The very earliest Batman stories would serve as the best fodder for campaign material, I think, particularly Gardner Fox's "French trilogy" -- the two-parter with the Monk, followed by Le Duc D'Orterre -- which would need very little modification to turn them into fun dungeon romps.
~Scott "-enkainen" Casper
Here's an adventure seed that pays homage to writer Gardner Fox. It's inspired mainly by his script for
Justice League of America Vol 1 #10, but the villains from his French trilogy also have cameo roles. The plot may be summed up as a mashup:
Batman + Lord of the Rings + Time Bandits
I call it, "The Lord of the Ring of Time." It's the year 1201, and Bruce Wayne is visited by a man calling himself "Silvianus." He claims he was born in the year 2700 BC in Egypt. He became
Imhotep, the priest of the god Ra and a student of medicine, fascinated by the healing effects of a good night's sleep, and the dangers demons pose to sleep, dreams and health. He developed the
sleep temple, the forerunner of the hospital. Chanting, meditation, yoga, breath control and hypnosis were all used in these places to help heal the body and the soul.
Upon his death, as a reward for his good works, Ra elevated him to the status of a god. The Egyptians knew this god as Tutu, guardian of the sleeping from danger and bad dreams; master of demons. The Greeks knew him as Hypnos; the Romans as Somnus; the Celts as Nodens; the southwest native Americans as Manit.
Somnus's avatar and chief priest Silvianus, a 4th century Roman living in England, successfully battled the biggest threats to sleep, dream, and prophecy---The
Demons Three (Abnegezar, Rath, and Ghast). He imprisoned them in three artifacts:
- the Red Jar of Calythos
- the Green Bell of Uthool
- the Silver Wheel of Nyorlath
However, their imprisonment was at best temporary, so Somnus entrusted these artifacts to the three primordial deities---the Timeless Ones (Chronos and his children Aether and Chaos). Chronos cast the artifacts through the Aether, down into the Chaos, and into three separate spacetime locations. He encoded these locations into a ring which he gave to Somnus for safekeeping, the ring of Silvianus.
If the three artifacts should ever be brought together and the bell rung while the wheel is spun and the red incense in the jar released, it would set into motion an unstoppable process whereby the Demons Three would escape 100 years later. But for that century, the one who freed them could possess all their awesome power---control over sleep, dreams and prophecy.
The
ring of Silvianus itself is a powerful artifact. Not only does it encode the locations of the three artifacts, it also allows its possessor to travel through time. Back in the 4th century AD, an assistant priest named Senicianus at the Roman sleep temple of Somnus at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire stole the ring from Silvianus. So Silvianus cursed the ring. He inscribed a
curse tablet that reads:
which translates to:
Though sickly as a result of the curse on the ring, Senicianus began to master the ring's time-traveling power. At first, he simply used the ring to pull off heists and robberies to enrich himself. He calls himself the "
Lord of Time" and "Epoch". He hid himself in a fortress in the radioactive wasteland of post-apocalyptic Gotham City in the year 3786. He used the wealth from his heists to buy bodyguards---mutants, led by the vicious mutant leader. He discovered that although he was sick, he couldn't die, and he realized this was due to the curse, ironically---he must be preserved albeit in poor health until the ring is returned to the 4th century Roman sleep temple in England.
Soon, the ring began to speak to Senicianus about the Demons Three and their locations and their powers. He devised a grand plan that would allow him to gain the powers of these demons without having ever to relinquish them. He would use the ring's time-warping power create a "freeze point" in time in the year 3885, a temporal singularity. He would steal the artifacts imprisoning the Demons Three and bring them to his fortress. He would perform the ritual to release them in the year 3786, but the singularity would "stretch out" time and make the next century seem to last forever. So the Demons Three could never regain their powers from him, because time would effectively be frozen at the end of the 100 year process.
Senicianus desired nothing less than to conquer all space and time. Happy with his plans for conquest, he inscribed the words
on the ring. This roughly translates to: "Senicianus lives in godhood."
Without the ring, Silvianus has no power to stop Senicianus or travel through time. He doesn't even know what Senicianus will do with the ring, but he suspects Senicianus will attempt to collect the artifacts and gain their power.
As a cleric, Silvianus can pray to Chronos once per day and ask for the power to send one person to any location in time. He proposes to use this power to send the
World's Greatest Detective to each of the three locations where the artifacts are thought to be hidden. Neither Silvianus nor Senicianus can know the exact location of these items, merely the vicinity where they were deposited---they may have been subsequently moved.
Silvianus will send the Bat Man to each location and allow him to investigate. He will be able to communicate with the Bat Man through dreams---he is the god of sleep, dreams and prophecy after all.
First spacetime coordinates: Dead Mule, NM 1868. This leg of the adventure is based on the
Boot Hill module
BH2: Lost Conquistador Mine by David "Zeb" Cook, Tom Moldvay. Dead Mule, NM is rumored to be near one of the famed Seven Cities of Cibola that Coronado failed to find. Quoting from the module:
One of the ex-Confederate soldiers and bounty hunters passing through Dead Mule will be
Jonah Hex. He will aid the Bat Man on his quest, grudgingly.
Another traveller will be Le Duc d'Orterre, a prospecter originally from New Orleans, Lousiana. He speaks in a French-English creole: "Eh. Mes Amis! Bring this thing to my temple. I shall be amused for a little while." He is a self-styled "Master of the Apaches," and has a band of
Jicarilla Apache warriors backing him up---they are the brothers and father of his new Apache bride... Le Duc d'Orterre stole Dutch Jack's Apache bride, burned his face off, and stole his fortune, which includes the Silver Wheel of Nyorlath. For more info on Le Duc d'Orterre, see
Detective Comics Vol 1 34.
The Lord of Time is bound to show up at the worst possible moment and sieze the Silver Wheel of Nyorlath.
For conversion rules from D&D to Boot Hill, see the "Sixguns & Sorcery" section of the AD&D
Dungeon Master's Guide, pp. 112-3.
Second spacetime coordinates: 1940 Paris, France. The Green Bell of Uthol is rumored to be in a delapidated monastery on the edge of town. The rumor is true. Unfortunately for the Bat Man, The Monk who possesses the bell is a vampire and he is protected by a pack of wolves and a small band of monks who are werewolves. Also, some of the women in Paris who will attract Bruce Wayne's attention are also thralls of the vampire Monk. For more info on The Monk, see
Detective Comics Vol 1 31, "Batman Versus the Vampire, Part 1."
Worse than vampires, there are Nazis in Paris! It's June 22, 1940, and Hitler is touring Paris after conquering it. Hitler is interested in occult artifacts and may try and steal the Green Bell of Uthol.
Again, The Lord of Time is bound to show up at the worst possible moment and sieze the Green Bell of Uthol.
Just as I would play out the last leg of the adventure with Boot Hill, I'd probably play this leg with
Gangbusters or
Call of Cthulhu or another system that's closer to the setting.
Third spacetime coordinates: Present-day Gotham City, USA. This leg of the adventure is based on
DC Special Series Vol 1 27, "Batman vs the Incredible Hulk." This is a DC/Marvel crossover.
Bruce Banner is working at a division of WayneTech, assisting in the development of a gamma-gun, designed to cure diseases. The gun is powered by the Red Jar of Calythos. No one at WayneTech knows the true nature of the jar, only that it provides a powerful source of energy for the gamma-gun. Banner hopes the gamma-gun may provide a cure for him from periodically turning into the Hulk.
The Lord of Time has already infiltrated this epoch and has allied himself with The Joker, who steals the gamma-gun. Together, The Time Lord and The Joker plan to use the gamma-gun on Somnus, to make him lose his ability to absorb the dreams of others, denying himself an outlet for his powers, cutting him off from communications with the Bat Man, and potentially driving him insane. Afterwards, The Lord of Time will dismantle the gun and take the Red Jar of Calythos for himself.
Bat Man 1201 may ally himself with present-day Batman and the Hulk. I would play out this leg of the game with the
Classic Marvel Superheroes RPG from TSR.
Here is a conversion of Batman to MSHRPG.
Final coordinates: Post-Apocalyptic Gotham City in the year 3786. I would use the
Gamma World rules to play this out. The AD&D DMG has conversion rules in the section "Mutants & Magic" on pp. 113-4. The Lord of Time has his fortess here. It is protected by the
mutant leader and his followers (think:
The Dark Knight Returns). This is the Bat Man's last shot at stopping the Lord of Time, recovering the artifacts imprisoning the Demons Three, and retrieving the Ring of Silvianus and restoring it to the sleep temple in 4th century England.
Here is a chart that shows the important spacetime coordinates used in this adventure seed:
Epilogue: True story... In 1929, the archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler excavated the sleep temple at Lydney and connected the ring bearing Senicianus's name to the the curse tablet bearing the same name. Wheeler called upon a philologist named
J.R.R. Tolkien, a Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University, to investigate the etymology of the name "Nodens" referred to in the curse...