Player's Introduction
Treasure Hunt is an AD&D®
adventure for
a Dungeon Master and four to six 0-level characters.
That's right: 0-level.
When you start off a character in an AD&D
game, you begin at 1st level--Acolyte,
Vet,
Prestidigitator, Rogue,
etc. The Game
presumes your character has had some prior
experience in warfare or adventure. Perhaps
his "experience" has only been
training by a
superior.
In this adventure, you don't even have the
slight edge that training gave you, the edge
over the common man. In Treasure Hunt,
your character is the common man. To survive
the adventure, he'll have to become an uncommon
man -- you'll have to use your wits,
survive the odds, and stay alive long enough
to earn some experience and begin developing
the abilities of the true adventurer.
And, once you've started developing those
abilities, you'll have to choose the path your
character will be taking for the rest of his adventuring
career -- will he be a fighting man,
a magic user, devotee of a god or goddess, or a
dextrous picker of pockets and pilferer of
goods? Your beginning character abilities will
show you the fields where he would be best
employed, but your choice of character class
will be determined by your actions in the
course of the adventure and the tendencies
you show in the course of the scenarios.
If you've never before played an
ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS®
game, don't worry -- Treasure Hunt will be
easier for you than other adventures, not
harder.
You won't have to worry about complicated
decisions concerning choice of weapons,
spells, deity to worship, and so on. You?re just
a normal man or woman, suddenly caught up
into a bizarre, unpredictable, and dangerous
situation. Just react to the situations you come
across as a real person would, and let the
Dungeon Master tell you how to translate your
wishes into the game.
Creating Your Characters
It's time to create your characters. If you'd
like to get a preview of the area of your characters
-- origin before you create the character,
skip down to 'The Korinn Archipelago"
in
this Players' Introduction.
Your DM will tell you how to
roll up your character's abilities. Because your
character, starting out at 0 level, is beginning
play with fewer abilities than practically any
other type of beginning character, we recommend
the DM choose one of the
4 methods under "Creating the Player
Character" in the DMG--
Method 1 tends to work best for this
adventure.
Your character can belong to any race permitted
by the Players Handbook, provided he
meets all the Ability requirements of the race.
Humans are the most common race in the
Korinn Archipelago, but there are also seagoing
elves, half-elves,
and half-orcs in the region,
as well as dwarf and gnome
craftsmen
and hobbit merchants ashore.
You do not choose a character class at this
time. As mentioned, your character's actions
and preferences in the course of the adventure
will determine what class he becomes.
If you were allowed to assign your rolled
scores to the abilities you wanted, you could
easily have arranged them with a particular
character class in mind. For example, you
might have put your two high scores in
Strength and Constitution, hoping to be a superior
fighter.
Well, think about that again. You might be
blocking yourself off from some entertaining
options in the adventure. Why not assign
those high scores to Strength and Dexterity, so
your character can become a nimble fighter or
a powerful thief, or perhaps an assassin? Why
not put them into Strength and Wisdom in
order to let you choose between crafty fighter
and militant cleric? Don't limit your options,
leave yourself room to explore them.
Do not choose your character alignment
yet. Your character is neutral for the time being.
In the course of the adventure, the
DM will watch how your character
acts and behaves, compare that with your
preference at the time your character achieves
1st level, and assign you an alignment based
on those factors. If you've already decided you
wish to have, for example, a chaotic good
character, then you should conduct your character
in that manner in the course of the adventure
until it becomes finalized when he
takes his 1st level.
Roll 1d6 for HP. The Dungeon Master,
if he wishes, may allow you to roll the die
three times and take the best roll as your hit
points score; alternately, he may let you start
out with 6 hit points, not bothering to roll.
Either one of these choices is a good idea, as
you need all the help you can get in the early
part of the adventure.
Your character speaks the common tongue
If he is of a semi-human race, he (naturally)
also speaks the tongue of that race, as described
under "Character Languages" in the
Players Handbook.
Your character will not learn his alignment
tongue until long after the adventure is over.
He?ll know which language it will be once his
alignment is fixed, when he becomes a 1st
level character, but won't actually learn the
language in the course of the adventure.
While your character might be bright
enough to learn additional languages (see the
appropriate notes under Intelligence
in the
"Abilities" section of the Players Handbook),
he doesn't know them yet.
Under "Creating the Player Character" in
the DMG there is a subsection
entitled "Player Character Non-
Professional Skills." You should consult
this
section and then choose (or roll, if you or the
DM prefers) for your character's
secondary skill.
While possession of a secondary skill won't
necessarily help you in the adventure's course,
it certainly can't hurt. Also, it provides you
with some insight into your character's background
(or at least his current occupation).
And, who knows? Clever use of a secondary
skill might get you out of trouble or save your
character's life in the adventure.
The DM is within his rights to
forbid any particular skill, and will probably
wish to if everyone is taking the same 1 or
2 skills.
For reasons that will be clear in a minute,
you don't need to set your character up with
any money or equipment. The DM
will xplain the situation to you when everyone
is ready to begin.
Your character, once you give him a name,
is complete. It?s time to start the show.
That's Your Character
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If all that is too much work, which it certainly
could be for beginning players, we have
included (in the center section of the adven-
ture) 6 pregenerated player characters. If
you'd prefer to save yourself some work, ask
the DM if you can see these characters
and USE one as your own.
<Pretos of Rabin's Reef,
human>
<Alhelor, elf>
<Gofus, gnome>
<Lythandar, half-elf>
<Demis of Ventris, human>
<Marak of Caftenor>
Your character is from the Korinn Archipelago,
a peaceful trading && fishing area, a
string of islands extending far out into the
western sea.
The Archipelago contains hundreds of islands,
some enormous, some too small to see
on the map. And you do have a map, which
the Dungeon Master will give you -- not that
you need it, you know the waters by heart.
The AREA, which was sparsely inhabited in
times past, was settled about a hundred years
ago by colonists from far to the south. They
were led by a great seaman named Viledel.
Viledel, never the subtlest of men, made as
his base one of the westernmost of the Islands,
in the area most thickly prowled by pirates
and corsairs, and began his campaign of
smashing piracy wherever he found it. His followers
set up settlements and quickly spread
further and further west, into the larger islands
closer to civilized nations.
Viledel, who was known as the Sea King
throughout his life, died 60 years ago when a
pirate raid crushed his island defenses and
overran his home. Since then, the archipelago
has had no central government, but has broken
into a hundred petty island nations. Most
islands and cities get along quite well, knowing
the advantages to be gained through
peaceful trade.
Piracy has increased in the last 60 years.
concentrated in the westernmost of the chain?s
islands, but pirates no longer rule the seas.
They prey upon the merchants like parasites
instead of sharks. However, the further west
you sail, the greater the risk is of running into
pirate ships, and some particularly bold buccaneers
sail deep into civilized eastern areas
for the rich pickings there.
Your character is from the Archipelago,
from whichever island you choose, a worker in
whichever profession you rolled or decided
upon.
If you have any detailed questions about
life in the archipelago, ask the Dungeon
Master -- after he's had time to read his own
information on the Korinn AREA.