Iron DM 2012 Round 1: ender_wiggin vs. steeldragons
OF MAZES AND MORTALS
An epic-tier adventure for a fantasy setting
ADVENTURE BACKGROUND
Monolith
Black as ebony, pliable as ooze, the immature igneous
tautorite writhes and contorts, an amorphous geologic embyro of intense arcane potential. The outermost layers expand and cool, blossoming into a honeycomb pattern, bending and warping the physical space where it encounters resistance. Far from its embryonic origin, the tautorite’s energy finally dissipates and it settles into a mature, robust rock. Mature tautorite is known for the tricks it plays on space. Deep in the world’s depths where tautorite is endogenous, one may frequently discover caverns larger on the inside than out, observe gravity that shifts from one tunnel to the next, and return to the same location without ever having meandered from a straight march.
Here dwells the last of the minotaur, who possess an uncanny intuition of their capricious surroundings. Here they thrive, sheltered from the violent machinations of sunwalkers. Their metropolis of stone is built on a bedrock of tautorite, and they walk amongst their twisted design without need for maps. They name their labyrinthine city Monolith, after the colossal stone tower at its heart, connected to the city by a thick web of stone and rock tendrils. Inside of its hardened exterior lies the
marrow, a column of embryonic tautorite that slowly matures outward through the tendrils into the city, the foundation of its paradoxical architecture. This intricate process, however, is vulnerable to destabilization. Even a small insult to the marrow disrupts the fragile equilibrium and could have disastrous ramifications on the city infrastructure. To avoid such a calamity, the city’s arcanists have hardened the monolith’s exterior into a abjurative exoskeleton. This protective shell they call the
cortex, and the faint white light of its sigils renders a perpetual soft glow to the city streets.
The Mazerot
The locals openly tell you their creation myth. Once upon a time, the gods were young and inexperienced with their divine clay. They erred in giving their creations too much power (a hard lesson, for some of them) and their work was unpolished, lacking simplicity and elegance. The minotaurs are a product of that primordial time. They are monstrously strong and quicksilver keen, masters of both physical and arcane worlds. Yet they are unpolished; a poorly amalgamated set of biological characteristics later reiterated in (sensibly) separate species. More importantly, they suffer a curse, a relic of flawed engineering. Every minotaur in Monolith is doomed to meet the same excruciating end: a pervasive dementia that begins its course in the fifth decade of life. The disease -
mazerot - waxes and wanes for a time, and is so subtle at first that one might only have a miniscule tremor. But it is inevitably progressive and eventually reduces even the hardiest of minotaurs to a disoriented, amnesic, incontinent, bedbound elder. In this state, if tended to, minotaurs can survive for many years.
There is no uniform cultural reaction to the mazerot, and it is up to each individual minotaur how to receive it. Some choose to end their own life when they have lost their independence, either quietly or by ceremony. Others choose to have their family members hold their care once they have lost their ability to navigate the city, which usually occurs in a later stage of the illness and is widely regarded as a point of no return. There are some who refuse death, choosing to subsist for decades in a pitiful state. The minotaur approach their mortality as mortals do: some with courage and pride, others with fear and shame.
“They have to turn him,” Corbellos explains. A team of servants tenderly lifts an gaunt, emaciated minotaur elder to his side. A weak cry of agony escapes from his lips. His eyes shine of confusion. “He no longer moves by himself, so we must turn him four times a day and apply ointment or he will develop painful sores. They stopped feeding him weeks ago, but we minotaur can survive months without nutrition...”
Thom Gamble
Thom Gamble is perhaps the most illustrious spice runner in the known world. Among higher circles, he is the most reliable way of getting goods (of any kind) from one place to another, no matter how far and how illicit. Those who know him understand that he is a marriage of foolish bravado and savant-like intellect. Luck had always been on the side of Thom until recently, when he found himself on the open seas in a political quagmire with no good options. With a stunning tactical maneuver that left his enemies baffled, Gamble sacrificed his ship for life and limb. Rather than let that be a harsh reality check or a cause for retirement, he has set out to build a new and improved vessel. One of his most important stops is Monolith, where he connives to steal a tiny piece of tautorite marrow, from which he can build a cargo hold larger than his hull. Unfortunately for him, luck is against him twice, and he is waylaid and kidnapped after just a few short months in the city, while on the brink of designing a spell to penetrate the tautorite cortex.
Corbellos
This middle-aged minotaur is caretaker of the largest library in town, and the likeliest source of any information about the city the PCs might desire. In his prime, Corbellos was a member of the
Aegis Directive, an elite group of wizards that maintains the cortex. After his retirement, Corbellos has been reduced to running the library and tinkering with arcane trinkets. His most prized creation is a magical staff that can reproduce any environmental effect on a thousand-fold scale, utilizing the amplification techniques that allowed the Directive to strengthen large portions of the cortex simultaneously.
For much of his life, Corbellos has quietly suppressed his hatred of the mazerot and its consequences: the intense suffering of kin that is hidden from children and foreigners, and the impossible choice that every minotaur faces. Now, as his own time nears, a lifetime of these boiling emotions drives the wizard towards monstrous actions. Corbellos concocts a plan to destroy the entire city and its denizens, an act he believes will free his people from perpetual damnation.
Corbellos became aware of Thom Gamble’s intentions despite the rogue’s clandestine habits. Seizing the opportunity as he saw it, Corbellos steals Gamble’s work and traps the smuggler in a maze within the depths of his library while he modifies the spell to be used with his staff. Corbellos plans to destroy the city’s monolithic tower. While minor alteration to the marrow could topple a district over time, gross destruction of the column would invariably lead to immediate collapse of the entire city, killing tens of thousands and putting the minotaur species at risk of extinction.
“You people speak with such fondness the juvenile and irresponsible actions of our creators,” Corbellos’s voice resonates deeply off of the cavern walls. “You turn away, ignore the tragedy that awaits each and every one of you. To what end? Be proud in your adversity. Recognize what you truly are: a mistake of the ancients they would take back if they could.” He shouts now, and pebbles come loose from the walls. “I will not let you sentence our children to the fate of our forefathers! They deserve better than to be born accursed creatures.”
Delphine
The characters will likely need a minotaur guide while in Monolith. For this purpose they meet Delphine, a young minotaur orphan from a part of town that collapsed in the years following damage to the marrow. As part of orphanage culture, Delphine is sheltered from the truths surrounding her fated demise. She expresses this naivete while on the job, and PC discussion of her situation (or lack thereof) may have profound impacts on her life after the adventure.
“Marrow tautorite does not move,” recites Delphine with a playful smirk. “It warps the space around it, and bends the light.”
ADVENTURE MECHANICS
The PCs are hooked into the adventure by way of Thom Gamble. They may know him personally from a previous adventure, or know of him through an employer/ally. Perhaps they are sent to apprehend him for his unpaid crimes, or rescue him when word gets out that he has gone missing. Either way, it is important to the PCs that they return with Gamble alive.
When the PCs arrive in Monolith, they are warmly greeted by its denizens so long they are not destructive. They should have an opportunity to explore the city and its culture. At some point, the group should meet Corbellos and Delphine. When the PCS find Gamble’s hideout they find its interior ransacked and in shambles.
- Careful examination reveals that damage to the building was from a multitude of elemental sources: melted furniture, electrical scorch marks, freeze burns can be distinguished from one another in seemingly random distribution.
- There is evidence of Gamble’s arcane experiments that Corbellos did not have time to extinguish. How much they learn of his work depends on skill checks: Gamble’s secret ingredient is acid from a black wyrmling he transported years ago, one of few compounds corrosive enough to burn through the cortex, and one wholly foreign to the city.
What happens next depends on how quickly the PCs can reveal Corbellos’s involvement. In addition to the clues above:
- Corbellos will share with them his work on the staff, unaware that he left tracks.
- Should the PCs talk to Corbellos twice, he forgets who they are the second time they meet.
- Roleplaying or dice can reveal that Corbellos seems increasingly withdrawn and sullen according to his neighbors. Corbellos will espouse his tragic philosophy with them if pressed, but he will not confess his plans until there is no turning back.
If the PCs convince themselves of Corbellos’s involvement before he is finished integrating Gamble’s work with his own, they can assault or infiltrate the library’s depths, avoid/defuse the minotaur’s traps, and rescue Thom Gamble. Corbellos meanwhile escapes and plans his attack on the tower.
If the PCs fail to find Corbellos before this time, he publicly voices his philosophy and unleashes his attack upon the city. Gamble escapes into the netherworld. The PCs must choose to either lose Gamble or abandon the city to Corbellos’s whims. Without PC intervention, Corbellos will ultimately succeed, resulting in a genocide of the minotaur people.
Corbellos’s attack is fierce: with his staff, he calls down a relentless acid rain that showers the monolith and burns its way through the cortex. At this point, the conflict should be unveiled to the group and they should have the option to choose what side of the conflict, if any, they come down on.
- Should the PCs decide to stand on the side of the city, they should eventually be able to stop the wizard. How they fare in this conflict will determine the extent of damage to the city. Let the PCs confront Corbellos with both steel and their own rhetoric.
- Although Corbellos truly believes in his actions, he is also motivated by a strong fear of his impending death, and it is no coincidence that he acts now in the twilight of his life. The PCs can use this fact to seed doubt in his mind, and perhaps slow him down.
- The PCs can keep Thom as a prisoner if they have him, or they can convince the rogue to participate in the city’s defense: though the man is known for pragmatism, he is not above compassion and would be a powerful ally.
- If the PCs side with Corbellos or remain neutral, they can keep pieces of tautorite marrow from the doomed city, which surely will have utility for their further adventures.
“You humans are lucky. You live for a lifetime and die in a moment. We minotaur live in a moment and die for a lifetime. My people... they will look up to you now... Be good to them.”
-- Corbellos, if defeated
[sblock=Summary of Ingredients (not included in word count)]
SUMMARY OF INGREDIENTS
Crippled minotaur: the minotaur species and their debilitating mazerot.
Rock city: Monolith, the city built on tautorite.
Unfortunate smuggler: Thom Gamble, stricken with bad luck twice in a row
Misplaced desire: Corbellos’s wish to ease his people’s suffering, confounded by his fear of death, manifest as his terrible attempt to commit genocide.
Tower shield: the cortex, a magical shield that protects the vital marrow
Staff of storms: Corbellos’s artifact, created with a career of expertise, conduit of his misplaced emotions.[/sblock]
M and 6
