Slavers had such great personalities to encounter. Some worthy has produced several follow-up modules featuring them. I liked the stand alone set up and always used it this way. I've reused it again with just the encounters and treasure with a different caverns setup.
We had the compotation module and it added a nice start -- you are hired by a Wild Coast noble to get some plant or something from the southern Jungles, but as the ship is leaving, the town is raided by slavers and you have to rush back and start looking for that person. It also includes more tie-ins and fleshed out the slavers and the city. It had a nice twist that you encounter the same slavers repeatedly and wonderful twist where the PCs are defeated and taken prisoner -- and all their magical items, gold, weapons, armor taken. It's fun having 6th-7th level PCs surviving without gear, trying to earn money, get spell components, fight 'easy' encounters without gear, etc. This said, most run-throughs it was kind of meh. We often reached 6th or 7th in ToEE so we typically only needed to reach 9th or so to start the giant series so we often blew through this one. Giants and QotDW was somehow a better series. The Slavers seemed like it was something of its own.
Funny you should upload this. We just started running A1 in my campaign. Incidentally, I always thought it was weird that the top level is split into two completely separate dungeons.
We are at the end of a 20 session run of this module, right off the back of ToEE. I created a big dense Highport sandbox. A1 worked well as kind of a 2 session finale to Highport. I left the temple of Gruumsh but put it in a district with a temple of the eye. For the narrative, I have the ruling Orc tribe allied with ToEE creating new friction in most of the other tribes. It turned out good, but It was almost as much of an effort as ToEE itself.
I played through the A Series as a kid cutting my ttrpg teeth on the D&D rules having switched from another old school set of rules 'The Fantasy Trip'. My dad played dungeon master for those for me. Fast forward to today 40 years later and I am running the Slavers series as a solo-journaling adventure for myself with the exact same characters. I just completed the Slavers Cove near Dyvers and dealing with Markessa the Red in the Reynolds & Pramas Slavers source book and I now have one of the slavers' ships to take down the Selintan River and down to Hardby and Bright Tower. It has been fantastic reliving old memories and creating new ones for a beloved adventure and setting. Love your channel, Joseph! Thank you for helping to keep the Greyhawk spirit alive in the community. 🙂
I have actually been reading through Scourge of the Slavelords A1-A4 in preparation for bringing it into my existing campaign. There is a great lead into A1 from ToEE at the beginning of the module. I will say this module does have a lot of “railroad” feel to it so I will be expanding my players options while maintaining the progression as best I can.
Occupied Highport got it’s treatment in the 2e Slavers module. It is actually one of the only follow up modules for classic modules like Return to the that I really liked. Plus my characters killed Turrosh Mak!
I have the pod a0-a4 personally and definitely can't wait to run it in 1e for a group as soon as i can find people willing to try 1e. Lol But I think this would definitely be part of my greyhawk campaign when that finally kicks off. I have a 3e blackmoor one that I have a couple of players who are excited to be a part of.
I ran this a few times. Actually built a campaign from U1-U3 to A0-A4 to GDQ series and it worked really well. Was a very fun campaign that took us about seven years to complete. Didn’t take much at all to bind the stories together and keep the party on track.
The Slavers series always captured part of me - I sort of love the pirate stuff in early D&D, and I don't mind that 'stripped of your weapons' vibe part in the series either (I am FAR more familiar with the combined Against the Slavers version, unlike Hommlet where I feel that I always bonded to the base version more than the expanded version... Side note: I've never run the Temple proper - I always replaced it, pretending - in a way (not out of disrespect) - that T1-4 never existed. Always seemed that this should have been a level one starting campaign - unlike the Drow stuff, the whole Queen series - which felt more, well, suited to higher levels.
I like about 2/3rds of A1. I ran it bitd and omitted the 1/3rd I didn’t like. I remember that everyone had fun. I liked the inclusion of Gruumsh. I like my orcs with orc leaders and orc gods unless they’re mooks in the service of some greater baddie and GH has plenty of that
I think we're all bitter about the loss of pig faces orcs and Drow that we have to ask "Excuse me...are you an evil Drow or are you a nice Drow? Just wanted to ask before I attack you." *looks for a consent form* lol
The orcs in the temple are wearing plate mail and wielding halberds and this makes them very tough but slow and allows the party to focus on the cleric first for those who use ac adjustments and weapon speed factors before the assassin and troll launch their attacks If you don’t use them the npc’s will be a challenge so I thought that was a good strategy deliberately put into the module However I thought the lower dungeon maps were small and cramped notably areas 12 & 15, but could be augmented easily Area 17 is a lame cheap shot at players while the Aspis in the cell area could be delt easily with little imagination All in all it’s okay but tournament modules always have a lack of consistency in their design and certainly feel more like a gauntlet that without the time pressure can be exploited
Nice review. A couple times BITD I would run U1 as a campaign starter as its one of my very favorite modules. But I did not care for the extended plot and U2/3, So I would work it into an investigation that ties everything into the Slavers instead. I would use just A1 and A2 and do my own "finale" based on the game events vs continuing with the Aerie and the Dungeon. I feel A3 and A4 are just too much of the same thing..they drag the series out. As Tournament modules I'm sure they would fare better. I think these are modules that play better than they read.
Truth be told, I was never a fan of the pig faced orcs, but to each their own I say. Also I find it interesting that this module has different maps and rules for tournament play. I do wonder if you covered Secrets of Bone Hill by chance. That module is one of my faves.
Many memories of this module, as it was one my group actually had back in the day, we ran it a few times. I liked the traps, and environmental encounters - but feel it would have benefitted from more mature players and DM as we didn't really play-up the slaver aspect of it which could have set a more sinister tone.
From what i understand Highport was over run by humanoids after they were driven from the Lortmil mountains 510ish CY. Highport didnt honor its agreements to assist in the humanoid purge so when they fled into the Pomarj, Keoland, Veluna and Ulek didnt come to their aid. At least i thought i read that somewhere am i way off?
It's funny: I was a 2E kid, but my favorite edition in terms of aesthetics is 3rd, and my homebrew campaign setting reflects that. As a result, In always think of Orcs as being Chaotic Evil, and it trips me up from time to time when they aren't.
I wasn't a fan of the A series either, but it's so iconic that I wanted to include it in my mega campaign. I think a few people have already mentioned this, but it would be great to tweak the games so you can do T1-T4 > A1-A4 > G/D/Q. The Slavelords are providing humanoid recruits from the Pomarj and taking slaves back with them to Highport (answering how the Temple is recruiting so many humanoids per day/week). I'd truncate a lot of the A series and try to have the Slavelords escape Highport by sailing west to meet up with their connections in the G/D/Q series, possibly stopping close to Saltmarsh or a bit further west.
