Here are profiles for some very capable female adventurers in Tajamul. Note that Players won't be introduced to Madame Lin until she believes they are ready to handle the threats hiding in the northern marsh.

MARI OMERU (Fighter 3 STR 13 INT 10 WIS 13 CON 14 DEX 16 CHR 12)

Background: Mari is the only daughter of Zugen Omeru, the armorer and weaponsmith of Tajamul City. She is one of the only residents to have grown up on the island, and considers all the elders her “aunts and uncles”. Since she has two brothers that intended to continue their father's craft, Mari indulged her gift of athleticism by taking weapons training. Soon, she was adept enough in melee to accompany the fighters that gathered lizard carcasses for the family tannery. Mari's least favorite obligation is spending long hours as acting saleslady. To escape retail malaise, she will try to convince new adventuring groups that they need her help.

Mari is a fighter that employs Weapon Finesse and other specializations to take advantage of her high Dexterity. She wears a suit of decorative carapace and iron armor, in addition to her father's helmet. Depending on the type of damage best applied against the enemy, she will dual-wield either maces or hand axes. All her items are masterwork, but non-magical. Mari loves escaping Tajamul City to go hunting on Dimetrodon Beach. Her father always needs good hides, which are taken from beasts driven into pits or slain with blunt weapons. She is aware that Trader Red has recently disturbed subterranean creatures, and that he doesn't want Bosun Cirne to find out.

This adventure for Tajamul characters was planned for when the party attained level 3. The following is a dungeon map and key for use by DMs. First, I'll suggest some plot hooks for starting the swords swinging:

1) *Used for my Campaign* The witch from the Lizard Leg Tavern reports to the players that a mysterious woman along with cloaked companions had gone to the Cemetery 5 days ago. This coincides with the amount of time the Ostian Consulate building has been closed...

2) The PCs accept a dare from the retired pirates, entailing camping for the night at the old Cemetery.

3) A pair of young monks, fleeing from some aggressive spiders, claim to have heard activity near one of the crumbling tombs.

Origin: In my campaign, the city was originally an ancient fort claimed by three veterans of the Ostian Yuan-Ti War: Madame Lin, Brigadier Kobs, and Fulmag Graystormer. Their combined wealth was spent refurbishing the ruins surrounding the fort, which attracted anyone not wishing to fight for a living. Eventually, all the local threats were beaten back, and the neighboring strongholds agreed to complete a defensive island perimeter. Now, the only problems seem to arise from villains hiding on the swampy Northern shores. Players from Tajamul are the first generation of offspring from the founding families.

My most recent tour as Dungeon Master involved a combination of home-brew adventures and classic AD&D material. After a group vote, the players decided upon the 3/3.5 Edition rules, for which we had all the myriad rulebooks (some of which I hadn't even read yet). Since a few participants were new to the game, I prompted them to name a theme they would find exciting for multiple sessions. In response, the instrumental genre influence was to be "Sword & Sorcery Pirates", where dungeon delving would be swapped for sacking island locations. Talking like a sea dog, perhaps a new class skill.

Anyway, I designed a group of islands with encounters that would bring a starting party up to roughly level 5 or 6. For compatibility with later, module-based material, I dropped these locations into the World of Greyhawk. Once the players had a sailing ship that could traverse the Azure Sea, they would discover interesting places like the Pomarj and nefarious enemies like The Scarlet Brotherhood. This is the juncture where my campaign went into hiatus; the party, situated in the Drachengrab Hills, savoring a narrow victory over an edited version of the A-Series Slavers modules.

Now, I'll present the maps I created (in Photoshop) for the home islands, Tajamul and Ostia. In later posts, I'll detail all the encounter areas and attach downloadable ground maps.

My current gaming group has been meeting for almost 4 years now, roughly one evening per week. I've only gamed intermittently over the decades, starting in the early 1980's with my younger brother, and then with new friends in the mid 90's. Until these more recent sessions, I've really only been familiar with AD&D/d20 systems and computer games like Baldur's Gate. Luckily, my cohorts own a vast library of RPGs, card games, and fancy board games. We could probably game every day for a decade and not run out of scenarios!