Topic: Duvan'ku and spider cult

Hi fellow referees,
in Scenic Dunnsmouth adventure there are a lot of reference to an 'old evil cult in the mountain', which is related to Death frost doom adventure.
However i'm still wondering what can be the link with the Duvan'Ku and the cult?
The Van Kaus family is linked to the cult as well (with a least Uncle Ivan), what could have be their role in the cult ?
Thanks for your advices!

Re: Duvan'ku and spider cult

I think the details of the Duvan'Ku  have been purposely left vague so that they remain a bit mysterious. You'll have to fill in the blanks as you feel best. Although there's definitely a similarity in the names "Van Kaus" and "van'Ku" wink Also, the guy they encounter living up there is a descendant from the town too, I think.

I ran Scenic Dunnsmouth and DFD pretty much as written and it worked fine. When players heard about the "ancient cult up in the mountains" it matched up with what they found when they went up there and explored the cabin. There wasn't much need to provide any detail or connection to Scenic Dunnsmouth beyond that. (Ie, DFD fleshed out the details of the cult  more.)

Re: Duvan'ku and spider cult

Hi Crunk,
yes there is not need to develop except in the case where you anticipated to run DFD after Scenic Dunnsmounth.

My party was sent to Dunnsmounth first for discover the cube AND to investigate about the Dunvan'ku where some ancient cult members may hide in this swampy village (they played Death Love Doom and learn where the amulet came).
They managed to find and neutralize the cube and now they're investigating the village (the priest show them the corpse of a dead infected baby he found months ago and ask them to check what is going on).

I was just wondering how i can link the 2 adventures, there is no mention of spider in DFD (not sure except a giant one in a pit, maybe it's the grandma of the spider cult).
Regarding the NPC at least there are the Van Kaus who family members where once members of the cult, and one of the Duncaster fight an evil cult in the past (and he don't want to talk to this matter in the adventure).
Maybe i should add an item or clue from DFD in Dunnsmounth so my players will then go straight to the temple in the mountain after this adventure.

Re: Duvan'ku and spider cult

DFD has a spot where you can insert a McGuffen, so it would definitely work to have someone in the village (maybe the Duncastor) mention an ancient weapon his family used to defeat the cult but also got lost in the battle. This is what would be found frozen in the goo monster and encourage the players to go up there and retrieve it.

Note that the spider cult has nothing to do with Duvan'Ku - they are two completely different cults.

Re: Duvan'ku and spider cult

Thanks Crunk,
you're absolutely right the 2 cults are different.
So it's up to me to link them from an element find in DFD.
I will read the adventure entirely to find where can i insert a clue or something.
I'm a bit disagree with 'Lord of All Fevers and Plagues' , i barely run an adventure 'as is' but quite often i arrange it to suit my campaign and look for an aftermath.
For Scenic Dunsmounth i used all the good ideas and the special locations of the map without limit them to the random roll.
I probably won't run this adventure twice so it's a shame to not use all the juicy ideas of the author once.

Re: Duvan'ku and spider cult

Yeah, I like your idea of taking the best parts of the module and running them (rather than only using random rolls from charts, etc.) I'm tending more toward that in some of my non-LotFP stuff.

I ran Scenic Dunnsmouth as a "Groundhog's Day" sort of scenario - if a player died or tried to leave the area, the entire party woke up on their rowboat at the docks with an entirely newly generated Scenic Dunnsmouth. It was fun seeing them try to figure out the constants, and a few of them eventually got infected with the spider cult, and that DID stay from day to day, so they ran the risk of eventually all succumbing to the cult.

Their goal was to find the Time Cube, which would end them being trapped in repeating days.

Re: Duvan'ku and spider cult

Clever use of the adventure to run it "à la Groundhog's Day" !
At last they will know the NPC well i guess.
During the last session my PC investigated the cemetery to find clues about where the dead infected baby came.
They fought undeads in the Van Kaus crypt and now they're suspecting the Van Kaus to hide a terrible secret.
I will give them clues about the Van Kaus and the ancient secret cult, and one of the Duncaster will talk about his cousin who is watching that there is no cultists activity in the mountain (Zeke Dunkaster!).
Regarding the spider cult, they found no evidence of any infected NPC for the moment, the spider is hiding in the sawmill, and they will probably go there sooner or later.
As the sawmill is poorly guarder (2 level 0 cultists with bows) they will probably easily kill the spider (considering that they don't interrogate any NPC at the moment i don't see why the sawmill will be more guarded).
My party is composed of 5 level 2 PC (+ Magda ), how did you manage to make the cultists a threat to your party?
How could they ambush them once they discover that the party is investigating for the cult ?

Re: Duvan'ku and spider cult

It's been a while since I ran it, but I remember the main threat was the spider cult when my players played. One of them got tricked into entering the location of the spider alone, and it was a high level spider so it infected that PC pretty quickly. The other players did not know this PC was infected, so then I told that player the only way they could gain XP was by furthering the goals of the spider cult. They then tried to trick more players into going into the location of the spider alone (and managed to infect 1 or 2 more PCs, I think...)

In my sessions there was no real threat from the Duvan'Ku cult in Scenic Dunnsmouth as that was something that happened long ago and even the villagers weren't really caught up in it any more. I think Uncle Ivan was the main physical threat to the players, and I think Magda was part of the spider cult and responsible for getting that first player infected.

Getting infected by the spider sucks, so I wouldn't necessarily change things to make it harder for the players. But the villagers could use overwhelming force if the party shows their hand (ie, they realize there's a spider cult) or they could use a divide and conquer strategy if the PCs are foolish enough to investigate areas alone.

Re: Duvan'ku and spider cult

Since you're not using the module exactly as written, you could also have the spider slowly grow in power and level up the longer it takes the party to explore the area.

If there's any chance they would leave Dunnsmouth and go investigate the mountain (DFD) and then come back to Dunnsmouth, you could have the spider fully leveled up and most of the village infected.

Re: Duvan'ku and spider cult

(Oh, and I can't take credit for the Groundhog's Day idea - I read it on a blog somewhere and thought it was a perfect way to implement the module. I actually think it should have been a suggestion included in the module itself, it seems almost like it was written to use it that way.)