Runequest Adventure Review: The Smoking Ruins

 The Smoking Ruins

Artist Jon Hodgson

Overview:

In Hiia's Valley, in the lands of the Pure Horse People and Beastmen, there is a plateau where smoke has blackened the skies and blocking Yelm's light for the last 400 years. Atop the plateau is ancient ruins of a citadel where troll corpses have been burning, unendingly, for hundreds of years. There are whispers about these ruins. Rumors that pass between travelers, stories told to warn those that can hear. They speak of angry, dark spirits haunt the smoke and flames—stories of would-be heroes who venture too close and never return.

The Smoking Ruins is the first of three adventures in the Smoking Ruins and Other Stories Runequest book by Chaosium. Along with these three adventures is information and story hooks for Beast Valley and the South Wilds, lands that lay west of the Colymar tribal lands and outside the Kingdom of Sartar.

The Smoking Ruins is more than a single adventure but a location for exploration and adventure. The information about the ruins is presented so that the GM can use it multiple times. With numerous trips, the heroes can discover more and more about the ruins and the magic that has left a permanent mark in this region. The adventure explores a few different themes such as Companionship, Love, Hate, Devotion, and Loyalty. At times the heroes might find their loyalties in conflict depending on what loyalties they have. Like my own group, some may not even realize a conflict between two or more loyalties exists until the heroes return from their adventure.

That being said, the adventure itself is pretty straightforward and will take several sessions to complete. I like this adventure and all the story elements that it contains. My players and I are looking forward to exploring further the mysteries of the ruins while putting an end to the evil that stains the ancient citadel's. When I ran this adventure, I changed very little from what was present in the book.

As much as I like this adventure, I found this one particularly difficult to run. I read the adventure more than I normally read through any adventure. At the most, I normally read through an adventure twice. I read through The Smoking Ruinsadventure four times and did some additional skimming before each game session to remind myself of key info for that week's session. I'm a minimalistic GM when it comes to prep, so it was very much outside my comfort zone to reread this adventure this many times. The truth be told, normally, I create content for the games I run, but when I started up the Runequest, I wanted to take a break from creating content and wanted to run official content only. I also thought this was a good way to learn how to design adventures for Runequest since the game is very different from what I am used to.

How the book organized the information for the adventure was why I found it difficult to run The Smoking Ruins. There are two sections where the organization and structure make running the adventure a challenge. Out of all of the Acts, these two acts make it difficult to find and match up bits of information - especially during the game itself. But I'll explain this in more detail as we walk through each Act of the adventure.

Trying to Not Spoil this Adventure will be difficult and as such, if you are a player, please stop reading from this point forward. The Surprises in this adventure are well worth discovering during play. If you are planning to run this adventure, please continue reading.

I break down each Act or arch of the adventure below and highlight a few items for a GM to think about while not giving too much away. Afterwhich, I'll list what I added or changed in the adventure that I think improved the adventure overall and helped me run it better. Also, this adventure says it has 5 acts, but I think it's worth breaking one of those acts into two. So below, you'll see 6 Acts; The Festival, The Secret Mission, The Journey, The Ruins, Dancing With Ghosts, and The Return.

Before Act 1, there is a section that gives the GM an overview of the adventure. This section is a barebones look at the various elements of the story. It sets the goals for the heroes. Notes on the pacing of the adventure slowly reveal the various story elements to the players in small chunks. This section gives the GM the history of the Smoking Ruins and some rumors that the heroes might hear about. Some of these rumors and stories are true. At the same time, others are tall tales designed to add confusion. It also covers the NPCs the players will or might interact with during play, some potentially important to the story overall. I only say potentially important because you may not encounter all of them when you run through the adventure. It all comes down to what decisions the players make. For instance, Sara Goodseller is one of the NPCs in the adventures, but her presence is minimal, and my players never encountered her. However, she might be someone who will approach them before their return to the ruins next time.

Artist Jon Hodgson

Act 1, The Festival, sets up the start of the adventure and, hopefully, an emotional hook that may or may not bear fruit for your group of Heroes. The story begins with the heroes at a celebration in Clearwire Fort put on by Queen Leika Black Spear. Here they will make a new friend who will give them their first hints to the adventure that awaits them. I have several things to say about this NPC below, mostly things that I added or handled differently regarding running the NPC. Once they befriend Treya, the Heroes will spend a good portion of the day enjoying her company at one of the local establishments drinking and telling stories. A lot of fun can be had in this first Act - especially once the group starts hitting the wine cups.

GMs should note that this is the first of two sections where the layout makes it a little difficult to run the adventure. Information is presented in an odd, disjointed fashion. For starters, GM only information, description of events, directions on NPC actions and dialogue, and other information are all presented together. One bleeding into the other. One moment you'll be reading the description of an NPC's performance when suddenly GM only information you shouldn't read out loud follows, without any clear break or distinction between the two. It is further complicated when it comes time to find some of those GM notes because you now have to comb through descriptive text and NPC responses to find what you need.

I wish they had broken these down into two sections. The first section tells the GM what the heroes see and hear; NPC dialogue, descriptions of events, etc. While the second section presents the GM notes on various NPC thoughts and feelings and other information that helps run the scene.


Act 2, The Secret Mission, through the NPC, Treya, the Heroes are lead to the Earth Temple and meet Daravala, a Rune Priestess of Ernalda. Daravala has heard from a few contacts about the Smoking Ruins and how there might be a lost shrine to Ernald there. If this is true, she wants to make this year's holy day for Ernalda, which is in two weeks, a special occasion, and wants to surprise the High Priestess with something potentially exciting. However, before she can send an expedition, she needs more info. So first, she hires the heroes to research whether there is any truth to the stories she has heard. Once Daravala has this evidence, she hires the lead an expedition out to the Smoking Ruins to find proof of this lost shrine to Ernalda and return in time for the Holy Day with this evidence. She also requires that the heroes keep this all secret, especially from the High Priestess and Queen Lieka.

Several side stories can be encountered and exposed during this part, which can change and expand the adventure in interesting ways. The heroes can encounter several NPCs as they both gather information and gear. And the GM may even want the heroes to test their loyalties against the secret that Daravala is asking them to keep.




Act 3, The Journey, starts with the heroes taking a slow, rainy boat trip down the river towards Duck Point. If the players are new to Glorantha, Duck Point will be their first experience with Ducks (as in walking talking Donald Duck-like ducks) outside of gooseberry Sprig in Apple Lane. At Duck Point, they discover three potential routes the heroes can take to get to the Smoking Ruins. It's up to the heroes to decide which route they want to take. If they are smart, they will ask around to discover how long each route will take because each route takes a different amount of time and can mean success or failure if the players want to return to Clearwine in time for Ernalda's holy day.

If the GM wishes, the heroes can journey to the ruins narratively with several encounters that the adventure includes or one the GM designed. Or the GM can handwave the whole journey and have them just arrive at the ruins. The adventure gives a few possible encountered to make the journey more interesting. They add interest to the story and the world that the heroes are in. It is better to have these encounters since the heroes can gain awards from their actions after the adventure.





Act 4, The Ruins. The heroes see the Smoking Ruins for the first time and ascend the plateau. At the top of the plateau, they can make several discoveries about the ruins and ancient history before entering the walled citadel.

Here is the second section where the book's layout makes the adventure a little difficult to run. Each area that the heroes can explore has its own section, which is great. However, info for each of those areas can not always be found in those sections. Other sections get into some of the mystery of the ruins, adding layers of info to the various areas as they are encountered. So it is very easy to miss important information or mix up information depending on what the heroes are doing.

An example of this is one of the ways that the heroes can enter the citadel. The first entrance listed is one of the furthest entrances from where the heroes climbed up to the top of the plateau. The other issue is how these are listed on the map. The map uses Numbers, whereas the subheader for these sections uses Letters. It took me a bit of time to work out that Location A was #8 on the map because it's only referenced in the map keys as location A, but while reading the adventure, I wasn't looking at the key but the numbers on the map instead. In any case, don't have two ways to list a location. Either use one or the other - not both. Some descriptive elements for that area are covered under another section and not the "Location A" (or whatever) section.

A good example of this is with "Location A." The first bit of info about Location A is on pg 76. This information includes possible encounters and such. The next set of info about Location A is on Page 83 - this is after several other sections which cover separate areas within the ruins. These descriptive bits can be important to running the game and should have been combined. And this isn't the only point where I had this issue.

Much like in the first Act, how descriptions and GM information flowed together adds difficulties to this section. I had many issues trying to track down info when I needed to answer questions the players had.




Act 5, Dancing with Ghost, sets up the meat of the story and the first big mystery for the adventure, such as why the Smoking Ruins has been burning for 400 years. This Act is broken down into three Parts. The first part is when the heroes first encounter One Eye, the Trollkin Ghost. The second part is when they discover the Mirror Fragment. And the third part is when they potentially get into a fight with some undead.

Part one; here, the heroes meet a Trollkin Ghost by the name of One Eye who needs their help in freeing her family from this curse. She will even lead the players to a place where they can discover what they are looking for if they help her. She is a source of information about the truth behind the ruins, and the adventure gives the GM a lot of information on what kind of questions she can and cannot answer. This ghost only really cares about her family, but to that end, she will help the heroes to the best of her ability if they help her.

Helping One Eye leads to a very contested element of this adventure that many GMs dislike - from what I have seen in the BRP Forums. The heroes learn from the Trollkin what is required to help her - which is performed as a ritual dance. One Eye has developed a ritual that combines Troll magic with what little she knows about the magic placed on the burning trolls in the citadel(Dragon Magic). With it and the heroes' help, One Eye will be able to release the 15 members of her family from the spell - sending them to their place in the underworld. The NPC, the heroes, met at the beginning of the adventure, Treya, discovers something about this ritual that she wants to make use of to make contact with her deceased Grandmother, potentially bringing her Grandmother back to life. The heroes, during the adventure, know how much Treya loves her Grandmother since she speaks of her often. So Treya's motivation should be clear as she tries to twist the Trollkin's blended magic to her own purpose against the One Eye's dire warnings. The Trollkin warns against Treya twisting the spell the way she plans because the ritual that Treya will perform doesn't do what she thinks it does. It is left up to the heroes to decide what they want to do in this situation, which brings us to the crux of the issue I saw online.

Many people online refer to this part of the adventure as being a possible Total Party Kill. They might be correct, but I disagree with them for two reasons.

The Trollkin warns the heroes that they shouldn't let Treya perform the ritual the way she is doing it. So as long as they understand the language the Trollkin is speaking, they are forewarned. Even if they don't understand her words, her body language should be clear IMHO.

The adventure leaves it open for the players to take one of three actions as Treya begins her version of the ritual. They can help Treya and join the ritual dance she is doing - it's similar to the one they were just taught by one eye and can follow her changes pretty readily. They can do nothing and just watch as Treya goes through the motions of the whole ritual. Or they can stop Treya. The adventure leaves it open to the GM if they want both Treya and One Eye's rituals to happen at the same time, as well.

The second reason is something I think some critics have overlooked. If they choose to help Treya and join her in the ritual, there will come to a moment in the ritual where the GM reads the following: "Treya reaches out again, and this time Thinala reaches out as well. They grasp hands. The adventurer should be allowed at this moment to take back their hand. If they choose not to, their ancestor reaches out to grasp the adventurer’s hand".

This moment during the spell is when the GM says, Are you sure you want to continue. If you are a player, you have encountered this often enough by now. GMs have said this type of thing before when the players are pursuing actions with unforeseen negative results. Sometimes they take the warning and change their minds, and other times they decide to continue along the path they have chosen for themselves. The adventure gives the heroes a clear way out in this situation if they want to take it. I will also say that in my games, player's actions can and will have consequences. So I like stuff like this.

Here, Treya will either be lost or kept safe, and it's all down to what the heroes' decide to do in the end. I feel that this is the true heart of this adventure. Treya's love has driven her all her life, and with love, she takes a daring risk to win back her Grandmother's life. Much like the Trollkin's love for her family has kept her ghost sane over the last hundreds of years as she worked to find a way to save them. Much like the artifact of love that the heroes might discover and return to Clearwine with.

Part two happens once the player has either helped One Eye or refused to help her and searched on their own. One area of the ruined citadel appears mostly untouched by the death and darkness that hangs over the whole ruins. Here, they discover, as if waiting for them to bring it forth, a fragment from the God Times, an artifact that was a gift to Ernalda. Up until this moment, the heroes were unsure what they would find in the ruined citadel, and they were unsure if they would return with any good news at all. The artifact they discover turns out to be of far greater importance than they could have hoped for. But now have to survive the ruins of the evil things that lay in wait within its walls.





Part three is the possible fight. The moment the heroes enter the citadel, they can feel a presence within the ruins, something evil and filled with hate that poisons the stone and air of the ruins. Each time the heroes enter a new area, the GM checks to see if Vagargic or its minions have noticed them by making a simple roll. Each time the heroes enter a new section of the ruins, they help the ghost, find the artifact, etc. The chance of discovery rises higher and higher. If they have already helped One Eye and Treya performed their ritual magic and obtain the relic, there is a 100% chance of discovery. At this point, the evil that resides in the ruined citadel knows they are here, and it has plans that it's been waiting to complete for the last 400 years. If it can get just one of the humans, then it has completed its evil plans. But if the heroes are smart, they'll flee the ruins the moment they get a chance.




Act 6, The Return. Once the Heroes have found the artifact that proves that the Smoking Ruins is a sacred site to Ernalda and worth exploring further, it's a race against time to get back to Clearwine. If the heroes are lucky, they will give the artifact to Daravala, who can surprise the High Priestess with their discovery. The adventure results have various effects on what happens when they return to Clearwine and the following holy day celebration. The journey back should be glossed over for the most part except one encounter, but only if the Centaurs were encountered on the way out, to begin with.
This section of the adventure is great because it walks the Players and GM through a holy day celebration. The description paints a beautiful and detailed image of the rituals of a hoy day for the Ernalda cults. Be warned - reading through this out loud is completely worth it and takes roughly about an hour to get through. Each hero will hopefully gain a place within the celebration so that they can feel involved. And if they come back with the artifact, it will make a spectacular showing in the climax of the ritual celebration.

What I would add or change to the Smoking Ruins adventure.

• Treya of Ezel is a great NPC and she should be introduced to the players as soon as possible. Seasons before this adventure, if you are at all able to do so. I introduced her to my group after the events of The Dragon of the Thunder Hills. She came to them and wanted to write the song/saga of their adventures and their fight with the dragon. She is a huge nerd for all things the Storm Age and so her hearing about the reawakening of a Storm Age Goddess at the end of that adventure will make her want to know more about the heroes and the Queen's Tomb. 
• Another thing I did with Treya leading into this adventure was to ask a friend to play her in the game, with full knowledge about what was going to happen to the character during the adventure. I know from a wealth of experience from both sides of the GM screen that players are more often saddened by the dramatic loss of a PC than they are by the loss of an NPC, no matter how much they like the NPC, it will never hit them as hard as losing a PC. So I really wanted this experience to be heartbreaking for them and had a friend play the NPC as a player character under the guise of "Trying out the game with an interest in joining" and me lending them an NPC known to the group whose skills could be useful.
  This 100% worked for my group, by the by. They never suspected a thing and were super depressed by the loss of Treya. They were also completely shocked when I revealed what my friend and I had done. It's going to be a while before I can trick again, but so satisfying. On the bonus side though, that friend will be joining us for real since she really enjoyed Runequest and playing with the group.
• Make Scratches' Map is pretty annoying since the adventures make it sound as if there are many things on that map that the Handout in the adventure does actually have on them. There isn't a great workaround for this and I hope someday We'll get a better version.
• The boat trip downriver to Duck Point can take between one to two days and since the adventure is all about the heroes being under the pressure for time, I had one of my players make a Luck check by rolling their POW. If it failed then the boat trip took two days, if they succeeded, then the boat trip only took one day. If they had fumbled, then it would have taken three days. maybe some accident happened along the way, like getting stuck on a sandbar, angered a river god, or were attacked by a rogue Broo. 
• In Duck Point, my players were smart and hired a guide to lead them to The Smoking Ruins. This cost them some money but since they planned for this beforehand, the cost for the guide was included in the funds for the expedition that Daravala gave them.
• There is a lot of advice to be found online about how to run this adventure. A few posts on the Runequest section of the official Chaosium BRP Forums for instance. One particularly good source I the Jonstown Compendium adventure on Drivethrurpg, "The Duel at Dangerford" by Nick Brooke, has some notes and suggestions that are worth giving a look through.
• It was only while running Vamargic that I ran into some issues with how the character is presented in the adventure. There are a few facts that are explained about how to run Vamargic. 1) Vamargic is a Spirit that is trapped inside his Burning corpse. 2) Vamargic has the Eye Necklace which imprisons several spirits who can cast Spirit Magic spells for Vamargic. Vamargic can also cast his own Spirit Magic spells by using the MP of the spirits in the necklace. 3)Vamagic has no POW stat. 
  Now here is a question for you. How does Vamargic cast his own Spirit Magic Spells if he has no POW stat? Normally, you would roll your POW stat to cast spirit magic, but without it you don't have anything to base this off of. Also, how does he resist magic as well? Does every spell cast at Vamargic auto succeed? 
  I asked these questions online in a few places and got back some very similar responses. Vamargic is run like a Vamipre, or Undead creatures don't have POW and can't cast Spirit Magic, and several other responses that are of a similar vein. For me, none of these answers work for me and that mainly has to do with the fact that they all ignore many of the aspects that the adventure tells you about how to run the Vamargic NPC. Mainly that he is a ghost trapped in a burning corpse - so not a normal Undead creature, and that he can Cast his "Own" spirit magic spells by using the MP of the spirits in the necklace. The simple answer to the issue isn't to gut parts of the NPC but to assume that the NPC has a typo that left him without a POW stat. Adding a POW stat is the easy fix. Breaking the threat of the NPC by removing half of his power isn't a fix IMHO. Spirits have POW - Ghosts have POW. 
  My solution is to just give Vamargic a POW equal to what is expected of a Rune Lord of his reputation. So at a minimum, he should have a POW of 18. (amendment: See below)
• Can the heroes defeat Vamargic and end his continued existence in the ruins? There are people of two minds on this subject and it's really up to the GM how they want to handle this. One group thinks that One Eye's ritual has left a hole in the Dragon magic that keeps the troll spirits from moving on. They suggest that this causes Vamargic to pass on to the underworld once he is defeated in battle. So for these people fighting and defeating Vamargic is how you end the curse. This doesn't work for me though since, in my opinion, the magic One-Eye used was only targeted at her family and not Vamargic's forces. Also, once the spell is completed, I believe the way that she opened is now closed again and not just left open forever. So if and when the heroes encounter Vamargic, if they defeat him - he'll just respawn at some point since he and his forces are still bound by the dragon magic. What I plan to do is have the heroes find another way to end the curse. This will give them a lot more to do in the long run. (amendment: See below)
• Another thing that a GM will have to prepare beforehand is the stats for each of the Spirits bound to the Eye Necklace. The adventure gives you what Spirit Magic Spells they know but not what their stats are. If you have the Bestiary, then just follow the rules for creating spirits on pg 164.
• There are a few points where the GM has to make up some of the stories that Treya tells about her grandmother and herself. There is not much information given about these stories other than that they involve Tusk Riders. So I wrote up a few for myself. I'll include these below. They are told in the first person as if Treya was speaking. These stories are rough but you can use them if you want in your game.
  
• Here are some of Thinala Tindal's history that I patched together from the little information presented about her as well as some that I just made up. Thinala was born in Esrolia in 1562. She fought in the battle of Grizzly Peak and Alda- Chur in 1582. in 1579 she won her right to have a child by undergoing a deadly Ba Beester Gor ritual. In 1600, she was a bodyguard for the Feather Horse Queen's brother, The Sartar Prince Teasarin, and died when a moonbeam caused a stampede of Dinosaurs. Rumors that Queen Lieka has heard suggest that Thinala was somehow responsible for the prince's death. 

Stories of Thinala Tindal of Ezel, The Queen's Defender

• How an Axe Medien of Babeester Gor won the right to bear a child.

Thinala was with child, this is taboo among the Axe Maidens of the Babeester Gor cult and normally they are put through rites that cleanse their bodies of the child sooner after its discovery. However, Thinala Tindal of Ezel refused the rite, not wanting to lose the last gift from the one she had loved – now gone to the halls of the palace of the dead. She entered the Ax Hall seeking to pass through trails only rumored over and impossible to survive to win her right to bear this child and become a mother. Here she passed the first trial and gained the Blunted Ax. From here she was to follow the hallow halls of death and dark caverns, to find her way in the dark to Babston, a holy place for all Babeester Gor cultists, especially the Ax Maidens. When she emerged from the earth like Babeester Gor did from Ernalda's corpse, she fought her sisters to gain their acknowledgment of her prowess and right to live. Then proved herself again when she sated her thirst with the blood split during the battle – each drop tasting of the sweetest beer to her lips. Her third test was secreted, kept even from me but when she passed through the final test, Babeester Gor appeared before Thinala giving her the Mother's Ax, a mark of the goddess' blessing for my Grandmother to give birth to my mother, Pala of the Orlmarth Clan.

• Thinala battle's the Tusk Riders.

There she was, Thinala, The Feathered Horse Queen's strongest Defender, separated from her companions and trapped. To her back was a steep drop off down to the Broken River, in front of her was a pack of truth-less Tuskers seeking her blood. They had been raiding the homesteads and towns of Vendref and so Thinala and her companions were sent out from Muse Roost to run these filthy beasts down and place the heads on spikes as a warning to their honorless kin. However, during a night raid, Thinala became separated from her group and lost. The next day, however, the Tuskers from the night before, those who survived, picked up her trail and were running down. Thinalal, wasn't a hot-headed fool and sought out a battleground that gave her the advantage. Unfortunately, the sheep of luck was not with her this day and she found herself in a parlous position. With not but her Goddess blessed ax in hand, she waited to the best possible moment before using the tusker's deadly steeds against them. The foul-smelling beasts didn't know what was happening until the first giant bore dropped, toppled by my grandmother's quick ax strokes to the beasts' legs as she darted under the Tusker's javelins and taunts. When the first Tusker's beast fell, rolling as its legs could no longer hold itself up, confusion rushed through its companions. Once a few of the beasts fell to her attacks, Thinala was able to make bloody work of the Tuskers that fell from their beasts, catching those witless dung eaters flatfooted – removing their heads from shoulders before they knew what danger they had fooled with. If they had known the morning that they were to encounter the Queen's Defender, the Babeester Gor Ax maiden, Thinala Tindal of Ezel, they would have turned a run like the cowards they were. Instead, My grandmother fertilized the soil and feed the river them the gore that she left of their corpses during the short fight. When her companions found Thinala, she sleep among the bodies of the raiders, with a smile on her face from the pleasure of the slaughter. It was said of those who found her that they hesitated to approach because the glow of Babeester Gor was still upon her – the God of Vengeance was surely pleased with the deeds of her beloved Ax Maiden.

Final thoughts

Well, that is everything I have for this one. It was a large adventure and took a lot of time to try and gather up all my thoughts on it in one place. I think it took y group about 6 or 7 sessions to get through the whole, playing about 3 - 4 hours per session. I'm really looking forward to when they return to the ruins and have a few ideas about what they will be doing while there. The group lost one hero to the ritual that Treya performed. They all helped Treya but all but one of them took the hint to stop themselves. For a moment it looked very much like everyone was going to have to make the grandmothers of each of their characters so that they can continue to play. Instead, we had to introduce a grazer to the party while they were still in the ruins. Now the party is planning their first heroquest, seeking to reclaim their lost companions from the underworld.

Amendment

While rereading some of the Smoking Ruins adventure I came upon this following text near the beginning of the book, pg 40, that helps illuminate the issue with whether or not the Atonement magic weakened the Dragonewts magic - making it easier to defeat Vamargic. 

The powerful magic in Vamargic’s necklace did not prevent his physical death but allowed him to escape the full impact of the Dragonewts’ ritual. Vamargic is not trapped as his lesser minions are, and he has created a community of slave troll spirits and skeletons that inhabit the ruins and hunt for intruders, killing them as they are apprehended. Vamargic continues his existence as a ghost, killing any interlopers on what he now considers his domain.

This, for me, hammers home that Vamargic is not undead like a ghoul, vampire, or revenant. He is a ghost. It also shows that he is not fully under the Dragonwets spells - so its fully possible that either 1) even in the unlikely case that he was to atone, it would free him from the ruins, or 2) or that the Dragonewt's spell doesn't bind him solely to the ruins. The necklace seems to be key to his defeat and why he remains, in my mind. But I'll leave you with whatever conclusions you come up with you for your game.