An agent of the Balacazar criminal organization who runs a money lending operation decides to relieve some of an undertaker's debt if he'll provide them with lots of free labor. He's discovered a sealed ruin he wants to break into, having read about it. It was the abode of three wizards ages ago. He has been given the ok from higher up to delve.
An undertaker with a gambling debt gets coerced into withholding bodies from the grave, replacing them with mannequins. Those bodies get turned into undead for a secret mining operation in the dungeons below Ptolus.
Suddenly those zombies end up scattered around parts of Oldtown and Midtown in the city above the dig site. Encountering one of the zombies is the first thing that gets the PCs involved. The second is meeting the daughter of one of them that asks for their help. She owns a business that can be directly impacted by the sudden reappearance of her recently deceased father wielding a pick-axe in the middle of town.
The actual dig site could be in the original city of Ptolus which is below parts of Ghul's Labyrinth just below Oldtown, and above the Giant's Staircase. In the adventure as written, the dig is below the docks, which doesn't work for Ptolus because of how the area is built up using tons of fill.
It's easy enough to make new excuses for why some things are in the location, like the skeleton of a sahuagin priestess and her belongings, and also easy to explain why part of the area below is partially flooded.
A small tribe of mongrelmen inhabit part of the old city that still has some partial buildings standing. They can be made into allies.
This adventure includes the possibility that the loan shark and his buddies manage to loot the treasures in the explored area before the party has a chance. There is a time table for the scenario progression that makes such a thing possible.
No comments:
Post a Comment