Time For Another Round Of Iron Dm!!!
- Thread starter el-remmen
- Start date
Wulf Ratbane
Adventurer
YES PLEASE!
Radiating Gnome
Adventurer
arcseed said:Congrats RG.
Unfortunately, I just couldn't come up with very good ways of connecting the 'holy ground' neat idea with the skeleton image, and elementals just don't do it for me.
Thanks, Arcseed. I like the "Holy Dirt" idea in your post.
And Nemmerle, thanks for your comments. As for the Earth Elementals, you're right, they were a tough fit in that adventure -- I didn't intend them as an XP machine, but as an insurmountable obstacle that would force the players to find the lost key . . . but you're right, that could have been handled a lot better.
I'm looking forward to the next round.
-rg
Desdichado
Hero
Yes, congrats RG. My luck was to be pitted against Wicht, a guy who from many of his posts, I think not only thinks like I do but is considerably more clever. I'll have to be in top form to advance to the next round! Speaking of which, I oughtta get busy and start writing down some of the ideas I've got hurtling through my head with these elements...
see- the key for being an alternate is to find the right opportunity for maximum knee crackage... or shoudl i say- tanya harding the poor sap and take his place....
of course me and you can have our own steel DM competition- but then again- my stories are usually one two sentances long with runons and multiple linkers and four subjects and eight verbs with three adjectives for each noun, and a car that cant fly cause its a stupid car and it has three little wheels that nobody likes and when the cows come home, the moon shines down and...
you get the idea..
of course me and you can have our own steel DM competition- but then again- my stories are usually one two sentances long with runons and multiple linkers and four subjects and eight verbs with three adjectives for each noun, and a car that cant fly cause its a stupid car and it has three little wheels that nobody likes and when the cows come home, the moon shines down and...
you get the idea..
Wicht
Hero
This is always fun. There are some rough edges in this entry but to polish them all away would just make it longer...
Iron DM Tournament; Round 1
Ingredients: Paladin’s Holy Mount, Gargantuan Fire Beetle, Crippled Rogue, Flooded Mine, Diary, Intelligent Greatsword
The Cleanup Crew
or The Caverns of the Chaos Stone
About 1000 years ago, a stone of chaos crashed to earth. This stone had two main powers. The first was that it had a strange effect on magic, causing spells to operate in an unpredictable fashion. The second effect was that any intelligent being within a thousand yards of the stone was liable to have their alignment slowly change until they were chaotic neutral and certifiably insane. A Protection from Chaos Spell was the only way for a being to approach the stone without eventually losing it’s mind.
This stone caused numerous problems until about 500 years ago when it was sealed in a container created with the powers of law and buried in the earth. This worked until about 200 years ago when the container was found by underground dwellers. The stone was for a time released and a group of adventurers, at the cost of their own lives, sealed it within the earth once more. There it continued to lay until just recently. The ground in which the stone was buried is rich in copper and a series of mines have been excavated in recent years. These mines are three layers deep and at one point they even lie under an above ground lake. About a month ago, some of the miners broke through into a sealed chamber in which there were four skeletons. As they eyed the treasure on the skeletons none of them paid much attention to the strange multi colored rock (the Stone of Chaos) in the center of the room. Instead, one of them picked up a sword and that’s when the trouble started. The sword, an intelligent greatsword, warped beyond all hope by 200 years of exposure to pure chaos, dominated the man and out of sheer boredom killed the remaining miners.
Over the next few weeks, the mines became a place of pandemonium. The miner and the crazy greatsword stalked and killed and tormented any they came upon. In addition, the local ‘bug’ population, through the magic of the greatsword and the nature of the stone, began to grow, literally (the sword has the Enlarge power and a bug fetish). Huge earthworms (rumored to be purple worms by some of the miners), mosquitoes as big as stirges, and a gargantuan fire beetle, all began to appear and soon the mine owners could get no-one to go into the mine. So they hired some adventurers and sent them in to find out what was going on. Things went smoothly for this group until they were underneath the lake and then one of the wizard’s spells, a Magic Missile, turned into a Fireball, collapsed the room by burning out the support beams, and flooded the mine. Only two of the party survived. The party’s rogue made it through the water to the third area of the mine, which was still dry. There he managed to kill the greatsword-wielding miner. However, he too soon went insane. The other member of the party to survive was the mount of the gnome paladin, a large awakened dog. This creature swam to safety but is currently trapped in a series of rooms and is living off of any insects or fish he can find and kill. Fortunately for him his inherent nature protects him from the power of the stone.
The PC’s are hired as a clean up crew to follow up after the first bunch of adventurers. In the upper level of the mine, the PCs will have little problem. The power of the stone does not quite reach this far and there are currently only a few insects of large size to cause trouble. The second layer of the mine will present a bit more of a challenge. Here the lake waters have flooded the mine passages and PCs must have some way to navigate through the tunnels. As well, some of the fish have made it into the tunnels from the lake and are behaving strangely. Some may pose a threat to the PCs but all will be a nuisance as they act in a chaotic fashion. The dog, the late gnome paladin’s mount, is to be found in a series of dry rooms just above the water level, but unable to get to other sections of the mines on its own. If the PCs find the dog it can easily relate what happened to the first party. Any spell cast on this level of the mines has a 20% chance of behaving as a completely different spell (chosen randomly). This does not affect spells already in effect but only those actually cast at the time.
The third layer of the mines is when things should get really strange. The water has not flooded this layer but that does not make the going easier. Here the rogue, crippled from the collapse of the mines, completely insane and wielding a powerful and crazy greatsword, will stalk the party and try to pick them off. A Gargantuan fire beetle has dug out a huge nest and is very hungry. Earthworms of huge size mindlessly deliver crushing attacks as they pass. And other insects and creepy crawlies also abound in large size and in some cases, large quantities. To make matters worse, any spell cast in this area has a 50% of behaving as a different spell and for each hour spent in the area, each PC not protected by a protection from chaos spell must make a Will save or move one alignment step towards chaotic neutral. Those that reach chaotic neutral go insane and behave as such.
If the PCs manage to make it into the chamber containing the stone of chaos, they may find the diary on one of the skeletons to be helpful. Here the writer, a wizard, records the last hours of the party as they magically sealed themselves in the rock, away from those creatures that attacked them. The wizard last entry tells of the party’s warrior eyeing him strangely. The wizard also, however, mentions in the diary the power of a protection from chaos spell against the stone in the diary and using this knowledge the PCs may be able to once more seal away the stone.
Iron DM Tournament; Round 1
Ingredients: Paladin’s Holy Mount, Gargantuan Fire Beetle, Crippled Rogue, Flooded Mine, Diary, Intelligent Greatsword
The Cleanup Crew
or The Caverns of the Chaos Stone
About 1000 years ago, a stone of chaos crashed to earth. This stone had two main powers. The first was that it had a strange effect on magic, causing spells to operate in an unpredictable fashion. The second effect was that any intelligent being within a thousand yards of the stone was liable to have their alignment slowly change until they were chaotic neutral and certifiably insane. A Protection from Chaos Spell was the only way for a being to approach the stone without eventually losing it’s mind.
This stone caused numerous problems until about 500 years ago when it was sealed in a container created with the powers of law and buried in the earth. This worked until about 200 years ago when the container was found by underground dwellers. The stone was for a time released and a group of adventurers, at the cost of their own lives, sealed it within the earth once more. There it continued to lay until just recently. The ground in which the stone was buried is rich in copper and a series of mines have been excavated in recent years. These mines are three layers deep and at one point they even lie under an above ground lake. About a month ago, some of the miners broke through into a sealed chamber in which there were four skeletons. As they eyed the treasure on the skeletons none of them paid much attention to the strange multi colored rock (the Stone of Chaos) in the center of the room. Instead, one of them picked up a sword and that’s when the trouble started. The sword, an intelligent greatsword, warped beyond all hope by 200 years of exposure to pure chaos, dominated the man and out of sheer boredom killed the remaining miners.
Over the next few weeks, the mines became a place of pandemonium. The miner and the crazy greatsword stalked and killed and tormented any they came upon. In addition, the local ‘bug’ population, through the magic of the greatsword and the nature of the stone, began to grow, literally (the sword has the Enlarge power and a bug fetish). Huge earthworms (rumored to be purple worms by some of the miners), mosquitoes as big as stirges, and a gargantuan fire beetle, all began to appear and soon the mine owners could get no-one to go into the mine. So they hired some adventurers and sent them in to find out what was going on. Things went smoothly for this group until they were underneath the lake and then one of the wizard’s spells, a Magic Missile, turned into a Fireball, collapsed the room by burning out the support beams, and flooded the mine. Only two of the party survived. The party’s rogue made it through the water to the third area of the mine, which was still dry. There he managed to kill the greatsword-wielding miner. However, he too soon went insane. The other member of the party to survive was the mount of the gnome paladin, a large awakened dog. This creature swam to safety but is currently trapped in a series of rooms and is living off of any insects or fish he can find and kill. Fortunately for him his inherent nature protects him from the power of the stone.
The PC’s are hired as a clean up crew to follow up after the first bunch of adventurers. In the upper level of the mine, the PCs will have little problem. The power of the stone does not quite reach this far and there are currently only a few insects of large size to cause trouble. The second layer of the mine will present a bit more of a challenge. Here the lake waters have flooded the mine passages and PCs must have some way to navigate through the tunnels. As well, some of the fish have made it into the tunnels from the lake and are behaving strangely. Some may pose a threat to the PCs but all will be a nuisance as they act in a chaotic fashion. The dog, the late gnome paladin’s mount, is to be found in a series of dry rooms just above the water level, but unable to get to other sections of the mines on its own. If the PCs find the dog it can easily relate what happened to the first party. Any spell cast on this level of the mines has a 20% chance of behaving as a completely different spell (chosen randomly). This does not affect spells already in effect but only those actually cast at the time.
The third layer of the mines is when things should get really strange. The water has not flooded this layer but that does not make the going easier. Here the rogue, crippled from the collapse of the mines, completely insane and wielding a powerful and crazy greatsword, will stalk the party and try to pick them off. A Gargantuan fire beetle has dug out a huge nest and is very hungry. Earthworms of huge size mindlessly deliver crushing attacks as they pass. And other insects and creepy crawlies also abound in large size and in some cases, large quantities. To make matters worse, any spell cast in this area has a 50% of behaving as a different spell and for each hour spent in the area, each PC not protected by a protection from chaos spell must make a Will save or move one alignment step towards chaotic neutral. Those that reach chaotic neutral go insane and behave as such.
If the PCs manage to make it into the chamber containing the stone of chaos, they may find the diary on one of the skeletons to be helpful. Here the writer, a wizard, records the last hours of the party as they magically sealed themselves in the rock, away from those creatures that attacked them. The wizard last entry tells of the party’s warrior eyeing him strangely. The wizard also, however, mentions in the diary the power of a protection from chaos spell against the stone in the diary and using this knowledge the PCs may be able to once more seal away the stone.
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