THE CURRENT ADVENTURE
The current adventure is a sign for how desperate I am. It is based on the computer game Return to Krondor, which is in turn based on Raymond E. Feist’s novel Tear of the Gods. I’m out of ideas, how to bridge the gap to the showdown at the end of the campaign. Fortunatly my players aren’t very well read, when it comes to fantasy literature, they all know their Tolkien, but that’s about it. So I can borrow and steal whatever I want, I didn`t even bother to change the names.
To summarize the background story, every year a great tearshaped crystal forms it self in the great temple of Madriel in Hetanu. Normaly this tear is used to make a stretch of the asherakian desert fertile, or to prevent, that the desert devours a particular piece of arable crop. This time it was decreed , that this years tear should be sent to Mithril, in order that the inhabitants of Denevs Triangle could keep their sapped farmland fertile, and perhaps even expand its boundary. This plan came to the ears of certain titanworshiping circles, so they decided to ambush the ship carrying the tear. Should this plan be successful, it would be a major blow to the divine forces in Asherak, because no new tear would form itself, as long the old one wasn’t either destroyed, or used up in the proper ritual. And perhaps something more sinister could be made with this piece of Madriels very essence.
As leader of the ambush the coven choosed an individuum called Bear (hm/Bar8/F5), a Kadum woreshipper and veteran of the titanswar. He owes his incredible long lifespan to an amulett, granted to his champions and leaders of his armies, by Kadum himself. The amulett enhances the strength, and constitution of the bearer by six points, and provides him with the equivalent of a permant stoneskin spell, which regenerates at dusk, and SR 40. The achilles heel of this artifact is, that it function only as long as the bearer stands on solid ground, or has some contact with his Masters essence, like swimming in the Bloodsea. It also provides no protection against a weapon enchanted with the humble firstlevel paladin spell bless weapon..
Bear travelled to the Toe Islands with a few of his own men, and hired a band of pirates led by a captain named Niut, with whom he worked on ocassion in the past. Niut wasn’t thrilled at the thought of assaulting a ship full of clerics, but he knew damn well, that Bear wouldn’t take a no for an answer.
The ship carrying the tear took the northeren route, in order to circumvent the center of the Bloodsea. The pirates, knowing this, set their ambush at the coast of the northern protectorats,
near a cape, with the fitting name Widow’s Point. The pirates boarded the ship, and bear and his men, gleefully slaughtered the priests. This turn of events shook Niut and his men, even though, they were pirates, murdering priests is a repulsive act even to them. It is also considered very bad luck.
So before Bear could find a way around the wards placed upon the tear, the pirates shoved him over board, hoping he would drown in the turbulent sea, and then disposed his men. Then they quickly transferred the other valuables to their ship, and scuttled the asherakian vessel along with the tear.
Maybe it was the wrath of the gods, maybe it was mere coincidence, shortly thereafter, they were hit by a terrible storm. Only Niut and two of his men survived in a boat taking along the most valuable pieces of their booty. They landed near Mithril, were Niut contacted his old friend Joran the proprietor of the Bitten Dog, one of the better establishments at the stormside, and part time fence. There he figured, he could recuperate, while Joran was turning the booty into coin.
Bear far from being dead, was washed ashore, somewhere south of Artere three days later. He figured that Mithril was the logical place he should start looking for Niut. So he secretly made his way into the city, and began his not so subtle investigation.
Niut soon became aware of this, and managed to get himself arrested for public drunkeness, and disorderly behavior. He figured, the best way, to escape Bear’s wrath, was to be in a secure prison cell for a few days, then paying his fine, and making a quick getaway arranged by Joran to some far away place like Calastia or Darakeene. Should the emergency arise, he thought, he could confess to the clergy, and buying his freedom and the protection of the paladins by telling them were the tear was scuttled.
He didn’t took Bears determination into account. Bear with the help of some local riffraff , motivated by tales of a pirate treasure, assaulted the Bitten Dog, and beated Niuts whereabouts out of Joran, killing him in the process. The players arrived shortly thereafter, and dealed with a few of Bears new friends, who stayed behind, ransacking the place.
Meanwhile Bear assaulted the headquarters of the crow mercenary company, where Niut was held in one of the few cells for minor wrongdoers. Bear literally teared him limb from limb after beating the location of the tear out of him. In his rage Bear overlooked a witness in one of the other cells, who later related pieces of the conversation to the players.
The players arrived on the scene as Bear was making his escape into the sewers. After realizing, that their weapons and spells couldn’t harm him, they wisely backed off.
The authorities, after checking old records, realizied, what kind of creature was causing the trouble, but they couldn’t determine why. It all became clear, when later that day the sole survivor of Niuts crew guilt- and angstridden went to the temple of Madriel and confessed his crimes.
They players were charged with securing the help of the local guild of seawitches, who occassionally raise sunken ships, if the cargo is particiullary valuable. Arriving at the guildhouse, they learned, that the guildmaster was murdered the last night, and the only other guildmember, a quarterorc named Kendaric, capable of such a feat had gone into hiding, fearing being accused of murdering the guildmaster.
After solving the crime, and bringing the real culprit to justice, they sallied forth to Widows Point. To support them in the trials to come, they were generously outfitted with healing potions and scrolls of waterbreathing. I also gave them three NPC to support them. Two NPC and a mole that is. Soine ??? a hf Pal5/Gold Knight3, Kurnog a hom Bar3/Rgr4, with a severe case of undead-phobia, and Amadis a hm F3/Sor5/Calastian Battlemage4 (btw I’m using Nightfalls variant of the CalBm, while it is little bit overpowered, it has certainly more flavor than the official version).
Amadis joined the crimson legion, and worked his way up to the rank of a captain. He arranged to be assigned to guard duty in Mithril, where he and his dread raven familiar, who is capable of becoming invisible, are spying for chancellor Anteas. Being a “friend”, and drinking buddy of Skalus Kadremis, the magical advisor of the Behjuhrian Vigil stationed in Mithril, it was easy for him to get assigned to this mission. In time he will find out, why everybody is so interested in this halfling girl.
A few days later, they reached Arete, a little seaport in the northern protectorates, which was under some kind of siege at that moment. Herstons men, a group of Vangal horsemen, some thirty heads strong, come to Arete two or three times a year, to resupply themselves, party down, an rearrange the furniture in the local inn, some times burning it down. The inhabitants give them their due because of Herstons efforts the region is nearly titanspawn free. However the inhabitants of Arete prefer to take refuge in little fort of the crimson legion on these ocassions. My players being wise and boring avoided this piece of local folklore, and sneaked past them.
Three days, and two random encounters later the players reached Haldons Head a tiny village, close to Widows Point. The region around Haldon Head has the reputation of being haunted. This stems from the last days of the ledean empire, when a coven of necromancers choosed the natural caverns under Widows Point as the starting point for their quest for immortality, because these caves for some reason attracted negative energy like a magnet. An immense focus was errected in one of the caves to bundle this excess of energy.
The two leaders of this coven, each choosed his/her own way to achieve the great goal. The more conservative Thormond choosed the traditional way and became a liche (Necr12). Serlis (Sor9) on the other side, being used to the more sensual pleasures of necromancy, and not as advanced in the art as her partner, wasn’t very fond of the idea, spending eternity caught in a withered corpse. So she opted for artificially induced vampirism, to avoid the “yes master syndrome” of traditionally created vampires. Because of this extremly energy intensive method, the two had a falling out, as it was interfering with Thormonds plans.
As a result, the coven split into two factions Serlis and her brood of three (one sorcerer, and two fighter types around level 5 or6), and Thormond, the superior necromancer and his mostly mindless undead servants. To most of the coven members the blessed state of being undead was denied. Their status was reduced to be the breeding stock of new experimental material. The more usefull mortal servants were in particular lean times forced to eat the dead, creating a caste of ghouls in the progress. Some of these ghouls escaped their servitude and formed a third faction under a selfproclaimed ghoulking, a cowardly bunch living from the scraps they can steal from their former masters.
When the titans war began, Serlis and Thormond sealed of the complex, and hid themselves from history. As a joined venture both turned a number of krakens into zombies to provide them with the corpses of drowned sailors, and seafood for their mortal servants via the subterranean connections to the Bloodsea.
Shortly after the end of the war, the first version of Haldons Head was founded, as the place was uncommonly fertile, and fishing was plentifzl, when you knew your way around the reefs. Serlis and Thormond saw these settlers as a wellcome way to replenish their breeding stock. So one night they made a suprise attack, and dragged them all kicking and screaming into their subterranean realm. This didn’t go unnoticed. A small group of druids of Denev became aware of the incident. They sealed the complex physicaly, by causing a landslide, and spiritualy, by placing potent ward around the complex . They left one of their members behind, to guardthe site, as they had pressing matters to attend elsewhere. They promised to return in force to eredicate this evil, but alas they vanished in the turmoil, that plagued the land shortly after the war. The remaining druid asked her superiors repeatedly for help, but since the evil under Widows Point was apparently dormant, it wasn’t very high on their to do list. Soon the whole matter was forgotten . As she grew old the driud took a disciple, so someone could continue her work. The tradition of the Widows Point witch was born.
Serlis and Thormond didn’t mind being seale off, in fact they both had grown so accustomed to the focus, that it bordered on addiction. They wouldn’t have left the caves, even if they could For now they had what they wanted, and there were other ways of influencing the outer world. Eventhough their bodies were imprisoned, the mind could reach out along with the tiny amounts of negative energy seeping through the wards.
The next wave of settlers was unconciously compelled to take up the wrecking trade, luring ships onto the reefs with false beacons. This earnt the necromancers a great deal of corpses. During the hag war, however the settlers made the mistake of trying to capture two particiular ships. By sheer luck they survived the stranding, and the cargo consisting of about a hundred mercenaries from Darkeene wasn’t very pleased. They slaughtered every living being in the village, including children and lifestock. When they came to their senses again, they threw the corpses into the sea, in order to cover their tracks. Guess, where these corpses landed.
After the hag war the place was settled again, but apart from occasional outbreaks of diseases nothing serious happened. This changed a few months before the players arrived. Ransur, a wizard from Darakeene, dabbling in the necromantic arts, came across a passing mention of said necromantic coven. He spent the next six years unearthing additional information about this cult and his whereabouts. When he finally could pinpoint the location, he charmed a beggar women and her underaged daughter to play the role of his family. This was meant as a kind of disgiuse, making him look less suspicious. Furthermore they could save him as sacrifices, should the need arise.
Arriving in Haldon Head, he took up his old family trade charcoaling, and started snooping around. But his attempts to get entrance into the cave complex were foiled by the witch. Frustated Ransur searched around and found an old crypt hidden in the woods, with an explicit undead presence. The inhabitant was a vampire of Serlis’s brood, who was imprisoned here for trying to betray his mistress to Thormond, shortly after the creation of the focus. Ransur promised to free him, if he would help him dealing with the witch. Of course the vampire agreed. When Ransur dipelled the wards of the sarcophagus, he brought his “family” in order to quell the madding thirst of his new accomplice. The vampire descended on the poor women, turning them into his spawns. Then the three turned on Ransur tearing him apart. In the next two weeks the vampire and his growing brood of spawns preyed on the hapless villagers. A very vocal minority held the witch responsible for this menace, and were trying to convince the rest of the villagers to burn her. One of the farmers even went so far, that he poisoned his own cows, so that he could blame their sickness on the witch.
The group arrived, and imeadiatly tried out the shipraising ritual, but something (the necromantic focus) interferred with it, so they went to the village, and learnt of its problems.50% of my players are female, so witchburning does not sit well with them. Maybe I will prey on this “sympathy for witches syndrome” later in the campaign.The players talked to the witch first, quickly indentified the nature of the problems, and dealt with the vampire and his brood, without the help of a certain halforc barbarian, who couldn’t overcome his fear of undead. they nearly loosing three levels during the fight, and Ulfgar learnt the hard way, that undead are healed through inflict wound spells. The player is one of the fastidious kind, bordering on rule-lawyerness. It was real funny to see him screw up for a change.
With the village and the witch saved, my players could proceed to the entrance of the caves, laid open by the witch. Those of you, who know the computer game can certainly imagine, what immense kind of fun, my players had with the door puzzle. In short, it is a hexagonal divice, with six differently coloured rays, who must be reflected to certain points with the help of little prisms, within a time limit. After each mistake a minor skeleton knight appeared, They made three mistakes, and are about to enter the caves a little bruised.
Some of you might say, that I have forgotten the two bloodhounds. Far from it! Segad, who is relativly popular with some elements in the church hierarchy of Mithril, knew exactly where the players were going, so he chartered a little sailing boat, and arrived in Arete a few days before the players, there he convinced a local peddlar with contacts to Haldon Head to make his business trip there a little earlier. Segad disguised himself as his coachman, with the help of his ring of polymorph self. There he waits at the inn for an advantageous opportunity. He will most likely strike, when the players return to the inn weakend by their fight with Bear. The funny thing is, that I mentioned him twice, when my players stayed at the inn, but they didn’t get suspicious. That are my players, always paranoid, but always overlooking the obvious.
Varden on the other hand isn’t exactly well liked in Mithril, because of the cruel way, he treats his victims. He is tolerated, because he is useful at times. Because he didn’t have access the secret informations like Sedag, he follows the group in a distance of three or four days on foot. Because he figured out that the hawk, who always accompanies the wizard is most likely a familiar, he runs at night, and hides at day. One day after the group will enter the caves, he will reach the vincinity of Haldon Head, there he will stumble across Bear, and the two will make a deal. The for Bear, and the halfling head for Varden.
We ended the last session on this point. The next session is scheduled for the 28th December.
What will happen in the caves depends totally on the players, which way they will take, whom the choose to fight or talk to etc, and if they manage to play the three factions off against another. The ghouls are the likely allies of the players, as they wouldn’t mind , if the focus was destroyed. But getting more out off them as information and moral support will be hard.
The other problem, they will facing after conducting the shipraising ritual and recovering the tear is of course Bear. He is nearby, but all that he has left are four bandits, who will most likely run, if they face serious opposition. But Bear is a walking slaughterhouse in his own right. If things go underservedly bad for my players I will have the witch cast a few supportive spells from afar.
