Conversion: Thuin to Sturmgard, Basic D&D Style

I've been trying to decide what to do with the couple of binders of material I made for my own campaign world Thuin. I think I've come up with the perfect solution! In order to occupy my month-time off from 1st edition I'll convert my world to a Basic (or Original) D&D setting. This really is a trivial task, although it also involved getting to work on revising the Dungeon Trial of the Riddlemaster. In fact, this gives me a chance to re-write all the history of the world and make changes to my original world concept.

I intend to keep the main maps I worked on so long ago, but change the names and personalities in the area. All adventures need a base town and Malbork was just a wee bit too isolated and small to serve that purpose. Moving the base town to Poznan makes more sense. The Sturmgard Forest region remains integral, but I have to rewrite the portion on magic being scarce and the paranoia of the Twilight Council. I think I can keep everything else pretty much the same. I want so desperately to eliminate Drow from my campaign. It was an addition I made to appease one player long ago and I regret the decision since it added something to the campaign that it really did not need.

That being said, I can tell already that this move is going to be somewhat limiting. Using the old rules brings back level limits, class limits, and fewer alignments (my one concession will be using alignments of Good, Neutral, and Evil instead of Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic). I've never really understood why spells like Protection from Evil and Dispel Evil existed in a game dominated by Law and Chaos. Heck, I may even decide to use the 9-alignment system, and some of the classes from OD&D supplements (like the paladin, druid, and assassin). It seems to me that the game could be very fun, and even plausible on-line.

My 1st dungeon level is complete, as was the 2nd level (about 180 rooms between the two!), but by the time I got to the third level everything sort of went haywire. The players got bored of entering the place and I think it had a lot to do with the northern clime I placed it in. It took forever to get from Malbork to the dungeon, and even longer when the weather got bad. There was a great weather system in the Chainmail rules using 2d6 to figure out the weather conditions hourly, but I'm sure that can be changed to once every watch period (4 hours of time). I think I'll have the Sturmgard be a little warmer, possibly from geothermal activity and partly from elven magic influencing the clime from the central portion outward (so it will be colder at the edges of the Sturmgard). I'm thinking of really only mapping the Sturmgard region for now and only dealing with that as the world map - the other cultures will be described at the edges of civilization, but there's no need to explain the distant races until I make an adventure in that region. Perhaps I'll assemble a Gazetteer series starting with GAZ1: The Sturmgard. I want to keep such figures as the Goblin King (although he has to change to suit the system), the Riddlemaster, Count Simon Whittenborg (although there are no rangers unless I want to develop them for the system), and the Dwarves of Boldersted. The Dungeon becomes changed to the basic races - mites become kobolds, norkers revert to hobgoblins, the goblins and orcs remain the same, and the Clerics of Neutrality remain essentially unchanged. The grimlocks on the second level are changed to gnolls, and the gnolls/flind become troglodytes. I can keep the magic-user section and undead sections with a few changes. I really need to revamp the flow of the dungeon since the pre-determined route through the levels is no longer required. Originally the party was going to have to find keys, one per level, and then follow the clues that led them down to the next level. However, in order for this to work they would have to pretty much do it all in one shot - pretty much an impossibility given the size I made it.

My expanded version will feature more D&D creatures, multiple entrances to the dungeon, a druid cairn or stone circle marking the mound, more dungeon stairs and shafts to the surface to allow for fresh water and fresh air flow as well as a away for those pesky vermin to crawl into the place. I intend on keeping the access to the caves beneath Sturmgard, but changing the nature of the caves to more of a geothermal/volcanic nature. I want the surface forests to teem with wildlife of natural origin, humanoids, demi-humans, and other monsters. The mountains are to be the scary places of the campaign, filled with goblinoids, giants, and some dragons (just like in old-time Thuin), but these should be defeatable if played correctly. I want to keep the green dragon, although he'll be much less scary to a high-level group (unless I decided to increase his size per the Mentzer set).