Emolee sits on a stool behind the tavern's lengthy bar, almost frozen with fear. She ignores the hubbub around her but if you could see her darting eyes through the tangle of hair she let fall across her face you would see she is watching an empty booth across the room - and the leather pouch barely visible on the seat.
She catches her breath, partly in fright, partly in hope: an adventurer is approaching the table. Sitting, the adventurer places a hand directly on the pouch as they shuffle along the seat...
Provide to the randomly chosen player |
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After the allotted six weeks of training and practicing your skills, weapons and spells, you approach The Bearded Skull, a favourite meeting place in Brastor Landing. You wonder, as you push through the door, if your... friends? comrades? acquaintances? will even be there? |
As your eyes adjust to the Inn's interior, through the smoke emanating from the kitchen you can't see your... fellows? anywhere. You choose a booth opposite the bar, and you slide onto the bench. As you place your hand upon the bench for leverage, it lands on a small leather sack... |
If the Player opens the Sack, provide the following... |
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In the sack is a simple but elegant pendant: a silver chain feeding through what looks like an emerald about the size of a silver penny. The two ends of the chain hang though the bottom of the emerald. The chain is easily large enough to place over your head... |
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Read to all the Players |
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After the allotted six weeks of training and practicing your skills, weapons and spells (for those of you who wield magic), you approach The Bearded Skull, a favourite meeting place in Brastor Landing. You wonder, as you push through the door, if your friends? comrades? acquaintances? will even be there..? |
As your eyes adjust to the Inn's interior, through the smoke emanating from the kitchen you see your... fellows? in a booth opposite the bar, and you slide onto the bench as orders are taken for lunch... |
\~~~
If a player is wearing the pendant...
As soon as the pendant is placed over the head of its wearer, it and the wearer are magically connected. While there will be no immediately noticeable effect on the unfortunate character, after one eighth-day the pendant will constrict to a point where it cannot be safely removed. This will also occur if any attempt is made to remove it from the wearer prior to that point.
When the pendant first constricts around the player's neck, emolee will be at the bar getting drinks. There is a message on the table: If you want your friend to live you will follow me.
\~~~
Emolee leads you to the stables and checks the stalls for anyone there.
The Pendant
The pendant will not kill the chosen character.
While the pendant is indeed magical, it only secures itself onto the wearer for safe keeping and can be released with the spoken word for release in Elvish, greathe. The pendant will tighten further to a safe point with the spoken word, greathe-re. The pendant also provides the Elvish ability to see in the dark. Note: if the pendant is worn by an Elf this ability is superfluous and the character does not get additional abilities.
However, if worn by an Elf the necklace bonds to the character and cannot be released until the character’s death. Further, the pendant’s second magical aspect will be activated: the Elf becomes expert in one skill and spends only one quarter the experience point multiple needed to progress ranks in that skill. Further, if a weapon, the skill will be attainable to a rank two levels higher than that allowed for in the rules. The skill will be chosen by the next expenditure of experience points on a skill, weapon, spell or characteristic made by the character.
Read to the Party... |
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Emolee leads you to the stables and checks the stalls for anyone there. She says: "If you want your friend to live, listen to me carefully. In one score days, unless I remove the cursed jewel from your friend's neck, she will die. The pendant will further constrict until her head is separated from her body. It's particularly unpleasant, trust me." At this point she looks decidedly nauseous. |
Emolee looks to the Player. "What is your name, child? Alright, to be clear, I will only remove the pendent once you have completed a task for me. You can threaten to kill me. You can actually kill me. It doesn't matter. My son needs my help or he will die, so either we all live, or you, me and my son all die." |
If a player is not wearing the pendant...
After a brief internal struggle Emolee will tell her story, and hope the adventurers will help here, despite her previous murderous intent.
Emolee's story
Read to the players |
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Emolee gestures to the pendant. "I have nothing except this, The Bearded Skull, and my son, Gladely. Two-score nights ago he staggered into the Inn past closing time. He gasped then collapsed into this booth and slept 'til dawn, head down on the bench. |
"Worried, I stayed the entire time. In his sleep he kept murmuring, Behind the moon! Behind the moon! |
"When he woke and after a good feed, he was ravenous, he told me that as he walked the path back here from Tobintown, a Dragon appeared to him, scales black as midnight. I'll not harm thee if you do me a service it says. In the upper reaches of The Champion, as you name it, there is a small cave behind the moon. Long ago, when I was little more than a hatchling, something was stolen from me and placed there. The thieves are long dead but it was useful place to keep it hidden. Retrieve it for me and return here on the second full moon from now and I will grant you and your mother's life. If not... and at that fire spewed from its maw and lit a tree, like a giant pyre, flaming into the night. |
"Gladely didn't say what it was he needed to retreive. He went as far as he could, to the village of Twotrees by boat upriver, and was going to walk from there. Tonight is the first full moon. He only has one cycle to return! He had a map and some other things he did not show me in his pack, but he said there was other treasure. |
Please find him. Please find my boy! |
Journey up The Sweetwater
The journey is uneventful as the river is well patrolled up to the rapids. The rapids are traversable to Twotrees by boat when the weather is right (16% base chance +10% per rank of Navigator on board).
There are no Captains willing to travel upriver beyond Twotrees.
The march to The Sweetwater's upper reaches will be fraught, and there is a near certain chance of ambush from Orcs, Goblins (at or after dusk), or Hobgoblins. [The GM should prepare a number of set ambushes along the journey].
Random encounters (Terrain: rough, Danger level: High) are also possible.
Set encounter: The Gnomes of RûverFreh
After a random encounter with orcs, goblins or hobgoblins - all quite likely given the terrain - the party will be unknowingly protected by a band of Gnomes from RûverFreh. Their leader DrëdaFreh will be silently present and watching as the last watch of the night changes.
After the encounter the Gnomes will follow the party to their place of encampment and remove traces of their passage from the ground etc.
The party, if amenable, will be given provisions and any seriously wounded members will be healed by BrehfarFreh, a level 7 healer. If needed any arrows will be replenished.
While the Gnomes will take the final watch, leave food for three days and a note written in common and placed with the supplies in the morning, they will be gone by sunrise.
The note:
Your path is perilous. We know not of any cave beneath the moon, but the dragon Kaldrath is ever vigilant. And we know of her.
If safe passage from the headwaters is needed, a tunnel in the cliff made by our ancestors runs parallel to the river and will emerge in a glade some distance from the cliffs.
Find the rocks that resemble tables and benches beside the cliff and south-east of the pool and strike a heavy blow on the side of the grassy knoll.
The Black Dragon - Mušḫuššu
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Mušḫuššu has told Gladely that regaining the lost scroll (once treasured by his mother) is the reason he has set these wheels in motion. This is not true. Mušḫuššu has no idea what is in the scroll and cares not.
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Mušḫuššu's real objective is to have the adventurers scout out the territory of the dragon who killed his mother and stole her lair and treasure when he was young (over a century ago).
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The Cave Behind the Moon is well away from the lair but is a good place from which to observe the lair's only entrance (or at least it was the only entrance when Mušḫuššu was last there). If the Green Dragon is in residence, there will be an unmistakable stench emanating from the cave.
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Mušḫuššu discovered a pair of Hobgoblins in the cave and killed them, noting the scroll case one carried. Mušḫuššu assumes that the Hobgoblins' remains should be as they were when he left them (partially devoured) two centuries ago.
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The dragon’s humble and mostly forgotten beginnings of a treasure hoard are in the cave:
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More bones of enemies
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Rusted and broken weapons
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Valueless broken copper and bronze trinkets
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Functional enough weapons in a pinch including a battle axe, crossbow bolts (16), 2 shortswords, a tulwar, a large and various daggers.
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But also, if the characters check carefully:
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A small rotting chest containing 3 rubies (20 gold shillings each) and 49 gold shillings.
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62 silver pennies.
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A silvered estoc and matching dagger. The estoc is +5% strike chance and +8% to defence against strikes made in melee combat (when drawn and being used).
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A large well worn and non-descript gold ring suitable for a giant. The ring provides +6 MA when worn.
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An old and well used small round shield with an embossed golden horse head. The shield provides an additional + 8% Defence, +8% horsemanship and adds +20% to the chance when the warhorse is required to roll on any activity (including combat) due to the horse’s confidence in the rider.
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Mušḫuššu is now a fully grown adult, but Kaldrath is significantly stronger and more physically powerful than him. Mušḫuššu’s strategy is thus to learn as much about his enemy as possible and to use his superior magic and (in his view) cunning to defeat the larger and older dragon and enact his revenge.
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Mušḫuššu is a practitioner of the College of Ensorcelments and Enchantments.
The Green Dragon - Kaldrath
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Kaldrath still inhabits the lair she stole from the weak Black Dragon two centuries ago.
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The lair is halfway up the cliff, facing NNE immediately above the a pool fed by waters seeping through the mountains and which eventually find their exit below the great cliffs to form The Champion.
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Kaldrath is a practitioner of the College Sorceries of the Mind.
The Cave Behind the Moon
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In a slight curve of the cliff the Cave Behind the Moon lies about 1600' to the right of the pool where sits a large (24' at its peak) crescent shaped boulder formed of a dark grey granite, the lower fifth of which seems to be set beneath the earth. The 'Moon' is only about 5' away from the cliff-face. *Behind the Moon, barely noticable due to the uneven and jutting nature of the cliff and the deep shadows it casts, lies the entrance to 'the cave'.
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The cave itself is about 50' deep with its entrance 2' feet wide, and 2' deep. However it opens into a large 30'x48' spacious cavern. In the back of the cavern is a small natural hole in the rock (app 1'x1'), through which can be seen a view of the Cliff, and the pool below.
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In the dirt of the cave's floor, amongst some rusted blades, dusty scraps of cloth and the tattered remains of ancient leather, as well as a few gnarled but otherwise unrecognisable bones, are the decaying skeletal remains of two hobgoblins. One missing its legs. The other, its torso.
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In amongst the half buried ribcage of the first Hobgoblin are fragments of leather strands and a sealed silver scroll case of Elven design.
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An Elven-made dagger in a finely wrought silver sheath adorns the skeletal legs of the second Hobgoblin.
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The dragon’s humble and mostly forgotten beginnings of a treasure hoard are in the cave:
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More bones of enemies
Rusted and broken weapons
Valueless broken copper and bronze trinkets
Functional enough weapons in a pinch including a battle axe, crossbow bolts (16), 2 shortswords, a tulwar, a large and various daggers.
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But also, if the characters check carefully:
A small rotting chest containing 3 rubies (20 gold shillings each) and 49 gold shillings.
62 silver pennies.
A silvered estoc and matching dagger. The estoc is +5% strike chance and +8% to defence against strikes made in melee combat (when drawn and being used).
A large well worn and non-descript gold ring suitable for a troll, giant or ogre. The ring provides +6 MA when worn.
An old and well used small round shield with an embossed golden horse head. The shield provides an additional + 8% Defence, +8% horsemanship and adds +20% to the chance when the warhorse is required to roll on any activity (including combat) due to the horse’s confidence in the rider.
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Returning the scroll to Mušḫuššu
If an attempt is not made to return the scroll to Mušḫuššu on the path between Tobintown and Brandor’s Landing on the night of the full moon Mušḫuššu will descend on The Bearded Skull in the middle of the night and burn it to the ground.
If Gladely attempts to return the scroll without the party, he will die, but not before Mušḫuššu learns all he needs to about the adventurers.
If the party journeys with Gladely to return the scroll to Mušḫuššu then, hearing the full and complete story (he will know any lies), and gathering all available intelligence on Kaldrath then he will let the party go.
With thanks to Pixabay.com for the use of their free images and artbreeder.com for AI images. And most of all the specialist of thanks to @ryivhnn for my wonderful and ever joyful Wombats!