Wulf Ratbane
Adventurer
Ancient elf
Albino elves
Prayer beads
Specimen collection
Withered garden
Phase spider
The spire of the white tower emerges from the dusty wasteland, reaching impossibly high into the sky, gnarled and gleaming like a skeletal finger pointed accusingly at the gods. The tower has no widows, nor doors, nor any seeming purpose to be gleaned from the outside, and no living soul has ever been seen in or around the tower. Folks say that the tower is cursed, or haunted—or both. Folks who have traveled too close to the tower simply disappear. And on certain nights, the eerie wailing that sounds around the tower lends further credence to the tales, though they grow in the telling with each passing year.
Overview: The party discovers the eerie tower of the grand theurgist Morien, the so-called “living lich,” and work to set things right before they, too, become victims of his life-draining machine. The adventure is best suited to groups of around 6th level, with spellcasting ability not exceeding 3rd level spells. Spells such as Blink and Gaseous Form, or more powerful variants, will allow easier exit from the tower for a small number of players for a short time, so the DM will have to act carefully to “hook” the entire party into the adventure.
Hooks: The DM can hook the players through one of several traditional methods:
Curiosity—As the party emerges from a wood or valley, the bone-white tower looms ahead of them. This is the most simple and direct method to hook players whose characters are constantly on the prowl and eager for adventure.
Greed—The DM can use another traditional method here: present the players with rumors of the mysterious tower, and of treasures undoubtedly contained within. The DM may have a local sage offer payment for any information they can return from the tower.
Duty—The preferred hook requires heroes. Once again, the DM should spring the tower on the players in the course of a wilderness journey. This hook, however, is a bit different, as it does not truly “set” until the first encounter:
Encounter One: A Step Out of Phase
As the party approaches within just a few miles of the tower, they will first notice a difference in the demeanor of their animals. Horses will be skittish; dogs and other predatory companions appear both nervous and curious. The tower is filled with tiny holes and so constructed as to whistle when the wind blows around it, and it is this noise—at first undetectable to the PCs—that affects the animals. As the PCs themselves approach nearer, they too will begin to hear an eerie whistling. Start with DC20 and drop the DC by 5 periodically, allowing provisions for druids, barbarians, rangers, and other “attuned” characters to notice the sound first. You may even wish to inform them secretly from the other players, so as to build suspicion and curiosity.
Once the characters have approached within sight of the tower, they should all be able to hear the whistling. Moments later, they will be attacked by a phase spider trained to bring victims to the tower.
The phase spider can appear, use its poisonous bite, and disappear to the ethereal in a single round. Phase spiders are highly intelligent and this particular spider is even more unusual—its poison does 1d8 initial and secondary STR (not CON) damage: extremely debilitating, but not deadly. (If the players are familiar with phase spiders, they may Spot some unusual markings.) It will attempt to incapacitate an elf, a wizard, or similar “pasty looking” character first.
The essence of this hook is to demonstrate the danger that the spider presents. It should be obvious that the phase spider hunts around the tower; if the players are eager enough fellows, you can allow them to drive off the spider, at which point they will indubitably track it back to the tower.
If they require more persuasion, the spider will continue to harass them, hopefully even capturing one of the party members and carrying him off to the tower. (If you are in a generous mood, you can have the phase spider start with a character who is not in attendance, or with an animal companion or special mount first—as long as you don’t run the risk of the players simply leaving the victim to its fate.)
The spider fights quite intelligently. It will notice if the characters are readying to attack it when it appears, and so it will move about and attack from the rear, or simply wait until the players are forced to drop their guard. It is an extremely patient hunter.
A victim that has been incapacitated (STR 0) by the phase spider can then be picked up and dragged into the Ethereal. The phase spider will then begin phasing in and out, zig-zagging its way back to the tower with its prize.
(To scale this encounter to more powerful groups, use more phase spiders.)
Encounter Two: Into the Tower
As the characters approach the tower, the party will note that the vegetation starts to thin out rapidly. The area around the tower is a dusty wasteland. Druids and rangers in particular will notice the dry, desiccated, and definitively infertile look of the soil Not so much as a weed grows around the tower, now. Even the air seems stale and wispy.
The tower itself is over 200 feet high, about 50 feet across at the bottom, though tapering rapidly to a needle-like point. It appears to be made of polished bone. There are no doors or windows. Characters who can fly (or who have exceptionally good eyesight—Spot DC 25 from the ground) may notice tiny holes in the tower along the top third of its length. It is these holes that cause the whistling.
Any character touching the tower must make a Will save (DC20). Characters who fail will notice a feeling of lightness as they are momentarily turned ethereal and drawn into the tower.
Encounter Three: The Specimen Collection
The ethereal wisps of each character are drawn involuntarily into the tower, through a complicated system of magical flues, to be deposited into a large glass bell— the characters are part of some sort of specimen collection!
The wide, flat floor holds dozens and dozens of specimen containers of varying sizes, from 10 foot diameter, 5 foot diameter, and even smaller. The largest glass bells are around the outside perimeter of the circular, dome-shaped room, though smaller containers are packed into every conceivable space. There is a crossed hallway across the center of the room—five feet wide, allowing access to containers along the edges of the path, but this is the only easy access. One might conceivably wiggle between the glass bells so as to access each and every bell. Some of the bells are already broken. A metal staircase runs up and passes through the top of the dome into a room above.
The players will notice that several of the containers contain desiccated corpses—most of them unidentifiable. A few of these corpses may still contain some items of interest to the party.
The characters are separated into individual bells. Each will notice two hoses running out of the top of each bell. Characters with appropriate Knowledge skills may note (DC15) an intake valve, and an outflow valve. The bells are made of magically treated glassteel, two inches thick: Hardness 10, 60 hp. Players may try to break through piecemeal or in one blow (Strength DC 28). Any loud escape attempt will alert the custodians from the garden above, and they will come to investigate. Even if the players cannot escape, the custodians will eventually arrive to see what their phase spider has brought in lately. (Of course, if the DM is feeling uppity, it may be days...)
The players may Spot (DC20) the phase spider lurking in the shadows near the top of the room, watching. If confronted, it will flee to the custodians.
Encounter Four: The Custodians
The master of the tower left in place a small group of custodians, elven academics and colleagues, to see to the upkeep of his experiment. Those custodians are long since dead, victims of the malfunctioning experiment—but their descendants, a cowardly, motley crew of some dozen inbred elven albinos, still work the place. These elves are a pale reflection of their forebears, mostly insane, with a moronic (yet crafty) intelligence.
There are about an equal number of males and females among the custodians. They are dressed in a motley of mis-matched clothes and equipment, quite possibly looted from victims of the tower. (Players may note heraldry or other insignia from far flung cultures—elven, dwarven, etc.) Their leader is particularly old and frail looking, almost translucent, with wild white hair and red, crazed eyes. He fiddles constantly with an ostentatious necklace of prayer beads around his neck—perhaps the insignia of his office. Their leader will worry at his prayer beads and occasionally stop mid-sentence, as if listening, or seeking other-worldly help for certain answers. (The necklace radiates strong magic appropriate to a necklace of prayer beads.)
The players may meet the custodians (if they come to investigate), or by climbing the circular metal staircase in the center of the room. The guardians are willing to talk to the players, if they are polite, but they will not (at first) entertain any notion of setting the characters free. Through conversation, the party may learn:
a) the tower is a life-giving device for their master
b) their master is an ancient elf by the name of Morien
c) their master resides in a room at the top of the tower
d) the custodian elves have worked the tower for the entirety of their natural lives
e) one generation after the next
f) about 10 years (how odd!)
g) though the tower is centuries old, many generations
h) and Morien is older still than that—“the living lich,” now revered as their god.
i) And most importantly, there is no way out of the tower.
There is other information available. The custodians lead a meagre life, eating from a garden in the room above. They pray to Morien from time to time to send them new “life vessels”—they have found from bitter experience that when they do not capture new specimens, they are punished by Morien: their garden dies, and they themselves age and die even more rapidly.
The phase spider is their pet (the result of careful, crafty inbreeding), bringing in new “life vessels” for their master. They avoid this topic as much as possible, never referring to deceased victims as anything other than “spent vessels;” and yet, they seem almost eager to chat with the players, their current crop.
The players may realize what the custodians do not—the life-draining tower has gone awry, and when necessary, it is draining the life-force from the plants in the garden, or from the custodians themselves. The apparatus works by shifting the victim, a fraction at a time, onto the Ethereal plane, so that the body endures for a slightly longer time and the lifeforce can be slowly separated and used. At least, that was the theory. The specimen containers that have been broken over time, however, now allow this process to take place throughout the entire tower.
It would be extremely difficult (Bluff or Diplomacy DC30) for the characters to persuade the custodians to set them free; magic may be of some assistance, if used against the leader. If the players can figure out that the tower is malfunctioning and persuade the custodians of this fact, the DC drops to 25—but the custodians remain in mortal fear of Morien.
The players may persuade them in other ways. An offer to stay on an create food, or nurse their garden back to health, will drop the DC by 5 points—and this is cumulative with any other persuasion they may use. If the players talk their way out, the custodians will expect them to do away with Morien and find some way to free them.
Of course, the players are most likely to break their way out of the glass bells on their own. In this case, the custodians will fight, though none of them are proficient with any of the looted weapons they carry. It is likely to be a slaughter. The phase spider will pitch in and fight until it is badly wounded, at which point even it will abandon the unlucky custodians.
Encounter Five: Ascending to the Gods
From the specimen room, the metal staircase leads up into a smaller room filled with a withered garden that is lit by some form of magical sunlight. The sheer variety of plants should impress any knowledgeable character, but the dry and desiccated look should be of concern even to the untrained eye. It is a scrabble-patch garden at best; what few fruits and vegetables grow here are flavorless and nearly nutritionally empty.
One corner of the garden is set aside for a collection of tents where the custodians sleep, but the most prominent feature of the garden is the large marble staircase that winds up into the domed ceiling to yet another room above. If any of the custodians are present, they revere this area and are hesitant to approach. They will do so only in the most deferential manner, and under no circumstances will they set foot on the stairs.
Fortunately, player characters are not superstitious, inbred morons, and they will likely want to climb the stair to confront the master of the tower, Morien. The custodians (if not yet slaughtered) will fall into a hushed silence. The DM should make good use of silence, speaking quietly and sparingly, to build suspense as the characters climb the stair.
The room above is small and cramped, at most 15 feet across at this point, with a domed ceiling. Countless tubes return here from around the tower, snaking and winding, some in careful bundles, others in a tangled mess, though all eventually returning to the same place: to the back of the room, where they disappear behind a round curtain atop a short dais. The air is stale. Thick dust coats the floor. (Remember to whisper each description to help build the mood!)
Some brave player must pull aside the curtain, and the climax of this adventure here depends on the style of the campaign.
As the curtain is pulled aside, the players will see the withered body of the ancient elf Morien seated upon a throne. Many of the tubes run into a strange helmet atop his head; some of them burrow directly into his flesh—his arms, his back, his heart. The elf is motionless, dead to mundane observation; magic reveals only the faintest aura of life.
At the approach of the first character, Morien’s eyes will suddenly spring open. A hideous, piercing shriek escapes his lips: “FREEEEEEDOM!” Morien will stagger to his feet, lunge forward and wrap his bony hands around the neck of the nearest character.
Some DM’s may wish to present Morien as an enhanced Wight and allow the players to fight it out with him. You may even give him immunity to some magic, as if he were an incorporeal entity, as so much of his life force is trapped on the Ethereal. Other DM’s may prefer the low-key, almost anti-climactic horror approach—Morien can be slain with a single, desperate blow. Regardless, when he is slain, his body will crumble instantly to dust, and along with him, all of the tubes running throughout the tower. The players can be certain that the tower is no longer functioning nor malfunctioning.
Conclusion
The players still have before them the difficulty of escaping the tower. Fortunately (though it may take the players some time to realize it), one of the prayer beads possessed by the leader of the custodians is a wind walk bead. Tailor your Rat Bastardliness to taste: Does the leader give over the necklace as a reward? In a grand ceremony passing on leadership? Do the players have to kill him to take it? And just how many people can wind walk at one time—Five? Six? All of the players, sure, but will they leave the custodians trapped? Regardless of the outcome, as the players safely wind walk out of the flute-like tower, thier very essence should cause the eerie wailing of the tower to sound through the desolate wilderness one last time, before it finally crumbles and disappears in a plume dust.
