For my forthcoming Against the Darkmaster (VsD) campaign, to be set in my world of ‘Ukrasia’ (still a work-in-progress), I’ve decided to adapt an old ICE setting: The Court of Ardor by Terry Amthor.
As I’ve noted before here, I've been a fan of Ardor since I first purchased it almost forty years ago (yikes!). Alas, I’ve never actually used it for any fantasy role-playing campaign, even though it’s greatly inspired me over the years (as has Amthor’s work in general). It was originally designed as a region in southern Middle-earth, an early installment in ICE's line of Middle-earth campaign modules. But it always was a poor fit for Middle-earth. It seemed more inspired by the works of authors like Michael Moorcock and Roger Zelazny than J.R.R. Tolkien.
However, Ardor was a super-cool setting nonetheless. (And it’s clear that it had a great influence on Amthor’s later Shadow World setting.) The map – by Peter Fenlon, who did most of the Middle-earth maps for ICE – is beautiful (like all of Fenlon’s maps). Since I thought that the setting – albeit with some significant changes – would fit well within Ukrasia, and I've wanted to use it for decades, I decided that I may as well go with it for my upcoming VsD campaign. (Also, because of my workload this term, I didn’t think that I could get my homebrew island “Amarrah” in shape in time.)
I've changed the name of the Court and the region named after it from “Ardor” to “Urdor.” Other significant changes will have to be made – the regions of Dûshera and Mûmakan will be altered completely (the former is now a sparsely populated realm of halflings, the latter an unruly land of orcish tribes). The timeline and other details will have to be wholly reworked to fit with Ukrasia. Once I finish up my descriptions of the regions, I’ll post them here.
Also, the overarching aim of the deadly Court of Urdor will differ significantly from that described in Amthor’s module. (Since my players sometimes read this blog, I don’t want to say anything more than that for now.) However, the structure and the organization of the Court itself will closely resemble the original version.
I don’t plan to expose the player characters directly to any part of the deadly Court until they are at least level 7, so there will be a number of other adventures beforehand. (Among them, I’ll be adapting the “Shadows of the Northern Woods” mini-campaign from the core VsD book to the setting.) But the Court will be lurking in the background – and it should be thrilling when the heroes finally do cross swords with the dark Elvish cabal.
I’m excited to get this campaign going!
