenario) and will be a threat even to higher level parties. The big bad evil guy needs to be buffed up to be a real challenge. Since he is fighting alone, Legendary abilities and Lair actions will work great for those running 5th edition D&D.

Thunder Under Needlespire - Dungeon Magazine 24

Ok, Ptolus DMs, do you want an apocalyptic battle against a very powerful Galchut deep below the Spire?

OF COURSE YOU DO!

Thunder Under Needlespire just might be that adventure. The name is coincidental, but maybe it's an omen that this needs to be reworked to match your preferred game edition and run as a possible campaign turning point. In the original write-up the AD&D levels are for 8 to 12 with the main villain being 20HD and you'll be ambushed by a Drow wizard and a summoned demon at the same time you encounter the thing.

Screaming to be adapted into a higher level fracus, the module takes place deep in the caverns where Svirfneblin (deep gnomes) approach the characters for help with what the gnomes believe is a few Illithid causing earthquakes. It turns out the Illithid want help with the real cause of the problem, a Galchut about to break free of a cyst and in the process destroying vast areas and civilizations beneath Ptolus. Oh, it would also wreck the city and maybe topple the spire.

Characters begin thinking it's a few mind flayers and a handful of their servants to take care of and end up discovering an Illithid outpost with 3 dozen of them, plus dozens of servants, a Drow advisor, and a Beholder ally. The potential for an "oh, shit" moment exists when finding yourself surrounded by a bunch of brain eaters and a beholder.

Fortunately the tentacle-faced creeps don't want a fight, they want someone to accomplish what they are unable to do which is to destroy the thing causing the earthquakes. They know what is at stake. The Galchut is immune or extremely resistant to their mental powers, reflecting their attacks back at the Illithid. They need muscle of the type the party can bring to bear.

On the way to fight the big bad monster the party gets followed by a Drow out to make a name for herself. She too knows what's at stake and thinks by making sure it happens she'll earn a place at Gorgoth-Lol's (Lolth) side. When the party enters the lair of the Galchut, she summons a demon and attacks the party. (In the Ptolus setting Gorgoth-Lol is one of the Vested of the Galchut)

After the party defeats her, the demon, and then the big bad monster (assuming they manage to do so), their guide sent by the Illithid, surprise attacks them per her master's orders. She's a wererat wizard supplementing her own magic with some powerful scrolls she's saving to unleash on the party.

You could certainly expand this into a longer, more involved mini-campaign. Other under-dark, under-deep, whatever you call it, races could play a part along the way.

There's a lot of conversion work to make it ready to play, but Thunder Under Needlespire might be worth the effort.

Getting Hammered part 7

Dan of Hammered Game Tables is quite the passionate person when it comes to the tables he sells and the satisfaction of his customers. In fact during the course of working on my table the matter of getting the right hardware to match my vision was becoming a tiny bit of an adventure.

One week day I was sitting down to lunch in a Mexican restaurant with two of my co-workers and my phone rang. It was Dan. I was used to Dan staying in touch during the process, but rarely had he called this early in the day, and calls were usually preceded by an email in advance so the call time could be coordinated.

I had yet to order, which was fine since I really had no clue what I wanted to eat. I took the call and on the other end was a very excited Dan. He had gone to an antique shop earlier and lucked into the perfect set of drawer pulls. As my co-workers ordered lunch, I listened to Dan describing what he had been doing and how cool he thought everything was turning out. Between bits of the tale I managed to place my lunch order.

Dan went on to describe six hefty antique cast iron drawer pulls and a smaller one that would be perfect for the lift on the table top. He continued describing that he had picked up some copper leafing, had applied it to a pull, and it was the reddish copper I had been seeking. Needless to say, I was quite happy about this discovery.

 Getting to that selection of copper - I had sent Dan a series of pictures that included both finished copper items, and different types of copper ore.

 Needless to say, I like copper, and I knew it would look great against the darker stain I had picked out.

But what about the rest of the table? Take a look at the pictures below and you'll see the Phoenix at various stages of production.

The experience of having a table custom built for my hobby has been a great adventure. If I were fortunate enough to have the space and money to burn, I have a couple of other ideas for tables. Since I am unlikely to ever reach that point here are those ideas in case anyone out there gets the chance to buy a table of their own.

Mind Flayers and Drow - Purple stain with burned in images of those creatures and other underdark denizens. The under-lip lighting might work best in blue to give a cold visual. Black hardware.

Cthulhu - Green stain with burned in images of various mythos creatures and of H.P. Lovecraft himself. Painted on the top of the table a large Elder Sign, painted at points around the lip of the table or on other accessories, the Yellow Sign. (A case can be made for flipping the choice of where the Elder and Yellow Signs get painted). Purple hardware. The under-lip lighting could be done in a number of colors depending on the visuals you were after. One possibility would be UV in the event that you had very tiny runes painted in a reactive color along the top of the higher strip of cladding.

Eladrin or High Elves - A pale grey stain. Bright silver hardware. White under-lip lighting. Elven runes and leaf patterns lightly painted on with bright silver.

Well, there we are, something wicked cool, revealed.