The Wizard’s Amulet
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Author: Clark Peterson and Bill Webb
Homepage: http://www.necromancergames.com/
System: d20 Dungeons and Dragons
Type: Scenario
Category: Fantasy
Requirements:

Graphic: PDF Version

"The following adventure is (c)2000 Clark Peterson, Necromancer Games, and is reproduced here with permission. No permission for further distribution is granted."

Adventure Overview

The Wizard’s Amulet is a short, introductory adventure for six newly created good-aligned 1 st -level characters. The adventure revolves around Corian, a fledgling Sorcerer. While an apprentice, Co-rian discovered a letter written by a wizard named Eralion, who it is said some years ago attempted to become a lich—and failed. Accompanying the letter was a mysterious amulet with strange markings. Joined by newfound companions, Corian set off in search of Eralion’s keep and his supposedly unguarded treasure. But Corian is not alone in desiring to unlock the mystery of Eralion’s fate. Darker, more evil forces have designs on the secrets reputedly hidden with Er-alion— forces willing to stop at nothing to obtain...The Wizard's Amulet.

This adventure is designed to be used “out of the box,” meaning you can download it and run it right away with little preparation time. The Wizard’s Amulet is the perfect adventure for new GMs who want to try their hand at running their first adventure. Just follow the steps outlined in the section entitled “Using this Adventure” and you should be playing your first Third Edition game within fifteen minutes!

The adventure itself covers several programmed en-counters that Corian and his comrades face on the road from Reme to Fairhill, the purported location of Er-alion’s keep. The adventure culminates in an ambush by Corian’s nemesis Vortigern who tries to capture Eralion’s amulet by force. The adventure uses a rigid Act and Scene format to facilitate ease of use with little preparation. Veteran GMs should feel free to flesh out the adventure and include events on the road not covered in this module.

Using this Adventure

We presume you have the new Dungeons and Drag-ons® Player’s Handbook, Third Edition, and that you as the GM have spent some time familiarizing yourself with the new rules. We presume you have called over a bunch of your friends and ordered some pizza. We also presume you have secured a good table as well as paper, pencils and all those funny dice we gamers love so much. You should also have a dry erase board or some other way to draw up the “battle map” for any encounters your character will face. A big pad of paper will do in a pinch. If you have lead figures or some other way to represent the characters we suggest you use them. We recommend that you print a hard copy of this adventure for your reference and copies of the pre-generated characters for your players’ use. Now sit back, relax, break out the chips and dip (since the pizza is probably gone) and follow these steps. You should be playing within 15 minutes!

First, read the sections entitled “Notes for the Game Master” and “Adventure Background” to yourself, spending a few minutes becoming familiar with the plot line and the main non-player characters. Also, read Corian’s Supplemental Information found at the very end of this module.

Second, pass out the pre-generated characters that you can download from the Necromancer Games web site. (See the section entitled “Pre-generated Charac-ters” at the end of this adventure.) You can do this one of two ways: you can either pick which six characters you want your players to play and let the players di-vide those six as they wish. Or you can show them all of the pre-generated characters and let them choose which six to play.

You must include Corian, the Sorcerer, in the party. You also should include Galdar, the Cleric, in the party, though he is not essential. If you decide to choose the six characters yourself, we recommend that in addition to Corian and Galdar you include at least two of the primary fighters as well as either Helman, Dai or Flarian the Bard because of the importance of having a character with stealth skills. Playtesting demonstrates that this party composition gives the best chance of success. You should use no more than seven or eight total characters—with six being the optimal number. If you add more characters you may have to increase the number of monsters en-countered to keep the combat challenging. If you have fewer than six characters or if your players choose primarily non-combat characters, then you will have to reduce the difficulty of the encounters. Notes are pro-vided to cover these situations.

Once the players have selected which characters they will play, you should give the player who is playing Corian a copy of Corian’s Supplemental Information, found at the very end of this module. Make sure to keep the information private, since the contents are to be revealed at Corian’s discretion.

Third, have the characters familiarize themselves with their characters. The person playing Corian should pay particular attention to his or her back-story and to the letter from Eralion.

Fourth, read the section entitled “Player’s Introduc-tion” to yourself so you understand it and then read it aloud to your players. There you have it—fifteen minutes and you should already be adventuring!

Fifth, once you have read the Player’s Introduction aloud, turn to the section titled “Running the Adven-ture” and play out the acts and scenes of the adventure in the order provided. You are officially under way.

Sixth, at the end of the night use the section entitled “Concluding the Adventure” to wrap things up. If you want more information about continuing the story started by this adventure, about the d20 system or about Necromancer Games and our products, sec-tions addressing these topics can be found at the very end of the module.

As a final matter, remember the Necromancer Games “golden rule”: use what you want, discard or change the rest. We have presented this adventure in a strict step-by-step format to make it easy to get that first game going without any hassle. But if you want to change some things around, go right ahead. In fact, we hope ambitious Game Masters will use this adventure as a campaign seed. Feel free to flesh out the city of Reme and to roleplay Corian’s discharge from his ap-prenticeship and his investigation into Eralion and the amulet. Go ahead and play out the meeting between the various characters. Draw up an overland map and handle all the travel rather than just the programmed encounters provided by this adventure. Maybe even throw in a few non-player characters of your own. It’s your world. Your players are just playing in it.

Notes for the Game Master

This section is primarily aimed at newer Game Mas-ters, though reading the tips in this section may re-mind veteran GMs of how they learned these same lessons through much experience. Your players will be mighty wizards, devout clerics, stout fighters and cun-ning rogues. But you are in a sense above even the greatest of these, for you are the shaper of the world in which your players adventure. It is your job to breathe life into these written words and make for your players a fictional reality into which they can immerse them-selves.

Though players cannot function without a GM, it is also true that a GM cannot function without players. Thus, the best advice for a new GM is this: always remember that your adventures should be like coopera-tive stories written by both you and your players. You must work together for everyone to have fun. That doesn’t mean you should break rules to make your players happy. What it does mean is that, like an en-lightened ruler, you should adjudicate your games with fairness and graciousness. Your power should be un-questioned not because it is frequently exercised but rather because it is not. You should never be “out to get” your players. If your adventures are challenging and you run them fairly you will be heralded as a great GM.

You have many hats to wear as the Game Master. First and foremost, as already mentioned, you are the fair arbiter of the rules. But you are also the person who plays all the monsters and non-player characters (NPCs) that the players encounter. Where the players play one (or at most two) characters, you will play many: the person met at the inn or on the road, the vile orc, the mischievous leprechaun, the evil cleric, the friendly wizard, the power-mad king and all the gods. You are, in short, everything except the player charac-ters. When you are the thief, be cunning and dishon-est, when the orc, cruel and chaotic, when the paladin, noble and chivalrous, when the town guard, loyal and stern. Inject as much of your own personality into your roles as possible. Always remember, however, to be fair both to the characters and to yourself. As one of the best GMs to ever run a game once said: “When playing a monster or an NPC, temper your actions with disinterest in the final outcome and play only from the viewpoint of that particular monster or NPC.” Being a GM is challenging—requiring more skill than that of the best player—but it is equally rewarding. Learn to wear all of your hats well, and to be fair while doing so, and your players will enjoy themselves immensely.

To assist you, we have provided “Side Boxes”— material in the margins which are specific GM notes deserving of special attention. Here you will find im-portant things to remember, monster tactics, trap sum-maries, highlights of rule changes in the new edition and other material of specific use to you as the GM. We hope these notes make running this adventure as easy as possible.

We have also provided “Boxed Text”—pieces of nar-rative to be read directly to your players to describe key encounter areas and events. Normally, we believe that GMs should describe encounters in their own words. However, since this adventure is designed to be used “out of the box” with little preparation time by novice GMs, we decided to include the boxed text. You should, of course, use your own words if you de-sire. Also, because this adventure module is designed for people using the new edition of the game rules for the first time (both novice and veteran GMs) we have pro-vided a large amount of step-by-step material to help you make sure you are using the new rules properly.

One final note: Do not let disputes swallow the gam-ing session. Since this adventure is designed to be one of your first adventures under the 3 rd edition rules, there is a greater chance that you or your players will not be entirely familiar with all the new rule changes. If a dispute arises, listen briefly to the party’s com-plaint. If you can remedy their problem without unnec-essarily bending the rules then do so. The point of the game is for everyone to have fun. If you intend to rule against the party, explain to them that after the session you can all discuss the matter at length but that you need to make a decision now and continue play. Then make the decision. Remember that your decision for that session is final. Continue with play. If, after dis-cussion following the session, you determine that your decision was incorrect then you should do your best to remedy the faulty ruling. Either let the players replay the particular encounter or, if a character was killed, allow that character to return to life. Rules exist for a reason. They must be enforced. But not at the cost of damaging friendships and ruining everyone’s fun. A good GM needs to be firm in his or her rulings but at the same time not afraid to admit he or she was wrong and correct that wrong. Remember, as GM you are a fair judge, not an opponent. But most of all have fun.

Adventure Background

Long ago, Eralion was a good and kind wizard. He was devoted to his patron deity, a god of law and righteousness. As the shadow of his death grew long and he began to sense his own mortality, Eralion’s heart darkened and his desire for power and fear of death became greater than his devotion to his god. He turned his attention to ways to lengthen his fading life.

He learned the rumor of the fabled Mushroom of Youth in the dungeon of Rappan Athuk, the legendary Dungeon of Graves, but he lacked the courage to enter those deadly halls. He researched wish spells, but he did not have the power to master such mighty magics, being himself a mage of only meager power.

Finally, in his darkest moment, Eralion turned to Or-cus, the Demon-lord of the Undead, imploring the dread demon for the secret of unlife—the secret of becoming a lich. Orcus knew that Eralion lacked the power to complete the necessary rituals to become a lich, as Eralion had barely managed the use of a scroll to contact him in the depths of the Abyss in his Palace of Bones. Orcus smiled a cruel smile as he promised the secret of lichdom to Eralion. But there was a price.

Orcus required Eralion to give to him his shadow. “A trifling thing,” Orcus whispered to Eralion from the Abyss. “Something you will not need after the ritual which I shall give to you. For the darkness will be your home as you live for untold ages.”

In his pride, Eralion believed the demon-lord. He learned the ritual Orcus provided to him. He made one final trip to the city of Reme to purchase several items necessary for the phylactery required by the ritual. While there, he delivered a letter to his friend Feri-blan the Mad, with whom he had discussed the pros-pect of lichdom—though only as a scholarly matter.

Feriblan, known for his absent-mindedness, never read the letter, but instead promptly misplaced it and its companion silk-wrapped item.

Eralion returned to his keep and locked himself in his workroom. He began his ritual, guarded by zombies given to him by Orcus—sent more to make sure Er- alion went through with the ritual than to offer him aid. As he uttered false words of power and consumed the transforming potion he realized the demon’s treachery. He felt his life essence slip away— transferring in part to his own shadow, which he had sold to the Demon Prince. Eralion found himself Or-cus’ unwitting servant, trapped in his own keep. And there he would have stayed, forgotten to the world, had it not been for the actions of a lowly apprentice.

Some twenty years later, a young wizard’s apprentice named Corian learned of Eralion accidentally. During his final days under his uncle’s tutelage, Corian and his master had traveled to the library of Feriblan the Mad in the city of Reme. Corian was never pleased to visit Feriblan, for while there he was always forced to have contact with Vortigern, Feriblan’s apprentice, and his loathsome raven familiar—Talon. Luckily for Corian, this day he managed to avoid Vortigern. While perusing mundane documents in an outer sitting room as his master and Feriblan studied ancient scrolls, Co-rian nervously fiddled with a clasp on the back of a small reading stand. Quite to his surprise, a secret compartment opened which contained a small, bound piece of parchment and an item wrapped in silk cloth.

Checking to see that his actions were unobserved, Co-rian slipped both items into the folds of his robe. The parchment proved to be the letter Eralion had left for Feriblan on his last visit before his ritual, and the item wrapped in the silk cloth an amulet of some unknown design.

Corian’s actions, however, did not go unnoticed. Vor-tigern was fast becoming a wizard of some power. It was whispered that had the old wizard Feriblan not been mad, he would have discharged Vortigern from his apprenticeship long ago. It was believed— correctly—that Vortigern had learned all the skills of an apprentice and was remaining with Feriblan under the guise of an apprentice in order to have continued access to Feriblan’s legendary library. Among the many musty volumes and forbidden tomes, Vortigern discovered a tract describing how to call forth an imp from the lower planes. Sacrificing the familiar that Feriblan had called for him, Vortigern summoned the small, devilish creature in secret to act as his familiar.

The imp took the form of Vortigern’s prior familiar—a raven—to prevent suspicion. It was this imp familiar who, while in raven form, saw Corian take the amulet and parchment. Talon reported what he saw to his master, though neither knew the significance of the letter and the amulet at that time.

Freed from his apprenticeship, Corian returned to Feriblan. Taking the risk of asking a direct question of the addled wizard, Corian learned that Eralion was nowhere near powerful enough to become a lich.

“Eralion! A lich?!” the old wizard exclaimed. “He was no apprentice, my son, but neither was he a mage with the mastery of the eldritch powers necessary for such a dangerous undertaking! If you have heard such rumors, boy, I shall put them to rest. The magics required for such a transition were far beyond his grasp.” Once on the topic of his old friend, Feriblan spoke at length, though in a disjointed fashion. He told Corian of Er-alion’s keep near the village of Fairhill. Feriblan made reference to a staff that Eralion possessed which ap-parently had magical powers. He also mentioned that Eralion had never returned several valuable magical tracts and spell books. Corian left the old wizard de-termined to find this tower and the items it con-tained— for if Eralion was not a lich, the items should be there for the taking!

Once again, Corian’s actions did not go unobserved. Vortigern commanded his imp familiar Talon to watch the old mage and Corian as they met together. And so it was that Talon overheard their conversation. Once informed by Talon, Vortigern guessed the connection between Corian’s visit and the purloined letter and item. To solidify his suspicion, Vortigern commanded Talon to consult his devilish patron—Dispater—who confirmed that the amulet Corian possessed was some-how a link to Eralion’s sanctuary within his keep.

Readying himself with the necessary equipment for travel to Fairhill, Corian visited a local tavern—the Starving Stirge. There he posted a notice seeking the aid of able-bodied adventurers willing to join him in an expedition to a wizard’s tower. Promising an equal division of all gold recovered, he soon gathered a group of comrades-at-arms eager for adventure and glory. Corian was also joined by Galdar, a priest of St. Cuthbert, who was instructed in a vision from his god to seek out Corian and to follow where the amulet led him. Someone or something, it appeared, had angered the god of Retribution. Corian was glad for his com-pany.

But Corian was reluctant to give the full story to his new friends, having on more than one occasion seen Talon, the familiar of Vortigern, peering into his chamber window in raven form. Corian, worried that his theft of the amulet and letter had been seen by the wicked bird, did not wish to risk further discovery while still in Reme. The party set out from Reme some four days prior to the start of this adventure, with light hearts and heavy packs—only Corian nursing the nag-ging fear that Vortigern and his loathsome bird some-how knew of his goal.

Their hearts would not have been so light had they known of Vortigern’s plotting, for Vortigern had not been idle. While Corian gathered his allies, Vortigern assembled several magical items and two unsavory companions. Delayed with his magical preparations, Vortigern and his henchmen set out from Reme two days behind Corian and his band, intent on recovering the amulet at any cost. And that is where our story begins…

If you choose not to locate this adventure in your own world, the following description of the area will help you describe the setting to your players. Reme is a large port city on the eastern coast of an Inland Sea. The tradeway—a merchant road—runs directly east from Reme to the city of Bard’s Gate and on towards the forest kingdoms of the east. North of the tradeway, and running parallel to it, lie the Stoneheart Moun-tains. South of the tradeway, and also parallel to it, is the river Greywash. The vale between the river and the mountains through which the tradeway runs is ver-dant green and dotted with pine forests, though the forests have mostly been cleared back from the road. Fairhill lies just north of the tradeway about 8 days march from Reme, approximately half way from Reme to Bard’s Gate. Hawks and falcons are a common sight, as are larger eagles. The vale is plentiful with game.

Player’s Introduction

You have traveled four days from Reme with your newfound companions. Rain and cloudy weather have marred your travels since you left, slowing your pace and forcing you to keep off the main road and travel under the eaves of the light woods to the north of the tradeway. It seems odd at this time of year to have such strange weather. Sunshine can be seen on the far horizon, and you all have a feeling that something is amiss, as if a dark cloud is following you from Reme. Each of you thinks back to the Starving Stirge—the Inn where you formed your fellowship. You shift your packs, which seem even heavier in the rain, and recall Corian’s notice: “Seeking Fellow Adventurers,” it read. “Companions to share in glory and gold and ad-ventures unnumbered.” As you look down at your muddy boots, you think to yourself that you would gladly trade Corian’s promises of gold for dry clothes and a warm fire.

Read the following text to your players:

Running the Adventure

Now that you have read the Player’s Introduction, pro-ceed through the adventure presented below in Act and Scene format. Each Scene begins with a section of boxed text to be read to your players. It then contains information for you to use to run the particular Scene.

Act I—A Safe Haven The First Watch

Weary from the long walk, you finally find a nice shel-tered area and build your campfire. One of your scouts makes a quick catch of a small brace of conies and soon the smell of roasting rabbit wafts through the air. Each of you feels as if you can finally relax, rest your sore feet and change into dry clothing. It appears your luck may be changing.

The party makes their camp to get out of the rain. Draw up a map of a small clearing against the base of a hill, amidst a grove of trees. The small clearing is about 20’ in diameter. The hillside is steep and gives protection from the wind and rain, and the light trees give some protection from the rain as well. Stress that the characters should take off their armor and stow their weapons to keep them dry. Make a point of men-tioning rust and the problems of sleeping in armor.

Ask the players what they do with their other equip-ment. Figure out where they build their fire—if they build it in the open of the clearing, they will have trou-ble keeping it lit. The better location would be either against the hillside or by one of the trees under cover from the rain. Regardless of what your players decide to do, draw a map of the camp they set up. Ask the party if they set a watch and if so in what order the characters stand watch. Make them arrange their char-acters on the map—where they will sleep, etc. Once this is determined, darkness begins to fall, leading to the next scene.

A Voice in the Darkness

Darkness falls, and the fire begins to die down. As the characters not standing watch drift off to sleep, a child’s voice can be heard, crying in the darkness. Taking a brand from the fire, [the person on watch] leaves the fireside to investigate, when suddenly he is attacked from the rear by a hideous stag-like creature with the head of a badger, large, yellowish-gray fangs and demonic red glowing eyes. The beast smells of rotting corpses. Twenty feet away is another, much larger than the first, crying in the voice that you thought was the child’s. You are stunned that such a beautiful and innocent sound could come from so de-monic looking a beast.

Read the subsection entitled “Encounter Modifica-tion,” below, and determine what monster your players will encounter. Then determine who has the first watch. If you decide not to use the leucrotta, read the boxed text provided under “Encounter Modification.” If you choose to use the leucrotta, then the person on watch has the following encounter:

Here it is. The first encounter. If you are a new GM, this is probably your first time refereeing a combat. So you might be a little concerned about running the en-counter properly. Even if you aren’t a new GM, the recent edition of the rules is probably new to you. For these reasons, we have provided a substantial amount of detail on how to run this encounter step-by-step, so that novices and experts alike will feel comfortable running the encounter under the new rules.

The person lured away from the camp has been drawn ten feet into the woods surrounding the clearing in which the party has made camp and there has been attacked by a young leucrotta. The mother leucrotta is making the noise of the crying child, drawing the char-acter on watch right by where the baby leucrotta is hiding, ready to spring. As the character passes by its hiding place the young leucrotta jumps out of the dark-ness to strike. Though the boxed text makes it seem as if the character has been surprised by the leucrotta, that has yet to be determined.

Starting Combat: The first thing you need to do is determine if the character lured into the woods is aware of the leucrotta prior to the attack. If he is not aware of the leucrotta then it gets a free round to act, known as the Surprise Round. Have the character roll to see if he has spotted the leucrotta as he passed by it. To see if he spotted the monster, the character has to roll against his Spot skill. His Spot check is an op-posed roll (see Table 4-3). To know if he makes the Spot check, you first have to know how well the leucrotta is hiding. Roll 1d20 for the leucrotta and add his bonus for his Hide skill, plus a modifier of +2 (+4 for his small size, -2 for his hideous stench) for a total of +4 to the 1d20 check. If the character rolls a higher modified number on his Spot check than the leucrotta did on his Hide check then the character sees the leucrotta before it attacks and he is not surprised. If he fails his roll then he is surprised and the leucrotta gets a free Surprise Round. You do not have to roll for the other leucrotta (the mother) because she does not enter combat initially.

Surprise round: If the character is surprised then the young leucrotta gets a free Surprise Round. In that round, the young leucrotta will make a 5’ move out of hiding and attack the character from the rear with its bite. This is a partial action, since the leucrotta has been readying, waiting for the character to walk by. The leucrotta, since it is attacking from behind, gets a +2 bonus on its attack with its bite. Remember, that during the Surprise Round, all surprised characters are “flat footed” and do not receive their Dex bonus to their AC. In addition, persons (and monsters) acting during the surprise round can only make partial ac-tions. And don’t forget that the leucrotta’s bite is ar-mor piercing—see its listed Special Quality. Because the attack in the surprise round is from behind, the armor piercing bite effects the target’s armor, not his shield.

Initiative: After the Surprise round or if the character is aware of the leucrotta you need to roll initiative. All combatants aware of each other must roll 1d20, adding their initiative bonus if any. The higher roll moves and attacks first. If there is a tie, the combatant with the higher Dex moves first. Record the order of initiative. Persons who subsequently enter combat roll initiative and are added to this ranking. Remember, a person remains “flat footed” (without their Dex bonus to AC) until they have actually acted. So if the character lured into the woods loses initiative he remains flat footed until he acts.

What the Young Leucrotta Will Do: If the character is not surprised, the leucrotta will still take the action described above—do a 5’ move and attack. The leucrotta will then, next round, turn around and retreat at full movement, using its special attack “Retreat Double Kick.” It still hasn’t mastered this attack tech-nique, so its rear kick is at a minus (already reflected in the monster stat block for the young leucrotta). If the young leucrotta won initiative, then this kick at-tack happens before the character can turn around and so is at +2 to attack. After this initial attack and re-treat, the young leucrotta will make a full movement to move around behind the character to try to attack him again. However, since it is still young, the baby leucrotta has not yet learned the importance of focus-ing its attack on one victim. If it encounters another person it will forget about the initial victim and launch an attack against the new target. If there are other per-sons nearby then they are just as likely to be attacked. You should randomize the victims of the young leucrotta’s attacks.

What the Mother Leucrotta Will Do: The other, larger leucrotta is the young beast’s mother, who stands and watches the fight, while the baby moves in, bites and leaps out kicking. The mother is interested in seeing whether or not the youngster is properly us-ing the hunting techniques she has taught him. She will remain some 20 feet away watching his actions.

The mother only joins in if the baby is killed outright or if she is attacked. The party would be foolish to attack her. If the mother does attack, she differs from the young leucrotta in one important aspect—she has the ability to do a Spring Attack, as the Feat of the same name. This means she can move before her at-tack and then move again, retreating and using her kick attack, as long as she moves in total no more than her full movement. A nasty attack combination. If someone attacks her she does just that. Then she calls for her and the baby to flee. If the baby has been killed she will not cease her attacks until she is killed or un-til every member of the party is dead.

Ending the Combat: If the baby takes a cumulative total of 6 hit points of damage or more, the pair will retreat into the night. Also, if more than three persons show up to fight against the young leucrotta, the mother will call out in their foul language and the two will retreat. Finally, if the fight is going poorly for the party, the GM in his or her discretion can decide that the beasts have had enough practice and have them retreat (mercifully). If any of these occur, the GM should have the mother “tease” the party for the next two nights, but not really attack them. They will con-tinually hear a baby crying off in the distance or a wounded animal in pain.

Leucrotta, Young: CR 1; SZ Small beast (4 ft. tall at shoulder); HD 2d10; hp 15; Init +1 (Dex); Spd 40 ft.; AC 13 (+2 natural, Dex); Atk +1 melee (1d6+1, bite, slashing, armor piercing), -2 melee (2d6, double retreat kick, bludgeoning); SA armor piercing bite, double retreat kick; SQ mimic voice; SV Fort +1, Ref +3, Will +0; AL CE; Str 9/-1, Dex 12/+1, Con 10/+0, Int 6/-2, Wis 5/-3, Cha 3/-4. Skills: Hide +2, Listen +2, Move Silently +1. Feats: Sure-footed. SA—Armor Piercing Bite (Ex): The bony ridges that a leucrotta has for teeth can chew through metal or wood. In addition to inflicting damage on the character attacked, compare the damage rolled against the hard-ness rating of the character’s shield or armor (see Ta-bles 8-12 and 8-13). Subtract the hardness from the damage done. Then subtract the remainder from the hit points of the item (see Tables 8-12 and 8-13). If the damaged caused by cumulative leucrotta bites exceeds the hit points of the shield or armor it is utterly de-stroyed. Sustaining more than half its hit points ren-ders a shield useless. Initial attacks are against a shield. Subsequent attacks, or attacks from the rear, are against the victim’s armor, which is handled in the same fashion (again, see Tables 8-12 and 8-13). SA—Retreat Double Kick (Ex): When a leucrotta turns to flee it instinctively kicks with both of its rear legs. Only one attack and damage roll is made for both legs. This is a free action. This attack also counts as a “Trip” attack in that the person kicked can be knocked over. SQ—Mimic Voice (Ex): A leucrotta can mimic the voice of a man, woman, child, or a domestic animal in pain. This is often used to lure a victim into attack range. The young leucrotta has not yet mastered this ability. Leucrotta, Mother: CR 3; SZ Large beast (6 ft. tall at shoulder); HD 6d10+6; hp 38; Init +6 (Improved Initiative, Dex); Spd 40 ft.; AC 14 (+3 natural, Dex, -1 size); Atk +5 melee (3d6, bite, slashing, armor pierc-ing), +7 melee (2d6, double retreat kick, crit 19-20, bludgeoning); Face 5 ft. x 10 ft.; SA armor piercing bite, double retreat kick; SQ mimic voice; SV Fort+3 Refl+6 Will+2; AL CE; Str 14/+2, Dex 14/+2, Con 12/ +1, Int 8/-1, Wis 9/-1, Cha 2/-4. Skills: Hide +2, Listen +6, Move Silently +5. Feats: Improved Initiative, Sure-footed, Weapon Finesse (rear kick), Spring Attack. Special Attacks and Qualities: As above, though this full-grown beast does 3d6 damage and is thus much more likely to ruin armor and shields then is the young leucrotta. Description: A leucrotta is a horrible, unbearably ugly beast. It has the body of a stag, the head of a badger and a lionine tail. It has bony, yellow-gray ridges for teeth and burning, feral red eyes. Their bod-ies are tan, darkening to black at the head. The stench of rotting corpses surrounds the beast and its breath reeks of the grave. A full-sized male can reach seven feet tall at the shoulder, though they average six feet. Other animals shun this foul creature. Leucrotta are very intelligent for beasts and speak their own evil language. They are wicked and malicious. Because of their mountain goat-like surefootedness, leucrotta nor-mally make their lair in treacherous, rocky crags ac-cessible only to them.

Encounter Modification: If you are a new GM and running the leucrotta encounter seems too compli-cated, then replace the leucrotta with 3 stirges. Note, however, that 3 stirges are more dangerous than one young leucrotta. Obviously, since the leucrotta are no longer involved, the player on watch is not lured away from the fire. Instead, the three stirges come flying in with a horrible buzzing, concentrating their attacks on the character on watch. If the players encounter stirges they do not encounter the leucrotta and if they encoun-tered the leucrotta they don’t encounter the stirges.

One encounter is enough for first-level characters! If you decide to use the stirges, read the following to your players:

With a horrible buzzing, three strange flying insects the size of large rats with bat wings, grasping claws and hideous mosquito-like snouts swarm all around you. You shout to wake your comrades as the gro-tesque monstrosities are upon you—seeking your warm flesh with their evil beaks.

The stirges are not particularly quiet. The character on watch can make a Listen check (DC 12). If successful, he is aware of the stirges’ approach and is not sur-prised. In addition, he can make a Spot check (DC of 14) to see them coming. The stirges concentrate on one victim until they drain enough blood to sate their thirst, at which time they will detach themselves and fly away at one-half their speed—bloated from their recent feast. If an attached stirge sustains a hit and takes damage—even if not enough to kill it—that stirge will detach itself and fly away seeking less re-sistant prey elsewhere.

Stirges (3): CR 2; SZ Tiny beast (2 ft. wingspan, 1 ft. body length); HD 1d10; hp 6,5,5; Init +4 (Dex); Spd 10 ft., fly 40 ft. (poor); AC 16 (+2 size, +4 Dex; AC 12 if attached); Atk +6 melee (1d3, touch, piercing, plus special attack blood drain on subsequent rounds); Face 2 ½ ft. x 2 ½ ft.; Reach 0 ft.; SA attach, blood drain; SV Fort+2 Refl+6 Will+1; AL N; Str 3/-4, Dex 19/+4, Con 10/+0, Int 1/-5, Wis 12/+1, Cha 6/-2. Skills: Spot +8 (acute sense of smell), Hide +14. Feats: Weapon Finesse (touch), Darkvision (200 ft.). SD—Attach (Ex): If a stirge hits with a touch at-tack (target’s armor bonuses ignored), it uses its eight pincers to latch onto its target’s body. A stirge attaches itself with incredible strength and cannot be pulled off. You must kill a stirge to remove it. If an attack is made against an attached stirge, that attack is at –4 because the other person must be careful not to hit the victim. The victim does not suffer this penalty. An attached stirge has AC 12. SA—Blood Drain (Ex): An attached stirge drains blood, dealing 1d4 temporary Constitution damage each round it remains attached. Once it has drained 4 points of Constitution, it detaches and flies off to di-gest its meal. Temporary Constitution damage is re-gained at a rate of 1 point per day. Description: Stirges are an obscene cross between a bird, a bat and an insect. They feed off the blood of living creatures and are universally feared. They have a long beak-like proboscis that they use to drain blood. They have four or six insect like legs that end in in-credibly strong pincers they use to attach to their vic-tims while at their vile feast. They normally feed on animals or children, though they are known to attack humans when hungry. Because of their enhanced sense of smell and the range of their darkvision, it is diffi-cult to surprise a stirge unless they are sleeping and digesting after drinking their fill of blood. When they sleep they hang upside down like a bat.

The Smiling Skull

You have driven off the beasts, though some of you are wounded. You know that you must get out of this wilderness soon. You travel for two more days, and finally you believe the beast’s haunting childlike cry is behind you. At last, the weather starts to clear, and as you stop for a water break along a stream, you see a strange rock formation atop a hill to the west. You can’t be sure, but from your current angle it looks as if the rocks have been placed purposefully. You venture closer and discover that someone has arranged large rocks on the top of the hill in the shape of a grinning human skull.

This is a red herring, and has nothing to do with this adventure. In fact, it is an homage to a classic old ad-venture, which had just such an arrangement of stones on the hill in which a certain tomb was located. The party may wish to waste a lot of time and energy here, but there is nothing to find. One of the rocks, however, has been enchanted with a Nystul’s magic aura, de-tecting as abjuration magic (DC 18) if the party casts a detect magic spell.

Act II—A Bird in the Hand

A Pleasant Camp

Today’s travels were a pleasant change from the previ-ous four days. You even found some fresh blueberries and two of your group downed a small deer. You make camp in the open, near a copse of trees, and bask in the warmth of the late afternoon sun with full bellies and dry clothes. You figure your party is still four days travel from Fairhill.

At this point, draw up a camp on the battle map. Talk about a proposed watch order, as if you are going to proceed to spending the night. Once those matters are all settled, continue on to the next scene.

Corian’s Tale

As the sun drops below the horizon and the fire dims, Corian asks you all to gather. You have been waiting for Corian to explain more of his purpose behind the formation of your group, wondering at his true mo-tives. Before tonight, he has always rebuffed your questions, saying that he will speak further when you are far from prying eyes and ears in Reme. It appears that time has come.

This Scene is entirely for the players, and you should stay out of it as much as possible. Let the player who is playing Corian tell as much or as little of Corian’s back-story as he or she wishes. Encourage the player to speak to the group contemporaneously rather than simply reading from the provided background sheet.

But remember that this is probably the first major block of role playing in this adventure and that it is being done with pre-generated characters, not charac-ters the players made themselves, so the Corian player will have less of a connection than usual with his or her character. Let the other players ask questions of Corian. The length of this Scene should be dictated entirely by the interaction of the players. Just sit back and watch. You should only intervene if the Corian character makes an obvious mistake. But even in that situation, don’t correct it immediately—the player may be having Corian lie on purpose. Let them bring the Scene to a conclusion—not you. Just as they seem to be coming to a comfortable conclusion, shift immedi-ately to the next scene.

Talon

Just before Corian finishes speaking, one of you no-tices that you are not the only listeners. About fifteen feet away is the largest raven you have ever seen, and it’s eyes glow with red fire. You jump up, frightened, as the raven flies off into the night with a shriek. This must be Talon, the familiar of Corian’s nemesis, Vor-tigern. You fear that your enemies are near at hand.

There is no way the PCs can kill Talon now, and he automatically gets away in the round it takes the char-acters to grab their weapons. Let them take several shots at Talon if they want (DC of 35). Play up the fear of the impending attack which never comes and make them hear plenty of “things that go bump in the night” for the rest of the night (2-3 noises disturb the watch). Vortigern, however, remains a day behind the group and will not appear until Act III. He sent Talon ahead to scout…successfully, it seems.

The characters may be frightened into traveling at night—which is unwise. If they do, halfway through the night they are attacked by 3 stirges. The stirges are completely unrelated to Vortigern and Talon and are a random encounter. The party will not have this encounter if they remain in their camp through the night. Use the stirge statistics from the alternate en-counter described in the “Encounter Modification” section of the “Voice in the Darkness” scene, above.

Stirges (3): CR 2; hp 6,5,5. See the stirge descrip-tion above.

Act III—Vortigern’s Trap

The Farmhouse

You have traveled two days and nights since the de-monic bird disturbed your camp, drawing within two days travel of Fairhill. Finally, you feel as though your enemies have lost your trail. You see a farmhouse off in the fields, near the woods, and you decide to see if the farmer will let you rest in his barn for the night. As you approach the small dwelling, you notice that something is terribly wrong. The farmer—or what is left of him—lies in the front yard of the home, half eaten and missing one arm. His wife, and three small children lie in various contorted positions, the smallest boy completely disemboweled. Blood covers the hay in the yard, and a chicken pecks at the corpse of a young girl lying in front of the barn.

You need to draw this map. Depict a simple farm dwelling with one door and several windows, as well as a barn, with an open front and small three-foot high wooden-fenced pen enclosing the front area. The gate in the wooden fence is open allowing the animals out of the barn and pen. The farmer’s body lies in front of his home. His wife’s body and two of their children lie just inside the door to the farmhouse. Their young daughter’s body is inside the animal pen in front of the barn.

Examination of the bodies by a healer or any fighter familiar with combat wounds easily determines that they were all killed with swords or axes and that the murderers were enthusiastic in their work. If a healer or cleric with healing powers makes a successful Heal check (DC 15) that character discovers that two of the children have dagger-like wounds that drip a strange poison. Allow any character with the Heal skill to make a check (DC 28) or any person with Knowledge (Poisons) skill to make a check (DC 24) to evaluate the poison. If, somehow, they make the roll, tell them it appears to be poison from some magical creature. If the roll is failed (which it should be), tell them they have never seen such poison before.

Searching the House: The house and barn have sev-eral animals running around: 4 pigs, 30 chickens, and a draft horse. In the trees a few hundred feet away—in the opposite direction of Vortigern—are 3 cows. There is little of value in the house, but an old short sword hanging above the fireplace is in fact a +1 short sword, though it has no outward appearance of being magical. A hidden compartment in the bed (DC 20 Search check unless they specifically search the bed, then DC 15) contains 22 silver and 45 copper pieces.

Two lanterns and numerous other dry goods are about as well. If the party buries or consecrates the bodies, they will not have to fight zombies when Vortigern springs his trap (see “Ambush!,” below). If they wish to search or bury bodies, let them do so. As soon as they either make camp at the farm or leave the farm to make camp somewhere else, proceed to the next scene immediately. Don’t let the party get set up inside the house. The encounter with Vortigern is at hand…

Ambush!

All right, here it is—the grand finale. But before we begin the fight itself, a little background is in order. Vortigern’s Plan: Vortigern orchestrated this encoun-ter to get the amulet from Corian. He has underesti-mated the party and believes he can simply take the amulet by force. Vortigern and his thugs have been following behind the characters for some time. Using Talon as a scout, Vortigern learned the party’s direc-tion of travel. Projecting the party’s path, Talon scouted and found this farmhouse. Vortigern and his thugs came here and slaughtered the farmers, figuring that would draw Corian and his comrades to investi-gate— setting the perfect trap. So far it has worked exactly as Vortigern envisioned. Vortigern plans to summon undead to surround the characters while he and his thugs hide in the nearby trees and fire missiles and spells at them. He then intends to send Talon to retrieve the amulet from Corian. In preparation for this encounter Vortigern cast a number of spells on him-self. He is protected by the following spells: resis-tance, shield, mage armor, and protection from ar-rows. See his description for more details.

Encounter Difficulty: Now that you know the basics of Vortigern’s plan, you will have to decide how diffi-cult you want the combat to be.

Difficult: This level of difficulty should be used only if your players are veterans and if they are relatively uninjured going into the combat. Now is a good time to remember the GM advice we gave you at the begin-ning of the adventure—don’t be out to get you players. Only use this level of difficulty if your players can handle it. If you decide on using this level of difficulty: