One bookshelf of tomes on becoming a lich, controlling undead, diseases and curing

Alzar finds the lich’s diary in his bag. It appears that he stayed to protect the dungeon of his former home, and ultimately decided that the new village on top was too much over his old home. He created a spell to disease the population, and due to the magical nature of it, it can’t be cured, but it can be dismissed with a Dispel Magic. Also, the lich was cursed by a servant of Arentia because he was of two minds, and was given one head of each mind. That prevented him from too much esoterica, and he is instead living a quiet life here in the dungeon.


The case keeps components fresh and handy, in a small belt pouch that brings a component that’s needed right to the top by thought and can hold enough spell components for all spells, but it can’t hold anything else.

The haversack is a backpack with two side pouches. The pouches act as mini-bags of holding for 1000 coins each, and the main compartment for 2500 coins. There is no digging around required, and by telepathy knows what the user needs and it is at the top.

Here is the spell in Xaene’s Spellbook that he made (not in module, but I added it)


Xaene’s Mighty Chilblains (Alternation, Necromancy)

Level 8
Casting Time: 8
Duration: Permanent
Range: 100 yards
Components: VSM
Saving Throw: Neg.

This spell places a powerful mystical disease on the recipient. The disease is 25% contagious to any human touched by a subject who has the disease. While the initial target of the spell gets a save to negate the spell, any other person touched contracts the disease 1 in 4 times and does not make a saving throw. The disease takes one week to complete, and anyone inflected will die. It cannot be healed by any curative magic, herbs or items, due to its nature as a magic disease. Only a Dispel Magic or something similar will end it. The material component for this spell is a bit of diseased flesh, used by the spell.


It’s quite appropriate for a servant of the goddess of disease and decay. Her influence is clearly felt down here in many ways. Here is the full spellbook when Alzar gets it unDispelled:



Xaene’s Spellbook

1st – Affect Normal Fires, Charm Person, Comprehend Languages, Find Familiar, Grease, Identify, Magic Missile, Read Magic, Write
2nd – Continual Light, Darkness 15’, ESP, Invisibility, Levitate, Melf’s Acid Arrow, Shatter, Vocalize, Web
3rd – Clairvoyance, Dispel Magic, Explosive Runes, Flame Arrow, Hold Person, Material, Melf’s Minute Meteors, Phantasmal Force, Wind Wall
4th – Dimension Door, Fear, Fire Shield, Ice Storm, Magic Mirror, Polymorph Other, Wall of Ice, Wizard Eye
5th – Animate Dead, Conjure Fire Elemental, Dismissal, Dolor, Hold Monster, Sending, Teleport, Wall of Force
6th – Bigby’s Forceful Hand, Control Weather, Enchant an Item, Glassee, Globe of Invulnerability, Guards and Wards, Legend Lore, Repulsion
7th – Banishment, Drawmij’s Instant Summons, Limited Wish, Mass Invisibility, Phase Door, Reverse Gravity, Torment, Vanish
8th – Bigby’s Clenched Fist, Binding, Glassteel, Incendiary Cloud, Mind Blank, Permanency, Polymorph Any Object, Symbol, Xaene’s Mighty Chilblains

Alzar looks at the items he confiscated later, and here is what he acquired:

Chair of Seeing – Show illusion of person the sitter wants to see, as the sitter views them

Coffer and Barrel of Arentia – Place a seed from coffer into barrel, and it takes 8 hours to grow into a random 8hd or less undead that serves the person putting the seed in. Seed spoils the water and that water, when consumed by evil or undead, heals for 1 hp per gulp. The coffer and barrel refill as used, even if fully emptied.

So that means Alzar has three undead a day, forever. Now it could be a skeleton or zombie randomly, but it could also be a shadow, or a ghoul or a wight, and so forth. Then it can be used to heal including undead. In one year, without casting any magic or using any corpses, the seeds will have made 1095 undead, assuming one was dropped every eight hours precisely.

The tapestries were cursed, and Alzar didn’t want them.

Conquered - 10 ghouls, 48 zombies, 8 wraiths, 10 wights, 5 specters, 1 black pudding, 8 shadow, 7 displacer beast, 1 vampire, 8 werewolves, 120 skeletons, 16 swordwraiths, lich

XP - 103,215

Total - 1,265,711

Welcome to level 13

He gains a hp and one each of 1st. 2nd. 3rd and 6th level spells. The next level is at 1.5 mill

Alzar meets back with the White Alchemist, and they trade several spells. She walks away with one of Alzar’s Tomes of Might. He adds Alamir’s Fundamental Breakdown and Semi-Permanency in exchange.

After half a day, the White Alchemist updates Alzar that the Dispel Magics are working very well here. However, several other cities in Thorasia are suffering from diseases with unknown roots, and she told them of Alzar’s findings, and yet the Dispel Magic does not seem to be working.

Alzar tells her of his findings in the old dungeon of the destroyed castle. Many seemed to be from Arentia, goddess of decay and disease. Perhaps this is part of a coordinated plan by her on Thorasia from several angles all at once?

Everything decays, that is the nature of things. Alzar has no gripe with Arentia, but the wealth and knowledge he gained here is valuable. He now is in possession of a spell which is not just rare but unique. He has he only copy of a spell made by a lich. The lich can make it again, and knows how to, but for now, Alzar has a unique spell. That’s is a valuable thing. He also gained a large number of valuable undead and some powerful items. Lust for power burns deeply in Alzar.

Iuz’s Gambit



We are skipping the next adventure, which doesn’t make sense for Alzar or the campaign really, and then going straight to the second to last one in the book.



She tells him of a small city undergoing a disease but with different symptoms and different levels of lethality. Alzar teleports to the small city, at 12,000, of Verbobonc. This city is the closest civilization to Hommlet, Orlane, and the destroyed Temple so Alzar is back in somewhat familiar territory.

Alzar is outside of a temple to Harkangi, goddess of mending and peace. It has been turned into a hospital, treating the diseased. In here, the disease does not run its course at all, and does not lead to death either. It incapacitates with massive virility and more than 1500 of the citizens already have it and are bedridden. No magical cure works, not even the Dispel Magics the White Alchemist told them about. The streets are laden with miracle workers proclaiming the value of their latest invention against the disease for a low price. Others cry out doom for the world.

The high priest of the temple meets with Alzar. He is Carlan Dieg. Due to Alzar’s help fighting another disease in the White Alchemist’s city, he brings Alzar up to speed on the details he knows. It started about six weeks ago, and no one has died from it. He set up temporary care centers throughout the five districts of the small city. The first case was on a main street, and another in a house at the same time, on opposite sides of the city. Carlan visits each of the centers daily to oversee the patients and care, but there is no chance of a cure based on the magic they currently have.

Alzar begins to investigate, but he can’t use the Orb’s Detect Lie, because holding a great Amber-Skull artifact in your hand while questioning a witness won’t be the smartest idea for multiple reasons. Once again, Alzar is by himself in the town, with just his familiars on him He unloaded his objects at his dominion, and teleported back to here after resting and memorizing a new slate of spells.

Here are the spells Alzar has memorized:

Sleepx3, Comprehend Languages, Hypnotism, Friends; Ray of Ondovir, Tasha’s…Laughter, ESP, Empathic Control, Speak with Dead, Forget; Slumberx2, Vampiric Touch, Skulltrap, Dispel Magic, Dire Charm, Bands of Sirellyn; Rary’s Mnemonic Enhancer becoming Dispel Magic, Remove Curse, Evard’s…Tentacles, Mordenkainen’s…Maidens, Alzar’s Quest; Teleport, Dominatinx2, Animate Dead, Contact Other Plane; Flesh to Stone, Invisible Stalkerx2;

Alzar decides to begin with the first two found diseased and talks with them, but gets very little, they are out of it. He’s convinced they weren’t trying to hide anything, since all of the patients are the same way. Carlan couldn’t remember who found the first diseased people, but after looking for an hour, Alzar finds a priestess who remembers that it was a merchant from Chance who was selling parchment and buying goatskins. His name was Tovak, and he did not catch the disease. Tovak left five weeks ago and headed northwest to Intaria, and Alzar discovers the other case was found by a child of 12 named Marisu. Alzar locates Marisu, and talks to her. He uses the Orb with her to save spells because she likes shiny things and covers the skull part. She is not lying. She came across the older lady at a busy well, where she had collapsed. The girl cried for help and many of the people there came and brought the old lady to the local temple of Harkangi. Alzar asks which well and moves there. It appears to be a normal well, but Alzar wants to see if there is anything here. The water detects as normal with the Gem. With his Bracelet of Swimming and Necklace of Adaptation, he plunges into the well and swims to the bottom.

His Continual Light stone reveals a spring at the end of the well and Alzar sees nothing else. No creatures, no bones, no magic of any sort. The Gem shows nothing hidden. Refusing to submit, Alzar explores every inch and crevice with his fingers and finds nothing. This was a dead end lead. Every section of the city has its own well and the square and promenade and Keep each have on as well. Alzar does the same and inspects all of the wells in the city is the same manner and finds nothing. In fact, he discovers that three of the wells come from one spring, and the rest from another, and yet people got sick on all areas of the city, in equal measure. There are no numbers to track down, and nothing points to any cause. All of the people affected are from every age, wealth, and gender. There seems to be no common denominator. Alzar even manages to track down Tovak and teleports to him and uses ESP. Tovak knows nothing beyond finding the diseased person against his stall and reporting it to the police.

However there is one detail Alzar finds interesting. While talking with Tovak, the merchant gets a bit carried away and tells Alzar everything about it, including details of the disease. As he found the person, the condition of the male was different than that of the normal disease. The disease itself is fairly standard across all people and very consistent. Why would this person have different symptoms?

Alzar teleports back with Unifex’s help and talks with the girl again in detail. She describes the condition of the person she found and again, the condition differed from that of the normal disease, as well as the male found by the merchant. In both cases, a diseased person was found on opposite sides of Verbobonc and with different symptoms from each other and the main disease, but they both led to it. In all cases the bodies were publicly found, and taken to the authorities, who took them to the local temple of Harkangi. In both cases, neither witness is lying. There appears to be no connection with the water. What is it then?

He returns to the first two patients and their symptoms are now identical to the ones everyone has. A local priest says that the disease begins in exactly the way it is seen now, and Alzar is taken to a new case just brought in, and although it is clearly in the beginning stages of the disease, there are no symptoms that differ from the main ones. Alzar is convinced that the difference between those two cases and the disease now is the key to figuring out what is happening. He revisits Carlan Dieg.

Suspecting that something might be held back, Alzar uses his weekly silent ability to use ESP to see if perhaps the high priest isn’t giving him the whole story, as Alzar asks if there is anything that the priest might not have told him, anything minor that could help his case. The ESP brings back nothing, because it’s not working. The high priest is immune to it. That could mean a magical item, spell, or something else. For example, undead are usually immune to ESP, but he’s not, Alzar tries to control him secretly, but no spiritual pull or tug. Carlan tells him that there is nothing else. Alzar sighs and says that privately, he is about to give up, and confides in him his failed attempt with the wells.

All the protection against his ESP spell did was ignite his curiosity more. It could be nothing, after all, Alzar has a magical item that protects him from ESP spells and that doesn’t mean Alzar is behind every scheme out there.

Curious to find out what is happening, he goes to a temple converted to a hospital in another section of town and waits until a fresh body is brought in. He casts both Remove Curse and Dispel Magic over it, just to see what may happen, and neither have any effect at all. At least that part seems to be correct.

Alzar casts Contact Other Plane and tries to link with beings on the Astral Plane about what is happening. All he can find out is that there is a divine connection with the disease, and not a wizardly one, like the other disease was. In and of itself, that is an interesting thing. This is not natural, and not from a mage, but from the other realm.

With a divine source, Alzar places Carlan on his suspect list. He was about to investigate the town watch to see if the police may have done something to the two diseased ones or if there was a connection there, but both bodies were brought to Harkangi’s temples, but to different ones. The connection is Hankangi, and Carlan is one of the few people that connects the three temples to Harkangi in the city.

Alzar does some searching on Carlan, and he is supposedly above reproach. He has been here in Verbobonc for his entire life, and is loved by many. His neighbors love him too, but they say that in the last two months he’s been rather distant and off-putting, but that’s due to the stress of the situation. Alzar hammers down the time and Carlan started acting oddly before the disease began by about two to three weeks.

With familiars in his OtherSpace and tucked away, Alzar goes invisible and moves to the Carlan Diag home, called the Diag Estate due to his family building it more than 60 years ago. It’s a two story wooden home painted grey. The shrubbery and trees are in need of a good trim and the grass is over grown a bit. It appears that Dieg has not has this area manicured in at least a month ,and likely longer.

There is just one door to the buildings a cobbled walkway to a shuttered window on a wooden door with iron bracing. Alzar grabs the Chime of Opening and uses it, and the door opens. The musical note is snuffed and he waits for five minutes, but no one come sot shut the door. With Elven Boots stifling any noise and footprint he makes, and invisible, he moves in

There is a once plush hallway beyond, dusty and musty. A closed door is on the right, There is a locked shuttered window in front of him. An Ear Ring at the door reveals sounds of several people beyond talking gruffy. As a military man for more than a decade, Alzar knows the sound of mercenaries, bandits, pirates and professional soldiers immediately. He prepares a spell, and opens the door a bit. Someone notices but by the time he drops sand from his fingers and says three words, 6 of the people in the room fall asleep.

Their commander, who looks quite capable, throws a poisoned dagger at the now revealed Alzar before charging with a sword coated with poison. He wins init and swings and would hit, save for the Cloak. Alazr’s axe is out and swings. He nails the guy for 20 damage. The swords attacks him twice and misses once (high AC) and hits a second time for 6 damage and Alzar easily makes his save vs poison. Alzar adds another 44 damage and slays the fighter.

Scroll Protection from Nonmagical Weapons
Potion – Clairaudience
Large tube of poison, lethal
6 50 gp gems

There are doors to the left and right and stairs up. Alzar heads right and this is the bedroom their commander used. In here is 200 gp.

The other door opens into a large hall with a blue carpet, old but well kept. There are mirrors, busts, a portrait of Carlan Dieg, and more. Doors are to the right, forward, forward left, and back left.

The right door opens to a kitchen, and the Gem and a quick inspection shows nothing else here. Forward is a den with bookshelves, but no tomes of interest, rugs and doors to the right, left and far left. The right door opens to a storage room with stairs leading down. He heads ack and left opens to a servant’s room. There is a servant in here who looks very nervous. A quick Orb check shows him to lie about being a servant, and as he make for the window to escape, Alzar drops him with Slumber and slays him.

There is nothing of interest in the room or on the body. Alzar goes to the far left room, which is an empty bedroom for more servants and nothing is here. One of the remaining rooms on this floor is a bath area and the last is the master bedroom, and Diag’s own chamber. There is nothing out of place, save a holy symbol to Arentia.

Alzar goes up and there is nothing on the level at all, no people, most of the rooms are unused with most collecting dust and few footprints. He heads back down and moves to the stairs going down.

The stairs go down for 50’ and then end in a small room. The Gem of Seeing reveals a secret door and Alzar uses the Ear Ring and hears a large dog or wolf behind the door. Alzar makes sure the Lens are secure on his eyes and throws ip the secret door and tries to charm the dog. It succeeds and he gains a war dog:

AC6, hp 20, 2d4 damage, thac0 – 12,

Alzar pets the dog who is wagging his tail happily and they move on. The next room Ear Ring behind a door reveals a large number of military men. There are too many for a spell such as Sleep. Right now, Alzar has the elemental of surprise, but he finds keeping it difficult. He slips back into his Speed Boots. If he can’t sneak through them, then the least he can do is smash into them. He conjures three Earth Elementals from Stones and Mud Ring, an Air Elemental from the Censor, and a Glabrezu from the Orb. It’s time to go in hot.

He has an Earth Elemental smash the door and they move in, with Alzar and his dog behind. There is a commander and 16 guards here. He orders ten of them to form a spear wall to fight a charge and the others to fight from missile range behind them. The last one runs to tell others about Alzar’s presence. He orders the elementals to focus on the spears, and chases after the runner once he orders the demon to teleport by him and stop him.

The runner is quite fast, but Alzar’s speed and the demon catch up to him and bring him down in the hallway after the room. There are two doors at the end of the hallway, and Alzar waits, and one opens with three people checking to see what the noise is about. They open the next door and order the soldiers there to come after Alzar. The glabrezu Power Word Stuns one and moves in to kill him later. Alzar is met by the elementals, who finished the fighters in the room and a badly wounded one is attacked by missile weapons from these two leaders who slay it. 25 soldiers spill into the hallway, going wall to wall across with a spear wall and missiles behind.

Alzar wins init. A skulltrap into their midst slays many of the soldiers and others move to take their place without fail. The leaders carve the demon, who also took damage from the Trap. The elementals arrive and push through the spearwall, but can’t quite make it. They are attacked and ht a few times. The war dog is slain by a trio of crossbow bolts.

They win init. They badly damage the glabby, and continue to peck at the elementals. They reciprocate by taking out more grunts and Alzar casts Sleep and drops 5. The officers order a retreat. The remaining soldiers can’t get away and are carved up, but both officers make it out and into the room the 25 soldiers came from.

Alzar runs in and the demon teleports in to face them. There is a door on the far side they are moving towards. One breaks off to protect the other and attacks the demon. Alzar casts Bands of Sirellyn on the one running and catches her. The other slays the Demon but Alzar’s axe finishes him.

The captured female won’t give him any information, so the Orb;s detect lie doesn’t do anything. He ties her up for now so that he can ESP her later if needed. It doesn’t; look like any more runners go free, so he inspects those slain.

+2 spear
950 gp
Silver Ring with Amethyst – 780 gp

Animate Dead brings out 14 skeletons and Alzar leaves behind the elementals and undead to scout ahead invisibly, back into Elven Boots. This door opens into a corridor that goes right and forward-left. The Ear Ring makes out an odd sound right, so he goes that way. It turns 90 degrees back on itself, and terminates in a door, behind which Alzar’s magic detects chanting by one male.

Alzar’s plan is to open the door, and then cast Domination on whoever is back there. The door opens a bit, and Alzar’s spell is away, but it fails. Meanwhile, the priest of Arentia turns and suddenly he goes invisible and the room is covered in Darkness. Alzar casts Dispel Magic and drops both. He casts Command on Alzar and it hits the Ring of Spell Turning. It rebounds at just 10%, so Alzar saves at +1, and misses, and the priests makes his save at a +9 bonus. Alzar is forced to leave for a round. Then he comes back to find the priest has cast some defensive spells while he was running away and back.

The priest casts Silence on Alzar and it hits his Magic Resistance and doesn’t nail him. He responds with Empathic Control, and fails. The priest casts Hold Person and Alzar makes his save, as does the priest. Alzar follows with his last Slumber and drops the priest, and slays him.

On the corpse, Alzar finds

+3 Mace
Elven Boots
20 1000 gp diamonds
Ring of Spell Storing (2, 2, 2, 2, 3) – Darkness x2, Wraithform still in it
Staff of Curing *

This is a special Staff of Curing which will cure the disease, has any number of charges, but doesn’t do anything else.

This room is sparsely furnished as if the priest had not been here long. A door on the other side opens to a hallway that curves to the right and passes two statues of Arentia. It arrives at three pools of water in the hallway, which do not detect as magical, and are only a few inches deep. Alzar moves to the brackish pool at the end of this corridor. There is nothing down here and Alzar returns and moves left at the corridor.

The hallway goes forward, and then hits a door and turns right. The door opens into another hallway parallel to the one his is in and another door, so he returns and moves right. A door at the end of this hallway right reveals the sound of people inside, but not many. Alzar’s troops are mentally commanded to join him in case they are needed. With few spells left, he brings three Vrocks from the Demon Staffs and they all cast mirror image. He also summons two Invisible Stalkers. With a large amount of power, Alzar opens the door.

Behind it are two priests at a table talking and a third reading a prayer book on her bed. Instantly the demons teleport in and the Stalkers move into the room. They make short work of the clerics, who are too busy with the summoned creatures to deal with Alzar, who just axes a priest who begs him to live. The three Priests of Arentia are inspected, but nothing of worth is here.

Alzar returns to the hallway leaving his non-invisible party members behind, but flanked by Stalkers. He turns left and opens the door he noticed before This is a strange hallway with two narrow stairs heading up on the right and left and it continues and ends at a door to the right.

Left up the stairs ends at a shrine to Arentia. It is a rectangular area with a marble floor. There is a crystal altar with eight stones in it which cannot be removed. He casts Transmute Rock to Mud with the Mud Ring and grabs the eight stones, each worth 2000 gp. Nothing else is back here.

The other stairs lead to a rough hewn chamber with rocks and dirt. From the ground rises an Earth Elemental and it stands there, doing nothing. Alzar moves forward, and it tries to converse with Alzar. With the Orb, Alzar understands the common language of Earth creatures and speaks back. It has been summoned and imprisoned here. Alzar erases the symbol on the ground holding it here, and it is free and can remain on this plane for 24 hours before leaving. Seeing Alzar’s Earth Elementals, it offers to join him against the cleric who captured it and imprisoned it, and he agrees.

They return to the hallway and the door at the end opens into a prayer room with a door on the other side. There are brass idols and accoutrements, worth very little. The door out leads deeper into the corridor that Alzar left so he continues along it for eight minutes. He has gone back to silent mode with just the Stalkers in front.

The corridor opens into a room with empty stone pedestals and nothing else. The Gem shows nothing, so he moves south and reveals a Dracolisk sleeping. There are two doors to the front right by each other. Alzar moves in and casts Stone to Flesh on it and it works, and he has slain the dracolisk. The troops are moved into this room, and a Gem investigation to the southwest shows something interesting. A secret door is revealed. Scuffling is heard behind the doors, and Alzar’ opens them. Out pour five trolls, who are slain by the elementals. Alzar adds acid to their bodies to finish them off. There are doors to the rear of a large cavern, and Alzar senses undead.

20 zombies and 3 juju zombies join Alzar’s forces

There are many casks and boxes in these three rooms, which are for storage. There is nothing back here, and the secret door is opened. A hallway stretches beyond, and twists and opens into a large cavern, where Carlan Dieg casts Blade Barrier across the entrance to stop anyone from entering. The Vrocks teleport in and Alzar joins them with Unifex in hand.

Carlan casts Slay Living on Alzar. It is rebounded at 60% efficiency and both make their saves. The Vrocks attack and deal 28 damage. Alzar casts Ray of Ondovir at Carlan and he fails the save. The vrocks add another 17 damage and Alzar adds 23 with his axe and finishes Carlan. When he dies, Carlan resumes his original form of a priest of Arentia.

Alzar finds the Diary of Helthrax the cleric. He was sent by Arentia to infiltrate the Temple of Harkangi by polymorphing into the form of the high priest after slaying Carlan and taking his place. Then he was to infect the diseased with a special disease Arentia’s followers developed. They helped it spread with the temple to others who came in.

The plan was to infect most of the city, and then easily slay the leaders and install himself as the ruler of Verbobonc in Arentia’s name. The soldiers he paid would be his military. A special staff was prepared that would cure Arentia’s condition when touched, and any in his service who came ill were healed. The disease did not kill, so they wouldn’t destroy the workforce. They could heal a few of the townsfolk at a time and force them into work or service until all were healed and the entire city under Arentia’s rule through Helthrax. It was a nice attempt at a coup.

The rest of the items here include:

+3 full plate
4x +1 elven chainmail
Amulet of Proof against Scrying and Detection


As this amulet is better than the one Alzar is wearing, he switches. The Earth Elemental leaves. He heads out and meets with the mayor, telling him what had happened. The mayor is given the Staff of Curing to heal the populace and rewards Alzar for his service. Alzar is allowed to select any common magical item he wants for his aid. There is one he has wanted for a while and that’s a Ring of X-Ray Vision. The mayor finds one for him as a reward. Once a turn it can be used to see through most things, rock, wood, and so forth. If used more that that it tires the user significantly, because the nature of the Ring drains strength and energy.

XP!

Slain - 21 1st level fighters; 2 level 7 fighter; 1level 5 thief; 1 6hth level fighter; 1 8th level fighter; level 8 priest, war dog, 3 level 5 priests, dracolisk, 5 trolls, 20 zombies, 3 ju-ju zombies, 1 level 12 cleric

Adventure XP - 27,465

Total XP - 1,293,176

The Scarlet Masque



The third in command of the Harkangi temples here in Verbobonc mention another disease in a far away city. Alzar arrives at the island city of Hesuel on one of the Hook Isles. The local population is a dark skinned intelligent sub race of humans and one of the oldest in Thorasia. This city is ancient, with many magic powers around it. The people of the Hook Isles are simultaneously more secretive and yet gregarious than other folk.

Alzar teleports to his home and rests the night and memorizes his spells before heading to Hesuel. This is a city kept at a constant 15000 with birth and death roughly equal and immigration outlawed. The city was built a long time ago at the top of a cliff, and there is no space into which it may expand, and therefore it has a population cap.

In this city, the plague has arrived, and the victims are taken to hospices set up by the town, and all available resources are being poured into it. People feel really good, and therefore there are no doomsayers or peddlers pushing tonics on the masses – they are optimistic.

This disease is more virulent than the others, but about 15% make it out alive, giving it a chance of survival higher than other places. No cure works, and the disease is spreading quickly. In just 16 days of the plague, more than a tenth of the population has it, and upwards of more than 75 have died already.

Alzar talks to the shrine of Harkangi here and discovers who was the first victim to have died and then seeks out the information on his burial at a local government records office. Then he casts Speak with Dead on the corpse’s grave. That person has to answer some questions Alzar asks of him. He was wandering alone at night when he began to notice red puffy skin on his right arm, and three hours later was bedridden for 6 days and died. He knows nothing more than that.

Alzar tries Contact Other Plane again, and learns that this is also from a divine source. He spends the day trying to investigate the various temples, and finds nothing.

At night, he teleports back to Verbobonc and borrows the Staff of Curing and returns. It does not work, and neither do Dispel Magic or Remove Curse. He returns the Staff and spends the night back at his complex before returning to Hesuel.

A Speak with Dead spell is cast on another dead person who died near the beginning. This teen informs Alzar that he was riding a donkey through town to the merchants in a nearby street when he got dizzy and fell from the donkey. Then he looked down and saw the infection in his body and was taken to the first of the hospices setup and he died 5 days later. He knows nothing else.

Alzar memorized more today and casts it twice more, but does not get any information that can connect the disease with anything. The next track he tries is to see what may have happened in the city prior to the disease’s arrival. His quest is going nowhere, until he is approached after noon by a thief who represents the local thieves guild. He tells Alzar that the guildmaster request his presence and he is led there. The guildmaster offers Alzar to ESP him and he does. He then tells Alzar what happened:


About three weeks ago, a strange casket arrived in the central park of the city, with a variety of mystic runes and the symbol of Arentia on it. It has a value of at last 30,000 gold, so one of his thieves tried to take it, and as he touched it, it opened and out came a giant creature to force the thief away and returned to the casket. The thief died the next day after wasting away, shriveled. It was sa if he had aged decades in a day, gone weeks without hunger, gone days without water and been horribly diseased all at the same time. It scared a lot of the thieves. No one else approached the casket.

Since Alzar appears to be interested in taking out the plague, the guildmaster believes the casket and the disease are connected and offers to have Alzar escorted to it and he agrees. Alzar arrives at the park 45 minutes later. The casket is beautiful, and very magical. The Gem of Seeing hurts Alzar when he sees it through the gem and he is forced to put it down. The sheer amount of magic radiating from it palpitates the air.

Alzar does not know what it is, and casts Comprehend Languages to read the runes. They name this the Casket of All Diseases, but nothing else is on the tome. Alzar decides to summon help – Two Stalkers, and a Glabrezu from the Orb. The glabby moves to the casket and touches it, and it begins to open, pouring out an orange-gold light that shoots into the sky. From inside the ten foot casket emerges a giant 50’ figure who grows as he leaves it. He is broken and diseased with a thousand different ailments.

This broken one moves towards Alzar, despite the glabrezu touching it. The Power Word fails and the Stalkers move in. Alzar casts Flesh to Stone but it cannot be targeted by magic at all. It punches into the air and stabs a bleeding finger deep into a Stalker and takes out 35 hit points. Alzar grabs the Orb and summons an Earth Elemental to face the creature. It destroys the stalker and misses the demon, and it is not touched (-10 AC). The diseased power of Arentia flies from the one broken horn on the left of hits head and the energy stabs Alzar and he is diseased – no cure, with the condition everyone else has.

Alzar summons an Air Elemental and the creature slays another stalker with two hits. Then it takes 15 from a punch of an Earth Elemental. Alzar summons an Earth Elemental with the Mud Ring and it badly damages the demon for 51 hp and it takes 13. Alzar is ear to a fountain so he runs over and summons a Water Elemental with the Ring. He’ll summon another next turn with the Orb. An Earth Dies and another takes a good smattering of damage as the creature of the night takes 22 damage. The creature finishes the wounded elemental and takes just 9 damage from a water.

Alzar summons a Vrock with a Demon Staff. The creature carves into the glabrezu for 44 damage and takes 28. Alzar summons another Vrock and the creature finishes the glabrezu and is missed by everyone. Alzar summons a third Vrock and it gets hit badly for 54 damage by a bunch of unlucky hits. It uses a spell to destroy all of the foliage without 100 yards and heals a bunch of damage from it.

Alzar blows the Horn of Valhalla and summons berserkers, but they can’t damage or attack the creature, as it has a permanent Protection from Good ability. It takes 20 from an Earth Elemental and carves into it for one hit of 26 damage. Alzar casts Evard’s Black Tentacles on the area around it, but they can’t do any damage to it, the creature just shunts them aside. The creature misses the elemental and hits again wounding it even more. It takes 13 back. Alzar throws a dagger and misses. The creature finishes a wounded earth elemental and takes 18 from two Vrock hits. Two daggers miss and it casts Dispel Magic on the Mirror Images and all three Images are gone. It takes another 19 damage.

Alzar misses with a 4th dagger. The creature takes 15 and stomps on a Vrock for automatic death. Two daggers fly out and one hits for 16 damage. Alzar has no magical daggers left. An elemental hits for 15 damage and a Vrock for 9. The creature misses another Vrock with a stomp. Alzar casts Shield-Maidens and moves in. It takes 25 damage and slays the Vrock with a stomp. Alzar carves into it for 22 damage and takes 11 disease and necromantic damage back from the wound spray. It is missed by the others and stomps and slay the final Vrock. Alzar hews it once for 20 damage (takign 10 back) and misses. It is hit for 9 damage and it double hits a water elemental and finishes it. Alzar misses, and it is missed but it hits the last earth once for 33 damage. Alzar attacks twice, this once and deals 27 damage and slays the creature.

As it dies, the Casket of All Diseases, of which it was the animated soul, loses all of its magic and becomes a normal item. When that happens, all diseased people in the city, including Alzar, are healed. As the slayer of the Soul of the Casket, Alzar gains 20,000 XP for soloing it.

Current XP - 1,313,176

There are no treasures or items for Alzar to gain from this adventure. The casket is found to be rotting inside and destroys at a touch as if it were hundreds of years old (and it may be). Alzar does not know what or why Arentia began this attack on the world all of the sudden, or why she chose these towns and cities to bring her might to. Others also felt the scourge of her plague ridden fingers, and fought against it. Alzar returns to his complex to research what he found and continue to explore and create.

Within a month Alzar has created a new spellbook – The Tome of the Unusual. He copied all of the uncommon or rare spells he had from scrolls into one book, so he could trade them, make scrolls form them, and so forth.

The Tome of the Unusual:

Aganazzar’s Scorcher, Odeen’s Magic Cloud, Vipergout, Ray of Fatigue, Paralyzation, Dispel Illusion, Acid Bolt

I modified the three adventures. The first had its story changed and dungeon concept moved from sewers to an old dungeon, but otherwise, it was as printed. The second one had an even greater story change, but the dungeon was kept virtually the same. The third one, however, was massively changed. The only things kept were the casket in the forest. All of the encounters, the creature faced, and the stories were mine. Don’t purchase it expecting my stories.

WGR2. Treasures of Greyhawk




This is a book with a large number of small adventures based around one item. We’ll be doing in solo in quick-sim mode, mostly. No, this is a bedroom and he pulls out a Gem or Ear Ring stuff, or even the new uses an X-Ray Vision Ring. It’s all assumed and we’ll fast sim it. I figured this would be a fun diversion and change of pace.

Because of him soloing a lot now, he has several golems in OtherSpace ready to come out if needed.

One of the things that Alzar tends to do is to go back to dungeons a few days after he cleaned them out to double check everything, and make sure he didn’t miss anything the first time around. When teleporting back to the Diag estate, he again looks at the books in the Den, and again, most of them are not worth anything. But one title catches his eye and he pulls it down:

Treasures of Thorasia

This is a libram that outlays many major unique items, much of whom are magical. The book was written 143 years ago, and who knows where they are now. Alzar takes the book back home and peruses it.

The first item on the list that catches Alzar’s eye is a dagger named Bladestar. One of the spells that Alzar will be using to assist is a 6th level Divination spell called Legend Lore. With the detailed information from the text, it should take 1d10 days to find more information about. After 3 days, Alzar finds out where it is – the great city of Chance and how long it’s been there – two weeks. Alzar teleports to the largest city in the world, of more than two million people.

Bladestar




Alzar arrives in the city near where Bladestar should be. He begins to talk with people, and the scuttlebutt today is that a town guard committed suicide just a few blocks away. This is a day after a thief stabbed himself in the same vicinity. Both stabbed themselves in the neck with a dagger.

Clued in to what is happening, Alzar moves to investigate. The town guard found a young thief who slew himself with a dagger two nights ago, and that dagger was confiscated, and the one who had it killed himself with it last night, and was found early in the morning.

Alzar casts Speak with Dead with the town guard, and he tells Alzar that the dagger took over his body. That sounds like an intelligent weapon, which makes sense. The book says that this used to be the Dagger of a thief named Aliar Daraan. He was slain by another thief and he cursed his dagger as he died.

Alzar asks to see the dagger and it is in hiding, but a Charm spell allows two guard to let him see it. Bladestar is ornate, with several rubies and sapphires in the hilt. The Gem shows it as magical, evil, and chaotic evil in alignment. An identify spell fails and the dagger cannot be identified, and that’s interesting.

Alzar is not allowed to take it for further study, no matter how many friends on the force he has. An apprentice for the force takes it for the night and is found in the morning having slain himself.

Now desperate, the guard allow Alzar to investigate. After holding it, Alzar senses something…familiar. Undead? He tries to control it and fails (the creature is immune) but there is an undead presence in the blade itself. He casts Speak with Dead and talks with the spirit of Aliar Daraan.

Aliar was slain just two days before arriving in Chance to deliver the dagger to a powerful patron. He was a spy for the Cult of Death, and was delivering the dagger and information in a secret compartment in the handle to his handler when he was discovered by fellow guildmates and slain. Aliar became a spirit which haunted the blade and was placed in a treasury for decades. A few years ago, the treasury was raided, and bandits carried him far away from Chance, but he has recently forced people to bring him back and deliver the message.

Alzar negotiates with Aliar and he takes over Alzar’s body temporarily, but Alzar’s mastery over undead can force him out any time. Having done that, Aliar moves to a hidden sanctuary of the Cult of Death, but it is now a destroyed building. A sign in the wall tells where the new one is, and that has been converted to a merchant’s walk. There is another sign there, carved into the wall, with a rune that tells adherents where the new sanctuary is.

Aliar arrives at the most recent sanctuary and gives the passwords and motions. While antiquated, they are authentic. He claims he had a message to deliver to the chief priest. The lady arrives and he opens the secret compartment and delivers his message. Once he does, the spirit’s mission is complete and he leaves both Alzar’s body and Bladestar.

They talk for a bit and the message is clearly out of date, and Alzar gives her the full story about Aliar. Today’s Identify spell now works, with the undead no longer blocking it.

Bladestar - +2 dagger, CN, I 15, E 11, Detect Invisible, Charm Person on contact 3/day, strength 1/day, 19 or 20 does max damage when used in backstab. Slay Lawful Creature, 1/month – save vs death or dies instantly.

It joins Unifex on his bandolier and replaces a normal +2 dagger.

The Wizard Isn’t Home


The next item in the book is a gem called the Eye of Myr Div. According to the book, this was once the crown jewel of the Baron of Myr Div, but when his throne was taken from him by his bastard daughter, she hewed his skull with an axe breaking the crown and freeing the Eye. It appears to be non-magical. 8 days pass and the Legend Lore spell has a location – an beaten cottage about 180 miles from the old city of Myr Div, in the land of Repere.

The cottage is deep in the woods around a deadly section of hills. It is far away from civilization. Alzar approaches, but there is no sign of life, and the cottage appears healthy. The Gem shows the entire cottage glowing magical.


Alzar finds a shell protecting the cottage from outside, and an antipathy spell forcing people away from it. The combination of these defensive magics have kept it from being raided or looted. Excited by the possibility of finding the unmarred home of a mage, Alzar casts Dispel Magic to bring the protections down as does so. The house ceases to look like magic, and he moves to the door. A Chime of Opening breaks the Wizard Lock on it.

This is a large foyer to the cottage, which can’t have more than four or five rooms all told. The door, just opened, is made of wood and brass. There are magic glowing runes on the ground, and seven doors on the far wall to leave through. Furniture and non-magical items of little note dot the room and show age. Alzar casts Comprehend Languages.

The runes state that the only true direction is revealed by moon glow. It’s a long time until night fall, so Alzar has his familiars emerge from the OtherSpace. A passwall spell from his axe opens the wall and he moves to the next room.

This room is a study, and it has two doors, both open leaving it. One seems to move to a bedroom and the other to a kitchen. An enchanted scarecrow is in the room and moves to attack Alzar. He protests with a great axe and two turns later has finished it. He then moves to the kitchen, and the only back here beside the kitchen is a small larder. The bedroom has a rotted chest of drawers and rotted clothing. A secret door is exposed due to age and easily opened revealing a small amount of treasure, and the Eye as well.

Alzar uses the Gem and finds a +1 knife in the kitchen, and in the study most of the books have been dampened and worn with age and cannot be read. Alzar teleports back home the items he found, and returns with components and more. He begins to restore the interesting books with his spells

The Eye of Myr Div is a unique gem from another plane that fell here and is worth 25,000 gp. Other items found:

Potion of Fire Breath
1500 gp
200 pp
Scroll – Spectral hand, Ghoul Touch, Shocking Grasp, Vampiric Touch
Wand of Lightning – 12 charges
Ring of Pro +1

Alzar spends the next 11 days restoring tomes from here and takes back 46 books on anatomies of various creatures. He used Legend Lore during that time on the next two objects on the list of the book.

The Shroud of Karynina



The next entry on the list is a rare and exotic shroud used by the Duchess Karynina and was famous for years around. When she died, the Duke buried it with her as her burial shroud, and supposedly I is still there today. The Legend Lore spell confirms that the Shroud is with her.

Alzar teleports and arrives outside of a tomb erected 171 years ago. There is a cairn to one side, made of large stones. To the center is a mound about 150 feet high and a closed stone gate and fence around it. Alzar leaps over the wall and gate and the old stone door won’t budge so Chime of Opening causes it to open.

The hallway stretching beyond is 10 feet wide by 35 feet long, with double doors at the end and single doors two on each side. Alzar moves to the first door on the left and opens it. This is the crypt of the Duke, and he lies in state on a bed. Several busts and implements of the Duke’s life are here. Alzar collects 4560 gp wroth of random jewelry from the body and nearby. There is also a Wizard Scroll of Gullship, a 7th level spell that allows a ship to fly for its duration. Alzar inscribes it into his new Tome later.

The other door on the left came into this room. The first door on the right opened into a chapel for worship of Berstuk, god of faerie, trickery and mischief. There is a bone altar and not much else in here.


The next door opens to a crypt with 10 skeleton guards and Alzar commands them. They follow him. Nothing else is in this 15x15’ room.

Alzar arrives at the double doors and has a skeleton open one. There is a giant fresco on the wall behind, and a crypt at the center on a dias. Afemale form is on the crypt with a cloth that glimmers. The Gem shows that there is a secret door in the back and the crypt and cloth and body are all illusions. A clay golem hiding behind the illusions is moving up, and Alzar moves forward and tries to control it with his Talisman and….it works!

Clay Golem
50 hp, THAC0 – 9, damage 3d10, AC 6, STR 20, only magical blunt weapons hit, can haste itself for 3 rounds 3/day.


Because it was not made by Alzar it cannot be healed by Alzar’s Golem Heal. Only Heal, a 6th level cleric spell, can work on it.

Alzar moves to the secret door and a skeleton dies trying to open it from damage. Alzar uses the Chime and t opens to reveal the actual crypt for the Duchess.

This is a beautiful crypt, swathed in green and gold. In the center lies the crypt of Karynina, and she has become a Crypt Thing, an undead creature that guards crypts. She tries to teleport Alzar away and fails, and his axe is out. His boots enable him to close quickly and he carves her. She attacks and misses and he slays her.

The only thing in the chamber is her cloak, but the item has been worn and torn through the decades. The remaining value of it is the 20x 1000 gp gems from it Alzar collects.

The Helm of Selnor


The next entry in the book is the Helm of Selnor, which Alzar has already determined its location from the Legend Lore spell. It is in the barbarian lands to the far west, by the Trident, a rock formation which juts from the land straight into the air. There are three peaks, and the center one is higher than the others -hence the name. The top peak is more than 1000 feet straight into the air. Local barbarians consider the site lucky and have annual festivals in its shadows.

Alzar arrives at the third day of an eight day long annual festival. It commemorates the birth of the mightiest warrior of the barbarians ever had, a man named Hubanosh, who was the only one to unite the various tribes and upon his death, the tribes left, never to be united again. Now the only time they unite is in festival and memory of the man.

Today is a day of wrestling, and barbarians both male and female are wrestling inside of a pentagon made by the surrounded barbarians. Here is where friends are made and enemies forgotten in a forge of muscle and sinew. Alzar is immediately challenged by a barbarian. Due to the nature of the contest, they must remove all items, and Alzar may not use any magic or strength. He wrestles by himself and wins two bouts before losing. The honor of the festival would not be broken by thieves, and Alzar trusts hi non-magical equipment to the locals. As expected, he gets everything back he wanted.

The barbarian chieftess of one of the tribes is a women named Vestra. She has a magical helmet on her head which matches the description of the helm from the book. Vestra’s tribe was once a minor one, but in the last three years, it has gathered new allies among the tribes, and Vestra is gaining power .

Alzar introduces himself to the warriors of the tribe and is invited to share their tea, brewed from a local grass and drunk with butter and salt. The grass is rumors to imbue a warrior with clarity of purpose, to help defeat an enemy. It is drank both before to prepare and after battle to celebrate.

The warriors toast several visitors in their ranks tonight, but all must have won at least one bout in the pentagon. Four outsiders and non-barbarians are drinking with Alzar. Then tea is over as night begins to fall. They make their way to a nearby warren which their tribe uses as their home. It is a gentle hill with more than a dozen rooms. Vestra offers to talk with the strangers, and brings Alzar and the other four to her meeting room, deep in the warren.

She offers each of them a place in the ranks of her people, with glory too great to comprehend. The other four seem to agree with her and call her friend, but Alzar is not affected. As someone familiar with charms, he can sense that Vestra has charmed the others, but he is immune. He acts charmed, and manages to convince her than he is one of them.

Vestra’s husband, an invoker, arrives in the room and escorts them to their new quarters in the barracks. The charm is different than normal ones – the people charmed are acting like the other barbarians, despite none of them being from the barbarian culture. Alzar asks a few questions, and their alignment answers mirror those of the barbarians as well.

They join a room with 13 barbarians as night falls.


During night, Alzar grabs his sword and turns invisible. His elven boots are put on and he moves out to explore. The warren complex seems to have about 12 rooms total – including mess hall, meeting room, barracks,storage and more.

Alzar also encounters about 38 goblinoids that have been charmed and act like barbarians including orcs, goblins, a few bugbears, and six ogres. All told there are more than 50 adult warriors in the tribe, plus the goblinoids, and children. Then there is Vestra and her invoker husband, plus a pair of priests -
one of Camulos and one of his brother Mithris.

Alzar finds the chambers of Vestra and her husband. The X-Ray Ring reveals Vestra sleeping while her husband, Cudis, is studying a spellbook. No one is on guard this far back. Alzar gets to try a trick with the Ring he really wanted to inspect. He summons a glabrezu and three Vrocks, and then keeps sing the Ring to see behind the wall and they teleport in seeing with his eyes through the Ring. Power Word, Stun drops the mage and the demons easily slay the unarmored chieftess.

A chime of opening opens the locked door, and Alzar slips in. He quickly secures the door and searches.

He finds:

Cudis’s Spellbook

Iron Bands of Bilarro
Ring of Protection _2
Wand of Paralyzation – 22 charges
Cloak of Displacement
Spear +4

14000 gp worth of nice furniture, easily sold

Helm of Selnor

The Iron Bands are a globe of metal that, when throw at a target, expand and grab them. They have a chance to break bars with their strength, and if it succeed, the bands are permanently broken.

Helm of Selnor – Can only be worn by warrior with CHA of 15+, +1 AC and cast Charm once/day on group – save vs spells and cannot be broken normally, charmed become barbarians in culture and alignment, as well as friends.

Alzar dons the Helm and lowers his AC by one.

Cudis’s Spellbook

1 - Magic Missile, Read Magic, Detect Magic, Shocking Grasp, Identify, Hold Portal
2 – Stinking Cloud, Flaming Sphere, Continual Light, Levitate, Locate Object, Ice Knife
3 – Far Reaching I, Lightning Bolt, Slow, Tongues, Hold Undead, Fly
4 – Far Reaching II, Ice Storm, Phantasmal Killer, Stoneskin
5 – Far Reaching III, Cloudkill, Wall of Force


There is nothing in here Alzar wants to learn

He teleports back home and unloads his bounty.


The next item in the tome is an item called an Anti-Magic Egg, but the Legend Lore spell shows that it is no longer on this plane after four days.

On the Town



The next chapter deals with a two handed sword named Wyrmcleaver. A humble smith for a village saw his people slain in a dragon attack and forged a blade in anger and rage and poured himself into it. This man named Kelanen, took his sword and went to the dragon’s lair, and even the great beast could not silence the smith’s rage. While the dragon managed to slay him, Kelanen’s blade dug deep into its lungs and it died moments later.

Wyrmcleaver was passed to the knight of a Marquis named Derin. Derin followed his ruler well, and with the blade, drove back the three dragons that pestered the land. Two were slain and the third left, never to return again. When Derin fought against an incursion of orcs two years later, the blade did not serve him as well, and he was slain, and the orcs took the great sword. That is where it passed out of memory, more than 175 years ago.

Five days with the Legend Lore spell shows that the blade was passed to the temple of Malekbel, god of fire and the sun, who is generally perceived as a neutral deity, and husband to Gontia. Alzar teleports to a city of 18,000 on the shores of a nearby sea to the east.

After investigating, it appears that Wyrmcleaver is one of the items used by the local temple as part of their ceremony. He charms a priest and he informs Alzar that initiates to their order swear and use three objects as part of the ritual. These objects are a weapon, orb, and shield of considerable value, and differ from temple to temple. Since acquiring Wyrmcleaver, the temple hasn’t used it in battle, they just use it for their ceremony. The blade itself isn’t holy or anything, it’s just needed.

Alzar sets up a meeting with the chief priest. After discussing Alzar’s desire for the blade and what it is used for, the priest agrees to trade it for a weapon which is better. Alzar is allowed to Identify the weapon to verify it’s value, and then trade them:

Sword of Wounding I 13, E 4 AL CN – Empathy, Detect Invisible, heal once/week

For this:

Wyrmcleaver, +2 two handed sword, becomes +4 vorpal sword against dragons



(This adventure had the entire temple being raided, but why?)

The next item is the Chapeaux of Herkluth, but investigation shows that it is protected by a giant temple complex of powerful priests, and he has no desire to break in when the item is more holy than powerful.

Bigby’s Modest Home


The next section of Treasures of Thorasia to pique Alzar’s interest is Bigby’s Great Tome. Much like the book Alzar penned, this is a book with every spell made by Force Mage Bigby, most of which are spells involving fists.

Bigby had several homes, and the most famous of which, a Tower, was destroyed by a magical maelstrom. When the book was written, Bigby was alive and he managed to stay so for decades and decades. In fact, Legend Lore says he passed from this realm just a few months ago, after having magically extended his life.

His Great Tome is in a small town of a few hundred in the Woods of Bilam. Alzar teleports there now. This is a quiet logging town that sends wood upriver to mills, and thence to the Between Sea. No one in the town knows who this Bigby fellow is but a merchant who lived in a house in the town named Fraznier hasn’t been seen in four months.

Alzar moves to Fraznier’s house. There are several merchant homes in a row here and Fraznier’s does not stand out in any way. It is a south facing two story house with chimneys on the north and west, a stables on the east, a front door and a back porch.

Alzar grabs the Gem and sees that all of the windows and doors glow magical. Something is there. He moves up to the door which is locked. His Chime of Opening fails to unlock it. He pulls out the Gauntlets of manual Dexterity and tries to pick the lock, but suddenly, a pair of magical hands made of force appear and attack him. It forces him off the stairs and back to the street. He turns invisible but they still follow him, ready to attack.

They don’t follow him to the stable door, and Alzar sees a giant padlock here. An attempt to pick it as well results in more fists appearing and attacking. Alzar backs off, and draws the axe, ready to casts Passwall from it. As he begins to, a normal sized force hand appears over his mouth and silences him. He can’t speak with it over his mouth.

Alzar backs off and it disappears. Getting entry won’t be easy, and it looks like we’ll have to do it the hard way. He moves to the north side and summons an Earth Elemental with a Stone. The Elemental smashes aside the force hands that appear on the back porch door and pounds the door into pieces. It made a lot of noise, but Alzar is in.

He enters a dining room, and there are several exits. The Gem of Seeing shows the entire house is magical. A force construction crew appears and begins to repair the damage to the door, and Continual Light spells keep everything seen. The air is pierced by the sound of an alarm and a magical whoosh noise is heard as several giant spiders teleport in. Alzar easily dispatches them.

By the dining table are a display case of modest trophies worth nothing – such as a frost giant’s helmet and a necklace of teeth. Alzar moves to the kitchen, where waste is disposed by being placed in a barrel, where is it teleported away. Water is made in a basin next to it, when a wheel on the side of the basin is turned. There is an icebox here, magically kept cold, with various drinks and foodstuffs. There is also a small dinette and closet of cleaning supplies.

The kitchen opens into stairs going up to the second floor, and continues with doors into a study, bath and closest before opening into a foyer and a living room on the other side. The living room has 4 paintings, each worth 2500 gp on the walls. Out of the chimney crawl a colony of huge centipedes, each about one foot long, that protest his presence, and he slays a few and the rest scurry away.

The foyer and closet have busts, coats, and a few paintings of Bigby, but nothing of value. The study is interesting. The north walls is lined with bookshelves with 320 books on history of Thorasia. There is a table in the middle of the study with merchant routes and trade routes on it, and an abacus to do math. There is a desk with papers by Fraznier that are receipts and orders for various items in the drawers, and nothing else. However , Alzar detects a secret door in the southeast wall with the Gem and he can’t jimmy in, so he tries the Chime of Opening and it works this time. The door opens into nothing, beyond it. An item inserted into it comes back without harm, and can be seen beyond the door the entire time, so it doesn’t take things that go through it to another place ,but there is nothing behind it – no illusion, or anything.

While perusing the books, Alzar notices that suddenly a room appears beyond the door, and in 30 seconds, it disappears. He waits and in 30 minutes, it again appears and he moves into it. This is an access room of Bigby. It moves between several different places that he controlled, and Alzar sees scenes on other planes, as well as the upper floor and basement of the house he is in and many destroyed places. He takes it on the basement level of the home which had no stairs to it from above.

All of the walls and floors of the basement are in a dark stone. As Alzar steps from the camber, another alarm sounds and a neo-otyugh is teleported here and Alzar finishes it in three turns. Alzar investigates the library he is in. It has spellbooks and many tomes of consideration. He will return later.

Four doors in the library open into storage, a hallway, a closet and more storage. One storage room has spell components, with 50 of each component needed for each Bigby spell and tons of other components.

The last room on this floor is the laboratory. There is a lot of normal equipment needed for a lab and nothing exotic. There are notes from a spell Bigby was making to have a hand with a quill appear and jot down on paper everything that was dictated to it. There is nothing else in the basement, so Alzar uses the room to move to the top floor.

He emerges into Bigby’s bedroom and suddenly a group of 16 Stirges arrive from the hallway after another alarm sound and Alzar cleans them out with a Skulltrap. In this room is little of value, but there is a will here for everything Bigby had and who is was to go to, and some of it was for his apprentice Andrui. It’s a very detailed list of everything here.

As Alzar investigates the room more fully, in comes a disheveled young mage who warmly greets him. This is Andrui. He tells Alzar that he was made Bigby’s apprentice just a year ago, and he didn’t have the run of the house yet. When Bigby disappeared, Andrui couldn’t get out of his room due to the Stirges, and just used the basin and larder for food and water that were created magically to survive. He is very grateful for his rescue.

They leave Bigby’s room, and most of the rest of the floor is simple stuff, but he does find the items on Bigby’s Will that were not in the other rooms in an illusionary closet. He could tell it was an illusion with his 21 intelligence.

Alzar returns to the ground floor with Andrui and pulls down spellbooks. Andrui is willed three of them by Bigby. Alzar pens through them and doesn’t need or want any of the spells. He hands the books to Andrui and in thanks, Andrui gives Alzar a scroll of the spell he made to prove to Bigby that he was worthy of being his apprentice. A few minor magical items, such as a Ring of Protection +1 were left to him that were found on the upper level and Alzar gives them to Andrui as well.

Andrui will turn this place into his new home and study.

Alzar copies Andrui’s spell into his first book and then from there into his normal spellbook. Andrui’s Baneful Backfire is a 5th level abjuration spell which triggers when a mage casts Dispel Magic at something, and it fails and the mage loses a spell of the level equal to the one tried to be dispelled. It’s a nice spell for your lair, and Alzar likes it.

The library downstairs has many books Alzar wants. He takes the study books on history, Andrui is not interested in those. Three rows of bookshelves are stuffed with books, on magical theory, spell making, enchanting, science, and astrology. Alzar agrees to give Andrui his bookcopy spell and a bunch of extra books and to copy the entire library for Alzar. He will collect it in a few months, and Andrui agrees.

Alzar collects the remaining spellbooks.

Bigby’s Great Tome, Jaluster’s Orizon, Clouds and Fog, and Universal Astronomy


Alzar will need to see if there are any protections they have over the next few days and weeks.

A Sword for a Hero



Alzar is reaching the close of Treasures of Thorasia. The next item is one of the most powerful in the book, and he doesn’t even need a Legend Lore spell to find it. The Sword of Azor’alq is a mighty sword that is legendary. While being taken to face the ancient red dragon, Sulphacitezus with a party of adventurers, the leader pitted the might of his muscle and steel against the flame and scale of the dragon.

He lost.

For the past two hundred odd years, Sulphacitezus has continued to rule a land in fire and rock in the Feldspar mountains. Due to his age, most of his time is spent sleeping, but he also studies, counts his treasure ,and hunts for food.

(The average level for this adventure is 18th, and they recommend 140 total levels in the party – Alzar will solo it)

Alzar finds the entrance all right and it’s not large enough for a dragon to pass through. It also has a boulder of at least three tons covering it that needs to be moved. Alzar’s Mud Ring turns it to mud and the way is open. He summons earth elementals, three Vrocks and a Glabrezu to wait out here, ready to be brought in if needed.

Invisible and silent running with the boots of elvenkind, Alzar moves into the natural cave. There are four fire giants on watch in a lair just off the main tunnel. Alzar pops out and summons an Air Elemental, brings out two Invisible Stalkers, and orders group of four elementals, two stalkers, and four demons in.

They charge into the room and the giants get up. One shouts for aid and his voice echoes down the tunnel. The giants manage to slay an Air Elemental and badly damage an Earth before they are all slain. Meanwhile Alzar goes on watch and own the tunnel come a troupe of six giants to protest his appearance. Alzar casts Haste on his group and they move in. Wit double speed and double attacks, they cleave the giants. At the end, all elementals are slain but only two images gone on a Vrock represents any other damage.

Alzar reveals pit traps with the gem as they move down the tunnel. A cave in collapses and the Vrock teleports away in time to avoid damage. The gem finds a few acid traps and false paths. Eventually, Alzar arrives at the rear chamber, and the haste spell has worn off. There is a human sized tunnel that leads to the dragon’s lair.

Alzar takes the Stalkers with him, and will teleport in the demons if needed. Meanwhile, the dragon used scryng magic to watch Alzar dispatch his giant guards, and has cast improved invisibility and levitate. Alzar arrives at the end of the tunnel at a large lair with a heap of treasure on the other side of a field of lava crust. He pulls out Zadazz and checks with the Gem and finds he dragon on the ceiling. He backs up and summons all of the rest of the elementals that he can – Earth, Air but no water here and he could summon Fire but it wouldn’t do anything against a red dragon. Alzar swaps the Ring of Fire Resistance for the Free Action one and quaffs a pot of Fire Resist as well. He pulls a few items out of storage for this battle, in case they are needed.

It’s time.

Alzar flies over the lava crust and as he does, the dragon casts Create Water over it to add a huge amount of steam to the room, while the Air and earth Elemental and Invisible Stalkers move in. They take damage but get across (The Air flies over and took nothing). Four demons teleport in next to the dragon while it breathes fire on Alzar. Alzar takes 22d10+11 damage from it. The die roll is 128. He can save vs half and take just 64. However, the Ring cuts all damage into half and the pot does as well – further fire protection does not stack. So, he rolls to see if he takes 32 or just 16. He makes it and takes 16. Alzar casts Ray of Ondovir while flying, but it can’t get past the dragons natural magic resistance. The demons attack and one hit connects for 13 damage.

51/67 - Alzar

The dragon casts lightning bolt on Alzar and the Ring of Spell Turning reflects exactly half back. 37 damage is dealt with the bolt. Alzar is hit with it twice on the rebound and if he fails one of two saves, he takes his full damage of 18, and he does fail a save. The dragon takes 9 after making its save. It also takes 15 from a hit (AC -10 by the way for it). Alzar casts Flesh to Stone and it gets past the magic resistance but the dragon makes her save.

33/67 - Alzar

She breathes again on Alzar and he takes full damage of 28. He uses Heal from Ring of Spell Storing to fully heal himself. The demons miss and the elementals are her, but she is still levitating in the air. The Air Elemental has reached her, and is quite powerful against aerial opponents. She casts Magic Missile at a glabrezu and finishes it off after a few tail attacks dropped it. Alzar tries Dispel Magic and drops the invisibility and levitation. She flaps to the ground.

She breathes on the ground and slays the elemental and stalkers there. Alzar flies down and casts Evard’s Black Tentacles behind her. All 16 tentacles grab her and only two manage to tie her down but the small amounts of damage from the others add up to 27 damage. The others miss. She tears herself free from the two tentacles and casts Burning Hands, which deals serious damage to two elementals. Alzar casts the other Tentacle sand four of the 15 grab her and she takes 22.

She again spends her physical attacks freeing herself and has not more left. A demon stabs her for 15 damage. Alzar casts Tasha’s… Laughter on her but it gets stuck on her magic resistance. She casts Vampiric Touch on a Vrock and deals 35 to him and gains it back. Alzar slides to his axe and misses. Sulphacitezus stabs with her physical attacks misses a few and drops the images on a Vrock by two. She takes 20 back. She stabs the Vrock again and hit once and takes out three more images. Only Alzar hits for 22. The Vrock dies and she is missed by everyone.

The dragon is facing an Air Elemental, two Vrocks, Alzar and nothing else. She moves to another Vrock and pulls some Images. Alzar carves her for 23 damage and everything else misses . She hits once for 11 damage and drops more images, and the Vrocks miss, but the Elemental hits for 11 whle Alzar misses twice.

Everyone misses this round. The dragon nails the Vrock twice and smashes an image. Alzar hits for 26 and the next turn sees the Vrock slain. The other Vrock, perhaps in anger, hits for 15 damage and the others miss. The dragon casts Cure Moderate Wounds and heals 18 while they continue to peck at it for 8 damage from an elemental. The dragon nails two images of the final vrock while the others miss. The dragon takes out three more, and Alzar carves her twice for 46 damage. She blasts four images and is missed, and starts hitting the demon this time twice, once each with a wing and bite. Alzar adds 22 and she finishes the demon. Alzar and the Elemental miss.

It does not take long for the Elemental to die – just one turn, and it’s man vs dragon. Alzar misses.

Five attacks come his way and miss due to his cloak. Alzar’s axe hews into her for 22 damage. She hits him for 22 damage in two this and he casts Vampiric Touch on her and gets past her magic resistance for 30 damage, which he heals. She stabs him three times for 26 damage and he misses. She doles out one hit for 10 and he this once for 27 and she flies up. He can tells she is about to die so he casts Skulltrap and flings it at her and hits her 300 feet frame and she takes half but still dies.

There is over 100 feet diameter in treasure, and it would take wagons to cart it out. He carves up the dragon and brings to place the treasure into Bags of Holding for later perusal. But he uses the Gem to find the magical items now:

19120 gp
54333 cp
33120 sp
7300 ep
1450 pp
13,000 gp in random gems
27 paintings, art and carvings worth 2.5k gp each

Scroll – Protection from Shapechangers
Wizard Scroll – Haste, Dig, Power Word Blind, Polymorph Self, Monster Summoning VI.
Ring of Water Walking
Cleric Scroll – Cure Critical Wounds, Stone Tell, Plant Door
Potions – Spider Climb, Dexterity, Treasure Finding, Invulnerability
Wand of Rust - 27 charges
+3 Shield, +4 Battle Axe
+3 chain mail
Scroll of Spell Catching 1-6

Sword of Azor’Alq - +4 broad sword, INT 17, EGO 21, NG, Special Purpose – Slay Evil Extraplanar Creatures, Special Purpose Power – Does not lose strength on other planes Speak and Telepathy Qwith, Typic. Detect Evil and Invisible. Once per day, fly for one hour.

The Wand acts as a Metal to Rust spell for one charge

The Scroll is awesome – Alzar holds it up as a spell comes in and it will capture the spell rather than let it do anything and it becomes a Scroll of that Spell. Then it can be used or inscribed into a spellbook, and the scroll is blank, and it can be used to catch a spell again, but no more than one spell per day.

Hello new Axe!!!

The sword has the most powerful personality he has encountered in an intelligent weapon.

Alzar’s personality score is his Intelligence + Charisma + Level or 51. This sword is Intelligence + Ego, and at 38, that is a powerful combination. It’s no wonder that others were dominated by it, but Alzar can’t be taken and controlled.

Crossing Into Steel


Swords are pretty common, and the next chapter in the book details another sword, this one, used by several paladins and likely a Holy Avenger, called Ansanther. This sword was once a mighty paladin named Ansanther, who lost her arm in battle and became a cleric of Harkangi instead, spreading healing and peace and joining the pacifist high clerics in her worship. Giving up violence, Ansanther’s +5 holy avenger sword was put to rest .

Then a trow attack led by a mighty enchanter named Xenous against her town commenced and she helped to mend the wounded and gave comfort to the afflicted. But the town began to burn and the trow were slaying women and children. Rage forced Ansanther’s hand and the Holy Avenger came out and the old paladin roots bubbled to the surface, and forsaking her vows to Harkangi, she slew them and saved the village, but in doing so, but herself in question. As age and weariness caught up with her, she poured her soul into the blade and left the mortal coil of her body. Xenous fled and the town mourned their losses.

The blade passed into hands of several paladins who became famous as a result of its powers. The latest paladin to wield the blade just recently slew an entire village of powerful insectoids the thri-kreen in one of the deserts on Thorasia. Alzar teleports there and finds the village razed, and casts Speak with Dead.

One of the insects tells him that she left east to follow the trail of another group of thri-kreen.

Alzar follows her trail with the Boots of Speed and then riding Zadaxx, and finds her on her horse, chasing down a merchant caravan of thri-kreen. The mantisids definitely lean toward evil, but chasing down merchants may not be the most good of acts Alzar thinks. He still doesn’t understand the good morale to slay others who aren’t bothering you just because. Evil does it without justification, and good does it but tries to justify it. That’s the only difference.

Alzar arrives and summons Earth Elementals, strengthened by the sand and three are in front of the paladin. He launches a Skulltrap at her and she uses Healing Touch to heal the 33 damage she failed to save and she casts a sphere around her which will protect her from Alzar’s magic as he is evil. He won’t even be able to Dispel it. He lands and blows the Horn of Valhalla while she engages the elementals.

The elementals pound her after two rounds and she has slain one, when 6 berserkers move in and attack. She manages to take damage and Alzar aims an Earthquake at the ground as she tries to flee on her steed. It’s not stopped by the sphere since it’s not aimed at her and the ground opens up and the horse is swallowed. She lands and spins.

She grabs a potion and quaffs and is healed. The elementals arrive and Alzar summons an Air. It’s just a matter of time before his forces overwhelm her.

From her body he takes the Sword and +3 shield and platemail. She quaffed the healing pots she had.

Ansanther - +5 Holy Avenger, LG, I 14, E 18, Speaks Typic – Detect Evil and Locate Object; Special Purpose – to slay Xenous, Special Purpose Power – Disintegrate


Alzar finds a few scrolls that show where Xenous was last seen – the paladin was making her way toward it. A battle of wits begins, and Alzar wins and Ansanther allows him to take the blade to the location of Xenous for her, so she can fulfill her purpose and then drop some of the purpose-driven attitude.

Face of Xenous



Not only is the location of Xenous close, but it was the last chapter in the book as well.

Alzar flies across the desert on Zadaxx, and then as his magic ebbs, he grabs a Broom of Flying to continue. He manages to eat a lot of distance. Water is no problem for a man who can make much with his magical items – Mead Pitcher, Alchemy Jug and Decanter of Endless Water. He spends the night in OtherSpace and continues for two days. Finally Ansanther tells him that they are getting close to Xenous

There is a great labyrinth on the desert floor in the shape of a beholder’s body with eye stalks and by the mouth at the bottom is the entrance. Magic prevents entry from the top or bottom, so Alzar lands and summons three Earth Elementals, each with 12 HD due to the sand and two Invisible Stalkers.

Flanked by his allies, Alzar enters the maze, and the corridors shift to give him an access.

As an intelligent person, Alzar quickly susses out the maze. His escorts clean out some minor enemies, such as gremlins and spiders and a small tribe of carnivore apes.

Next Alzar runs into some powerful undead tied to one location – phantoms and apparitions. The first he manages to talk to and the second he has to move forward and slay, with his powerful +4 axe leading the way. A group of ogres see Alzar and lay down their weapons and Alzar ignores them.

His escorts and himself arrive at the center of the maze. Ansanther glows warmly, signaling they have arrived. Alzar places the sword into a Bag of Holding to silence it and his party moves in.

In the center of the maze is a beautifully carved rosewood box with copper trim. It is closed and on a table. Alzar checks with the Gem, but the box is normal, and nothing around is out of place. Even through the Bag of Holding, Alzar can hear Ansanther screaming to attack the case with her.

Alzar opens the case and inside is a very odd object.

The mad and vain enchanter Xenous Zopour did not want to age and die. Despite her 100+ years, with potions of longevity she had kept her youth. But she knew those were only temporary. In a fit of madness and depression, she bargained with Arentia, goddess of decay and disease. Arentia granted her desire to remain beautiful forever. The goddess ripped Xenous’s face off and placed it in this box.

What Alzar is looking at is a mask which can be placed over one’s own face, and Xenous’s one will blend in and it will appear that Alzar is Xenous, although he can take it off at any time. Xenous is an artifact.

Face of Xenous - Summon one of each elemental, 16 hd, no control, once/week; Cone of Cold, Telekinetic Gaze, 1000 coins, 2/day; Flesh to Stone, Web 1/day; Color Spray, Darkness, 15’, 3/day; Comprehend Languages at will - Fires in 60’ extinguished and temperature drops 20 degrees when power used. When non-evil touches it take 4d4 damage and age 1d4 years. INT 25, EGO 25, turn to CE if dominated.


As you can see, this is a very powerful artifact. Ansanther wants to finish it, but Alzar easily resists it’s pull. He can also just beat Xenous’s pull on him but he’d prefer not to use the Face if he doesn’t have to.

Alzar has finished this adventure, and here is his new XP Total. 1,435,676

Alzar is very close to level 14, and the extremely potent level 7 magic that comes with it. Two of the most powerful spells he has are semi-permanency and consume knowledge. The latter will destroy any book but instantly give Alzar the knowledge in it. Imagine how powerful it is with his Bookcopy spell. He can cast Bookcopy to make a duplicate of a book, and then absorb the duplicate with Consume Knowledge and instantly gain everything it says. A thick tome that would take a day or three to read instead takes two spells. The second spell is a lighter version of the powerful 8th level permanency. It can’t be used to make magical items but it can make any spell effect that permanency affects last more than ten years with no drawback. Alzar can have all of his undead enchanted with his own Undead Porter spell or protection spells for his items such as Talon’s Waterproof and Flameproof. He also has all of the essential spells to bind extra planar creatures into more permanent service than a day or two.

I can’t find many adventures that make sense for him and his power. There are three ways I can take Alzar in the future, but for now, I’m feeling like retiring him for now. Here they are:

The Normal – Labyrinth of Madness looks like a dungeon that would throw him, and Vecna Lives! appears to be a good module with people above his level to tussle with. Perhaps one or two M or CM modules from the D&D line meant for people well above his level.

The Unusual – Alzar moves for a while out into the planes! He travels and adventures in other planes of existence. In these places, sometimes he can’t lean on the normal allies or items or spells, and would have to find other routes of addressing something. Also, many entities out there are much more powerful than the ones in this world.

The Different – Alzar as a general! I would move Alzar to a Battlesystem miniature game (based on the D&D one) and have him fight in the Battlesystem with armies of orcs, undead, and others against various foes. With his knowledge of tactics and leadership of large units, he could be that rare necromancer who actually understands the war side of battle and does well.

How about Isle of the Ape? Terrific Dynasty thread BTW. It's a great read and brings back a lot of memories. I look at Necromancers a lot differently after reading about Alzar.

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it!

I don't have Isle of the Ape. I have a majority of the modules from the 70s and 80s, and some from the 90s, but I am still missing many.

Abe’s Guide to the Useful and Essential in D&D, 1st Edition AD&D and 2nd Edition AD&D


What are the supplements and books I recommend for people to play the game from the 70s through the 90s?

I wrote 3500 words on my views on what and why for you!


First you have to pick a game, and pick up the DM’s Guide and Player’s Handbook for that game. I recommend 2nd Edition over 1st, even though I started with 1st, because it cleans up a lot of issues, and makes some rules, such as non-weapon proficiencies, into the main book. However, they are very close together and you can easily play with many (but not all) sourcebooks from either era. Differences are often more about style than anything else.

If you want a simpler game, look at Dungeons and Dragons without the Advanced, and pick up a Basic set. This is the same game, but with fewer creatures, spells, no proficiencies, no skills or traits, and races are classes rather than being able to take a class, so you play an elf class, not an elven thief or elven bard or anything. It’s still D&D. You can take any D&D supplement and use it in an AD&D game, but not vice versa at all.

The Option series in the mid 90s adds the ability to shape your character massively, with a degree of flexibility not seen before or after. That level of flexibility introduces the possibility of min-maxing a character to be the best in combat, but it also gives you a serious dose of role-playing if done correctly.

If you play the Option series, you can use anything before. If you use 2nd Edition normally, you can’t use the Option adventures and such. (There’re not many). If you play D&D, you can’t use any AD&D stuff without massive changes, and f you play 1st Edition, some of the later 2nd Edition stuff makes no sense (such as Options and Kits). So maximum flexibility suggests 2nd Edition normal or Option. I love Option, and I wish 3rd Edition would have moved more in that arena. If they had, I wouldn’t have stopped at it.

With Option, you need Skills and Powers, Spells and Magic and Combat and Tactics. Most C&T make the game more like miniatures too much for my tastes, but weapon proficiencies and other things are quite useful. So, you begin your game with your core rulebooks.


Assuming 2nd Edition with Option your five core books are Player’s Handbook, DM’s Guide, Spells and Magic, Skills and Powers, and Combat and Tactics.

Where to go next? What books are next important and useful? You don’t want to waste money and time with a book that’s chaff, and there are a lot of sourcebooks during this era. In order of value I have found in many campaigns as a layer and DM, this is how I would list stuff:


1. Monstrous Manual – 2nd Edition screwed up early with the Monstrous Compendium, which was a three ring binder with alphabetized pages of monsters that you could add later pages to from modules, appendixes, and magazines. The problem is that these pages were beat up fast, and got out of order as the front page and back page of one supplement in out of order with another. This avoided all of that, and is the best monster supplement around. The older ones from 1st Edition have lots of idiotic and stupid monsters that you never use. Some Manuals don’t include all of the essentials in order to force you to buy later books, but this plays no games. It has few stupid and useless monsters (but there are a few, such as Gaff). It has every essential and important creature in the game – all of the humanoids, undead, mythological creatures and essential D&D guys like Mind Flayers and Beholders and Yuan-Ti. It has all of the elementals, their kin, a ton of golems, animals such as wolves and sharks, intelligent plants, scores of dragons and giants, creatures such as giant scorpions and giant spiders, all of the major lycanthropes, and more. This is the best monster supplement in 1st or 2nd Edition, and the only major miss is demons and devils and other such creatures virtually non-existent.
2. Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide – If you are a new DM, this is vital to running a campaign. This books is divided into two parts. The first gives you, the Dm, instead of lots of rules, gives the DM guidelines and info on how to run the best campaigns, create the best worlds, and so forth. Then it actually has runs and tricks on how to create your own world, followed by information about creating maps and stuff. In some ways, it is a better DM’s Guide than the actual DM’s Guide. It’s amazing, and has info from everything from ordering snacks and cleaning up after a gaming session to world building tips. This is an essential DM Tome, especially for new DMs.
3. Encylopedia Magica, Vol 1-4 – This is a four volume set that was published in the 90s. It includes every single magical item printed before its publication in every module, rulebook, supplement and magazine article. You can play without it, no question. But I don’t know why you’d want to. This includes every artifact in publication as well. That means it has all of the items from tons of other supplements that you might want, such as Tome of Magic, Book of Artifacts, Pages from the Mages, and more. Everything from those is in here.
4. Wizards Spell Compendium, Vol 1-4 – Just like the above resource has every magic item ever printed, this has every mage spell ever printed. Wizards make lots of spells, and this has them all. Again, it has the parts of books like the other half of Tome of Magic, some of the best of Complete Wizard’s Handbook, and more. It also gives a serious shot of usefulness to many of the specialist mages that are not based on schools, such as Water Elementalists, Alchemists, Shadow Mages, and more.
5. The Complete Fighter’s Handbook – The problem with this book is that most of it’s best innovations to combat, weapons and proficiencies are done better in Combat and Tactics. It introduced us to the world of Kits ,and it has some great ones, such as gladiator, myrmidon, swashbuckler and amazon. Kits in Option are neutered and watered down versions of those in the Handbook series. It has rules on upkeeping armor and weapons, combat rules such as horse archery, mixing different types of armor and more; plus it introduces many new weapons. If you are not playing with the Option series, move this up to #2, it’s that essential to fighters. All of the other classes get love in new spells, items, and so forth, but this is where your grunt guys shine.
6. The Complete Book of Humanoids – In AD&D or D&D, there are only a few races you can choose to play, but the world is rife with many other intelligent species. This book allows you to play many of them. 45 pages of it allow you to be anything from a centaur or satyr to an ogre mage or goblin. You can be big (two types of giant-kin are in the book) or small (such as a pixie). Then the book has kits for humanoid adventurers, and a new set of 25 non-weapon proficiencies for everything from winemaking to hiding to fast-talking. As someone who has played races from this book, it’s very useful.
7. The Complete Psionicist’s Handbook – Psionics were a confusing set of rules that were removed from the mainline rules in 2nd Edition and are added in this optional supplement. I am including it here for completeness sake, because if you want Psionics, this is your baby. There is no better supplement for it. But the rules are still clunky, and Psionics just duplicates existing magic, and doesn’t seem to be interesting to me, so I’ve never bothered. If you want Psionics, then bump this up above 7, but if not, don’t even bother getting it.
8. Volo’s Guide to All Things Magical – Published just after the Spell Compendiums and Encyclopedias, it has many magic items and spells for your campaign. It also has very realistic and intricate rules for making magical items and a ton of woods, metals, gems and such to make magic items out of. This is the highest charting sourcebook for an individual campaign world to make my list, and it’s essential. The old 1st Edition or Book or Artifacts way of making magical items felt very fake (cast Enchant an Item, cast Enchanted Weapon or whatever spells it will use, cast Permanency and call it a day). This has the best rules for making items ever, and I want Alzar to make an item through this, to demonstrate the process, so you can see how it works.
9. Priests’s Spell Compendium, Vol 1-2 – I don’t like adding Priests spells to my campaign, because it’s hard to justify how a deity suddenly allows its priests to use new spells. You can’t get away from that very often Plus, the more spells you have in existence, the more powerful all priests are, because they all gain access to it. Priests pray for spells from a sphere they have access to, so a new healing spell can be acquired by every priest who can learn healing spells. I can control the rate at which my mages and NPCs get spells or items from the other compendiums, but this is different. Everyone in my world at all is immediately accessible by every priest. So use this with care, but your clerics want it badly.
10. The Complete Bard’s Handbook – The Priest and Wizard ones have their best parts taken up later by Spells and Magic and the Compendiums. The Thief book is good and the next book on our list. This book takes the concept of the bard as entertainer and spins it into many different conclusions. Now you can play Bards who don’t play magic but are actors or gymnasts or clowns and so forth. The kits push bards in massively different directions and change the abilities they have – it’s almost like they are a bunch of sub-classes, rather than little ol’ kits. The 12 new kits include some high favorites, such as Blade, a entertainer who spins weapons about at a very fast clip, They are the ones who are expert at knife throwing at a carnival and so forth. You can be a Herald, a Skald, a Gypsy or a Jester. That gives this book more punch than the others when considering kits.
11. The Complete Thief’s Handbook – The best part of this book is the 20 new proficiencies, 18 pages of equipment for thieves, 18 kits and 25 pages of info on thieves’ guilds and bringing it into your campaign. This is the only bone you can really throw at your thieves but it’s a big one.
12. The Castle Guide – This is a book you may find really valuable or really junky, depending on your campaign needs. This is the only place you’ll find rules on making castles, including cost. Like many of these books, it has a lot of intro work on the history of castles, the types of them, feudal settings and history, and so forth. If that helps to spark some ideas – great! It also has rules on sieges, equipment, and resolving battle s- but it’s very simple – not turning it into a miniature game, like Battlesystem does.
13. The Complete Book of Necromancers – This DM supplement includes a lot of surprises for an NPC Necromancer. The kits for them are few but very interesting, and Salient Gifts is the price of admission. It’s a great way to make NPC and enemy necromancers something truly villainous. It has a few new non-weapon proficiencies from dark gifts, weaknesses, salient powers, to a map and dungeon at the end was great. I only wish we had continued this series with Conjurers and then moved to others. This book led to Alzar and his campaign.

After that, it’s up to you to suit your campaign. The next I would recommend are the Monstrous Compendium Annuals, which are softcover, and have all of the monsters published that year in modules, magazines and books. There are also some for specific campaign worlds and they usually have good monsters for any world. I like the Mystara Monstrous Compendium Appendix, because a lot of the creatures here make sense and aren’t too crazy for my campaign (I have a no stupid allowed policy for my critters). In particular, check out the Hivebrood. These are all of the creatures published for the basic D&D game in rulebooks or modules that aren’t in AD&D books already. Some of the best are the Velya – underwater vampire, living statue constructs, the various dangerous plants, mujina, magen, wereswine, a nice selection of new but useful golems (I hate stupid golems, like brain golems), and the aforementioned Hivebrood.

Lots of sourcebooks for campaigns are good for yours as well. I generally would stay away from any which involves a specific place, but those that focus on others can be really good – such as Volo’s Guide to All Things Magical above. For a generic campaign, I like supplements from Planescape, Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, and Greyhawk‘s single one – Greyhawk Adventures is pretty good, and cheap to acquire. Oriental Adventures is amazing but really needs that sort of campaign to work. Others that feel similarly are campaigns such as Dark Sun, Al-Qadim, Odyssey, and Maztica.

For example,, some of the Van Richten Guides in Ravenloft are really good for fleshing out those monsters. In particular, I recommend his Guides to Ancient Dead, Lich and Vampires, in that order. The rest aren’t that much. Steer clear of Fiends, which looks better than it is, Created which is the same, and others. Don’t touch the Vistani one. I wouldn’t even get these for those running a Ravenloft campaign.

There are many other books I would recommend you steer clear of. The DM’s books in the blue book series that included Castle Guide, Complete Book of Necromancers and Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Book has a lot of really bad entries too. Don’t waste time or money on The Arms and Equipment Guide, Complete Book of Villains, Sages and Specialists or Creative Campaigning. I have not read Of Ships and the Sea.

If you want to incorporate deities from established D&D sources into your world, then Monster Mythology is not bad, and you’ll want Deities and Demigods and Legends and Lore. If you just want to take one pantheon straight from another world, such as Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk, then get that world’s sourcebook instead. If you make your own, these aren’t even a little bit useful .

Of the Player’s Handbook series that includes the complete books, I’d not suggest the Realms ones, the ninjas, the barbarians, and I think the elves, dwarves, gnomes and Halflings aren’t that useful, but they all have some good things in them. (Not elves, it sucks balls) Priest and Wizard are just okay at best. The Wizards, for example, has just 10 kits, many of which are boring, and some good spells repeated later, and rules for things you should already know how to do, such as pages on how to make your own school of magic. Paladin and Ranger’s books don’t add much. The earlier books in this series are good and useful, but as time went on, good more shoddy and unbalanced. I never read the Druid’s one though.

Some of these books have been made free online, and The Castle Guide and Necromancer’s books are some of them, as are many others. Check those if you are interested in getting some free coin.

For 1st Edition Supplements, the Fiend Folio and Monster Manuals have nothing on the ones we’ve already discussed. I would stay very very far away from the Dungeoneer’s and Wilderness Survival Guides. There are too many intricate rules for crap you will never want. They are chaff. The Manual of the Planes is the first of its kind and very dry. It’s good for the Astral and Ethereal planes, but gets lost afterwards. I don’t like the names of many of the Outer Planes (Happy Hunting Grounds, seriously?) and the Para and Qusi Elemental planes are not only dumb sound (A plane made out of salt?) but also poorly conceived (Why is the border between elemental planes of water and air, a plane of ice?) Dragonlance Adventures is very good for that specific world, but otherwise has little to offer others, unlike Greyhawk Adventures, which is rife with awesome.

Stay away from the awesome looking Draconomicon from the Realms. It looks way better than it is, but the specific Secrets of the Magister is good, but spends 50 pages on the history of the position, which is really annoying for everyone. The Seven Sisters is a perfect a balance of fluff and new, but the spells are in the Wizard’s Compendium, so you already have them. Basic rule, if it’s a supplement by Ed Greenwood, it will be really useful, but also tend to have a lot of story and such. He also wrote the All Things Magical Volo Guide.

You might want Chronomancer if you want Time Mages. I have it, but I don’t use it. I have Time Travel and other concepts banned in my world. You can speed up yourself or slow down your foe, but you can’t move from one time to another.

Some books you already have in this collection, such as Tome of Magic and Pages from the Mages. Don’t get them. There is a series of Historical Supplements that give you the ability to add Viking, Celtic, Roman, Charlemagne, Crusades, Greek and the Elizabethan age with A Mighty Fortress. I have the Charlemagne, Fortress and Viking, and they are each long on story and history and short on game mechanics. I don’t know if that’s true for the rest of the historical supplements, but it is of those. The highest rated one by folks is A Mighty Fortress, because it covers the next age after most D&D worlds, so that’s nice. It also adds guns. You’ll note the very Euro-Centric aspect of these supplements, and there is nothing here that I would find particularly interesting. Now, imagine a Mayan Campaign, or one set in ancient China or places in Africa like the Axumite Empire – that would be cool. They have a high value on the secondary market compared to most supplements of the time, because they are different than The Complete X’s Handbook, you know? (Vikings and Celts seem to be cheapest, Fortress, Rome and Crusades are most expensive.)

Some of these books can be pretty cheap. You want Volo’s Guide to All Things Magical? Less than $10. The Seven Sisters and Secrets of the Magister are $5 each. Fighter’s Handbook is $5 new and less than a buck used. Bard is 5 bucks used, Thief is $3 used, and so forth.

Depending on the volume, the Spell Compendium is between $8 and $25 per volume. Player’s Option books are in the $5 range each. Monstrous Manual is a simple $3.50 used. Even Oriental Adventures is in the single digits used. DM’s Option High Level Campaigns is 5 bucks.

Except for the Magic Encyclopedia, and the two Spell Compendiums, none of the rest of these sourcebooks are more than 10 bucks used on the secondary market. Most are in the $5 or less range. The Handbook and DMs Guide are also very cheap as well. Greyhawk Adventures is $4.25 used, and so forth. There are D&D and AD&D items which have really appreciated in value, but none of these are in that boat. Most vendors charge between 4 and 5 bucks shipping and handling, the Amazon price seems to be four for most vendors. That means you can get most of these for less than ten dollars with shipping. That’s a pretty good deal considering how useful many of these are for gaming. If you can find someone who combines shipping for a bulk lot, then you are really decreasing a massive part of the cost.

So many books, expansions, and more have been printed in 1st and 2nd edition territory that I still haven’t read many. My collection, which includes two milk crates of just Dragon and Dungeon magazines, is six milk crates in size. That’s four milk crates of modules, monster manuals, rule books, various supplements and more. I can still pick up a rulebook or two for cheap and keep exploring the game, because there is always something new to pick up.

Planescape really holds its value well, so don’t expect to pick up most PS books as cheaply as you can other product. TSR really out published in the early to mid 90s, and they saturated the market with product, splintered their lines, and began to go bankrupt as a result. That means you can find numerous overprinted items that don’t have demand even today, and lots of good stuff for your campaign.


End Guide

For fun, let’s walk you through a Magic Item that Alzar wants to make and has never managed to find. We'll use Volo's Guide to help. With his constant exposure to undead, and especially really powerful ones he can’t always control, Alzar wants to make a common item known as a Scarab of Protection. This is a Scarab that gives +1 to saves and has 12 charges and each time Alzar would lose a level to energy drain, instead a charge goes away. When the last charge is gone, the item crumbles, and it cannot be recharged. This is an item that won’t need 8th level spell Permanency to cast, but even if it did, Alzar could acquire a scroll of one easily. It normally has a loss of 1 Constitution point when used, but he has a 7th level spell called Blood Link that allows him to drain it from another living creature he has secured.


To begin the process, we need to find out what spells will be used in the item.

For the Energy Drain Protection, Negative Plane Protection seems like a good match. This spell specifically is designed to protect from energy drain attacks. It’s a common Priest spell at level 3. There is a level 7 version that is a wizard translation of it. It’s not that uncommon, and Alzar purchases a scroll of it for 2500 gold after scouring for a few weeks to find one.


For the +1 save, but not a bonus to AC, the best spell is the cleric spell Bless, but it does other things too so it won’t work. Alzar decides to get Lesser Malison, a spell that normally gives a target a -1 to their saves, but is reversible. The reverse of it will be his spell. He knows Greater Malison, and Lesser Malison is easy to acquire for 1000 gp and added to another spellbook and not his own. He puts it in Markessa’s High Level Spellbook. He doesn’t want it clunking up his normal books, but he did put NPP in his books.

Now that he has the two spells that will make the Scarab, he needs to store the spells. To do this, he will need to make a Focal Stone for each spell. He begins by selecting two gems from his collection.

He begins by casting Obar’s Lesser Purification on each of them. This will remove any magical taint from the item. Then he casts Dweomerflow. That enables spells he casts to move to an item, rather than just triggering. Finally, he casts Focal Stone on each gem. This will create and hold the spell. For the Purification he used a few drops of Sweet Water Potion, salt and limestone for the spell. The flow requires no additional components, and the Focal Stone just needs some opal dust, easily made ahead of time.

Now Alzar casts a reversed Lesser Malison into one stone and a Negative Plane Protection into the other stone. With the spells stored, he moves to the next subject.

Alzar researches how to make a Scarab. He purchases 2500 gold worth of texts that discuss it and a few other similar items. After a month of research, he has figured out how to make it. Making magical items are not like baking, where you just follow a recipe. Making it requires your own flavor of recipe, to suit your own tastes, and there are many ways to make the same item. Here is how Alzar will make this Scarab:

A flawless section of Epidote is to be used to make the body of the scarab
Copper Detailing, making the legs, antennae, and other detailing
Two small eyes of ruby
Washed in mixture of Mistletoe and Holly, and cleaned with leather made from the chitin of a giant beetle.

Alzar takes two weeks to hunt down the various ingredients, find a way to make chitin into leather, and gets the things carved by experts.

Now that the object is complete, Alzar prepares it. He begins with Lesser Purification on it. This removes any magical taint in the object. If he doesn’t do this, the result could be random. Imagine a stone sitting down stream of a magical statue for a few years. As the water erodes the statue, little bit of magic make their way downstream, and that affects the stone. There is no way of knowing what sort of eldritch taint these items might have, so a Purification is necessary.

Then Alzar casts Merald’s Meld on it several times. He casts it on each ruby, permanently attaching it to the Epidote body. Then he casts it on the copper detailing. The result is to merge these items, but he has used too many Melds, so he casts Crown Meld to make them all work together. This is now, magically, one item. Now he casts Veladar’s Vambrace on the object, and everything becomes of highest quality. The result of these Purification, Vambrace and Melds is to not only make the item one, but also to strengthen it. A magical item is much more durable than a normal one, and this process is how that happens.

Next, Alzar begins to enstar the item. He secures himself far away from the rest of his complex and minions in his Summoning Room. On a blank rock table, he scribes a circular diagram that is made just for this item. He connects the two Focal Stones with the diagram on opposite edges with the Scarab in the middle. Alzar casts the spell Eternal Flame. This is a spell that prepares an item for enchanting, much like the more generic Enchant an Item spell.

The Wondrous Web spell is cast, and this unites all of the items that will make the Scarab of Protection. He has any command words in scrolls on the table, but this item has none. The magic from the Focal Stones begins to move into the item, and after a while, they disappear from existence, and the item is fully prepared. Then Alzar finishes with Awakening, which makes the item work. At this point, a roll is made to see if the item is successfully made. With high quality ingredients, all precautionary spells cast, and so forth, there is only a small chance of failure, and no chance of a disaster. Alzar makes the roll easily.

Now he would cast Permanency, if it were needed. It’s not, so the item is now enchanted. Alzar spent 2500 for the items, 2500 for the books, and 4500 for the spells to make this object. Spell Components for a few powerful spells, such as the Web spell, ran about 2650 gold. He gains 2500 XP from the experience, and now has a Scarab of Protection at 12 charges.

It took about ten weeks to make from beginning to end. Some items can take a lot longer if a mage has to make their spell, or researching something rare or unique. But he was researching a common item, with many known routes to make it, and finding common spells, sable to immediately absorb texts after Bookcopying them, and so forth.

This has been a great dynasty, Abe. I hope Alzar doesn't do a permanent retirement, as I've enjoyed every post you've made describing his adventures and his life. May he live a very long time to come!

I think any route you take with him in the future would be enjoyable.

Tell

Thanks!

+1 thread necromancy

I love this thread. I started playing DnD back in 1982. Played until 1990'ish- switching to Rolemaster, which I felt was a better system for what I wanted. I stopped all RPing around 1998 or so.

This past summer, a group of friends talked me into starting up a 3.5 campaign, which I have enjoyed running, but it's been hell trying to read up on everything. This much I do know- if I run another campaign, I will not allow vow of poverty.

I also used to judge for M:tG. I started running events before there was much of a DCI (my original DCI number is 4 digits). For many years I was pretty much the only active judge in the state of Georgia. I left judging about 5 years ago- after committing 15 years to judging/running events.

Hello mega-necro!


I'm always happy to hear how people have enjoyed the journey of Alzar the Mighty.

I have also played Rolemaster, and of course, I have an extensive Magic career, so that's cool!

Do you still play, or just left Magic as a judge only? Cause magic is bigger than ever right now, I think we are in the middle of its Golden Age.

I found it hard to play Magic competitively and judge at the same time, mostly because there wasn't any other judges in the SE / Georgia. So, the game I played was Legend of the Five Rings. I played Magic quite a bit as well, but mostly casual.

When they changed the SE TO, I took that as my time to step away from Magic and haven't played/judged since.

I still love the game and feel the itch to play, just not sure I have the time to commit to it like I would need to, in order to play at the level I'd want to play at.

Though, from what you say, I am tempted to give it a try, lol.

Alzar’s time line:

Alzar began adventuring around Regalsford.

1 year later – Alzar arrived at the Isle of Dread.

2 Years after that – Alzar arrived back to Chonae from the Isle of Dread adventures.

5 Years Later – Alzar strikes out to hit the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief.

1 Year Later – Alzar returns from the Queen of the Demonweb Pit.

3 Years Later – We pick up the saga…

Alzar at level 14 –

Alzar has spent some time learning new spells in cities and such. Many of his important items have been made semi-permanently flameproof and waterproof, including valuable lab equipment and more. He also has cast Lightning Rod in the main room of his complex, and made it semi-permanent – now any lightning attack spell cast there goes to the metal rod imbedded in the wall, rather than at anyone.

Three years later he is level 14, and one of the found longevity potions of age worked, and the other three were poisoned, so his real age is 54 but physical age is 20.

Alzar has gained non-weapon proficiencies in Bookbinding and Papermaking and he has his minions make books for Consume Knowledge and Bookcopy. This reduces costs for paper for scrolls, books, and spellbooks by a lot. He also has two paid sages and geomancers in Vermani, Keig and Kegra, a pair of twins who are paid to make copies of minor books but also get to make copies of the book themselves. Alzar provides them all of the supplies and they get free books, the spell, and the occasional gold to keep them going. He gets several free books a day from the twins beyond his apprentices.

With the amount of knowledge he has gained from various books all over, Alzar now is considered to have the Obscure Knowledge trait. He also has Sage Knowledge: Outer Planes, Inner Planes.

His complex has added the rest of the items from Castanimir’s island. For example, the pantry area from the kitchen that made food was transported to Alzar’s lair, so he people now can get food anytime. The freezer from the first room is also transported over, and other minor things like that were brought over. Everything else was stripped down.

Gamholt built and consecrated several unholy altars around the complex to his deity and now the turning of undead is unable to occur near them until they are sanctified by certain rituals by a good cleric. They have built in redundancy so everywhere in the complex is covered by two altars, in case one is taken out.

One of the most important factors Alzar learned in his long time adventuring is the weakness of a large dungeon. It reduces security by increasing the distance people have to travel and makes everybody weaker. Instead, his complex is rather small. You walk into the opening area, there are a variety of magical traps and such moving in. There is a large undead chamber just by the front with hundreds of skeletons armored, armed, and with useful spells such as transmute bone to steel. The hallway goes the other way and winds around a few times, passing a storage room, locked and trapped, with minor things like tools and extra normal weapons. The corridor winds around and arrives at the main room of the complex, with large pillars along the east and west walls, and corridors moving off to various areas. This has tables, Alzar’s throne, various decorations, guards, and more. It also has many traps and such. One breach heads to the east and it travels for about fifty feet before turning twice and ending in a small study lounge. Off this corridor are all of the sleeping chambers of the various minions, apprentices and henchmen, each one with a room directly opening into this corridor.

On the west side leads one corridor that arrives in a kitchen and pantry and winery in one space. It’s just a few feet past the large open room. Another corridor to the south west heads into the three story library and growing. It is huge with many study tables and such, plus many guardians. One hallways leaves from this room southward. It hits the laboratory after twenty feet – enough space to keep any bad things from hitting the library – and this is one of the first places that has a door in the hallway. Another corridor leaves the expensive and stocked lab (which has things like potions, spell components and more), and heads south. Another turns back east. The east one curves and ends at the treasury. It is well guarded and has normal treasure – gold, lower value gems, some minor and duplicative magic items. The other corridor heads south, and off it are the doors to the summoning room, a storage room for special undead or other creatures, a third room is the valuables storage room (like Dokkalfar weapons or other similar valuable but not major items) and then Alzar’s bed room and personal meditation chamber. Beyond some doors. Also protected, it has opulent settings, and a secret door (as expected) leads to additional treasure, but nothing major. All major items are kept in a secured location either in OtherSpace or in a secret chamber he made in the rock about a half mile away with no entrance to it at all. The place is littered with everything from the special moss that gives off drowsy gas (but the humans have a Necklace of Adaptation) to potent magical traps and guardians and more.

But Alzar has also created a portal in the back on the two undead storage rooms. If you’ll recall, only someone with 20 intelligence or greater could understand how to make the portals in Castanimar’s tower, but now Alzar has that info in books and that intelligence. He can order all of the creatures in the back room to pour into the main chamber at a moment’s notice. He can also order all of the creatures in the giant undead chamber at the front of the complex to empty out a few miles away in a nearby plateau. The goal is to unload onto a party that invaded his place or to get his army away from a major threat while he worked. He has duplicates of all of his spellbooks, valuable books from the library, and laboratory and workshop.

That’s it – the entire complex has just two rooms before arriving at the main room, just three branches off it – one ends at a pantry less than 50 feet later, the other has nothing but bedrooms, and the last goes through a library, workshop/lab, and corridors into an area with just four rooms off it. There are not a lot of places in here, and the group of people that visit or live here tend to mix together.

He has normal bedrooms for when people like Estaish or Maerie and Aleigha come to visit. Wassilon has carved a beautiful complex. Gamholt is a permanent resident, and Thedoran and Vala are useful apprentices, and others are here too, such as the Dokkalfar wizard, Nilonim, and he even has been getting occasional visits from others he has encountered, assisted, and traded with – from wizards of many alignments to other-planar guests such as a certain alu-fiend and others, to wizards, apprentices, a few clerics of the cult of death, and even Hrothgr and Nigel have each visited twice.

The complex has built in protection against scrying from outside with various amulets built into the walls along the complex. Only by breaking into the wall would they be discovered though. This enables Alzar to scry out, but none to scry it.

Vala has arrived at level 9 and is beginning to establish her own complex, about 200 miles away. Soon, she will be leaving and heading out on her own. Thedoran is level 4 and quickly learning. He is too ambitious though, and Alzar suspects he will not wait until reaching name level like Vala did before striking out. Maybe level 5 or 6 he will begin to consider leaving. Ever since he obtained that Imp familiar from Alzar’s spell, it has always driving Thedoran to push harder and harder.

He has recruited a new apprentice, Magallia Vernstock, who is still less than level 1 and can only use cantrips.


Alzar has summoned and negotiated with several lower planes creatures. He would normally negotiate with the lawful evil devils, but they have a blood feud with the chaotic evil demons. He has a lot of items that summon a demon. They won’t work together and will often fight each other. So, instead, he has negotiated with a small group of neutral evil daemons, who are now in his service for a length of time in exchange for a magic item. His most powerful of these minions is Bartelza, a powerful Hydrodaemon he negotiated a +2 ring of protection to for 15 years of service.

He could force service with pain or threats, but instead he chooses to negotiate with them. It might cost him a weapon, but it’s worth it to him, to not have an angry ex-ally now looking for revenge and with information on some of his secrets.

Alzar has investigated three fallout positions in case his complex is attacked in power. At two of the locations, he has a secret chamber with no entrance or exit that cannot be scryed. Inside them are a list of backup scrolls, potions, minor magic items such as wands, rings, and most important, duplicate set of spellbooks as well as copies of his most valuable, and irreplaceable books, and a smattering of valuable jewelry and gems. Each of these locations could be a place for a future complex if he suffers a major attack or he needs to reset his position.

Alzar’s allies and groups include:


The Tribe of the Bleached Skull – A nearby tribe of orcs that were set free by Alzar from various places, but mostly slavers, the giant location and the Temple. There are more than 100 fighting strong.


Troll Tribe – Alzar has negotiated with a nearby group of trolls back in the giant days, and the chief reports to him and he assigns them areas to attack and stay in.


Several Small Giant Tribes (Including Stone Giant) that he has befriended over the years in various adventures)

Individuals - Various people he has saved from torture, death, prison, slavery, and more. These include people such as Hrothgr, Estaish, Maerie and Aleigha. Others living with him include Wassilon, Carum, Gamholt, and Nilonim. He is friends to people from the evil thief Derek Densleigh to Nigel and Darley. He is also welcome and allied to places like the Dvergr outpost by Firestorm peak, Tangaroa on the Isle of Dread, the Kuo-Toa in the Shrine deep underground and places small and large, such as Hommlet, Orlane, Saltmarsh, and Sybar among many more. He has allies from Qwith royalty and good people through wizards both evil and good.

Creations - He has many created folks such as two Flesh Golems, the Clay Golem he controlled while out adventuring, two Iron Cobras, one Necrophidus, 3 Iron Men, and four Stone Guardians.

Undead - His undead are numerous. Four years of using the Barrel results in 4200 undead that were free animations. Some include Wights, Shadows, Swordwraiths, Ghouls, as well as Zombies, Skeletons, and a few others that are less common.

This is in addition to everything from a Taurian Mummy to many various Giant Skeletons and a horde of skeletons enhanced by Transmute Bone to Steel, Bone Knit, weapons and armor of quality. Then he has a bunch of cannon fodder zombies protecting the higher quality skeletons.

His complex is beautifully done by Wassilon, who took the Spartan complex that was made by spells such as Transmute Rock to Mud and worked on making it carved with the technical expertise of the Svartalfar

In addition to Gamholt, the Temple of Death has a high level cleric on duty in his complex doing research and helping out as needed with clerical duties. However, the current priestess, 8th level Devona Pyrestaff does not join either Alzar or his people when they head out on adventuring forays, which are usually led by Vala and Carum and include a daemon or two, a good number of undead, and Gamholt.


One of the most interesting features of the Complex is a printing press and papermaking facility that is quite large and run by undead, and occasionally sees someone come by to check up on things. Alzar cuts down on costs by making his own paper and books.

That concludes this step of the dynasty.


Check out the new one here:


The D&D Dynasty: The New Path of Alzar the Mighty - Front Office Football Central