So I was writing up some notes for a game I plan to run once uni starts back up and wouldn't you know it my first session adventure turned out more detailed that I usually do pre-game notes and quite generic at that so I thought some folks here might find some use for it also.
The adventure is generally aimed at first or second level characters but as there is no combat in the usual sense it is fairly flexible in this regard. The right second and third level spells would, however, make certain parts of it easier. The setting is a small village on the outskirts of civilised settlement, with the local lord's keep nearby. The PCs are assumed to be either (as in my game) locals or stopping here briefly on the way to somewhere else. Without further ado, then, the tenatively-titled:
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Ill-advised Bargains
In the way of a summary: The adventure begins with a Festival Errand in which our heroes are asked to check up on a family late for the local festival, discover a scene of destruction, hear a dying farmer's tragic tale about a deal with a hag and cry wolf in vain. It continues as our stalwart protagonists seek out The Hag's Hut and, after convincing it to sit still, demand the return of the farmer's young daughter from a dastardly witch. She proposes a deal: she will release young Tanya as long as the PCs sneak into the local lord's keep to retrieve a particular scroll from it and deliver a ring to a prisoner there. In Burglar Heroics they may attempt to do just that, or perhaps they will try to approach the well-liked and respected lord in earnest and turn the tables on the witch. The scroll, the witch and the wardrobe sees the PCs return to the witch, hand over a scroll (perhaps the one she is after and perhaps not), retrieve the girl and hopefully live to tell the tale. Finally, as All Good Things ... must come to an end, lose ends are tied up as the bad end unhappily, the good unluckily (or perhaps not).
Festival Errand
(Soundtrack suggestion: Vivaldi's Four Seasons -- because nowhere else is pastoral so happily married with violent urgency. Try the first Spring allegro for the village and the Tempo impettuoso from Summer for the farmhouse)
The adventure begins in a small village on the day of a locally celebrated seasonal festival. Traditionally, the whole town gathers to celebrate the occasion and the town is abuzz with activity. Noon is approaching and everyone has arrived except for one prosperous farming family which lives some distance outside the village. The PCs are asked by one of the village leaders to go check whether everything is alright. When they approach the farm, a plume of smoke may be seen. When they arrive, the farmhouse is in flames. The husband of the family is lying on the ground, badly injured his wife lies nearby dead and his eight-year-old child is missing.
With his dying breath, the farmer tells the story of how he made a deal with a witch for prosperity in exchange for an unspecified favour ten years from that time. She came last night to claim her fee, his 8-year old daughter Tanya. Naturally, he and his wife refused and demanded that the hag leave. The witch flew into a rage at this and unleashed her fearsome magical revenge, the results of which they can see before them. He dies begging the PCs to redeem him by helping free his girl. He is able to roughly indicate the location of her cottage (it lies in the nearby mountains).
If the players return to town, the townspeople will not believe the witch story and will instead blame brigands. The local lord will dispatch a goodly contingent of his guardsmen to scour the area for culprits and kidnapped child both but they will turn up nothing. If the players make an especially convincing arguments (and diplomacy checks of a DC 20, modified by the line the players take) the lord may direct some of the patrols up into the mountains around the alleged location of the cottage but due to the rather unusual nature of the hut in question, these will also return empty-handed. The deaths and disappearance maar an otherwise pleasant festival and the lord offers a suitable reward for the safe return of the girl but events otherwise remain unresolved.
The Hag's Hut
(Soundtrack Suggestion: Mussorgski's ‘Pictures at an exhibition' either The Gnome or The Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga works fine. Anything else mildly dangerous and creepy is good too)
Should the players choose to explore the area to which the dying farmer directs them, they will after a few hours of fruitless wandering stumble across a small, decrepid-looking hut. As they approach, however, the hut will stand revealing huge chicken-like legs and dance away, squatting down some hundred feet away. If they approach again, the hut merely flees again. A bardic knowledge roll (DC 12) may turn up an old folktale wherein a similar hut is charmed with a tune. A perform check (either on the basis of this info or from a blind guess) of DC 15 will lure the hut nearer and convince it to sit down at which point the hag will appear as below.
Otherwise, the hut's evasion continues until the PCs address the hut, mentioning the farmer and his girl at which point the hut starts to approach (and look set to squash them under its appendages) until it is right above the PCs (those who have not dived away for dear life, that is) at which point it gently steps over them and sits down some 10 feet away. Out of it emerges an old, warty crone who coyly demands to know why they are disturbing her. She speaks with a croaky voice and, if possible, in hideous rhyme -- you get the idea.
When the girl is mentioned she asks ‘you don't mean this girl?' and poor Tanya will appear (in a puff of smoke) inside a gilded cage, seemingly suspended in midair above them. The girl is naturally in hysterics.
If any one PC becomes aggressive or particularly insolent, the hag is a potent mage and has a number of tricks up her sleave. Amongst these are things like silence, hold person, polymorph other (into a frog, naturally) and stoneskin (to protect her person). Have fun. She will only toy with the PCs and will encourage conversation, however, as she has allowed them to find her for a reason.
You see, she is willing to return Tanya (and any unfortunate amphibious PCs to their regular shape, as a gesture of goodwill) in exchange for a certain service. She wishes the PCs to break into the local Lord's keep and perform two services -- the first is to deliver a ring to someone in the dungeons thereof, the second is to ‘liberate' a specific scroll from the keep (she does not know where it is but can describe it in enough detail or, at the GM's discretion, provide the PCs with a severed finger which magically always points to the scroll). She cannot perform these tasks herself due to the enchantment tied to the document in question (it is a sort of magical contract which severely restricts the witch's power) though she will not necessarily admit to this.
The witch may furthermore (at the GM's option) give the PCs 24 hours to deliver the ring and return to her with the scroll before she devours the girl and returns froggy adventurers to that state in a rather permanent fashion.
Burglar Heroics
(Soundtrack Suggestion: If they end up doing the break-in, gof or soemthing low with a lot of tension. If you happen to have either of the Baldur's Gate game soundtracks, try tracks 9, 15 or 23 for BG 1 and 13, 14 and again 23 for BG 2)
Lawful Good characters of course face an interesting dilemma here as they are forced to break the law for the greater good or uphold it and allow great harm to be caused to an innocent. You might like to play this up to your players if you think they'd enjoy the ensuing moral debate. One possible resolution to the conflict is of course to come clean with the man whom they've been sent to rob.
The local lord is a kind and well-respected noble who is at the festival with his family during the day and most of whose guards are out looking for brigands or themselves at the festival, leaving the keep sparsely populated. Should he be approached, he will listen out the PCs but will be reluctant to hand over either prisoner or document. He will relate how both have been with the family for several generations (the prisoner never aging) and both are considered charges to be guarded. He may yield on the prisoner (given some mighty fine diplomacy rolls and an emphasis on grisly fate in store for the girl) but will only consent to allow a forgery of the document to be made (should the PCs suggest this -- it will not occur to the lord himself).
Alternatively, the group may choose not to risk openly approaching the noble and simply do the good old break and enter. As mentioned above, a daytime infiltration will benefit from the fact that almost everyone is at the festival but, of course, those who are around will be much more likely to spot infiltrators. Conversely, a night-time assault will mean more guards to avoid but generous modifiers on hide checks. The optimal time to assault would probably be around 8-ish in the evening as one would enjoy the cover of night but most people still wouldn't be home from the festivities which stretch into the night. All the information below about the keep relieson the use of a castle floor plan from an old TSR Birthright supplement (Player's Secrets of Tournen -- great little booklet). I provide a scan thereof for your convenience at http://users.tpg.com.au/nerkez/mypics/haes.JPG (people with slow connections beware -- big file) but if using another castle, alter as you see fit.
Scouting ahead
PCs who decide to head back to the festival and ask around about the keep should be allowed Gather Information checks and given the following information (people drink and talk a lot more freely than they usually would at parties so you may like to either assign some bonuses to the rolls or reduce the time it usually takes to do a gather info check from one evening to only an hour):
Any PCs who visit the keep, will from the outside be able to see the walls dividing the three baileys, a gatehouse on the western side, a three-story citadel in the middle of the castle, a keep of the same height on its eastern side and a third building in its southwest corner. Guards are stationed at the gatehouse, along the northern walls, on the roof of the southwestern building and on the keep itself. If the PCs have the severed finger, it will point to the upper levels of the keep (though this will only become apparent by triangulation, of course.The eastern wall of the keep backs out onto a river and skills like Knowledge (Criminal Activity/Burglary) or Profession (Burglar) [DC 10] will suggest this is the weak side as far as breaking in is concerned. The guard changes every six hours, generally around sunrise, midday, sunset and midnight.
Getting In (and out)
Gates: There are two gates, the main and postern gates. The main gates are kept under constant guard by two watchmen, the postern gates are usually not watched though guards on the southwestern corner of the wall will check them occasionally. The main gates are kept shut by a complex mechanism operated from the gatehouse, the postern gates are barred shut -- neither are easily openable from without but it would be easy to slip out the postern gate, as a young solider will do around nine in the evening.
Walls: The walls are all DC 18 for the purposes of unassisted climb checks. This falls to DC 5 if a rope (grapple or lasso but a use rope check of DC 10 is needed for the later) is hooked onto the battlements. Throwing a rope over works like an attack roll with the rope treated as a throwing weapon with range increment 10 feet (all users are proficient). A grappling hook bestows a +2 circumstance bonus and any ranks in Rope use add another +2 synergy bonus. The AC of the battlements is 14. Anyone on nearby walls or in the bailey itself may be entitled to a spot check to see the rope in daylight (base DC 20 on the wall and 22 from the bailey with a -1 per ten feet of horizontal distance from point of attachment). A PC going over the wall in sight of someone inside the castle provokes an opposed hide/spot roll with a -4 to the spot roll for people inside the bailey (as they're not watching for intruders) and a -6 modifier during nighttime. Note also that the nighttime penalty does not apply when PCs are inside radii of light cast by torches (carried by all guards).
Privy: A privy hole opens out onto the river about 10 feet from off the ground (DC 15 to spot while inspecting the keep from across the river). The approach is in full view of the guards on the keep walls so this is only really an option during the night when someone 40 feet down is obscured by the darkness. After the climb check (DC 18), the PC must make an escape artist check DC 24 to crawl up the unsavoury tunnel and into the castle privy.
Sneaking around
This section is separated into the baileys and their respective buildings. Note that none of the doors between the baileys are kept closed unless the keep under threat of attack.
Lower Bailey: This will be empty at night and more than likely also during the day, except when guards come to relieve those in the gatehouse. A stable hand may be snoozing in the shadow of the stables during the hot day.
The main thing of interest here are the stables as the horses which reside within may be released to provide a distraction. If this is done, all but one guard from the gatehouse and all of those in the middle bailey and barracks will quickly arrive and spend 10 minutes or so catching and calming down the horses. The player should have no trouble escaping into the middle Bailey during all this chaos (but if you are feeling sadistic, give them a hide check DC 14).
Middle Bailey: Unless they are off catching horses, putting out fires or otherwise distracted, there 1d4 off-duty guards will be relaxing here during the day and early evening by sparring or playing dice. The barracks also contain some six guards (minus the ones outside) during the day and 30 during night (who, along with the 10 men on guard are the entire complement of the castle). At night, four officers will also be in their quatres with a fifth on the walls. Incidentally, here is a stat block (modified slightly out of WOTC's Enemies and Allies p33) for the guardsmen:
Human War2; CR 1; Medium-size humanoid; HD 2d8+4; hp 13; Init +5; spd 30 ft.; AC 14(touch 11, flat-footed 13); Atk +5 melee (1d8 + 2/19-20, longsword) or +3 ranged (1d4 +2/19-20, dagger); AL LN; SV Fort +5, Ref +1, Will +1; Str 15, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 11, Wis 12, Cha 12. Skills: Climb +3, Intimidate +6, Ride +3, Spot +3, Swim +0. Feats: Imp Init, Weapon Focus (longsword). Possessions: Studded leather armor, longsword, 2 daggers, torch (night).
The chapel which opens onto this bailey is not strictly speaking relevant to the adventure but may be a good place to hide or (if you happen to be running this for a sacrilegious bunch of PCs) start a fire as a distraction as there are plenty of wooden benches to fuel the flames.
The citadel which is entered through this bailey will be of more interest to the PCs as it contains the dungeon in which the captive they need to give the ring to rots. The first floor is bisected by a wall, the entry half contains nothing but stairs up and down and the other half is occupied by the commanding officer of the soldiers housed in the keep. The door leading into his offices is ajar and a move silently check might be in order for PCs moving through the room with the stairs (his listen is +4 but even if heard the PC should have time to hide). The stairs down lead into a small, dank dungeon which is empty except for a thin man with unkept black hair, a scraggy beard and cat-like yellow eyes. He is held in a locked cell (Open Lock DC 15) and is also chained to the wall with manacles (detect as magical, Open Lock DC 25). He does not speak to the PCs but simply stares at them. If the ring is offered to him he wordlessly takes it, slips it on a finger and fades into a thin wispy mist which proceeds to float up out of the dungeon and over the keep walls. The second level contains a well-locked armoury (Open Lock DC 25), guarded at day by two soldiers (they can easily be heard talking from the floor below). It is empty at night but largely contains long swords, steel shields, long bows and arrows and suits of chain mail, with perhaps the occasional masterwork instance of each.
Upper Bailey: The various gardens in this bailey provide a +6 circumstance bonus to hide checks to those within them. The grounds keeper has gone to the festival so they'll also be unoccupied for the entire day (and night). A guard stands at the doors to the main keep at all times, however. He must be either distracted or knocked out if the PCs wish to enter the keep this way.
The Servant's Quarters houses only two or three persons during the day and most of the staff of twenty during the night but players will probably not have much reason to enter this section of the castle in any case as it is quite obvious what they are.
The keep itself is also mostly empty during the day except for a few servants who are exploiting everybody's absence to clean some of the personal rooms. At nighttime, said rooms are occupied mostly by the sleeping noble and his family. The finger (or just trial and error) will eventually narrow the search down to the second floor. The scroll is in the bedroom adjoining the Ducal Suite, locked in an ornate box which in turn is in a chest of drawers. The key for the box is at all times on a chain around the lord's neck (at night he will be sleeping right next to the chest so it is a simple matter of lifting it off him with a pick pockets roll of DC 15 -- a failure of 5 or more wakes him). The other option is to pick the box (Open Locks DC 22 but the chest is also protected by a poisoned needle trap [Search DC 14, Disable Device DC 19]. The poison has a save DC 18, the primary damage is 1d6 dex, secondary is 1d6 dex, 1d8 con). During the day, the servants cleaning on this floor can be used for a bit of comic relief. For instance, they could be heard approaching just as the box has been found, forcing PCs to hide under the bed, in the closet, ect. and endure a few tense minutes as the servants proceed to clean the room.
The scroll, the witch and the wardrobe
(Soundtrack: Mussorgski's ‘Pictures at an exhibition' again for the final encounter with the witch, either that or good chase music depending on how things turn out)
The scroll itself is written in Draconic (or other ‘language of magic' depending on the details of your campaign world) and, as a Knowledge(Arcana) check DC 13 will reveal, it is a complicated and magically binding contract between the Lord's line, someone referred to as Baba Yaga and a third party which remains unnamed. Baba Yaga is clearly the disadvantaged entity as the contract places several stipulations and restrictions on her, through their exact nature is difficult to grasp as they are worded in foreign and complex metaphysical terms.
As mentioned above, clever adventurers may hit upon the idea of forging the document to gain the lord's co-operation and/or spite the witch. To create a reasonable facsimile the PCs need to make a DC 20 Forgery check with a +4 circumstance bonus for having the document present and cast Nystul's Magical Aura on the fake (the later should be fairly obvious as the original will detect as magical. If the players don't think of it, it probably would be fair to allow int checks DC 10 for arcane spell casters to figure this out as it would almost certainly occur to the characters even if the players do miss it). This is somewhat different to the way the forgery skill usually works and is used to simulate the fact that they can at best try to make something which will fool momentarily, rather than stand up to close examination. Nystul's Magical Aura, should the party not have it, may be available as a scroll from a book and scroll store in the village or from a travelling peddler in town for the carnival at the Gms discretion.
A further complication would be that Baba Yaga, being a powerful mage, can scry the party and thus would be aware of any attempts at forgery and/or deal with the lord. If the PCs don't have access to non-detection or similar means to avoid scrying it might not be entirely fair to throw this at them. One solution is to make the scrying quite obvious (after all, there is no reason for the witch to hide what she is doing if she is confident that her lackeys can do nothing to prevent it) and point out that the scrying abruptly stops when they enter the castle gates or come within close distance of the lord (the scroll ensures, amongst other things, that the witch's powers cannot penetrate the castle's walls and don't function in proximity of the lord's person). Or the GM might make things easier on his players by simply assuming that the witch underestimates the PCs, considers them too simple for treachery and thus does not bother to keep an eye on them.
At any rate, the PCs should at some point make it back to the hut having freed the prisoner and in possession of either a fake of the scroll or the genuine article. The Hut recognises them this time and doesn't run away. Instead, as they approach, Baba Yaga appears again, this time holding a pitch black cat with very familiar-looking yellow eyes. She congratulates them on a job well done and demands the scroll. If asked to first surrender the girl, she makes her appear in midair, some twenty feet above the PC's heads (Dex check DC 14 to catch her, if not she takes 2d6 damage. Tanya has 5 hit points so while it will probably knock her out the fall won't kill her assuming someone stops her bleeding in time.
Assuming someone hands her either the real scroll or a well-made fake Baba Yaga will briefly inspect it then giggle insanely and vanish in a puff of smoke, making Tanya appear if she has not already done so. A round or two later (allow the players to act as they may like a chance to run for their lives) from inside the hut a loud noise will be heard which sounds like the ripping of paper (you might in fact like to announce to the players ‘you hear something like this, only much, much louder' then rip a piece of paper in two before them).
What happens next depends entirely on what the PCs gave Baba Yaga. If it was the real thing, the sky darkens for a moment, a horrible cackle sounds very loudly from the hut which improbably grows immense chicken-like wings and proceeds to lift off and fly off, the laughter fading as it disappears into the horizon. If, on the other hand, Baba Yaga was given a fake there's going to be trouble. Six hundred pounds of trouble on chicken legs, that is. An angry scream pierces the air, the hut stands and starts charging after any nearby PCs (optionally with a very angry witch leaning out of a window and shooting bolts of magical energy after the party). Once the party reaches a forested area they'll be fine but until then, make them sweat a little -- ask for reflex saves to avoid flailing legs and fiery bolts, dish out a little damage, have someone trip over, you know the drill.
As a final note -- should the players hand Baba Yaga a bad fake, the same sort of development should occur except the hag will blow up right in their faces (so to speak) and not everyone may live to tell the story of how they tricked the hag. Open with a volley of magic missiles (visual effect: cackling skulls fly from Yaga's fingertips) spread across the party, throw around blindness spells, a few wall of fire -- Yaga is mad like heck and shouldn't necessarily be optimally played.
All Good Things ...
If everything went well (and, in some cases, even if it didn't) the players should end this adventure one eight-year old girl richer and a nobleman should end it one mystery prisoner and possibly one family heirloom poorer. The final outcome, however, depends on the party's conduct:
If the PCs did not approach the lord, were not recognised during their burglary and gave Baba Yaga the real scroll, the escaped prisoner will be blamed for the disappearance of the document and the PCs will be welcomed by village and lord alike as heroes -- a feast will be held in their honour, speeches made, toasts given and the lord's will personally hand them their reward. The girl will be adopted by the kind-hearted lord and the players will hopefully feel like proper scumbags. If they own up, either privately or publicly, there will be no serious negative consequences but the PCs will lose some of their new-found prestige and be warned by the Lord that grave consequences could result from their actions.
If the PCs did approach the lord but could not come to an agreement and stole into the keep anyway or if they were recognised during the burglary and they gave the real scroll to Baba Yaga, their reception will be much cooler. They will be spared punishment due to the their good intentions but neither rewards nor thanks will exactly be showered upon them.
If they simply freed the prisoner, forged the document and returned the real one to the lord (either with his knowledge and blessing or otherwise) once everything is explained they will more than likely receive a hero's welcome and with clean consciousnesses to boot. This is as optimal an outcome as I can imagine but I may be missing something.
And what of Baba Yaga? She ends this adventure either as a woman scorned or as a powerfull witch freed from a contract which in some way bound her and one mystery ally richer. In any case, the PCs will almost certainly be encountering her again -- either when she seeks her revenge or when she begins to exploit the freedom they so rashly traded to her.
Experience for this adventure is tricky as there are no real combat encounters to assign CRs to but here is my approximate reckoning:
The first encounter with Baba Yaga and her Hut is CR 1
Talking the Lord into co-operating (including freeing the prisoner) is CR 2
Breaking into the Keep (including freeing the prisoner) is CR 2
Stealing the real document from the box for Baba Yaga is CR 1
Successfully fooling Baba Yaga with a forgery and living to tell the tale is CR 3
The lord's reward to the PCs for saving the girl is left to the GM to assign depending on his PCs' levels and his own generosity. A few hundred GP a head seems reasonable for a starting group.
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There you go. Hope you enjoyed the read. If you have any comments, I'd love to hear from you. Also, I'm probably going to be working on a few more short one-session adventures for the same game so if you're interested in seeing them as they get written up, by all means speak up.
Yours,
Altin
The adventure is generally aimed at first or second level characters but as there is no combat in the usual sense it is fairly flexible in this regard. The right second and third level spells would, however, make certain parts of it easier. The setting is a small village on the outskirts of civilised settlement, with the local lord's keep nearby. The PCs are assumed to be either (as in my game) locals or stopping here briefly on the way to somewhere else. Without further ado, then, the tenatively-titled:
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Ill-advised Bargains
In the way of a summary: The adventure begins with a Festival Errand in which our heroes are asked to check up on a family late for the local festival, discover a scene of destruction, hear a dying farmer's tragic tale about a deal with a hag and cry wolf in vain. It continues as our stalwart protagonists seek out The Hag's Hut and, after convincing it to sit still, demand the return of the farmer's young daughter from a dastardly witch. She proposes a deal: she will release young Tanya as long as the PCs sneak into the local lord's keep to retrieve a particular scroll from it and deliver a ring to a prisoner there. In Burglar Heroics they may attempt to do just that, or perhaps they will try to approach the well-liked and respected lord in earnest and turn the tables on the witch. The scroll, the witch and the wardrobe sees the PCs return to the witch, hand over a scroll (perhaps the one she is after and perhaps not), retrieve the girl and hopefully live to tell the tale. Finally, as All Good Things ... must come to an end, lose ends are tied up as the bad end unhappily, the good unluckily (or perhaps not).
Festival Errand
(Soundtrack suggestion: Vivaldi's Four Seasons -- because nowhere else is pastoral so happily married with violent urgency. Try the first Spring allegro for the village and the Tempo impettuoso from Summer for the farmhouse)
The adventure begins in a small village on the day of a locally celebrated seasonal festival. Traditionally, the whole town gathers to celebrate the occasion and the town is abuzz with activity. Noon is approaching and everyone has arrived except for one prosperous farming family which lives some distance outside the village. The PCs are asked by one of the village leaders to go check whether everything is alright. When they approach the farm, a plume of smoke may be seen. When they arrive, the farmhouse is in flames. The husband of the family is lying on the ground, badly injured his wife lies nearby dead and his eight-year-old child is missing.
With his dying breath, the farmer tells the story of how he made a deal with a witch for prosperity in exchange for an unspecified favour ten years from that time. She came last night to claim her fee, his 8-year old daughter Tanya. Naturally, he and his wife refused and demanded that the hag leave. The witch flew into a rage at this and unleashed her fearsome magical revenge, the results of which they can see before them. He dies begging the PCs to redeem him by helping free his girl. He is able to roughly indicate the location of her cottage (it lies in the nearby mountains).
If the players return to town, the townspeople will not believe the witch story and will instead blame brigands. The local lord will dispatch a goodly contingent of his guardsmen to scour the area for culprits and kidnapped child both but they will turn up nothing. If the players make an especially convincing arguments (and diplomacy checks of a DC 20, modified by the line the players take) the lord may direct some of the patrols up into the mountains around the alleged location of the cottage but due to the rather unusual nature of the hut in question, these will also return empty-handed. The deaths and disappearance maar an otherwise pleasant festival and the lord offers a suitable reward for the safe return of the girl but events otherwise remain unresolved.
The Hag's Hut
(Soundtrack Suggestion: Mussorgski's ‘Pictures at an exhibition' either The Gnome or The Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga works fine. Anything else mildly dangerous and creepy is good too)
Should the players choose to explore the area to which the dying farmer directs them, they will after a few hours of fruitless wandering stumble across a small, decrepid-looking hut. As they approach, however, the hut will stand revealing huge chicken-like legs and dance away, squatting down some hundred feet away. If they approach again, the hut merely flees again. A bardic knowledge roll (DC 12) may turn up an old folktale wherein a similar hut is charmed with a tune. A perform check (either on the basis of this info or from a blind guess) of DC 15 will lure the hut nearer and convince it to sit down at which point the hag will appear as below.
Otherwise, the hut's evasion continues until the PCs address the hut, mentioning the farmer and his girl at which point the hut starts to approach (and look set to squash them under its appendages) until it is right above the PCs (those who have not dived away for dear life, that is) at which point it gently steps over them and sits down some 10 feet away. Out of it emerges an old, warty crone who coyly demands to know why they are disturbing her. She speaks with a croaky voice and, if possible, in hideous rhyme -- you get the idea.
When the girl is mentioned she asks ‘you don't mean this girl?' and poor Tanya will appear (in a puff of smoke) inside a gilded cage, seemingly suspended in midair above them. The girl is naturally in hysterics.
If any one PC becomes aggressive or particularly insolent, the hag is a potent mage and has a number of tricks up her sleave. Amongst these are things like silence, hold person, polymorph other (into a frog, naturally) and stoneskin (to protect her person). Have fun. She will only toy with the PCs and will encourage conversation, however, as she has allowed them to find her for a reason.
You see, she is willing to return Tanya (and any unfortunate amphibious PCs to their regular shape, as a gesture of goodwill) in exchange for a certain service. She wishes the PCs to break into the local Lord's keep and perform two services -- the first is to deliver a ring to someone in the dungeons thereof, the second is to ‘liberate' a specific scroll from the keep (she does not know where it is but can describe it in enough detail or, at the GM's discretion, provide the PCs with a severed finger which magically always points to the scroll). She cannot perform these tasks herself due to the enchantment tied to the document in question (it is a sort of magical contract which severely restricts the witch's power) though she will not necessarily admit to this.
The witch may furthermore (at the GM's option) give the PCs 24 hours to deliver the ring and return to her with the scroll before she devours the girl and returns froggy adventurers to that state in a rather permanent fashion.
Burglar Heroics
(Soundtrack Suggestion: If they end up doing the break-in, gof or soemthing low with a lot of tension. If you happen to have either of the Baldur's Gate game soundtracks, try tracks 9, 15 or 23 for BG 1 and 13, 14 and again 23 for BG 2)
Lawful Good characters of course face an interesting dilemma here as they are forced to break the law for the greater good or uphold it and allow great harm to be caused to an innocent. You might like to play this up to your players if you think they'd enjoy the ensuing moral debate. One possible resolution to the conflict is of course to come clean with the man whom they've been sent to rob.
The local lord is a kind and well-respected noble who is at the festival with his family during the day and most of whose guards are out looking for brigands or themselves at the festival, leaving the keep sparsely populated. Should he be approached, he will listen out the PCs but will be reluctant to hand over either prisoner or document. He will relate how both have been with the family for several generations (the prisoner never aging) and both are considered charges to be guarded. He may yield on the prisoner (given some mighty fine diplomacy rolls and an emphasis on grisly fate in store for the girl) but will only consent to allow a forgery of the document to be made (should the PCs suggest this -- it will not occur to the lord himself).
Alternatively, the group may choose not to risk openly approaching the noble and simply do the good old break and enter. As mentioned above, a daytime infiltration will benefit from the fact that almost everyone is at the festival but, of course, those who are around will be much more likely to spot infiltrators. Conversely, a night-time assault will mean more guards to avoid but generous modifiers on hide checks. The optimal time to assault would probably be around 8-ish in the evening as one would enjoy the cover of night but most people still wouldn't be home from the festivities which stretch into the night. All the information below about the keep relieson the use of a castle floor plan from an old TSR Birthright supplement (Player's Secrets of Tournen -- great little booklet). I provide a scan thereof for your convenience at http://users.tpg.com.au/nerkez/mypics/haes.JPG (people with slow connections beware -- big file) but if using another castle, alter as you see fit.
Scouting ahead
PCs who decide to head back to the festival and ask around about the keep should be allowed Gather Information checks and given the following information (people drink and talk a lot more freely than they usually would at parties so you may like to either assign some bonuses to the rolls or reduce the time it usually takes to do a gather info check from one evening to only an hour):
- DC 10: The keep contains three baileys, the first of which only holds a stable, the second of which contains a barracks and chapel and the last of which houses the main keep where the lord and his family reside, as well as the servant's quatres. The castle is always guarded, though on festivals such as this the lord gives most of his soldiers leave.
- DC 15: The citadel/tower in the centre is dedicated to the military functions of the castle and this is where one might find the commander's office, the armoury and a dungeon which has, as far as the PC's informants know, been empty for years except for the odd misbehaving drunk.
- DC 20: A wagon is heading into the keep late afternoon to fetch some extra wines and ales for the evening feast -- this is told to the PCs by the driver and can only be got if he has not already departed (depending on when exactly the players are doing the Info Gathering). They could perhaps hide in/under the wagon and catch a free trip into the upper bailey.
- DC 20: Later this evening, a young guard will be sneaking out of the castle through the postern gate to rondeaux with his girlfriend in the village -- related by said girl or a friend in the know if the wagon has already left or if two PCs get 20+ gather info results. He will leave the gate unbarred so he can get back in, which he will do after two hours.
- DC 20: The ‘odd misbehaving drunk' will be able to confirm that the dungeon is indeed not empty but rather contains a young man with pitch-black hair and strange eyes.
Any PCs who visit the keep, will from the outside be able to see the walls dividing the three baileys, a gatehouse on the western side, a three-story citadel in the middle of the castle, a keep of the same height on its eastern side and a third building in its southwest corner. Guards are stationed at the gatehouse, along the northern walls, on the roof of the southwestern building and on the keep itself. If the PCs have the severed finger, it will point to the upper levels of the keep (though this will only become apparent by triangulation, of course.The eastern wall of the keep backs out onto a river and skills like Knowledge (Criminal Activity/Burglary) or Profession (Burglar) [DC 10] will suggest this is the weak side as far as breaking in is concerned. The guard changes every six hours, generally around sunrise, midday, sunset and midnight.
Getting In (and out)
Gates: There are two gates, the main and postern gates. The main gates are kept under constant guard by two watchmen, the postern gates are usually not watched though guards on the southwestern corner of the wall will check them occasionally. The main gates are kept shut by a complex mechanism operated from the gatehouse, the postern gates are barred shut -- neither are easily openable from without but it would be easy to slip out the postern gate, as a young solider will do around nine in the evening.
Walls: The walls are all DC 18 for the purposes of unassisted climb checks. This falls to DC 5 if a rope (grapple or lasso but a use rope check of DC 10 is needed for the later) is hooked onto the battlements. Throwing a rope over works like an attack roll with the rope treated as a throwing weapon with range increment 10 feet (all users are proficient). A grappling hook bestows a +2 circumstance bonus and any ranks in Rope use add another +2 synergy bonus. The AC of the battlements is 14. Anyone on nearby walls or in the bailey itself may be entitled to a spot check to see the rope in daylight (base DC 20 on the wall and 22 from the bailey with a -1 per ten feet of horizontal distance from point of attachment). A PC going over the wall in sight of someone inside the castle provokes an opposed hide/spot roll with a -4 to the spot roll for people inside the bailey (as they're not watching for intruders) and a -6 modifier during nighttime. Note also that the nighttime penalty does not apply when PCs are inside radii of light cast by torches (carried by all guards).
Privy: A privy hole opens out onto the river about 10 feet from off the ground (DC 15 to spot while inspecting the keep from across the river). The approach is in full view of the guards on the keep walls so this is only really an option during the night when someone 40 feet down is obscured by the darkness. After the climb check (DC 18), the PC must make an escape artist check DC 24 to crawl up the unsavoury tunnel and into the castle privy.
Sneaking around
This section is separated into the baileys and their respective buildings. Note that none of the doors between the baileys are kept closed unless the keep under threat of attack.
Lower Bailey: This will be empty at night and more than likely also during the day, except when guards come to relieve those in the gatehouse. A stable hand may be snoozing in the shadow of the stables during the hot day.
The main thing of interest here are the stables as the horses which reside within may be released to provide a distraction. If this is done, all but one guard from the gatehouse and all of those in the middle bailey and barracks will quickly arrive and spend 10 minutes or so catching and calming down the horses. The player should have no trouble escaping into the middle Bailey during all this chaos (but if you are feeling sadistic, give them a hide check DC 14).
Middle Bailey: Unless they are off catching horses, putting out fires or otherwise distracted, there 1d4 off-duty guards will be relaxing here during the day and early evening by sparring or playing dice. The barracks also contain some six guards (minus the ones outside) during the day and 30 during night (who, along with the 10 men on guard are the entire complement of the castle). At night, four officers will also be in their quatres with a fifth on the walls. Incidentally, here is a stat block (modified slightly out of WOTC's Enemies and Allies p33) for the guardsmen:
Human War2; CR 1; Medium-size humanoid; HD 2d8+4; hp 13; Init +5; spd 30 ft.; AC 14(touch 11, flat-footed 13); Atk +5 melee (1d8 + 2/19-20, longsword) or +3 ranged (1d4 +2/19-20, dagger); AL LN; SV Fort +5, Ref +1, Will +1; Str 15, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 11, Wis 12, Cha 12. Skills: Climb +3, Intimidate +6, Ride +3, Spot +3, Swim +0. Feats: Imp Init, Weapon Focus (longsword). Possessions: Studded leather armor, longsword, 2 daggers, torch (night).
The chapel which opens onto this bailey is not strictly speaking relevant to the adventure but may be a good place to hide or (if you happen to be running this for a sacrilegious bunch of PCs) start a fire as a distraction as there are plenty of wooden benches to fuel the flames.
The citadel which is entered through this bailey will be of more interest to the PCs as it contains the dungeon in which the captive they need to give the ring to rots. The first floor is bisected by a wall, the entry half contains nothing but stairs up and down and the other half is occupied by the commanding officer of the soldiers housed in the keep. The door leading into his offices is ajar and a move silently check might be in order for PCs moving through the room with the stairs (his listen is +4 but even if heard the PC should have time to hide). The stairs down lead into a small, dank dungeon which is empty except for a thin man with unkept black hair, a scraggy beard and cat-like yellow eyes. He is held in a locked cell (Open Lock DC 15) and is also chained to the wall with manacles (detect as magical, Open Lock DC 25). He does not speak to the PCs but simply stares at them. If the ring is offered to him he wordlessly takes it, slips it on a finger and fades into a thin wispy mist which proceeds to float up out of the dungeon and over the keep walls. The second level contains a well-locked armoury (Open Lock DC 25), guarded at day by two soldiers (they can easily be heard talking from the floor below). It is empty at night but largely contains long swords, steel shields, long bows and arrows and suits of chain mail, with perhaps the occasional masterwork instance of each.
Upper Bailey: The various gardens in this bailey provide a +6 circumstance bonus to hide checks to those within them. The grounds keeper has gone to the festival so they'll also be unoccupied for the entire day (and night). A guard stands at the doors to the main keep at all times, however. He must be either distracted or knocked out if the PCs wish to enter the keep this way.
The Servant's Quarters houses only two or three persons during the day and most of the staff of twenty during the night but players will probably not have much reason to enter this section of the castle in any case as it is quite obvious what they are.
The keep itself is also mostly empty during the day except for a few servants who are exploiting everybody's absence to clean some of the personal rooms. At nighttime, said rooms are occupied mostly by the sleeping noble and his family. The finger (or just trial and error) will eventually narrow the search down to the second floor. The scroll is in the bedroom adjoining the Ducal Suite, locked in an ornate box which in turn is in a chest of drawers. The key for the box is at all times on a chain around the lord's neck (at night he will be sleeping right next to the chest so it is a simple matter of lifting it off him with a pick pockets roll of DC 15 -- a failure of 5 or more wakes him). The other option is to pick the box (Open Locks DC 22 but the chest is also protected by a poisoned needle trap [Search DC 14, Disable Device DC 19]. The poison has a save DC 18, the primary damage is 1d6 dex, secondary is 1d6 dex, 1d8 con). During the day, the servants cleaning on this floor can be used for a bit of comic relief. For instance, they could be heard approaching just as the box has been found, forcing PCs to hide under the bed, in the closet, ect. and endure a few tense minutes as the servants proceed to clean the room.
The scroll, the witch and the wardrobe
(Soundtrack: Mussorgski's ‘Pictures at an exhibition' again for the final encounter with the witch, either that or good chase music depending on how things turn out)
The scroll itself is written in Draconic (or other ‘language of magic' depending on the details of your campaign world) and, as a Knowledge(Arcana) check DC 13 will reveal, it is a complicated and magically binding contract between the Lord's line, someone referred to as Baba Yaga and a third party which remains unnamed. Baba Yaga is clearly the disadvantaged entity as the contract places several stipulations and restrictions on her, through their exact nature is difficult to grasp as they are worded in foreign and complex metaphysical terms.
As mentioned above, clever adventurers may hit upon the idea of forging the document to gain the lord's co-operation and/or spite the witch. To create a reasonable facsimile the PCs need to make a DC 20 Forgery check with a +4 circumstance bonus for having the document present and cast Nystul's Magical Aura on the fake (the later should be fairly obvious as the original will detect as magical. If the players don't think of it, it probably would be fair to allow int checks DC 10 for arcane spell casters to figure this out as it would almost certainly occur to the characters even if the players do miss it). This is somewhat different to the way the forgery skill usually works and is used to simulate the fact that they can at best try to make something which will fool momentarily, rather than stand up to close examination. Nystul's Magical Aura, should the party not have it, may be available as a scroll from a book and scroll store in the village or from a travelling peddler in town for the carnival at the Gms discretion.
A further complication would be that Baba Yaga, being a powerful mage, can scry the party and thus would be aware of any attempts at forgery and/or deal with the lord. If the PCs don't have access to non-detection or similar means to avoid scrying it might not be entirely fair to throw this at them. One solution is to make the scrying quite obvious (after all, there is no reason for the witch to hide what she is doing if she is confident that her lackeys can do nothing to prevent it) and point out that the scrying abruptly stops when they enter the castle gates or come within close distance of the lord (the scroll ensures, amongst other things, that the witch's powers cannot penetrate the castle's walls and don't function in proximity of the lord's person). Or the GM might make things easier on his players by simply assuming that the witch underestimates the PCs, considers them too simple for treachery and thus does not bother to keep an eye on them.
At any rate, the PCs should at some point make it back to the hut having freed the prisoner and in possession of either a fake of the scroll or the genuine article. The Hut recognises them this time and doesn't run away. Instead, as they approach, Baba Yaga appears again, this time holding a pitch black cat with very familiar-looking yellow eyes. She congratulates them on a job well done and demands the scroll. If asked to first surrender the girl, she makes her appear in midair, some twenty feet above the PC's heads (Dex check DC 14 to catch her, if not she takes 2d6 damage. Tanya has 5 hit points so while it will probably knock her out the fall won't kill her assuming someone stops her bleeding in time.
Assuming someone hands her either the real scroll or a well-made fake Baba Yaga will briefly inspect it then giggle insanely and vanish in a puff of smoke, making Tanya appear if she has not already done so. A round or two later (allow the players to act as they may like a chance to run for their lives) from inside the hut a loud noise will be heard which sounds like the ripping of paper (you might in fact like to announce to the players ‘you hear something like this, only much, much louder' then rip a piece of paper in two before them).
What happens next depends entirely on what the PCs gave Baba Yaga. If it was the real thing, the sky darkens for a moment, a horrible cackle sounds very loudly from the hut which improbably grows immense chicken-like wings and proceeds to lift off and fly off, the laughter fading as it disappears into the horizon. If, on the other hand, Baba Yaga was given a fake there's going to be trouble. Six hundred pounds of trouble on chicken legs, that is. An angry scream pierces the air, the hut stands and starts charging after any nearby PCs (optionally with a very angry witch leaning out of a window and shooting bolts of magical energy after the party). Once the party reaches a forested area they'll be fine but until then, make them sweat a little -- ask for reflex saves to avoid flailing legs and fiery bolts, dish out a little damage, have someone trip over, you know the drill.
As a final note -- should the players hand Baba Yaga a bad fake, the same sort of development should occur except the hag will blow up right in their faces (so to speak) and not everyone may live to tell the story of how they tricked the hag. Open with a volley of magic missiles (visual effect: cackling skulls fly from Yaga's fingertips) spread across the party, throw around blindness spells, a few wall of fire -- Yaga is mad like heck and shouldn't necessarily be optimally played.
All Good Things ...
If everything went well (and, in some cases, even if it didn't) the players should end this adventure one eight-year old girl richer and a nobleman should end it one mystery prisoner and possibly one family heirloom poorer. The final outcome, however, depends on the party's conduct:
If the PCs did not approach the lord, were not recognised during their burglary and gave Baba Yaga the real scroll, the escaped prisoner will be blamed for the disappearance of the document and the PCs will be welcomed by village and lord alike as heroes -- a feast will be held in their honour, speeches made, toasts given and the lord's will personally hand them their reward. The girl will be adopted by the kind-hearted lord and the players will hopefully feel like proper scumbags. If they own up, either privately or publicly, there will be no serious negative consequences but the PCs will lose some of their new-found prestige and be warned by the Lord that grave consequences could result from their actions.
If the PCs did approach the lord but could not come to an agreement and stole into the keep anyway or if they were recognised during the burglary and they gave the real scroll to Baba Yaga, their reception will be much cooler. They will be spared punishment due to the their good intentions but neither rewards nor thanks will exactly be showered upon them.
If they simply freed the prisoner, forged the document and returned the real one to the lord (either with his knowledge and blessing or otherwise) once everything is explained they will more than likely receive a hero's welcome and with clean consciousnesses to boot. This is as optimal an outcome as I can imagine but I may be missing something.
And what of Baba Yaga? She ends this adventure either as a woman scorned or as a powerfull witch freed from a contract which in some way bound her and one mystery ally richer. In any case, the PCs will almost certainly be encountering her again -- either when she seeks her revenge or when she begins to exploit the freedom they so rashly traded to her.
Experience for this adventure is tricky as there are no real combat encounters to assign CRs to but here is my approximate reckoning:
The first encounter with Baba Yaga and her Hut is CR 1
Talking the Lord into co-operating (including freeing the prisoner) is CR 2
Breaking into the Keep (including freeing the prisoner) is CR 2
Stealing the real document from the box for Baba Yaga is CR 1
Successfully fooling Baba Yaga with a forgery and living to tell the tale is CR 3
The lord's reward to the PCs for saving the girl is left to the GM to assign depending on his PCs' levels and his own generosity. A few hundred GP a head seems reasonable for a starting group.
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There you go. Hope you enjoyed the read. If you have any comments, I'd love to hear from you. Also, I'm probably going to be working on a few more short one-session adventures for the same game so if you're interested in seeing them as they get written up, by all means speak up.
Yours,
Altin
