In the meantime, the following is an entry I worked up a few years ago using only 4 ingredients (All actual match-ups will use 6 ingredients!), to give those of you who are unfamiliar with Iron DM a chance to see an example of what an entry might look like.
Here it is:
Ingredients:
Forgotten Treasure
Empty Orphanage
Toymaker
Broken Mirror
Broken Mirrors
This is a short adventure designed for 4th edition D&D, but easily adaptable to any game. It supposes a party of 4 to 5 level 3 adventurers, but the level range of opponents that the party will face will range widely. This is because the real challenge of the lower-level combats will be in dealing with the moral dilemma of whether they should put down their foes, or let the attackers remain standing to keep on fighting.
Set-up
In the town of Looking Glass--named after the pristine lake that it is built around--local legends tell of a great tragedy that befell the Old Orphanage, now, half a century in the past. The children--one by one--disappeared, victims of some wicked spirit that haunted the institution. In all the years since, the locals have avoided that place, empty of all but taboo and fear.
Recently, however, a stranger has come out from that forlorn place--and he cannot recall why, nor even
who he is.
Hooks
The PCs have found an odd trinket; a crude toy fashioned out of the components of mundane items. The toy seems to have a sinister feel to it, but it is very difficult to put a finger on just why this is so. Should the PCs investigate, they may find that the toy was crafted by the stranger in Looking Glass and discarded, picked up by an enterprising merchant, sold to a family traveling to a new town, and dropped by the child who owned it along the way.
Or, the PCs have received the toy described above as an unsolicited gift. No one knows who the gift-giver is, but the toy seems to
want something of them--to be returned
somewhere. A simple investigation should turn up a traveler who has seen its like before--in the lonely little town of Looking Glass.
The Toymaker
In the town of Looking Glass, in a public place--likely the local watering hole--the Glass Shard, the PCs may find that one of the locals does not seem very local, at all. It is a distraught and obviously distracted elderly gentleman idly crafting crude toys--similar to the one the PCs have acquired--from mundane components. He does not even appear to notice that he is doing it. The townsfolk shun him.
This toymaker mutters to himself--and to the PCs, if they approach him--about needing to retrieve some "lost treasure," but he cannot remember where--or what--it was. Even so, the toymaker is cunning and will certainly enlist the PCs' aid by whatever means he can, even unscrupulous ones. If the PCs choose to help him, they will have to investigate the details themselves, for the toymaker cannot remember how he came to be in Looking Glass, nor who he was.
Gossip will readily reveal that the toymaker has come out of the Old Orphanage--and rumors abound about what else what might be in there, but no one actually knows, because not a soul among the townsfolk will go near the place.
In addition to the toymaker, the PCs may meet a few other significant personalities in the town of Looking Glass, each with a different agenda related to the toymaker.
- Syvic, the mayor, just wants the toymaker to go away. His presence in the town is breeding disharmony in the usually serene little town. The mayor, therefore, will encourage any investigations by the PCs that she thinks will help speed the toymaker on his way out of town. She may even offer some minor reward to the PCs for doing so.
- Dirk, the Tavernkeep, kind of likes the idea of the toymaker sticking around for a while, even though he is wary of him. He has noticed an odd thing--even though folk shun the toymaker, they still seem to flock to the Glass Shard to watch him out of the corner of their eyes. And not a one of the toymaker's discarded creations has gone unclaimed. If Dirk thinks the PCs' investigation will lead to the toymaker moving on, he will do what he can to mislead and hinder the PCs in that investigation.
- Portunis, the speculator, believes the toymaker's ramblings about lost treasure and wants to procure it for himself, but is too much of a coward t investigate the Old Orphanage, himself. Instead, if possible, he will trail the PCs and, with the help of his cronies--all Common Bandits (Monster Vault 170), waylay them once he believes that they have that treasure in hand.
- Keri, the last Ward of the Old Orphanage, is now an elderly lady filled with fear and lamentation; whatever wicked spirits stole her children away, she was unable to do anything to stop it. One by one, they were taken, and all she could do was watch. When the last child was gone, she closed the doors forever and dared not return this many years. If the PCs are keen to investigate, however, she will encourage them to do so; she still burns with the desire to know what happened to the children.
The Empty Orphanage
If the PCs enter the Old Orphanage, they will find that it appears largely undisturbed since the last child disappeared and the last caretaker left the building behind, forever. In the thick layer of dust that covers everything, the footprints of the toymaker can easily be made out, but they are so numerous and cross each other so many times, that it seems he went through the entire complex. Nothing is here but antique furnishings, one broken mirror that seems strangely devoid of dust, and what appears to be a broken marionette--fashioned with no strings.
The marionette is exquisitely detailed to look like a child; it could probably pass for one from a distance. If the PCs take this marionette to the toymaker, it will jar his memory, somewhat. "Fix the mirror! Fix the mirror and look inside!" he will tell them, and will supply them with a bit of sovereign glue, with which to do so. He will keep the marionette, if the PCs allow him to.
The Broken Mirror
If the PCs assemble the mirror and look inside, they will find a shadowy reflection of the room they are in. The reflection will tug at them, drawing them in, if they do not resist. On the other side, the PCs will find a child, seemingly lifeless, lying on the floor. This child looks
exactly like the marionette did in detail! If they PCs left the marionette with the toymaker, or if they reassemble it with any remaining sovereign glue that they have, the boy (and the marionette, if it is with them) will come alive.
If the PCs have the marionette with them this happens, it will attack them immediately. Use the stats for a Grasping Zombie (Monster Vault 293), except that the marionette is a construct, instead of undead. If the PCs destroy the marionette, it is broken again, and the child falls lifeless, once more.
If the boy remains conscious, the information he can give to the PCs is limited, for he is too young to know what has happened to him--only that he has been trapped in this shadowy place for some time and that the other children are about, somewhere.
The Forgotten Treasure The PCs are in a demi-plane adjacent to, but removed from, the Shadowfell. The place is fairly small--no more than the size of a sprawling mansion, and can be pretty quickly explored. Doing so will reveal the following:
- Remnants of some unknown rituals can be found everywhere. With thorough exploration, the PCs can determine that these rituals were used to bind the life-force of the children to each of the duplicate marionettes that wander through the halls.
- There are two dozen children of varying ages wandering around these halls; apparently sustained by some arcane force--for no food, nor water, can be found anywhere. Talking to them will reveal that these are the lost children from the Old Orphanage. If this is so, the PCs may surmise that this demi-plane is temporally divorced from the world that they know.
- There is a marionette bound to each of the children in this place (two dozen). These marionettes may be encountered in any numbers that the DM wishes and will always attack the PCs on sight; in all cases, their stats are the same as the Grasping Zombie (Monster Vault 293), but are constructs instead of undead. In all cases, if the PCs destroy a marionette, the child that is bound to it falls lifeless.
- The PCs can easily move through the mirror at will while it is whole, but none of the children, nor any of the marionettes, can do so; they are bound to this plane by whatever ritual created them.
- There are scraps of writing hinting that the creator of the marionettes was researching a ritual to allow the marionettes to pass through the portal.
- Something appears to have gone wrong with that research. The caster and the marionette linked to the first child the PCs discovered were both expelled through the mirror-portal, breaking the mirror, the marionette, and the memory of the caster all at once.
By now, the PCs have probably pieced together that the creator of the marionettes was the toymaker and that, whatever his motives in doing so, they were malevolent.
The Toymaker
If the PCs go back to the toymaker, they will find that he has recovered enough of his memory to be a menace. He is a Human Transmuter (Monster Vault 172) and quite crafty. His powers should be re-fluffed, so that they reflect his tinkering disposition--for instance, Beast Curse can trap the afflicted PC in one of his toys, instead of transforming the character into a tiny beast.
If the PCs left the marionette with the Toymaker when they went to repair the mirror, they will find that he has repaired it, and it will fight them at his side, should they fight him at all. Whether or not they choose to fight the Toymaker, the marionette will terrorize the denizens of Looking Glass--for it, like all of the other marionettes the PCs will have discovered, is drawn to destroy the living.
Where to go from here
If the PCs wish to retrieve the children, they will first need to find a way to sever the bond between them and the marionettes. If the Toymaker survives, he may one day be able figure out how to do so (though he is unlikely to be inclined to do so--unless coerced). Otherwise, sages and scholars of great experience will be required to discover such rituals.
If the Toymaker escapes, he may make a devious ongoing villain, for his nihilistic motives are unfathomable, even to himself. He is subtle and patient, and may hide for years before resurfacing. One day, though, he will want to find a way back to his lost toys and begin his villainy again.
If the PCs have destroyed all of the marionettes and never bother to repair them (perhaps even destroy the mirror, as well), no one in town will ever know that the children could one day be returned. This is not a particularly heroic course of action, but it would bring closure to this dark chapter in the history of Looking Glass.
