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Message: <blockquote data-quote="humble minion" data-source="post: 4968074" data-attributes="member: 5948">Bitter Fruit     An urban side-trek adventure for 9th level PCs, using 3.5e rules.     Adventure background     The adventure takes place in the city of Manath, but is adaptable to most ‘conventionalish’ campaign settings.  It requires a good-sized city with a bardic college, a treed, predominately elven district, and a supply of wealthy fad-driven fops with more money than sense.     For many years, the guiding spirit behind Manath’s Elven Quarter was Kei’ree Twilight, a powerful druidess who kept alive a little piece of wilderness in the heart of the growing city.  Kei’ree’s home was the Twilight Tree, a huge enchanted swamp willow that only exists on the Prime Material plane in the hours of darkness, while during the daytime it exists in the Plane of Shadow.  This was Kei’ree’s downfall – recently, during the Tree’s time on the Shadow Plane, she was attacked and killed by an exceptionally powerful vampire.     Kei’ree’s chief acolyte, Girael Starsong, was also slain in the attack on the Tree.  However, he arose as a vampire the next night - the master vampire desired a minion to do his will in Manath, but chose the acolyte over Kei’ree out of fear of her power as a potential rival.       The PCs get involved just as Girael’s plans are set in motion.     Hooks: The PCs are in the city and want to buy potions (healing, barkskin, neutralize poison, etc) for their next adventure.  A Gather Information or Knowledge (local) check (DC15) will reveal that in the Elven Quarter, magical fruits are grown that contain the same effects as conventional magical potion or oils.  If the PCs go to purchase potions there, they’ll meet Kerreth of the Strings.  PCs visiting elven acquaintances in Manath will also find them in the Fruit Market, where they can meet Kerreth.     Alternatively (though less ideally), if the PCs have contacts or friends among the Manath nobility, they will most likely hear about Kerreth’s spectacular new puppet show through one of them.  Or if one of the PCs is a bard, on visiting the bardic college they could get dragged into the arguments as to whether or not Kerreth should be permitted to perform in the Great Theatre, through the strongly-held opinions (one way or the other) of friends or mentors in the college.        Introduction      The Elven Quarter is an anomaly in Manath – a piece of seemingly untouched wilderness nestled in the heart of the city.  The residents live almost exclusively on platforms high in the trees, connected by rope bridges.  The Quarter thrums with the magic of Kei’ree Twilight.  It is her power that cleanses the waters of the Manatine River as it flows through the Quarter (the district immediately downstream of the Elven Quarter is the most sought-after location in the city, due the purity of the river water and general lack of smell), and her power that created the plants that provide the Quarter its main source of income.  Scattered around the quarter are fruit trees enchanted by Kei’ree so that they bear magic fruit, equivalent in every way to druidic potions (magic fruit must be harvested on precisely the correct day by a druid otherwise they have no special powers – just in case PCs get greedy…)  The Quarter (Kei’ree insists that the proceeds are used for common benefit) sells its fruit in a flowered market clearing by the riverbank.  Magic fruits are sold from a polished, flattened boulder of natural marble by young elven druidic acolytes, while less expensive non-magical (but still delicious) fruit change hands in vast bundles, along with fresh flowers and various bits and pieces of elven craftsmanship.     In one corner of the clearing squats a blasted, hollow dead tree, surrounded by a blighted patch of dead earth and blackening plants and terrible chlorine reek.  If the PCs enquire, they will learn that this is the home of Jinthalee Laughingstream.  Once a renowned, joyful adventuring hero, he was horribly mutilated by acid in a battle against Juiblex’s cultists, and lost several limbs and most of his face.  His adventuring companion, a human wizard, did his best to repair the damage by turning Laughingstream into an iron half-golem (MMII).  This gave Laughingstream back his limbs, but took a terrible toll on his mind and spirit (-6 to Int and Cha will do that to you).  Joyless, sullen, and broken, he retired back to his home in the Quarter, feeling his life wasted and his achievements meaningless.  Kei’ree took pity on him – while she retained the spiritual leader of the Quarter, she saw that Laughingstream took on the title of Mayor, and responsibility for protecting the Fruit Market in the hope that he would find purpose in this.  She also created a new variety of magical fruit for him – the Blood Orange.  This fruit, when crushed, releases juice that acts in every way equivalent to human blood.  When applied to the Mace of Blood Laughingstream took from the slain slime cult leader, it allows him to use it to its fullest potential – Kei’ree’s way of granting Laughingstream some measure of victory from that disastrous fight.  Laughingstream is too heavy to dwell aloft in the Quarter, and his poisonous exhalations blight the landscape surrounding him, so he stays enthroned here in his dead hollow tree as much as possible, lost and distant.     If the PCs (or an NPC) cause trouble in the Market, it’s Laughingstream who will emerge to restore order – a task he will perform glumly, passionlessly, and with unnecessary force.  He is an elven iron half-golem and a 9th level fighter, who wields the Mace of Blood.  As a half-golem he is immune to all magic and supernatural abilities with a few very specific exceptions, so by DM fiat I’m saying this includes immunity to the Mace’s alignment-modifying effect as well (the nature of this effect is not spelled out in the DMG anywhere I can see).  Kei’ree wouldn’t have let him wield it otherwise.  His alignment is N.     The other standout personality in the Fruit Market is Kerreth of the Strings.  Kerreth is incurably good-natured, friendly, enthusiastic and optimistic – he’s a genuinely nice person, although he is decidedly simple and mentally/emotionally childlike, and his stammer, hunched back and lopsided face tend to put some people off.  He’s a passably well-known figure around Manath, earning his keep performing streetside puppet shows for whatever spare change gets thrown his way.  He’s no bard (game-mechanically he’s an expert), but he loves exciting stories of heroism, so he’ll probably recognize the PCs from tavern tales, and come right up to them and strike up conversation.  Mostly he’ll want to tell the PCs how wonderful they are, bask in their glory a bit, show them his puppets (Patches, Mr Sticks, Sir Roderick, Fatbelly, and Ring-a-ding), and put on a short puppet show for them.  Those who accept now or later will find that Kerreth’s skill in manipulating his puppets is extraordinary, but the puppets themselves are rather crude, his presentation marred by his speech impediment, and the stories he tells are rambling and directionless.  But the sheer joy he takes from performing makes up for it.     Promotion     Once the PCs leave the Quarter and spend a bit of time in the city, they’ll become aware of Kerreth’s name being on every set of lips.  Twice a year Manath’s bardic college puts on a performance in the college’s Grand Theatre, where some of the most talented performers in the city will display their skills in front of the cream of society and a selection of ordinary citizens (selected by raffle).  This can be a massive boost to the career of a young bard, and being called on to perform is an eagerly sought honour.     This year, a huge public outcry is pressuring the College into naming Kerreth as one of the performers.  Girael is behind this.  The Bardic College library contains old tomes of lore that give away some of the secrets of his vampiric master, and he’s been ordered to destroy them.  The library is warded against the undead, so he can’t enter directly, and he doesn’t like his chances at dominating strong-willed, magic-savvy bards to do his dirty work, so he’s using Kerreth as his stalking horse.  Instead, roaming around the city in the form of a dog, Girael has dominated a selection of street gang leaders, barmen and drunken slumming nobles, and ordered them to spread the word about how talented Kerreth is and how he deserves to perform at the Grand Theatre.  The bards resist the idea, however, and driven by Girael’s manipulations, things get ugly.       The PCs can weigh in on either side of this debate.  Kerreth himself is harmless and sympathetic, and if the bards continue to resist the idea, they increasingly look snobbish and out of touch with the appeal of a ‘common man’s performer’.  On the other hand, perfectly innocent bards are getting roughed up by thugs in the streets (the PCs should have the chance to intervene in at least one of these attacks, in order to win the trust of the bards).  Girael’s dominated nobles (and other nobles, sensing which way the winds of fashion blow) will threaten to withdraw financial patronage.       Kerreth trusts the ‘heroes’ implicitly (he trusts ALL heroes implicitly, but the PCs happen to be the ones on hand), and if the PCs protected bards against attack earlier then the bards will trust them too.  They will likely be approached by a senior bard to act as mediator before things get out of hand.  Some angry bards might need to be mollified if Kerreth is to perform, or else a separate performance solely by him might be an acceptable compromise, but one way or another, Kerreth should perform at the Grand Theatre – Girael’s pawns will not be satisfied and will keep increasing the tension until that happens.        Production     Girael knows that someone in the College will likely suspect magical manipulation of the situation, so he has taken some care.  His plan involves Kerreth’s puppets.  Mr Sticks, a loosely-connected manikin of dried bits of wood, is actually a bogun (Spell Compendium) created by Girael.  Mr Sticks is NE (created by Girael post-vampirism) and malicious, and his temper has not been improved by having bits of string tied around him and been ordered in no uncertain terms by his master to act like a puppet until inside the Grand Theatre.  Mr Sticks will not detect as magical (he is a creature), and Detect Evil is not a bard spell, so Girael hopes his agent can remain undetected even if the College is suspicious.  Another of Kerreth’s puppets, Ring-a-ding, is hung around with dozens of bits of shiny, jangling scrap metal, coins, nails, bells, etc.  On Ring-a-ding, Girael has hung eight hollyberry bombs from a casting of fire seeds from one of Kei’ree’s scrolls.  These have been wrapped in thinnest, polished lead foil to prevent their magic being detected, and will appear as perfectly ordinary lead shot unless a DC35 Search check is made.  Kerreth himself has no inkling of any of this, has no magic items, and is CG.     Backstage, during Kerreth’s performance, Mr Sticks will untie himself from his strings while Kerreth is using other puppets, retrieve the hollyberry bombs, and sneak off into the College to plant the bombs in the library. Girael, lurking on the roof in the form of a bat, will be watching the stage through the eyes of one of his dominated pawns in the audience.       At this point, Kerreth will decide he needs Mr Sticks for his story once more, and will be distraught to find the puppet missing.  The mood will get ugly, fast.  Kerreth’s fans (dominated and otherwise) will accuse the bards of playing a cruel trick on a simple man by stealing Mr Sticks.  If the PCs don’t intervene and take charge of the situation (as the only ones that everyone trusts) there will be bloodshed.  If the PCs don’t think of it, one of the bards will cast Locate Object, which will fail to find Mr Sticks.  This is of course because he is a creature and thus unaffected, but the explanations most will jump to is that Mr Sticks has been destroyed or taken far away.  Kerreth’s fans are not going to like either explanation.     When Mr Sticks has finished laying his bombs, he tries to sneak back into Kerreth’s puppet case, but decides he is likely to be discovered amid the commotion around the stage, so goes and stashes himself in an obscure corner of backstage where he has been ‘misplaced’ by Kerreth.  A DC 25 search check backstage will find him, and he can be returned to Kerreth in time to avoid a riot.     When Girael sees Mr Sticks has returned, he will trigger the berry bombs.  The library (situated above the theatre) will start to burn.  Unless one of the PCs has Scent, this will remain unnoticed until the books are well alight, when smoke starts seeping through the ceiling and the rope supporting the massive Theatre chandelier begins to smoulder.  Once the alarm is raised, Girael will use his remaining pawns in the audience to hinder as much as possible any attempt at firefighting or rescue.  Some will scream and go hysterical and make nuisances of themselves, some will throw themselves bodily at the doors trying to push them open (the doors open inwards, so cannot be opened until these people are restrained), other may attack any nearby bards, etc.  The PCs must prevent the chandelier falling on the audience, get the doors open, rescue as many people as possible, and subdue the violent ones, all amid rising heat and a rain of flaming embers (and blazing pages from the library).  Girael will do his absolute best to get all his pawns killed in the blaze so they can’t answer questions later.  Kerreth will die unless the PCs save him, and the library will burn unless the bards succeed in getting the PCs help to preserve it.     Mr Sticks is the weak point in Girael’s plan.  He will abandon his guise as a puppet and flee the fire in terror, and his +10 Hide modifier will not likely be enough to evade the PCs Spot checks when moving at full speed.  Mr Sticks only wants to escape, and will not even try to fight.     Deduction     Mr Sticks will likely be the PCs best clue as to what happened.  Questioning Kerreth (gently – any attempt at Intimidate or harshness makes him cry unintelligibly, assuming this interrogation is not taking place via speak with dead) or a DC30 Gather Information check will reveal that Laughingstream made Mr Sticks for Kerreth.  This is true, although it happened long before Girael ‘borrowed’ Sticks from Kerreth to animate him.  Kei’ree, noticing Kerreth’s unalloyed adulation of the ‘great hero’ encouraged Laughingstream to spend time with him in the hope it would awaken Laughingstream from his gloom.  It didn’t work – Laughingstream made a desultory effort (hence the poor workmanship on Mr Sticks), and then lapsed back into nihilistic misery.  Any attempt to detect Mr Sticks magically, however, will fail.  As soon as he was spotted he lost all value to Girael, who burnt him to ash to cover the trail.     A motive will also suggest itself.  The surviving bards, if asked about Laughingstream, will recall that Laughingstream once brutally beat a young bard called Merbenna, who was picking pockets in the Fruit Market while down on her luck, and who was unwise enough to pull a knife when caught.  Merbenna would have died if it weren’t for the intervention of Kei’ree, and it took her months to recover from her injuries.  Once she did recover, however, she devoted a large portion of her energy into vicious lampoons, parodies and slander of Laughingstream.  Merbenna, as it happens, is one of the bards who died in the fire at the Grand Theatre (Girael will ensure this happens via one of his pawns, if necessary)     By this stage, the PCs will likely want to speak to Kei’ree.  Any of the druidic acolytes around the place will be able to tell them that she lives in the Twilight Tree, a vast and shadowy swamp willow that only exists in this world from dusk until dawn.  The path to the Twilight Tree is the most eerie in the Elven Quarter – cool and misty even on sunny days, the dense canopy hiding the sun and the silence broken only by the croak of frogs, the buzz of insects and the trickle of sluggish water.  Long streamers of thick moss hang from the slippery old rope bridges along the way.  When the path is taken at night, softly glowing points of light drift and flit among the trees.  These are Girael’s will-o-the-wisps, and they will come to his defense if he calls them.     Kei’ree is dead, of course, so Girael will receive the PCs while explaining that Kei’ree is on another plane at the moment (true) and didn’t say when she’d be back (also true).  Girael will do everything possible to direct the PCs suspicions onto Laughingstream – while doing his best to appear reluctant to do so.  Reluctant confirmation of the Merbenna story; grudging admission that Laughingstream’s golemification damaged his mind; yes, his mace is an evil cursed thing, etc, etc.  He will urge restraint, but not too hard.  Not only does he need a scapegoat, but Laughingstream is the most powerful warrior in the Elven Quarter, and Girael is a little afraid of him.  Girael trusts to his Ring of Mind Shielding to avoid detecting as evil, but is worried about detecting as undead.  As such, when the PCs arrive, he takes care that they see him eating a large, juicy Blood Orange (the only solid food his vampiric metabolism can cope with) in an attempt to look alive.  He’ll offer them a some fruit as well – a DC35 Spot check will notice that there are no other Blood Oranges on the platter he offers to the PCs, a DC 25 Heal check (or Scent) will detect the smell of blood, and a Knowledge (nature) check will notice something peculiar and unnatural about the Blood Orange.     Laughingstream will not come quietly.  He is the mayor and lawkeeper of the Fruit Market, in his mind.  He will not submit to arrest nor interrogation.  If PCs lay hands on him he will fight, if they react with deadly force he will fight to kill and not step back.  He genuinely doesn’t care if he lives or dies.  If the PCs investigate Laughingstream’s tree home, which he will not permit them to do if he is alive and aware of it, they find evidence of a truly miserable life.  Laughingstream does not sleep; he has no reading materials, clothes, decoration or personal possessions barring a simple chair and a few rags and tools for maintaining his armour and weapons.  A knowledge (arcana) check will reveal that half-golems do not need to eat, which should make the PCs wonder about the pile of rotting Blood Orange skins discarded against one wall.  A DC20 Diplomacy check directed at any druidic acolyte other than Girael will learn the true nature and purpose of the Blood Oranges, which will hopefully make the PCs wonder about Girael, given that they saw him eating one.     Destruction     Eventually, the PCs should put enough clues together to get suspicious of Girael (unless, of course, they fall for it completely, kill Laughingstream for him, and call it a day).  His façade will not stand up to scrutiny when subjected the sort of divinations that a 9th level party has access to.  To reach him, they’ll have to assault the Twilight Tree at night, because he’s on the Shadow Plane the rest of the time.       Girael is an elven vampire 10th level druid.  Unlike most vampires, his Children of the Night ability allows him to summon 1d3 will-o-the-wisps rather than wolves.  One of these wisps will flit back invisibly to warn him if hostile PCs are heading his way, allowing him to prepare.  He will fight using ranged and guerilla tactics from Kei’ree’s sanctum in the Twilight Tree – he will used summoned swarms to chew through rope bridges as the PCs cross them, dropping the party into neck-deep swamp where lurks a summoned giant constrictor with animal growth cast on it.  He’ll use Spike Growth and Snare and Entangle and Obscuring mist liberally, while the will-o-the-wisps strike and fade away.  When the PCs finally close in on him, he’ll use everything he has left – including wildshaping into a giant octopus, grappling PCs into the swamp, and jetting off to drain them dry.  He will fight to the death – Girael died on the floor of Kei’ree’s sanctum and has no coffin to regenerate in, so once he’s gone, he’s gone.  But the vampire that started it all is still out there somewhere…        Ingredients     Stellar Pathway: The road to the Twilight Tree, illuminated by the dancing starlight motes of Girael’s will-o-the-wisps.  Also, the pathway to bardic/showbiz stardom that Girael sets up for Kerreth of the Strings.     Magic Fruits: The potions created in the Elven Quarter, in particular the Blood Oranges     Evil Puppets: Mr Sticks, Kerreth’s puppet who is also Girael’s bogun.  Beyond this, Girael is the puppet of the nameless, ancient vampire that originally slew Kei’ree Twilight and turned Girael himself to vampirism, and some of Girael’s dominated street gangers are certainly evil as well.       Critical Hits: Girael’s mental manipulation of Kerreth’s audience turns Kerreth's puppet show into a hit among the critics.       Elvish Mayor: Jinthalee Laughingstream, the once-hero half-golem and object of Girael’s frame-up.       Mace of Blood: Laughingstream’s grim weapon, and the reason that Kei’ree created the Blood Oranges in the first place.</blockquote>

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