Iron DM 2012 Round 2: ender_wiggin vs. Lwaxy
Ambush in the Armatorium
A ‘paragon-tier’ adventure for a high-fantasy setting
Adventure Background
Isadora the Tyrant
A hundred years ago, the land belonged to Queen Isadora, who ruled with an iron fist and bloody sword. Although erudite historians point out that Isadora in fact made a number of critical changes that revolutionized the kingdom from poor feudal state to booming industrial empire, her holocaust of ethnic and cultural traditions and her violent asphyxiation of political opposition earned her the colloquial name the Tyrant Queen. As ruler, she constructed a number of arcane factories -
armatoria - that could purportedly print arcane sigils onto the surface of liquid adamantite. Isadora used these armatoria to equip her soldiers with cutting edge magical arms, which allowed her to maintain martial law for years. In the end, it was betrayal that cost the Queen her throne and her life, and the ensuing anarchy destroyed any social progress the Isadora had spent her life working toward. A symbol of her hate and despotism, the armatoria were quickly dismantled. But rumors circulate of additional armatoria built by the queen as an auxiliary resource in anticipation of widespread revolt. These sleeper factories are said to lie hidden in the crevices of the Queen’s kingdom, awaiting activation.
Sunny Side Sorel
Sorel Montagne is an aging drug kingpin. He calls himself Sorel the Extravagant, but is known better on the streets as ‘Sunny Side Sorel’ because of his relentlessly cheerful affect, which is anywhere from deceptively charming (when doing business) to psychotic (when flaying a man alive). Hand in hand with his disposition is his sense of fashion, an amalgamation of springtime pastels, exquisite jewelry, and nauseating patterns. Sorel’s obsession with his attire is unparalleled: to acquire buttons made from gold dragonbone, Sorel slew a dragon; to make a coattail out of peacock feathers, Sorel bred thousands of peacocks until one was sired with the perfect brilliant rainbow. Sorel’s organization derives the majority of its income from growing, processing, and selling ambrilic hair in bulk. Ambrilic hair is a magical cereal plant whose grain contains a potent psychostimulant. Harvesting the grain allows multiple drug modalities to be created - a potion to be imbibed, a candle to be ignited and inhaled, a powder to be snorted, even a long-lasting paste that is applied topically. These modalities are all high-priced. To cater to low-income markets, Sorel utilizes the leftover straw, which contains very small amounts of the active substance, and rolls cigars out of them.
Sile Moireach
An underboss within Sorel’s organization, Sile enforces order upon Sorel’s drug fields. These hundreds of acres of farmland, tucked away in a clandestine corner of the kingdom, flourish with ambrilic hair. Sile is in many ways Sorel’s foil. She is economic with words, spartan with dress, and is brutally efficient in her work. Her temper is infamous and she wears a scowl like Sorel wears diamond. Inducted into Sorel’s army of orphan child soldiers a decade ago (mostly orphaned by him, no less), she has never paid her loyalty much attention. Now in her early twenties, she has discovered Isadora to be an icon of feminine power, and she idolizes the late Tyrant Queen. Sile has began to consider Sorel’s inevitable retirement (by choice or otherwise) and has learned from Isadora’s actions that power goes to those who take it. Serendipitously, Sile’s lackeys have recently discovered, hidden underneath the soil, one of Isadoria’s fabled armatoria. Within it, they see a dusty vault and undecipherable runes. Sorel sees a thumb ring of sigil-etched adamantite. Sile sees a coup.
The Armatorium
The armatorium is a massive structure that is entirely buried underneath the surface. Its principal function is to liquefy rare metal, enchant it with any number of magical effects, and cast the metal into a functional shape -- whether that be weapon, armor, or jewelry. The core of the facility is a cylindrical drum with its long axis parallel to the ground. The exterior of this device is modular and can be fitted with various molds. The interior of each mold can be laced with runes, each encoding a spell to be delivered onto the surface of the metal. When the machinery runs, liquified metal pours down onto the drum while it slowly spins, filling the molds. A powerful, consistent energy beam is applied to a tangent of the drum’s surface. The runes underneath the metal are triggered by the passing beam, delivering its spell onto the semi-formed cast. The metal continues to cool as it runs along the underside of the drum, and falls out at the nadir of the its rotation. By this process, the Tyrant Queen transformed what was historically a tedious, barbaric process into a standardized assembly line.
When Isadora built the armatoria, she charmed a group of cyclops giants to work as servants within. They were intensely loyal to her, a product of both the magic she used and their innate docility. She picked these creatures for several additional reasons: (1) they could, from their eye, deliver a beam of energy strong enough to activate the runes or melt most rare metals, (2) they live very long on very little food, (3) they were strong enough to do all of the necessary heavy lifting, and (4) their skin was thick enough to protect them from the constant bombardment of errant arcane energy when the drum was cycling. To protect lesser mortals, the queen invented the suncoat, an abjurative vestment, for moving around the facility while it was active.
The armatorium that Sile found is fully functional, except that it has not yet been stocked with raw rare metal. The handful of cyclops that were effectively imprisoned here have enough food and supply to survive at least another century, and they eagerly await their master’s return. Sile, clever as she is tempered, has exploited the cyclops sense of abandonment, easily tricking the dull creatures into thinking that she is the queen.
Adventure Mechanics
Hook
The PCs are hooked into the adventure by Sorel Montagne. He is a businessman, not an arcanist, and he needs someone to help him activate the armatorium. Why the PCs would help him is campaign dependent. A few options are outlined:
- They are friendly with Sorel and wish to help an ally, and/or Sorel will pay them.
- They owe Sorel something and the gangster has more muscle than they care to oppose.
- They secretly want to bring Sorel down, and this mission is a perfect way to corner the drug lord in a vulnerable, dangerous location, where his vast network of loyal underbosses cannot tell the difference between an accident and an assassination.
- They have come from abroad, having heard about the armatorium, and want access to it. Sorel controls it, and thus they must go through him.
Activating the Armatorium
When the PCs arrive with Sorel, he will expect them to handle the magic and will carefully watch what they do. Activating the facility is a multifaceted test of the PCs exploration ability.
- A character with level-appropriate arcane competence can study the factory to understand the basics of how it works and how to turn it on.
- The cyclops, who are largely dimwitted, have a very rudimentary understanding of the facility. However, they can provide details on what their role is in the armatorium’s function, which may provide some limited guidance.
- Good roleplaying with the cyclops or good skill rolls will clue the PCs in on the importance of having suncoats. Sile has already figured this out and has confiscated the suits for her own lackeys. She will give the group a set should they ask, not wanting to tip her hand too soon.
- Perceptive or insightful PCs will notice that Sile has apparently also been using the foundry to store large crates. Opening the crates reveals that they are full of ambrilic hair cigars (see above). Sile will claim that their warehouse topside temporarily ran out of storage space, and she improvised.
- The final step of activating the drum, must be achieved from inside the device. As soon as the PCs activate it, with Sile watching, she will turn on them and take advantage of their tactical vulnerability.
The Ambush
Sile’s Plan A is to kill the PCs while they are inside the drum, or near it: an exposed location where she can tell her cyclops minions to take shots at. Should this fail, her plan B is to fill the armatorium with a drug haze by setting the cigars ablaze.
- The PCs must first fight their way out of the drum. Sile brings to bear a retinue of her lackeys, as well as a few of the cyclops which bombard the cylinder at range. Daring acrobatics involving melees on top of (or inside) a rotating cylinder should be encouraged, with various runes at their feet that can be activated by a successful skill roll or by a cyclops’ eye beam.
- Sorel, after Sile's betrayal, unleashes a slew of denigrating gender slurs at his former lieutenant, and then can't help but laugh at his own jokes. Unfortunately, his genius is in words, not steel, and he offers little in the way of martial utility.
- If/when the PCs break out of this stranglehold, Sile uses her backup plan. Sile has placed crates full of ambrilic hair cigars in strategic locations around the facility. She will set alight these crates at the appropriate time, filling parts of the massive foundry with mind-altering haze, hoping to hamper the PCs vision while shepherding them into serial traps.
- Open ground in the activated armatorium is bombarded by radiant energy any time a rune is activated. Sile will take advantage of this fact to shower the PCs any time they are exposed. PCs can ameliorate this environmental hazard with suncoats, but the awkward coats are a liability in combat and slow PC movement around the facility. How they use this resource is a tactical decision of the players, and Sile will try to outsmart them.
- The PCs at various points in the adventure have an opportunity to interact with the cyclops. Hack-happy groups may simply treat the cyclops as enemies, but if they take the time to investigate they have the opportunity to discover Sile’s deception and reveal the truth to the cyclops. If this is done a critical time, it could turn the tides against their assailant.
Conclusion
There are many possible outcomes dependent on what the players want out of the complex situation. The future of all major parties can be influenced by the party’s actions.
- They could take down Sile using brute force.
- In a bargain for their lives, handing Sorel over may earn them ground. This, of course, will bring them a number of complications down the road.
- The future of the armatorium after the adventure could go any number of ways. Damage to the facility during the fighting may damage or destroy it. If the DM wishes to avoid an arcane revolution in his/her setting, (s)he may rule that the knowledge of how to fully operate the arcane machinery ends being too complicated to fully appreciate. Alternatively, the PCs could learn it and use it to arm themselves in epic-level warfare.
- They can kill the cyclops, or they can give them their freedom, or they can continue their enslavement as an integral part of the facility. If the facility is destroyed but the drug trade remains alive, the cyclops will be sentenced to decades of pulling threshers, without PC intervention.
[sblock=Summary of Ingredients (not included in word count)
Bundle of straw: ambrilic joints, ready to go up in smoke by the millions; a trap set by the power-hungry Sile (pronounced Sheila).
Forlorn cyclops: a cadre of lonely pets, abandoned by the tyrant master; a critical part of the functional armatorium.
Gaudy gangster: Sunny Side Sorel, the drug kingpin whose vice is exotic attire.
Abandoned foundry: the armatorium, a marvel of arcane engineering.
Powerful suit: the suncoats, suits of powerful abjurative magic that protect soft-skinned mortals from dangerous arcane energy.
Drum: the centerpiece of the armatorium, which accepts a cyclops energy beam to burn sigils onto cooling metal.
[/sblock]
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