Rappan Athuk : The Dungeon of Graves

[Ken L]

Many hundreds of years ago, the forces of good allied to destroy the main Temple of Orcus in the ancient city of Tsar. With their temple in ruins, the surviving high priests of this accursed demon-god fled the city with an army of enemies on their trail—an army of heroic fighters, clerics and paladins—led by Zelkor, a powerful wizard. The exact fate of these evil priests was then unknown, for not only did the remnants of the followers of Orcus disappear from all human reckoning, but so did the army of light that followed after them disappear as well. Some said that in the eternal scales the loss of so many good men was a fair price to pay to rid the world of so much evil.

The evil cult, however, had not been destroyed. The surviving priests and their followers instead settled on a hill near the Forest of Hope, a sylvan woodland near the Coast Road. There they found a vast underground complex of caverns and mazes, carving out a volcanic intrusion beneath the hill. There, the priests of Orcus found the perfect lair to continue their vile rituals. For many years, they carried on in secret, hidden from the light and from the knowledge of men.

Many years later, their underground delving completed, the evil priests erected a hideous mausoleum and a sunken graveyard atop the hill. It is believed that these graves are in fact the final resting place of the pursuing army of heroes that had been destroyed to a man. Soon after the mausoleum was erected peaceful creatures of the wood began to disappear. Though many rangers and druids investigated these happenings, the cause of the creatures' disappearance was not immediately determined. Some years later a powerful group of adventurers, led by Bofred, a high priest of Thyr investigated the evil happenings and found the sunken graveyard leading to a labyrinthine complex. Bofred and his companions found great hordes of evil creatures in the complex. Though some of his companions returned from their expedition, telling tales of fantastic treasure and ferocious monsters, Bofred was never seen again -- lost in the catacombs beneath the cursed mausoleum.

For the last one hundred years, ranks of adventurers have ventured to the newfound dungeon. Many fell prey to bandits and monsters in the surrounding wilderness. Rumors suggest that of those who survived to reach the mausoleum and sunken graveyard, most were slain by guardians of green stone or perished on the very first level. Those rare few who return from deeper treks speak of horrible undead and creatures that cannot be slain. All who have explored Rappan Athuk offer this one universal piece of advice:

"Don't go down the Well"

Rappan Athuk is an old school dungeon crawler that chews up characters and spits them out. It's difficult, impossible even in some areas as it's not built to be even remotely fair. Every encounter can be one's last, and even the most optimally built character can become the next puddle of blood and sinew due to an unlucky happenstance. It's a throwback to AD&D with the scarcity of resources, where not every encounter is winnable and knowing when to run or hide will determine if your character will live to see another level. But where there's risk, there's reward in finding treasure far above APL.

Expectations for play:

+ Ultimate License so those who don't have a Fantasy Grounds license can connect.

+ One shot drop in format: Each session is effectively a one shot, starting equipment vanishes upon death (Found dungeon loot is preserved)
-- Leaving/returning players appear in and out existence each session unless dictated otherwise, (In case of abuse), their inventory will carry unless it is an item needed for progression in which case it will transfer to a current player.
-- Half starter WBL due to the above average APL treasure drops, isolated location limits shop access so a majority of player wealth will be found.
-- Leveling is tied to progression as opposed to EXP, the further you get in the dungeon will advance the level of everyone in the group, including new comers. Due to the level EXP field, there will be minor perks granted to those who survive a number of character levels which is to be determined.

+ High death rate: Don't get attached to your character, there's a 90% chance they'll die, besides, epic and embarrassing deaths are part of the fun. If you manage to survive a few character levels, you'll gain minor perks (traits) but not enough to garner jealousy from others, and often relate hilariously to how you survived when your fellow adventurers did not.

+ Tuesday timeslot: Early on the time used to float, but it has now solidified into an 8:30pm EST/EDT slot as we've become quite clockwork.

+ Low prep: A simple white background with the dungeon drawn in using drawing tools as it is explored.

+ No PFS credit as Rappan Athuk is definitely not a sanctioned module, but it lends itself heavily to power gamers.

+ Medium rule adherence: Rules as written, but as with previous experience, I reserve the right to bend a few, mainly to be in favor of the party due to the sheer difficulty of the dungeon. But if you're going to argue about a 2d6 spike trap when I previously bent a rule preventing a TPK.. well... you get my drift.

+ The following house rules
-- Darkness Points as Hero points, 3 darkness points per level, every point spent is given to the GM to be used in the future. Tip the scales in your favor, to know that they will balance in the future.
-- Swift pockets. Every standard outfit has 2 pockets to store 2 small items which can be retrieved as a swift action. bandoleers allows 6 items per bandoleer with the added risk that if hit with a damaging AOE effect, each item must immediately save or be destroyed/damaged.
-- Food, drink, and survival equipment matter. Every day you don't have food or water you're fatigued. Go a full day without water and you're exhausted the 2nd. on the 4th day you're dead. 7 days without food you're exhausted, one month you're dead. Not having proper sleeping or camping supplies will begin to wear down your character.
-- Item identification behaves as once per level akin to appraise. Retries are granted by use of the 'identify' spell. Identifying magic items takes time, up to 15m, pending on the item.


To reiterate the 'Low Prep' nature of this game... here would be the typical map, drawn in as the dungeon is explored, just as I would do in person on a vinyl mat.




Requirements

- Experience with the Pathfinder System: This dungeon is far too difficult for those starting out, this campaign is more suited to those who want a challenge, and aren't afraid of losing a few characters, or even a ton back to back.
- Discord: The Discord will be the primary methods for communication between games and alerts will be posted here.
- Teamspeak: Teamspeak will be used to stream ambiance/soundtracks/jingles to add to the atmosphere of the game. This is also our primary voice channel
- Laid back: Lots of shitago will hit the fan, and you'll need to be able to take it in stride. Helps in game as much as out of it.


Characters must be a Core race and can be created with any official paizo material minus the technology guide, gunslingers, summoners, unchained and any tech related items. In addition are the following creation rules:

New players may create a character with the following:
- 9th level characters
- 10000gp starter gold (do not use class based gold or WBL charts, no crafting with WBL gold, no single item over 5k in value)
- Hit die past first are half, not half+1 or rolled
- 20 point buy
- no traits

Send a PM with your skype or discord information if you're interested in a challenge!

[Zhern]

The Frog God has noticed your offering and is pleased.

[Blahness98]

I would definitely love to join in on this since anything the frogs put out is awesome. But with the setup I use to game, Skype works like crap. Good luck and have fun!

[Ken L]

No problem, you can shoot me a PM with skype info if you wish to test connection. As I have fiber it's likely that I'll be the one hosting the connection.

[Ken L]

Currently looking for one more player to pay tribute to the frog god!

[SenorFry]

Hey, I'm interested in joining your group if you still have an opening

[Ken L]

Send over your skype via private message. Given the rolling one-shot nature of the group, this game is designed to accommodate a pool of players to play on different days. Overall it's a fun death filled romp.

[Griogre]

Ah, good to see RA being run again. I ran an open table RA game for 3.x and it was a ton of fun.

One thing I did that was fun was I kept a running list of characters that went in. The dead ones I italicized, and the return survivors I gradually increased the font depending out how many times they had survived.

I added a little backstory where RA was actually slightly "out of phase" with the prime material so the adventurers were transported to RA for a limited time (the duration of the session) and then anyone conscious was pulled back at the end. A few unconscious PCs got left when nobody was able to pick them up.

Hope you guys have a great time with Rappan Athuk.

One thing that might help you with the maps. Try masking the map and then tracing it so it's easier to copy, ie

[Ken L]

Ah, i recognize that map.. hehe...

The maps aren't scaled well, and are never 5/ft per square. That screen shot iirc is 10f per square. There's a good number of maps where the alignment simply doesn't work no matter how hard you try.

[Ken L]

Session 2: The grounds of Rappan Athuk. What lies in wait?

Next session is on May 16 Tuesday 8:30pm EST!