Advice for running Black Madonna

[Rockwolf66]

I'm planning on Running the modual Black Madonna and I'm wondering if anyone has any advice for me?

[Targan]

Read through the entries on the rumour tables. Deciding that some of the rumours are true can provide excellent starting ideas for side missions. In my last campaign I decided that the rumour about a backpack nuke being left over from the NATO withdrawal from Czestochowa in 1997 was true and it provided some of the best role playing sessions of the entire eight years (real time) of the campaign.

[Legbreaker]

Be VERY aware of the effects of radiation, darkness and dangers of moving through nuked rubble.
Once the PCs get underground do your damnedest to scare the pants off them and split them up. With the fairly limited opposition, and the tendancy of PCs to load for bear, they need all the help they can get.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I'm doing this from my very hazy memory of the module but...
Jasna Gora, the monastery the Black Madonna is located in, is huge and fortress like
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasna_G%C3%B3ra_Monastery
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/p...owa-jasna-gora

Communism did nothing to dampen the faith in the Catholic Church and for Twilight: 2000 the Polish people would probably be further motivated to seek solace in their religion. The Black Madonna has history, specifically that it is believed to have protected the Jasna Gora monastery during an attack by the Swedes in the 1600s. It's also believed that it came to their aid again in 1920 when the Soviet Army was going to attack Warsaw but were defeated by the Poles.
I think as a symbol for Poland, it would be much more potent than the designers of the module realized.

A lot of older towns (as in at least a few hundred years old such as Czestochowa) still have handpumps for water in the old sections that are still in operating condition.
Czestochowa is a typical big, built-up town with tall buildings and relatively narrow streets from hundreds of years ago but also large industrial/commercial areas from the Soviet era (typically drab coloured, depressing collections of buildings) and the depressing Soviet style apartment blocks. These blocks typically only have elevators if they have more than 6 floors.
There's also a number of parklands and water features, the parklands are often light forests. The rail yards are huge.

[Legbreaker]

The city did get flattened by a Nato siege with plenty of artillery and airstrikes.... If that didn't do it, then the nuclear demolition charges probably finished of the city's tourism value.

[Caradhras]

Three things I remember about when I ran it.

1. The group had no idea about the local Margrave's motivations, but they did know he had NATO prisoners hald. When they encounter a strong patrol of the Margraves it proved interesting. (stand-off becomes kick-off, then in hostile territory...others may turn out different).

2. When they reach the caves, they detect an odd smell..I left them unsure as to whether it was safe to use firearms down there which gave the extra element of tension down there.

3. The Spetnaz are tracking the group from Krakow having heard of them asking questions and they have been instructed to use the PCs to lead them to the painting for the Russians to take. I had the young spetnaz encounter the PCs in a chess tournement in the Nas trovia (? cant remember) bar in Warsaw undercover. He also was sypathetic to them and their prediciment.

Thats all I remember offhand at work.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

The city did get flattened by a Nato siege with plenty of artillery and airstrikes.... If that didn't do it, then the nuclear demolition charges probably finished of the city's tourism value.

Fair point, my knowledge of the module is vague at best so I didn't know what state the city was in. Considering this however, if some part of the city did survive it could be seen as further evidence of the Black Madonna protecting the Polish people?

[Adm.Lee]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Once the PCs get underground do your damnedest to scare the pants off them and split them up.

- Let someone with engineering skill suggest that explosives (grenades) underground might be a bad idea.
- Remind them that it's dark under there. Flashlights and torches still cast all kinds of shadowy light, conducive to "visions."

One of my players brought in IR goggles. I pointed out that it wouldn't help if the catacomb was haunted, since ghosts don't have heat signatures.

The crazy para captain down there did a lot of hit & run from the side tunnels and such, I think I whittled the party down to two wounded PCs before they finally got him.

The Black Madonna has history, specifically that it is believed to have protected the Jasna Gora monastery during an attack by the Swedes in the 1600s.

Yep. Some time after running this, I got to read the novel "The Deluge,"* which includes this siege. I think there's a movie in Polish, but I haven't seen it.

BM and Krakow were two of my favorite modules, in that their basic set up was to present the GM with all of the factions in a region, then hand the PCs an object too valuable for them to use. What do they do, and who do they ally with?

Good luck.

*by Henryk Sienkiewicz. I recommend the 1993-ish Hippocrene translation.