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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9769759" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/Hg40MNb.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="width: 623px" />This chapter is mostly exploration and combat with some potential non-combat roleplay elements. Anan’Thul was a particularly magnificent city in the Anubian Empire, serving as a hub for magical artisans constructing great works. While future scholars believed that it was the birthplace for the Divine Relics, in reality Anan’Thul was most famed for the creation of a unique model of golem known as Brass Sentinels* which are powered by Heka amber. Lord Ammu seeks to excavate the ruins in order to add these potent forces to his army, and entrusted with this project is a warrior known as Yz who leads a clan of Anubians known as the Bloodpaws. He is commanding a warband to survey the city and excavate the lower catacombs.*They use helmed horror stats, but climb instead of fly, have slashing adamantine claws, and are only immune to spells and effects from Divine Relics (save for the Hand of Brass) instead of immunity to virtually all spells.Also present in the ruins is Hakkari the High Priest. This Anubian's body remains entombed in a sarcophagus. Having been crushed by great weights of sand and stone, Hakkari is immobile, relying upon a Divine Relic known as the Hand of Brass to speak through constructs in order to influence the outside world. The Will of the Sands gained influence over him as part of a pact made out of desperation with the entity. As constructs commanded by the Hand of Brass cannot be controlled or affected by other Divine Relics, Lord Ammu views its wielder as a potential enemy, and thus Yz is entrusted to take the Hand of Brass and ensure that Hakkari cannot move against him. Hakkari is aware that Lord Ammu views him as a threat, so while he can be an ally of convenience against the Anubian army, he has no love for Al'Kirat.Anan'Thul is northwest of the Center Spire, placing it deep within the Wasteland. Besides Prophecy as a potential information dispenser, Rumbold Tomekeeper and the other archeologists at the Museum of Anubian Studies know of its location. Although none have personally explored it due to it being a more dangerous location than usual.Anan'Thul is a pseudo-dungeon crawl, divided into 51 "rooms" across three large maps. The first map is the Ziggurat District, home to the bulk of the Bloodpaws (the rest of the city is undetailed, with the text saying that it lies beyond the scope of this adventure and the rest is filled with skeletons under the Will of the Sands). The second map is the camp of Bloodpaws outside the temple of the High Priest, and the third map is the Catacombs beneath the temple. All encounters are based out of specific areas, with roaming Rustbone skeletons of ancient Anbuians lair beneath the sand to ambush passersby to serve as random encounters as well as a unique roper that can burrow through sand in order to hunt live prey.Unless the party is already known to be on hostile terms with the Anubians or are openly bearing any Divine Relics, the Bloodpaws can potentially be nonviolently interacted with, as their primary duty is to excavate the ruins to retrieve the high priest's Hand of Brass. PCs who approach openly and offer to parley can arrange a meeting with Yz. The city is home to many traps and monsters that are just as dangerous to Anubians as anything else, and the warlord is willing to hire mercenaries to deal with any problems before risking his own forces. As such, this is the only explicit area in the campaign that PCs can use platinum pieces at their full value in buying and selling items. While most Anubians aren't fluent in Common, their clerics can cast Tongues if necessary.Several interesting locations in the Ziggurat District include an Oasis home to two mated giant crocodiles who can be nonviolently bypassed if the sick male is healed so that they can go off to mate; a broken bridge that serves as a vantage point to the Anubian camp, and thus presents various sample skill checks that can impart information to the PCs about their forces; a chained Brass Sentinel which is bearing the soul of a thief, who if powered up and freed can tell the PCs about the Catacombs and Hakkari's influence over the constructs; and a house home to spectral Anubians who died during the Cataclysm. In this last case, PCs who destroy the magical bindings on their remains in order to help them pass on are gifted with a permanent +1 increase to an ability score of choice (as usual, cannot be highest or lowest).The Bloodpaw Encampment is home to 70 Anubians besides Yz, with 40 of them being combatant soldiers of various generic stat blocks, and the remaining 30 noncombatant slaves who use Commoner stats. The Anubians have a good amount of treasure and magic items in a tent containing the clan's war chest, enriched by various findings from the excavation. If the PCs end up working for Yz as mercenaries, his two quests involve finding and awakening the Brass Sentinel to assist in construct (the Sentinel's the one with the thief's soul), and the other is to hunt down a particularly powerful giant scorpion known as Deathsting which has been hunting the Anubians. It makes its lair in an underground pocket of the Catacombs that can be accessed from outside, and the party can track its movements back to its lair. Upon completing these two quests, Yz will trust them enough to enter the ziggurat (and thus the Catacombs) to help with the final stages of the excavation.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/iZ5yEFZ.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="width: 644px" />The Catacombs are home to countless Anubian corpses, many of which are infused with necrotic energies due to the Ankh of Life being activated far too late. The sanctified cloth that prevents the slumbering souls from departing the Anubians' bodies inadvertently caused them to be turned into mummies. Those few that became mobile exist in a state of ravenous half-amnesia, only remembering just enough to engage in the briefest of conversations before attacking the living to consume their life energy.When the Ankh of Life was used much later during Chapter 4 of this campaign, the magic was unable to enter their bodies. It thus lingers in the dungeon as a purple fog that enhances magic relating to life and death. For instance, spells that restore life to a dead creature require no material components when cast here, and spells of the Necromancy school are treated as being cast at 1 slot level higher.The bulk of the Bloodpaw clan's excavation takes place in the Assembly Hall, a long passageway filled floor to ceiling with debris. The progress of the excavation is dependent on whether Experience Points or Milestone is used to level PCs for this campaign. In the former case, it occurs based on the number of days since Lord Ammu's revival in the Great Pyramid, while with Milestone the excavation is underway at levels 5 to 7, with 1d4-1 weeks remaining. A result of 0 has it so that Yz dramatically obtains it as soon as the PCs stumble upon the location in the Catacombs. By level 8, Yz's excavation will have already been completed. If the PCs do not interfere, Yz will successfully retrieve the Hand of Brass and deliver it to Lord Ammu.There's quite a bit of interesting rooms in the Catacombs. The first is Deathsting's lair, where magical communication with the scorpion reveals that it's been driven mad by the Will of the Sands, but can be calmed down via music or anti-enchantment magic and items. Then there are the temple archives, which contain scrolls pertaining to law and civics. A good enough Investigation roll reveals more useful information such as spell scrolls and the location of a secret door in the dungeon. The High Priest's personal vault is trapped with magical seals that summon mummies from elsewhere in the dungeon, but can be dispelled by magic or a Divine Relic. The treasure within includes a Manual of Iron Golems and various high-level spell scrolls.There's a chamber bearing a particularly potent plate mail known as Telstang Armor (+1, grants immunity to magical transformation like a golem, can cast Shield of Faith that lasts 8 hours once per day), but the entrance to the room is covered by debris which has just enough of a crack for to gaze upon the valuable armor on the other side. Attempting to move aside or tamper with the debris will cause a cave-in to destroy the armor and room's contents, forcing the party to find other ways in such as short-range teleportation or shrinking to Tiny size. The chambers of Ishva are home to a former servant of Lord Ammu of the same name. She has become a maddened mummy who is aware of Hakkari's turncoat nature and was imprisoned by the high priest. Her findings (along with various other useful information about the ruins, its occupants, and the Hand of Brass) can be found as etchings in the room written with her sharp nails.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/P1qvCGe.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="width: 600px" />The Fane of the Brass Priest is the final location of this dungeon crawl, the room to which the debris-filled assembly hall leads. Hakkari is entombed, immobile but wearing the Hand of Brass to which he is attuned. If the excavation is finished, Yz will personally open the sarcophagus and give a speech to the assembled Anubians. The PCs can interrupt at any time, but at the end of the speech Yz will stab Hakkari through the heart to kill him, taking the relic and instantly attuning to it. The adventure notes that the DM should be kind in coming up with a means of letting the PCs take a Long Rest before the way to Hakkari's tomb is cleared, as fighting Yz with the Hand of Brass will very much be a boss battle. Not only does he have reinforcements from the camp to rush to his aid, the Hand of Brass lets him control the Brass Sentinels.If the PCs get the Hand of Brass for themselves, any survivors of Clan Bloodpaw will hunt them down, causing the next random encounter in the Wasteland to be hostile Anubians from the clan. If Hakkari is made into an ally against Lord Ammu, months after the Siege of Al'Kirat he will assemble legions of mummies and Brass Sentinels to help reestablish him as the ruler of Anan'Thul, making it an evil place.The Hand of Brass lets the attuned wielder immediately sense if any creatures within 120 feet are of the Construct type, and also if a non-living object such as a phylactery houses a soul. During a short rest, the Hand can be used to transfer a soul into a suitable vessel (living creatures must be willing, incapacitated, or restrained during the rest), having the effect of either a Raise Dead spell if a corpse or instantly creating the equivalent of a Helmed Horror or Stone Golem if transferred into an appropriate artificial form (albeit such transference requires an expenditure of gold pieces per soul based on the desired construct in question). The wielder can also spend 1,000 gold in material components to enact a ritual over a construct bearing a soul to be permanently Charmed in regards to the wielder. As the Brass Sentinels have been so enchanted, they can serve as a loyal army. However, the wielder can choose to free them from service, in which case they are grateful and decide to find their own paths in life. Some may even choose to defend Al'Kirat and help out the PCs depending on how they were treated.Thoughts So Far: Making the ruins a three-parter citycrawl/dungeoncrawl with possible infiltration of the Anubian war camp is a pretty cool element. And while it may not come up for most campaigns, I do like how the combat encounters involving animals have non-violent resolutions, which can allow Druids and those capable of speaking with animals to flex their muscles for otherwise situational abilities. There's a good amount of treasure and magic items here, although the opposition can be quite deadly just by the number of Anubians alone. My main criticism is that there aren't any presented plans or methods for PCs to get to Hakkari's sarcophagus and the Hand of Brass without waiting around for the Anubian excavation to finish. At the very least, I can see many gaming groups deciding to hire their own workers to transport across the Wasteland to start digging, to say nothing of more magical methods like summoned earth elementals to burrow through and drag out the sarcophagus. But otherwise, this is a pretty cool chapter.Join us next time as we fight gun-slinging outlaws and hunt for a demiplane of treasure in Chapter 10: Sapphire Sandstorm!</blockquote>

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