Zappo
Explorer
Crematorium: important adventure location.
Tarantella: the key to avoiding an extremely dangerous trap.
Gnoll archer: the main antagonist.
Beloved icon: the item to be recovered.
Blunt instrument: the main clue telling the PCs that something is wrong in the crematorium.
Tunnel vision: the clue to how to avoid the trap.
POISON FOR THE MIND
A D&D adventure for 4th-6th level characters.
BACKGROUND
The adventure takes place in a woodland region that up to about 200 years ago was invaded by dark elves from the Underdark. Eventually, an alliance of humans and elves repelled the drow forces, driving them back underground. Saithas Airin, the human leader of the combined armies, was a skilled fighter and master diplomat who convinced the two races to join against their common foe. It is said that so great was the might and wisdom of this human, that after the final victory the elven god Corellon Larethian himself decided to show his approval of the alliance by inspiring his greatest cleric to paint a holy icon depicting Saithas Airin locked in mortal combat against the drow leader. The elves presented this icon to the warrior, who placed it in a shrine and founded the town of Shepherd’s Rest around it.
Shepherd’s Rest is now one of the very few places in the world where a holy item of an elven god is worshipped by humans. The icon is a symbol of freedom from evil and union between races. It is much beloved by the folk of Shepherd’s Rest, who believe that the icon protects their town from all harm. It is a fact that the area surrounding Shepherd’s Rest is exceptionally fertile and free from dangers.
Saithas Airin instituted a yearly tournament and fair, with the unbroken rule that noone may be denied access to its events on the basis of his race. But not even the most progressive townsfolk could hide their doubts at this year’s surprise…
PREFACE
A gnoll sorcerer devoted to the demon god Yeenoghu is plotting to bring ruin to Shepherd’s Rest. He has heard of the relic held in the town, and he has located the burial site of the ashes of Saithas Airin himself. He is now planning to steal the icon and destroy it in that site, desecrating both in order to gain favor in the eyes of his master. The shrine of the Icon is open for worship by anyone, but gnolls are generally attacked on sight and certainly not welcome within the city walls. While it would be far too dangerous for him to try to sneak into town, he has heard of the tournament and of how it’s supposed to be open to anyone, regardless of race. And the winner of each contest is presented his prize in a ceremony taking place before the Icon of Airin.
Ghiaia – this is the monster’s name – is already pretty good with a bow, having trained in youth, but a hidden true strike spell is what he’s going to use to give him an edge in the tournament. Not with every hit of course, but enough to stay ahead.
Ghiaia is a sorcerer 4rd/cleric of Yeenoghu 3rd/Mystic theurge 2nd. He has the Silent Spell feat and will use it on each casting of true strike during the tournament. The focus for the spell – a small wooden replica of a target – has been embedded in the handle of his bow as a decoration. It can’t be seen without close examination. He’ll carry a scroll of dimension door with him to the ceremony.
He’ll keep the rest of his gear hidden in the forest, not far from town: a pair of boots of striding and springing, 1000 gold coins and the bulk of his spell components. They are protected by his pack of trained hyenas.
THE TOURNAMENT
As the PCs get out of the woods and reach the town of Shepherd’s Rest on their way to their next adventure (or to purchase supplies), they see that the village is full of movement and excitement. It seems that there is a big fair, and some members of the town guard are setting up several big tents and carrying bedrolls.
The guards tell them that the fair has just begun, and already all inns in town are full. People come for the dances, the food, the merchants, but most importantly for Saithas Airin’s tournament. It’s a traditional event of Shepherd’s Rest, they explain, and they invite them to stop for the fair or join the tournament (they’ll get free meals, too!). The prizes – exceptional weapons indeed – will be awarded in a ceremony taking place in the shrine where Airin’s icon is kept. If the PCs ask about the icon, the guard can explain the town’s history. While they are talking, they suddenly hear noise from the tournament sign up booth. Various members of the town guard are getting there and unsheathing their weapons. The man the PCs were talking with runs towards the booth.
Near the booth, several armed guardsmen are surrounding a single gnoll. The creature doesn’t appear to be doing anything threatening, and is looking around quietly. He has a bow and quiver on his back. As more guards arrive, the monster speaks, in fluent Common, demanding access to the tournament as per Airin’s law and custom.
This seems to put some doubt into the guardsmen. The town mayor is summoned, and after having had the situation explained to him and thinking for a while, he declares that the rules of the tournament are clear: the gnoll will be accepted. This prompts a loud murmuring from the assembled crowd, until the mayor lifts a hand. He adds that the gnoll cannot enter the town, limiting him to the tournament ground. The gnoll states that he has understood, and grins like only a gnoll can do.
After this incident, the fair proceeds normally, although most of the talk is centered around this gnoll, who has signed up for the archery tournament as Ghiaia. Other events include a sword fight contest, jousting, and any other martial competition the DM thinks the PCs would enjoy. All competitors can use their own weapons, but no magic is allowed (items are checked with detect magic). The PCs can join any of them. Merchants from most neighboring regions are camped outside the walls and the PCs can shop for items or supplies. There’s also all sort of musical entertainment, dances and performers. If the PCs visit the fair and go around a bit, they can hear the following information and rumors (roll Gather Information check: one randomly chosen rumor for every five points in the check):
- The gnoll is called Ghiaia. He says that he is glad to compete in the tournament, and to see that this town can look past appearances.
- The gnoll has a very well-made bone bow. It has been tested like all the others, and it’s not magical.
- The gnoll is behaving very well. He’s been shopping around the market and he pays with good gold – foreign coins from some northern kingdom.
- Tarantella is a very popular dance here in Shepherd’s Rest. It is said that it prevents poisoning and that Airin himself loved it.
- There are no spiders within a radius of several miles from Shepherd’s Rest. It is said that the victory against the drow two centuries ago was so great that all spiders fled underground with the dark elves.
- There are a bunch of old drow buildings all around the forest. They are all desert of course, and many have been torn down to provide construction material for the city. Some are used as refuges or storage. A few have even been consecrated and find use as small shrines, though all drow decoration has been removed. People around here don’t mind too much to where a good building comes from!
- The Icon of Airin protects the city from harm. It is located in the shrine in the center of town. Anyone can visit and pay homage to it.
- A townsfolk relates a bit of town history to the PCs.
The fair lasts for two days; if any PCs is among the participants, run the tournament contests as you prefer. The melees are basically subdual fights with various weapons, and the contestants are on average no better than the PCs. The archery contest is mainly divided in aim tests (three arrows) and speed tests (hit the target as many times as you can in a fixed time), with progressively harder targets. The gnoll is doing surprisingly well in the archery tournament, especially in the aim tests. By the middle of the second day, people are starting to get worried; he’s tied with another contestant (which could be a PC) and the prospect of a gnoll archer champion doesn’t sit well with anyone. But many are confident that the final round will work out against the creature – it’s played in the dark of the evening, and careful aim is very difficult. The dim lighting prevents characters from seeing the target clearly, so each shot has a 40% concealment miss chance (30% for characters with low-light vision; darkvision doesn’t help at this range). Of course, true strike allows the gnoll to ignore that. He wins easily, astonishing the crowd with several perfect hits even in the dark.
BETRAYAL
After some short discussion with the village elders, the mayor recognizes that Ghiaia has to be present to the ceremony. He orders that Ghiaia be given safe passage in town until the ceremony is over, provided that two guards stay at his side at all times.
Each winner is given a masterwork weapon of the type that was used in the contest, forged with the use of alchemical silver and bearing the Saithas Airin’s house symbol. For the archery contest, it is a masterwork composite longbow made from darkwood. The ceremony proceeds normally up to the gnoll’s turn. Before Airin’s Icon and a crowd of a half thousand people, Ghiaia quietly picks up his prize, strapping the dark bow to his back, and thanks the city of Shepherd’s Rest. Then, he suddenly grabs the icon with a hand, pulling out a magical scroll from his cape with the other. Before anyone can react, some short magical words are spoken and the gnoll has vanished with the relic.
The spell’s range is not enough to get him out of town, but most of the city (including most of the town guard) is at the shrine now. Ghiaia casts invisibility and slips out of the gates just moments before the spell expires. Noone sees him, except a young woman named Teresa. She never trusted the gnoll, and she quickly starts going after him, into the woods, taking care not to be seen. When the PCs arrive, Ghiaia is nowhere to be found and noone has seen him. Search parties are immediately organized, and the PCs are invited to form one. Unfortunately, it starts raining heavily.
The PCs get lucky and after one hour or so they find the place where he was hiding his stuff. There are signs of digging and some spell components are on the ground, apparently spilled from a pouch picked up hastily. While they are looking at it, a pack of 10 hyenas come running from hiding and assault the heroes ferociously. If the PCs defeat them, they may get back to town (it’s just five minutes from where they are) or search for tracks. The DC is 27 right now, mostly because of the dark, but tomorrow morning it will be 23.
The following day, as the search groups are being organized, the new strikes that Teresa is missing. A lot of the villagers are very worried, both for their beloved Icon and for the woman. The PCs can find out the following information:
- Teresa is a priestess of good. She worships all Good gods equally.
- Teresa had magical abilities, but nothing powerful.
- Teresa was outside when Ghiaia stole the Icon. She was helping with the fair, so she was wearing work clothes instead of her robe.
- Teresa also maintained the Icon shrine, together with a few other low-level clerics.
- Teresa was a good performer. She played her accordion at the fair. She loved playing.
As the search resumes in a worried mood, the PCs tour the forest for many hours without success. The tracks starting from the dig only lead up to a small stream and then seem to vanish.
Eventually, the PCs see a trail of dark smoke rising from the trees not far from where they are. If they get there, they reach an ancient building. Anyone familiar with dark elves can recognize drow architecture.
Inside, they are greeted by an aged, thin human. He’s wearing a sack robe and he has evident circles around his eyes. He’s wielding a heavy quarterstaff. The man has quite an unnerving stare, but he is otherwise quite kind. His name is Toralon, and he says he is a priest of Pelor. A Sense Motive check, DC 18, will reveal a certain hesitation in his voice. The building the PCs have entered is a crematorium which has been in use since the defeat of the drow for about one century. Customs slowly switched towards burials, and now Toralon is the only keeper. The priest looks quite sad about this.
Have all PCs roll Listen; those who beat DC 20 can hear some kind of faint moaning from the inner chambers of the building. If they question Toralon about the smoke, he says that he has picked up a woman’s corpse from the forest. Any PC that beats DC 13 with Sense Motive can tell that Toralon is getting nervous. He says that the woman was killed by a poisonous spider, and that her face was so bloated by the venom as to be unrecognizable. He is burning her corpse now, and he’d rather the PCs do not disturb it. Most likely, the characters will run towards the furnaces instead. When the heroes reach them, only a blackened skeleton remains. Near the furnace door, there is a bag.
Suddenly, a ghostly form appears in the air, causing Toralon to startle. The figure looks like a woman dressed in work clothes, but it is very evanescent. It turns towards the priest and opens her mouth, letting out a frightful moan. Teresa’s ghost is not strong enough to truly affect the Material plane (though she might become, if she’s not avenged); the moan has no supernatural effect. Toralon raises his hands and turns undead, and the ghost screams again and turns to look at the PCs before diving underground. Toralon then starts babbling incoherently about disturbing the dead, and how the PCs must go away now.
It will take just one round and a Spot check to see that the cranium is broken, probably by a blunt instrument. If the PCs become hostile, or if they try to touch the skeleton, or if they reach for the bag, he will attack them. Toralon is an 8th level cleric, but the lack of purpose, the loneliness, the strong feeling of being useless, has caused him to become insane and lose his faith a long time ago. He can still turn undead, but he has no spells (reduce the XP rewards accordingly) and shouldn’t pose too much of a threat. During the fight, however, arrows and magic missiles start coming down from holes in the ceiling. Ghiaia is up there! As soon as the PCs finish off Toralon, or when they go after the gnoll, he will enter a secret passage on the second floor of the building, which leads down into a sort of crypt.
Toralon’s quarterstaff is masterwork quality. It is the item that was used to kill Teresa. In his belt pouch, the PCs can find 100 gold coins; the coins are of the same type that Ghiaia was using. The ex-priest was bribed by the gnoll to keep guard.
The bag contains Teresa’s accordion. As the PCs open the bag, they see her face clearly for just one moment, and then it vanishes. The character who picks up the accordion has a vision. It’s as if he was flying along a long, long tunnel or corridor. He can’t turn his head or slow down, and the tunnel’s walls are a blur of vivid colors around him. At the end of the tunnel, far, far away, he can see a bright white light, and as he gets closer he can hear some kind of music. It is a fast, obsessive rhythm that only adds to the terrifying sense of claustrophobia of the whole experience. As the light shines brighter and brighter, the PC has the feeling of bobbing sideways, accelerating and decelerating, as if he was dancing. When the music stops, he is into the light itself, and the vision ends. Teresa has seen the crematorium underground in her ghostly form, and this is the most that her current powers can do: show someone the way to avoid its trap.
If the PCs find the passage (Search DC 20 on the second floor) and follow it downwards, they enter an underground crypt. It looks very old, and the only signs of someone else’s presence are boot prints in the dust. The PCs enter a long corridor; the walls are brightly painted with frescoes depicting scenes of a battle between drow, elves and humans. After twelve meters or so, the battle pictures give way to rural, comforting scenes, and finally to a huge, long scene of peasants and townsfolk dancing. The frescoes end abruptly at a point where the floor paving changes from stone to marble squares, about twelve meters before the corridor ends in a wooden door. The PCs arrive just in time to see the door slam closed; someone has just entered. Some skeletons are strewn around, but there is no sign of combat.
A rogue can Search (DC 25) and determine that there is a trap involving pressure plates and either arrows or gas, but the device is very complex. The DC to disable one of the squares is 30, and at least six of them must be disabled before the end of the corridor can be reached. There is a sequence in which they must be pressed to cross without triggering the trap, but the rogue can’t determine it.
The trick here is dancing the traditional dance of Shepherd’s Rest, as depicted in the painting. The PCs can make a Perform (dance) check, with the following DCs and using Dex instead of Cha:
- Base DC is 14. Even characters who have never danced before can try, by watching the frescoes.
- A PC who has watched the dances at the fair gets a +1 circumstance bonus; +3 if he actually participated.
- If someone is playing the accordion, the DC is reduced by 2 for every 5 points in his Perform check.
If anyone fails the check, the trap goes off. A stream of poisoned arrows fills the marble-paved area; each PC in this area is attacked by 1d4 arrows which hit with a +8 modifier. The damage is 1d6 from the arrows, but the powerful poison (DC 16) deals 1d4 Con damage as primary and secondary damage!
Beyond the door lies the chamber where Saithas Airin was buried. Ghiaia is here, clutching the Icon. Two arrows are embedded in his body. Ghiaia is a powerful spellcasters, but he has taken 4 points of Con damage from the poison. Ten rounds after the PCs have first reached the trap, he takes 4 more points (but if the PCs take that long, he will hear them and cast invisibility). This makes the fight doable for the PCs, despite the vast difference in levels; factor this in the XP awards.
If the PCs defeat Ghiaia, they can recover the Icon and return it to the village. As they pass through the crematorium again, they see and feel that the ghost has vanished. While everyone mourns the loss of Teresa, they are greeted as heroes… and offered a spot in next year’s tournament!
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