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Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 5619647" data-attributes="member: 3192">Catoblepas StewA short, site-based adventure for 1st Edition AD&D characters levels 5th-7th.Suspicious Rabbit – a wizard disguised as a cigar smoking, invisible turning white rabbit.Breathtaking View – an attack of the catoblepas and sort of the medusa’s head.Righteous Wizard – the good and honest prince charmed by true love and a wizard’s spell.Widowed Daughter – a mermaid of the sea king thought widowed and perhaps made so by the PCs.Clueless Mermaid – the prince’s bride, so in love she does not recognize his strange, charmed behavior.Hidden Book – the “Libram of Loathsome Nightmare” hidden within a child Trapper. It was a fairy tale beginning, a mermaid of the sea bargained with a powerful wizard to meet a human prince on land.  Love blossomed and prince and mermaid were wed in truth. They saw only beauty and naught else, forsooth. But then the wizard returned to claim his reward, one life to pay for a mermaid to live ashore. How could she know it would be the life of her prince? The wizard had not spoken fairly of his recompense. In grief she returned to the water’s flow, bringing her sorrows deep below. Or so it all seemed - for the prince was not truly dead, at least not yet. The wizard’s scheme runs deep as well and the prince is but one piece in his evil spell.HooksAn embassy of the Merman may be met in a waterborne random encounter or petitioning in the homeland of the PCs. They seek overland adventurers for a noble quest. Any volunteers who are deemed honorable are escorted to an underwater kingdom where the “king of the sea” relates the story of his widowed daughter’s engagement. He reveals she has run away to avenge her dead husband and asks the PCs to bring her home. Travel to the coast where the wizard’s tower stands is offered with further escort.  Alternately, the PCs may come upon the tower traveling along the coast and decide to enter without having heard any rumors.The Tower… …stands on a rocky shore designed in the usual fair. Multiple levels with windows are guarded by wards suitable for a magic-user of 8th level. However, the ground level door is simply locked.  Rooms include standard storage supply, guest bedrooms, dining hall, etc., but no occupants for a stronghold of its size excepting those listed below.  Wandering Monsters: A white rabbit may be encountered during evening and night hours hopping down corridors. If threatened, it will turn invisible and flee.The Laboratory……is the tower’s entire top level. It contains tables, accoutrements for magic item creation, book-filled shelves, a massive cauldron, a white rabbit in a cage, and skull & crossbones hanging on a wall. The last hides a secret door to a cache behind. Within which is a jar containing both fluid and the preserved head of a medusa (turn to stone trap). Next to it lays an odd grocery list (see handwritten handout). Searching should be a detailed affair. The books are primarily arcane research texts, but include Librams on Owlbear and Trapper creation. Laboratory equipment is unusual to any not a high level M-U (higher than the appropriate PC level). However, searching the bedding of the rabbit cage will find cigar butts. Handwritten Handout:•    buffalo•    scaly tail•    smell of death•    stork•    warthog•    sea horse legs•    rabbit ears•    a look that could kill•    a broken heartScrawled at the bottom is “Where is my book!”Encounter (daytime) – A man in wizard robes is reading from the books. PCs may overhear a whispered message “Intruders! Kill them” The man will attack if provoked, but will not take the first move. If engaged, he has high morale and will fight honorably, both weapon and spell, to the death if need be. If the PCs attempt to parley, the man will preferably. (What he knows): The wizard is actually the prince. He awoke in this tower next to the remains of what he believes was the evil wizard. His mermaid bride recently returned to him and resides in a pool in the dungeons below. They have decided to remain here for he truly is a wizard and seeks to study all the work within - something he does during the day, then visiting his wife during the night. He radiates magic, which is to be expected. However, he is currently charmed by the evil wizard who is not dead, but polymorphed into the rabbit. If questioned, the prince believes the rabbit to be his first familiar. Further questioning may lead this communication being in whispers. If discovered, the wizard flees by polymorphing to another form, turning invisible or both. Typically, he uses a magic hand or knock spell to open his cage. (nighttime) – None, neither the prince nor the rabbit will be here.Wandering Monsters: None, unless the two inhabitants listed are leaving or arriving.The Dungeons……may contain a secret entrance/exit to the surrounding land, but the standard entrance is from within the tower’s ground level. There are two primary dungeon levels, but designers may map for more based upon the difficulty levels assigned to the challenges therein. The first level’s rooms number as follows. The second level is “The Pool”.1.    Kitchen and larder. A side room includes live animals like hens, rabbits, and a goat.2.    Kennels for livestock. In one lives a buffalo, in another a warthog. There is also a cage with a stork. 3.    The den of an owlbear raised by the evil wizard after he created it.4.    Spare room with a massive carcass nearly unrecognizable. They are the remains of a hippopotamus with its legs cut off. The legs stand in more preservation jars in a rear corner.  TRAPS: two lie within. The rotting odor from the carcass is so foul any creatures requiring breath must save vs. poison or suffer nausea when within (make checks 1/round, effects last continuously near the source, but for 1 Turn, if escaped from. The other trap is literally a young Trapper monster that has hidden itself along the back wall. Needing no air to survive, it has chosen this room to avoid the wizard who created it. Having come of age, it decided to steal a favored book of the wizard in hopes to trade for its freedom. Currently the book is bulged out within the trapper to appear as a fifth jar. The book the trapper defends is the “Libram of Loathsome Nightmare” containing instructions for the creation of a vile creature known as a catoblepas.   Characters capable of using Read Magic can peruse the contents and find the ingredients needed for its formation.  “Beast of Burden, Furred Preferred”“The Smell of Death”“Long, Thin Neck, Not Too Late”“A Large Pig’s Face, With Warts in Place”“Four Legs of a Sea Horse”“Long Ears to Hear the Hop of Fear”“A Tail of Scales, Not too Stale”“A Look that Kills, Not Could, but Would”“A Heart Failed By True Love”Wandering Monsters: Same as in “The Tower”. The Pool……is a new creation taking up most of the level. It is blue and perfectly suited for the enjoyment of a mermaid (see Encounter). Next to it lies a bed and food stuffs with an opened bottle of wine from racks lining the wall near the stairs. Encounter (daytime) – The King’s mermaid daughter swims in the pool here bored, awaiting her prince’s return. If attacked, she has nowhere to retreat and will surrender. If the PCs can convince her of honest intentions, she is willing to converse. (What she knows) She swam here to await the wizard and somehow attack him, but instead saw her true love alive. She sang to him and he carried her to this pool. She is oblivious to his odd behavior (as he is charmed), but accepts his newfound work as a wizard during the day. She also knows what the Prince believes and of their night time encounters (below). The mermaid will not go home willingly, but invites guests to stay, if they are friendly. She also suggests they meet her prince up in the laboratory, if they have not already.(nighttime) – If the PCs arrive in the early evening, they will find a man appearing as a wizard in a compromising position with a mermaid. He will fight to the death for her honor, if attacked. Initial attitudes are unfriendly for both and the prince will demand the intruders leave as he attempts to escort them out.If the PCs arrive late at night, the prince is sleeping in the nearby bed, while mermaid does so in her pool. Wandering Monsters: None, unless the two inhabitants listed are leaving or arriving.The Turning of Events The WizardAs a rabbit he searches the complex (AD&D creatures can open dungeon doors easily) at night to find the Libram. He also feeds his animals as he knows he will need them later. If he knows of the PCs are in his tower, he will: 1. Hide the rabbits in the larder from view. 2. Release the owlbear during the night. 3. Attempt to convince this prince the PCs are his enemy and need to be removed.If encountered while wandering, he will turn invisible to flee. If chased anyways, he will polymorph into a hawk to flee. He will not overtly confront the party, if he can help it, even if the PCs find the grocery list. However, he will attempt covert attacks from hiding, if he learns they have the libram. These are according to his spell ability.If the prince is killed before he finds the libram, the wizard’s plan is set into motion before he is ready. He will redouble his efforts to find his missing book, even if it causes lack sleep to do so. If he finds the libram, after a timeline of 3 days from when the PCs enter, he will attempt to force the prince into killing himself in front of the mermaid If this fails, he will simply destroy him via spell. Whichever end, the prince’s death makes her the last few ingredients in his stew – the scaly tail and heart failed. Avoiding interference as he can he will begin the day long ritual to create the catoblepas.The MermaidIf the prince is killed and she learns the PCs did it, she will be inconsolable and avoid them, if possible. She attacks, if confronted however feebly. If the prince is killed and she learns the Wizard did it, she will plead for help, if she meets the PCs again. The Prince The prince largely remains a pawn of the wizard unless his charmed state is dispelled. He will then fight ferociously seeking first to save his wife. Once he is sure she is safe, he will seek justice upon the wizard and will ask the PCs for their help to do so.When not under charmed supervision, the prince seeks to convince the mermaid to become a land walker again and renew their vows as man and wife.Possible PC Divination answers: “Follow the white rabbit” “Behind the wall of bone, lie the eyes of stone”A Nightmarish Result……will occur, if the evil wizard manages to succeed in his plan of killing the prince, mermaid, and thereby furnishing all the ingredients for his monster creation ritual. The catoblepas will resist any kind of control by the wizard and attacks the PCs with his gaze first. Those who fail the save have their lungs fill with water like a mermaid’s.  Its goal is only to eat all it encounters and then find a nice, fetid swamp to make home. If trapped within the tower, it will seek the pool this habitat instead.</blockquote>

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