Into The Sewers, new quests

[guzzi]

Here we go with Quest Two "Into the Sewers"
quest_two.doc

[guzzi]

Here is an updated blank quest map, with the extra rooms pencilled in. Working on a quest with a sequel, at the moment, using both boards, original & sewer.img032.jpg

[MortiS-the-Lost]

Here's a 'clean' version of the map

[guzzi]

that looks really good, how did you add your original symbols for your quest?

[MortiS-the-Lost]

The dungeon dressings/furniture and the monster symbols were added as extra layers in Photo shop

the HQ furniture I took from a scan of the Adventure Design Kit and the rest I made in Photoshop

here's a Gif of the Skaven, Giant Rat and Ratogre symbols I made

[Sjeng]

I've been thinking about this map and the quests.
I'm going to try and photoshop the scanned PDF map, so that the hidden room is completely solid.
Then I'm going to make seperate room tiles for that room, plus some extra rooms as guzzi suggested, to place on top of the map, once players have searched for and founf secret doors. Otherwise it would be pretty plain where hidden rooms and thus secret doors are. Takes the fun away.

I'm also gonna try and make Mort's part 1 and guzzi's part 2 quest and make them into a PDF quest book format, with cover and all, if that's allright with you guys. Of course, if one of you is already doing that, there won't be any need, but otherwise, just post anything helpfull here, and I'll include it. Images, fluff, flavor text, notes from Mentor, anything. I'd like to make it look more like the actual questbooks and stuff Phoenix and Drathe did.

Oh and I need to make monster cards for Skaven, Rat Ogres, White Seers and Giant rats too. Perhaps even some other denizens of the sewers. I'll post it here once it's done for reviews and comments. I'm going to use the Durrag Doll info on Skaven as well.
The_Halls_of_Durrag_Dol_%28White_Dwarf_134%29.pdf

[guzzi]

Sounds good to me!!

[Sjeng]

I've been working on the Sewers map, which I have as a scanned PDF file.
Imported it into photoshop, and noticed some colour differences, especially in the water. So I tried to fix that a tad with a colour filter over the water. I've also added several hidden rooms, and tried to obscure the large hidden room in the left top corner.
There were 2 problems with the map:
1) because the (badly) scanned pages were put together not too well, there was a bit of space missing exactly in the middle (vertically), which you can see when looking at the door to the room in the middle of the map. I've added space to fix this, and filled it with textures, that hopefully won't be too noticable.
2) the thin white gridlines on the map are all wrong. It's as if they were randomly added, without really looking at the layout of the map. I've added new gridlines that fit very nicely, but I need to get rid of the old ones, which is a hard thing to do.

I've made a seperate tile page with hidden rooms, so you can place them on the map when players discover a hidden door. Having them pre-printed on the map kind of takes away the surprise. Still, I might also make a PDF of the map with all extra rooms added, but without any doors, so you can choose where to place doors yourself, just like the original HQ board.

I'm also going to add an extra quest as an introduction, taking place in the town over the sewers. When all's finished I'll have a booklet in PDF format, with some flavor text, rules of play, three quests and all maps added in A4 sized pieces including extra room tiles.

Any input is appreciated ;)

[guzzi]

Keep at it!! Looking forward to the outcome.

[Sjeng]

Thanks!

I've decided to make 1 original map without extra rooms, and with the large room obscured. Added to that I will make the extra page with secret rooms that you can place on top of the map. Best for the first time use, as to not spoil any secrets.
Additionally I'll make 1 original map with all the extra rooms added, enclosed by walls, so you can choose where to place regular or hidden doors. This map can be used for further adventures. This makes the map more flexible.
I'm also adding loose hidden doors tiles, modified to fit the map better. (Perhaps even modified traps).

I think I'll just leave the white lines on, they're extremely hard to get rid of, and I just don't have the photoshop skill for it (yet). I hope my new black lines will be clear.

[Sjeng]

Allright, here's a preview of the Sewer maps:
The first one is the original map, with new gridlines added (over passable areas, not over solid rock)
The second one is the original map with the big room obscured, as it has no doors, so can only be accessed via hidden door, and I didn't want to spoil the surprise.
The third one is for further adventures with extra rooms added, without doors, so you can decide wether to place regular doors or hidden doors on the map.
I've also made a hidden rooms + doors sheet, to use on the first two maps, if you want to keep them a secret during play.

   

Next up is making the quest sheets, with the black and white plan, to draw your quests on, and the first two quests by Mortis and guzzi.
Then I'm going to add the Streets map with a prequel quest, and publish all three with the maps included in handy-dandy A4 PDF format. I'm going to need a cool illustration for the front cover, so suggestions are welcome ;)

[Sjeng]

Hmm, I seem to have made a mistake in my previous post. I wanted to post 3 small thumbnails with links to the large images for downloading. Mortis: could you fix that for me please, I can't seem to edit my post... (keeps saying "loading...")

And if you could tell me what exactly the goal of your quest "Into the sewers part 1" was, I can use that in my booklet.
I assume the white seer is in the warlocks room?

[MortiS-the-Lost]

Sjeng wrote

Hmm, I seem to have made a mistake in my previous post. I wanted to post 3 small thumbnails with links to the large images for downloading. Mortis: could you fix that for me please, I can't seem to edit my post... (keeps saying "loading...")

Sorry I can't edit other peoples posts - give it another try we are have some small server issues at the moment

Sjeng wrote

And if you could tell me what exactly the goal of your quest "Into the sewers part 1" was, I can use that in my booklet.
I assume the white seer is in the warlocks room?

I am currently writing up my original "Into the Sewers" properly as the notes I posted were so sparse - please note the plot was a lot different from what Guzzi came up so his 'sequel' doesn't follow on from my original sewer adventure

Yes the Grey Seer/Skaven Warlock was in the secret room (also note it has different rules to the White Seer published in White Dwarf)

and I also beefed-up the far-too-weak Rat Ogre stats provided by the same White Dwarf

[Sjeng]

All right, edited my previous post, and here's my preliminary quest book.
I'll add my own quest soon, and as soon as Mortis has finished his writings, I'll try and adapt my booklet to fit everything together. Feel free to comment!

Into_the_Sewers_-_WIP.pdf

I've slightly altered guzzi's layout, as I didn't add as many new rooms as he did.
I've also changed the direction of the stream, as sewers normally do not branch out, but flow together into one main stream (towards rivers). Just seemed more logical to me.
When all is finished, I'll cut up the map and add it to the booklet in pieces, so you can easily print it.

[MortiS-the-Lost]

here's a different image to use on the 'Talisman of Pore' card

[Sjeng]

Allright, thanks, looks cool :)

What do you think of it so far? And the maps?

[guzzi]

Very nice artwork! I like the new Talisman Face too! I think I will stick to using the larger rooms I found.

[MortiS-the-Lost]

Looks good! I can see you're putting a lot of effort into this

First of all excellent Photoshop-ing on the poster-map - you do however need to sort out the thumb nails though, your smaller thumbnail images need to have different names from the larger images they are linked to or they will (as had happened) overwrite each other when you up load

Sjeng wrote

I've also changed the direction of the stream, as sewers normally do not branch out, but flow together into one main stream (towards rivers). Just seemed more logical to me.

actually that's something that's always bugged me about the original poster map - although the water should logically be flowing from left to right to match the design of the sewer streams, the artwork depicts the water flowing the other way.


When I wrote the original adventure I kept the water flowing in the same direction  because it prevents Heroes from 'riding' the flow toward the cell and encourages them to explore the map because the water forces them to think about how they are going to cross the channel (the original reason behind the flowing water was to prevent the heroes wading along the channel) - which reminds me the adventures need to include a line something like this: "If a Hero is washed off the edge of the map they are not dead but cannot take any further part in this adventure. Once the rest of the Heroes leave the dungeon the Hero who got 'flushed away' will rejoin them in the town."

As for the PDF, again great work there and very professional looking indeed!
I love the image on the front cover, where did you find it?
Can I request you credit the 2nd quest as 'Made by Guzzi based on a quest by MortiS' as Guzzi has really made this quest his own and his plot is very different from the original one I wrote (my Quest didn't have Mr. Groat the Tax Collector so re-writing it to fit my plot will ruin the over all story Guzzi wrote)

[Sjeng]

I did notice the artwork in the water, and first decided to ignore that
But now you mention it, it might be better quest-wise to have it go the other direction after all.
I'll add the extra rule of getting washed away. Nice touch!

I'll see what I can do about the thumbnails in my previous post. I'll also change the credits as per request ;)

I've almost finished my prequel quest in town. It includes Ye Olde Inn
I'm looking for some good barn interiours to add to the map.

Image of Skaven was simply googled.
http://www.epilogue.net/cgi/database/art/view.pl?id=54038

[guzzi]

Mortis wrote " Can I request you credit the 2nd quest as 'Made by Guzzi based on a quest by MortiS' as Guzzi has really made this quest his own and his plot is very different from the original one I wrote (my Quest didn't have Mr. Groat the Tax Collector so re-writing it to fit my plot will ruin the over all story Guzzi wrote) "
Have I missed something when I downloaded the original story? I didn't notice anything in the cell at that time, that's where Mr Groat came in. Can you let me have a full transcript of the original Please?