A short adventure for 5e to get off your lawn
GM NOTE- The following deals with regression to a dark, dark, dark time and requires access to 1e rulebooks and significant preparation. Be forewarned.
Background
In a forgotten land called Greyhawk, a capricious mage by the name of Zagyg is increasingly of the feeling that it is not he who is mad; it is the world. As he has watched, over time, he believes that things have changed, become different …. and Zagyg is going to change it all back to how it should be.
He is using an artifact of Great Power, the Bell of Lum the Mad, to turn Greyhawk back to the first edition of D&D. However, a side effect of using the Bell of Lum the Mad is that every day, it draws in a few additional people from other planes and other editions into Greyhawk. So Zagyg must ring Lum’s Bell each day, both bringing in some more unfortunates, and transforming those that have been brought in, to maintain the purity of his vision and keep Greyhawk the way it always was, and always will be, forever.
Regression
The World of Greyhawk that the party enters will already be “1e.” But this adventure is premised on the concept of regressing the party back. Zagyg will be taking the adventuring party from 5e to 1e.
Every day, the Bell of Lum the Mad will ring at midnight and cause a ripple in the space-time continuum, regressing the PCs. The sound of the bell ringing will be clear throughout Oerth, but can only be heard by those that have not regressed.
Lum’s Bell
The full course of this regression will take one week, with the effects as follows:
Day 1: Harmonize spells.
Day 2: Harmonize races.
Day 3: Harmonize classes.
Day 4: Remove skills.
Day 5: Harmonize equipment.
Day 6: Everything left changes to 1e and the 1e ruleset should be used.
Day 7: All effects are permanent. The seventh bell is the last one you hear.
For example, on day 1 only spells that are known to, or similar to, 1e may be cast. On days 2 and 3 only class options used in 1e may be used. Day 4 is the loss of any skills or skill proficiencies. And so on.
DM TIP: The DM may wish to provide double or triple the amount of time to encourage exploration. It is highly recommended that the changes to the PCs are decided ahead of time, so that playtime is not used re-writing character sheets.
Example- The party arrives. A tiefling warlock is fine. After midnight, it is DAY 1, and that PC can only cast spells that are the same (or similar) to those in the 1e PHB. On day 2, they wake up as something that is not a tiefling. On day 3, they are a spellcaster other than a warlock. On day 4, they no longer use defined skills. On day 5, any equipment (including magic items) must be the same as 1e. And on day 6, any and all rules are harmonized with 1e (such as healing and number of spells per day).
Entry into Greyhawk
The party should be based in some other campaign setting, such as Forgotten Realms. The next time the party uses a transportation spell (such as gate, or teleportation), a misfire occurs drawing them into Greyhawk.
The party arrives in the Village of Hommlet. The party will be one of a number of refugees from different areas that recently arrived, greatly increasing the village’s population. Emphasize the strangeness of the other recent importees. The villagers themselves will not understand the strangeness of any of this, but will only be able to attest that “Newcomers seem a little strange at first, but after a few days ….”
Sir Fang: One of the unfortunate refuges is an NPC from 3e Ravenloft. Sir Fang will is exceptionally friendly and will join the party. He has already been here for four days (so he is on DAY 3). Sir Fang, who will appear to be a human fighter to the party, will regale the party with stories of how he is really a vampire adventurer just like the people in the party, and he was something called a Shadowdancer. He is a little hazy on the past, but he knows that he feels strange, and that every night he hears the sound of a bell ….
The Free City
The party should be able learn (either through spells or other investigation) that the sounds of Lum’s Bell are emanating from the vicinity of the Free City of Greyhawk. The Free City is in the middle of a celebration of the Gods of the Flanaess, with the City shutting down every night as revelers take to the streets and celebrate the gods with reverence and debauchery.
The nightly celebration ends when an actor playing Pelor takes his place on a throne in the middle of the City, and the crowd symbolically offers him a donkey as his bride at the stroke of midnight. The donkey is dressed in the regalia of Zagyg. This is repeated each night.
The players should be able to inquire further and learn that no one can remember when the celebration started, or when the celebration will end. Overly invasive questioning on the subject will cause people to turn hostile.
The donkey’s regalia shimmers with magic when the bell sounds. If anyone asks about the meaning of the regalia, they will be told it is the symbol of the Mad Mage, whose ruins lie to the north of the City. If anyone asks about the Bell, they will be met with confusion at first as no one else hears it; a second question will cause the crowd to turn against the person asking the question. The people in the Free City will have, at best, foggy memories of the prior night each morning.
Zagyg’s Ziggurat
The hideaway of Zagyg is not Castle Greyhawk, which lies in ruins, but in the 7 levels that lie beneath like an inverted ziggurat. The first level is the largest and most expansive, and each level beneath it gets smaller until, at the bottom-most level, there is one 30’ x 30’ room.
DM TIP: Populate the levels of the dungeon with monstrosities of increasing difficulty; the final room should contain both the most difficult monster as well as a fiendish trap. However, keep in mind that the players are under a strict time constraint and that, by day 6, they will no longer be able to even heal using 5e rules. This should be run as a strict dungeon crawl.
The Final Room
The 30’ x 30’ room has a clockwork mechanism that drives a small hammer into Lum’s Bell once a day. There should be a level-appropriate guard left by Zagyg (choose a level-appropriate undead from a mummy to a lich, along with lower-level undead).
The Bell itself, along with the clockwork mechanism and small hammer is impervious to physical harm and magic, but contains an inscription, “What comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never in a thousand years?”
If the players say, “The letter ‘M’” (or a close variant) then the bell shatters.
Conclusion
- Success?
- Should the party make it to the Lum’s Bell and destroy it before the seventh day, then there will be a final, loud sound as successive waves go forth and undo all the prior changes. Specifically, the players should see and feel the changes being wrought before being blasted back from whence they came as it was a negative effect of the artifact that brought the party to Greyhawk.
- Failure
- After midnight on the seventh day, the effects are permanent on the party. Destruction of Lum’s Bell will prevent further people from other editions and campaigns from being drawn in, but will not restore them. This could be used to transition the party to 1e for a time, or, in the alternative, allow the party to find an alternate method to undo the damage; there are rumors that great Suel mages had an artifact ….
