Mad God's Key - Dungeon Magazine 114

Mad God's Key is a starter adventure for a campaign beginning at 1st level. It is an urban adventure that is perfect for introducing characters to a larger city, taking PCs on a trip through various districts. Originally written for D&D 3.5, it is another one that easily lends itself to conversion into other editions including 5e.

Fits like a glove . . . This can be put almost anywhere from Greyhawk (the setting it is written for) to Waterdeep, or in my case, Ptolus. While most of it takes place inside the city, there is one part that occurs outside. In the case of Ptolus that doesn't have to happen and the small dungeon is a great match for the district where I'll be placing it.

I'll be using this to start things off in the city of Ptolus when the characters arrive. The characters in my campaign are already quite a bit above the levels the scenario is designed to handle. Some adjustments are being made, but there's no harm in leaving some segments as an easier challenge as long as the story progresses properly. 

No detailed spoilers are included in this post. It'll all come out when the game session write ups are posted in the future, but some things will be mentioned.

The adventure begins in the Guildsman District when characters become involved in recovering a stolen key (the title of the adventure gives that much away). The trail leads to the Docks, to the Warrens, to Oldtown, to the Temple District, and then the Necropolis. The opportunities opened up by this progression make showing off what Ptolus has in store easy. There are more districts in Ptolus that are not touched on in this adventure, but something needs to be left for later. 

NPCs fall into place almost seamlessly for organizations within Ptolus. Later plot possibilities can be set up as if they belonged there the whole time. 

There is not a clock ticking to get things done, but it feels that sooner might be better than later, and sooner makes more sense for the course of events as some take place the same day that things get rolling. Spots do remain available to squeeze other stuff in between events, but you will want to keep the players involved in the plot so keep outside influences to a minimum.

As I write this post I am trying to goad myself to get on with painting a number of miniatures and pieces of terrain that will make for a good 'welcome to Ptolus'. Anyone that has followed this blog for any amount of time likely knows that motivation is often a weak point for me. At least I have them ready to be primed.

If you can land yourself a copy of Dungeon Magazine  #114 get it for this adventure.

Magic Item - Mercilinda's Beautiful Boots

"Whoa, quit stomping in cow manure! You'll ruin your nice new boots!" Embuk looked perturbed as Mercilinda stomped in her third cow turd.

Mercilinda grinned and kicked a particularly juicy clod of shit in Embuk's direction. "Not to worry, these beautiful boots are magically protected from getting dirty."

These boots are made from the finest white leather, polished to a bright shine. With a permanent Prestidigitation cantrip of cleaning, these boots can be used in the filthiest of conditions and never get dirty.

Item Availability: Common. User: 1st level or higher. Cost: 50 to 100 gold pieces.

Practical Magic - Dungeon 113

Practical Magic is an adventure full of personality. Many personalities in fact. 

A necromancer whose work is focused on making skilled undead even better at their jobs, he sees corpses that aren't being put to productive purposes as wasted material. He gets wind of another spellcaster with a sense for putting magic and inventions to practical uses and sees an opportunity for the two of them to work together, bettering both their efforts.

He sends an invitation to meet, but the message doesn't arrive because her boyfriend is breaking up with her. So the necromancer has his very smart undead servant kidnap the wizard.

The boyfriend is a dominated servant of a mermaid vampire. So is his cousin. 

The mermaid vampire has the boyfriend lure the downtrodden, poor, or depressed to her lair under the guise that she is a fortune teller that can help relieve them of their burdens. She then convinces the victims to go out of the world in an exotic way . . . as her food.

The boyfriend's cousin has turned evil and now wants to become a vampire.  

The ghast that kidnapped the wizard is addicted to fine clothes and fancy furnishings. He owns a Hat of Disguise that lets him pose as himself before being turned into a ghast, and allowed him to pull off the kidnapping.

The kidnapped wizard has heard out the necromancer's idea and come around to giving it serious consideration. She however has her own plan for how things should work.

Much of the adventure takes place in the two hidden lairs and will require time spent in the water. 

Now we just need to figure out where everything is and who else might be involved.

According to the module the mermaid vampire's lair is about 300' off the coast in about 20' of water, with a bunch of sharks around it. This could be almost anywhere as long as it stays not too far from Ptolus. Victims need to be able to reach the lair and her agents need to be able to return to the city fairly quickly, but it all needs to remain unnoticed. At first I thought to put it south of Beacon Island, but reading further into the adventure made it more likely that the necromancer's lair is under the south end of the island. Two major lairs that close together doesn't work for me.

Then I looked north of the docks. It might work, but it starts to come close to the territory of the Covenant of Blood and their Sahuagin allies. it could certainly work. She might be one of the 6 vampires in the Covenant. She's good with sharks and so are the Sahuagin. The drawback is that PCs that defeat or drive her away make enemies of the Covenant, the Sahuagin, the Balacazars, and all of their other allies. That's a lot of weight bearing down on the player characters. Maybe the mermaid vampire is viewed as unwanted competition by the Covenant and they'd like to see her gone, one way or another. 

"One thing about living in Ptolus I never could stomach is all the damned vampires."

Studying necromancy is not technically illegal in Ptolus, but creating undead or bringing undead into the city is outlawed. This is reason for the necromancer to have a hidden lair off shore. The lair is fairly large so he needs a big place to put it and under the south end of Beacon Island seems perfect. The island already has a reputation of being haunted. The necromancer is a known entity, and has in the past aided in fighting off pirates, so while dealing with unsavory things, nobody has gone out of their way to try and put an end to his practice.

Interesting is a great way to describe this adventure. It is possible for characters to make enemies of just about everyone in the module if enemies aren't killed. They could also end up with some bizarre semi-allies depending on their own sense of morals.

Satanic Panic

 

The Queen With The Burning Eyes - Dungeon Magazine 113

Evil cultists lead by a monied individual, check. Weird creatures within a section of Ghul's Labyrinth, check. A key to Dwarvenhearth, check. Evil delvers lead by a necromancer that want the key, check. This scenario plays well in Ptolus. The cultists might work as worshippers of Father Claw.

The real challenge here falls on people without the Eberron setting information about the monsters. You'll have to build some of them yourself, but that's fine because you'll have a solid understanding of how they work in combat when you finish construction.

The basics of the plot involve a bit of construction work/excavation work that is a cover for the monied cultists to operate in the labyrinth dungeon below. Some people are getting kidnapped, others mugged, burglaries of nearby homes and shops happen, etc, since the underground was opened to the surface.

Locating the dungeon is simple and it fits well in the Guildsman district. 

I used part of this with some of the characters in my first Ptolus campaign, but it never was fully completed. When the characters got a look at the Naga the cultists were sacrificing people to, they bolted from the dungeon. 

Pour a Potent Potion into one of These.

 Time for more shameless self promotion. The blog's Zazzle store has these mugs and some other things for sale. Follow this link to see what's available. If you like something order it. Thanks!

http://www.zazzle.com/tdaalmerch*     <----- Link

Below are the designs on three other mugs. Pardon the duplication of images. The banner design mug image copied fine, but the rest came out, well, not as mugs.

There are cards with these images, you can send to folks for whatever reason or to invite them to a special game session. 

Also there are a banner pin and a banner magnet available.

The Stink - Dungeon Magazine 105

Now who doesn't want to root around in and under the Middens and the sewers beneath them? You don't? What about your player characters?

This adventure will require some changes to play well with Ptolus, but the concept is solid.

Evil Locathah, non-evil Locathah, lot's of nasty encounters and dangerous filth. What's not to love?

Diseases are at the root of this adventure. Included in the scenario are 6 new diseases, described in juicy detail. 

The evil Locathah are worshippers of a god of disease and have chosen the midden and the sewers and caves below to set up a lab for incubating more and more virulent disease strains. 

You may have to put some effort toward getting the player characters involved in this mess, but a couple of options are put forward. A missing friend is one possibility, but I like the second option better because it can be developed with more detail. An important item, maybe a family heirloom has been accidently dumped into the vastness of the Midden and because of its nature the owner is willing to pay for delvers to go and get it back. There are also some missing people being held down below so the PCs might be pursuing that lead.

You can easily combine this with other scenarios like the one with Ularis Gadare offering a reward to go in and retrieve something he wants.