Help! Empire of Iuz & Greenreach

[ivocaliban]

Okay, it's 11:30pm EST and I just received a call that one of my players want to pick up our current campaign at noon tomorrow. My attention has been elsewhere in the past few weeks and I've got about twelve hours (not including sleep) to fashion a workable adventure in the town of Greenreach. Greenreach is located on the Dulsi River in the Empire of Iuz.

There are only three characters involved, none of which have any access to magic, and only one of which will be playing. They're basically ranger/rogue types and they're in Iuz's land in order to steal something back from the Old One. But that bit comes later...I've already gotten that much planned. What I need is something to happen in Greenreach to keep this one player occupied for a session. The problem is...I know nothing about Greenreach except it's name, location, and population (3,500).

I'm considering having the other two characters get captured by Iuz's minions and taken to Greenreach whereupon the remaining PC can attempt to rescue them. I'm open to any ideas and I especially need any information one might know about Greenreach or the central portion of Iuz's land. I'm open to any suggestions, plotlines, creatures...anything you can throw at me...but I need it fast! Thanks in advance!

 

[der_kluge]

I suspect your players know nothing about Greenreach either. I'm certainly no Greyhawk expert, but I suspect it largely doesn't matter if you stick to canon.

What level is this guy? What kind of game does the player like? Is he going to want to kill stuff, or is he happy role-playing with the patrons of the bar for the entire session? That's gonna make a big difference.

 

[ivocaliban]

I suspect your players know nothing about Greenreach either. I'm certainly no Greyhawk expert, but I suspect it largely doesn't matter if you stick to canon.

What level is this guy? What kind of game does the player like? Is he going to want to kill stuff, or is he happy role-playing with the patrons of the bar for the entire session? That's gonna make a big difference.

He's an 11th level Swashbuckler/Wanderer/Dread Pirate. I can't recall the level breakdown at the moment, but I imagine the character as somewhere between the Grey Mouser and the Dread Pirate Roberts...only he happens to be an Aasimar...very long story. The Wanderer class comes from Swashbuckling Adventures. He loves playing quick, agile, charismatic players. This is the first one in quite sometime that wasn't a Rogue, but he does have quite a few similar abilities.

I suspect that Greenreach is populated by orcs as about half of Iuz's population consists of orcs...with about a quarter being human, if I remember correctly. Either way, he's not going to be able to blend in. He'll have to be very careful, so I suspect a stealthy adventure is in store.

 

[Davelozzi]

I hope this is okay, I've posted the relevant blurb from Carl Sargent's Iuz the Evil below. It's about .05% of an out of print book so I don't think it should be a big deal, but mods feel free to delete it if you disagree. Datewise, this write up is current to the From the Ashes period, after the Greyhawk Wars but before the Great Northern Cursade. You might have to make adjustments based on what time frame you're playing in.

Greenreach is a walled town which acts as both a headquarters for the northern Vesve front and as a base for shallow-bottomed river boats which travel along the Dulsi, manned by human rivermen. The town is boisterous, with 2,000 regular inhabitants and up to 1,500 orc soldiers thronging its crowded streets. Greenreach is mostly built of wood, as is the town wall, but Panshazek and Iuz's mages and lesser priests have their own stone keep with extensive dungeons, excavated using disintegrate spells. Panshazek has a group of expert herbalists and alchemists working within the dungeons, manufacturing poisons from Vesve plants brought here. Flying monsters, notably mobats, a pair of trained wyverns, and varrangoin act as aerial spies, alerting the town watch to any approaches from the west. Thie city armory is large and well stocked, and the elite orogs protecting the keep are said to have magical weapons almost as a matter of course.

Rather to Panshazek's annoyance, a rogue marilith has taken up residence in the ruined tower half a mile east of the town. Panshazek fears that Iuz has placed the fiend here to keep an eye on him. She simply walks the town streets when she pleases without speaking to Panshazek or the guards. Wild rumors fly in the town about the marilith's purposes, and the captives and guards she has in her tower. All that is known for certain is that ghasts and juju zombies guard the place, and that the broken, crumbling spire of the tower radiates powerful magic. Various divination spells which Panshazek has used to spy on the tower have yielded no information to the nervous priest.

 

[Davelozzi]

So depending on how long your sessions are, you might even be able to keep them busy simply avoiding trouble, getting caught in a brawl between orc soldiers and humans, trying to avoid capture, etc. For something more involved, they could get involved with whatever the marilith's got going on, or maybe help try to sneak some Vesve woodsmen in and out of the town for some reason. At any rate, it looks like the time is almost upon you, so good luck with whatever you decide.

 

[der_kluge]

Wouldn't "slither" be a more appropriate verb to describe the movement of a Marilith?

 

[Davelozzi]

Yeah, I thought about that when I was typing that up.

 

[ivocaliban]

Thanks very much for your help. That's quite a bit more than the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer provided. Unfortunately, I came down with a stomach flu this morning and had to cancel. I'm sure I'll find a way to work all this in in the future though. Much appreciated!