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Rules • Themes • Bestiary • Religion • Races • Guilds • Families • Arlinac City • Maps • Adventures • Stories |
Any lone PC worries about being captured. (Consider how often it happens to a famous British secret agent!) This adventure has no fixed chronology, but should be used after the PC's player blunders in a way that would cause the PC to be captured.
The adventure begins with the PC waking up in an underground, barred cell. Whomever captured the PC has sold him or her to a Therion named Girk, who wanted a prisoner to use as part of his efforts to breed a "better" teleporting creature.
This adventure uses the Base and Temple map.
When the adventure begins the PC is only aware of the first objective. But this adventure, as always, has the possibility of earning three experience points.
Two Therions were doing research in some abandoned and forgotten Dweorgish rooms and tunnels, under Arlinac City.
The boss is named Girk. Girk has recently gone mad, and will be encountered in the chapel room. He gibbers and moans, and occasionally screeches in alarm when he hallucinates. The GM should use Girk to tell the PC about the secret door and its key, but not reveal any other helpful information; it may be challenging to portray Girk sympathetically enough that the PC will bother to take him up to Arlinac City rather than abandoning him.
His assistant is named Barn. Barn took the only key to the secret door that conceals the safe exit, and has left the area. He will not be encountered by the PC.
Hidden within the altar in the Dweorg chapel is an especially powerful shelmi hammer. It is intelligent and can speak telepathically. It will not reveal its name, identity, abilities, or purpose to any non-Dweorg.
The PC wakes during a minor earthquake. The room is shaking, dust is floating in the air, and in the distance are sounds of small items falling to the ground.
The PC's first task is to escape from a locked cell. After this is done the PC will soon find his or her equipment. Then a second kind of escape is needed, for the PC must find how to safely leave the area.
The small earthquake happened after Barn discarded a potent but imperfect potion down the pit he and Girk were using as a lavatory. The liquid widened cracks leading from that pit down to a "temple" consisting of two sacred Dweorg rooms. When a mess of chemicals and lavatory waste flowed down into the temple, it triggered the relic (the hammer) to use its three abilities that defend the temple.
First, two chasms opened in the corridor leading to the temple.
Second, a mass of Fume Grubs appeared in the Room of Madness. These large maggots release a powerfully hallucinogenic gas that has filled the Room of Madness, and also risen through cracks to fill the long corridor that contains the southern exit.
Third, some Blue Squirters appeared in the chapel to defend it.
After the earthquake, Girk and Barn fought: first verbally, than by wrestling. Barn won, and left with the secret door's key. Girk attempted to leave by the southern exit, but breathed too much of the hallucinogenic gas. He eventually wandered into the chapel, where the PC finds him.
Although this adventure has no linear plot, the GM should adjust situations to encourage the PC to explore the area as much as possible.
In particular, a PC that knows Transmutery could have an easy time escaping the area by blowing or shaping clean air to allow safe travel to the southern exit. One ways to avoid this is to have the hallucinogenic gas be odorless, so that the PC becomes frightened and skittish for no apparent reason when stepping south of the foyer. That may be enough to prompt the PC to investigate other routes before proceeding. Alternately, if the PC is about to leave the area without having been to the chapel then change the hammer's telepathy to have long enough range to speak to the PC then, pleading that the PC not leave yet but first find and take the hammer.
Girk and Barn added the doors and some furniture of Therion manufacture. All of the doors in the area are sturdy but unlocked. (Except for the cell doors, which are locked.)
Girk has painted on the walls of the three workrooms the names "Workroom 1", "Workroom 2", and "Workroom 3". If the player of the PC is young or not drawing a map, the GM may extend this so that all of the doors are similarly labeled ("to the cells", "to the mine", etc.)
1. Cells The PC wakes up in one of the two cells, with his or her clothing but missing all other equipment. A lantern-oil wall sconce provides dim light. The room is otherwise empty. An earthquake has just finished, and dust is still swirling about the room. The PC's hands are tied behind his or her back; the PC can wiggle his or her hands out of the rope that binds them with a successful Escape skill check (each skill attempt uses five minutes). The cell bars are secured into the stone floor and ceiling, and thus can be removed using Transmutery on that stone if the PC does not have lockpicks hidden in his or her clothing. (The GM should alter the situation as needed, so the PC has a means of escape. As a last resort, the GM can have the bars damaged enough by the earthquake that one bar can be bent or removed.)
2. Guard Room This room has a table and chair. On the table are dice and a deck of cards. A mug of beer and lit lantern used to be on the table, but fell off during the earthquake. The lantern has gone out. On the wall near the northern door is a hook, on which are the two keys to the two cells. In the southwest corner of the room stands a waist-high inactive golem; its hatch, on top of its head, is open. If the PC had a pet, it is here in a cage. The PC's equipment is in a pile on the floor, in the northeast corner.
3. Illithium Mine The Dweorgs who built this area used this passage for mining illithium. Not much was present as they dug east, but some was mined. Barn knew Transmutery, and sometimes would escape from the stress of laboratory work by "digging" in the stone at the end of this passage for illithium. He only found a marble-sized amount, but it was enough to maintain his interest in searching for more.
4. Recently Opened Chasms During the earthquake two chasms opened across the corridor floor here. They are less than a meter wide, but so deep that no bottom can be seen. A stale smell rises from their depths.
5. Chapel The room has six stone pews that are built into the floor, and a two-tiered semi-circular platform at center of the south wall. The Dweorgs who build this area long ago were a cult who worshipped a creature of madness. They trapped it into a sthelmi hammer, which they stored in the middle of a large, rectangular slab of stone (the chapel's altar). The hammer is still there, and vaguely aware that a very long time has passed. It wants to leave the area and be brought to a group of Dweorgs. The PC should encounter Girk in this room. If the PC is not skilled at combat, then Girk has just killed the last of the Blue Squirters in this room and collapsed, exhausted. If the PC is up for combat, then Girk is hiding behind the pews and needs rescuing. After any combat, the hammer will speak to the PC and ask to be taken to Dweorgs.
6. The Room of Madness In this room the Dweorgs who worshipped madness would enter trances and do strange things. Currently it is almost filled with the hallucinogenic gas created by the Fume Grubs located in its southwest corner. The room has no other furnishings or contents. If the PC stays in this room for more than a moment, then the GM should start describing hallucinations. At first these are only visual: a dark, humanoid shape appears and then vanishes at the edge of the lantern light, etc. Soon the imaginary threats gain an auditory component.
7. Workroom #1 This room has three stone counters that are part of the floor (shown on the map), as well as a lot of Therion-made wooden furniture. One table has fallen over, and the glass-walled animal cages that were on it have broken. A second table is still upright, with cages of mice. There are two desks with chairs, and two other tables. On the north wall is a rack with two runed, forked snake-sticks: the runes prevent the Trench Vipers from teleporting when pinned by the stick's forked end. This room hold the main combat for the adventure. Five to ten Trench Vipers are loose, and will hide behind cover while attacking. They can teleport within the room and to either of the T-shaped corridor branches east or west. The PC should be encouraged to use strategy and cover to deal with this threat.
8. Restroom This small room had a deep pit. Girk and Barn were using it as a restroom, but cracks at the bottom of the pit led down to the corridor south of the mine where chasms recently opened.
9. Foyer This room is empty. It was of no use to Girk and Barn. If the PC needs more challenge, then put traps in this room since Girk and Barn only used the northern exit. The corner of the corridor south of this room has cracks in the floor that extend down to the Room of Madness. That corridor corner is also full of hallucinogenic gas.
10. Southern Exit These spiral stairs lead up to the sewers. As with the foyer, they can be trapped if the PC needs more challenge.
11. Workroom #2 This room is empty except for the two stone benches. Girk and Barn had plans to do combat-like tests in this room involving teleporting creatures and a humanoid. But no furniture or other items have yet been brought in.
12. Workroom #3 This room has a nest of Fortified Wasps. If the PC enjoys combat have the nest still active, its glass cage with runes on the edges smashed in the earthquake. More likely, Barn burned the nest as he left the area after the earthquake.
13. Girk's Room This messy room is where Girk lived and ate. It has furniture and personal posessions appropriate to a Therion mad scientist. The secret door to the northern exit is locked. There is only one key. Normally Girk wore this key around his neck unless it was Barn's turn to make a supply trip. After the earthquake, Barn took the key with him when he left the area. The door can possibly be opened using Transmutery on the stone around it or with explosives.
14. Barn's Room This room is similar to Girk's room, but since Barn has not been working for Girk very long then less stuff and trash has accumulated.