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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Daztur" data-source="post: 6013064" data-attributes="member: 55680">Sorry for the delay in making some contributions, the adventure design got a bit over-ambitious.The Clockworks of Albus FlidgeAdditional information about Shuttered (29.14), connects to Hex 19.01When Albus Flidge was a young man he ranged the Grey Mountains with the Browncloaks, but retired after raiding Hearthwright Green. Shortly thereafter he set up a small clockworks in Shuttered, despite having no training in such arts. Thanks to the small size and intricate decorations that his pocket watches boast, the Flidge Clockworks soon began selling to the greatest nobles of the City and even to the wives of the Doge himself.Many rivals have tried to worm their way into Flidge’s confidence and find the secret to his timepieces’ design, but to no avail and the inner chambers of his clockworks are well guarded by certain devices hauled back from his adventuring days. But the secret to his clocks is this: they are made by a village of enslaved jermalaines that Flidge captured many years past. Their tiny hands enable them to create delicate work beyond the dreams of even the most slender-fingered Halfling. He was able to lure them out of their caves by promising them to eat the mushrooms that cause one to shrink but, alas for the jermalaines, they had no effect outside the confines of Hearthwright Green.Since then the jermalaines have labored in Flidge’s workshop under the baleful eyes of his cats. However, in recent years Flidge’s advancing age has meant that he has not supervised the jermalaines as closely as was once the case and they have taken to making modifications to the designs of their pocket watches and some of Flidge’s customers have had most unpleasant surprises. But, despite this, Flidge’s prestige is such that he continues to command the highest prices in the City.Hooks:-What is Flidge’s security system?-How have the jermalaines modified the pocket watch designs?-Have any been able to escape into the City of Shuttered Windows?The Book of Not Being Boiled in FireConnects to Hex 26.16One of the forbidden books kept in the innermost libraries of the Temple Indivisible (29.14.XX) is the Book of Not Being Boiled in Fire. It was written long ago by John Luciferus, a mad lictor of the Tiamat cult, before being burned at the stake by inquisitors of the Temple of the Pure Light (a long-forgotten splinter sect of the Temple Indivisible). The mad lictor laughed and mocked the Pure Ones as the flames licked at him and after the flames died down not a single shark of human bone was found in the ashes.The book, which was quickly locked away, sets forth methods and rituals to purify the blood that gushed from the red head of Tiamat and that now lies within some men (see 26.16). It speaks of how Tiamat will raise the faithful out of a lake of blazing fire, in which they will not be burned, how they will sit down among the draco-lions and have the great beasts eat from their hands and how Tiamat will burn away all that binds them and holds them back. For “lo do the men of Tiamat laugh at the very fire that burns the world!” The book makes oblique references to the Book of Not Being Roasted by Lightening but not even The Weeper has heard of such a book.Recently several pages have been discovered to have been torn from The Book of Not Being Boiled in Fire and it is suspected that they are now in possession of the man who claims himself to be Tiamat Reborn (26.16).Hooks:-What happened to John Luciferous?-Who were the Pure Ones? Were they inquisitors of the Temple of Pure Light? What happened to that splinter sect?-Draco-lions?-Are there four other such books? Where are they?Master Var’s CaveHex 43.03.This one includes a lot of the fallout of the first Shrouded Lands adventure that I ran.Connects to Hex 31.04Master Var’s cave is the final word in trollish cave design. The rough cave walls are mostly covered in fine (if disturbing) tapestries and much of the rest of the walls have been carved into fanciful designs. Unlike his more brutish relatives, Master Var is polite and well-spoken with such a breadth of knowledge that one could almost believe his claims that he saw the fall of Bergolast (38.28) with his own eyes.It is here that he fashions the art that has grown popular with the elves of the Kingswood and he is a frequent sight at Olmsted Keep (31.04) where the haggles with the half-elven middlemen who live there. Some of his most recent works include a ship in a bottle fashioned out of human fingernails and a bowl of silver-inlaid puppy skulls. He is also something of an alchemist and has developed a substance from ochre jelly that makes his skin (mostly) fireproof.However, for all his friendly manner, Master Var is still a troll and has a ferocious temper when roused. Recently he broke the peace of Lord Olmsted’s halls by tearing apart a group of goblins slaves during the lord’s name day feast. It is said that he smelled troll meat on their breaths and it was later found that Deep Dwarf owners of the goblins had captured a troll and had carved off enough of its flesh to fill barrels with salted troll meat. For the last several years Master Var has employed a young human assistant named Laera. She cheerfully tells gruesome tales about how Master Var ate her parents but seemed to be loyal to her master. However, she has recently be kidnapped (rescued?) by a small band of mercenaries who had come to Olmsted Keep for Lord Olmsted’s nameday. Instead of the girl, Master Var now shares his home with the troll that he rescued from the dwarves and his slowly nursing her back to health after she suffered several serious burns in the chaos of her rescue.Hooks:-What other art has Master Var created?-Is he really old enough to have seen the fall of Bergolast?-What’s the story with Laera? Note: the “mercenaries” are the PCs.I had an enormous amount of fun roleplaying Var and Laera. They got in a long conversation with the PC wizard about the best way of gathering human fingernails and were generally delightfully macabre.</blockquote>

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