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Elrond Half Elven
Learned Scribe
United Kingdom
322 Posts |
 Posted - 09 Feb 2006 : 21:57:05
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I was reading through the Candlekeep Compendium Volume II, when Chris Jameson's Adventure Hook III caught my eye, I started thinking about it and came up with the following idea.
Adventure Hook III
This hook can be used in any community, from a tiny fishing village to the bustling streets of Waterdeep, Calimport, or Suzail. Jalyssa has led an uneventful life. The only daughter of Janter and Sylrina Colp, Jalyssa has spent her entire life -- a mere fourteen summers -- in this community. She has been a dutiful child, doing her chores without complaint and helping raise her younger brother. She is known to be a cheerful girl, and is becoming popular with the teenage boys of her community.
Two mornings ago, something unusual finally happened in Jalyssa's life. When she awoke that day, her entire back was covered with strange runes. The spidery, inch-high runes appear to be written in black ink, but no amount of scrubbing can eradicate them. The language they were written in is not one that's known to Jalyssa, her family, or any of the PCs.
The only clue Jalyssa can offer is that the night before, she dreamed of a hooded and robed man whose eyes glowed as he chanted in an unknown tongue. This dream might not be connected to the mysterious appearance of the runes, or it could portend something dark for Jalyssa…
The Plot
A Githyanki sorcerer has completed his mission to assassinate a prominent Ithillid plane-traveler and is seeking to return to his home plane. However during the assassination, most of his accompanying war-party where slain, including the wizard whom was charged with returning the party safely home once the deed was complete.
Zerthjigai the Githyanki sorcerer removed a planeshifting device from the body of the Wizard, in an attempt to make sure that at least one githyanki returns to report the deed. To power the device the soul of a sentient being is required. Unfortunately, for Zethjigai, several Ithillids found the body of the assassinated Flayer and started to conduct a search. The Githyanki was forced to flee the Underdark, emerging from a cavern near the small mining town of Naskel on the Swordcoast.
Zerthjigai used the cavern as a base of operations to conduct a survey of the area- mainly in an attempt to locate a victim to operate the device. He soon discovered the Colp household on the edge of the village and realised the young daughter of the house would bean idea candidate to subject to the machine. The first stage of operating the device is to prepare the vessel in which the soul currently resides. To do this, the vessel (in this case Jalyssa’s body) must be marked with a spell of freedom. This is written in the Infernal Alphabet but the language is that of the Githyanki.
The second stage of activation begins with Jalyssa experiencing terrible nightmares. What’s actually happening is that Jalyssa’s spirit is becoming detached from her body (this only occurs when she is sleeping) so at night her spirit is soaring around the landscape however Jalyssa’s spirit is drawn towards the machine and contained until she awakes. Due to the infernal nature of the device, while draw towards the machine she’s subject to terrifying nightmares, these will of course end in the morning when she wakens. However each time the spirit is drawn to the device a little of it is trapped in the machine.
On the Fifth night, unless stopped, the young ladies spirit will leave her body for the last time. Her soul trapped in the device, will be traded with a nameless devil and in turn the machine will activate, returning Zethjigai to his home plane. In the morning all that will be found is Jalyssa’s lifeless body, which unfortunately is far beyond raising.
Development
The players could get involved in this adventure in an number of ways; either Janter or Sylrina, both desperate, might plead for the players to help in someway or the players might hear the tale of a girl who was visited by demons in the middle of the night. Alternatively the players may be hired by the major of Nashkel to investigate the rumours of strange visitations or the players may be hired by the local church of Helm to help lay the demon riddled child to rest (either by her death or banishment of the ‘demons’).
Several Ithillid thralls (and perhaps a retainer or two) followed the Githyanki to the surface emerging from a different cave in the same mountain range however.
If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, or even a totally different plot please post it here.
Hanx
Elrond
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Once upon a midnight dreary, while i pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore-
While i nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
-The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36805 Posts |
Posted - 09 Feb 2006 : 22:55:13
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Wow... That is a really cool way to develop that hook. I hadn't really thought about it all that much myself -- once I wrote the hook, I pretty much stopped thinking about it.
I'm quite interested in how this one plays out for you and your players. 
Oh, and as an aside: when I came up with this hook, I was laying in bed, trying to think up a hook for my next batch. I glanced over at the back of my sleeping girlfriend, and boom! the hook pretty much wrote itself, right then. |
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Conlon
Learned Scribe
Canada
132 Posts |
Posted - 10 Feb 2006 : 01:58:00
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Well now, I suppose it is best that it twas only thy lady's back that thou spied on that eve, lest the scroll ye did scribe would not find a home in such hallowed halls as these...
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My hopes are ashes, my dreams are dust. All my intentions mean nothing unless they are followed by action. |
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Adventure Development- Candlekeep Compendium II
