1st Edition AD&D Part V- The Adventures

 

Oddly, no one in the campaign used a long sword primarily...

Delving Into the Adventures of THE CAMPAIGN

Up to now, I’ve been chronicling the characters, setting, and Big Bad Evil Guy (BBEG) of THE CAMPAIGN. This time, I’m digging into the actual adventures we played—some homebrew, some pulled from the pages of Dungeon Magazine. Jeff, our DM, had great taste, and it shows in the ones I still remember decades later. His blend of original material and curated modules set the tone for a campaign that stuck with me all these years.

Dungeon Magazine Gems

Dungeon Magazine had some absolutely killer content in its heyday, and I think that rubbed off on me. Even years later, when I started DMing regularly, I’d often modify Dungeon adventures to fit my world.

Two stand out clearly:

The Wounded Worm –Dungeon #8

The imagery of the final dungeon still sticks with me: I can see us approaching the cave, then facing the red dragon in the final room. That fight was brutal—my wand got torched (maybe the cloak of the bat too), and a couple of party members died. My dark elf barely made it out alive.

Later, I used some of the dragon’s hide to reinforce my bag of holding. Jeff liked the idea so much, he gave it a bonus to item saves vs. fire. That’s the kind of campaign it was: things felt earned.

Ward of WitchingWays – Dungeon #11

This one hit hard. We were shipwrecked and forced to swim to the isle, which was already a dramatic setup. I picked up my cloak of the bat and wand of polymorphing here. Jeff started dropping hints that my familiar and spell books were in danger, which I found odd—I wasn’t overpowered or anything. So I made my familiar watch the bag of holding from a safe distance during the final encounter. I remember Jeff being really annoyed by that. Score one for the player.

At one point, someone got polymorphed into a bird. I used the wand to turn foes into snails more than once. Since I was the only one who could use most of the magic items (Daryl’s fire mage and Chris’s illusionist couldn’t), I ended up with a lot of them. Eventually, Jeff realized how nasty the wand really was and made me lose it in an item saving throw. I was a very tactical player even back then—used my stuff sparingly and strategically, especially when I knew the wand was low on charges.

Years later, Wards of Witching Ways is one of my favorite modules of all time. 

Other Memories & Adventures

We played every week for two years, and Jeff ran most of it from his own imagination. While some adventures are long lost to time, fragments still remain:

The Icy Cave and the Blue-Glimmer Sword

We faced a white dragon early in the campaign—so early that only I had to make a fear check. The fight was rough, but we won. A glowing +2 longsword was found stuck in a block of ice, which I ended up using from time to time. It had no powers beyond glowing blue and lighting up the frozen chamber. I liked it. Of course, it eventually failed an item saving throw.

Undead Centaurs in the Grassy Hills

I remember a long stretch of grassy hills and a sudden attack by undead centaurs. What made the fight memorable was Christian’s illusionist summoning a phantom longbow using phantasmal force and firing it—doing fake damage, sure, but it bought us time. It was a clever use of illusion magic in a ruleset where illusions are often hard to adjudicate. Dave and I joined in with real bows while they were still at range.

The Infamous Wyvern Migrations

This was one of the things that made the world feel alive. For several in-game months, we’d see wyverns migrating overhead during our nightly watches. My character was careful not to draw attention during his shift. That peace ended the night Tom’s half-ogre made a ruckus and drew them down on us. I forget who died, but somebody definitely didn’t make it.

The One Night I Nearly Died

Everyone in the party died at least once—except my fighter/mage. I had okay HP and high damage output thanks to specialization and the ogre power bracer, but I couldn’t take hits. One time in a dungeon I got smacked down to -9 HP. Dave’s halfling was nearby and hadn’t acted that round—he managed to stabilize me just in time. One more point and I’d have been gone. As the only full elf in the group, raise dead wasn’t going to work on me, and our cleric didn’t have a scroll or rod of resurrection. I’ve had plenty of characters die over the years, but that one felt like it was close—too close.

The World Itself

Our party traveled far: by boat, overland, even deep into unexplored territory. The continent’s coast lay to the south, and I still vaguely remember a major river splitting the map. Sadly, my hand-drawn map is long gone. The world had that Baldur’s Gate 1 vibe—revealing itself as we explored. I loved that feeling.

I think the next post will be the wrap-up for this series on THE CAMPAIGN. After that, I’ll touch on some of the other campaigns we played—including the disaster that was our run of the original Ravenloft module. Let’s just say there were construction paper gravestones involved… and a body count to match. 

1st Edition AD&D Part IV- The Adversary

Obviously he hadn't gotten the dark elf shield of Arion yet...

The Big Bad EVIL Guy (But Not That Dragotha)

Continuing my deep dive into the backstory of THE CAMPAIGN, it’s time to talk about the BBEG — the “Big Bad Evil Guy” who loomed large over our game like a shadow cast from the past. Nearly every fantasy story has one, and ours was no different. Like several of our party’s PCs, the BBEG was based on a Citadel miniature. In this case, it was a Chaos Warrior model — just like the one that inspired Tom’s half-ogre fighter.

Back then, everything was 25mm scale, but even in that tiny frame, the mini managed to look genuinely intimidating. Of course, the only time I can remember actually seeing it on the table was during the very end of the campaign — right where it belonged.

You can find a bunch of those classic Chaos Warrior minis here. 

What set this villain apart wasn’t just the miniature, but how cleverly Jeff (our DM) used it to create narrative hooks. Remember at the time we were like 13-14, this was new ground. The villain’s design directly inspired the three major MacGuffins the party was chasing — each tied to a personal quest from the backstory of three PCs:

• Dave’s halfling fighter/thief was searching for a stolen bear cloak — a symbol of status or tradition among his people.

• Jim’s dwarf fighter was seeking a legendary battle axe that had been lost.

• My dark elf fighter/rune-caster, Relendor, was after the Shield of Arion — a sacred relic tied to his church and culture. (I’ve included a pic of it below.) As I mentioned in a previous post, it dealt a nasty 2–20 damage in melee.

It’s worth appreciating that Jeff built a reason for three out of seven characters to want this villain dead — and wove all those threads back to one miniature. That's some Thulsa Doom–level villainy.

The shield of Arion in "The Campaign"

So, Who Was Dragotha? (No, Not That Dragotha)

Our version of Dragotha wasn’t the infamous undead dragon from the Tome of Horrors. He was a powerful warrior — possibly with some clerical magic — and definitely a terror in combat. As a 1st Edition villain, he was likely double-specialized in the battle axe and paired it with the Shield of Arion, giving him three attacks per round. Basically, he could mow down just about anything in his path.

His symbol? The Cross of Confusion — naturally. I mean, it was the '80s, so of course we were “satanic” punks, right? (As a side note: I’ve been reading these AD&D books for 30+ years and still can’t conjure a single cantrip. Clearly doing something wrong. Where’s my real power, Dark Dungeons?!)

That symbol popped up throughout the campaign — banners, carvings, crumbling ruins. I distinctly remember it flapping above a desecrated chapel during one of our early encounters. That moment stuck with me. It was probably our first real glimpse of the evil we were chasing.

Shadows of Dragotha

We ran into his minions here and there, but Dragotha himself? He was more often felt than seen. We’d enter an area and find wreckage in his wake — signs of his influence, his chaos, his corruption. His presence hung over the campaign like smoke.

As for what the rest of the party had against him, I honestly can’t say — at least not without digging through Jeff’s old notes (if they still exist). Hopefully someday we’ll uncover more of that lost lore. I do remember the final confrontation with him, but I’ll save that for the proper send-off when I wrap up the full campaign recap.

Until then...

Hurled into Eternity- Latest Revision

(Quick Note: No I have not forgot my series of "Playing 1st edition AD&D", next post is almost ready to go but still needs a bit more work). 

As promised version 11 of the 2nd generation of the Hurled into Eternity rules (link to download is below). Improvements include clarifications in the following areas:

•  Clarifications to the Wild Card System.
• Modes of gunfire have been streamlined to eliminate the need for 1/2 or 1/3 configurations for gun fighting scores.
• Modifiers condensed and streamlined for bonuses and penalties to hit.
• Condensing and changing healing rates for Wounds (W) along elimination of differing healing rates for damage.
• Early write up of a intro adventure (still not complete).

As always, spell checking  and proofing is still on the radar, but not quite there yet as I'm continuing to focus on the rules. The feeling that I have now is I'm inching closer to a finished product. The rules are getting some, good constructive feedback and fixing areas that don't make sense. I saty that every post but two recent rounds of feedback have led to a even tighter game.

As a quick aside every once and a while I get the feedback: "Hurled into Eternity"? That doesn't make sense for a western, it sounds Sci-Fi. Sorry folks, you don't get much more Western then the name of this game! I'll leave it up to you to figure it out...

Lastly feedback is always welcome.

Back in the Saddle with Hurled into Eternity

Well, after a fairly busy and interesting fall I'm now finally ready to *ahem* "climb back in the saddle" with Hurled into Eternity.  Whats that you ask? Well my on-again off again western RPG game is now undergoing internal play testing to see how it works. My main focus of the play testing is to make sure I have the mechanics specifically nailed down. Lets face it the heart of any RP is the combat engine if that is not good then the RPG it's likely that the game is not so good.

My gut instinct tells me that the mechanics for the game work well, the conversion to an all card based mechanic is complete, now its simply a matter of making sure all of the parts line up with any gaps in a many they actually do, rather then what I think they do.

The next order of business is to take the combat chapter and pull it into a quick play doc to make sure that it flows. The parts that have been tested thus far are High Noon, (the imitative phase) in which the Judge and the players engage in 5-card draw. While its optional to deal it each round I prefer once per combat as it makes it battles go faster. Next up the hit determination. Some feedback I received was that it was bit to heavy with the modifiers so I scaled it back. Now the mods are reasonable and are fairly easy to calculate. Damage is likewise fairly straight forward. 

One nagging thing has been the inclusion of poker chips. Now I feel it adds a nice western feel but at the same time I am mindful of the implication that it has been used in Savage Worlds. While my game is sufficiently different I don't want it to appear that it is lifting the idea. Currently they serve as a visual reminder of Luck (L) in the game and nothing more; they are not required for play.

The rest of the rules have been tightened up here and there and look to have missed almost all loopholes and areas that could be broken. 

In the end game is fast, exciting and deadly. Cant wait to fully try it out. 

1st Edition AD&D Part III- The Adventuring Party

 

Close enough, my familiar Soot and the lazy fire drake featured!

 

The Adventuring Party

This post will be a bit shorter the the others to follow if for no other reason I don't have all of the details, the DM who ran THE CAMPAIGN does ahem ;) In my last post here Post Part II I outlined my character a mercenary dark elf fighter/magic-user named Relendor Silkenweb. Now, until we unearth some more details from notes from either Dave or Jeff might have I'm going to have to do this from memory. It was ironic that after this campaign I started to take more notes. Also one of the first things I started doing was writing down player and names, classes of characters in greater detail, but not here :( Looking back at it there were indeed seven of us in the group (I thought eight previously) with Jeff DMing. The players and their characters are as follows circa 1987 for the start of the game:

1. Dark elf Fighter/Runecaster- (Me) As outlined previously specialized in spetum and wielding a magical bracer of ogre power. He did not have the dark elf magic resistance but did have utlization of his regular male abilities. At various times had a cloak of the bat, wand of polymorhping and other magical accoutrements. Had a black cat familiar named Soot. Was a very effective fighter with specialization and often served as the 3rd best fighter or a backup to the half ogre and dwarf in melee. 
    
   
2. Half Ogre Fighter- (Tom) encased in full plate by the end, this brute wielded a massive warhammer inspired by his miniature which was a citadel chaos warrior, specifically this one here: chaos warrior mini I remember him getting killed a few times and obviously was our best fighter. I believe we had to raise him from the dead at least twice. 
    
   
3. Dwarf Fighter- (Jim) for this character my recollections are the most sketchy. I only vaguely remember the mini, but still can't quite place it. He was a typical axe toting dwarf and probably the second best fighter from what I can recall or certainly 1B. Jim was a very back story driven player from what I recall. Like the half-ogre above, I recall two deaths for the dwarf.
   
   
4. Halfling Fighter/Thief- (Dave) No recollection of the mini that represented him but I do recall his quest against Dragotha revolved around a bear cloak of some importance to the character and perhaps the halflings in the realm. Dave was a very inventive and smart player. He was the only one who had thief as part of his class. This brings up a good point as we will see three multi-class characters in the group. Dave's mini I recall was one he painted for himself. 
    
   
5. Half-Elf Cleric/Ranger- (Mike) Mike was the older guy in the group by maybe 3-4 years at most and the only one who could drive, hence he had to go on the pizza runs. His character may have been an elf but I seem to recall half elf. I also have a recollection of this character being female, but I'm not quite sure if I'm confusing it with some characters in my later 2^nd edition campaigns that I've played in. Wielded two maces in combat. Our only healer in the group. Gulp!
   
   
6. Human Pyromancer- (Daryl) before specialized wizards made their appearance in 2^nd edition Jeff had them in his game. The pyromancer as might be imagined specialized in fire based spells and as an added touch had a fire drake from the Fiend Folio as a familiar! The best part as I clearly recall Daryl saying in game “he's a lazy slug” indeed the drake rarely did anything it didn't want to and would rarely breathe on anything, especially if we needed him to do. I vaguely recall the mini for the character as a Citadel one, but cant quite place it. 
    
   
7. Human Illusionist- (Christian) this character is another hazy one as I recall Chris being there less regularly then the rest of us. Chris played his illusionist well and creatively, not unbalancing as illusions can be so tricky in 1^st and 2^nd edition AD&D. I remember one key encounter which I'll detail in a later post where he created an illusion of a magical bow out of thin air and began firing it; a practical and well thought out illusion that stuck in my mind.
   

The only other person who gamed with us on a regular basis in this group was Pete, but for some reason or another I do not recall him or a character he played involved in this group. In all I'd say not bad remembering something from 25 years ago with no notes. 
 
As I was jotting through these guys I remembered another facet to the campaign. We did not get to see the map, as we explored I mapped it with the places we had ventured. I can picture it to a degree, but I no longer have my sketch. In a way it functioned much like how things did in Baldur's Gate one with the map being revealed as one explored it
 
The next post will detail some of the broad undertakings of the group and some other background as well as our nemesis Dragotha, no, not that Dragotha!