Winter IrondDM (Winner)!

[Nifft]

So, no exposition from me last night. I crashed hard and slept until pretty much now.

Anyway, here's my EXPO:

It seemed to me that the mistaken flag of truce and the viscious circle went well together. A quote from a Stephen R. Donaldson book sprung to mind: "Mistrust justifies itself" (spoken by Lord Mohram). So I needed a couple of forces whose misunderstanding would lead to an escalating conflict.

I didn't have to worry about one of the forces: it was going to be tied to the dwarven stonework, so in came a troop of dwarves. Who canonically misunderstands dwarves? Elves! There was the seed for my political setup. To add another layer to the conflict, the dwarves became religious industrialists, while the elves became druids -- which helped me incorporate another element, the blind dire ape(s), as druidic animal companions.

The conflict had to be fairly young if the PCs were going to be able to do anything about it -- including exploit it. This let me exploit another aspect of the dwarven stonework, that it lasts a long time. The dwarves would be returning to a place which had long forgotten them.

Now I had everything worked in except the rod and the sorcerer. Every conflict needs its seed, and these two ingredients would provide that seed. The rod of the python is nifty because it can be used to restrain (grapple) as well as kill, so it's a good item for the priest of a god of healing -- and the fact that the snake has been a symbol of healing since the Greeks is icing.

The very lucky sorcerer I decided would be the instigator. He would be the one who stole the rod yet escaped both blame and detection -- by luck alone.

I considered briefly having the sorcerer be a member of an evil cabal of mages called the Viscious Circle, but decided against it.

That's it for the ingredients. Next time I think I'll make a separate section for mechanics (DCs for Gather Info, Spot, etc. and NPC reaction tables, not to mention force structure analysis and NPC Feats, Skills and spell lists) so as to cut down on space used for the formal entry. That way, anyone wishing to acutally use the entry to play with will have a "mini-module", but the judge won't have to slog through all those details.

-- Nifft

 

[incognito]

Round 2, Set 2

ingredients
Unfortunate coincidence
Mirror of surpassing beauty
Blackguard(s)
Deflect arrows
Contemplative kraken
Serene battlefield


The time here is 10:20AM EST, good luck gentlemen

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

Holy moly!!!! Good luck guys!

 

[mythago]

On it!

 

[incognito]

Serendipity = fortunate coincidence = happy, huggy, love-fest sumbissions

??? = unfortunate coincidence = hacking, assasination, and Intrigue filled submissions.

Which would you choose, as an Iron DM judge?

. A quote from a Stephen R. Donaldson book sprung to mind: "Mistrust justifies itself" (spoken by Lord Mohram).

Best series ever. Leper-rapist as anti-hero, christ figure, and lots of kung-fu goodness via a race of mountain poepl called Haruchai

 

[seasong]

Got 'em.

Contemplative kraken, indeed. Are you trying to tempt me?

(just kidding, of course)

 

[incognito]

Having given seasong enough rope to hang himself with, Incognito sits back to watch the fireworks, already in progress.

 

[mythago]

Serpents in Grasmere

An adventure for levels 12-14

15 Years Ago:
Calistan, eldest son of the Baron of Grasmere, journeyed to the Kingsport temple of St. Cuthbert. There he took vows as a cleric. In the unheard-of span of three years, he gained his Magistrate's Seal. His only burden was worry for his beloved younger brother: Yrdas, ever as wild and heedless as Calistan had been calm and thoughtful. At last, the Baron had his disobedient son shanghaied by the King's privateers, thinking time as a sailor might make the wild boy into a man.

11 Years Ago:
The night of Yrdas's shore leave in Kingsport, he drunkenly decided that he could make good coin pick-pocketing a priest. It was an unfortunate coincidence that the first priest he found in Docksides was his older brother.

Only after Calistan subdued the attacker did he recognize his younger brother. But, as a Magistrate, he could show his brother no special mercy. Thieves could choose between hanging or exile to the Gaol-Isle, where he would live and die with its other inmates. Yrdas chose exile.

Tormented by guilt, Calistan sought appointment as of Warden of Gaol-Isle, hoping thus he might help his brother. But the seas around the Isle are guarded by a contemplative kraken who, in his old age, prefers learning and accumulating lore to hunting ships. Ship captains in those waters know they must pay tribute, in the form of items of lore, to pass. The bosun of the ship transporting Yrdas stole and sold the intended tribute (a waterproofed stone shape scroll) back in Kingsport; the ship was torn apart by the insulted kraken.

Four Years Ago:
The King was sent a message that the Baron of Grasmere had retired and appointed a steward.

One Year Ago:
Concerned by the lack of news from Grasmere, the King sent an armed delegation to investigate. It never returned.

Now:
The PCs will be sent to Grasmere to find out what is going on. How depends on your group; they may be agents of the King or a friendly church, or just known to be the adventurers to hire when only the best will do. The King or at least a very high-ranked Court official will speak to them. The PCs will be told to secure Grasmere in the King's name, then return to Kingsport.

The Story:
Thukrasios was once a medusa and a powerful wizard who found the formula to turn himself into a lich. He came to Grasmere because of an item the Baron was rumored to possess: the mirror of surpassing beauty. Anyone gazing into the mirror sees an ideal "reflection": youthful, intelligent, of surpassing beauty or handsomeness. Since it is not a true mirror, it does not reflect gaze attacks. Thukrasios quickly killed the old Baron and established his rule of terror over Grasmere. Now the reptilian, horribly decayed creature spends hours every day staring at his "reflection."

The road into Grasmere is guarded by wild animals that Thukrasios encourages to roam; make encounter checks for ordinary bears, feral dog packs, and so forth. The peasants are too frightened to leave their homes or speak to the PCs.

Castle Grasmere is a small stone fortress. The parade grounds are visible from far away. At first, the PCs see a battle; soldiers in formation with spears, archers drawing bows, knights brandishing swords, corpses on the ground, and so forth. But as they draw nearer, they find it is an oddly serene battlefield. Nothing moves. No arrows fly; warriors stand their ground. No ravens wheel overhead. Soon, they will see that the combatants are all statutes; very lifelike statutes, to be sure, but the "battlefield" is simply a huge tableau.

This is Thukrasios's collection. He immoblizes his victims, poses them, then uses flesh to stone or his own gaze to prepare them for his grotesque diorama.

Saving Grasmere:
The lich is unlikely to be caught by surprise, or taken down easily. He has an entire fort for defense, plus 6-8 soldiers who have been charmed so often that they are mindlessly obedient. Thukrasios is a medusa with the lich template and 12 levels of Wizard. Avoiding his eyes helps against his gaze attack, but not against his flesh to stone spell. Unless the PCs are amazingly crafty, he will have time to prepare himself for battle, always using protection from arrows to deflect arrows, a minor globe of invulnerability to stop magic, and a protection from elements against fire.

Return to Kingsport:
Upon returning triumphant, the players will be ushered into a meeting with the King and Calistan, who has just arrived from Gaol-Isle. If they were expecting the noble young Baron described to them by the King, they are in for a shock. Full of guilt over Yrdas's death, Calistan was vulnerable to the evil he saw daily in Gaol-Isle. In fact, he is so far turned from his old self that he has become a blackguard, ruling Gaol-Isle with no more mercy than Thukrasios showed Grasmere. Rejected by St. Cuthbert, he now draws power from darker beings.


The PCs should be rewarded well by the King, and grudgingly by Calistan. The King will hear no ill of him—even though detect evil and Sense Motive will reveal Calistan to be sly, evil, and manipulative of his liege. And the King wants Calistan to take up his father's barony....perhaps the adventurers, some day, need to return to Grasmere.

 

[seasong]

A Fiend In Need

I may lose for brevity, but I think it stands well at this length .

Ingredients
Unfortunate coincidence - the fiend's planning all looks coincidental
Mirror of surpassing beauty - a method of dispatching the kraken
Blackguard(s) - it is their vileness that brought the fiend in to set up the coincidences
Deflect arrows - the flying fiend's best defense
Contemplative kraken - the kraken at sea, the mirror makes it contemplative
Serene battlefield - fighting on a becalmed ocean

Note: the fiend should be tailored to the GM's campaign, so I haven't detailed him. Assume a CR 10 fiend. The PCs should be about level 8, and the scenario should seem impossible unless they are clever.

Summary:

Background

This can be inserted into any reasonably flexible city locale that has a nearby ally/demi-ally across a short stretch of sea or ocean. I've left the city within fairly generic, and added two bits of essential history to it, which should fit nicely into most regional histories.

A few hundred years ago, a fiend of uncommon talent and ambition managed to break four paladins of their oaths and bind them to His will. Known as the Scourge, the blackguards managed to raise quite a bit of hell before they were finally caught an brought to justice. A powerful wizard of the time suggested that their punishment should be commensurate to their crime, and his suggestion was followed. Each was taken to a small room and told to kneel if they wished to live. All but one did, and as they kneeled, the wizard used a more powerful variant of the flesh to stone spell to trap them in that form, still alive (and aware!) of their surroundings, but unable to act. The fourth one did not kneel, but instead expressed regret and asked that his sorry life be ended.

Of the three, they have come to be known as Deceit, Fear and Malice for the expressions on their faces, hidden from the one they were kneeling before. Deceit's face is almost alive with planning and plotting, his eyes frozen in the act of darting over the possibilities. Fear's face is stricken, frozen with anguish - almost as if he knows his fate already. Malice's face is the most frightening, for even in stone, his hatred for his captors burns in his eyes.

The fourth was killed by a swift decapitation, re-dressed in his paladin's armor (with the head re-attached) and turned to stone in a position of repose. His face is peaceful, and he has come to be called Forgiveness.

More recently, the fiend has begun setting about to recovering His lost blackguards. His first step is merely to get them out from under the city's guard, so He can more leisurely pursue getting them restored. To that end, he has (in the guise of a wealthy, irritating, and somewhat foppish merchant) set up a set of beneficial trade agreements between this city and one just across the sea and, over the last century or two, established cultural festivals in each of the two cities. As each 'merchant' identity has aged, a new spokesperson for a better tomorrow has stepped up to the plate. It's almost traditional now.

That may seem like a lot of good work for a fiend to do, just to get his blackguards back, but He figures He can break things down again later.

Recently, He made a few suggestions into the right ears, and part of this year's festival will be a parade of each city's history in the other. In order to abridge trust issues, each will have the others' historic items at the same time, much like kingdoms would sometimes temporarily trade sons.

The two big ticket items coming from our city are the blackguard statues, and a magical mirror that shows you, not as you are, but as you want to be. The mirror's tie to the city's history was a powerful but hideous sorcerer who was seemingly unstoppable... until a wizard enchanted the mirror so, and sent it to him as a gift. The sorcerer became quite enamored of it, and ceased his programs of destruction... and, according to legend, lived to quite a ripe old age with naught but the mirror as a companion.

The fiend's plan is simple: He has employed a kraken to sink both ships as they pass out of sight of each of the cities, while He flits about and prevents magical communication with their respective home cities. The statues will tumble into the depths, where He can rescue and restore them. He then plans to sow misinformation and anger, and frame each of the cities as the criminals... thus breaking down the relations he's spent the past century or so building up.

Both of the cities are cautious, and our city has employed a two-fold method of ensuring the survival of its statues and mirror. Firstly, it is sending counterfeits on the big, public, showy boat, and sending the real items (the parade can't have counterfeits, lest relations with their sister-city be strained) along with a reasonably trustworthy smuggler, a ship's captain named Uuhef (a fierce, unsavory, red-headed dwarf). Secondly, it has hired some powerful adventurers to guard the decoy, and some not-so-well-known adventurers to guard the real mccoy.

Unfortunately, it was the fiend who suggested this tactic.

Hooks

Regardless of the hooks you use, make sure the PCs know all of the above history EXCEPT the fiend's part in all of it. They should know about the mirror, the blackguards, etc. They can learn this from shipmates on the cruise, or be citizens of the city, etc. The information is necessary to survive.

Hook #1: The heroes are hired and on Captain Uuhef's ship. As events unfold, they will have to deal with the kraken and an invisible fiend in the background who is ruining communication, scrying, and other forms of spell casting.

Hook #2: The heroes are on the decoy ship. Have the decoys be poorly made, so they know what's up (sort of). When the other ship is attacked, the wizard on board Uuhef's ship is almost clever - when he finds out he can't get a communication off to the city, he sends one to the other ship instead, begging for help.

Alternatives: The heroes could be members of Captain Uuhef's crew. If they played through the Fool's Cold scenario earlier in the Iron DM competition, they could have run off with Uuhef there and joined up with him. In this case, have the adventurers that come on board be incompetent louts who couldn't protect a pickle jar. You could also have the PCs working for the fiend. In this case, you might even have them pretend to fight off the kraken, and substitute counterfeits on board the ship. Then, when the other city's boat disappears, and only counterfeits arrive, the other city will KNOW the first city was playing them for fools.

[color-orange]Actions[/color]

Everything starts, for the PCs, when the kraken attacks. It will start by calming the seas with its daily weather control, to stop the ships. Then, from the silent, serene waters, tentacles will reach up and wrap around the ship. The fight is on.

The kraken will not be attacking people initially - its job is to sink the boat itself, and then it can focus on munchies. If anyone starts really hurting it, it will lash out at them, but otherwise, simply describe the horrendous damage it is doing to their boat... and the fact that fly spells keep getting dispelled.

The solution to the kraken is the mirror. Creative PCs may find another way to handle things, but the mirror will captivate the kraken more or less automatically, allowing the party to deal with the scary fiend in true Big Bad Guy style.

Note: the fiend will continue flying far from the PCs, and should have the deflect arrows feat to help reduce the damage they can do to him. He focuses primarily on counterspells, dispels, anti-scrying and so on. His real goal was to prevent action while the kraken attacked, so he's not really intent on fighting. He will likely run if he can't put a dent in the PCs, and they will have to wonder where he might show up again.

This scenario can go a lot of ways, and lead to a lot of politics further down the line, depending on how well the PCs do. Repairing the resulting mistrust between the cities would be a MAJOR coup, as it would essentially alter the fiend's plot into a very, very good thing for the region. That will make a serious enemy out of the fiend, and lead to even more dastardly goodness down the line.

 

[seasong]

AAAAGH! I forgot to write in the summary... and I left the summary in place to point that fact out. I'll just go cry in a corner now... Especially in light of Mythago's even more brief scenario, which looks really good.

Oh well. I have a ton of comments about mine, but they'll have to wait until incognito's ripped me a new one.