The name of that old White Dwarf adventure...

[Deleted]

...Around issue 30, I think, but for the life of me, I cannot find it:

A fishing village. Fishermen poisoned, and showing plague symptoms. A demonic cult. An undead giant who has spent some time sleeping in the harbor bassin.

What's the name of that one, folks?


Looking for a quick adventure to run next week, thought, this one might be worth a look...

- R

[bigjackbrass]

I checked with White Dwarf guru @dailydwarf from that there Twitter and he suggested the following:

"Pretty sure this is Plague From the Past, issue #69"

Checking my PDFs I'd say this is correct.

[Deleted]

YES! That one, it is! I had simply been looking in the wrong corner of the bookshelf!

Thank you very, very much, Jack! I'll run this one next week. Prepared it many years ago, already, kept my notes, but somewhat not-so-smartly threw away the maps.

One of my favorite pieces from later WD, by the way: I'll run this one, as well as Albie Fiore's "The Lichway", next week, as one shots at a very small con, but I am pondering to run "Plague from the Past" with my regular group, as well.

[bigjackbrass]

You're most welcome, although I can take no credit as it was @dailydwarf who found it. He did try to reply personally, but couldn't register with the forum.

[Deleted]

Oh? Oh! I'll contact Finarvyn about it! We need to get that guy here!

Like, probably it's because I am European, but White Dwarf was always more present to me than the D&D mags - I believe I saw the first issue of Dungeon not before I was in my early 20s...

[Vile Traveller]

I love Lichway. As a referee, of course.

[MormonYoYoMan]

Sept 9, 2016 9:14:22 GMT -6 Vile Traveller said:

I love Lichway. As a referee, of course.

How much does a lich weigh?

[Deleted]

For some context, maybe: Even though I had firmly sworn never to run a table at a public con, I am running three tables next weekend, at a very small convention near Würzburg, in Germany. Being the local go-to guy for everything old school, I'll run three scenarios based on material from White Dwarf: One being "The Lichway", the other one likely being "Plague from the Past", and the third one likely being one of the Fiend Factory scenarios.

I'll set all three scenarios around "The Navel of the World", in my world of Meleon's Angria. (Map, etc. I'll post later on.)

The reason I am "unretiring", though, and doing three adventures instead of one, or simply attending as a player, is something I personally find incredibly amazing, and I compliment the organizing team for that valiant decision:

So, the overall theme of the convention is "Arabian Nights", and the goal of the adventures, that's the understatement, is to highlight aspects of the Near-Eastern culture that are not part of the usual hysterical discourse about Islam. While I am usually not interested in making a political statement, I find this extremely worth the while in this case, because Würzburg, and the neighboring town of Ansbach were the locations of two terrorist attacks just two months ago. - So, now, these kids showing the balls and declaring that they don't judge the peaceful Muslim minority in Germany because of the actions of a few f**king not a very nice persons, that's stronger than I expected from those guys. Like, I am self-employed, my time is - literally - my money, and I don't have as much of it as I'd like to. Believe me, gaming is the least of my priorities in everyday life. But, this time, I am happily giving my resources to what I consider a good cause.

[ritt]

There are some real treasures buried in classic issues of White Dwarf... intelligent and well-written stuff with a very different feel than the TSR products of the time that laid the ground for a lot of the more experimental and literary OSR stuff today. When I was a teen in the 80's each precious issue that I was able to get felt like a window into an "Alternate universe" of role-playing.

There's something about the feel of Plague From The Past that would make it an awesome Dungeon Crawl Classics scenario

Sept 10, 2016 8:19:13 GMT -6 @rafael said:

For some context, maybe: Even though I had firmly sworn never to run a table at a public con, I am running three tables next weekend, at a very small convention near Würzburg, in Germany. Being the local go-to guy for everything old school, I'll run three scenarios based on material from White Dwarf: One being "The Lichway", the other one likely being "Plague from the Past", and the third one likely being one of the Fiend Factory scenarios.

Whoa. Sweet! Wish I spoke German and had a global teleporter.

I think of the atmospheric, weird, literate, and often horror-tinged AD&D scenarios that appeared in classic White Dwarf as "Warhammer Edition 0".

[Deleted]

Hehe, thanks. I did the map for the area yesterday - but I'll probably not post it for a while longer, because that one needs some serious polishing... To myself, WD's take on D&D is the style of D&D that I like most: It takes the more story-oriented approach from other oldschool games like Dragon Warriors, the later WHFRP, or even DragonQuest (SPI), and adjusts it to D&D.

Like, to be quite frank, my problem with most D&D adventures right until the 90s is, they are either too sketchy, or too detailed - and almost all are, as written, at least, too focused on the dungeoneering aspect of roleplaying. That's not what I am looking for, and that's not what my players are expecting in 2016. While I appreciate a certain purism in gaming, *pure oldschool* is not for everyone - it makes for cool concepts, but people who are more casual with the hobby get bored or turned off rather easily. With "White Dwarf", though, after five or six years that I own the old Archive CD, I can say that each and every game I ran based on an old WD adventure was a success in the eyes my players. - So, maybe WD and me is just a good fit; or, maybe, the adventures were really pretty good, and have stood the test of time.

[Deleted]

Posted some material on the game, and the region I want to set the adventures in, plus a quick sketch of a map, over here:

odd74.proboards.com/post/187527

Feel free to comment here, and there.