Retro Commentary On The Reskinning Of I4 Oasis of the White Palm (1e) By Tracy Hickman & Philip Meyers For Your Old School Campaigns

"Tired and sore, you struggle over the burning sands toward the long-forgotten city. Will you reach the place in time to save yourselves from the evil efreeti? The sun beats down, making your wounds stiff and worsening the constant thirst that plagues anyone who travels these waterless wastes. But there is hope - are those the ruins over there?"


So my little corner of Connecticut got hit with a pretty good mix of snow & crap yesterday. I spent most of the day shoving my eight hundred & fifty foot drive by hand hence why this blog entry is late. But some corner of my mind has been busy at work thinking about the next portion of my Ancient & Accursed Terra adventure locations after speaking with friends the other night. The second part of 'I' series of modules is I4 Oasis of the White Palm (1e) By Tracy Hickman & Laura Hickman. This adventure was heavily modified by me for a group  players back in 2013 and the Oasis became Iram of the Pillars- Iram of the Pillars (Arabic: إرَم ذات العماد‎‎, Iram dhāt al-ʿimād), also called "Aram", "Irum", "Irem", "Erum", or the "City of the tent poles," is a reference to a lost city, country or area mentioned in the Qur’an & the writings of the Lovecraft circle.

Photo by 9591353082
This place is in Souther Oman (Dhofar)

It was originally  a city of the cloud giant hybrid rulers but was struck by dimensional weapon from the Nameless City before vanishing across the planes. The PC's had to recover a mad wizard's journal which had an incantation in it based upon this little tid bit ;"Another identified source is the 9th Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, whose description of "Irem, the City of Pillars"  Lovecraft copied into his commonplace book: "which yet, after the annihilation of its tenants, remains entire, so Arabs say, invisible to ordinary eyes, but occasionally, and at rare intervals, revealed to some heaven-favoured traveller." "

The reason why I've been thinking about using I4 with Adventurer, Conqueror, King is the numerous opportunities for role playing & interacting with notable NPCs had been an important element of  classic era TSR adventures since at least T1: "The Village of Hommlet" (1979), but the idea of political differences being a focus is a part of I4. The PC's have the opportunity to build alliances, forge new in roads, and build up the ranks towards domain play. There's also the opportunity for a Lovecraftian twist.There are plenty of opportunities within I4 to expand upon the various cults of the adventure to create your own  in roads for various other adventures later on. "In Oasis of the White Palm, the PCs arrive at the Oasis of the White Palm, which is on the brink of turmoil. Shadalah, who is to be the bride of the sheikh's eldest son, has been kidnapped. The sheikh believes her to be held by his enemies somewhere in the oasis" Behind the plot is  my version of Ghazia an old public domain jungle comic book character that I heavily modified. Ghazia was a Terran  7th level priestess & witch  who worshiped a vulture headed demonic aspect of the Black Pharaoh. She has deep ties with the Cthulhu Cult that uses the lost city and its environs. This also ties back into " the mystery before the PC's can progress further.^[3] Once the characters make the contacts they need at the oasis, they continue to the temple of Set and the crypt of Badr al-Mosak, and the adventure concludes in the city of Phoenix; there, the PCs must obtain the three Star Gems (the one from Amun-Re's tomb in the previous adventure and two more introduced here) and free the djinni if they plan to move on to the next module."



The complicated bit is balancing both cults, plus the weird adventure aspects along with the traps, tricks, and adventure locations with Oasis of the White Palm especially within the  temple of Set and the crypt of Badr al-Mosak. Even though the PC's had made it this far & had gone up levels there were certain traps that really rattled the players such as the Pit of Everfall which took out three PC's in one go. This was a trap that echoed something straight out of Indiana Jones.


The PC's had picked up vital clues within The Lost City (B4)  by Tom Moldvay. Even though this was a black powder era style pulpy adventure, guns did not make that much of a difference. Alliances, role playing and politic seemed to get the party much further. This wasn't strictly a sword and sorcery adventure. This was an OSR hybrid with bits and pieces of several systems in play.


The introduction of black powder weapons was a really big deal for one or two of the players who thought it gave some great advantage to the characters within the system. I've run a number of Lamentations of the Flame Princess games along with various old school campaigns and in my experience black powder is far more a liability then a hindrance  for game play. This is one of the reasons why Guns of War from Adventurer, Conqueror, King is on the table for this style of pulpy adventure.

Retro Commentary On The Reskinning Of I3 Pharoah (1e) By Tracy Hickman & Laura Hickman For Your Old School Campaigns

Your skin was blistered all day before the hot desert sun sank slowly below the horizon. Now, the deep blue mists of the desert night swirl about you in the lazy wind. The cool night air seems to soak up the heat of the endless desert sands. You shiver as you and your friends huddle around your campfire, glancing nervously at the giant pyramid in the distance. There is an eerie and mysterious feeling about that place.

Gradually, the winds change direction, carrying a thin streak of white mist that swirls into the shape of a faceless man dressed in ancient robes. The moonlight seems to shine through him as he raises his arms toward the pyramid and speaks.
"I am the Pharoah Amun-re, son of Takosh-re of the House of Mo-pelar. I am now only a shadow who has walked these sands for a thousand years in search of wise and mighty warriors to break into my pyramid and plunder my tomb."

The winds shift again; his robes begin to swirl about him and he fades back into the mists and winds. Why does this desert spirit want you to plunder his tomb? Can you survive the challenges of a pyramid that has stood for a thousand years? Or are you being led into a trap?

So here in my little corner of Connecticut we're getting ready for some snow, I spent a good portion of the day with my father traveling from store to store. But I've had some little corner of my mind thinking about other Ancient & Accursed Terra locations because last night I got off the phone with some friends. They turned me on to I3 Pharaoh, possibly reskinning it for use as an ad junction adventure for use with my upcoming campaign. First of all my apologies to Tracy and Laura Hickman who are friends of mine & folks I met way back in Two Thousand or so at a GenCon. What I'm about to do isn't pretty to I3 Pharaoh but it was partly inspired by this review of the module from the Dungeon of Signs.

Years back about 2013, ran a group through a highly modified I3 where the desert was once the domain of the mysterious cloud giant space gods & their servants/rulers the hybrids kings. The desert was full of their green ruined ceramic & porcelain cities which stand besides the black & sinister pyramids. The desert is very dangerous surrounded by strange and deadly ley lines that flicker & explode with mystic energies. Dimensional doors open & strange time space vortexes assault the deserts as a result of some ancient war that happened thousands of years ago. Doorways open to Carcosa, Qelong,Narcosa, and many other worlds & those unlucky enough to fall through them seldom return 'normal'.

Vatungbaurnag is a city that has made part of its fortunes from the gold, artifacts,treasures, lost black technologies and more from fools who have pulled many things from the desert ruins. Think of the city as a combination of 1500's Constantinople & Alexandria with all of the drama that goes with those legendary cities wrapped up in one cosmopolitan package.Vatungbaurnag is a Class II market.
It is from this city that my modified version of Pharaoh picks up with the actual plot branching from;"In Pharaoh, the player characters (PCs) are driven into the desert for a crime they did not commit. The characters journey to the sunken city of Pazar and from there must travel to the haunted tomb of an ancient pharaoh.^[3] While in the desert, the characters encounter the spirit of Amun-Re, a pharaoh cursed to wander the desert until his tomb is robbed. Amun-Re begs the PCs to remove his staff of ruling and Star Gem from his tomb to break his curse. The tomb was built to be thief-proof and has so far lived up to its reputation.^[2] While in Amun-Re's pyramid, the characters can use an item called the dome of flight to control or reverse gravity; carelessness can cause them to fall upwards. The palm trees in this room bear exploding fruit.^[4] The characters also encounter a maze with numerous traps."
Pazar now holds the unliving corpse of a cloud giant lich which will awaken if the PC's are not careful. Amun-Re has been cursed by his unliving lord to wander the desert until his brothers return from the depths of space.


The PC's are driven into the desert by my version of Ghazia an old public domain jungle comic book character that I heavily modified. Ghazia was a Terran  7th level priestess & witch  who worshiped a vulture headed demonic aspect of the Black Pharaoh. She used an army of re-animated cultist mummies and had a demonic familiar vulture. Ghazia also allied herself with the Spotted Men, a group of mercenary Lovecraftain cultists the players had earlier run afoul. She's not someone to trifle with as she has a deal going with the ghouls of Pazar.


So what's happening in the desert surrounding the pyramid of Amun-Re? Well he's actually the last in a long line of pharaohs who were in charge of the empire of Hyperboreans who ruled this land through their vassal pharaohs. The PC's have been set up & are now being used as cannon fodder for a long term plan for power by several minor factions in the desert wastelands surrounding Vatungbaurnag. The tribes of ghouls have moved into the lost city and the pyramids and had deep Lovecraftian ties to several of the local cult factions.



I took I3 & moved it away from strictly the pseudo Egyptian theme in the Forgotten Realms resulting in it having a far more black powder and sword & sorcery base with far more pulpy leanings. This made an adventure with a backbone akin to the Weird Tales roots which suits  AS&SH. The lesser undead ecology of this adventure reskinning has far more in line with this blog entry then it does the Forgotten Realms leanings that I3 has taken on.

This makes this reskin a very nice bridge gap right to the The Lost City (B4)  by Tom Moldvay.