Conallglen Session P1a

So our scheduling woes led to the derailment of our Savage Worlds Known World campaign and for the interim, while we didn’t have a full group, I started running what I thought would be a series of one-shots/short adventures for the players who could make a session. We started using the D.I.Y. D&D rules I had begun to put together for these sessions. Once we all got together again, we decided to try and pull all of these together into a bit of a campaign start.

We ended up with two sets of prelude adventures. The first set, which will have the moniker P1, included Rachel and Todd. Each played two characters but only Clarissa, a female fighter played by Rachel, continued on into the main campaign. The other set, denoted by P2, included Rachel, RJ, and Bridgett. Rachel played Bryn, a halfling rogue. RJ played Drogar, a dwarf fighter. Bridgett played Shory, a human ranger.

The first of these sessions were with Rachel and Todd. I picked the adventure, “A Wizard’s Fate,” for a couple of reasons. I wanted something that was a bit of a short dungeon crawl and it has nice little twist that I thought the players would enjoy. Spoilers for this adventure from Dungeon Magazine #37 follow the break.

Our story opens in a small town somewhere in the Lowlands. A small town of little importance and in a geographic location of no particular import. Where exactly you ask? Like I said, of no particular import so don’t worry about it, it doesn’t really matter and plays no real role in our story. In fact, the only thing important about this town is that the warrior, Clarissa, happened to be in this town and that a wizard’s tower–about a day’s travel away from this unnamed town–had apparently exploded a few days previously. You might think that an exploding wizard’s tower might put a town on the map but no one ever thought that this story was really going to go anywhere so the town remains unnamed. It was initially a one-shot after all.

The wizard of the tower, however, did have a name and that name was Elvid. Elvid was known as an evil, evil man and a seducer of women. His favorite targets had been attractive women who were also wealthy and it mattered not their age or if they were married. Yes, Elvid had no qualms about his targets other than they be wealthy and attractive. His latest “conquest” was–much to the surprise of the locals of the unnamed town–not rich, although she was still quite attractive. Arelyn was the daughter of a poor craftsman and she disappeared right after Elvid’s tower had–apparently–exploded.

And there you have the important elements of the start of this story…an exploded evil wizard’s tower, a missing woman who had been suited by said evil wizard, and a heroine just waiting for a quest. All that was needed was a catalyst to bring all of these things together. Into this breach stepped a local sage who was curious to learn the fate of Elvid and, if possible, see to the rescue (if needed) of Arelyn. The sage, whose name is lost to history, had gathered others (whose name are not lost to history but play no real role in the ongoing story after their brief appearance here) to accompany and be led by Clarissa in this quest.

So it was one fine morning that Clarissa and her companions set out from this town to complete this quest. They, according to their sagely benefactor, were not the first to attempt this quest. Three others had set off on this same quest but had not yet returned. (And this, of course, led to another side quest for Clarissa…to discover the fate of these three). The trip to the tower, as is the case in so many stories that start like this one, was thoroughly uneventful and so we’ll quickly pass over the day of walking.

The tower had once sat atop a hill but the heroes could easily see that it did no more. Instead, scattered about the hill, there were pieces of dark stone…the remains of the tower. As they scouted around, the heroes also discovered the fate of the prior questors. A trio of bodies lay upon the hill and each had a puncture wound with discolored flesh around it. Poison! It was starting to get dark and given that there were no normal wildlife sounds to be heard (not mention the apparently poisoned bodies that were just mentioned), the heroes decided to camp a safe distance from the site of this tragedy.

When the sun rose, the heroes found their decision to camp some distance away validated as they experienced no problems throughout the night…or so they thought. However, as they went about their morning activities, they realized that the wizard’s spellbook was missing. Looking about, they found no sign of any intruder and no one could remember having seen anything during the night to indicate such either. Puzzled by this, they could nothing but continue with their quest and so set off for the tower…or its remains…again.

At the top of the hill, where the tower once stood, a stairway led down into the hill. Dust and debris littered the stairwell but this proved to be no obstacle to the heroes. At the bottom of the stairs was a short hallway, decorated with strange, painted frescoes upon the walls, that led to a chamber. Lying a short distance within the chamber, at the very edge of the heroes’ torches, sat a book…the wizard’s spellbook! How it traveled and arrived at this spot none of them knew for sure but all suspected that it was a most strange quandary and one that suggested a potential trap. So they took all due care and examined the entry into the chamber but noticed nothing. Sadly for the heroes, the trap already lay behind them and as the last of them moved down the hallway, a large stone block slide in place providing a most difficult obstacle to overcome if they wished to exit the direction in which they had just come. The block nearly filled the hallway, leaving only a small gap of a few inches between it and the ceiling.

Effectively blocked, the heroes turned to the only direction they could pass…into the chamber. A few exits led out but the things that caught their attention were, of course, the spellbook but also a large statue at the far end of the room. It was carved to look like some sort of fiery demon or the like and, when the spellbook was retrieved, it came to life and charged the heroes. The first flurry of blows from both sides were inadequate, missing their targets with inches to spare. Then the heroes noticed something strange…the demon was making no sound and their weapons simply passed through it. It was a trick! An illusion!

Ignoring the demon and its ineffectual attacks, the heroes looked about. Selecting one of the doors leading out of the chamber, they found a small room whose far wall and ceiling had collapsed in a pile of rubble. Lying amongst the rubble, face down, were the bodies of two goblins. It looked as though the mischievous menaces had been digging through the rubble and had been stabbed in the back by their own spears. Looking over the bodies, the heroes discovered that the spears looked to have been used to cover another wound…a small puncture wound just like the ones found on the trio of would-be heroes found on the hill! Some small knick-knacks of little value and a well balanced dagger were also found (and the latter was taken).

Returning to the earlier chamber, the heroes went through another door. Like the other door, this one led to a small room where the far wall and ceiling had collapsed. Another goblin lay in the middle of the room with a number of rats gnawing at the body. The rats fled from the intrusion of the heroes but the heroes did not like the idea of having to fend off a swarm of the vermin and gave the goblin body a cursory once over and quickly left, closing the door behind them.

Back in the entry chamber, the heroes took the opportunity to give the statue a good look as it still stood in its original location despite the flimsy flim-flam of an illusion that still raged about the room. A small crack was found on the neck of the statue and looked to go all the way around. Lifting on the head did nothing but then the heroes were struck by the idea of unscrewing the head and were rewarded with its movement. Round and round it went a number of times before the head came free. Within was a small hollow that held a few choice treasures that our heroes took…to keep safe and out of the hands of evil-doers of course. One of these treasures was a strange iron key whose non-business end was shaped like a trapezoid…something that might become important later.

Pressing deeper into the complex, now prison, they passed through another doorway to find a passageway with a trio of doors. Two of these were locked but the third was not. Choosing the path of least resistance, the heroes found another corridor which had two more doors. It also had a small scrap of burned paper that had lodged in one corner. Expecting perhaps a fragment of an evil ritual or perhaps some maniacal treatise on the power of magic, just as one might expect from an evil wizard, the heroes were shocked to find what the topic of the paper. It was, to everyone’s amazement, a portion of a love poem!

Do I love you? Yes, I do.
I’d shed my evil ways for you.
I’d turn my heart from black to true.
My heart, I’ve given unto you.

After recovering from their shock from the poem, the heroes noticed that one of the two doors was made of iron and shaped like a trapezoid…an obvious match for the key recently found! A match made all the more obvious by the keyhole in the center of the door that looked to be the exact right size for the business end of the iron key! Inserting and turning the key, the iron door simply disappeared. Instead of some room of import or mystery, there was simply a small chamber beyond with another door, a wooden circular door. I’m sure that you’re thinking, just as the heroes did, Aha! This door probably requires a wooden key with a circular end but the heroes had not yet found any such key.

Heading back to one of the first locked doors that they had discovered, the heroes forced it open. Now this was more of what they were expecting from an evil wizard. Inside was a summoning circle painted in the middle of the floor and standing next to it was an evil looking podium. Two evil looking statuettes sat on the base of the podium. Each was a small demonic creature and, upon closer inspection, each had tails with wicked looking stingers at the end. Imps! Another Aha! moment. Those evil-looking puncture wounds on the bodies found were probably from an imp!

But then things took a strange turn again. Instead of a tome of evil summoning upon the lectern, there was only a single piece of parchment, a scroll. Upon it was written the following verse.

With tongue of flame, I send thee on
Thy journey into fire;
To infernal planes, I say “Begone!”
Lest thou arose my ire.

This looked to be more of a banishing than a summoning. Why would the evil Elvid have such in the basement of his tower? What had happened here?

The answers were not apparent in this chamber. Hoping they lay elsewhere, the heroes forced their way into yet another of the chambers guarded by a locked door. The chamber beyond held a dirt covered rug, a desk at the far end, various debris from the shaking the complex took from the tower’s explosion, and, behind the desk, a beautiful young woman sitting completely motionless, just staring straight ahead. Oh, and did I mention that two large, monstrous skeletons were standing next to her, one to each side and holding a large axe each.

It wasn’t until the heroes came closer that the skeletons responded, almost appearing as if they were protecting the woman. Battle was engaged and the heroes, of course, were victorious. Hanging within the ribcage of one of the skeletons was a wooden key and, as you might guess, it had a circular end.

Turning to the woman, the heroes reached out to touch her to see if she was even still alive and…

That’s where we stopped the first session of the original one-shot just to play around with an old school style D&D. It was a lot of fun and was actually quite liberating as a GM to play with that style of rule set again. We played for probably four to five hours starting with character creation and got quite a bit of stuff done. Because I had thought that this was just going to be a one-shot, it took me over a month after the session to get around to writing up the recap above so I’m sure I missed a lot of the details which is why I kept things pretty general;)

We hadn’t really gotten to any of the tie-ins to the ongoing campaign quite yet. More of that to come later…