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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gilladian" data-source="post: 3025349" data-attributes="member: 2093">Here's what I've come up with so far:Unfortunately, the farmers who used to sell them the honey have not been able to supply them this year. Something has killed off the bees, destroyed several hives, and has even caused at least one beekeeper to go missing. The village near the monastery (Hillsboro about 1.5 miles away) is the beekeepers’ locale. What is really going on: The baron of Denbare wants to get the monks to leave the monastery. He and his wizard have discovered that a treasure is hidden in the catacombs under the monastery. Their method of getting rid of the monks is to ensure that they cannot pay the yearly rent of 50 bottles of mead. By destroying the hives, the special local honey is not available.The wizard used charm person on one of the beekeepers and then had him put on a collar which transformed him into a black bear. The bear’s mind is unaffected except that he is under a compulsion to eat the honey. Each night the wizard releases him and he goes out hunting the beehives. When he finds one he smashes it and devours the honey. The players will have to go out into the half-cleared woods where the beehives are located, lay an ambush for the hive-killer, and meet the bear. It will be reluctant to attack them, and hopefully the druid will not want to kill it, either. If they do NOT kill the bear, but instead notice the collar on it, and try to capture it, they can then use comprehend languages to talk to the bear and realize it is intelligent. It tells them that it doesn’t know WHO – but it is under an enchantment cast by some wizard, and it can help them go back to the lair where it is drawn each morning. If they DO kill the bear, they will discover the collar and may be able to track its movements back to the lair it came from (If not, this could be the end of the adventure, leaving the PCs never knowing who, if anyone, set the bear on his way). The lair of the wizard is (if the PCs think to ask) suspiciously close to a manor house owned by Baron Denbare about 2/3 of the way to Dene (12 miles). A small cave leads to a passage into a cellar-like room. Here the bear sleeps in an iron cage all day. A second room (door locked and barred from far side) is some sort of laboratory/study. Maps of the area indicate where the monastery lies, and a series of notes indicates that the scholar, whoever he may be, is very interested in “ the old catacombs” below the monastery. Mention of an ancient order of priests is made, and of a powerful item known as “Elanora’s Gift”. This “gift” is described as having the power to sway men’s minds when weilded by a powerful figure. A final door exiting this chamber leads to a passage that would take the party to the Baron’s Manor house, where the wizard can be found. But the door is trapped. As soon as the door is opened without first disarming the trap, a rumbling is heard and then the tunnel collapses. This cuts off any evidence that the Baron and his wizard were involved, but should arouse PC suspicions.My problem lies in how the collar works - my PCs are fairly easy, and will let me getaway with not knowing how or  why it works, but I'd like to know how powerful a wizard it  would take to make an item that can polymorph other and have some sort of "drawing power" to make the bear return to the lair each day. Or would the charm person spell the wizard is using be strong enough to both send him after the hives/honey AND force him to return to the caves each day?</blockquote>

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