Classic PnP Conversion, Dungeon Adventure, Final Version
Scope
Small
Content
Teen
TricksTraps
Medium
Roleplay
Light
HackSlash
Heavy
LevelMin
03
LevelMax
04
Gameplay Hours
03
Categories
Pen & Paper conversion
Patch
1.23
NWN2Game
All
Description
The Lichway.
Your friend, the Baron Hochoch asks your help in dealing with a group of vile Svarts causing trouble in the local area. You also hear rumours of an ancient tomb newly discovered � could the two be connected? Other adventurers have already ventured to seek the tomb�s treasures - would you care to join them?
This adventure is a classic aD&D dungeon crawl first published in White Dwarf 9, way back in 1978 and republished in Best of White Dwarf Scenarios 1, written by the late Albie Fiore, converted to NWN2 by Clyordes. According to Wikipedia, it was the first full adventure ever published in White Dwarf, so I guess its kinda historical, but for me it�ll always hold great memories as one of the first adventures I ever ran once I got a copy of this weird new game �Basic D&D� & convinced a group of friends to give it a go�.
Who�s it for?
2-4 Characters, levels 3-4. Just add more or higher level characters (or companions) if you're struggling. If you�ve played through �Against the Cult of the Reptile God�, this is designed to be a short follow-on adventure for the same characters. Another short adventure will follow, to get characters up to the right level to attempt a remake of �Oasis of the White Palm� which is also buried deep in the toolset at the moment.
How long will it take?
Unlike Reptile God, this isn�t that long � its just one dungeon. Allow a good evening of 3-4 hours to play through it. It�ll take more if you�re cautious & less if you run in like a bull in a china shop (assuming you don�t die & have to run back from Hochoch too many times � see �Death�)
Experience:
As in my previous adventures, little XP is given for killing monsters � so if your play style is not hack & slash, you won�t be penalised here. Instead, Experience is gained from completing quests, which you can do any way you like, and if you complete them all (there�s one main quest and 3-4 subquests that you can pick up in the local tavern), you�ll be around mid level 4 by the time you finish.
Death:
Resurrects you back in the starting town. If you don�t like what could be a long walk - remember to save often, or adventure cautiously. Or use the chance to stock up on equipment.
Resting:
Unlimited, apart from when there�s monsters right next door � the denizens of the Lichway hate to give adventurers too much peace.
Mapping:
Lance�s mapping hak is implemented here � which only allows you to see where you�ve been on the main (screen filling) map. Although if you want to �overrule� this, the minimap is unaffected.
Custom content:
This adventure uses the HAK you�ve already used in Reptile God � there�s not much more to download if you�ve already played that adventure � just the following:
The Lichway.mod file
The Lichway campaign file
The Lichway.hak file
The Crystalmist.hak file if you haven't still got it from Reptile God.
If you haven�t already played the Reptile God adventure, you really ought to, as it came out really well & is designed as the first adventure for a band of new characters which continue their travels here. All the same, if you haven�t played it, you�ll need all of the files listed below.
Make your own party:
Like Reptile God, this adventure has been set up as a campaign, allowing you to adventure with a party of your own characters if you wish � just ask at the local inn to find out where the other members of your party are (& remember you need the campaign file below & choose �Start new Campaign� when you start Neverwinter up).
Credits:
Many thanks to the mighty RWS for their custom tiles, placeables & creatures which I used in the dungeon, and all the other builders of creatures, prefabs (such as the base town I used for Hochoch) out there � you�re a great group & can�t take enough credit!
Update history:
30th December 2011 - New version uploaded, fixes a couple of minor issues that players have noticed - should be a final version now, but shout up if anything's not right.
24th January 2013 - Added a new area between Hochoch and the Lichway, changed a few features in line with the other adventures in the campaign.
Dedication:
This adventure was originally written for White Dwarf magazine by Albie Fiore - one of many things he did in D&D's early days. Accidentally coming across his obituary a couple of months ago was what got me wanting to remake it for NWN.
So this is for you, Albie - although I never knew you, you sound like a great bloke & you write a great adventure - hope I did it justice.
Link
The latest (24th January 2013) version of the adventure module file, incorporating a few minor fixes. Just unzip it into your Mydocs/Neverwinter2/Modules folder
Nightmare, Tanlaus - thanks for the comments - much appreciated, and great to know it worked well for you. Being a fairly short, straightforward adventure, there's not much to go wrong - its all pretty simple stuff compared to Reptile God, which was nice when I was building it - it all came together relatively easily & made a nice change.
All the same, it introduced things I haven't tried before, like custom loadscreens & some custom creatures to match the original adventure - Spinescale anyone? (and did you find their treasure?)
Nice to know these adventures are still being enjoyed - not bad for a 6 (?) year old game!
Cly. _________________________ "Cor- a Beholder, Just think of the XP!"; Dave the Barbarian in the Demonweb pits, long ago.
'Search for the Temple of the Golden Spire' - An AD&D scenario for beginning characters converted to NWN2, here: Link
'Against the Cult of the Reptile God' - A classic AD&D adventure converted to NWN2: Link
The Lichway - An evening's dungeon delve from White Dwarf: Link
Posted by Tanlaus at 2013-02-23 00:49:14 Voted 8.50 on 02/23/13
Just finished this one with the party I used for the previous mod. Once again thanks for bringing back that great old pnp feel. I very much enjoyed exploring the lichway and the encounters I had while inside.
I don't recall any bugs on this one. Don't want to say too much about the adventure for fear of giving anything away, but for people who haven't played yet, it's worth the fun.
Posted by Nightmare7 at 2013-02-13 12:56:35 Voted 8.75 on 02/10/13
Could be, I have had NWN2 for many years just gatering dust in storage. In fact I just recently installed it on this computer for the first time. I have found a lot of great adventures here on the vault. I see your point on the short adventures, I'm all for them as long as they keep coming lol. Thats how we did it back in the day with the old PnP. Thanx for all your work, as you can see in the comments there are a few of us who love it!
He he - thanks Nightmare - the original plan was to remake a bunch of old P&P adventures & I really wanted to make Oasis of the White Palm (after playing the awesome Pharoah (NWN1) made by Moondrake). Only thing is, it starts at level 6 so I felt I really had to build a series that would take a party of adventurers from level 1 up through Oasis & hopefully into my favourite all-time adventure - Lost Tomb of Martek.
So Reptile God gets you to level 3, this takes you to 4, and Sahuagin Heel takes you to a level appropriate for Oasis.
As I mentioned in the intro - this is a NWN2 version of probably the first adventure I ever ran in D&D, so it was great to make it for NWN2, and I wanted to stay pretty faithful to it. Also, it really is quite a short adventure. The advantage is that its relatively fast to build, allowing for more variety in different settings in each adventure - I really hate the same thing over & over.
There was a discussion in the forums a while back too that asked what sort of adventures people like - there was definitely a bit of a call for shorter adventures (with their faster production schedules) rather than sprawling epics that take years to produce. Personally, I can definitely vouch for creating short adventures like this - the long adventures like Reptile God seem to take forever, so you can really get a sense of achievement without spending years working on something - although I only get a few hours/week development time.
Anyhow - thanks for playing & feeding back - I'm not sure if its just me, but there seems to be a higher level of interest in NWN2 than 6 months ago - if nothing else I'm getting way more downloads than last summer. Perhaps people have finished playing whatever they played after NWN2 & are coming back to play all these great adventures that people have created for it?
Cly. _________________________ "Cor- a Beholder, Just think of the XP!"; Dave the Barbarian in the Demonweb pits, long ago.
'Search for the Temple of the Golden Spire' - An AD&D scenario for beginning characters converted to NWN2, here: Link
'Against the Cult of the Reptile God' - A classic AD&D adventure converted to NWN2: Link
The Lichway - An evening's dungeon delve from White Dwarf: Link
Posted by Nightmare7 at 2013-02-10 21:13:56 Voted 8.75 on 02/10/13
Very fun. Couldnt find all the damn svarts lol, dont know what I missed. My biggest problem with this is it was too short.
Hi Winwood, This module and the Reptile God are sort of integrated, in that they use the same starting town, and have the same NPC's & companions - but I decided to publish them as stand alone adventures rather than a single campaign of linked adventures - mainly as I couldn't see that much advantage of integrating them more closely.
You're right - it would be kinda cool to have one big campaign to play from level 1, and when Sahuagin Heel and Oasis are complete I might release them separately and as a single campaign that takes characters from level 1 to 6-7 over the 4 adventures - just to see which people prefer.
Could be a long wait though - so in the mean time, I'll keep releasing them separately as they're finished. (hope that's what you meant by 'integrated').
Cly. _________________________ "Cor- a Beholder, Just think of the XP!"; Dave the Barbarian in the Demonweb pits, long ago.
'Search for the Temple of the Golden Spire' - An AD&D scenario for beginning characters converted to NWN2, here: Link
'Against the Cult of the Reptile God' - A classic AD&D adventure converted to NWN2: Link
The Lichway - An evening's dungeon delve from White Dwarf: Link
Posted by Winwood at 2012-02-09 18:08:52 Voted 8.00 on 02/07/12
Btw. I have not tried the new Neverwinter yet, but I expect to play NWN2 untill it gets too old for my computer anyhow, so waiting for a cool sequal will probably not be a big practical problem for me. :)
Posted by Winwood at 2012-02-09 17:33:31 Voted 8.00 on 02/07/12
Yes I know it is a convertion of Greyhawk (good work), but I am sure both modules would be cooler if this was integrateed in reptile God. I am not a modder but since the town and most of the surroundings are exsactly the same, I would expect a merge to be rather easy. Correct me if I am wrong.
Grand - thanks for the vote Winwood.
I know its short - I was thinking of extending it a little, but decided to build it as close to the original published adventure as I could, so its pretty short & sweet - just an evening's worth of exploring and battling the denizens of the Lichway.
Another short one will be along soonish - its based on an expedition to explore several islands, so I have a base island template made, and have 'winterised' Hochoch - hopefully I'll get it all finished before spring gets too established up here in the northern hemisphere & it'll almost feel seasonal!
The plan is that these two short adventures, as well as being pretty historic for me as adventures I originally DM'd in my early days of D&D way back in the day, also bridge the XP gap between Reptile God & Oasis of the White Palm - which I've started - 3 desert areas already built & a bunch of custom content up & running - and am really hoping to release by the end of the year.
It may seem like a long lead time, but NWN really hasn't got any competition, and even the 'new' Neverwinter game looks unlikely to be much of a competitor, so I'm hoping there will still be plenty of people around to download it.
Hope you had fun in the series so far.
Cly. _________________________ "Cor- a Beholder, Just think of the XP!"; Dave the Barbarian in the Demonweb pits, long ago.
'Search for the Temple of the Golden Spire' - An AD&D scenario for beginning characters converted to NWN2, here: Link
'Against the Cult of the Reptile God' - A classic AD&D adventure converted to NWN2: Link
The Lichway - An evening's dungeon delve from White Dwarf: Link
Posted by Winwood at 2012-02-07 21:09:53 Voted 8.00 on 02/07/12
Excellent, but too short. Keeping my character for the sequel.
Well - I've just run a quick test & the Goat trail transition from Hochoch is working fine - thought an error had crept in there, but all seems OK.
This should be a silly question as the game shouldn't run without it, but have you got all the HAK files unzipped into your hak folder?
As the Lichway dungeon uses the RWS deep dungeon tileset, it won't work without it, but it should stop you at module startup with an error message if that's the case.
Let me know & I'll keep scratching my head in the mean time.
Cly. _________________________ "Cor- a Beholder, Just think of the XP!"; Dave the Barbarian in the Demonweb pits, long ago.
'Search for the Temple of the Golden Spire' - An AD&D scenario for beginning characters converted to NWN2, here: Link
'Against the Cult of the Reptile God' - A classic AD&D adventure converted to NWN2: Link
The Lichway - An evening's dungeon delve from White Dwarf: Link
Whoa! - Apologies Deweysnairs & anyone else affected by the same bug. I've not touched the transition there or anything similar so I'm mystified why it should happen. Will check the transition myself as soon as I get chance after work & see if I can replicate it & work out what's going on.
One weird thing I got in the catacombs was that at some camera angles, the screen would be just blinding white. Haven't a clue what's going on there, but I updated to Windows 7 a week ago & it may be there's some graphics card weirdness going on - please, everyone shout up if you see anything similar.
Cly. _________________________ "Cor- a Beholder, Just think of the XP!"; Dave the Barbarian in the Demonweb pits, long ago.
'Search for the Temple of the Golden Spire' - An AD&D scenario for beginning characters converted to NWN2, here: Link
'Against the Cult of the Reptile God' - A classic AD&D adventure converted to NWN2: Link
The Lichway - An evening's dungeon delve from White Dwarf: Link
Would love to play but the program freezes up after entering the goat trail. Tried changing all the settings to the lowest, tried entering without companions, emptied override folder, and still it freezes up every time I enter there. Any suggestions?
Posted by Avo at 2011-12-28 02:55:31 Voted 8.00 on 12/28/11
Nice little dungeon crawl. I had fun, but I have to agree with an above poster, that the end was somewhat anti-climatic.
Doh! I got all excited when I saw another vote had come in, but its a bot - how did that happen? :-(
Cly.
In the good side, Good old Knightmare may have solved the minor script niggle that's been unearthed, so if it passes a bit more testing, I may be able to upload a new version in the next day or two.
Cly. _________________________ "Cor- a Beholder, Just think of the XP!"; Dave the Barbarian in the Demonweb pits, long ago.
'Search for the Temple of the Golden Spire' - An AD&D scenario for beginning characters converted to NWN2, here: Link
'Against the Cult of the Reptile God' - A classic AD&D adventure converted to NWN2: Link
The Lichway - An evening's dungeon delve from White Dwarf: Link
Ah - those levers - a couple of people have asked about those. They're pretty much how they are in Albie's module - they just open/close, lock/unlock the door from the wharf to the glyph room. Maybe if it was played as a P&P adventure the DM could use them in some way, maybe to get away from the lizardmen on the wharf, but they don't really serve much of a function, other than to get people wondering if they've missed something!
Cly. _________________________ "Cor- a Beholder, Just think of the XP!"; Dave the Barbarian in the Demonweb pits, long ago.
'Search for the Temple of the Golden Spire' - An AD&D scenario for beginning characters converted to NWN2, here: Link
'Against the Cult of the Reptile God' - A classic AD&D adventure converted to NWN2: Link
The Lichway - An evening's dungeon delve from White Dwarf: Link
Posted by roadsaint at 2011-12-03 13:30:21 Voted 9.25 on 12/02/11
Yep, I played Golde Spire a while back, and while it was good, these were better! Both were challenging, but managed to get through without dying (looks like that would have been different with the Suss trap, but I guess I got lucky). Did I miss anything big with the levers?
Thanks again for the stellar work!
Crikey Roadsaint - I've only just seen your somments on Reptile God & directed you here - but you're way ahead of me.
*** SPOILER ***
Yes - the Sussurus is keeping the occupants of the hundred odd sarcophogi + the few free roaming undead nice & calm - killing it awakens them & they're not good in the morning. However, although it seemed to work fine in testing, it seems that there's an issue with a script not firing properly if you're controlling a companion rather than your main character when you either kill the Suss or go near a coffin.
Fortunately, the scripting wizards over in the forums have a solution, so when I'm off work on Monday I'll try & get it sorted & upload a revision of the mod. A shame really - its a cracker of a trap & I do love my undead hordes - have you played Goldenspire? :-)
Cly.
*** SPOILER ENDS *** _________________________ "Cor- a Beholder, Just think of the XP!"; Dave the Barbarian in the Demonweb pits, long ago.
'Search for the Temple of the Golden Spire' - An AD&D scenario for beginning characters converted to NWN2, here: Link
'Against the Cult of the Reptile God' - A classic AD&D adventure converted to NWN2: Link
The Lichway - An evening's dungeon delve from White Dwarf: Link
Posted by roadsaint at 2011-12-02 23:52:11 Voted 9.25 on 12/02/11
Just played through Reptile and Lichway today (nice way to spend the day!). Both were great, absolutely love the mapping tool, whoever created that one should get a medal!
*** Spoilers ***
(1) Couldn't figure out the levers, assumed the symbols on the levers tied to the arcane symbols on the floor, but could not find a correlation and didn't get lucky with just playing with them. Not sure what they did though, unless it was supposed to open the locked door with the wimp-mage.
(2) Were the undead that were "friendly" supposed to turn hostile when the Sussurus was killed?
Thanks again for a great couple of mods!
******* SPOILER ALERT ********
That's really interesting - if any message appeared after the sussurus dies, heading back past the coffins should trigger a whole load of undead. In testing, the script failed if I was controlling a companion rather than the main character, but I tracked it down to the sussurus on_death script not firing if a companion was the one to finish the fellow off. However, if the message appeared but nothing happened if you headed back through the tomb area, something's gone awry - I'll take a look.
On the good side, this was originally designed as a fairly terminal trap for those who couldn't help wading in sword first, so if its not triggering, its not the end of the world, just a little kinder to the hack & slashers.
Cly. _________________________ "Cor- a Beholder, Just think of the XP!"; Dave the Barbarian in the Demonweb pits, long ago.
'Search for the Temple of the Golden Spire' - An AD&D scenario for beginning characters converted to NWN2, here: Link
'Against the Cult of the Reptile God' - A classic AD&D adventure converted to NWN2: Link
The Lichway - An evening's dungeon delve from White Dwarf: Link
Posted by shuurai at 2011-11-18 05:16:53 Voted 8.50 on 11/14/11
@Clyordes
I think I know what you mean by what should have happened, but unfortunately I don't think it did. I killed the Sussurus and there was a message that hinted about what should happen, but I didn't notice any evidence of it actually happening.
Thanks for the votes folks!
Shuurai - you're right - something that marks the battle with the final baddie would be good - I'll see what I can come up with while I'm fixing a couple of things that have been highlighted so far.
Just one thing for anyone playing - when you come across the Sussurus - if you decide to fight it - and survive, let me know if anything 'untoward' happens if you subsequently head off back into the tomb area. I won't drop any spoilers about what should happen, but I'll bet it was something that Albie enjoyed playing as a P&P DM back in the day - I know I did!
Only thing is, I've heard its not happening - so please report in here what happens if you take that course during your game (maybe save first though).
Cly.
_________________________ "Cor- a Beholder, Just think of the XP!"; Dave the Barbarian in the Demonweb pits, long ago.
'Search for the Temple of the Golden Spire' - An AD&D scenario for beginning characters converted to NWN2, here: Link
'Against the Cult of the Reptile God' - A classic AD&D adventure converted to NWN2: Link
The Lichway - An evening's dungeon delve from White Dwarf: Link
Posted by shuurai at 2011-11-14 19:38:07 Voted 8.50 on 11/14/11
Nice. Short, but it does what it sets out to do. I really liked the dungeon design; very nice visuals.
It might have been a nice touch to have some sort of dialog with the end baddie, rather than just finding a journal. As it is, just seems a little anti-climactic. But all in all a fun little adventure.
Looking forward to the next one :)
Posted by PJ156 at 2011-11-13 16:19:27 Voted 8.75 on 11/13/11
Great start Clyordes.
It's what you say it is, and fun to play so far. There is a great atmosphere to the dungeon and the area design is very well delivered. I'm playing and under powered party (two level 2's cos that's all I had) but I am getting by. For me the combat is well balanced so far I may suffer whan I shold have reached level 4 though, we shall see.
Giving you a holding vote, based on what I have played, to get the voting started.
May well come back and change it once I am complete. I doubt it will go down unless someting very wrong happens ;)
Good luck PJ. Have fun & I hope it all works OK for you - unlike Reptile God, I've not had any 3rd party testers on this one, although I ran a multi player run-through a month or so ago that worked fine but raised a few issues that I think are sorted now.
But you never know until people start playing - so feel free to feed back - anything - good or bad.
Cly. _________________________ "Cor- a Beholder, Just think of the XP!"; Dave the Barbarian in the Demonweb pits, long ago.
'Search for the Temple of the Golden Spire' - An AD&D scenario for beginning characters converted to NWN2, here: Link
'Against the Cult of the Reptile God' - A classic AD&D adventure converted to NWN2: Link
The Lichway - An evening's dungeon delve from White Dwarf: Link
Posted by PJ156 at 2011-11-13 10:31:41 Voted 8.75 on 11/13/11
Downloading now Cly and looking forward to playing.
Sounds good. I like P&P conversions, as long as the author includes the encounters and puzzles from them. I also prefer many short adventures over few long ones. I'll be trying this and the previous one you mention. _________________________ Tchos' Gaming & Modding
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