The Smoking Ruins : GM questions *SPOILERS*

[Puckohue]

There's quite a few unanswered questions in the tribal edit thread, but I'd like to distinguish between copy editing and content discussions. At the moment I have two questions:

My guess is the choice of Sea Season was made in order to tie the adventure to the adventures in the GM Screen Pack. The last of those take place in Storm Season 1625. But as noted, the High Holy Day of Ernalda is in Earth Season. The easiest solution is of course to run it in Earth Season. But then again - the weather is expressively mentioned as important to the adventure. I can easily change "High Holy Day" to "Seasonal Holy Day", but that does make it less obvious why the adventurers are supposed to have a tight deadline. And that makes me wonder: why is the tight deadline so important? It's mentioned many times as a major point to consider when choices have to be made. What's the dramaturgical significance of it?

The deadline is supposed to be important when the adventurers decide on the route between Duck Point and the Smoking Ruins. Three routes are described on p. 62-63. Why does the approximately three times shorter route (option 3) take three times as long to travel as option 2? Am I missing something obvious?

[Mirza]

The tight deadline is important because the mirror is wanted for the Seasonal Holy Day, like yeah there are other Holy Days, but let's be clear the Sea Season Holy Day for Ernalda is very much focuses on ahem "the storm fertilizing the earth" as it were. That's why the holy day that plays out at the end of the adventure is about the marriage between Orlanth and Ernalda, it happens during this day on Clayday Fertility Week Sea Season to bless the planting of the crops for the year to come. The mirror specifically is an important artifact from the myth the Marriage of Orlanth and Ernalda, it's one of the gifts that Orlanth gives to Ernalda to prove his worth as potential husband.

Why didn't people attempt to locate the mirror for previous Sea Season Holy Days for Ernalda? Well it comes down to a couple things, Daravala had found out the info for where the mirror is just recently, and is willing to fund it now that she thinks that she can use it to get some recognition for herself, also honestly, others *have* probably attempted to find the mirror before the PCs, they just became the victims of the Smoking Ruins, and their knowledge was lost along with them like many others before. Before the Dragonkill this wouldn't even have been a problem, the Smoking Ruins were populated and lived in then, the mirror only became lost post-Dragonkill.

Also for the travel options, I don't know why you think Option 3 is the shortest, just looking at the map in the adventure, Option 2 is pretty much as straight a line as you can get from Duck Point to the Smoking Ruins. Whereas Option 3 has you following the river for a bit until centaur's ford, then crossing through the Ten Ridges separately than the Dragonspines to near Queen's Post, and then crossing the Dragonspines which has an even more roundabout path than Option 2's crossing. It's just not the shortest path by any mean.

[Puckohue]

15 hours ago, Mirza said:

the Sea Season Holy Day for Ernalda is very much focuses on ahem "the storm fertilizing the earth" as it were. That's why the holy day that plays out at the end of the adventure is about the marriage between Orlanth and Ernalda

Thanks for clarifying! The marriage thing and springtime fertility rites makes perfect sense.

Quote

Also for the travel options, I don't know why you think Option 3 is the shortest,

Again, thanks for clarifying. It was some wordings in the text that made me confuse routes 2 and 3. It says on p. 63

Quote

down and around the Dragonspine through Seven Foals Vale

which made me think "down" was "south" and "through Seven Foals Vale" meant the route drawn directly over the words "Seven Foals Vale" on the map. I guess just numbering the descriptions and the drawn routes on the map would have helped someone as easily confused as I am.

I now also notice the quote about route 2 going north of Wild Temple, which of course is as clear as it gets, even to me

Thanks!

Edited February 29, 2020 by Puckohue
English

[Joerg]

The maguffin is not the explicit object of the quest when the party takes off, only proof of the existence of the holy place. A piece of masonry with inscriptions or a statue would be the expected outcome for the quest giver Daravala. See p.36 which states the objective for the adventurers.

I was slightly puzzled how the item that - had its existence and location been known would have been retrieved long ago - is pushed onto the party like that.

Daravala appears to have done a bit of research on old Ernaldan myths of Dragon Pass to locate that ancient temple. (I'd like to learn about her sources and connections.) And she must have connected the interior of pre-Vingkotling locations (Ernalda's house, as there are places like the kitchen represented as a location in Kerofinela) with Vingkotling and Dawn Survival ones.

I know hardly any Vingkotling myths from their founding time. Any such stories would have been passed on to their descendants, and become more and more diffuse. There is little known about Korol, the (presumed, could have been his children or grandchildren) founder of Korolstead. Off the cuff, Korol was part of the four brothers' great raid into Dara Happa, his daughter became queen of part of the survivors of the Lastralgortelli after the disastrous Lastralgortelli raid, and Heort the Swift is descended from him in direct male lineage. No known domestic achievements like Ulanin's cattle raid from the giants that we learn about in the Red Cow saga.

 

The wedding of Orlanth and Ernalda is a myth that predates the Vingkotling era significantly, and the Orlanthi population would have been the (descendants of) the followers of Orlanth on the Downland Migration from the Spike, Durevings. (The wedding of Durev and Orane is a foreshadowing of the wedding of Orlanth and Ernalda.)

 

Now the majority of the people in the founding of the Vingkotling tribes would have been Durevings following their demigod leaders who dispersed the Vingkot bloodline through the population over a few generations. (Luckily Vingkot was a lot more fecund than Sartar, making the third and fourth generation "House of Vingkot" a lot more populous than the families of Yoristina, Saronil and Eonistaran that make up the House of Sartar.)

 

I wonder whether the temple and the item are really only the place of the wedding of Heort and Ivarne and the props used in that Silver Age event. While there is no information on whether Heort actually lived with the Koroltes during his feats that led to the I Fought We Won battle and his rescuing Ivarne. It doesn't look like King Heort had a fixed seat of power, probably having a moving court that would visit all the Heortling towns on some irregular schedule, but an event like his wedding may have taken place at Korolstead.

The Earth remembers, but it is all interconnected, and Godtime events may be "smeared" all over the map as the various scales of magnitude of the mythical landscape correlate to what remains of it after the spider collected the shards.

[Rodney Dangerduck]

I don't want to ask / comment on the tribal edit thread because I think we may return to the Smoking Ruins, but we did go there and retrieve the super-item.  And, along the way, my character "did the dance" and swapped with her mom.  Another PC swapped too.

Within literally 10 seconds we ruled that the other PC did not swap his Storm Bull.  End of story.

My mom is actually another Vingan, and I'm a very flexible player, so I considered it.  (I've had previous non-chaotic Lunar characters reborn out of the Sea of Chaos!)  But soon realized that a caring parent would not accept the switch and would do everything within their power to restore their child.  Fortunately, our GM (and we) were creative, we worked out a cool way to de-swap, and it actually worked out great.

But for most it would be a disaster.  I think many players would just quit.  Never to return.

Given that the warnings were given by a surly ghost (who easily could have added why) and a metagaming by the GM "are you sure?", I sincerely believe that almost any proper roleplaying character would do the accidental swap.  In our group, the PCs who didn't were either helping the trollkin, or there was one Humakhti who had cult ghost / undead issues.

There were no "saves", either some POW v POW thing, trying to Dodge, whatever.  Just "you lose".

I'm surely biased cause I was a victim, but, in my opinion, this aspect of the scenario, as written, is one of the worst ideas of all time.  The other players didn't like it either.

Edited March 9, 2020 by Rodney Dangerduck

[Puckohue]

Thanks for the heads up. I'll make sure to have the ghost be more explicit about what will happen.

[gochie]

I think it's also important to note that nobody knows the mirror shard is there. The priestess just asks for any artifact that would be of significance to an Ernaldan temple. 

[Austin]

16 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

I'm surely biased cause I was a victim, but, in my opinion, this aspect of the scenario, as written, is one of the worst ideas of all time.  The other players didn't like it either.

Your post is good feedback to hear for me, as a gamemaster. I've considered running this adventure for my group, especially because part of one adventurer's gimmick is his bloodline and I thought it could be interesting to offer him the chance to play instead as the progenitor reborn. But hearing that it's a big roadbump for a variety of players is good to know in case I do run TSR.

[Thaz]

23 minutes ago, Crel said:

Your post is good feedback to hear for me, as a gamemaster. 

Yarp I'm not keen on having ancestors swap in for PC's. It's fine for the NPC as a plot device. For me as well the intro doesn't really work  because the party have been kicking round for a bit now. 3 of them are initiated into Orgvale Summer (See The Dragon of Thunder Hills) and although as a group they do have some loyally to Lekia and the Colymar they also do to the Feathered Horse Queen and other interests. I think Orgvale is more likely to ask (via all sorts of divine style hints) to recover her mothers mirror than the complicated plot in TSR. 

[Austin]

34 minutes ago, Thaz said:

I think Orgvale is more likely to ask (via all sorts of divine style hints) to recover her mothers mirror than the complicated plot in TSR. 

That's a solid plot hook. Nice and simple (and works with any variant of land goddess).

The place my brain went when I did my read-through of TSR back in December was "oh, huh, that's a neat option for players." But from Rodney's experience, and how I recollect the text, I do see that it probably comes across less like a "choice" and more like a "gotcha!" on the player side of the table. I've made similar mistakes on my own before, not sufficiently explaining a decision's consequences.

[Shiningbrow]

17 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

I don't want to ask / comment on the tribal edit thread because I think we may return to the Smoking Ruins, but we did go there and retrieve the super-item.  And, along the way, my character "did the dance" and swapped with her mom.  Another PC swapped too.

Within literally 10 seconds we ruled that the other PC did not swap his Storm Bull.  End of story.

My mom is actually another Vingan, and I'm a very flexible player, so I considered it.  (I've had previous non-chaotic Lunar characters reborn out of the Sea of Chaos!)  But soon realized that a caring parent would not accept the switch and would do everything within their power to restore their child.  Fortunately, our GM (and we) were creative, we worked out a cool way to de-swap, and it actually worked out great.

But for most it would be a disaster.  I think many players would just quit.  Never to return.

Given that the warnings were given by a surly ghost (who easily could have added why) and a metagaming by the GM "are you sure?", I sincerely believe that almost any proper roleplaying character would do the accidental swap.  In our group, the PCs who didn't were either helping the trollkin, or there was one Humakhti who had cult ghost / undead issues.

There were no "saves", either some POW v POW thing, trying to Dodge, whatever.  Just "you lose".

I'm surely biased cause I was a victim, but, in my opinion, this aspect of the scenario, as written, is one of the worst ideas of all time.  The other players didn't like it either.

Have them fail the Dance roll... 

Have the ancestor refuse, and not raise their hands...

On 2/29/2020 at 5:44 AM, Puckohue said:

Why does the approximately three times shorter route (option 3) take three times as long to travel as option 2? Am I missing something obvious?

As for the 3 options, you aren't the only one confused! The word "down" (and others) had me confused as well... And since there's been sufficient errors elsewhere in Chaosium products, and need for another set of eyes, I just presumed this was another!

[Thaz]

13 minutes ago, Crel said:

That's a solid plot hook. Nice and simple (and works with any variant of land goddess).

I DO like the options for the Ritual back in Clearwine with the various politics and factions. So If I use this it will be to return it to the nearest major earth temple...ie Clearwine 🙂

[Rodney Dangerduck]

8 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Have the ancestor refuse, and not raise their hands.

After my character's experience, this is exactly what we did for two other PCs to "save" them.

Edited March 10, 2020 by Rodney Dangerduck
Clarify

[Austin]

By the way, does anyone have opinions on how Urvantan's Tower runs? Of the adventures in TSR that's the most likely for me to play, since it's least attached to a specific region. I'm a little skeptical of the finale since it seems more like "sorcerer does cool cutscene stuff" than "adventurers save town."

[gochie]

6 hours ago, Crel said:

By the way, does anyone have opinions on how Urvantan's Tower runs? Of the adventures in TSR that's the most likely for me to play, since it's least attached to a specific region. I'm a little skeptical of the finale since it seems more like "sorcerer does cool cutscene stuff" than "adventurers save town."

I didn't play it, but I do feel like Urvantan's assistance isn't actually required to win, since the real winning move is beating the boss (in a duel or otherwise). He's also very apt to die if the adventurers don't intervene... So that's fine. Honestly, I expected Urvantan to be way more overpowered, and "win" the adventure for the players.

It sounds like the most fun adventure in the book to me anyways. 😊

 

As for the Smoking Ruins... I feel like the whole putting-the-ancestors-to-rest-side-quest is fun, but you get absolutely nothing of worth from doing it. You could easily just get the mirror, say "nice, an easy quest!", and skip over the rest. It needs something... Deeper? Like you can only help one of them with their ritual, and the choice you make affects the rest of the story in a big way (or something in that line).

Edited March 11, 2020 by gochie

[Puckohue]

11 hours ago, gochie said:

absolutely nothing of worth

IMG helping the spirits of their ancestors opens a lot of possibilities.

[gochie]

7 hours ago, Puckohue said:

IMG helping the spirits of their ancestors opens a lot of possibilities.

It could, but that's not expanded upon in the adventure at all. It would be completely GM-created content.

[Puckohue]

Quote

[Clearwine] is celebrating one of Queen Leika’s recent successes.

Does anyone have any ideas what this "success" could be, early sea season 1626? The omens for 1626 were cursed...

Maybe a successful cattle raid? An extremely favorable export deal of wine? I was also contemplating a noble marriage with favorable political consequences but maybe that's too much marriage-stuff for one adventure?

I know it's not important to the plot but I need to motivate my adventurer's participation somehow.

[Puckohue]

12 hours ago, Puckohue said:

any ideas what this "success" could be

I guess her return as Queen of the Colymar a few seasons ago might be enough for a celebration...

[coffeemancer]

On 3/10/2020 at 6:53 PM, Crel said:

By the way, does anyone have opinions on how Urvantan's Tower runs? Of the adventures in TSR that's the most likely for me to play, since it's least attached to a specific region. I'm a little skeptical of the finale since it seems more like "sorcerer does cool cutscene stuff" than "adventurers save town."

I am going to be sending my players through that scenario soon (tomorrow if all goes well) and what I expect to happen is that they will unite all the factions of the valley to fight the invaders (but with PCs you never know).
From what I have read so far though, the sorcerer will run out of magic before he can handle all the Manticore company on his own.

[Sumath]

My two main issues with TSR are the festival at the end - it's a lot of description of things that NPCs are doing rather than any decision-making by the players. In other words, it's not role-playing. I'm going to have think of ways to make it interactive. 

The other issue is that I was expecting some detail on the contents of the ruins (i.e. the buildings) themselves, beyond the general layout and descriptions of the curse/burning corpses. I wasn't expecting a dungeon style setting, but certainly some detail on the civilisation that built the place.

I get that I, as a GM, can write this stuff, but that's not the point of a ready-to-play scenario. It should be ready-to-play.

[Nick Brooke]

4 minutes ago, Sumath said:

My two main issues with TSR are the festival at the end - it's a lot of description of things that NPCs are doing rather than any decision-making by the players. In other words, it's not role-playing. I'm going to have think of ways to make it interactive.

I have a suggestion in one of the Appendices to The Duel at Dangerford -- one of my groups brilliantly subverted the scenario's attempt to railroad them. Check it out, maybe?

(My scenario includes nine pages of playtest feedback on The Smoking Ruin and a page of suggested chrome for The Dragon of Thunder Hills, in case you didn't know - I bunged them in as a freebie in a product that only GMs were likely to buy, to minimise the risk of spoilers. This seems like a good place to mention that)

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/307504/The-Duel-at-Dangerford?affiliate_id=392988

 

[Dave Empey]

*delurk*

Is the "Burnt Map Fragment" on p 56 missing some content? The "Burnt Map Fragment Notes" box says that "scribes... added notes, scribbles, and thoughts upon it" but I don't see any thing like that on the image of the map in the PDF.

[skulldixon]

On 4/12/2020 at 1:05 PM, Puckohue said:

Does anyone have any ideas what this "success" could be, early sea season 1626? The omens for 1626 were cursed...

 

I believe its purposely left open for the GM to insert any kind of event that happened in their game. For instance, in my game, the celebration will be complete destruction of a large gang of Lunar and Orlanthi exiles who were committing banditry throughout the Colymar Tribal lands. One of the depictions I added tot he opening scene was how the walls of Clearwine Fort were decorated with the heads of these Lunar spies and villains.

[Arcadiagt5]

On 3/11/2020 at 4:53 AM, Crel said:

By the way, does anyone have opinions on how Urvantan's Tower runs? Of the adventures in TSR that's the most likely for me to play, since it's least attached to a specific region. I'm a little skeptical of the finale since it seems more like "sorcerer does cool cutscene stuff" than "adventurers save town."

Only just discovered this thread but, yeah, I had that problem when I ran it the first time.