I had such a good time running Shadow Over Gloomshire for MK-RPG that I wasn't ready to let go of it, despite the party having completed the main adventure. I'd dropped enough hints about who was behind everything that went down in the graveyard that I was pretty sure I could continue the adventure for another 8 week block.
Which became a 7 week block when damn near everyone was ill on week 1, including me.
Mazikeen's player had to drop out, and so the mighty paladin was replaced by Luna Bane, wolfkin demon hunter and massive Viktor Drakos fangirl.
Week 1: Into The Mines
There were still a lot of ill people, but I was well enough to run and two players made it to the club so off we went. I decided that most of the party were incredibly hung over after celebrating their victory with Gloomshire ale, and only Kaine was well enough to get up and enjoy a breakfast of crow bacon. So he was the first person to get to meet Luna, and watch Viktor's desperate attempts to avoid her by hiding behind Maeve.
Then came the actual mission, based on one of the many handy hooks provided in the scenario - talk to the shopkeeper Greb and try to ease his troubles. Meaning Kaine and Luna got sent out to the silver mines to recover Greb's six dead friends and bring their bodies home for proper burial.
The two made good use of knowledge skills, meaning that they arrived in the mine covered in the entrails of the stygian wolves they'd killed on the way in, meaning the thralls merely shambled slowly towards them rather than immediately charging. By the end of the session they were back in Gloomshire with a cart full of dead dwarves.
Week 2: Rescue Mission
With most of the group now recovered, it was time for the main plot to start unfolding. Councilwoman Auda Voss, now convinced of the team's skills and courage, asked them for help recovering her son from the Van Walden mansion.
At this point I knew I was going to need a map. I'd previously asked around for suggestions for OSRish vampire mansion adventures, and Halls of the Blood King by Diogo Nogueira was the name that kept showing up. Reasonably priced at £5.95 and with cartography by the ever-reliable Glynn Seal I decided to give it a shot. While written for Old School Essentials, I was confident that I could swap out the monsters for Dragonbane creations. The plot would need a little tweaking to fit in with the scenario we were playing, but I knew what needed to change and how I was going to make it work.
The party arrived at the mansion and immediately ran into my absolute favourite NPC of the entire campaign: the gate. I absolutely loved playing that gate.
"I'm going to have to bite you now."
Luna jumps rapidly backwards, away from the gate.
"Curses! Foiled again."
Week 3: There might be a vampire
Auda Voss was delighted to have her son back and handed over the offered reward. But over a meal of turnips, he revealed that he thought there might be a vampire in the mansion. So Voss offered them another mission - dealing with the Van Waldens once and for all. This time the reward was a bit more concrete: if they could clear the mansion out, they could have it.
So back they went to the mansion, with a leg of pork for the gate, who chewed it up enthusiastically. This time rather than going straight to the basement they began a sweep of the ground floor, finding servants' quarters before unexpectedly running into some guests. Two vampires, an orc and a mallard, both looking for the dining room. It was becoming clear that there might be a few more vampires here than anticipated.
They next encountered Princess Cornelia, after some unexpectedly virtuoso piano playing from Grimduck opened the secret door to her room. A friendly chat revealed that she was also a vampire, and the guests were here to celebrate her being welcomed into the Van Walden family as a replacement for Konrad the disappointment. Except she was having second thoughts.
Week 4: The lay of the land
Luna's player was unavailable, so Luna remained deep in conversation with Princess Cornelia, while the others continued their search. Notable event included finding a very unpleasant chest of drawers lined with teeth, which they nevertheless made use of to make vampire disguises for the less toothy party members. They managed to unenthrall some of the guards and sent them home after getting a comprehensive list of the vampire guests present - besides those they'd already met there were a dwarf, a halfling, a human and a frog.
The adventure includes a list of vampire guests. They don't all work exactly as written for Dragonbane, but after I'd rolled a random selection of them and assigned them all different kin based on names and descriptions, we had a great cast of weird vampires ready for future encounters.
Week 5: There really are a lot of vampires
The six golden bathtubs in the bathroom were really selling the otherwise rather unpleasant mansion, but it wasn't long before Dr Crumb had something new to occupy his enormous mind: the different death animations of different vampire kin. None of that was in the adventure, but when shortly afterwards they staked the halfling vampire and I described him deflating like a punctured balloon, which then got interpreted as him zooming around the room, this became a whole thing.
With most of the human staff either dead or rescued, it was time to brave the dining room. And there they found Liss Van Walden, in conversation with two guests - the human and the frog.
The vampires from Shadow Over Gloomshire are terrifying opponents, so I decided to use the frog kin from the bestiary for the frog vampire, and drop ferocity to 1 for the two humans. Even so it was a very close fight. I rolled for Liss's seduction attempt rather than having it auto succeed, which added some comedy when I rolled a demon and Liss was instead smitten by the intense fluffiness of Felis the cat person. Which didn't stop him almost getting bitten to death.
This did provide more data for Dr Crumb. Human vampires disintegrated into dust; frog vampires exploded, showering everyone in frog bits.
The party decided to rest after that, and having just discovered the games room (and given the games master free choice as to what she wanted to play with them), this took the form of an entire shift playing Twilight Imperium.
Week 6: Sexy people
After noping out of the library at the sight of the blood red spider webs, the party was ready to head upstairs. But not before the return of Luna, who was now convinced that Princess Cornelia was absolutely wonderful and they should do anything she wanted.
The upper floor soon brought them to a room full of very attractive people of various kin, lounging on cushions and inviting the party to join them. Fortunately some of the party passed their will rolls, found their way past the illusory wall, and dragged the others with them. So they'd done some comprehensive looting before Ernst Van Walden showed up.
Ernst was very rapidly taken down before he could bite anyone, and his guards ultimately proved more of a challenge. Once again they managed to unenthrall one of them, and then moved on to the final confrontation: Konrad Van Walden. Who turned out not to be a vampire at all, but a demon summoner, who'd summoned his own pet blood demon with the intention of demonstrating to his parents just how much of a disappointment he really was.
Which was all happening in a room full of fabulously valuable porcelain dolls, which Grimduck was frantically attempting to remove from the room before any potentially damaging fighting kicked off.
Week 7: Finale
Konrad's monologuing didn't go exactly as planned, and being a fairly weak human rather than a powerful vampire, he didn't last long. His demon proved rather tougher, but a phenomenal display of magical power from Halvelda finished it off.
Now there was just a bit of tidying to do. A planetary display turned out to have the lock fitting the key they'd found in the basement earlier, which turned off the house's evil decor, allowing them to use the stairs as normal. The orc vampire confided in them that he was working for Princess Cornelia. An earlier attempt at poisoning the blood soup with holy water had finally paid off, taking out the dwarf vampire. And the mallard was convinced to leave. But as he stepped outside, they saw the first rays of the rising sun, heard a shout of "Oh quack!", and were now in possession of a rather nice statue.
Princess Cornelia rewarded them for rescuing her beloved porcelain dolls and went on her way, reminding them about the spiders in the basement. And so they finally went back to the library, pushed the webs aside, and descended into the court of the blood spiders. The party immediately decided they didn't want to fight them, and attempted to persuade them to leave. It took a few attempts, but they were eventually convinced to relocate to the old temple in the graveyard. So under cover of darkness and some very large skirts, the blood spiders were escorted to the graveyard to meet their new friend: Bones, the gravedigger and MVP of the previous adventure.
Finally the party were able to enjoy their new property. While now largely bare boards, they did still have the six gold bathtubs. And most importantly, the gate.
Conclusions
Translating an adventure from OSE to Dragonbane had its challenges, and took more effort than running the original Shadow Over Gloomshire adventure as I had to make a number of changes to fit in with the ongoing story. That said, it's a really solidly written location with a great map, meaning I only had to worry about details like the location of the major NPCs rather than everything about the story.
If, like me, you don't care for most OSR systems but would like to try some of the adventures, give them a shot with Dragonbane. This one in particular is well worth the effort. Levels aren't much of a concern as you'll be swapping out the monsters for similar creatures from the Dragonbane Bestiary. The one important thing to change is treasure - the gold amounts in Halls of the Blood King are wildly over the top for Dragonbane so I replaced them with random draws from the treasure deck, specific treasure deck items, and rolls on the Shadow Over Gloomshire treasure table.
I'm wrapping up the campaign for now, as we've managed to tie off all the loose ends from the previous block and I'm keen to run some Pathfinder 2, but I'm not ruling out a return to Gloomshire some day. The adventure includes enough hooks to potentially introduce more adventures. I've also spotted that Robin Fjärem has published another adventure and that looks perfect for a short block. The campaign might be over, but I'm far from done with Dragonbane.