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IRON DM 2023 Tournament Thread
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<blockquote data-quote="Iron Sky" data-source="post: 9194459" data-attributes="member: 60965"><p><strong>The Dooms of Songport</strong></p><p>A D&D adventure</p><p></p><p><strong>Ingredients:</strong></p><p>Scary Stickers</p><p>City in a Bottle</p><p>Misunderstood Owlbear </p><p>Copper Kettle</p><p>Sword of Echoing Sin</p><p>Uncaring Bears</p><p>Silent Choir</p><p></p><p></p><p>The reward for a mission the PCs just completed awaits them in Songport, City of Choirs. Emerging from a forest, PCs witness a formation of singing warriors fighting a rearguard action to allow a woman to flee, the warriors standing against a seemingly-endless horde of myconid Underdark monstrosities.</p><p></p><p>Songport is gone. The outlines of individual large buildings indent the ground as though the city just disintigrated or vanished. Only cellars and lower foundations remain visible.</p><p></p><p>The warriors' songs shred fungal creatures by the score, but the formation is overwhelmed and myconid horrors chase the woman into the forest. PCs following her face running battles against them until they catch up to her. She fights with sonic song attacks and an echoing bronze sword. This is Lati an apprentice bard-warrior of the Choir. She's the last survivor of Songport and begs their help getting to their homeland or "all will be lost." She promises they "a fortune in copper" and double their original reward.</p><p></p><p>If PCs let her die and loot her corpse instead, they find a bottle containing a miniature, living city. The bottle's effectively invulnerable. She also carries a map and scrolls bearing the Songport Council's declaration to "relocate back to Songshore, there atone and right ancient wrongs, to be delivered and restored by the Choir."</p><p></p><p>Heading to Songshore either via Lati or the map leads to the Shattered Grove: a dense, primeval forest closing in on the ancient, overgrown road to their destination.</p><p></p><p>Dangers: losing the trail, druid-set pits, traps, and snares, falls into overgrown cellars swarmed by myconid creatures, and attacks by animal-monster hybrids such as cockatrice, manticores, and gryphons.</p><p></p><p>The road ends at a murky lake. Exploring around it, they pass through areas riddled with Underdark tunnels, scattered with ruined buildings, countless myconids, and groups of silenced banshees attired like ancient, dead members of the Choir. The PCs learn from Lati or find ancient carvings telling the tale of Songport emerging around the lake from a song-shattered bottle, then being re-bottled later fleeing some doom.</p><p></p><p>To break the bottle and restore the city, they need the Choir's bottle-breaking song; Lati alone can't hit the needed layers of resonant tones.</p><p></p><p>Anyone drinking from the lake or any streams running from it gains a microbial fungal infection; Con failures against it result in increasing levels of paranoia and violent outbursts. Anything infected that dies returns as a deranged ghost.</p><p></p><p>Local druids in wild shape spy on the PCs as they travel, eventually intercepting them and demanding to know their business. The druids decide the PCs might serve as a neutral party for an impasse they have come to. They offer healing, a safe place to rest, and rewards if the PCs help.</p><p></p><p>The druids lead them to Mirror Ring, a collection of monolithic standing stones scrawled with ancient runes circling a gleaming, mirror-like pond. There, they learn of a recent proliferation of monstrous hybrid animals like those they've encountered.</p><p></p><p>These creatures' emergence split the druids into two factions: the Naturals believe the new creatures are monsters and should be purged while the Inclusives angrily declare the new creatures are part of nature and should be protected.</p><p></p><p>The Naturals remain the majority, worried about the unnaturally-expanding populations of hybrids, the proliferation of myconid creatures, and corruption of the lake. They also quietly worry about the Inclusives' increasingly unyielding and violent rhetoric. They want to purge the hybrids so they can return to fighting the fungal corruption.</p><p></p><p>The corrupted Inclusives hold a darker view. Infected with the microbial Underdark fungal spores spreading through the waters of Songshore Lake, they've become increasingly paranoid, violent, and hostile. They don't realize this; they think the Naturals have grown scared and closed-minded. They believe excluding monstrous and fungal creatures from "nature" borders on sin. They also resent the "belligerent encroachments on the Shattered Grove" from nearby kingdoms and want to use the myconids and hybrids as weapons to "protect their borders" by striking against civilization.</p><p></p><p>The druids couldn't agree to a course of action, but agreed to bring in the Shattered Grove's largest and most powerful animals to a Conclave and, via Speak With Animals, let them decide what should be done.</p><p></p><p>The Naturals ask PCs to find Grayfur, strongest of the solitary, roaming bears. The druids haven't been able to find him. PCs without Speak With Animals are given a wand or amulet granting it. As a reward, the Naturals offer an ancient copper artifact they took from the ruins; the copper kettle could cleanse the spring feeding the lake and also cure any infections PCs have.</p><p></p><p>The Inclusives covertly approach any infected PCs, offering them the kettle (they really want the PCs to take it elsewhere) plus looting rights for the first kingdom they destroy. They give PCs sticky parchment slips painted with deformed skulls to attach to any bears they find then drive the owlbears that will create to disrupt the Conclave.</p><p></p><p>Finding Grayfur is difficult: the bears roam the hills and mountains, are solitary, and, even with Speak With Animals, generally don't care what the druids or other animals are doing. Off-hand, they reveal where Grayfur's territory is, now hunted by a huge owlbear they think killed him.</p><p></p><p>Infected PCs wanting to slap stickers on the grizzlies find it challenging as bears are standoffish and anger quickly. Once "owlbeared", Speak With Animals garbles communications since they're only half animal, increasing the difficulty in getting the ornery owlbears to care about attacking the Convlave.</p><p></p><p>In Grayfur's territory, the find a huge owlbear chasing down another bear. This is sticker-transformed Grayfur. He wanted to mate with the other bear and can't figure out why she's running away. As PCs misunderstand him (see above), he grows increasingly angry and violent. A Wisdom/Spot check reveals a sticker on his flank, but getting it off challenging due to 1) it's matted into his fur, 2) he's likely angry and fighting them at the time, 3) the Inclusives imbued the stickers with Fear spells triggered when anyone attempts to remove them.</p><p></p><p>Removing the sticker transforms Grayfur back, but they still must convince him to join the Conclave while he'd rather eat, nap, or find the female bear. He doesn't see why he should be bothered with "druid business."</p><p></p><p>Presumably the PCs manage to bribe, cajole, entice, trick, or otherwise get Grayfur and/or a collection of hostile owlbears to the Mirror Ring. This either starts the Conclave or an attack disrupting it.</p><p></p><p>Whichever druids they worked for give them the Copper Kettle. Water poured from it functions as a powerful anti-microbial tonic, curing microbial infections if drunk and cleansing the corrupting fungus if poured into a water source. Water from it does damage like holy water but against myconids.</p><p></p><p>Lati says they can't wait for the Conclave gathering/battle to finish as Songport's inside the bottle she carries. The people inside aren't in stasis and eventually will suffocate, starve, or die of dehydration.</p><p></p><p>She gives them the Sword of Echoing Sin. When drawn, the surroundings echo with sounds of any sins committed nearby. If used on an enemy, their sins echo out. Used on Choir banshees, the sword echoes their voices with hints of their doom:</p><p></p><p>♦Ancient Songport's greed led to over-harvesting of rich copper deposits</p><p>♦They did so in spite of warnings that the magical copper caged an ancient evil</p><p>♦Their preoccupation with their greatness led them to miss the microbe's infection of their sacred fountain</p><p>♦They thought they were too powerful to be corrupted by the fungus</p><p>♦The Choir thought they could easily put down the growing corruption; most were slaughtered, rising as banshees</p><p>♦They were completely certain the new-forged Sword would harness the banshee's screams as weapons, but it instead echoed their sins</p><p>♦Their greatest heroes boasted they'd save everyone by using the Kettle and cleanse the infection, but they died in the attempt</p><p>♦Broken, the survivors bottled the city and fled their failure</p><p>♦The druids arrived certain they could contain it, but grew corrupted</p><p></p><p>These clues also lead them towards the fountain itself, heart of the infection.</p><p></p><p>At the massive fountain, they face hordes of myconid horrors, silent banshees, and Inclusives with monstrous "pets" seeking to stop (or convince infected PCs to join) them. PCs see Inclusives making the stickers by dipping parchment in the corrupted fountain water, then smearing the back with fungal slime to make them sticky.</p><p></p><p>Purifying the fountain cleanses the waters of the infection, restores the banshee Choir's voices, and turns them to the PC's side. Kettle water poured on stickers dissolves them and restores the animal, and if poured into an Inclusive's mouth, it restores their faculties and sanity.</p><p></p><p>When the battle is won, the ghosts of the ancient Choir sing the resonant tune that shatters the bottle, then the banshees find release. The city spreads back to full size around the lake. The PCs retain the Kettle and Sword in addition to the promised rewards.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Iron Sky, post: 9194459, member: 60965"] [B]The Dooms of Songport[/B] A D&D adventure [B]Ingredients:[/B] Scary Stickers City in a Bottle Misunderstood Owlbear Copper Kettle Sword of Echoing Sin Uncaring Bears Silent Choir The reward for a mission the PCs just completed awaits them in Songport, City of Choirs. Emerging from a forest, PCs witness a formation of singing warriors fighting a rearguard action to allow a woman to flee, the warriors standing against a seemingly-endless horde of myconid Underdark monstrosities. Songport is gone. The outlines of individual large buildings indent the ground as though the city just disintigrated or vanished. Only cellars and lower foundations remain visible. The warriors' songs shred fungal creatures by the score, but the formation is overwhelmed and myconid horrors chase the woman into the forest. PCs following her face running battles against them until they catch up to her. She fights with sonic song attacks and an echoing bronze sword. This is Lati an apprentice bard-warrior of the Choir. She's the last survivor of Songport and begs their help getting to their homeland or "all will be lost." She promises they "a fortune in copper" and double their original reward. If PCs let her die and loot her corpse instead, they find a bottle containing a miniature, living city. The bottle's effectively invulnerable. She also carries a map and scrolls bearing the Songport Council's declaration to "relocate back to Songshore, there atone and right ancient wrongs, to be delivered and restored by the Choir." Heading to Songshore either via Lati or the map leads to the Shattered Grove: a dense, primeval forest closing in on the ancient, overgrown road to their destination. Dangers: losing the trail, druid-set pits, traps, and snares, falls into overgrown cellars swarmed by myconid creatures, and attacks by animal-monster hybrids such as cockatrice, manticores, and gryphons. The road ends at a murky lake. Exploring around it, they pass through areas riddled with Underdark tunnels, scattered with ruined buildings, countless myconids, and groups of silenced banshees attired like ancient, dead members of the Choir. The PCs learn from Lati or find ancient carvings telling the tale of Songport emerging around the lake from a song-shattered bottle, then being re-bottled later fleeing some doom. To break the bottle and restore the city, they need the Choir's bottle-breaking song; Lati alone can't hit the needed layers of resonant tones. Anyone drinking from the lake or any streams running from it gains a microbial fungal infection; Con failures against it result in increasing levels of paranoia and violent outbursts. Anything infected that dies returns as a deranged ghost. Local druids in wild shape spy on the PCs as they travel, eventually intercepting them and demanding to know their business. The druids decide the PCs might serve as a neutral party for an impasse they have come to. They offer healing, a safe place to rest, and rewards if the PCs help. The druids lead them to Mirror Ring, a collection of monolithic standing stones scrawled with ancient runes circling a gleaming, mirror-like pond. There, they learn of a recent proliferation of monstrous hybrid animals like those they've encountered. These creatures' emergence split the druids into two factions: the Naturals believe the new creatures are monsters and should be purged while the Inclusives angrily declare the new creatures are part of nature and should be protected. The Naturals remain the majority, worried about the unnaturally-expanding populations of hybrids, the proliferation of myconid creatures, and corruption of the lake. They also quietly worry about the Inclusives' increasingly unyielding and violent rhetoric. They want to purge the hybrids so they can return to fighting the fungal corruption. The corrupted Inclusives hold a darker view. Infected with the microbial Underdark fungal spores spreading through the waters of Songshore Lake, they've become increasingly paranoid, violent, and hostile. They don't realize this; they think the Naturals have grown scared and closed-minded. They believe excluding monstrous and fungal creatures from "nature" borders on sin. They also resent the "belligerent encroachments on the Shattered Grove" from nearby kingdoms and want to use the myconids and hybrids as weapons to "protect their borders" by striking against civilization. The druids couldn't agree to a course of action, but agreed to bring in the Shattered Grove's largest and most powerful animals to a Conclave and, via Speak With Animals, let them decide what should be done. The Naturals ask PCs to find Grayfur, strongest of the solitary, roaming bears. The druids haven't been able to find him. PCs without Speak With Animals are given a wand or amulet granting it. As a reward, the Naturals offer an ancient copper artifact they took from the ruins; the copper kettle could cleanse the spring feeding the lake and also cure any infections PCs have. The Inclusives covertly approach any infected PCs, offering them the kettle (they really want the PCs to take it elsewhere) plus looting rights for the first kingdom they destroy. They give PCs sticky parchment slips painted with deformed skulls to attach to any bears they find then drive the owlbears that will create to disrupt the Conclave. Finding Grayfur is difficult: the bears roam the hills and mountains, are solitary, and, even with Speak With Animals, generally don't care what the druids or other animals are doing. Off-hand, they reveal where Grayfur's territory is, now hunted by a huge owlbear they think killed him. Infected PCs wanting to slap stickers on the grizzlies find it challenging as bears are standoffish and anger quickly. Once "owlbeared", Speak With Animals garbles communications since they're only half animal, increasing the difficulty in getting the ornery owlbears to care about attacking the Convlave. In Grayfur's territory, the find a huge owlbear chasing down another bear. This is sticker-transformed Grayfur. He wanted to mate with the other bear and can't figure out why she's running away. As PCs misunderstand him (see above), he grows increasingly angry and violent. A Wisdom/Spot check reveals a sticker on his flank, but getting it off challenging due to 1) it's matted into his fur, 2) he's likely angry and fighting them at the time, 3) the Inclusives imbued the stickers with Fear spells triggered when anyone attempts to remove them. Removing the sticker transforms Grayfur back, but they still must convince him to join the Conclave while he'd rather eat, nap, or find the female bear. He doesn't see why he should be bothered with "druid business." Presumably the PCs manage to bribe, cajole, entice, trick, or otherwise get Grayfur and/or a collection of hostile owlbears to the Mirror Ring. This either starts the Conclave or an attack disrupting it. Whichever druids they worked for give them the Copper Kettle. Water poured from it functions as a powerful anti-microbial tonic, curing microbial infections if drunk and cleansing the corrupting fungus if poured into a water source. Water from it does damage like holy water but against myconids. Lati says they can't wait for the Conclave gathering/battle to finish as Songport's inside the bottle she carries. The people inside aren't in stasis and eventually will suffocate, starve, or die of dehydration. She gives them the Sword of Echoing Sin. When drawn, the surroundings echo with sounds of any sins committed nearby. If used on an enemy, their sins echo out. Used on Choir banshees, the sword echoes their voices with hints of their doom: ♦Ancient Songport's greed led to over-harvesting of rich copper deposits ♦They did so in spite of warnings that the magical copper caged an ancient evil ♦Their preoccupation with their greatness led them to miss the microbe's infection of their sacred fountain ♦They thought they were too powerful to be corrupted by the fungus ♦The Choir thought they could easily put down the growing corruption; most were slaughtered, rising as banshees ♦They were completely certain the new-forged Sword would harness the banshee's screams as weapons, but it instead echoed their sins ♦Their greatest heroes boasted they'd save everyone by using the Kettle and cleanse the infection, but they died in the attempt ♦Broken, the survivors bottled the city and fled their failure ♦The druids arrived certain they could contain it, but grew corrupted These clues also lead them towards the fountain itself, heart of the infection. At the massive fountain, they face hordes of myconid horrors, silent banshees, and Inclusives with monstrous "pets" seeking to stop (or convince infected PCs to join) them. PCs see Inclusives making the stickers by dipping parchment in the corrupted fountain water, then smearing the back with fungal slime to make them sticky. Purifying the fountain cleanses the waters of the infection, restores the banshee Choir's voices, and turns them to the PC's side. Kettle water poured on stickers dissolves them and restores the animal, and if poured into an Inclusive's mouth, it restores their faculties and sanity. When the battle is won, the ghosts of the ancient Choir sing the resonant tune that shatters the bottle, then the banshees find release. The city spreads back to full size around the lake. The PCs retain the Kettle and Sword in addition to the promised rewards. [/QUOTE]
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