Gygax 75 Day 1-3
Elevator Pitch (all art by Bill Sienkiewicz)
- A river, with hostile and inexhaustible adversaries on either bank (the Lawful Goodfolk on one side and the Chaotic Goodfolk on the other, more or less demon-fae and devil-fae)
- Thank goodness the water repels them! Islands of civilization exist in between the shores, protected by the poisonous (to goodfolk) river, promontories of light if you will.
- PCs are from a particularly inhabited island, let’s call it Iscyra. Built up in the center. The rulers are your basic Melnibonéan corrupted elite: life-extended by cyborging themselves up with magical do-dads, more high sorcerous-machine now than man maybe. Gools. Sorcerers.
A steady procession of living barges washes past - full of the things you need (food, potable water, magic trinkets): these ships double as dungeons - they get harpooned and lashed to shore for a bit, boarded by crack privateers (the PCs among others), before shaking themselves loose. If you want to go shopping, stay on the surface and be prepared to jump. You want something more esoteric, you’ve gotta go down a couple levels: but don’t stay too long or you’ll be living there.
Where do the barges come from? Who can say (on day 3 of the project). They are filled with rats and ratmen who are relatively organized, but whether these are the original inhabitants or hitchhiker's themselves is unclear.
But wait! As these barges bumble along, sometimes they will pass too close to shore, and one of the two contagions (Lawful or Chaotic) will make its way aboard and so doing jump the water over to Iscyra. So a barge is more than likely to have some of these guys.
Untydras. Naturally, the gools got a team who fights em off. These are a warrior cult of aristocrats who eschew the modifications of their bodies in exchange for the short, sharp life. White blood cells if you will. They are not very nice.
But that aint you. You’re the professional treasure hunters. Go deep enough, you’ll run across the engine: usually a shut in group of cyber-ghouls themselves with powerful appendages that someone from Iscyra will pay top dollar for. Unless you want to start modifying yourself.
