Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG Adventure Path #1: The OG
Linking classic-style published DCC RPG modules together to try and get your characters to 8th level and beyond!
This article is the first in my series putting together a zero-to-zero campaign using published Goodman Games modules. If you haven’t yet, check out the introduction to this series to get context, tips and to see the other 4 Adventure Paths!
This adventure path uses the oldest and most revered of the DCC RPG modules, and may be considered the “Harley Path”, since it uses primarily adventures published by famed DCC RPG author, Harley Stroh.
Warning: this article contains many spoilers for the adventures on the path.
Advantages to this Adventure Path:
- Lots of people have played these adventures, so there is considerable advice, VTT maps, and other resources out there for them.
- This path has the most ‘classic’ DCC RPG feel.
Disadvantages to this Adventure Path:
- These modules were published in rapid succession at the beginning of the DCC RPG, before a lot of the current standards for adventures and editing were made, so they aren’t as even in tone or rules. But it’s pretty easy for the Judge to link them into a consistent-feeling campaign with just a few tweaks.
- The “gonzo” feel of these adventures may not be to everyone’s taste. Check out the other Adventure Paths in this series for options with a more gritty, dreamy, or sci-fi feel.
Note that I have tried to link to the Print+PDF version of the modules referenced in this article, but things like the Gongfarmer’s Almanac are available as free PDFs as well as the print copies that I linked to. Personally, I only buy PDFs these days, as I like to be able to print extra copies of maps and handouts, and highlight and annotate the heck out of the module before I run it. (I also lack for shelf space).
Here we go, with that most famous of Level 0 PC deathtraps…
Level 0: Sailors on the Starless Sea
The most revered published module for DCC RPG, Sailors is a complete hero’s journey masquerading as a simple dungeon crawl. While officially a Level 0 (aka ‘Funnel’) adventure, many folks recommend leveling characters up after they exit the actual Starless Sea, since the final encounters can be a lot more fun once characters have first level abilities.
What makes this adventure a classic is that is exemplifies so much of what makes DCC RPG different (and great). Law vs. Chaos themes, unique monsters, hidden treasure, extremely challenging situations with no pre-defined solution, rewards for thinking ahead, and lots of flexibility for players to execute creative plans to avoid combat. And the biggest one: the chance for even the lowest level adventurers to cross paths with demigods and have world-changing impact. Who wants to face a few kobolds in a cave when you can save your entire village and the known world?
Resources: This module has tons of resources available for it, including the official Virtual Table Top Map and Token Pack, and the official FoundryVTT implementation.
Coming from Portal Under the Stars: if you already started your campaign with the funnel that is in the core rulebook, then you can use Sailors as your Level 1 adventure with no problem. Just realize that the courtyard has many perils, so you might be a bit more careful with letting players know what their characters are sensing. Same with the PvP near the menhir. To bridge between them, you can simply have the adventurers return to their town after going to the Portal, and hear about the beast-men, or perhaps they get a reputation from their adventures in Portal, and the village on the other side of the mountains sends for help against the beast-men.
Sailors ends with the characters on a ship, and that’s where we’ll pick up in the next module.
Note that the DCC Day 2022 Module called Chanters in the Dark is explicitly written to follow-up Sailors, so that one is worth checking out to insert here.
Level 1: Doom of the Savage Kings
I love this module perhaps more than any of the rest because of the role-playing opportunities within. It has a strong Village of Hommlet feel.
I enjoy playing all the characters in town, especially the priest; and I enjoy playing out all the drama between the Jarl, his minions, and the PCs.
This adventure has a dungeon with many hidden parts, and the final encounter can be extremely epic. The mystery of how to defeat the Hound also tends to get players’ deductive juices flowing.
Coming from Sailors: I suggest having the ship wash ashore a near Hirot, with the standing stones in view of the crash site. You can either use the river that is on the Doom map, (which might require you move the standing stones to the west, upstream of Hirot), or add a river or shore to the map to the northeast of the standing stones. I usually start by saying something like this:
“Your ship rockets out of the Starless Sea, and you crash down from a huge height into a rapidly rushing river. You desperately try to control it, but the ship is falling apart with terrifying speed.
Miraculously, you manage to steer to a landing on the shore of a heavily forested area. Sadly, the ship disintegrates upon landing, and you barely scramble up onto the shore before the remains are washed away downstream.
In the distance, you can see massive standing stones, and what appear to be a number of lit torches. A road parallels the river, and it appears to lead toward the stones.”
You can have the villagers comment on seeing some bits of the ship or perished beast-men that washed past the town.
Motivation-wise, the setup of Doom has you coming upon the impending sacrifice of a villager, which is usually a perfect setup for most groups, so you can just run with the module from there.
I typically say that Hirot is quite far (hundreds of miles) from where Sailors takes place, and that they have never heard of it.
After they deal with the Hound, you can have them leave the area under encouragement from the Jarl, or if they have caused a coup in Hirot, perhaps they are bored and looking for a place to spend their gold. The big city of Punjar lies along the King’s road, and promises to have better equipment, and tons of adventure. One group I ran wanted to go to Punjar to report the Jarl to the Overseer, which is another great option.
However they are motivated, they head along the King’s road towards Punjar, and that’s when they will come across the Emerald Enchanter’s fortress.
Resources: There is also an official FoundryVTT implementation of this module.
More Level 1 Adventure: If you want a second Level 1 adventure to slot in here, you can use Tower of the Black Pearl — which is a nautical adventure. As a result, it might be good to do it first, directly after Sailors, tweaking the intro so that perhaps their ship ends up coming across the tower after days of sailing aimlessly. That said, I don’t recommend Tower for most campaigns, since it has such world-changing effects. I find it better as a one shot, or perhaps to set up a very specific kind of campaign. But you can run with it, and then have the PCs make it to the Doom intro above after escaping the Tower in their creaky Starless ship. Another option is Elzemon and the Blood Drinking Box from Chaos Rising. This is a short adventure, but never fails to create crazy situations and memories.
Level 2: The Emerald Enchanter
I could have picked “The Curse of the Kingspire” to stick with Harley Stroh adventures here, but I have a particular love of the The Emerald Enchanter, and I like how easy it is to slot into this Adventure Path. I also think Kingspire is harder to run, and much harder to play. Better for more experienced groups.
I really like the exploration of this dungeon, and the fact that it has a bit of a reverse difficulty curve. The mosaic monster at the beginning is extremely tough, and may consume a lot of resources that players often save for the final battle. Many players get surprised by this encounter, and want to save all their resources for ‘the final encounter’. But they may suffer consequences if they don’t dig deep early on.
Coming from Doom of the Savage Kings: They leave Hirot on the King’s road, and come across a cluster of very small villages, all of which report that a strange green fortress has recently appeared in the hills. Digging deeper, they find that folks have been disappearing from the villages, and then they head off to stop the Emerald Enchanter before this village ends up like theirs did with the beast-men. For less altruistic groups, you can have a river wash out the road, or a bad storm, or something else that prevents them from making their way immediately to Punjar.
Resources: There is an official FoundryVTT version of this adventure.
More Level 2 Adventure: The obvious choice here is The Emerald Enchanter Strikes Back from the Gen Con 2014 Program Guide; the direct sequel. Another good option is Curse of the Kingspire, as mentioned above. They can hear rumors of demon worship in the area, and have the Jarl (or new leadership of Hirot) ask them to investigate it. This is a good place to insert many of the holiday adventures, including It Consumes, The Doom that Came to Christmas Town, The Corpse that Love Built, Trials of the Toy Makers. Most of these can be “something happened on the road to Punjar” inserts. You can also just make them one-shots with fresh Level 2 characters, since the players will be familiar with how to play them at this point. You can also run Fate’s Fell Hand at this level, but I am extremely neutral on that adventure — it has not gone well any time I have tried to run it. Glipkerio’s Gambit specifically takes place starting in Punjar (where the PCs are headed), so it can be slotted in here, but I am fairly neutral on that adventure as well. Glipkerio is in Chaos Rising, and also available standalone.
3rd Level — The Jewels of the Carnifex
This is a challenging adventure on many levels, and one that I struggled with both times I ran it. But it has so many unique qualities, and the Carnifex looms large in DCC lore.
This adventure takes place in Punjar; and will set the stage for Punjar adventures to come.
Punjar was Harley’s version of Lankhmar before they had the Lankhmar license; you can look at the pre-DCC RPG Punjar modules for city-specific information, including this map.
I highly suggest you read this adventure very carefully, and highlight all the events and notes for the end. There are some editing challenges with this book that make it a bit hard to follow. This is an adventure that can lead to some intra-party conflict, so it’s worth being very clear about things before players get their hands on the artifacts in this module. The atmosphere in this adventure is like nothing else, and worth playing up.
Coming from The Emerald Enchanter: By this point, the PCs are usually hungry for magic items, and to trade in their hard-won gold for things to make them more effective. At this point in the campaign, there is typically a lot of trading and shopping, which can be a lot of fun as you make up various vendors that can send them on quests around the city. I often end up having them meet the Overseer of Punjar, who can take on a lot of different aspects depending on the nature of your group. If they are reporting the Jarl of Hirot, he may be grateful that you dealt with the hound and reported the situation, and reward the players with further quests (e.g. dealing with the Carnifex cult). Perhaps they want to buy a house, and the Overseer can help them find a place in a ‘nice’ neighborhood. This is a good place to seed in a lot of other adventures, and as you can see from the “More 3rd Level Adventure” section below, you have many options. The simplest way to have them get into Jewels of the Carnifex is to have the Overseer directly ask them to look into the rise of the Carnifex cult, and point them to the hidden entrance. But you can also have it come from a vendor, who is annoyed at the return of the Carnifex cult, or they can even see the guards around the old temple at night and ask around.
More Level 3 Adventure: You can really explore Punjar here at this level, and it’s a good place to slot in your own creations, especially based on desires or needs of the PCs. For published adventures: first up is The Jeweler That Dealt in Stardust from Chaos Rising. It’s just a delightful and relatively short city-based adventure that is easily worked in to the flow once they are in Punjar. Other choices include the nice interlude adventure The Orm Lies Down on Punjar from the 2016 Gongfarmer’s Almanac, and Big Trouble in Little Punjar from the same book.
Holiday adventures you can slot in here include The Web of All-Torment (which is really scary…I think it’s better as a one-shot, but it is definitely worth running), and Advent of the Avalanche Lords. For Avalanche Lords, either the Punjar Overseer or one of their merchant contacts can ask them to go to Krinnerton to deliver something. This can also work for All-Torment, they just stopped at an inn along they way and got stuck. With a little work, you can also run Lankhmar adventures here in Punjar, specifically The Fence’s Fortuitous Folly (which is Level 2, but you can easily run it for Level 3). Since this is a city campaign, you might take a look at 101 City Encounters to add more flavor and mini-adventures.
Level 4: Blades Against Death
This adventure is written as a sequel to Jewels of the Carnifex, so it is the natural follow-up in this Adventure Path. Note that in this book, the Carnifex symbol has a different number of heads than in Jewels of the Carnifex. Most folks hand-wave this by saying “It’s a different cult of of the Carnifex…”. I think it’s a little lame, but it is what it is.
This module’s dungeon is very fun, and we had some crazy ending theatrics at the end where a summoned giant eagle grabbed the sword at the end and flew out the roof with it, carrying two PCs. There is an encounter where a guy with a meat cleaver comes out of nowhere that never fails to get a scare out of people. The end of this adventure can be a little challenging to run (since they are negotiating with Death). Like with Jewels, this one benefits from very careful reading, and planning out various options and what you think the PCs might try. You will still be surprised, but you really don’t want to come off like you don’t know what you are doing in that scene.
This adventure can really change the PCs — they can end up with debts to gods or lots of other crazy things. This is what happens when you get to this level — your fate is entwined with the universe!
More Level 4 Adventure: Sticking in Punjar, The Dread God Al-Khazadar is a Daniel Bishop adventure that starts in Punjar. I enjoy being able to role-play the various NPCs in that adventure. It does have a bit of a John Carter feel to it, as you end up going to another plane(t) (as often happens in higher level DCC). Continuing the “Bad Wizard” theme, Emirikol was Framed is a lot of fun, and can be a good twist given that they probably have it in for wizards after dealing with the Emerald Enchanter. Again, they can be heading to another town at the request of the Overseer or a merchant friend, or on rumors that there is great treasure in Emirkol’s tower. You can even slot in Emirikol directly in Punjar. Beneath Punjar, you can add in The Marvelous Myriad Myconid Caverns and Tomb of the Thrice-Damned War Witch from the 2015 Gongfarmer’s Almanac. You can also run a module that I have mixed feelings about, The 13th Skull. That one was the epitome of “trust the module”. There is a lot going on in that one. I’d save it for the JG Adventure Path if you are going to run it.
Level 5: Beyond the Black Gate
This adventure is insane. It’s just insane. At the end, there is a good chance that one of your players becomes the Horned King, and can teleport at will to run hunts across the multiverse.
The introduction is spectacular, the dungeon crawl challenging, and the final encounter dark and satisfying. It’s up to you whether you let the PCs get the crown of the Horned King, but the module has a full writeup on it. I found it to be incredibly memorable and fun, and it actually set the stage for a lot of other craziness later on.
This will be the adventure that defines whether your group can handle higher-level play — there is a lot of potential combat with giants, or a lot of sneaking around. And if there is conflict over who takes the Horned King’s crown — thing can get spicy. All the skills they learned playing smarter not harder will come into focus in this adventure.
Coming from Blades Against Death: The easiest way here is that the PCs want something, and the Witches are rumored to have it. They get on a ship in Punjar harbor, and try to go find them. Perhaps it is a magic item they seek, or relief from some condition, or to find a lost friend or friend of a friend. You could also skip the intro entirely and have them end up in the Thrice-Tenth Kingdom as the result of finding a portal somewhere closer to Punjar. This is a great way to do the classic DCC trope of “Quest for It”. You can include the item they seek in the Thane’s treasure, or perhaps in the throne room. Or, is becoming the Horned King the only solution to their problem?
More Level 5 Adventure: A good choice is The Infernal Crucible of Sezrekan the Mad from Chaos Rising. This introduces the group to Sezrekan, who is a well-known name in DCC lore. Since that module takes place in Punjar, it’s a good one to do before you take on Beyond the Black Gate. If you ran Elzemon and the Blood Drinking Box, this also connects to that. Also at this level in the same book is The Undulating Corruption, which is a fun way to let the PCs cleanse themselves of some corruptions they may have picked up. Other things (magic items, cures) can be found inside the worm from that module, linking to the PCs desires.
Level 6: Imprisoned in the God-Skull
There is no standalone Level 6 adventure from Harley Stroh, but this Michael Curtis offering is incredibly memorable.
It’s a fun dungeon crawl through the skull of a god who sacrificed themselves in order to imprison another god. The Erol Otus cover art is sufficiently weird as well.
I enjoy this module because there are so many fun NPCs to play, from human monks and worm creatures, to various alien invaders. There are also lots of clever ways to deal with the encounters, and many potential weird side-effects.
Even though it is Level 6, this adventure feels more like a lower level module in many respects, but the combats are extremely deadly if not handled carefully.
Coming from Beyond the Black Gate: If one of the PCs became the Horned King, they may come across the blasted-out Monastery on a hunt. Otherwise, at this level, it’s not at all heavy-handed to have a PCs patron directly ask them to seek something out from the Dawa monks. It’s also a great thing if you have characters with corruptions, or other conditions they want to have cured, as the gardens and libraries of the God Skull are great, and cures can be found. This is a perfect way to incorporate PCs’ personal quests and needs into the story. You can also be quite simple, and just have rumors of great treasures kept in an other worldly prison — treasures beyond the plain gold and gems that the PCs have so tired of. In one campaign I ran, the group had a favorite NPC that wanted to become human, and they heard that the Dawa monks might have a way to do that (which they did!).
More Level 6 Adventure: The 998th Conclave of Wizards is the other good choice at Level 6, and ties in fairly well with God Skull (both being ‘go to another plane(t)’ adventures). If you run 998th first, you can have Lama Dawa meet and befriend the PCs, offering them knowledge and assistance at his monastery if they ever need it. He can even help the PCs with one of the challenges in 998th, indebting the PCs to him. If you run God Skull first, the Star Cabal can hear of the PCs work to save the God Skull, and use that as their excuse for choosing the PCs. You can also slot in the DCC Horror adventure The Sinister Sutures of the Sempstress.
Level 8: Colossus Arise!
You may have noticed we skipped Level 7. That’s because there isn’t an official published DCC adventure at Level 7.
At this point, you can do more Level 6 adventures instead, or you can do what I usually do, just level up everyone to 10th level and take on this beast of a module! You can easily challenge 10th level characters with this one.
By this point, your characters are incredibly powerful, and have lots of foibles, equipment, powers (is one the Horned King?), and responsibilities. I usually end up with them having some sort of kingdom at this point, either the Thrice-Tenth Kingdom, or a reward from the Overseer of Punjar, or if you ran The 13th Skull, perhaps entire demesnes of their own. As a result, they may have ‘retired’ to a life of running their kingdoms, running hunts, leading giant temples, or other activities of the mega-powerful. And then a titan appears at their doorstep and foretells the end of the world.
This is a very tricky adventure to run, but very much worth it. It’s a great capstone to any campaign, and lets your adventurers retire having prevented the rise of the fourth age and defeated an un-dead titan!
A note: the scale of the titan at the end of this module is so large that I ended up just making a massive card stock token with feet drawn on it.
Conclusion
That’s the end of this Adventure Path using official published DCC modules. Lots of solid DCC flavor, and increasing insanity as your characters gain more and more power, and become embroiled with other-worldly entities, and domestic concerns.
As you can tell, there is plenty of space—especially once you hit Level 3 — to add in rewards and motivations that follow the characters’ desires. You can make the goal of their quests lie within the next adventure quite easily.
Don’t be sad that you reached the end, as there are lots of other Adventure Paths to follow!
I hope that this has been of help to you, and if so, please like this article and share it with your friends!
Cheers,
Tim
Check out Adventure Path #2: The Dreamers for more ideas!
