I have both the Agents of Dune and Masters of Dune campaign books, but I haven’t read them thoroughly. I believe both take the approach of an alternate timeline where House Nagara received Arrakis as their fief, instead of House Atreides.
I am thinking of running a campaign set some centuries before the events of the 1st Dune novel. It could be that House Nagara received a sub-fiefdom or have some other reason to be embroiled with the Harkonnen controlled Arrakis.
Could Agents of Dune and/or Masters of Dune campaign books be easily adapted to the ‘centuries before’ scenario above? Or would it be pretty painful and I’d be better off rolling my own campaign from scratch?
Hey Stan (I think I have RPd with you before if you are north of the metroplex)
I think it’s quite easy to convert it to centuries before.
I recently ran a modified version where the players came in about 60 years prior to the events of Dune, and it worked for us.
Both Agents & Masters are largely time neutral.
You will have to create a couple of new NPCs, though even then characters like Baron Harkonnen are written in such a way that it isn’t necessarily Baron Vladimir Harkonnen.
The Emperor in Masters is Shaddam IV, but again quick name change and you are good to go.
For shifting things to be a sub-fief on Arrakis you would need to do a bit more work as the core concept is that you are replacing the Harkonnens and that is what drives a core element of the plot.
Nothing that can’t be worked around. In Agents it is a tweaking that the Harkonnens are having to share the planet instead of being replaced.
Masters is more flexible, but again it assumes Nagara is in charge. A split fief is doable, just make sure none of the text trips you up.
Though if you do choose to cut your path Masters has plenty of sections that can be lifted for almost any campaign (Which is what I did in places for mine)
Yup, this is where the stultified society of the Imperium works for you.
You can go back to before Richese held Arrakis and nothing will have really changed except the names of the leaders.
