Well if you insist
The three words I used were level 9 and evil. The characters put together a pretty balanced 9 th level evil party.
The adventure started with the PCs finally having their crimes catch up with them. An up and coming mercenary band rounded up each of them of them for their crimes. In the morning, the paladins of the nearby city-state would come to pick up the villians for their execution.
First thing I did was have the players introduce theri characters and their characters crimes. Essentially one of the mercenaries walked up to each one with a log book and was recording this information for the records. This gave the players a chance to relate more with the characters. I was expecting crimes closer to death and murder but I got some pretty outragious ones including incest (I loved my sister too much said the player).
After the introductions were completed I had each of them tell me what "ONE " item they hid from the guards and where they hid it. That got a good laught out of everyone. We then dropped into initiative as each of the players devised away to escape their cages and shackles. The evil sorceror, hid a scroll of magic jar which he used to switch bodies with the good cleric. In the mean time the thief broke loose and the prisoners formed a "silent plan" to escape. They first stealthly took out a couple of the mercenaries then opened hte cages for an all out asault. What they didn't know was that the good mercenaries had been capturing and trading off quite a few criminals while keeping their magical merchanidse. ONe of the items they had in their coffers was a necromancy magical inhibitor. The inhibitor worked within a certain distance. When the sorcerors switched bodies and cast the spell he was not in the spell effect. However, after switching bodies he was closer to the object. After the evil PCs defeated mercenaries the sorceror found out he couldn't change back bodies. It seems that the parties thief, (during the fight) decided to do a bit of looting and stole the sceptor like necromantic inhibitor (not knowing what it did but loving the jewels on it). IN true evil fashion the thief told no one but me, the DM, that she stole the device. The fight went pretty long and ended with a massive fireball spell.
In the mean time the Paladins are mysteriously early and confuse the sorceror PC in the cleric body) for the cleric. The paladins are upset that the evil prisoners were killed in an attempted escape (wink wink). The leader of the paladin's tells the Cleric (whom did some good role playing) that the high cleric of the city state specificialy requested that the cleric and his mercenaries aid hte city-state on another mission. The PCs travel with the paladins to the city as the sorceror tries feverishly to figure out how to reverse his spell or what is dampening his powers. In the mean time he realizes that if he doesnt switch bodies soon he'll permanentlly turn into the cleric.
The party reaches the city and the high priest acts very stuck up and negatively towards the pcs, despite wanting them to perform a mission for him. The PCs are to go and find an ancient city of Minotaurs located benath the vast cavern system to the north. There in the minitoarus layer is an artifact that regulates the moons orbit around hte planet. It seems that the moon is pulling itself towards the earth and only the artifact can stop it. The PCs except thinking they can profit from this. The thief (whom was arrested in this same city-state for robbing the king's vault) visits her contacts. As a side story, it seems that she was set up and that is how she got arrested. Another player, was playing her bodyguard monk, and he too was set up. HEr contacts buy the anti-necromancy sceptor from her (which is why she was looking for her contacts). This whole role playing scene was done in a pull to the side section.
Even though the object is gone the cleric finds that his soul is too merged with his current body he is stuck (though he still has his sorceror spells and abilities) .
Both return to the party and reconvinene. They have to find out which caveryn the minitor city is in. It seems there were five scrolls that provided a clue, but ironically the thieves partners set her up and stole them and other items from the vault. (tying in her background with a story objective). Now the thief and the bodyguard are fumed that the item they need are with the people whom set her up. They lead the party to the thieves forest hideout. The thief and the monk do some stealth to get close and begin a sneak attack. The leader of the thieves guild is a young blue dragon whom uses thieves to collect for his horde. To complicate the encounter 50 thieves are in each of the three large trees. They each launch a volley of arrows each round which takes 3d6 damage from one random player. The PCs solved the encounter by first using invisiblity and stealth to get close to the trees and the dragon. Then using their power hitters to distract and kill the dragon while the mages and others burned down the trees. After defeating the thieves and nearly burning down the forest they find hte horde. Of course the thief first slays the others who betrayed her and declares herself leader of the thieves guild.
The scrolls are lost in the large amount of treasures and it takes some time for them to be found. Eventually the PCs find them and read the scrolls outloud each. After the ancient draconic is read a letter is burned on their back. I used sticky notes and wrote thea letter on each note sticking it on the PCs as they read the scrolls. Because the note was on their backs they had to do some puzzle solving to put the letters together for the clue.
The letters form the word magma. The PCs immediately head to the caveryn near a large magma field. They enter into it, fighting their way down 3 miles of cave systems. This was done and sped up with survival checks. They used the clues and followed the minatour etchings to find the minotaur homes. The etchings show that the minotaurs have nearly died out over the years and over a few remain. The yfind the layer.
The layer consists of a large lava lake. In the middle is a large magama rock rising out of it about 25 ft. diameter. Connecting the caves to the the throne rock are two sturdy bridges, one on each side. There are 10 minitaorus and a large centaur/minotaur at his throne. The BBEG fight takes place. The large minotaur speaks. HE was waiting on the cleric and his friends. It seems that the high priest and the minotaur leader have had dealings for some time and their layer was not so secret. The minotaur leader was told he'd receive a heavy bounty if he killed hte cleric and his friends. It seems the high priest wanted to set up the cleric becuse he had slept with and impregnated his sister but refused to marry her because itheir gods had different ideologies.
The combat began. Each round a large ball of lava erupts from the lake exploding on to a bridge. The PCs set up an ambush plan complete with fly spells, more fireballs, ans massive axe blows. The bridges make for a narrow place to fight and the minotaur leader is charging every round nearly knocking pcs over into the lava. Only their lucky reflex saves saved them from a fiery grave. After 9 rounds of intense combat the half-orc barbarian incestor lays the final blow, slicing it in half with an unnatural critical. The PCs find the artifact. A large minotaur shaped jewel incased in magma. They drag it out (using the magic users spells).
They go back to the city. They first want to kill the high priest, but they remember that they were not trying to set them up but the other mercenaries. They come up with a better plan. The thief plants stolen items from the horde in the clerics personal belongings. The cleric finds the governor and reports that he believes the high priest is up to no good. The high priest is set up, he goes to jail and the cleric becomes the new high priest of the city. The thief stays as the leader of the thieves guild with her enforcer body guard. The parties actual cleric ( a necromancer) is given a small fiefdom to torture and control and the female half-orc ranger is allowed to marry her halforc barbarian brother.
The end
So in the end I think i ran a love story between a hillbilly sister and brother.
