Arden Vul - General Introduction

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A Brief History of Arden Vul

We get a lovely brief history of Arden Vul. Further summarized:

• At first, there were the heqeti, who built a ziggurat to the demon prince Kauket.

• The rudishva crash-landed (bringing the varumani, kaliyani, and varuda), and drove the heqeti back.

• The heqeti teamed up with the kaliyani and massacred the rudishva. The varumani survived.

• About a millennium later, the Archonteons arive, and under Tricotor they dominate the halls. This lasts another millennium.

• The empire falls to civil war between the conservatives and the egalitarians. The empire abandons the continent.

• ~250 years prior to the modern day, the empire expands back. The empire sends an expedition to the halls lead by Adrienic.

• 25 years prior, gosterwick is founded.

Barton also includes a much more in-depth timeline that’s useful in grokking the hall’s history. There’s some chaff/bloat in the list like:

• 900 years ago: Javaka, the 20th thegn of the varumani, re-establishes control of Middle Halls of Arden Vul

• 1160 years ago: The embassy of the elven lord, Gillethorn Ellagelsson, to Archontos ends in disaster, when a mob kills him in the streets; many elves withdraw from imperial lands.

• 1218 years ago: The city of Agoreon, the Archonteon empire’s ‘second capital’ located on the edge of Ostralios, is sacked by Theosophic troops during the War of Sortians and Theosophs

• 2510 years ago: The Archontean empire quietly abandons efforts to colonize Borealios

• 2522 years ago: The Archontean empire initiates the colonization of Borealios

and so on. There’s a slightly incoherent mix of broader world details that have basically no relevancy to any player-facing information, and then hyper-specific events that should really be in the faction writeups or as GM notes in the relevant room keys.

For example,

900 years ago: Javaka, the 20th thegn of the varumani, re-establishes control of Middle Halls of Arden Vul

This is the only instance in the entire module where the name “Javaka” comes up. It’s totally irrelevant trivia. Maybe at some point, when the players are talking to the varumani, the GM might remember this bit of trivia from the historical timeline and weave it in, but if that was Barton’s vision, I think it would be much better placed in a NPC writeup for one of the varumani.

Or

2522 years ago: The Archontean empire initiates the colonization of Borealios

That’s a totally different continent than the one the adventure takes place on (Irthuin). There is no meaningful description of Borealios (the Wiskin homeland).

Design Principles

I really appreciate this section. We find out that Barton wanted Arden Vul to be…

• huge

• coherent (have history, be internally consistent, self-referential)

• a homage to old school tropes

• welcome to role-playing (lots of safe places, people to talk to, factions to manipulate, etc)

I think he nailed it.

Starting Levels for PCs

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I think it’s kind of useful to grok the dungeon as a GM; there’s a short list of PC level ranges associated the various levels, so it’s a quick way to grasp how dangerous the various places are (for instance, the difficulty goes 1 < 3 < 4 < 2 < 5).

That said, I don’t know how to actually use this. The book includes a lot of rumors to give to players, and that (plus their own exploration) informs where they’ll go, not the GMs understanding. If Barton wants the GM to guide players to appropriate levels, then that guidance needs to come from somewhere in-game, like documents, NPCs, rumors, etc. Again, it’s good information, but how the GM is intended to deliver this information is not clear to me.

General Construction Features

This information is useful but bloated! Each race’s construction notes includes a (lengthy) paragraph that re-summarizes their history:

The heqeti were the first to delve within Arden Vul. Arriving from the Underearth about 3,600 years ago, they erected the colossal ziggurat of Kauket within the mephitic marsh (10-15) and colonized the floor of the Great Chasm (i.e., Level 9). Limited delving of upper sectors of the Great Chasm, including the pukel-manders (see new magic items), the Obsidian Gates (5-6D), the Hall of Forty Pillars (5-6), and an upper temple to Kauket (7-79), proceeded. The heqeti were driven from Arden Vul twice, first by the rudishva in 32 AEP and again by the Archonteans in 1942 AEP. They returned 300 years ago (2682 AEP) and immediately restored the ziggurat; they now seek to reclaim their former dwellings.

This information really ought to be moved to the faction writeup. When I come to the Gereneral Construction Features section, it’s because I have a question about the default ceiling height or what their stonework looks like (though again, I’d generally prefer this to be in adjacent to the room key).

Then, there’s a dry listing of all of the places where this construction shows up:

Locations: 2-48, 2-49, 2-56C, 3-51, 3-117, 4-51A, 4-51B, 4-74, 4-151A, 4-152, 5-6, 5-18, 5-25, 5-41, 5-42, 5-46 to 5-49, 5-52, 5-104, 6-1, 6-50, 6-51, 6-54, 6-68, 6-92 to 6-98, 6-104 to 6-107, 7-78 to 7-84, 7-138, 7-139, 8-25, 8-26, 8-76, 8-159, 8-162, 8-165, 9-31 to 9-48, 9-76 to 9-82, 9-108 to 9-126, all worked areas of Level 10, SL5-32, SL5-36 to SL5-42, SL6-4, SL6-6, SL6-35, SL9-27, SL9-30.

Why? It is so hard for me to imagine a use for this. Much better is to make sure that when you’re reading the room key, its clear that there’s heqeti (or whatever) construction. I think it makes sense to put the default construction in the region writeup, and put exceptions in the room keys themselves. Having this big list of rooms feels very low-value to me.

It’s really funny with archontean:

Locations: All of the ruined city (AV map), all of the Tower of Scrutiny (TS map), all of the Pyramid of Thoth (UP map), all of Level 1, all worked areas of Level 2 (except 2-48, 2-49, and 2-56C), all worked areas of Level 3 (except 3-39, 3-51, 3-117, and 3-192), 4-1 to 4-51, 4-52 to 4-62, 4-101 to 4-111, 4-118 to 4-120, 4-122 to 4-150, 4-159 to 4-164, 4-167 to 4-171, 4-177, 4-180, 4-181, 4-183, 4-185, 4-187, 5-1, 5-6 to 5-17, 5-19 to 5-24, 5-26 to 5-29, 5-35 to 5-40, 5-56 to 5-64, 5-66 to 5-81, 5-83, 5-85, 6-7 to 6-16, 6-18 to 6-20, 6-40, 6-44 to 6-49, 6-52, 6-53, 6-130 to 6-160, 7-100, 7-119 to 7-130, 7-136, 8-1, 8-3 to 8-21, 8-28, 8-30 to 8-34, 8-36 to 8-41, 8-69, 8-70, 8-77 to 8-79, 8-83 to 8-86, 8-95 to 8-107, 8-119 to 8-127, 8-133, 8-142 to 8-149, 8-168, 9-58 to 9-64, 9-98, and 9-100 to 9-107, SL2-1, SL3-2 to SL3-11, all worked areas of SL4, SL5-43 to SL5-47, SL6-2, SL6-5, SL6-7 to SL6-10, SL6-16, SL6-17, SL6-17A, SL6-20 to SL6-23, SL6-28, SL6-29, SL6-31, SL6-33, SL6-34, SL6-36, SL6-38 to SL6-48, SL6-55, SL6-58 to SL6-63, SL6-65 to SL6-98, all of Sub-Level 7, SL8-9, SL8-13A, SL8-17 to SL8-24, SL10A-1 to SL10A-6, SL10A-12 to SL10A-28, all of Sub-Level 10B, all of Sub-Level 11, SL13-4 to SL13-27, SL14-1 to SL14-5, SL15-4, SL15-7 to SL15-10, SL15-13, SL15-17

So confused about how Barton (or his editor) thought this was a good use of paper.

Iconic Locations

We’re given a list of iconic locations in the halls, and told that sages, imperial scholars, and retired adventurers might know rumors about the iconic locations. Barton writes:

Adventurers and sages are those mostly to have heard of the iconic locations. The GM should feel free to select the locations known by such NPCs to fit her/his needs. Still, if randomization is desired, the following tables can be used to determine which iconic locations are known to a particular NPC. Table I ranks the chance of knowing about a location by the type of location; Table II provides an equal chance to know any of the locations.

This is half-baked. How do I use this? The player talks to an un-described imperial scholar and asks if they know anything of the Sundered Span. What do I do? Does every Type 1 NPC know 1 random location (and everyone who knows that location knows the same rumor?) i.e. I roll 1d20, and get a 7: Common. I see there are 7 common locations, so I roll 1d7 and get a 5, so this scholar knows about The Great Hall (but not the Sundered Span).

Every rumor has a prevalence (common, uncommon, rare, esoteric) that corresponds directly to Table 1.

My suggestion is that rather than having each NPC know about 1 randomly determined place, instead reverse it and they have a random chance to know about a specific place. 45% for common, 30% for uncommon, 15% for rare, and 10% for esoteric. So when the players ask the scholar about the Sundered Span, the GM looks and sees that it’s rare, so there’s a 15% chance they know the scuttlebutt.

The individual rumors are also awkward; they’re a mix of describing a set of rumors abstractly and being a specific rumor. Compare:

The Troll Market

An exotic market in the lower levels where all manner of bizarre goods - from coins, statuary, gems and magic, to living creatures and strange plants - are sold by traders hailing from deep beneath the earth. The Troll Market is operated by the band of vicious trolls that control the lower levels; they patrol the market atop giant riding lizards and tolerate no disturbances. In fact, unless they are well lubricated with coin and/or information, they are likely to take offense and sell the incautious into Underearth slavery. Still, the Market is said to be the best place to acquire relics from the lost civilizations that occupied Arden Vul before the Archonteans. To reach the Market, one needs to pass the Sundered Span and traverse the Great Chasm almost to the bottom.

to

The Obsidian Gates

A gigantic pair of black, stone doors, beyond which lies the fabled wealth of several lost civilizations. Although famously difficult to penetrate, each report about them usually includes a ‘sure-fire’ way to get past them. Some of those schemes include tracing the strange glyphs on the doors three times, sacrificing to the correct god in front of the gates, locating a stone guardian whose fingers act as keys to the gates, and so forth.

Regardless of the variety of methods for breaching the Gates, the reports uniformly describe vast and unique treasures to be looted behind the Gates. The more sophisticated reports add that these treasures come from an ancient lost civilization that predates the Archonteans. A handful of accounts reveal that the Gates are warded against most ordinary magic, including knock and teleport. The rumors place the Obsidian Gates at the end of, or just beyond, the Hall of Forty Pillars, in the middle levels of Arden Vul. All agree that the Gates were never penetrated by the great sorcerers of antiquity.

The scuttlebutt for the Troll Market is specific; like a single person’s account. The scuttlebutt for the Obsidian Gates describes an array of rumors; each specific account describes a (potentially different) way to get though the gates. More sophisticated (how do we determine sophistication?) reports mention an ancient lost civilization. Some accounts (which ones?) talk about the magic warding.

The players are asking a NPC about the obsidian gates; what do they say? Now I need to figure out if this particular NPC is sufficienly sophisticated to mention the ancient lost civilization, and whether or not it happens to reference the immunity to Knock. Why!

Rumors

We get 100 adventuring rumors and 100 historical rumors and a 🎺🎺 a procedure to give them out 🎺🎺. The number of modules that just include a rumor table with no guidance as to how players are supposed to receive these rumors or how many of them they are to receive is mind-numbing.

Each fresh character gets 1d3 adventuring rumors and 1d2 historical rumors for an average of 3.5 rumors per PC. That’s a healthy dose of rumors! I went the extra mile and attributed the rumors. Adventuring rumors came from adventurers (randomly rolled from the NPC adventuring party appendix) and historical rumors came from folks living in Gosterwick, hand-picked. This let the players follow up on the rumors. Here’s what they got:

Thoth Cult

• Theron Gleston, Logothete of the House of Coin: Thoth represented Light and Knowledge and Secrets; Favored those who aquired and guarded knowledge; there is a chamber in the upper halls where you can listen to an enormous horn to hear Thoth directly

• Torunn the Smith, Gosterwick: Worship of Thoth closely linked to with worship of MAAT, whose feathers could repel the dead

• Beryl Gniess, chief associate of the Prosperity Factor, Gosterwick: Entrance to Thoth precint is through the pyramid, which leads to their burial crypts and the three mysteries; There are hidden entrances on the cliff face, locations kept secret in the private areas 1 level up form the public halls; Private areas include the Vaunted Library; You need to climb some stairs from the main public area to get to the library

• Doffy, Discipline and Punish: Thoth priests love teleportation, watch for doors marked with an ibis; They'll teleport you to new locations

• Egill Flatnose, owener of Baliff's Truncheon, Gosterwick: High priest died by a demon when attempting to use magic to open the Obsidian Gates; the archon prohibits any citizen from attempting this again

• Vask, Jellik's Jarls: Old Pyramid of Thoth is the safest and accessible entrance to the halls; the long stairs leading to the first dungeon has useful graffiti

• Arvid, Jellik's Jarls: White-faced baboons are led by a pair of giant 4-armed white apes that are intelligent and direct the other baboons
  
  Set Cult

• Vivian, Priest of Temple of Demma, Gosterwick: Cult was centered around 3 rituals/mysteries; the third mystery has celebrants defeat a giant serpent using only a ritual dagger

• Audun Yellow-Eyes, Logothete of House of Sight: Worship of Set made illegal in 1839 AEP, over 1000 years ago

• Thoedora the Rose, Discipline and Punish: Set priests are slavers; anyone they encounter on the long stairs leading to their Forum will be enslaved; If you make it to the Forum, you are safe

• Estelle, Sign of the Hand Inn: Temple of Set came to Arden Vul many years after Thoth priests were already there; Holy sites can only be accessed from the cliff face

• Creon the Unctious, Owner of Creon's Curios and Pawnshop, Gosterwick: High priests have named magical rings with unique personalities, have unique powers, and tend to possess their wearers

• Jador the Just, Priestess of Temple of Mitra, Gosterwick: 1500yrs ago, elven leaders Lady Ellagel and Lord Gallador, wanted delving to stop in Arden Vul, saying a planar nexus that opened to the most dangerous layers of the abyss was there below the city

• Martin Hadellor, Arms master for Knights of the Azure Keep, Gosterwick: GNEIS VALOR is first priest of cult of Set, buried in tomb obscured by total darkness; He was so evil that entering the tomb will kill you instantly

• Estelle, Sign of the Broken Head Inn: Deacon of Set, STEPHANIA the priestess will reward those who come across the tomb of the dead priest THISKEL; They can keep anything, but bring her his ring and some tablets

The Ruined City and the Halls of Arden Vul

• Poalindar the Caterpillar, captain of the Guard, Gosterwick: Arden and Vul discovered the cliffs in 829 AEP

• Ulf Vareon, ownere of The Stunned Acolyte Inn, Gosterwick: Arden and Vul's tombs are behind their colossi carved into the cliff face; both had ascended to demi-gods

• Hama Reeveson, Hama and Company: A terrible dragon rules the surface of the ruins; you need to sneak past her in dead of night while she sleeps in order ot get into the dungeons; She extorts a toll on all who exits the dungeon, if you don't pay, she burns you up

• Tressa of Narsilean, Five Fingers of Destiny: Dog-men want a rare substance called “Rasite Lotus Powder”, willing to pay a lot of money

• Ixon, Jellick's Jarls: Goblins hate the beast-solders dog-men; they tried to fight them but they have a sophisticated fortification and missiles

• Roger the Rapier, Five Fingers of Destiny: Psychotic halflings guard route into the dungeon; Find their missing friend CARLO, and they’ll lift the toll and give you a special brew; Goblins have a shortie prisoner the call CARLOMAN. Same guy?

• Klibo, the Bad Neighbors: halfling leader, PLUMTHORN, had dangerous narcotic recipe he calls "Mushroom Al*"; Drinking the stuff under the name "Hack's Brew" will make you susceptible to suggestion

• Gestain Fifty-Hides, Hama and Company: Chasm within the mountain is not safe to travel it’s actually the mouth and intestines of an enormous underground serpent

• Wotar the Puny, The Bad Neighbors: Orb of Krieg, the Ebon Spear, and the Bone Ring of Jagri-Naz artifacts can be found in the Halls; Location can be gathered in middle levels by speaking to a strange sage named GOG; He likes beast flesh

• Pelteon Greywand, Arcane Practioner's Club, Gosterwick: the mage, CERBACTOS KALTHETOS, is wanted by a collegia; He stole codices to do with blood and summoning and is said to have fled to Arden Vul under the fake name PIDDY of Archontos

• Pella the Souse, The Broom: A relic or Arden Vul was used in a bet, but it was just a jagged piece of metal that weighed the same as parchment; Has weird symbols on it

• Aethelwin the Golden, The Broom: a lich-looking nameless guy runs the Arena; the house gladiators always win; you can jump the broken span between the precints of Set to the Arena

• Georgia the Faithful, Survivors of the Stone: band of super powerful undead knights in black armor roam the halls , are afraid of light; If you see them--run

• Hestia of Arcturos, The Brook: One of the knights in amazing armor, with the pale scarred faces, demanded to know where her companion the "SIXTH" knight was and her order would pay heavily for his whereabouts

This was basically a whole session by itself. I printed out all of the rumors (after removing the true/false indicators), cut them into pieces of paper, shuffled them up, and dealt them out. Then, players compared notes, organized, got distracted, got a little drunk, and then organized again. Super cool stuff.

The rumors are richly tied into the dungeon, and serve as a sort of random set of goals for the players to follow up on. Particularly disastrous for my players was this rumor:

Entrance to Thoth precint is through the pyramid, which leads to their burial crypts and the three mysteries; There are hidden entrances on the cliff face, locations kept secret in the private areas 1 level up form the public halls; Private areas include the Vaunted Library; You need to climb some stairs from the main public area to get to the library

They immediately search for and found the hidden entrances on the cliff face (they went to the left side of the falls instead of taking the long stair). They proceeded straight into Level 4, right past the enchanted corpses that say “Lord Set watches his districts with care. Depart, ye unbelievers, lest he smite you in his wrath!” and wiped to a patrol of Set guardsmen with an acolyte. Some of them died, and the rest were sold into slavery; full TPK. The next party went up the long stair.

Factions

This is one of the best faction writeups I’ve seen hands down, and Barton includes it for for all of the main 12 factions in the halls. My go-to quality standard for factions is that I should be able to fill in the prompt from GFC's take on factions:

[FACTION] wants [MOTIVATION], but [OBSTACLE]. Therefore, [PLAN OR METHOD OF SURMOUNTING OBSTACLE].

A depressingly small amount of modules pass this test. Arden Vul blows it out of the water. Each faction has information about:

• Their history

• Their leaders

• The exact head count and how quickly they’re able to restock

• Their main resources

• How they treat adventurers

• Territory

• A list of wants

• How/when they expand/contract their territory

• An order of battle (!!)

• A full breakdown of their relationship with each other faction

I love this section, and constantly refer to it in prep.

Adventure Hooks

Barton lists ~10 half-baked hooks, and then provides a table of prisoners for you to generate a rescue-the-captive hook and an a table of tombs to help GMs generate “find the tomb” hooks.

My general issue is that these just aren’t ready for play. For instance, here’s the first hook:

Lillian, canon of the temple of Mitra in Newmarket, has gone missing. The high priest wants her back and is offering a reward (5,000 gp) to those who can accomplish the deed.

Source of the Hook: The priests of Mitra in either Newmarket or Gosterwick will offer the reward. As Lillian was popular, her absence is also generally known in these communities.

Explanation: Lillian was investigating reports of beastman activity in the farmlands south of the cliff of Arden Vul when she went missing. She was abducted by the Green Fang kobolds living in the Thicket (see Burdock’s Valley), albeit at the orders of a beastman patrol led by Trisko the Natty (3-154). The beastmen took her back to Arden Vul, where they sold her to the cult of Set.

She is currently languishing in the dungeons of Set (3-104).

Relevant Areas of Arden Vul: Following the leads of this mystery should lead PCs to the Thicket, where they can either fight or negotiate, and thence to Arden Vul. The kobolds know that the beastmen have an entrance on the cliff face (see EX-11 or 3-189), but generally steer adventurers to the pyramid (AV-15). PCs can explore Level 3, perhaps negotiating with the goblins (see 3-7) for information about, and/or assistance against, the beastmen (3-123A to 3-162). Once the beastmen are located, PCs can either lead an assault against them, hoping to rid the region of Deino (3-158), or can again negotiate. The trail eventually leads to the forum of Set (4-2). The Set cult is unlikely to reveal the identity of their prisoners, so stealth and investigation will be in order, unless the PCs are powerful (or stupid enough) to take the cult on headfirst.

It might also be possible for a determined group with good intel to make a quick strike into the heart of the Set cult through the ruined temple of Thoth (3-71); such a group could push from 3-71 to 3-89 and from there dip into the prisons of Set (3-105).

The Thicket is totally undescribed, so if the GM wanted the players to go there and negotiate or fight, they’d be inventing the whole area, creating the encounter, creating the characters for the PCs to negotiate with (for what?), etc.

The writeup in the room keys for the goblins don’t mention the beastmen at all, and this is all we get in the goblin faction writeup:

Beastmen: Weskenim sees the Beastmen as his main rivals. Although he has never met her, he dislikes Deino (3-158), as he cannot figure out what she wants. Weskenim secretly admires the beastman troopers for their military discipline and resourcefulness.

Although formal alliance is out of the question, he would not be averse to striking a secret treaty with Count Skleros (3-151) to divide up ‘spheres of influence’ in the upper halls.

So what helpful information about the beastmen (especially w.r.t. Lillian) is the GM to provide? Similarly, when they meet the beastmen, who they can “fight or negotiate with”, how does this actually help? Say you fight and destroy the beastmen. As far as I can tell, that’s a dead end, so I don’t know why Barton suggests an assault. Finally, the GM has someone eventually say that the Set cultists have her, and then you have to do “stealth and investigation”, but again the room keys and NPC writeups aren’t built for a “where in the world is Lillian” adventure. Doing that properly would involve prepping a mystery scenario (see also the three clue rule, and the more advanced node-based scenario design).

Like, the whole thing sounds cool, but in order to do it you have to invent a lot of material, which is the opposite of the reason I buy/run something like Arden Vul.

Customizing Arden Vul

The remaining spread is dedicated to pointing out places where the GM can insert more content if they’d like. I read this as a helpful list of GM booby traps that I need to go errata (the same thing happens in Stonehell). There’s also a section talking about how if you’re not cool with spacefaring rudishva super-tech in your fantasy game, you can transform them back into magic items. This is probably helpful to someone, but I want the pure Arden Vul experience as much as possible, and to me that includes keeping the Rudishva as-is.

Conclusion

There’s a lot of chaff here that I think could have been cut, but overall I think it’s a good inclusion for a product of this size. I think the weakest bit is the hooks, and would have much rather had all of this information get moved into the room keys.

For example, for the “Find Lillian” hook I discussed above, Barton writes

The priests of Mitra in either Newmarket or Gosterwick will offer the reward.

But that’s not in the room key for the temple of mitra in gosterwick! Put it in there instead, that way when the players visit the temple for the first time, I see that there’s a quest for them.

Similarly, in the find-the-tomb hook, Barton writes:

perhaps Killik, the goblin sub-chief (5-46) and his men recently observed two ‘foolish outsiders’ climbing the chasm wall towards a strange circular piece of stone. Sadly, says Killik, ‘those fools never returned’. This hook refers to the tomb of Artax-Ris at 3-39.

This would have been great; my players talked to Killik last session. If this had shown up in Killik’s room key, it would have been awesome for him to give them that information, but because it’s buried in the hooks section I totally forgot. I’ve now made a note to include it next time they see him, but still!

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