Adventures

The characters start out walking back to the Orc camp. They end up buying a map and directions to a labyrinth that supposedly contains the Chalice of Ungar. They go through the Labyrinth, and end up getting the Chalice. The Chalice gives them a huge bonus to their abilities for a short period. This is very useful for this group of characters, since they aren’t very skilled any pretty much anything.

They get the map to the labyrinth from an old man. The party will meet this man again near the end of the adventure. This man is an old mage who is trying to build a suitable dungeion for his treasure. His friend has one, and he is trying to outdo him. In order to test it, the old man, Dural, decided to get someone to go through it. The orcs just happened to be the first ones he saw along the road.

The characters are walking down the road toward the Orc camp, returning from a less than stellar hunting trip. As they are walking along they notice an old man on the side of the road. He calls them over to talk.

Let the players haggle with the old man. He really wants them to buy it, so he will sell the information pretty cheap if he has to. Also, after they buy the information of the location of the Chalice, he says that it is at the end of a dangerous labyrinth that he has a map of. He will try to get as much out of the map too.

In reality, the map is of something else, the old man just wanted to get more money out of the party, and he didn’t know what it was a map of either.

After buying the map and/or the information, they can continue on to the camp. If they don’t haggle with the old man, and attack instead, the old man will teleport away, leaving a map to the cave entrance behind. (Lucky them!)

This assumes the party (like so many others) ends up at a bar. If not, this sort of thing happens to them somewhere in the camp

They are at the bar drinking. They are sitting there discussing the information that they obtained from an old man on the road outside of the camp. He told them that there is a cave a few days to the West that contains "The Chalice of Ungar". The Chalice is supposed to be a pretty cool magic item, but they don’t remember what exactly it is supposed to do. They also bought a map of the caverns from the old man so they don’t get lost once they got into the cave.

As they are discussing this, a large Orc and a couple of his "henchmen" walk up to the table.

The large Orc is "Biff" he is basically the local bully. He picks on this party more than anyone else. The party is all pretty incompetent anyway, so it makes picking on them pretty easy. This is basically to give the players the Idea that they aren’t very good at what they do, and to introduce Biff. The Idea here is that the whole party really hates Biff, and once they get the chalice, they should come back and kick his ass.

They will probably need some supplies before they go off to find the chalice. There is a supply tent they can go to and buy whatever supplies they need. The Quartermaster here isn't all that nice to them either, and overcharges them for everything. And tells them they shouldn’t go off by themselves because they’ll end up getting themselves killed.

As they leave the tent the first one out, needs to make a Dexterity check. Biff is standing outside the tent and tries to trip them as they come out. They just want to make fun of them more. If any of them miss their dex check, they fall face first into a big mud puddle. And the 3 orcs all laugh at them.

They get all their stuff packed up and head out of the camp to the west. Unless they want to wait until tomorrow, they will head out about 4:00 in the afternoon. It is about a 2-day’s walk to where they think they are going. They have a pretty good idea of where the cave entrance is; they all used to travel through this area quite a bit.

The first day of travel is pretty uneventful. They don’t pass anyone on the road. Most of the people from around this area know of the semi-permanent Orc encampment and stay away from it.

Let them make camp, the night goes by uneventfully.

I like that title just in case the players try to get a glimpse of what is coming next. The next morning they get up and start traveling again. Around mid-day they see something in the road ahead. It appears to be a wagon. It is a merchant. He is traveling to a nearby town. There is the merchant (Male Dwarf) his wife (female dwarf) and a body guard (male Human). They will give up quite easily if attacked, as there are only 3 of them and 6 characters. If the players want, they can have anything the dwarves have. Their cart is full of smoked fish and some root vegetables (carrots, potatoes, turnips, etc.) An old horse that is in pretty poor shape is pulling the cart.

If the players do decide to rob these poor dwarves, and they are smart enough to pay attention. They will notice a group of people coming down the road toward them. They are a group of adventurers that just happen to be passing by and they will come to the aid of the poor merchants. As the players are digging around in the cart, the Adventuring party will run up and attack. They won’t pursue if the players run off.

This is an extra encounter, in case things are going too fast.

Toward dusk the next night, they hear grunting and leaves rattling from a little off in the woods. If they go to investigate, they will see that some sort of animal has fallen down in a hole. Fresh meat for supper tonight? Anyone that walks up to the edge of the pit to look in has to make a dex check to avoid falling in. This pit is 10’ square, and the boar fell through without caving in the entire covering. So, as the characters walk to the edge of the pit, the rest of it caves in.

In the bottom of the pit is a large, angry boar that will attack as soon as there is someone close enough. They should be able to kill it, and then cook it up for dinner. Ummmm. Yummy!

About 12:00 the next day, they will come up to the spot where they think the cave entrance is. They can find it pretty easily; it doesn’t appear to be all that well hidden.

Walk them through the Labyrinth!

1. Large Pit Trap. 10’ Deep (1d6 falling damage)
2. 1 way door. Can pass through he door from right to left, but once you are through it turns to a stone wall, so you can’t go back the way you came
3. There is a stone in the middle of the floor, if anyone steps on it, Gates 1 & 2 come down.
4. This door opens, but all that is behind it is a stone wall.
5. This door teleports them to location 10
6. This room is about 20 feet wide and 15 feet deep. The floor looks rough and black. On closer inspection, they characters can notice that the floor is covered with dead insects. There is a hole in the wall in the corner. This wall and the wall the door is on is wooden, the rest are stone.
7. This looks a lot like room #6. But instead of insects, there are giant rats. There are 6 Giant rats. The hole in the wall appears to have been made by the rats. If the characters spend too much time in room #6, the rats will come through the hole and attack
8. Same as #4
9. All of these doors cannot be opened until the previous door is closed. All of the doors are somewhat spring loaded, so if they don’t hold it open it will close automatically. Once closed, the door locks itself
10. This is where the characters appear when they pass through door #5. They have to roll to avoid falling in the pit trap when they are teleported. (15’ deep)
11. There is an illusion just behind the door of a solid stone wall. It looks very similar to the other doors that opened to a stone wall.
12. When the door closes, the floor starts rising, and the ceiling starts to fall. If they stay here to long they will be crushed. The next door is locked, but not magically held or anything.
13. As soon as the door closes, a green gas starts pouring into the room. It is poisonous, they take 1d3 points of damage every round after the 4^th.
14. There isn’t a floor in this room. It is a 25’ pit filled with water.
15. When the door to this room is closed, the walls start to heat up. It starts getting warm in there. After about 8 rounds they characters start to take 1 point of damage every round. The walls cool down as soon as the next door is opened. They continue to heat up if the previous door is re-opened.
16. Secret door. The mage can make it visible so the party can use it to leave.
17. The door teleports the characters back to the entrance of the Labyrinth

The door to this room is not locked. When the come in they see the old man that sold them the map sitting on a bench against the far wall, he appears to be sleeping. He will wake up if the characters aren’t quiet. When he wakes up he looks as if he was expecting the characters. Dural seems extremely interested in what the characters think about his dungeon.

He asks them how they are doing, and asks what they thought of his labyrinth. He is a wacky old man, and only gave them the information on where this place is to get the orcs to "test" his labyrinth. So he wants their opinion on how good it was, where he can make improvements, etc. He will grill them for a little while, and if the characters ask for it, he will get the Chalice and give it to them, telling them they earned it.

If any of the characters suggests stronger "monsters" this will send him off on a little tirade, saying he wanted stronger ones, but couldn’t find any.

He is just started making his labyrinth, and wants to make it as good as a mage’s that he’s seen that lives way far to the South. When they are done, he tells them they can leave the same way they came in, and tells them about the secret door that will take them back to the entrance.

Dural will need to go upstairs and rumage around to find the chalice. He will happily give it to them. He can not tell them much about what it does. He knows only that it does not work on humans, and that it makes one who drinks from it more powerful. Just before they leave, he will shout out to them...

The moons are not due to come into alignment for some time. Actually, if one drinks from it at any time it does the same thing. Dular got this item mixed up with another and is giving them a false warning.

When they get back to the entrance of the cave, and try to leave, they find that Biff and his cronies are waiting outside the cave for them. They see the chalice.

After his little speech one of Biff’s henchmen asks him what the chalice does. Biff responds with an "I don’t know, but let's find out". Then tells the characters to put water in it and drink from it. And makes sure that they all drink from it. Then he waits to see what happens.

The characters don’t seem to change, but in reality all of their attributes are increased by 5 for 10 rounds. Let the characters kick the crap out of the 3 big orcs, and leave them for dead. It only works on Orcs (and half orcs). Nothing happens to any other race that drinks from it.

The characters can return to camp (if they want) and if they give up the chalice they will be let into the army as privates. They would be better off, just taking the chalice and start adventuring.