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"The Desert of Desolation" in Ylaruam

by DJ Hartel

1: For a timeline concern if you set the adventure 200 years before the modern time it fits even better as that is when Ylaruam was still disorganized. (I believe that was in the Gazetteer as a suggestion too for different types of play). If you did play back in time al-Kalim could join your party as a mortal who is undertaking this as part of his immortality quest.

2: As for the god's it's not just the Egyptian gods mentioned. In the Glass sea there are the Norse gods referenced within the city as well. Which should be mostly ok, I think you might need to decide one which immortal Baldur is/was. As the dervish ride pegasus you could change it up and just add in some pegataurs too. You probably also want to put the glass sea in the NW of Ylaruam.

4: As for where the river starts - the Pyramid teleports water from somewhere and then starts the river. You can have the pyramid anywhere you think the the river should start. When the adventure begins the river Nithia is teleporting from the mountains to the pyramid and then just teleporting some where else. Once you solve the mystery of the pyramid the teleportation is changed to start flowing into the desert again. It takes a little out of the immortal's punishing the Nithians by changing the flow of the river Nithia but in some ways is cooler and better story. It then opens the question though, if the river has been teleporting since before the Nithians who actually set that up. Could be the Lizard Folk from before. Also, could be part of another's immortal quest.

5: I'm not sure if the immortals ever fought on the prime over Nithia. Maybe through proxies (in which case Martek and the efreeti would have been that.

6: The original map for desert of desolation is North/South (you start in the South). I believe the maps from the individual moduled are not aligned like that. I will see if I can find it by this weekend.

Here is a recreated map (with some experimental hexes I was playing around with a while back). The dark brown line is the river as drawn in Desert of Desolation - it's not terribly straight. The black and dotted line is the main caravan path. Things to note - I was able to rework the map scale from the vague 1 inch = 10 miles. I own the actual adventure so I was messing with a ruler for a bit and deduced a hex is 5 miles. That doesn't align perfectly with the Ylaruam desert but it does mean it may be easier to fit the desert of desolation within Ylaruam. If you want a cleaner map without all the text please PM.

I have the pdf's of the desert series and took the combined the maps for the 3 adventures. It's fairly rough but it will get you and idea of how it was originally drawn. Also, the scale for this map is each hex is 2 miles! I think it's roughly 84 miles north to south by 30 mile east to west. The Desert of Desolation map was drawn out a bit more.

Regard placement of the riverbed - I don't think you need to match it exactly as it is shown from the Desert of Desolation.
I'd recommend starting from Darokin, Selenica. I'm using Robin's map with the river beds as a guide.

  1. The obelsik of the ancients aligns with Gates of Sul/Sule (I am not sure which is the correct spelling).
  2. Placing the Sunken City of Pazar South of the road between Selenica and Parsa before along a ancient riverbed there. Kind of interesting there is a town called Parsa and the ruin is named Pazar.
  3. The space between the grasslands and the Rockhomes along the River Nithia river bed is where the Pyramid is located. You don't need to put it into Rockhome proper, it could just sit on a border hex. The water then is teleported from where Nithia is now to where the pyramid is located.
  4. The Oasis could be where Sulba is located currently, or if you want it could be Kuznetz or Hedjazi. If you played with a non-unified version of Ylaruam Ylauram itself would work great too. The crypt is just a ruin near the Oasis.
  5. The city of Carthag could be where the ruins of Merunak are.
  6. The Skysea should be located somewhere on one of the river beds leading into the Nithia rive. There are temples to Baldur and Prometheus within the city. I believe the city at the center was on a major trade route. Where ever you do place the city you need a a pillar near the city to help guide the players to the city if they cannot find it on their own.
  7. The Pillars of Martek could be placed anywhere - they're just gates that open when someone has the correct keys. Any of the monoliths listed on Robin's map could work... or you could add some more in.

The only place I think you'd want to avoid putting any of the adventure is near Surra-Man-Raa as I believe the artifact there will wipe people's mind regarding the adventure.