Campaign help request

[Baron Opal]

This is for the Kherindal game, so if any of you serve Baron Argus, vacate!













As players are wont to do, mine are proceeding in a direction that I am not wholly prepared. The situation is they have recently liberated a crystal mine, that they have a stake in, from an invading army of gnolls and their human ocular adept aide. After thourough questioning of the aide, and then his corpse, they have figured out that he was the thrall of a beholder a couple of days that-a-way. Part of the directions are the ruins of the Twin Temples are a little south of that-a-way. The miners have fled to the village of Fairhill.

At the end of last session the party had split. Half went to Fairhill to encourage the miners to return and to hire new managers / leadership. The other half stayed to rally the miners who were enslaved. They are also interested in finding the unusual crystal that is hidden in the mines. This crystal is what the beholder hired / charmed the gnolls for and why the aide was sent to make sure all went well. It is not any particular crystal, but rather one section of the Rod of Seven Parts. The beholder discovered its hiding place and sent a capable yet somewhat ignorant army to fetch it. They did not by the time the PCs arrived.

The PCs at Fairhill are going to find out about the friendly goblin tribe that had their meteroic idol stolen from them. Its actually a stale plot hook from about three real years ago that a long dead party failed at, but currently it's a distraction. The party currently has the first section of the Rod, but they don't realize it yet. The first part is bound up as a wand and they haven't been quite curious enough to take it apart yet.

So, the party has the first section of the Rod of Seven Parts, but they don't realize it.
They are standing at the spot where the second section is, but don't realize it either.
They have been show the route to "the ruins of the Twin Shrines", which doesn't interest them.
They know that past the shrines is a beholder's lair, which they don't really want to pursue.
They will find out next session that there is a cult of Orcus worshippers hidden out that-a-way, who have been stealing healing and restorative magic items.
What they really want to do is dig through the mines and find that special crystal that the beholder wants.

Which, of course, is the one thing I'm not prepared for, and what I'm asking help for.

I don't want it just lying there, of course. I'm going to adapt a part of the Age of Worms, that one adventure where you find a section of the Rod, as the location of the fourth piece. So I don't want to necesarily tie the second section directly to the Wind Dukes. It is a natural mine, so a vault or tomb would seem out of place.

So how did that piece end up in the depths of a crystal mine? And, I need to hash this out before late Saturday afternoon.

PDF solutions are acceptible.

 

[Drawmack]

Have you ever read the Cronicles of Thomas the Unbeliever? In this there is something like the rod (though only three parts) hidden about the world. the third part is being held by an ancient and psychotic troll. His layer is a natural cave, very deep in the earth that is magically protected. You could something like that.

 

[HalfOrc HalfBiscuit]

Seems there are two fairly obvious basic choices:

1. The piece was owned by something that was (still is?) lairing down there. Could be, say, an earth elemental that killed its previous owner, took it because something about it appealed and was lairing in a giant geode at the bottom of the mine. Or perhaps the lair wasn't actually part of the mine proper, but the mining works have at some point broken through into it - that would probably give you a wider choice of potential possessors - wouldn't have to be something that would choose a crystal mine to lair in, just something that likes deep dark places, and there's plenty of them in D&D .

2. The piece was owned by someone that went into the mine looking for something and died down there. So, maybe some rare type of crystal was rumoured to be found at the bottom of the mine - and was guarded by earth elementals (or whatever). That branch of the mine has been ignored for years (maybe closed off). Whoever owned that piece of the rod went down there after this rare crystal and got killed. The PCs can claim it if they succeed where he couldn't, and kill off the guardians of the rare crystal. The advantage of going this route is that - if you want the PCs to figure out that the pieces belong to the rod - the dead guy could have some notes about his person giving his own suspicions.

 

[Cedric]

It's the pommel stone in a magical pickaxe that sheds light, allows the wielder to mine without suffering fatigue, and acts like a rod of Metal and Mineral Detection (unfortunately, removing the pommel stone renders the pickaxe non-magical).

A section of the cave ceiling and wall was destabilized by prolonged vibration and erosion from the underground stream on the other side of the wall..eventually it gave way and flooded the lower portion of one branch of the mine (which will be found behind a cave-in that can be dugout after only a few hours work...the PCs will have a hint that the cave-in isn't that bad - moisture seeping through perhaps or a cooler temperature).

The wielder of the pickaxe was killed and the pickaxe is lying on the bottom of the underground lake, which if the PCs get within 60' of they can easily see from the glow it gives off.

However, unfortunately, the glow also attracts large cave dwelling carnivorous fish of some kind. The party will have to fight through them, scare them away, distract them or avoid them to get the pickaxe.

They'll immediately know that the pommel stone is the crystal in question.

At any rate, I hope that helps some, and if not I hope you find the answer you're looking for...

Wireless_Guy