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 further!

Overview:

The party has been adventuring together for a few months, and knows one another. They are in the town of Vaslick looking for work. They will be able to see a posting on the local job board. It is a mage seeking some adventurers to retrieve a magical item for her.

They will be asked to retrieve this long lost item from a cave to the west. The cave could be dangerous, as this item was meant to stay hidden.

The mage that they meet appears to be extremely powerful. She actually has an ‘Artificial Archmage’ that makes her appear to be powerful. She, in reality, is a fairly low level wizard with grand schemes. She plans to get this item, and another, in order to summon a demon, and obtain greater power.

The book is hidden in a cave that was sealed up completely after it was created. Thikis created the book, and Rowis created the amulet to keep the book from being used by just anyone. This was created while the two gods were still married. The use for the book had ended, so they sealed it up in the cave, and they sealed the amulet up in another place so that they would stay apart forever.

In the interim, there has been several earthquakes near the cave with the book, and the cave has become somewhat unsealed. Things have been able to creep in and start living there. Nothing very intelligent, mostly spiders, rats, and such.

Beginning:

The party will be able to find the posting for adventurers on the local job board (either in the town square, or in the bar). They can arrange a meeting with the mage, either through Elrond, Lady Elizabeth's (the mage) helper, who will be at the bar, or simply show up at her doorstep.

Meeting:

When they meet with Lady Elizabeth, they will see that she is a very powerful mage. Her abode is kept very well, with beautiful gardens surrounding it. Inside the garden grow exotic plants, and some spell components. The house is kept immaculate.

Her guest chamber is spacious, and comfortable. Lady Elizabeth wears a large amulet around her neck. Also in the room, is a large crystal ball sitting atop a beautifully carved wooden pedestal.

She will tell them that she is seeking the Rage of Thikis. She has recently discovered its location in a cave to the west of here. It has been lost for some time. She knows that the book contains many powerful spells that, if they fell into the wrong hands, could be very dangerous. She is planning on keeping the book safe, so none can cast these powerful spells.

She is willing to pay them each 100 gold to retrieve this item. She can give them some up front, but will not pay them the full amount until she has received the item. She cannot provide them with horses.

Travel:

The cave that they are headed to is 2 days west of the town. It is in a cave, but they will need to search to find the exact location of the cave. The entrance is supposedly invisible to the eye. The entrance is in the back of a shallow cave.

They will have a rough map of where this cave is located. One mountain will be circled on the map, but no indication of where the cave is on the mountain. They will need to wander around the mountain to find it. They will need to make climbing rolls, and vision checks. They may notice signs of the hill giant that lives in the cave. There is only one good-sized cave in the mountain. This is the one they are looking for.

The Cave:

When they get there, they will find the front cave inhabited by a hill giant. He isn’t happy with people coming into their home, and looking around.

After they defeat the giant, they will be able to easily see the door in the back of the cave. It has been pried open, and is broken.

As they enter, they will notice that it is not a natural cave. The walls have been carved out. The hallway is extremely dusty, and it looks as though, even though this was supposed to have been sealed up tight, things have gotten in. There are some large cobwebs across the hallway, and lots of dust.

See Map

Dusty:

As they are looking into the cave, they will see a little creature peaking out from the end of the hall. He is about 2’ tall, and greenish skinned. This is Dusty. (Picture Yoda when he was 10 drinking lots of Mountain Dew). Role play this quite a bit, when I ran it, it seemed like the characters enjoyed the annoying little man.

Dusty is very cheery & welcomes the party to his home. He will talk to them about Johnny (the giant), and offer them food. The food is some rotten meat that he got from Johnny. When he finds out that Johnny is dead, he will tell them how he got the food from him. They will find out that Dusty simply snuck out while Johnny was sleeping, or away, and took some food. Dusty also has a pile of miscellaneous stuff in the corner. He will search through that for the book if they ask him if he knows of it.

Dusty will offer to help them find the book. He will take them around in the cave, and finally get to the center of the maze. He will take several wrong turns on the way, and they should run into some of the traps. When they get to the middle, they will find another pile of stuff. Dusty seems to like to collect things. He will finally find the book in the pile of stuff. It isn’t the right book. This is not magical, and it written in Keldish. It appears to be a book of bedtime stories for kids.

He cannot take them further than the middle of the maze, as he doesn’t know what is that way. He has only been over there one time, and he had a hard time finding his way back.

Map Description:

1. They will see a long hallway that is very dusty, and man-made. This is probably the best place to insert Dusty. There are several skeletons leaning against the walls. It is about 50’ long with a door at the end. Have them make a vision check to see the slits in the wall. If they miss the roll, they will blindly step on the stones, and darts will shoot from the walls. The trap is activated by stepping on certain stones. They will be able to feel the stones depressing, but not in time to avoid the trap. If they make an intelligence check, they will be able to tell that the stones that trigger the trap have no grout around them.
2. The end of the hall. On the other side of the door is a large room with a 30’ pit in the middle of it. There are some humanoid skeletons in the bottom of it, as well as some non-humanoid ones. Also in this room, is a pile of Dusty’s stuff. The pit has no purpose, I just thought it would look cool, but the players will probably dwell on it for a little while at least. There are two exits to this room, one on the opposite wall that they came in, in the left corner, and the other on the right wall, in the middle.
3. Prison room with shackles on the walls. There are also several old torture devices in here, and many humanoid skeletons still in shackles. This room isn’t as finished as the rest of the cave seems to be.
4. A large labyrinth. The walls are made of stone. The middle of the labyrinth is a circle. The dead ends of the labyrinth are trapped with the following traps. Just to make sure they they remain cautious.
1. falling floor (10 feet down with spikes, 2d6 damage)
2. swinging mace (large mace swings down from ceiling when a trigger stone is stepped on 1d8)
3. acid spray (a reddish burgundy colored acid from a marcara (described later) Sprays from a small hole in the wall when a trip line is tripped) 1d6 points acid damage)
4. fireball (a magical trap, when the characters enter the area of effect, the fireball shoots out at them for 3d6 points of damage, save for half)
5. This room is filled with shelves, and pots. This is a ‘rage room’ where worshipers of Thikis go to release some of their rage. The exit to the room has runes on the door. The runes will say something to the effect that only a true believer can venture beyond this point. If they smash all the pots, they will find a clue telling them to duck as they open the door. This door will look much like the trap on the door earlier, that didn’t work. As they open the door to the next room, a large morning star will swing down, and smash into the wall, if they duck, otherwise it will hit them.
6. This is a long hallway. It is empty except for large spiked logs hanging vertically from the ceiling. There is a walkway in the middle that drops off on both sides of the room. There is a 10 foot gap between the edge of the floor and the wall on both sides. The floor drops off to a pit about 20 feet deep. As the door to this room is opened, The logs start swinging back and forth across the hallway reaching from one wall to the other. Also logs with spikes in them will start swinging across the hallway. The characters have to try to make it through the room without getting hit by the swinging logs. If they do get hit there is a possibility that they will get knocked off into one of the pits. The logs do 1d10 points of damage if they hit a character and they take an additional 2d6 points of damage if they fall into one of the pits.
7. Teleport room. This is a fairly small room, empty except for the 4 doors on the far wall. All the doors appear to lead into the same room (room 8). What actually happens is that when a character walks through one of the doors they are teleported. If they are lucky they appear in room 8 if not, they appear somewhere else in the dungeon. The doors in here will teleport an object of 25 lbs or more to one of several spots in the dungeon. Each time the characters walk through one of the ‘wrong’ doors, all of the doors change where they take the person. The locations don’t change when someone passes through the correct door. When a character goes through a door roll a d4 and consult the table below.
   1. middle of labyrinth
   2. to the beginning of the cave
   3. beginning of hallway 6
   4. Room 8
   On a result of 4, that door is the "correct" door. If someone follows him/her, they will also go to the final room. If someone walks through a different door, roll a d3, because there are only 3 options left since we already know which door leads to room 8. Every time someone walks through a wrong door, it resets, and they have a 1 in 4 chance of getting the right door. If they throw objects through that weigh less than 25 lbs, they pass through the door and land in the next room (room 8).
8. Final room. As they enter the room, they will see 2 pedestals with white bowls on them, one on either side of the door. In each bowl has a maroon liquid in it, that smells like cinnamon. If they touch this liquid, it will burn them as acid. Next to the pedestal on the right is a chair with a skeleton sitting in it. There is a sword in a scabbard attached to a belt around his waste. In the middle, towards the back stands a podium with a book lying open on it.

The animated skeleton will attack with the sword in the scabbard. Marcaras can shape their hands into daggers, and attack with these. They can also spit part of themselves at their foes, this does acid damage, and they also take damage, as they are spitting part of themselves up.