The Mysterious Tower
This is the title of a scenario by Goodman Games:
I got it from RPGNow in a sale of downloads, and used it last week for the strange tower sitting on a potential trade route between the Young Kingdoms and the east, via the Weeping Wastes.
Session narrative
The characters search the sarcophagus from which the second part of the Runestaff appeared, and find a previously concealed compartment. Inside is a selection of valuable gemstones and a magic ring. It bears a runic inscription composed of three elements: the runes for food, drink and permanence. Basically, the person wearing this doesn't need to eat or drink, although they can if they like. Useful in a desert environment. Sir Blanque gets this one. They also 'milk' the paralysing venom from their three docile crawling creatures into some glass vials. Yeuchh.
The characters find that the rest of the tomb complex is deserted; any survivors from the bandit gang have fled via a secret passageway leading out from the hills, presumably the exit for the original tomb builders. A reunion is held with Akrat Bey's men and the other characters who were looking after the horses. The Brass Dog and his force say goodbye and turn round to head back to Ginjada Oasis, and the party heads off on the next leg of their trip to the east.
They are going towards a break in the great mountain chain known to the nomads as the World's Spine, which divides the Wastes from the east proper. According to Alexia, there is a valley located towards the southern end of the great mountain chain near the sea. Situated there is a ruined old fort, with a strangely intact blue tower in the middle, still standing.
On the way, they meet a herd of a dozen wild steppe ponies who decide to accompany them permanently, which is nice. Arriving in the vicinity of the tower, Avan Astran stays behind with Nadjana and Alexia to look after all the equines while the others go to investigate.
This means that Destiny, Sir Blanque, Marion, Ehlessa and Bomilcar approach the place together on foot. They see a low hill on which sits a classic square fort, mostly ruined; instead of a keep there is a blue tower that glows ever so slightly. The characters really don't like the look of this, so they manifest all of their accompanying elementals, just in case. A bit of healthy paranoia won't go amiss. As they gingerly approach through the now ruined gatehouse, Destiny and Sir Blanque see the image above - a spirit of some sort battering silently against the glowing blue exterior of the tower - from the inside. Closer inspection shows that the tower is in fact made of beautiful white marble. It has no windows or doors, and is surrounded by a a blue zone that sits slightly outside the tower's walls. There are also three sets of buildings.
The five check out the southwest corner of the fort, only to find it overgrown with all sorts of vegetation. It must have been an orchard at one point. Something nasty seems to be slipping around in there, so they decide to flush out the area with the water elementals. Moving to the southeastern tower, they hear scrabbling and munching noises, which on closer investigation prove to be three impossibly large beetles squabbling over some dead giant rats; Destiny uses the Egg of Hylar to charm them and orders them telepathically to follow the group. Just in case. They pass what looks like an old barracks, which is pretty much empty. A large area of the northeastern curtain wall has collapsed into a hole in the ground, which suggests that there may be some sort of complex below the castle; it looks very dangerous, so they avoid it, fetching up at what is left of the northeastern tower. The entire ground floor of this one has caved in, creating a large sinkhole that seems to descend quite far underground.
Marion is lowered on a rope to take a look, and shouts up that she can see a large cavern about 40' below ground level. It has a single exit, and beyond that there appears to be an even larger natural cavern containing what looks like a weird fungal forest. The rest of the group joins her and they combine their three water elementals together to make a giant bubble around themselves. This is in response to Bomilcar warning about breathing in spores that can lead to disease or worse. Protected in this way they enter the fungal cavern, which turns out to have all sorts of giant mushrooms and things growing around its edges, with a relatively clear centre. There is again a single exit, so they head towards that. [I decided that they wouldn't encounter the things lurking in here because of the presence of the water elementals.]
They now move into another cavern with a single way out, this time a reasonably recently dug upwards tunnel leading to an area on the ground level outside the fort's walls. Inside this cave is a large stone cube, which they realise must be a flight of stairs leading both upwards and downwards - so there must be at least one more level beneath this one. It seems odd seeing a stairwell from the outside, if you know what I mean. Lurking in here is an especially large insectoid thing, which doesn't look too happy about being disturbed in its home. It rears up and advances on them, mandibles clashing and dripping acid all over the place. Sir Blanque chucks a vial of paralysing venom at it and the fragile glass breaks, splashing the creature with enough to make it fall over, twitching. They hurry past it to the passage leading upwards as quickly as they can before it recovers. They all manage to scramble up the passageway with no mishaps, except Marion, who hurts herself as she slides back downwards again [fumble on Climb and another on Balance - double 20!]. However, the section of Runnestaff seems to glow warmly in her backpack and her minor hurt is healed. Now she knows that the staff has some special abilities.
They find themselves outside the northwest corner of the fort, and clamber back in over the low ruined walls. Approaching a long low building with a partially intact roof along the west side of the interior of the castle, they smell much bat guano and decide not to bother with that, instead turning to the last of the three internal buildings (not counting the tower). This turns out to have been officers' quarters or something like that, and they find a set of stairs going downwards. Thinking about it, however, this flight is nowhere near the location of the stairwell in the cavern of the large insectoid, nor does it seem to go down very far - so there is yet another layer of passageways.
They progress down to the first underground level. There are two main areas here, the first being sealed off by the rubble collapsed from the curtain wall in the northeastern part of the compound above. There are some archways and pictographs that seem to indicate something was sealed in here. Unlike the stairwell and the other passages they can see, this area is relatively crudely constructed, suggesting that it predates the fortress proper. This means that whoever built the fort and the tower did so on top of a pre-existing minor site of some kind. Rather than try to dig their way through to whatever might be sealed off, they turn back to the main part of this underground layer.
The group passes through the castle dungeon, cells and all. They avoid a rather hulking and disgusting looking thing that is lurking in one of the cells; it too seems to be put off by the presence of the elementals. They also find some bear tracks in the muck; part of the dungeon area has been hollowed out and a group of large creatures has dug an extra series of their own tunnels. Rather than investigate, though, the five do a thorough sweep of the dungeon area because this is where they should be able to find the stairwell leading down. They do indeed, closed behind a secret space in a wall panel within the old interrogation room.
This takes them down to the lowest level of passageways, an especially well constructed series that loops inwards. They manage to avoid several nasty looking pit traps as they wind inwards towards the location of the tower. They find the base of the structure, again glowing blue, but with a lever beside it, set into the passage walls just outside the blue shimmer. There is a single door at the base of the tower. The spirit or whatever it was Sir Blanque and Destiny saw seems to be trying to batter its way out towards this lever, but to no avail. After some deliberation, they pull it and the blue effect dies away. The spirit departs with a sigh. It would seem that whatever that blue sheen is, it effectively stops anything at all getting in and out of the tower, even a soul. Pulling the lever upwards restores the blue.
Entering the tower itself, they find themselves in an unbelievably well appointed library. There are books here on all sorts of subjects (non-magical), a veritable ton of information on skills, abilities, history and so on, all written in Low Melnibonean by what seems the same hand. There is a lovely bed, a superb writing desk, magical lamps that have runes for light and permanence inscribed on them, a chair and a full writing set. All are heavily enchanted; even the bookshelves are magical, even though the books themselves are not. Slumped across the desk is the skeleton of a long dead sage, still wearing his blue robes. There is no dust or anything like that. A flight of stairs leads upwards.
Up they go, walking into another single large room. [The place is bigger on the inside...] In here are two cages of shimmering blue light, each containing a beautiful woman, one blonde and one brunette. There is a further staircase leading upwards, protected by the shimmering blue. Off to one side is what Sir Blanque describes as a control panel, based on his prior experiences with Gunther Pugh the scientist from Amarehk. It has three buttons. The two women call out for the group to free them' "Help me! No, not her! She's a demon. If you let me out I'll reward you." Nobody can tell which of the two is telling the truth, and the forcefields [for that is what they are] stop witch sight being of any use. Eventually Sir Blanque presses all three buttons and all three barriers vanish, as do the two women. Marion, however, registers that the brunette has gone invisible and has a demonic shape, wings and all - there is no sign of the blonde woman. Sometimes those shadow abilities come in handy. She kills the demon with a single thrust of her own demon dagger [Critical]. The blonde woman then reappers with what she calls special cloaks for each of the party. She explains that she is some kind of nature spirit, and that these will help protect against fire. She then leaves again, this time permanently.
Up they go to the top level. This time they find the treasury, which contains a whole load of items including potion bottles, all neatly labelled with the same handwriting as downstairs. There are various bejewelled and begemmed [is that even a word?] items in the middle of great pile of gold - there are 3,000 small gold coins, a veritable fortune. Unfortunately, guarding them is a giant blue air elemental man person, who warns them politely. "I do apologise, ladies and gentlemen. I have been bound by a pact to guard this gold for a period of 1,001 years, of which 750 have passed. The skeleton you found downstairs is that of the builder and owner of this place, a sorcerer who studied force magic. Unfortunately for him, he tried to unite it with science, and miscalculated the size equations for his final force field. [Basically, he fumbled!] I have been providing air, water and food for the duration, but I must warn you that I have to protect the gold in this room."
The characters deliberate; he seems like a nice chap. He speaks to each of them in various languages, always saying the same thing as he looks them dead in the eye - "I am here to protect the gold." Sir Blanque reckons he is trying to tell them something, and then Marion realises that he is here to protect the gold, which means that they can grab everything else. The Prince of the Air smiles and affirms that this is indeed the case - "Otherwise I would have to engage you in some rather indelicate combat," he says.
With that they loot the treasury of everything. Except the gold, that is.
Umpire's Notes
This was another session with almost no combat whatsoever. The Mephit they met in the form of a human woman didn't know that they had various perception abilities, and was mightily surprised indeed when Marion stabbed her when she turned invisible. That was the only moment of melee combat in the entire session. This isn't the first time the players have gone right to the heart of things; they have a talent for avoiding all sorts of peripheral nasties in their single-mindedeness to get to the root of the current problem, and this occasion was no different. They also prefer to use tricks and sneaking to avoid combat if at all possible, and I have to say this is quite impressive, especially given their ages...
I got it from RPGNow in a sale of downloads, and used it last week for the strange tower sitting on a potential trade route between the Young Kingdoms and the east, via the Weeping Wastes.
Session narrative
The characters search the sarcophagus from which the second part of the Runestaff appeared, and find a previously concealed compartment. Inside is a selection of valuable gemstones and a magic ring. It bears a runic inscription composed of three elements: the runes for food, drink and permanence. Basically, the person wearing this doesn't need to eat or drink, although they can if they like. Useful in a desert environment. Sir Blanque gets this one. They also 'milk' the paralysing venom from their three docile crawling creatures into some glass vials. Yeuchh.
The characters find that the rest of the tomb complex is deserted; any survivors from the bandit gang have fled via a secret passageway leading out from the hills, presumably the exit for the original tomb builders. A reunion is held with Akrat Bey's men and the other characters who were looking after the horses. The Brass Dog and his force say goodbye and turn round to head back to Ginjada Oasis, and the party heads off on the next leg of their trip to the east.
They are going towards a break in the great mountain chain known to the nomads as the World's Spine, which divides the Wastes from the east proper. According to Alexia, there is a valley located towards the southern end of the great mountain chain near the sea. Situated there is a ruined old fort, with a strangely intact blue tower in the middle, still standing.
On the way, they meet a herd of a dozen wild steppe ponies who decide to accompany them permanently, which is nice. Arriving in the vicinity of the tower, Avan Astran stays behind with Nadjana and Alexia to look after all the equines while the others go to investigate.
This means that Destiny, Sir Blanque, Marion, Ehlessa and Bomilcar approach the place together on foot. They see a low hill on which sits a classic square fort, mostly ruined; instead of a keep there is a blue tower that glows ever so slightly. The characters really don't like the look of this, so they manifest all of their accompanying elementals, just in case. A bit of healthy paranoia won't go amiss. As they gingerly approach through the now ruined gatehouse, Destiny and Sir Blanque see the image above - a spirit of some sort battering silently against the glowing blue exterior of the tower - from the inside. Closer inspection shows that the tower is in fact made of beautiful white marble. It has no windows or doors, and is surrounded by a a blue zone that sits slightly outside the tower's walls. There are also three sets of buildings.
The five check out the southwest corner of the fort, only to find it overgrown with all sorts of vegetation. It must have been an orchard at one point. Something nasty seems to be slipping around in there, so they decide to flush out the area with the water elementals. Moving to the southeastern tower, they hear scrabbling and munching noises, which on closer investigation prove to be three impossibly large beetles squabbling over some dead giant rats; Destiny uses the Egg of Hylar to charm them and orders them telepathically to follow the group. Just in case. They pass what looks like an old barracks, which is pretty much empty. A large area of the northeastern curtain wall has collapsed into a hole in the ground, which suggests that there may be some sort of complex below the castle; it looks very dangerous, so they avoid it, fetching up at what is left of the northeastern tower. The entire ground floor of this one has caved in, creating a large sinkhole that seems to descend quite far underground.
Marion is lowered on a rope to take a look, and shouts up that she can see a large cavern about 40' below ground level. It has a single exit, and beyond that there appears to be an even larger natural cavern containing what looks like a weird fungal forest. The rest of the group joins her and they combine their three water elementals together to make a giant bubble around themselves. This is in response to Bomilcar warning about breathing in spores that can lead to disease or worse. Protected in this way they enter the fungal cavern, which turns out to have all sorts of giant mushrooms and things growing around its edges, with a relatively clear centre. There is again a single exit, so they head towards that. [I decided that they wouldn't encounter the things lurking in here because of the presence of the water elementals.]
They now move into another cavern with a single way out, this time a reasonably recently dug upwards tunnel leading to an area on the ground level outside the fort's walls. Inside this cave is a large stone cube, which they realise must be a flight of stairs leading both upwards and downwards - so there must be at least one more level beneath this one. It seems odd seeing a stairwell from the outside, if you know what I mean. Lurking in here is an especially large insectoid thing, which doesn't look too happy about being disturbed in its home. It rears up and advances on them, mandibles clashing and dripping acid all over the place. Sir Blanque chucks a vial of paralysing venom at it and the fragile glass breaks, splashing the creature with enough to make it fall over, twitching. They hurry past it to the passage leading upwards as quickly as they can before it recovers. They all manage to scramble up the passageway with no mishaps, except Marion, who hurts herself as she slides back downwards again [fumble on Climb and another on Balance - double 20!]. However, the section of Runnestaff seems to glow warmly in her backpack and her minor hurt is healed. Now she knows that the staff has some special abilities.
They find themselves outside the northwest corner of the fort, and clamber back in over the low ruined walls. Approaching a long low building with a partially intact roof along the west side of the interior of the castle, they smell much bat guano and decide not to bother with that, instead turning to the last of the three internal buildings (not counting the tower). This turns out to have been officers' quarters or something like that, and they find a set of stairs going downwards. Thinking about it, however, this flight is nowhere near the location of the stairwell in the cavern of the large insectoid, nor does it seem to go down very far - so there is yet another layer of passageways.
They progress down to the first underground level. There are two main areas here, the first being sealed off by the rubble collapsed from the curtain wall in the northeastern part of the compound above. There are some archways and pictographs that seem to indicate something was sealed in here. Unlike the stairwell and the other passages they can see, this area is relatively crudely constructed, suggesting that it predates the fortress proper. This means that whoever built the fort and the tower did so on top of a pre-existing minor site of some kind. Rather than try to dig their way through to whatever might be sealed off, they turn back to the main part of this underground layer.
The group passes through the castle dungeon, cells and all. They avoid a rather hulking and disgusting looking thing that is lurking in one of the cells; it too seems to be put off by the presence of the elementals. They also find some bear tracks in the muck; part of the dungeon area has been hollowed out and a group of large creatures has dug an extra series of their own tunnels. Rather than investigate, though, the five do a thorough sweep of the dungeon area because this is where they should be able to find the stairwell leading down. They do indeed, closed behind a secret space in a wall panel within the old interrogation room.
This takes them down to the lowest level of passageways, an especially well constructed series that loops inwards. They manage to avoid several nasty looking pit traps as they wind inwards towards the location of the tower. They find the base of the structure, again glowing blue, but with a lever beside it, set into the passage walls just outside the blue shimmer. There is a single door at the base of the tower. The spirit or whatever it was Sir Blanque and Destiny saw seems to be trying to batter its way out towards this lever, but to no avail. After some deliberation, they pull it and the blue effect dies away. The spirit departs with a sigh. It would seem that whatever that blue sheen is, it effectively stops anything at all getting in and out of the tower, even a soul. Pulling the lever upwards restores the blue.
Entering the tower itself, they find themselves in an unbelievably well appointed library. There are books here on all sorts of subjects (non-magical), a veritable ton of information on skills, abilities, history and so on, all written in Low Melnibonean by what seems the same hand. There is a lovely bed, a superb writing desk, magical lamps that have runes for light and permanence inscribed on them, a chair and a full writing set. All are heavily enchanted; even the bookshelves are magical, even though the books themselves are not. Slumped across the desk is the skeleton of a long dead sage, still wearing his blue robes. There is no dust or anything like that. A flight of stairs leads upwards.
Up they go, walking into another single large room. [The place is bigger on the inside...] In here are two cages of shimmering blue light, each containing a beautiful woman, one blonde and one brunette. There is a further staircase leading upwards, protected by the shimmering blue. Off to one side is what Sir Blanque describes as a control panel, based on his prior experiences with Gunther Pugh the scientist from Amarehk. It has three buttons. The two women call out for the group to free them' "Help me! No, not her! She's a demon. If you let me out I'll reward you." Nobody can tell which of the two is telling the truth, and the forcefields [for that is what they are] stop witch sight being of any use. Eventually Sir Blanque presses all three buttons and all three barriers vanish, as do the two women. Marion, however, registers that the brunette has gone invisible and has a demonic shape, wings and all - there is no sign of the blonde woman. Sometimes those shadow abilities come in handy. She kills the demon with a single thrust of her own demon dagger [Critical]. The blonde woman then reappers with what she calls special cloaks for each of the party. She explains that she is some kind of nature spirit, and that these will help protect against fire. She then leaves again, this time permanently.
Up they go to the top level. This time they find the treasury, which contains a whole load of items including potion bottles, all neatly labelled with the same handwriting as downstairs. There are various bejewelled and begemmed [is that even a word?] items in the middle of great pile of gold - there are 3,000 small gold coins, a veritable fortune. Unfortunately, guarding them is a giant blue air elemental man person, who warns them politely. "I do apologise, ladies and gentlemen. I have been bound by a pact to guard this gold for a period of 1,001 years, of which 750 have passed. The skeleton you found downstairs is that of the builder and owner of this place, a sorcerer who studied force magic. Unfortunately for him, he tried to unite it with science, and miscalculated the size equations for his final force field. [Basically, he fumbled!] I have been providing air, water and food for the duration, but I must warn you that I have to protect the gold in this room."
The characters deliberate; he seems like a nice chap. He speaks to each of them in various languages, always saying the same thing as he looks them dead in the eye - "I am here to protect the gold." Sir Blanque reckons he is trying to tell them something, and then Marion realises that he is here to protect the gold, which means that they can grab everything else. The Prince of the Air smiles and affirms that this is indeed the case - "Otherwise I would have to engage you in some rather indelicate combat," he says.
With that they loot the treasury of everything. Except the gold, that is.
Umpire's Notes
This was another session with almost no combat whatsoever. The Mephit they met in the form of a human woman didn't know that they had various perception abilities, and was mightily surprised indeed when Marion stabbed her when she turned invisible. That was the only moment of melee combat in the entire session. This isn't the first time the players have gone right to the heart of things; they have a talent for avoiding all sorts of peripheral nasties in their single-mindedeness to get to the root of the current problem, and this occasion was no different. They also prefer to use tricks and sneaking to avoid combat if at all possible, and I have to say this is quite impressive, especially given their ages...
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