Adventures

Serving Beauty

Round One

Serving Beauty is a 2 round tournament event. Two first round adventures and one second round adventure.

This event partially depends on ‘mystery’. If they players know what is going to happen, they will probably react differently. So if you are a player, don’t ready any farther!

In the first round adventures, a powerful mage recruits the PC’s to retrieve a magic item. The magic item, when combined with the item the other party retrieves, makes a very powerful combination. The mage tells them that she only wants the items to protect them. They are too powerful to let fall into the wrong hands

What the characters don’t know is that the mage is the wrong hands. She isn’t all that powerful of a mage. She has obtained an ‘Artificial Archmage’which makes her appear as an extremely powerful mage, and she has begun to believe that she is. She doesn’t want the magic items to protect, but to use.

The 2 magic items are an amulet and an enchanted spell book. The amulet allows the wearer to read the spell book. The spells are incomprehensible to anyone not wearing the amulet. The book contains among other powerful spells a spell to summon a demon. The book has many enchantments on it, to make it more difficult to locate.

Lady Elizabeth, the mage, plans to use the magic items to summon the demon in hopes that she can control him and stake her claim to whatever she wants. The PC’s unfortunately won’t find out about this until it is too late. She will already have the magic items and be in the process of casting the spell when the parties figure out that she isn’t what she appears.

The adventurers have been adventuring together for a little while. They are in the town of Valick, (a small to mid sized town) looking for work. They are sitting in the tavern for a while, and there is a man in the corner, watching them. He appears to be listening in. They can notice this if they make a perception roll.

The man will come over to them eventually, if not noticed, or will tell them when he is noticed:

"My name is Elrond. Sorry for listening to your conversation, but my employer, Lady Elizabeth, sent me to find some people to help her. She needs a group of people to help her retrieve a magic item. She pays well, and I was wondering if you would be interested?"

Elrond can set up a time for them to meet with Lady Elizabeth, the next morning. Those who live in the town, will know a little about her. She lives at the edge of town, and she is known as a powerful mage. She has lived in Vaslick for about 2 years and stays in her house most of the time.

Lady Elizabeth’s house is very beautiful, and well kept. There is a beautiful garden outside, with exotic flowers, and plants growing in there. If any of the mages in the party make thier roll, they can notice that several of the plants are spell components. Inside the house is beautiful, and spotless.

Lady Elizabeth is wearing long flowing white robes. She has long, beautiful black hair, and wears a large amulet. Near her chair, is a large crystal ball sitting atop a wonderfully carved wooden pedestal.

She will introduce herself, seat them, and tell them the following story:

"I am looking for some people to retrieve an item for me. It is of the utmost importance that this task is completed, and completed soon. It has recently come to my attention that another mage, by the name of Sidri has an item that an evil mage, Fandaz, is trying to get from him. The item is an amulet, a very powerful, and dangerous one, when in the wrong hands. This amulet is used to read "The Rage of Thikis", without it the book cannot be read, and the spells therein are useless. The evil force looking for the amulet is also looking for the book. I believe that he will be attacking Sidri to get the amulet very shortly, so you must get there before Fandaz does.

I plan on getting the amulet, and putting in a safe place, where nobody can get it, and unleash these spells. At the present, nobody knows where the book is, but we cannot take the risk that he does find it."

I sent Elrond to watch Sidri to make sure he is safe. Elrond returned yesterday to help me find some people to retrieve the item from him. Sidri is being guarded, so he will be safe for a while, but you must hurry and get the amulet and return it here so I may protect it.

Elrond knows where Sidri was when he left him, and knows the direction he was travling. Elrond will accompany them on their journey. Lady Elizabeth will pay them at most 50 gold before they go. She will give them at most 100 gold each to retrieve the item.

Lady Elizabeth will want them to leave as soon as possible but she cannot provide them with horses.

First Day – weather is nice. They encounter no problems. The campsite where Elrond left them is about another day ahead.

Day two – The weather is overcast, and they arrive at the campsite around dusk. They can see that he is not there, and that there was about 15 or so people there. There may have been a wagon and some horses. They appear to be sticking to the road, so they should be easy to track.
That night, after they go to sleep, they will be attacked by a group of 8 hobgoblins. (a little more than 1 per party member) This is just to give them a fight encounter, as they might be able to get the amulet from sidri without any fighting. If you don’t need to strech out the adventure, or know your players won’t mind an adventure without a battle, you could leave this encounter out.

Day three – They pass through a rather small town. They can talk to some of the people that live there, and they will remember the large party travelling through. This is a good place to do some role playing. Give the NPC’s they run into some personality, and let them hang around in town a little.
After they leave town, they will find the next campsite near dusk again. It appears that they are on the right track. They can see that there was a fair amount of people here, and definitely horses. Elrond will tell the party that Sidri was traveling at a fairly relaxed pace, and it looks like they are gaining on them a little.

Day four – They are headed toward a port city Arossis. They will arrive at the next campsite, about midway through the day. It is raining today. When they get there, Sidri will be sitting at the fire with rest of the group eating.

When the party comes into camp, Sidri, and his guards will be very cautious, but ask the party what they want. When the party tells him that they are there to collect the amulet, he will question why they want it.

Sidri is a shrewd, and GREEDY. The amulet means nothing to him, and he doesn’t even know what it does. He will only give up the amulet after he has gotten everything he possibly can for it. He will ask for all of their money, somebody’s weapon, maybe some boots, etc. They can bargen for it or, like the party did at Origins, lure him away with ½ of his gaurds and then kill him and take it from him.

No matter how they go about it, Elrond will basicly stand and watch. He will contribute what little money he has on him (like 10 gold or something) and will defend himself but Lady Elizabeth paid the PC’s to get the amulet, not him.