OpenQuest
#2 Garenguard
Starting Location; The Foul Sand, a low drinking house in Garenguard,
a coastal city of Tellerand overlooking the Sea of Worship.
An
alluring sailor approaches your table of commiserating sots.
“An easy journey into the country,” she says leaning into
her second tankard of ale. “You all will still be within the borders of the
Duchy. The toughest danger you’ll face are drunken farm boys and their cow
faced whores.”
“I look to retrieve some items from my ancestral home before
looters and bandits scavenge the last bits.” She continues, her voice beginning
to be drowned out by the evening crowd.
The Foul Sand is anything but a quiet place at the best of
times. Now the full evening crowd is just starting to pour into the shabby
gambling den calling for wine.
“It has been abandoned by my ancestors long before my birth.
Long before the Empire ever existed, if the tales are to be believed. There may
be some treasures forgotten within its cold stone walls still. I wouldn’t count
on it. You are all entitled to what you can find; except for the items I seek.
What I can guarantee you is steady pay. I will pay henchman gold
rate per man per day to see me to my home. If you can stomach a return trip
back you can pick up day rate to escort me back here to this insufferable city so
as I can return to sea.” The sales pitch complete Servesa finishes her drink
and sits back against the tavern wall waiting your response…
The collection of six pre-generated characters provides
players with full fleshed out adventurers who have some limited reasons to
connect, and open ended beginning play opportunities. These play opportunities
can lead directly into leaving Garenguard and exploring the greater world. There
also is ample opportunity to get embroiled in the dark urban environs of the
city of Garenguard as well.
Here
are some of the built in linkages found within the pre generated characters;
Cashiered Ranger; your area map has markings you can’t decipher. Perhaps
there is someone in the city who could read them? How would you know they were
right?
Hunted Magician; straight out of Pulp Fiction, you know you will run into
trouble going to your storefront to retrieve your spell book and potions. You
will want one of the sword wielding experts coming with you. Once you have what
you need you are more than ready to leave town!
Retired Gladiator; local slavers may be interested in your skills, or
criminals in need of fresh muscle, or a noble who lost a lot of money betting you
to lose. Drinking here in the Foul Sand, seeing the poor wretches and slaves
filter in after their day of back breaking labor, all you can see in this city
is exploitation. You would be willing to support an adventure out of the city
to get away from all the filth.
Disturbed
Wizard; Any one following you into the city will be taken on an adventure
into the macabre and the chilling. Grave robbers, dream weaver dens, secretive
alchemists, and shadows in the dark. All these you converse with in your
nightly journeys. You are a user and keeper of secrets. The more horrible and
compromising the more attractive. You prefer to gather such pieces of
information to be used to your advantage later.
Disgraced
Warrior; You are a blank
slate which you should feel free to take in any direction. A barbarian far from
home, you are anxious to head out into the wild and away from the city. You do retain
your campaigning knowledge which can be summed up in the following
maxims;
1. Adjust your ends to your means.
2. Exploit the line of least
resistance.
3. Do not renew an attack after it
has once failed.
Searching Sailor; You are
on shore in search of your family’s lost “luck”. An heirloom stolen from your
great grandfather. Your family is said to have fallen into tragedy and ruin
since its theft. You are hoping to find the answers to this long unsolved
mystery in the old ruins of the once proud family manor. You desperately need
to find a group of adventurers to overcome any dangers to be faced. The
ranger’s map has markings near the location of the old manor’s grounds. So what
if the runes are impervious to your reading skills. No one else knows what it
says!
If gangs, cultists, and/or the house guard get up in any of
the player’s activities several play sessions could be had before they leave
the confines of the city.
Notes
on Garenguard
A city
of seventy five thousand people, the city is ostensibly ruled by a council, at
whose head is the Commissar, a representative of the Kingdom of Tellerand. The
other main council members are Kirian Ylestos, the Prince of the Church of St.
Cuthbert, and the Mother Superior of the Sisterhood of Silence (see below).
Other City Council members (with less influence) include guild masters, the
heads of the noble houses, and a few wealthy merchants. People of the town
often refer to this body as the “Council of Coin,” because money is a powerful
and influential force among its members. The church and guild members are
united in their hostility to magic, while the king maintains a University of Wizardry
here in Garenguard.
The city
teems with guilds. Every type of artisan, smith, or other professional belongs
to a guild of similarly trained and employed individuals. These guilds enjoy a
strong voice in the City Council. They are particularly supportive of the
church and the Commissar. They are more than willing to denounce sorcerers to
the church and traitors to the crown to the Commissar. Merchants practicing
without guild membership are subject to fines and arrest.
To police
the streets, the Commissar of the city commands a force of more than eighteen hundred
troops and City Watch guards, including a few dozen elite individuals.
Like
every city, Garenguard has a dark side. Here, criminal lords command veritable
armies of rogues and assassins, and war amongst each other as well as against
the law. These criminals deal in extortion, smuggling, gambling, usury, and
prostitution. Chief among these criminals are Menon Balacazar, leader of the
oldest criminal syndicate in the city, and the newcomer Kevris Killraven. They
are bitter enemies. Depraved assassins called the Vai hunt victims for money,
or worse.
OpenQuest
#2 Night in Honlaudt
The game master will use the material from TSR’s “The Village
of Hommlet” and the ruined moat house as the inevitable wilderness dungeon
location. This will come about directly or after any adventures within
Garenguard. Rename the village "Honlaudt", increase the paranoia, add ghouls,
werewolves, dark spirits, etc. and let the macabre horror begin! What won’t be
changed from the TSR source material is the presence of evil cultists
attempting to reoccupy the moat house and corrupt the nearby village.
The village
dynamics are one of paranoia and fear. During the night evil spirits are
believed to roam about spreading disease, and ill-luck. Town folk whisper stories of lurking horrors
abroad which kill livestock and kidnapping those abroad at night. Demonic
possession, victim of mad cultists, fell beast which feast on blood; all are
said to be stirring in the dark forest again.
The Wizard and the
Priest wish to keep such hysteria tamped out, and will be relentless in their
attempt to hide the truth from the citizens. The Druids wish to protect the
people, but risk the repression of the church. The Repellent Coterie of Evil is
bent on taking down the whole countryside into black chaos and humanoid
ascendency.
At the Welcome
Wench the players will find they are the subject of polite, but regular questions. One of Rufus' guards named Zert frequents the bar, and pesters any and all from the party with more pointed inquiries. His Most Worshipful Mage of Honlaudt provides the hireling with copper for information of the travelers which pass through the village.
“Traveling the King’s
Road are we?” Zert will inquire. “None ever have business in Honlaudt. Unless you
are selling iron. Cold iron for the Cold God says St. Cuthbart, and he is one
for his cold iron here in Honlaudt.”
The barkeep will
tell the drunk guard to shut it. Before the insulted soldier can get any more out of hand Rufus enters the tavern. He is there to take Zert out of the Welcome Wench and bring him to Burne, the village mage.
"Take the King's Road out of town I would if I was you", he sneers before being roughly steered out into the towns main track by the large captain.
If they take up
lodging at the Welcome Wench they can
expect a visit from Rufus who will see them off in the morning. He hopes they found their stay pleasant and would they be moving on. Gathering supplies is fine. It gives the locals
commerce before the travelers head along the King’s Road,
or the seldom traveled East Road. But there has been trouble, and the townfolk don't trust strangers.
Rufus is aware of “bandits” operating in
the area and while he would never betray Burne, he will warn players of dangers
on the East Road. But only if they are decently behaved. If they are douche
bags he will gladly send them off to appease the mad cultists.
Burne, Rufus, and Terjon
are in denial when it comes to facing the danger which lurks in the woods. They
believe if enough eastbound traffic is sacrificed their village, and their riches,
will be preserved. Soon the High Priest of the Coterie will arrive and demand
the village as blood sacrifice, tribute worthy enough to the great god of death
Toruk. Toruk comes in the form of an abominable spider slavering for blood.
Any time spent in
town will give the Repellent Coterie of Evil and its agents an opportunity to
discern what the party is up to. The spies in the village plot against the
village’s inhabitants, and are continuously interested in the town’s strength. (4)
Repellent Coterie agents will eventually set out to follow the party into the
woods when they head out on the east road. The undercover cultists will try and
ambush the party at night when they make camp. If the PC’s detect the assassins
they will attack immediately.
Regardless of the outcome of the attack it will be noticed some
workmen have now gone missing. By the second day Rufus will reluctantly head
into the woods looking for signs of them. He will report whatever he finds back
to Burne. Burne will not want to involve the Canon of St. Cuthbert as he never
stops about the corruption of evil throughout the village. Talk of cultists at
the moat house will have him calling for the club to be laid hard on the
inhabitants of the village to uncover the source of the corruption.
Once the party reaches the ruined castle they will have to
decide how to proceed. Any attempt to enter the grounds during the day will be
met with attacks from the insane cult guards. Not all of the guards will be
capable of defending themselves. Roll for each regular’s sanity at the
beginning of combat. Each has a 20% of being in a catatonic state due to the
unrelenting terror of living with the undead. This does not apply to the
leader. While visibly incoherent, he attacks vigorously, all the while weeping
inconsolably.
Trying to infiltrate the moat house during the night will call
down the giant frogs which lurk in dank marsh, and undead crawling up from
underneath the moat house. Not only will
the players have to cut their way into the moat house grounds, they will have
to defend against wandering undead. If the players manage to defeat the hordes
of frogs, zombies, and ghouls there is the giant lizard, giant spider, and/or
giant snake which hide amongst the upper pile. If the players continue into the
ruins they will encounter some of these beasts at their most active time! Be warned,
a nighttime assault will be very dangerous.
The amount of ghouls and zombies which issue forth will be
key in establishing lethality of the overall encounter.
The Searching Sailor
will want to explore the upper level ruins. There she believes can be found the
artifacts of her long lost family.
The diary with her father’s last journey is indeed within
the pile, and will be found after a random encounter with one of the three
monsterous beasts; 1-2 Giant Lizard, 3-4 Giant Spider, or 5-6 Giant Snake.
Below the surface the players will encounter the villains
bent on destroying Honlaudt. They are the instruments of evil attempting to
establish the Repellent Coterie of Evil in Tellerand.
The hired men at arms do not go out at night. They are there
to guard the undead lords during the day. When the sun goes down the evil
henchmen barricade themselves in to protect themselves from roaming undead.
Listening to the shambling nighttime hordes have made the men quite insane. The
maddened men begin every morning going out the ruined wall, and spearing giant
frogs so they can go crap in the marsh. They then return to the interior of the
moat house where the lower dungeon squad sends up their days food. Usually game
mixed in with human slave. The kitchen is down in the dungeon off of room #12.
The snake obviously needs to be removed from this location.
Replace with captured local villagers and travelers. These kidnapped people
have been used up in hard labor and are now destined for the stew pot.
The morning feeding crew includes some fighters in the case
of an inadvertent attack by the traumatized guards.
The lower levels will find servants of the High Priest
maintaining the kitchen and the slaves. The lower level guards are found in the
living areas of #10 as well as protecting the High Priest in #16. There will
also be a contingent of soldiers out on the East Road looking for victims. They
return only when called for or have some prisoners to bring in.
The High Priest is controlling the ghouls which inhabit the
subterranean tunnels throughout the marsh. He has the undead creatures
burrowing towards the village. Soon they will be able to come out underneath
the village itself and devour the inhabitants.
The High Priest controls the ghouls through sacrifice and
magic. If either of these two inducements are cut, the ghouls will begin to
attack indiscriminately.
The party will either have returned successful or not. They
will either be healthy or not. They will either make themselves easily found or
not. But sooner or later Burne will get to ask them questions.
The conclusion
of the meeting should lead to Burne realizing he needs to send an armed party
out to the moat house and flush out whatever evil lurks. He will send Rufus and
the militia out to the moat house. He will make the players go as well as
prisoners of the Kingdom of Tellerand and under the warrant of the church of
St. Cuthbert. Either assist in the eviction of brigands and cultists from the
moat house, or Burne will send the party to languish in the church’s dungeons.
These are the options the powerful wizard offers.
The party will not be bound for the march, but their weapons
and possessions will be confiscated. These will be kept in the wizard’s tower
and only returned if the players demonstrate they are men of honor. Rufus will
use his judgment out in the field on whether or not to arm the players in face
of danger. If his men look like they will be overwhelmed he will most likely arm
the players. He will quiz the players about the defenses of the ruins before he
makes his approach. He will want to enter through the courtyard, but the rotten
drawbridge worries him. The entrance across the stream and through the tower .
He will face an attack by frogs and guards during the day. Frogs and ghouls
will assault the party during the night.
The militia should eventually be mauled and driven back to
the village.
You may not want to let the forces of Honlaudt get this far.
During the night of the players forced return to the village the town will be
attacked by ghouls emerging from their underground diggings. The High Priest’s
grisly assault has begun!
This will be throughout the village and will give everyone a
chance to respond. The players are most likely being interrogated by Burne and
Rufus in the church.
Rufus will go for his tower. The rest of the militia men
will be heading to defend their families. Rufus will attempt to organize a
strike force to go and battle the swarming ghouls. Burne will be devastated at
the news of the undead attack. His willful denial of the horror which lurked
beneath his feet comes crashing down. He feels as if he has consigned the
people of Honlaudt to their doom. He will want to lock the door and not venture
out until morning. Rufus turns to the players and asks for their aid…
The conclusion of the
adventure should leave the characters in the good graces of Honlaudt and
returning to Garenguard with some treasure.
Abstract art and painting large abstract expressionist oils of my own have sustained me through long droughts of quality face to face role play. At essence, face to face role playing taps the same emotional need for creativity found in any performing art.
