nemmerle said:
Not Your Father’s Disney
A DND adventure for mid to upper level characters.
The Forgotten Ritual
In the lost age, there were many rituals of great power, and among those was the Ritual of Ascension. Great rulers would have this ritual performed on them, granting them exceptional health for their remaining years, and assuring that upon their physical death their spirit would ascend to the heavens. There they would be worshipped by their people and ancestors. In game terms, this meant that when they physically died, their soul would not go on to the afterlife, but rise to the plane of their god where they would be reformed into an immortal celestial of middle to upper power levels. The good health thingy could be a bonus to CON, along with CON not decreasing with age. The catch was that the Ritual of Ascension required the sacrifice of two lives, one being blood of your blood, one being blood of your enemy. If this life sacrifice was not from willing participants, the ritual was quite an evil act, and the ascending soul would not be allowed into the plane of a goodly god. Instead it would be sent to the plane of a dark god where the soul would be reborn as a fiend. With that in mind, and considering that it’s pretty hard to get an enemy to willing give his life for you, the ritual was eventually shunned by the civilized world and stricken from the history books.
A King and his Wizard
Arch Wizard Tarazed had been the main advisor to King Alshain for just a short while when he discovered the Ritual of Ascension in some ancient text he was translating. When he finished the translation and figured out how to perform it his way, he went to the King with the “great news”. He had found a way to perform a powerful ritual that would give him great health, and ensure that upon death he would ascend to the heavens, where his star would shine brightly for all eternity. Tarazed had been building up Alshain’s pride from day one, and so the king jumped at the opportunity. The only catch, Tarazed stated, was that the King must have an enemy of his in close attendance for the ritual. And, of course, he’d want his only daughter to be front and center for his big moment, right?
A Gift for my Enemy
The Magical Silver Arrows of the spring hunt have been a part of the local tradition in the kingdom for generations. Every spring the king (or a representative for the king) leads the first hunt, and always gets the first shot. As long as he hits the <insert local small game here>, all hunts are ensured of a large take across the kingdom for the entire year. In game terms, the arrows have true strike cast on them, so they have almost never missed. As far as them having an effect on the hunting yields for the entire year, hey, it’s funny how much more true a young bowman’s aim is when he believes in himself.
King Alshain’s main adversary is Zaurak, monarch of the neighboring rival nation. Alshain will commition the PCs, being well known and well respected heroes in both countries, to present a gift of the magical arrows to Zaurak. In return, the King merely asks that his good neighbor attend his ceremony of ascension, in a seat of honor in the front, of course!
Hooks:
Alshain will offer the PCs large sums of coin, perhaps a grant of land, titles, maybe a select few choices from the royal treasury of magical items…..you know your players better than I. Use what ever will motivate them enough to accept the task. Alshain will be certain to state this is an honorable thing he is asking of them, and that the nation will be indebted to them if they are successful in this diplomatic mission.
Getting Zaurak to accept the gift and agree to attend the ceremony is the easy part. He desperately wants the arrows, which he believes must be powerful artifacts. The hunts in his land are never as successful as in Alshain’s, and why should his people have to take their neighbor’s leftovers? He has tried to get them in the past while negotiating treaties and what not. Alshain knows that it is an acceptable gift to get his hated rival to attend, which is why he chose it. The only way this won’t go over smooth will be if the PCs are rude and crude, or they are in some other way overly offensive. At which point, Zaurak will challenge the offender to duel with his captain of the guard, to prove he is a worthy bearer of the gift. However, the monarch does this just to save face in his court. He will give the captain some private signal that he is to lose the duel, ensuring that Zaurak gets his precious arrows. In game terms the captain should be a fighter or duelist of sufficient level to provide a good challenge, but it doesn’t matter too much b/c he’s going to throw the fight anyway. The duel will not be to the death, of course.
Travel to and/or from Zaurak’s palace is a good opportunity to throw in some random encounters on the open road to sate the players blood lust. Use what ever combination of monsters or bandits that you’ve been itching to use and give the players a good challenge.
A Haunted Roadside Inn
On the road to Zaurak’s, the PCs will stop for awhile at an inn just beyond the boundaries of Alshain’s kingdom. If the PCs don’t feel much like stopping, I’m sure that the following night the weather will be sufficiently bad so that they will want to stop at the roadside inn that conveniently comes along. Anyway, it won’t take long before the PCs realize that the inn is the home of a dwarven ghost Grumium. Mainly b/c he will recognize the PCs from reputation alone and approach them enthusiastically. “You be the ones runnin gifts for the ole king. Thinks pretty much of him self these days, plannin’ this fancy shmancy ascension ceremony an’ all. It ain’t right!” If the PCs give him any kind of attention at all, he will go on and on about how it ain’t right. “Them silver arrows have been putting food on the plates of good people for centuries, and who does he think he is changing that? And what does he need to ascend for anyway? His heads gotten too big since that evil wizard moved in, if ye ask me. That ceremony ain’t right, I tell ya, it ain’t right!” If questioned about the Arch Wizard Tarazed, he will tell the story of how he used to live in King Alshain’s castle, but Tarazed cast him out. “I popped in on that fellow consortin with demons. Consortin with demons, I tell ya! After that, he cast me out saying I stuck me nose in places it didn’t belong. Bahh! Who’s he think he is, castin’ a goodly spirit like me out? I been hauntin those halls before his granda’ was but a gleam in his great granda’s eye!.....” If questioned about the ritual, he will respond “I heard stories of em usin that ritual back in the lost age. They sacrificed people. Good people! It ain’t right!” And so forth.
If the PCs find time to investigate the wizard, which will be difficult b/c they will be expected back in time for the Ascension pretty quickly, they will find that he is a seedy character and has quite a history of dastardliness. If they investigate the ritual, the local librarian will say “Yes, I do recall reading something about that in one of the ancient texts I was studying. Its right over here….That’s strange. It’s not here. Now where would that book have gone????” And the book never turns up. They will be unable to uncover anything else about the ritual with out devoting a lot of time and covering some serious miles in their search.
Run Away! Run Away!
Sabik is Tarazed’s apprentice, a young man and low level wizard of average looks, and a personality like a mouse. Tarazed keeps him around mainly to clean the shop and be his errand boy, but he does teach the kid an occasional spell. Well, Sabik learns that the ritual will in fact require the sacrifice of the lives of Monarch Zaurak and the daughter of King Alshain, his beloved Princess Maia. Given his mouse-like demeanor and total Lack of Confidence, he will not confront Tarazed about it or even tell King Alshain. King Alshain would surely love to know that his daughter’s life was about to be forfeit, but with no self-confidence Sabik avoids confrontation at all costs. If he had any confidence at all, he would let Maia know his true feelings for her, but instead she thinks he is just a sweet friend. With no self-confidence, he chooses to run away. He memorizes a full compliment of charm spells, and grabs a couple non-detection rings and a hat of disguise from Tarazed’s box of goodies. He sufficiently charms the princess into joining him on a “camping trip” and “No we don’t need to tell anyone. You’ve wanted to be more independent and get out of the castle anyway.”
When the PCs return, ready to announce their success with Zaurak and collect their loot, they will find the castle in a panic looking for the kidnapped princess. She hasn’t been seen since yesterday, and the only thing they have to go on is that Sabik is also missing. A guard spotted him yesterday near the royal suites accompanied by a Mysterious Stranger. When questioned, Sabik quickly interjected that the man was making an important delivery to Arch Mage Tarazed, and had made a wrong turn on his way out. “No, that’s all right. I’ll escort him to the door.”
The stranger is really the charmed princess in a hat of disguise who thinks she’s sneaking out on a field trip. Tarazed has figured out what the boy is up to, and desperately wants to find him before anyone else, but his scrying is blocked by the rings that Sabik stole. King Alshain will beg the PCs to help in the search, and if necessary will up the amount of loot that he is offering to get them to join in. When they do, Tarazed will following with a scrying eye.
By simply asking around, the PCs will quickly get on the right path. For example, a man at the stable will have seen Sabik riding off with the stranger. “They went that a way!” A few more gather information checks and the PCs will know that they entered the king’s wood at the south end. From there, they will be able to track them fairly easily, since traffic is quite low in the King’s wood. When Sabik and Maia are found, they will run for it. When caught, Sabik will not fight except in self defense, and will try to explain that he was actually trying to save the princess. As soon as he starts spilling the beans on the conspiracy theory, Tarazed will teleport in and put Sabik out with a sleep spell. He will then proceed to take the “traitorous lad” back to the castle for questioning via a mass teleport spell, and will only be stopped from doing so with force. If the PCs fight Tarazed, it will be quite a battle as he is a powerful wizard. He will not fight to the death, but he won’t go down with out a fire works show either. If they fight and Tarazed is beaten, he will try to teleport back to the palace with the princess, and get the King to perform the Ritual of Ascension quickly, before the PCs and Sabik return. If the PCs let Tarazed take Sabik with him, when they get back to the castle they will find that Sabik is in the dungeon, but is now a gibbering idiot not responding with any kind of intelligence. Monarch Zaurak will have arrived, and at the urgings of Tarazed, Alshain is going through with the ritual of ascension as planned later that night. If the PCs let the ritual occur, things will get ugly. At the climax of the ceremony, Princess Maia, Zaurak, AND Tarazed will all die an agonizing death before the gathered assembly, much to the horror of King Alshain. He will blame the wizard first for undertaking a ritual that he obviously didn’t understand, and then blame himself for being an arrogant fool. He will go into a period of deep grief. However, it is all a sham. Tarazed, evil wizard that he is, had known of a ritual for switching bodies. When he discovered the ascension ritual, he was surprised at the many parallels between the two. He was able to find a way to perform both rituals as one spell, first switching bodies with Alshain, and then seamlessly completing the ritual of ascension on himself. Princess Maia provided the blood of his blood, of his physical body anyway. Zaurak provided the blood of his enemy. King Alshain’s blood (flowing from Tarazed’s old body), while not necessary for the ritual, was added in simply because it cleaned up the whole thing nicely. With Tarazed now ruling the kingdom in Alshain’s body, dark days are coming. Keep in mind that if the good king is killed, he will “ascend”, and come back in demon form looking for revenge. If you want to make him even nastier, he can still retain his spell casting and feats in his fiend body.
Ingredients Recap
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Kidnapped Princess Princess Maia, kidnapped by the wizard apprentice Sabik in an attempt to save her from ritual death.
Mysterious Stranger Princess Maia, charmed and wearing a hat of disguise. This stranger’s presence in the castle with Sabik was one of the only clues to the princess’s abduction.
Haunted Roadside Inn The inn where the cast out dwarven ghost Grumium resides. Site where the PCs first learn that something ain’t right!
Evil Wizard Arch Wizard Tarazed, who wants to complete a ritual that will allow him to steal the body of King Alshain, kill off Zaurak, the king and his daughter, and grant him all of the good stuff that goes with the ritual of ascension.
Lack of Confidence Sabik was lacking confidence in him self, and therefore did not try to stop Tarazed, much less tell the princess that he loved her. Instead, he chose to run.
Magical Silver Arrows Gift from King Alshain to his rival Zaurak in order to get him in attendance for the ritual. The first part of the story that draws the PCs into the happenings.
