JG 80: Of Skulls and Scrapfaggot Green

Of Skulls and Scrapfaggot Green (1979)
by Bob Blake*

A D&D adventure in three parts, played as the D&D tournament at GenCon X (1977).

Many of the earliest modules for AD&D first appeared as tournament adventures in the late 1970s.  TSR  took over Gen Con in 1976, launching the modern D&D tournament with a dungeon by the Valparaiso Society's Bob Blake (later published as the Gen Con IX Dungeons).  Bob followed this up with "Of Skulls and Scrapfaggot Green" for Gen Con X in 1977.  Gary introduced "Against the Giants" at Origins IV in 1978, and "Vault of the Drow" at Gen Con XI.  However, what makes the Gen Con IX and X dungeons particularly interesting is that they were run using the OD&D rules from the LBBs + Greyhawk, which also formed the basis for the Holmes manuscript.  By Gen Con XII in 1979 the AD&D rules had been published and were adopted.

There were four printings of this adventure, as detailed over at The Acaeum.  The 2nd printing was apparently missing a page of maps, which were later included as an errata sheet in The Dungeoneer #10 and The Judges Guild Journal #14.  This review is of the 3rd printing (1979) the cover of which is depicted above.  I also have a copy of the 4th printing, which despite stating that it's 64 pages on the cover (it's not) is otherwise identical to the 3rd printing, as far as I can tell.

In the original tournament version, characters started out at 4th level in Part One of the adventure, were bumped up to 6th level in Part Two, and finally 8th level in Part Three.  Don Turnbull reviewed the adventure in White Dwarf #14 (Aug/Sept 1979), and felt that it was suitable for 10-12 characters of experience levels 3-6.  While the first part of the adventure could easily be completed by 1st level characters, the second part requires at least 1 or 2 intermediate level fighter-types, and the third part would even present a challenge for a whole intermediate level party.

Credits/contributors:

The overall scenario is credited to Bob Blake, Mark Bretscher, and Jim Ronco.  Part One is by Blake and Geoff Pugh, Part Two by Blake alone, and Part Three by Jim Ronco.  Cover art was by Kevin Siembieda with interior illustrations by Sheryl England.  The scenario was dedicated to Sharon Kay Blake "long-suffering elven typist who puts up with balrogs in the basement"

The manuscript contains numerous editorial asides, clearly intended to be humorous, although some are in questionable taste.  Nevertheless, most are pretty harmless and provide amusing insights into the gamer culture of the mid-to-late 1970s.

Tournament/DM Rules

It's specifically stated at the outset that a copy of the original D&D rules + Greyhawk are necessary to utilize the scenario, which makes the adventure particularly well-suited to an expanded Holmes campaign.  By comparison, later Judges' Guild OD&D publications (such as "Caverns of Thracia" also published in 1979) use stats from the AD&D Monster Manual.  It's important to note that the Holmes Basic Set was released around Gen Con X.

There are 3 pages of rules to standardize tournament play which are quite interesting.  I discuss a few notable examples in a different thread.  In addition, chances for surprise are predetermined, and there are charts with pre-rolled hits to various ACs and the concomitant damage.  These were intended to level the playing field for the purposes of the tournament, but are somewhat awkward and should probably be ignored if you're using the module as part of a campaign.

Interestingly, poison in this adventure causes additional damage proportional to the hit dice of the creature, as opposed to save-or-die.  I'm not sure whether this was a tournament convention, or was a common use of poison in the old days.  Along similar lines, dragon breath causes a certain number of dice of damage, and is not equal to the dragon's remaining hit points.  This convention was also captured in the Holmes-based adventure "Creature of Rhyl" published in Dragon #55.

Overview

The PCs' kingdom is being terrorized by nightmarish creatures thought to be coming through an interdimensional portal somewhere deep inside the neighbouring "Forbidden Lands".  A local baron has knowledge of an ancient, magical skull that might serve as a guide to where the portal is located, although the skull first needs to be retrieved from the crypts beneath a deceased mage's tower.  According to legend, the key to the mage's ruined tower is located somewhere within the town of Scrapfaggot Green.

The party is provided with a jeweled pendant (Akbeth's Sigil) to aid them in gathering clues as to the key's potential whereabouts in the town (certain NPCs provide a clue upon being shown the pendant).  Their task is to then retrieve the skull from beneath Akbeth's tower, use it as a guide through The Forbidden Lands in order to determine the location of the interdimensional portal - and hopefully close it.  A pretty standard quest, neatly divided into three parts (originally representing separate tournament rounds) involving town, dungeon, and wilderness adventures, although with a fair amount of old-school colour - and some interesting twists...

Part One: Scrapfaggot Green

Scrapfaggot Green* is a town of approximately 2000 people situated at an important trade and military junction.  The full-page hex map doesn't provide a scale (in fact, a statement on page 3 refers to the hexes as being of indeterminate size) although comparing the "encumbrance and movement rates" on page 4 with the "movement rates and restrictions for town adventure" on page 5 allows for a calculation of 30' per hex.  I would suggest photocopying the map and giving it to the players in order for them to indicate their proposed route, checking off the various buildings they visit.

*the choice of a name is a bit strange (see trivia section), perhaps representing an obscure reference to the witch who dwells along one of the rivers

This is a pretty well-detailed town as far as early publications go.  There are 54 keyed buildings not including the central abbey or the lord's castle (I found it useful to create a DM's version of the map with the names of the various buildings, linked here).  The merchant district is in the northeast quarter (complete with a bazaar), the civic buildings and residential district are in the southeast part of the town, the general's castle is situated atop a prominence in the southwest above the military grounds, and the seedier taverns and brothels (and two rival thieves' guilds) are situated off to the northwest.

Most of the buildings are depicted with small, useful sketches and floorplans.  Although the descriptions are fairly brief, they are colourful and include some memorable NPCs.  Each entry is divided into a section to be read to the players (perhaps the earliest precursor to "boxed text") and a section for the DM.  Reading through the descriptions, I felt there were quite a few similarities to both the Village of Hommlet and the town in the outer bailey from the Keep on the Borderlands, both of which were written by Gary a year or two after this adventure was first played at Gen Con in 1977.

Groups of 10 fully armored guards regularly patrol the streets, and punishments for "breaking brawlban" are harsh (even the feuding thieves' guilds prefer to settle their quarrels in their underground network of tunnels in the northwest quarter).  The town is gritty and a little crude, reminiscent of Sanctuary in the Thieves' World anthologies (the first of which wasn't published until 1979).  There's an active slavemarket near the centre of town, and numerous establishments catering to the sex trade (particularly in, but not restricted to, the seedy northwest quarter).  The players enter one of the buildings in the merchant district to find a robbery underway by four orcs who snuck into town - and are just in time to witness the owner get viciously disemboweled.

The whole place is rich with role-playing possibilities.  There are several taverns, and places where the party can haggle for and purchase equipment.  There's the creepy, aforementioned witch, who is just begging to be fleshed out using the rules from Dragon magazine #5.  The party could run afoul of one of the rival thieves' guilds.  The general's petulant daughter turns up in one of the establishments.  There's a swordsman school which could serve as a great location for Holmes' "Warriors for Hire" rules.  Finally, there's the monastic community in the centre of town (with standard medieval monks as opposed to a Blackmoor-type Shaolin temple).

About a dozen of the NPCs know different clues to the hidden location of Akbeth's key, although most are pretty obscure.  There's not a lot of loot or experience to be gained, since this part of the adventure is presented as more of a puzzle to be solved while simultaneously offering plenty of opportunities for role-play.  For added atmosphere, I would recommend strict timekeeping and to describe the ringing of the bells at sunrise (when the gates to the town are opened) and sunset (when the gates to the town are closed) and possibly other points throughout the day.

Part Two: Akbeth's Tower

The second part of the adventure is comprised of a 10-level dungeon beneath the ruins of a deceased mage's tower, although only some of the levels are accessible to the players (namely 0, 3, 3.5, 4.5, 6.5, and 10).  The unconventional numbering system arises from the relationship of the levels to one another, as depicted in two cross-sectional diagrams (although I couldn't figure out why two very similar diagrams were included).  A rather unusual feature vertically traversing the entire dungeon is a shimmering "traction beam" which the players need to figure out and circumvent in order to access certain locations.

There is a temple to a long-forgotten spider god on the 3rd level, which foreshadows the background narrative of the adventure.  The 6.5th level is a network of caves, and the 10th level is on the shores of an underground lake.  In fact, this dungeon contains all of the classic mapping elements common to the earliest delves.  Discovering the various stairways in order to negotiate progress from level to level is an inherent part of the maze-like design.  Fortunately, the PCs are given the opportunity to acquire a "Secret Door Detection Wand" (although I wasn't sure if this was supposed to be a [i]wand of secret doors and trap detection[/i]).

The characters need to retrieve the magic, golden skull the baron spoke of, but the catch is that pieces of it are scattered throughout the dungeon.  The feeling of a long-abandoned ruin gradually yields to the unsettling sense that an evil, sadistic presence is master of the intermediate levels.  There is at least one fairly graphic situation related to this which would probably cost the adventure its otherwise PG-13 rating, and also presents a tough moral dilemma for the PCs to resolve.  This brooding, sinister presence is never revealed, and deeper still, the lower catacombs seem to have lain unpenetrated by surface-dwellers for untold ages.

The ground level is mainly populated by a couple of goblin bands, but the 3rd level contains some traps (including a teleporter to the 10th level) and is home to a few tougher critters.  From there the opposition gets steeply more difficult - examples include an umber hulk on level 4.5 and a nine-headed hydra on level 6.5, plus various powerful undead.  The 10th level holds a couple of particularly nasty boss encounters - including a balrog* (depicted in a couple of full-page illustrations by Siembieda).  I would think that a party of less than 5th level on average, without a few heavy-duty magic items, is going to find themselves sorely outmatched.

*it must have been after Gen Con X that the Tolkien estate insisted on removal of terms such as "hobbits" and "balrogs" from the D&D rules

Given its origins as a tournament adventure, there are some pretty devious traps or puzzles on almost every level, including a few of the notorious "zap - you're dead" variety (although PCs would have to brazenly ignore some fairly obvious warnings to succumb to these).  There are likewise the requisite magical pools with unusual effects, and a living, golden statuette "Tamtrinka" with a bit of a mischievous streak, who nevertheless desires to befriend the party and can serve as a source of DM advice.  Finally, there is a bizarre yet benevolent creature on one of the deeper levels (the "Gnulb") capable of bestowing a useful magical ability upon one of the PCs.

All in all, the second part of the adventure represents a pretty classic example of old-school dungeon design.  There are some pretty tough monsters, but these are usually encountered on their own (although with a few exceptions, such as a room full of mummies).  Tactically-minded PCs should be able to team up in order to overcome their foes, although multiple PC deaths or even a TPK are distinct possibilities.  One of the downsides for players is that there's not a lot of treasure to be gained, so there's not much in the way of gp-fueled xp.  However, this is compensated for by the inclusion of permanent magic items (including an intelligent sword).

Part Three: The Forbidden Lands

The last part of the adventure involves a wilderness hex-crawl across forbidden territory.  The assembled skull provides directions in a low, soft voice (for example, after the party descends through the only pass in The Shield, a rugged chain of mountains that completely isolates The Forbidden Lands from the rest of the continent, the skull sighs and says "It has been so long.  Follow this road to the splendorous city of Shia-Chin", presumably the location of the interdimensional portal the party needs to close).  If the PCs brought along the golden statuette from Akbeth's tower, she will sometimes counter the advice of the skull.

The day record for the wilderness adventure includes a description of the various types of weather, which affect movement and sighting ranges.  After the first "orientation point" (numbered hex) the PCs have to decide which of three possible routes they wish to take.  The path to the South is long and difficult, but is the safest.  The path to the North is not as safe, but neither is it as unclear.  The central path follows the paved road straight to the west, and is therefore the quickest route, but is also the most dangerous.  Each of the three routes offers unique challenges, some of which are exceedingly deadly.

If this sounds kind of familiar to you, perhaps you're thinking of module B8 "Journey to the Rock".  The similarities between the two adventures is striking.  B8 was apparently based on a tournament module, although which tournament has never been established - could "Of Skulls and Scrapfaggot Green" be the tournament in question?  If so, it might explain why the original source was never made explicit - perhaps there might have been legal difficulties given that the latter was a Judges Guild product...only the author of module B8, Michael Malone, would be in a position to best remember.

The Forbidden Lands

One of the main encounters along the way is with a special type of dragon with a tremendous horde - probably enough for every member of the party to level up (if they can defeat it).  Other encounters are with strange creatures or entities.  There are exotic place-names, such as the Niya-Grum, Niya-Kral, and Zila-Gal passes, the ruined cities of Lyang-Hoi and Shia-Chin, and so forth.  All combine to create the sense that a great civilization once lay spread across The Forbidden Lands, with which the skull shares some connection, although which suffered some unknown calamity and fell countless ages ago.

The final destination lies nestled within a shielded valley, a 30' x 30' x 30' [strike]rock[/strike] block of purple veined marble, which the PCs need to figure out how to enter.  On the block are intricate carvings depicting some war of ages past.  At this point, there's a twist which I don't wish to reveal in this review.  Suffice it to say that a long-forgotten race is involved, plotting to regain its ascendancy over humanity.  There's a countdown against time with a final, somewhat difficult, puzzle to decipher.  If the PCs are victorious, they should be quite pleased with themselves.  If they're not, there are game-world changing implications.

Strengths:

This product contains a fully detailed, re-usable town setting, with plenty of notable NPCs.  The dungeons beneath the ruins of the wizard's tower can be plunked just about anywhere.  There's an old school wilderness hex crawl with some interesting encounters involving unique opponents.  All is bound together with an overarching theme and a fairly satisfying, final set-piece encounter.

Weaknesses:

Low production values.  Some inconsistency in creatures hit dice, etc, when compared to the LBBs or the Greyhawk supplement.  Could conceivably be viewed as a railroad, given that there's only one correct way to achieve the quest, but still plenty of flexibility.  The wilderness portion is the weakest part of the adventure - the set encounters are variable in quality, and the wandering monsters are presented as a series of stat blocks.

Trivia:

The actual Scrapfaggot Green is at a crossroads near the town of Great Leighs in Essex where an old woman was executed back in the 17th century based on the unfortunate belief that she was a witch ("Scrapfaggot" is apparently an old Essex slang term for a witch).  There was some paranormal activity reported in 1944 when a boulder marking her grave was moved, but locals eventually confessed that the whole affair was a hoax played on the gullible reporter from London who was covering the story.

Gen Con X, August 18-21, 1977 was billed as the largest wargame convention to date with over 6000 attendees.  Some details about the event were published in The Dragon #10.

For those interested in such things, a carrion crawler's paralysis is stated to wear off in 10 turns.

Summary:

A three-part quest comprised of a town adventure, a dungeon adventure, and a wilderness hexcrawl, this old-school product is appropriate for an intermediate-level party.  There are plenty of iconic monsters, weird puzzles, and a twist ending.  The production values are low, but part of the charm.  Furthermore, the different parts can independently be incorporated into any campaign setting.

I have to say that I enjoyed running this module.  It seemed to fill a gap for me between the era of "Castle Blackmoor/Castle Greyhawk" and the earliest published TSR modules, like B1 "In Search of the Unknown" and the original B3 "Palace of the Silver Princess".  Both of the latter make better sense to me now that I'm familiar with the Gen Con X dungeon.  In addition, I feel that I have a better understanding of how the original game must have been played.

Rating:

8/10 by old-school standards

This adventure seems to me so typical of what the original D&D game must have been like, that I don't think it's appropriate to rate it by contemporary standards.  Simply drop a point from the rating for each decade elapsed in order to get a sense of how the module would compare with later publications.

*originally posted on Dragonsfoot Reviews on June 22, 2015