They walk though a weird hallway, and hit some rubble that takes Lastion about 15 minutes to clear out. There is a narrow twisty corridor and Megala scouts ahead and see nothing. They hit a door and They enter.

This room gleams with two large sarcophagi with golden runes telling their names - Alatandr and Zeonbia. There are numerous wooden chests in there, and several have been smashed open. Plus smashed thrones. Alzar quickly notices that the gold and gems in the room are mostly fake. He also knows there are two secret doors leading out. A quick search turns up nothing else.

The next room is Queen Zeonbia’s burial chamber. The walls of this room are plain stone with an oblong box made from stone slabs in the center of the room. A search of the chamber shows nothing. Lastion opens the sarcophagus and reveals Queen Zeonbia, now a wight, who attacks!

Another freakin’ wight. Alzar tries to control it and..success! He plucks the crown and sceptre from the queen. The jeweled crown would be worth around 5000 gold.

They head back to other secret room, this time led by their Queen wight.



They move into the secret door and find a room that is laid out identically to the queen’s room, but with a ghost that appears. Alzar has no idea what it is. That’s a rare creature. It wails and Alzar takes 3 damage


22/51. He swings with his staff at it and it does no damage. He orders the Queen to attack, since her claws should be able to hit the fey. Alzar tries to control it, but it is way to powerful. It shrieks again and he takes 4.

18/51.

Alzar leaves and shuts the door.

A minute later, the wight has died, and the fey is badly injured. Alzar opens the door back up with axe and slices. The fey take 11 and dies.

No XP, dead wight. The room has nothing in it either, so the coffin is opened and inside is a mummified corpse with an identical jeweled crown (5000 gold) and a long sword and plate armor that are added to the magic pile.


This finishes this level, so Alzar decides to take a group up with the gold, items, crowns, and such, and restock the wagon. They pick up two more casks of wine and a crate of food on their way. On their way, they run into a giant centipede, but it is non aggressive and they skip it.

The room they arrive in is empty. There are no doors. Alzar searches until he finds a secret one.

The room it opens into is a bedroom, empty, and looks recently used, including a white robe, clothes, furniture – everything you would except.

After searching the room, Alzar brushes the robe and he fails a save and is now possessed by Demetrius. This bedroom was once his, a cleric of Bathala. He swore an oath against his evil brother and the Cult of Zargon, and was assassinated by his brother before he could. He is now possessing Alzar’s body until he can fulfill the quest.

Alzar is now:

A 6th level cleric with these spells – Cure Light Wounds, Bless, Detect Evil, Hold Person, Striking, Cure Serious Wounds

He can turn undead, and cannot control them. He is now good. Megala and Lastion have had their connection severed for now, but Alzar spends the last of his energy telling them to stay here. He is at 51/51, restoring Alzar to full hp.

He opens the secret door to the treasury in here before he leaves, to help Alzar out when he returns, as a thanks for the loan of the body. He will be taking a direct route. He hefts Alzar’s staff.

South is a kitchen and dining room with two snakes. They ignore Demetrius/Alzar but they move into the room and attack Lastion and Megala. They are poisonous with little damage, so Lastion kills both and only takes three damage.

4/15

Demetrius goes into a Living room, and passes by two statues that are living statues but have not animated yet. They ignore Demetrius.

He arrives at a room with books, tables, urns and such, and tow stone gargoyles that would animate and attack anyone other than Demetrius. Demetrius jumps over a pit trap. He goes east and up and opens a secret door. And then east and north. He jumps over a pressure plate that would otherwise alert Darius of his coming. He opens the door and ten Cynidiceans are in the room spaced out on drugs. Demetrius ignores them and opens the south door. There are a dozen Cynidiceans here gambling and playing cards and dice. They invite Demetrius/Alzar to join, and he skips them and goes south, casting bless on himself, striking on his staff, and then opening a secret door to the south east.

He sees 6 hobgoblins, 12 Cynidiceans, and Darius. He casts Light at Darius, with surprise. Darius fails his save and is blinded.

Demetrius slams the staff into a nearby hobgoblin and deals 6 damage and it dies. The staff is dealing 2d6+1 for Bless and Striking. The enemies band together. Darius draws a mace.

Demetrius hops onto a table in this large room and kills another hobgoblin and he closes with Darius. He is slashed three times by Cynidiceans and a hobgoblin for 11 damage. 40/51.

He has neared Darius and lashes out. Hitting the blind Darius is not too hard, and he takes 11 damage. Darius misses. Demetrius takes 12 damage from the crowd.

Demetrius wins initiative and nails Darius again for 10 damage. Darius casts Cure Light Wounds on himself and he gains back 5. Demetrius takes 10. 19/51.

Demetrius slaps and kills Darius, hitting him for 9 more damage. Darius, leader of the Cult of Zargon, has died. Demetrius takes 10 damage 9/51. As the round ends, Demetrius releases his hold on Alzar’s body, and as a thanks, fully heals him.

Alzar loses initiative and takes 9 damage (42/51). He keeps using the staff and doles out death to another hobgoblin . He is still strikinged and blessed.

Alzar wins init and kills and 4th hobby. Then he takes 14. 28/51. Three Cynidiceans run away, leaving 9.

The striking spell fades, and Alzar casts sleep. Both hobgoblins and three Cynidiceans fall asleep. To more flee, and Alzar takes 2. 26/51. His staff kills a Cynidicean, and the rest flee. He kills the sleepers.

XP – 250

Alzar saw what Demetrius saw, and know s much of the map of the area.

A search finds literally nothing in here but weapons and armor for a big ol’ magic pile.

The gamblers are gathering their things and getting ready to flee. Alzar attacks and kills two. The rest keep whatever money they had and flee. Alzar moves north and there are still a bunch of drugged, whacked out people here. He moves north and 9 Cynidceans are in here, partying and dancing and pretending to dance with invisible people. They ignore Alzar so he shuts the door. He hears one of the druggies in the room scream and turns around, but nothing can be seen – it is just the dreams they are making. He leaves, jumps over the trap, and realizes that he needs to find another exit in order to skip the gargoyles and living statues to get back to his minions.

He has a Charm Person and ESP spell left.

He opens a room and reveals a Gelatinous Cube, it moves towards the stone door. Alzar opens two flasks of oil and simultaneously throws their contents on the ground. As the Cube reaches the door, Alzar drops a torch and shuts the door. He runs back and gets another torch from the Zargon Priest area and returns, and by then the Cube is dead.

There is nothing else in the room.

XP – 70

Alzar continues and enters a huge chapel, with the three statues, altars, but apparently disused with time. A man and woman are talking to each other. They wear brightly colored clothes and fox masks. They look at Alzar, and use their natural telepathy ability and see that he just killed more than 20 people. They tell Alzar they mean him no harm, and move to leave. They are gone before he can ask where to leave. There are two fountains here fed by underground springs and Alzar fills the canteens and waterbags he has with him.

He goes north and enters and giant entrance. This is the ground floor of the pyramid, and it was covered with sand, but long ago, this was the main entrance into the pyramid from the city. There is nothing in her.e

Alzar encounters four Cynidiceans in grey robes and wearing camel masks moving in a zig zag motion down a corridor. They warn Alzar of the snakes they are avoiding and point out where they are, and then they continue around a bend. Of course, there are not any snakes to be seen.

He goes down a hallway and hits a room. It’s a storage room with an owlbear. It was sleeping, and now its hungry.



This is an axe fight. It wins init and misses twice. Alzar doles out 7 damage with his axe. This time, Alzar wins the init and rocks it for 12. A bear paw slashes him for 4 damage.

22/51

Both miss. The bear hits for 2 damage 20/51, and then Alzar decapitates it for 16 damage (crit hit).

XP – None

The room has more than 100 casks and bottles of wine in it, and that’s it. He leaves it for now, after a quick search.

The other room in this section of the base floor has a weird thing inside it. There is a pool of bubbling liquid that covers the entire floor. Floating in the middle is a box of stone and a large iron padlock on it. Alzar doesn’t have a way to open it, even with a way to get it. He ignores it.

He goes the other way and runs into another room that looks like old clerics quarters. There are humans here, Cynidiceans and they ignore Alzar. He skips them for now.

The next room has a storage room, with shelves, and various items in religious ceremonies, like robes, candles, incense and so forth. In here are three ogres that were eating the candles. They see Alzar and decide he must taste better, so they sit up and start moving towards him. Three ogres are no joke.

Alzar doesn’t have a deus ex machina in his back pocket. He knows that Ogres cannot be charmed and reading their minds means little right now. So he leads them. He leads them back down the hallway to the gargoyles. It takes about 10 minutes, but he taunts them and gets close a couple of times.

As he enters with the ogres fast on his toes, the gargoyles animate and Alzar is forced to run to the back of the room. He shouts to the ogres that his gargoyle friends will kill them, and they attack the gargoyles.

After a few rounds, Alzar manages to squeeze out. He goes back to the storage room to see if there is anything here, but he finds nothing. The bronze ladder in the priest’s quarters appears to be the only functional way back up, barring some trap Alzar misses.

He returns and sees the gargoyles flapping around and three dead ogres. He decides to gamble, grabs the axe, and swings at a gargoyle just inside the room. He hits for 11 damage and they both come out into the hallway.

Alzar wins init and kills the gargoyle after hitting it for 12 damage. The other one Hits Alzar for 7 damage. 15/51

Alzar loses init and the gargoyle attacks again. He hits for 4. 11/51. Alzar’s Axe hits the wall beside it, and he grimaces. He needed to hit pretty much every time to win this thing. He wins init and hammers it for 8 damage.. He takes 2 9/51. He wins init and decides to risk the swing and hits for 9 and kills it.

Whew

XP – 250

Alzar enters the room and searches. He finds:

Mace, potion, 2000 ep, 18 gems worth 100 each in the room. The ogres had a ring, and a scroll, 1400 gold in three sacks.

Alzar needs to decide what to do. Attack the iron statues that will likely kill him? Run through it? Grab his familiars, and run up the stairs? Leave all of the treasure here?

Alzar orders Megala to fly to him, and the statues do not animate for Megala. Well, that is one thing at least. He orders Lastion to follow, and they animate and follow. Alzar goes and sets up a trap for the Living Statues. He knows where the pit trap is that Demetrius jumped over. He jumps over it, and orders Lastion to do the same. The pursuing Iron statues trigger it and fall down. They take no damage, but they are 20 feet down and not getting back up. Alzar goes back around and enters the priest suite. The druggists are still zonked.

Alzar collects, from the gambling room:

3000 sp
5000 gp
26 gems worth a total of 3100 gp
Six pieces of jewelry worth 6000 gp total


They are loaded up in boxes from the storage room and taken out by Lastion to the priest’s quarters.

Alzar searches those kitchens and finds a full water bottle and a 700 gp necklace. Both are grabbed. The opened secret door has a curtain and some treasure in it. As he enters, the chest is locked and cannot be opened right now So they take it with them.

Two trips later, everything is out. They meet nothing on either trip.

The chest has in it a potion. Chain mail, dagger and 3000 gold.

With several crates of food, mostly mushrooms and cured fish, four casks of wine, refilled waterskins and additional water bottles, skins and canteens added, Alzar is re-equipped. They also have a truck load of treasure and gold found.


XP Gained: 1645
XP Total: 10122

Yay! Level 4!

We’ll come back to that later.

Gold Gained: 11758, after conversion, 11000. Total Gold:

Items Gained: Gems: 1000, 500x4, 100x22, 50 gold
Crowns: 5000x2, bracelets 600x2, necklace 1500, necklace 70
26 gems worth a total of 3100 gp
Six pieces of jewelry worth 6000 gp total

2 flasks of oil
4 teleport jars

5 animal skeletons, Lastion, Megala, and Alzar




These items were in the magic pile:

+1 long sword, Potion of Invisibility, Wand of Paralyzation 8 charges. +2 long sword. Plate armor +1, +1 mace, poison potion, Ring of Fire Resistance, (Scroll of Continual Light, Levitate, and Aganazzar’s Scorcher), potion of invis, chain mail +1, dagger +1

Alzar now:


7th level Fighter (Myrmidon), 4th level Necromancer (Undead Master)

Lawful Evil
Human

Str: 16
Dex: 12
Con: 10
Wis: 16
Int: 18
Cha: 14

Hit Points: 51
THACO: 13 (Increased with Axe Weapon Master and +1 Axe) or 20 as Necromancer
AC: 9
Total XP: 10122
Total Gold: 26100

Race Abilities:

None Taken

Class Abilities (Cannot use as Necromancer without losing XP gain):

Specialization
Leadership (Alzar can command the tactics, strategy, logistics and more that a large force requires)
3 attacks every 2 rounds



Non-Weapon Proficiencies:

Myrmidon Bonus:

Tactical History 14
Fire-Building 16

Riding 11
Swimming 12
Reading/Writing 13
Survival 14
Blind Fighting
Etiquette 13
Endurance
Heraldry 13
Hunting 10
Fishing 14
Weather Knowledge 10
Orienteering 15

Undead Master Bonuses:

Necrology 14
Netherworld Knowledge 10

Herbalism 14
Alchemy 12
Poison Use 11
Ancient Languages 10


Traits:

Empathy
Fast Healer
Precise Memory


Weapon Proficiencies:

Bonus Kit Specialization:

Battle Axe

Battle Axe
One Handed Weapon Style x2 (-2 AC when using one weapon in combat)
Crossbow
Battle Axe Weapon Mastery
Spear

Total with normal battle axe - +3 to hit, +3 to damage, -2 to AC. An additional +1 with the axe and +1 damage for strength


Staff – Can only use this as a Necromancer


Class Ability:

Alzar can control undead as an evil Priest of the same level, and this ability extends to extra planar beings which are considered undead with the same hit dice for this purpose.

In addition to normal specialist mage stuff, Alzar gets a 10% bonus to XP for his high intelligence


Magical Items:

+1 Battle Axe
Necklace of Adaptation
+1 Ring of Protection
Ring of Fire Resistance
Potion of Invisibility, Gaseous Form, Poison
4 +1 Daggers
Rope of Climbing
Sword of the Rock, +2, cannot be wielded by evil
Longsword +1, +2 vs undead
+1 Longsword; +2 Longsword
3 +1 Mace
+1 Plate Armor
2 +1 Chain Mail
Wand of Paralyzation 8 charges
Scrolls of: Mordenkainen’s Faithful Phantom Shield-Maidens, Bone Knit and Teleport, Read Languages, Continual Light, Agannzar’s Scorcher, Odeen’s Magic Cloud, Levitate
The Book of Years, Windscribe, 4 teleport jars
1000 Gold worth of books for a library


Spellbook:


3/3


First Level:

Alzar’s Undead Porter
Animate Dead Animals *
Cantrip
Charm Person *
Detect Magic
Friends
Identify
Read Languages
Read Magic
Sleep *
Tenser’s Floating Disc
Unseen Servant


Second Level:

Attract Ghoul
Blastbones *
ESP *
Forget
Locate Object
Ray of Ondovir *
Speak with Dead


Third Level:

Dire Charm
Searing Serpent
Skulltrap

Fourth Level:

Vorthala’s Undead Turning Immunity



Jewelry and Gems

Crowns: 5000x2 and 50x4, bracelets 600x2, necklace 1500, necklace 700, Tiara 200, wristbands 100x4,bracelets 500, 300; pearl necklaces, 400x2


Gems: 1000, 500x4, 300, 200, 100x37, 50 x29, 10x4

Six pieces of jewelry worth 6000 gp total
26 gems worth a total of 3100 gp

There we go.


Alzar’s wagon is slower due to the added weigh of the gold and, cask of wine and food, but the four steeds pulling it manage to get everything together.

Four days later, Alzar is leaving behind the desert. He is south of the qwith village by two days, and chooses instead to return to Regalsford.

Upon his return, he is greeted warmly, and makes 100 gold for delivering that package (Already added to the gold total).

It is time for Alzar to make some decisions. Stay in Regalsford and keep trying to do some adventures? Semi-permanently set up here in Reglasford and set up for a while, buy property, etc? Leave town for good?

In the last month, no one has followed those bandits, lead by a cleric, so that mission is still there if Alzar wanted to do it. He doesn’t really want too, however.

What Alzar needs to do is freelance. Find a place, clean it out, and make it home for a bit, until he is able to make something more permanent.

He could also put the gold in the bank, exchange the gems and jewelry, and keep going.

Alzar looks up the mages to see if any have any items they would be willing to part with . Once does not want to talk to him, and the other two are willing. They don’t have much, though.

Rope of Climbing
Periapt of Proof against Poison +2
Dust of Disappearance
+1 Dagger
Scroll of Armor


In the end, Alzar trades a +1 Mace and two +1 daggers and 1000 gold for the Scroll and Periapt. He rolls to see if he can memorize Armor. Success.

The Periapt will force a save vs poison when there normally isn’t one, and ads +2 to saves vs poison.

He trades 11,000 gold for a super exquisite bracelet that is worth roughly 10,000. It makes his money much more portable.

The sorceress that Alzar used her laboratory, mentions that she just discovered that a crystal ball could be found in the valley of haven, but since that valley is one of the safest and holiest places, she would be unable to acquire it. Alzar, on the other hand….


Seems like a plan. Alzar grabs his new items, and wagon, and heads out. He traded in the camels for two more draft horses and used the extra armor and non-magical weapons he found as the incentive for the trade.


Alzar is back to having 9 animal skeletons, Megala, Lastion, and himself, now level four, with an extra second level spell available.

He is keeping Charm Person over Armor, and keeping Sleep and Animate at level one and adds Ray of Ondovir at level 2.

B3 Palace of the Silver Princess






This adventure is both rare, and really common. It was originally distributed with really weird creatures and offensive art, and was destroyed by TSR being making it to the stores. It was heavily edited, and then sent out. The edit removed it’s highly quirky nature. I will be playing the original version which is available for d/l for free from the WoTC website.

I will sometimes slide into the Moldvay version when encounters are left blank, in order to run official TSR Stuff. So, what I will do then is a synthesis of both modules, the quirkiness of the original combined with the sensibility of the edited version. I am also including some Moldvay spins that make the adventure much more fun.

Alright, here we go.

Definitely enjoying the ride, Abe. It seems like being possessed was about the best thing that could have happened to you. Or else you just did a great job of making something good out of something not so good.

Yeah, normally, you would be in a party, one would be possessed, and you would fight your way to the cleric, and have a 6th level in your back pocket, but since Alzar is essentially soloing these things, that made it really interesting.

Oh, and glad you are enjoying yourself!

Within the large part of a day, Alzar has made it to the valley of Haven.

He sends Megala in to look but the valley has been changed. The crops have largely died, the valley id red and twisted, and red shining pall lingers over everything. Something has happened very recently.

Alzar and his group make their way into the valley, led by Magala flying up above and scouting for Alzar. As they get to a mile away from the Palace, that can see that the left half of the structure has been completely destroyed. Stone blocks and rubble cover the mountain side. The plant life is fading, but some are looking very nice, like these white rose looking bushes.

As Alzar approaches, a group of orcs that was watching the road sees him, and move off. In a few moments, 5 orcs are flying down the hill as fast as they can, and Alzar is alerted to their presence. One sleep spell later and they are all sleeping quietly, until they are killed one by one.

XP – 75


The castle is damaged and the road is battered. Alzar retreats from the valley for tonight, and will come back tomorrow.

The new day has dawned and Alzar has eaten and is back to the castle. The portcullis is open and anyone can come in.

While entering the palace, Alzar lashes his wagon to the entryway inside, and ties up the five horses. (One riding, four draft). The hallway is searched by animal skeletons running up and down. The hallway splits into a left and right corridor, with a small gate room at the front of each. Alzar enters the gate room on the left. Inside is a giant rat, which is killed by Lastion in a second.

XP – 10

Alzar heads over and checks out the right gate room, and inside are two skeletons, and Alzar commands them. They have 5 hp each, short swords in their hand, and ac7. Alzar chooses to head through the door on the left. Soon it has one way going forward, and one back. Alzar turns. The corridor goes on, so he searches for secrets, but finds nothing. He arrives at a natural cavern with a fresh creek running through it. A large stone grey pool of water in still in the center of the room, and occasionally bubbles rise to the surface.

Alzar sends in an animal skeleton to check, and it is attacked and killed by these bubbles. These creatures are unique to this pool, and Alzar has never heard of them. (They were formed by the process of making magical potions, and dumping the residue and failed potions into this pool over and over again through years, which eventually animated and gave intelligence to these bubbles). (I told you, this is a quirky module).

With a dead animal skeleton, and no reason to challenge the bubbles, Alzar skips the pool and moves on.

He goes back to the fork in the corridor and heads south and hits a door shortly thereafter. It’s already ajar. The walls of the room are collapsing and moisture clings to everything. A brilliant purple moss is growing everywhere. The torch is sputtering as if not getting enough oxygen. A check by an animal skeleton finds nothing. Alzar enters. The Purple Moss gives off a sweet smelling gas that puts people to sleep, but Alzar is immune to gas. (Necklace of Adaptation) It smells nice. Alzar thinks that it would be a great way to protect a home where he was. He hacks off a nice section of Purple Moss and puts it in a large urn from a nearby storeroom, seals it, and returns it to the wagon. He then continues on.

The hallway moves into another cavelike area, this one much smaller, with another creek flowing through it. No pool this time. This time a section has collapsed and the areas is not that large. Alzar finds a store room down here with nothing in it after a quick inspection, and moves back to the other gate room. While moving, he runs into a cave bear moving from one room into another. This huge bear rears up. They are very aggressive.

Alzar wants to fight it, and draws his staff. He pulls back the animal skeletons to the sides, and moves the two skeletons in front. He will use the skeletons in front, and then nip in with the animal skeletons and Megala after the bear is engaged.

The Cave Bear swings first, and paws kill a skeleton. Alzar misses, the skeleton hits for 2 damage. The next turn, Alzar goes and hits for 6. The skeleton misses. Megala hits it for 1 damage and it…makes its save vs sleep. The animal skeletons nip at it and all miss (in fact, FOUR out of 8 rolled 1s None rolled higher than a 4. I kid you not. ) The bear kills the other skeleton. The bear goes first and misses Alzar completely with three attacks (rolled a 4, 6, and 7). Alzar nails it for 4 damage. Megala misses. Three animal skeletons nip it for 5 damage. It is reeling, and moves to flee, but Megala flies down chasing it, hits it, and deals 3 to it, killing it.

XP Gained – 325

Lost two skeletons.

There are two exits from the gateroom, South and east. Alzar goes east. The hallways goes, and then bends into a door and continues. Inside the door are Reed pens, ink wells, scraps of paper, and other signs that this was recently a library or study. Now it is a den for messy kobolds Five of them, a mother, a father and three kids, are playing, and Alzar has interrupted them. He kicks them out, and they take their bags of clothes and leave. A search of the room turns up nothing.

The corridor continues and Alzar enters the next room. In here are bags of grain, brooms, beer barrels and other signs that this is a storeroom. It has nothing it in and nothing shows on a search. As Alzar searches, a group of goblins come by. Alzar quietly closes the door and they pass, and just after they do, he jumps out, attacks, and kills one immediately, and the rest run in surprise. There is nothing on the goblin’s corpse.

XP – 10

The next room down is a kitchen, with wooden trenchers, spoons, knives and such around kitchen furniture. There is a large pile of rags on the floor, by the fireplace. Alazr orders his minions to search the room, and an animal skeletons runs into a spitting cobra in the pile of rags. They kill it, but one died 7 left.

XP – 25

The search finishes and Alzar finds a golden ring with the initials AES in it, and it is worth 100 gold.

He continues south and a door is opened to a giant room. It looks like a dining hall, with tables and chairs, candelabras, and more. It looks like it recently has been used as a war zone. The tables are flipped up, arrows are stuck in some, and so forth. There are no other exists, and no bodies. A search reveals nothing. During a search, they find a carrion crawler quietly munching on a corpse just behind an overturned table. It looks like a mage’s corpse. Alzar orders the undead to kill the carrion crawler.

XP – 50

Once dead, they inspect the mage and find a wand. Nothing else is on the corpse, except a set of keys.

The corridor comes to a T, and Alzar goes east some more. It hits a door, and goes north. Alzar goes north and enters a door just 15 feet down the passage. This is a barracks, and there are bedrolls on cots in here. There are also some footlockers in various places.

A search of the room turns up three strange octagon coin-size discs, with no marking on them. Alzar takes them. There is a door and Alzar opens it, and it leads to the next room. This is another barracks, but it looks like it was for officers with nicer beds and such. There was a battle here and dried blood marks the ground. There are six bodies on the ground of humans, and three of hobgoblins. They only died about three or four days ago. The bodies have been stripped of everything useful. As Alzar searches the room with his undead, two human females open the door to the hallway. They see Alzar and come in. They introduce themselves as warrior adventuresses who entered the castle thinking there would be some good opportunity for adventure and fortune, but are not as strong as they thought, and they’d like to come with Alzar. He casts ESP and finds out that they are lying a bit. They are thieves, not warriors. They do feel that they have bit off more than they can chew, however. Their names are Duchess and Candella.

Alzar agrees to welcome them, but under the rule that if they take anything of his, or come after him, his undead will hunt them down and kill them. They accept and Alzar can tell they mean it.

Duchess – AC7, HP9, Con 18, Dex 16, short sword., Align: N
Candella – AC6, HP8, Dex 17, short sword, Align: N.

Both are second level thieves.

Alzar has the thieves search the rooms he just was in and this one, since they are better. They find nothing. They go back to the hallway and north into a door. As they enter into a cave like complex, they leave behind the castle. As they move forward, they come across a cave bear cub, waiting for its mother (whom Alzar already killed) who is out looking for some food. It looks like someone has been feeding the cub regularly. Alzar tosses it a little food, and it eats it, and they move past.

XP – 100 gained.

As they continue, the cave bends and there are two twos, virtually side by side, in the cave wall. Alzar takes the right one. They enter one room in an octagonal chamber. This room is littered littered with red towels, and soap. There are beautiful marble floors, gold fixtures, and there are several benches in here. There is a door deeper into the octagonal chamber.

A search of the room turns up a hidden old key under a bench, found by an animal skeleton that is able to go under it and look.

They move to the next room, shaped identically to the first. Inside is a large pool of water, clear. There are murals of water nymphs on the walls. There are a few more towels here and there. There are also delicately carved vials of bath oils, and the water gives off steam. Perhaps it is heated by a room below, or a natural steam geyser. A search shows what appears to be a diamond at the base of the pool. Alzar sends in an animal skeleton, and it moves. And blinks. There is obviously a creature down there of some sort. Alzar skips it. There is a door to continue. It is a false door. One of the thieves found a secret door to the center of the octagon. This square room is the center of the octagon. This has a small pink marble pedestal about three feet tall. There is a small silver object on it that gleams in the light. As they approach, it begins to laugh harshly and shrilly. Alzar orders Megala to fly in and grab it, and when it does, the laughing stops. The pendent stops shining. It looks like a dull tin pendant, not silver, and not valuable at Alzar. Alzar destroys it. The thieves find a secret door and it is locked. The key from before fits into it.

This is the same size as the other outer rooms. As they do, the room begins to glow softly. Suspended from the ceiling is a glowing magical bastard sword, made of silver. Alzar orders everybody back, and sends in Lastion to grab the sword. As the ghoul gets near, a ghost appears, solidifies as a knight, and grabs the sword, ready to plunge it into the ghoul. Alzar orders everyone to attack it.

After four rounds, a thief is deed and the knight is still kicking, when it disappears and revealed to be an illusion. The thief awakens. The swords glow continues, and they take it as a light source.

They finish going down the cave and arrive at an open worship alcove. There is a raised platform with a carved statue of a woman. It is smiling down at a child at her feet. There is a small opening, larger than a coin, at the base. Alzar makes an INT check and realizes that it is the shape of those disks. He inserts one, and an opening is revealed with a scroll. Here is the scroll:

I came and what did my eyes behold?
A maiden fair with hair of gold
Her face aglow by which the sun is shamed
My steed a dragon her innocence did tame
Her heart a gem with many facets

The leave behind the cave section of the castle by xiting through the door that Alzar skipped earlier. A search had found nothing.

As they exit, they come across a group of 5 clerics, with blood red eyes on their shield, plate armor, and they see Alzar, the undead, and the thieves, and they spit out an attack. Alzar casts sleep. All but one fall asleep. That one casts Cause Light Wounds and hits Alzar for 8 damage (43/51).

Lastion tears into him for 2 damage. Alzar misses with his staff. The thieves wait until the cleric is focused on Alzar. Alzar wins init and rocks the cleric for 3 damage. Lastion claws him twice for 4 damage – no paralysis though. Appears immune. The cleric casts Cure Light Wounds on himself. Both thieves miss. Alzar wins init again and thumps the cleric for 5 damage. Lastion bites for three damage and a thief slides a short sword in for 5 and he dies.

XP - 200

All of their armor and weapons are taken to the magic pile. They have nothing else on them. They continue, skip a side tunnel south, and go west to a door. It is a small school area for kids. There is nothing else here after a search. There is another room next to it, and the door opens to reveal book shelves. Alzar has his undead scout it first ,and they encounter a giant crab behind a bookshelf. Alzar and Lastion easily kill and Lastion took two damage.

13/15 for Lastion

There are tons of books and scrolls in here. After a bit of searching, Alzar decides to come back later to try and see if he can find more tomes to take with him the hallway goes west and splits off south. They keep going west. A door blocks their way and it opens easily. Inside is a small and luxuriously decorated semi-circular room. Inside is a small alcove with a statue of a young girl with arms outstretched. A search of the room reveals a secret door to the rear Lastion opens it, and gold dust falls from the ceiling and covers him. It glows and he won’t be able to hide from anyone. A quick attempt to wash it off fails, it’s pretty sticky stuff.

The room they enter has a small foundation of water in a corner, a door to the northeast, and tapestries that cover the north and south walls. They enter the next room after opening the door, and see two statues, guarding an alcove. They animate when the door opens and move to fight. These are crystal statues.

Alzar moves to the front and draws a staff. Lastion is up with him. The Animal skeletons disperse. The statues arrive.

They swing first and punch Alzar for 5 damage. 38/51. His staff bounces off one. Lastion claws one for 1 damage. The next turn, Alzar’s group goes first. Alzar misses. Lastion does too. One thief hits for 1 damage. The animal skeletons peck for 2 damage. The statues miss three times, and hit Lastion once for 4 damage.

9/15 – Lastion

Next turn, Alzar’s group wins. Alzar misses yet again. Lastion slashes for 2 damage. Duchess hits for 4 damage. Two skeletons hit, one critical, for 5 damage and one statue crumbles. The other punches twice and hits Alzar for 2 damages. 36/51. Alzar goes first and finally hits, for 5 damage. Lastion added
2. The thieves add nothing . The skeletons hit for 5 and the other statues falls apart as well.

XP – 50

Inside the room they find the diary of Lady Argenta, and learn the story thus far.

A short time ago, some miners discovered a very valuable ruby in the local hills. They polished it and brought it to the Lady Argenta, ruler of the valley. As a thanks, she threw a large banquet and just before it began, a rider in blue armor riding a white dragon arrived. He was a stranger, but everyone was welcome in the valley, and he joined them in their banquet.

That is the last entry in the diary.

They leave the room and find the corridor here collapsed, leading to the section of the castle that has fallen.

They go back and head south down the first passage to do so. They hit a door and enter. This small room as an overturned oaken table and three benches. The floor is covered in footprints. There is a large sack in here, with 3 human skills, a dagger, just the blade of a dagger, some spiders that were living in the skulls, and 11 sp. Alzar has the sack run back to the wagon by Lastion. As they continue down the passage, Alzar, in front, triggers a pit trap and falls in, taking 4 damage.

32/51

The thieves disarm it and they continue.

They descend some stairs and enter another door on their left. This large rectangular room has implements of torture, including an iron maiden. There are branding irons, chain, and such in here. As they search the room, an old man with a cleaver enters, and tells them the they could not resist his treasure. In a flash, Lastion has killed him. As search uncovers a jade ring worth 250 gold still on the finger of a dead hand.

The corridor continues and quickly another door appears. It is opened and there is a horrible, rotting smell coming form in here. There are bodies from every way in here. This is obviously where the dead were put. Alzar has his minions search, but they have been stripped of possessions. The corridor continues a bit and Alzar has more searching take place – nothing found. It bends into another door. When opened, there is a small pallet of fresh straw, a wood trencher, knives, goblets, a table, and such. They look to have been recently procured and added here. A search finds a hidden cache with a wooden box. Neither of the thieves find any traps, and one picks the lock. Inside is 2 rubies – 300 gold, 1 emerald – 2000 gold, a gold wedding ring with the initial DB in it, 10 gold, and a dagger.

They continue and find another door to the left. It opens and reveals chairs and tables, a quill, a desk, and more. This appers to have been both an office and a meeting room. Nothing is found in here. There is a door to the west or they can go back to the corridor. They go west. It opens into a hallway with stairs going up into a tower. They head up.

This tower only has 7 rooms, and they quickly explore it. None of the rooms have any treasure or any monsters inn them. It appears that whatever penetrated the valley and the castle has not gotten this far yet. They return back down, and go the adjacent room farther down the corridor.

This is a rather large room that has been swept clean, and all furniture was recently removed. Nothing is found in here.

The corridor continues, and evolves into yet another cave complex. It Ts and Alzar goes left. After a few turns, and a search by everybody that finds nothing, they arrive at a door. It opens. It opens into a corridor with 11 jail cells. The keys they found will fit these cells and open the doors. They start searching them

A few have skeletons or are empty. The fourth one opened has two Large Marmoset Monkeys. They are 8’ tall with 12’ long, prehensile tails with spikes at the end. They move to attack. Alzar orders his animal skeletons to engage first. The monkeys win init and They kill four skeletons. They are a lot more powerful than Alzar would have thought. The remaining three hit twice and deal out 4 damage to one. Alzar orders them to retreat and closes, with the others next. He swipes a staff at one and connects critically, and doles out 9 damage. It dies. Lastion Claws the other for 2 damage and it…fails its paralysis roll. The group finishes it off.

XP – 50

Inside are three chests. The thieves search for traps and find none. They are not locked. The first has food. The seconds has coins and jewelry:

1000 cp, 400 sp, 200 gp, jewelry worth total of 500 gold

The third has a bunch of weapons, helms and armor, and both of the second two are run back to the wagon. Nobody is encountered either way. The rest of the cells are empty.

They go back and take the other cave way and walk past a small cavern with ornate and delicately carved life-size statues of different men and women. There are candles and incense in here, none of it burning. A search finds nothing.

The continue on and the caves twists. No search finds anything. It splits forward or left. They go left and arrive at a portcullis. Beyond it is a cave with pitch black water and a glint of gold and hot winds. Everybody pulling together is able to raise it. The black water is darker in the swordlight, and natural, with a swiftly moving stream flowing through here. The gold was pyrite ore in the walls. Nothing is reveled in the search.

They go back and continue straight. A cave opens to the right and inside is a large natural chamber with a statue of embracing lovers. There are vines and other plant life in the cave. As the light glints, there is a large yellowish mold growth on the walls.



Alzar uses a flask of oil and throws it on the mold, then lights it and kills the mold.

XP -50

They continue on and hit stairs leading up into a new corridor, or more cave. They choose more cave. The cave ends in a cavern with large natural features, like stalactites and stalagmites. There is a colony of giant locusts here, and when startled by the light, they flee and Alzar and company duck, and they fly out.

A search reveals a pit trap, which is disarmed by the thieves.

The ygo back and up the stairs to the corridor above. The corridor continues for a bit, so they search and find another pit trap and disarm it after two tries.

They hit a door and open it.

This is a rectangular chamber with a tapestry of a female bard playing music. There is a couch, pillows, wine, candle holders, and a wheel painted on the fleer. In the middle of it is a small lap harp made of silver. A search of the room finds a secret door. Alzar grabs the harp.

They head into a carved out area with a table, a small dragon statuette, and in front are five zombies. Alzar tries to control them and…success.

Five Zombies – AC8, hp9, 1d8, always attack last

XP 50


The silver statuette has on the base “Ariksbane, Destroyer of Evil”. It is worth about 500 gold, and not that big, so they take it with them. There is nothing else in the room. They have finished this section of the castle and head back to the other south corridor off the main east west one in the center of the castle. They run into a group of goblins on the way, and Alzar orders his zombies to attack. The four goblins flee.

They reach a door and enter it, with a small chamber cluttered with a lot of extra stuff. They see a human like form and charge in, only to see a dressmaker’s dummy, spinning wheels and other signs of a seamstresses work space. A search finds nothing here. They continue on. Two corners are rounded and they pass a false door. Twice they search for hidden stuff and twice they fail. They finally reach a door and it opens into a sand covered floor. Glints of silver can be seen in the floor. There is no furniture or other markings. Alzar orders the animal skeletons in, and suddenly, three barics emerge from hidden spots and charge. They are quite hungry. These are six legged rats with the bills of ducks. Not kidding. Alzar orders his scouts back and zombies in. The Barics nip and kill a zombie from claws and bites. The zombies smash back for 12 damage and kill two of them. The last one nips and kills another zombie, before being smashed.

Three zombies left. They can be reanimated, so Alzar now has three rather odd looking animal skeletons. 6 now.

A search of the room finds nothing but a few silver pieces – 20 in all.

They continue. This rectangular room has four arrases hanging from each wall. There are many couches around a 5’ decorative wheel painted into the floor. There are candle holders, wine goblets long empty, and more. This appears to have been a lounge, or entertaining room.

A search finds nothing.

The next room is a watchroom. Inside are several tables, chairs, and more, and it opens in the hallway and stairs leading up, so it is a natural place to make sure that people are going where they are supposed to go. There is nothing else of note in here.

Time to go up.

The stairs end at a door. (for the upper level, we will be using the other version of the module, the modified and edited one ,that is a lot smoother an logical, and uses the current storyline, instead of the old one.)

The party goes up the stairs and into a watchtower that looks out over the landscape. Nothing can be seen out the windows, and a search reveals nothing in the room. As soon as the door is opened into a hallway, three swords are in mid air fighting each other. That’s a bit weird. After a few moments, Alzar orders a zombie to grab a sword, but the illusion disappears.

They go down the hallway and open a door into a corridor. It T’s and they go…right. The corridor goes for some way, and they search and find nothing. Eventually a door appears on the left. Inside is a hallway with double doors on the left and a door on the right. One door leads to a sitting room. In here is chairs, tables, a fireplace, and beautiful painting of Lady Argenta holing a giant ruby. It looks to have been recently painted too. A search finds nothing.

More doors open into a bathing room. There is a large bathtub, bathing oils, and several colored stones by the bath. A search finds nothing. Back to the hallway and another door opens into a large room. It has a large canopy bed, and very expensive furniture. It appears to be Argenta’s room. It is empty,

They continue on and open double doors into a throne room. There is an opulent throne on a dais, and various sculptures, statues, and tapestries in here. On the throne is a giant glowing ruby. A search of the room turns up a secret door that leads out. The giant ruby appears to having two figures inside of it. They cannot be made out, but they can be seen moving around in it. The giant ruby appears to be worth 10000 gold, and Alzar grabs it and takes it with them. They go back to the corridor and move along it. They find a door that opens into a guard room near the throne room. There are several weapon racks, and such in here, plus an undead guard now animated as a wight.


Alzar moves forward and casts Blastbones on the wight. It deals 4 damage to it. One zombies is handed the glowing sword, and another the axe and a third the dagger.

The wight moves in. It bites a zombie for 2 damage. One zombie hits with a axe for 6 damage. The wight attacks and kills the sword wielding zombie. Another hits for 5 damage from the dagger. The wight misses. It is missed. It misses. One critically wounds it for 11 damage form the axe and it dies.

Alzar gained 200 XP. Two zombies left.

A search of the room turns up a loose stone hiding 2000 gold AND a crystal ball. That was what brought Alzar here to begin with.

The final room out here is an ale room with nothing in it. The secret door in the throne room leads to a passage way with a door at the end. They hear chanting inside and open the door. Inside is a human cleric with a blood red circle around him. He sees the invaders and yells help! A voice from the door to the south yells back” We’re coming!”

Alzar immediately casts charm person. Success. The cleric introduces himself as Catharandamus. He is trying to summon Arik, a power extra planer creature. Haven is the result of Arik’s taint, his eye, here and drawing power.

The people arrive. 7 hobgoblins and a female human holding a powerful looking ruby sword. He tells them everything is alright, and they eye him curiously. He begins to continue with the ceremony, and Alzar makes an Intelligence check . He pulls out the ruby and asks if that is the eye. “Ah yes,”

When asked who the people are the cleric is more than happy to answer. They are the Lady and an interfering dragon knight who followed Arik here. So where is the dragon now? Split into two pieces and each is in the body of a statuette. Very nicely done! “Oh yes, thank you!” How long before Arik arrives? About an hour. I’d like to see one of those statuettes – that’s be great! One is right by in the gardens, just across the hallway.

Alzar and party open the door and cross the hallway. They open a double door into a large garden area. Some of the plants are fading and withering, and others look very healthy. Alzar sends the animal skeletons in to investigate, and some bushes fire thorns at them. One dies. They go another way and run into more of these Archer Bushes. Alzar throws oil on a nearby one and tosses a torch at it and it goes up.

XP – 30

The path to the left cleared, the animal skeletons go that way and find a statuette behind a giant white rose bush. They move to it, and Lastion goes first. It grabs the statuette and brings it back to Alzar. Once Alzar is touching both statuettes, they glow, turn cold and disappear. Suddenly a White Dragon appears, in the gardens, and it gets attacked by about five Archer Bushes, which it quickly kills with some claws.

Alzar shows it the ruby and it nods and communicates telepathically with him. The ruby is set down and everybody retreats. Ariksbane, the lawful White Dragon, breathes on it and it is destroyed. When it goes, Lady and Ellis the Strong return. Ellis sees his glowing sword and takes it back. He leads the party into the summoning room and attacks the cleric there. Alzar follows and the fighter kills the cleric is one mighty swing. With that, the 7 hobgoblins rushing to attack turn back into haven people, as do the other various monsters in the castle, including the zombies Alzar was controlling. Those that were slain by the cleric or by Alzar and his group remain dead. The human female with the ruby sword is captured and incarcerated. The treasure of the cleric is given to the thieves as a thank you (it’s about 2k in gold) and Alzar is allowed to keep everything else he found, because they are being nice and thankful.

Alzar requests that the woman be freed to come with him. After some consideration, they agree.

Alzar has destroyed the cleric, freed the queen and the dragon knight, and prevented Arik from entering this world – which is a good thing – Azar has a low opinion of chaotic evil people that destroy merely to destroy, with no advantage gained. On the other hand, they are asking him and his undead to leave, now, they do not like Necromancers here in Haven.

XP Gained: 1,547
XP Total: 11,669


Gold Gained: 2252
Total Gold: 16352
Jade Ring – 250 gold, 2 rubies – 300 gold, 1 emerald – 2000 gold, Gold Ring – 100 gold
Jewelry worth total of 500 gold


Urn of Purple Moss


Lastion gained a ghoul follower, 5 animal skeletons left


Wand of Secret Door Detection – 7 charges
Throwing Dagger +2
+1 short sword
Crystal Ball


Here is how the Crystal Ball works -


Alzar can see anywhere in Thorasia. The user can only observe a subject, object, or place personally known to Alzar. He can’t use it to check the next room. He could use it to check on the wagon, a room previously explored, his undead, and so forth. He can only use it three times a day. This is a normal one, without any additional powers.

The woman: Aleigha, female werebear. As a human, she is AC8, F3rd level, 21 hp, 1d8+1 with her sword, and is otherwise in her werebear form – AC2, HP 21, At 2d4/2d4/2d8. She is neutral, and the cleric, very evil and chaotic, treated her nicely in order to keep her. He actually hated her ,and the hobgoblins knew it. She has gone from community to community, and flown each time they get close to discovering her secret. She fights with the Sword of Spartusia. In Werebear form she can only be hit by magical and silver weapons, can summon 1d6 brown bears in the outdoors. She can cure disease someone once a month, and heal at 3x the normal rate. They never enter cities unless there is an emergency.

The Sword of Spartusia. This ruby-bladed magic sword once belonged to Spartusia Eriksdottir. IT was crafted from a single flawless ruby by an ancient red dragon in thanks for a service provided by the legendary warrior. The longsword was given a trim and feminine appearance Spartusia was eventually killed, and her sword lived on but it became cursed. It searches out the female descents of Spartusia and forces them to use it. Aleigha, it’s the last one. Despite its massive value, it cannot be sold or traded, and can only be given away. Any attempt to do so fails. The sword brings disaster upon any owner who is not a descendant of Spartusia. In Aleigha’s hands, it is a +2 sword. In other hands, it is just a +1 blade.

Veiled Society.

We started down the first path, and did Castle Caldwell and Journey to The Rock. I then stopped, because I really didn’t want to do B1, The Caverns of Quasqueton and then The Great Escape. . I skipped the second path, with hits like Elwyn;s Sanctuary (from Castle Caldwell and Beyond) and The Keep on the Borderlands and B5 Horror on the Hill with its 100+ rooms. I didn’t want to do both The Caves of Chaos and Horror on the Hill in the same line. So I jumped to the third path and did Rahasia and The Lost City. In each path, Palace of the Silver Princess occurs, usually by an Immortal intervening and sending you there. I don’t have Immortals in my world, and it made no sense for an evil character, so I gave Alzar a motivation that we all understand tied it in to what he was naturally doing already.

Every path finishes with B6, and Alzar’s will as well. Once we have completed that module, we are free to select any other I deem worthy.


Alzar was heading for the big town anyway, and the Palace of the Silver Princess was just a nice little diversion. Alzar clears some space in the wagon for Aleigha, and then tells her that once they are out of the valley, she can stay or she can go.

I roll some dice. For now, she will stay.


Alzar heads towards the city of Athaly. Athaly is about 50,000 strong, the biggest city in the area by far, and more than a week away from Regalsford.

Perhaps here, Alzar can find some adventure beyond what he has been doing.

Two days in, a Wyvern thinks one of the horses would be tasty and flies down. They are pretty tough hombres.



With 38 hp and an AC of just 3, it could tear through Alzar and or his group. It has a poison in its tail stinger than can kill. It’s not smart, just hungry.

Alzar’s spells aren’t that good against a flying creature. Blastbones won’t do anything. Sleep, Charm Animate, ESP – won’t do anything. Alzar has one thing that can work against it. Ray of Ondovir. This forces a creature to take the exact same action the next round that it took the round it was hit. Alzar waits a round until the Wyvern is getting close, then casts Ray of Ondovir at it. It fails its save, and it keeps diving down, instead of making a change and going for the horses, and it crashes into the ground. It takes 15 damage from the crash. Alzar orders himself, Lastion’s ghoul, Lastion and Aleigha to charge it.

They are there in a moment, but the Wyvern has recovered. Alzar’s group goes first. Alzar swings a staff and misses. Aleigha misses as well with the Sword of Spartusia. Lastion hits twice for 2 damage and…it makes both of its saves. Lastion’s ghoul hits once for 3 damage and it fails its save and is paralyzed.

They kill it. Alzar cuts off the stinger and end of the tail and preserves it the next day. He also rips off some of the flesh for the Purple Moss to feed it.

A Wyvern normally gives 1400 XP. Alzar splits it with Aleigha, and gets 700 XP, plus 70 to put him at:

Total XP – 12, 439


During the day, Lastion and his ghoul ride in the wagon, and Alzar and Aleigha at night sleep there. I’ve actually seen a picture of what a medium sized wagon looks like in D&D, and it looks a bit like a gypsy wagon. There are two bunk beds, a water barrel and basin, two chests and two cabinets. Alzar is putting stuff in both cabinets and chest, and piling them on top as well.

They see nothing else of consequence. They near the town of Athaly. Aleigha will stay out here and guard the wagon and horses, and feed them and such. Lastion and his ghoul will also stay here, along with 9 animal skeletons. Alzar takes some of the jewelry, plus a gold pouch of 200 gold, into the city with Megala. He also has with him – Crystal Ball, +1 Dagger and the other normal stuff.

B6 The Veiled Society





This adventure will be interesting because in it, Alzar will be with Megala and nothing else. Not even Lastion. There are no helpers.


Welcome to Athaly. There are no sewers, there are just lots of people pushed together. This is largely a human settlement, and other creatures are not rare, but uncommon. The qwith keep to themselves in the woods, the dvergr hate cities like this, Taurians aren’t on this side of Thorasia, the small catlike Guzaks have never been embraced by humans, neither have the lizardlike Sis’sharr, leaving very little opportunity for non-humans to be in a place like Athaly.

What Athaly lacks in racial diversity, it makes up for in economic diversity. From the poorest of the poor to the richest of the rich, Athaly has it all. There are tons of rich and poor mixing it up in the same city. The place is pretty crowded, and it has its share of thieves, gangs, city guards, and more. However, Athaly is more of a border city, so the number of unsavory characters is not as much as you might think.

Athaly currently has three major noble houses, with other minor ones competing for major status. The major houses are Radu, Torenescu and Vorloi.

The place has farmland to the south and west, and forests to the north and east, where Aleigha is with the wagon and the undead and the horses, about half a day’s ride away.

The buildings are usually wattle and daub construction. A few are made of stone or fired brick, like this smithy on the right. There are public wells for water and a river flows through the city.

Here is the city. Change the Duke to a self-styled Barony, and ignore some of the names. It's big, btw.

As Alzar arrives, a city guard tells him its 8 silver to enter. Beyond the gate is a narrow muddy street with people in their best clothes. There are brightly colored outfits, and jugglers, fire-eaters, and more. There are drums, whistles and such. Alzar asks what the celebration and the guard tells him it is the Festival of Lucor. The guard tells him that all weapons but daggers must be bound. Unbound weapons will be fines, murder by unbound is jailtime and perhaps death. The axe is bound to Alzar’s back and the staff has added softeners to it. It will take one round to unbind each weapon.

Alzar pays one gold and gets change, and then enters the city.

Beyond the gate is a swirl of people. Alzar moves the gold purse up his body to just below his throat. Uncomfortable, and very safe. There are acrobats, knife throwers, and a small menagerie of exotic animals with a small bear, wolves, a giant scorpion, and a stirge. The smells of sewage, grilled meats, breads, sweat and wine all mingle into an olfactory explosion.

Alzar grabs some meat of an unknown type from a nearby vendor and begins to walk around. Suddenly, the crowd makes a path and the music fades to bells and chanting. The people start to eagerly anticipate the procession. Alzar inquires to what it is.

This is the Procession of Lucor, which honors a local legendary cleric who, centuries ago, cleared the dock area of this town from an ancient evil that kept shipping at bay. Ever since, the shipping has been the lifeblood of the city as vessels go up and down the river and Athaly is now a central trading town.

This Festival honors that act, and the Procession has a local female lady of notable rank lead a procession to the place at the docks where a statue of Lucor stands, and honor that statue with offerings and sacrifices. This lead, the Lady Magda, a Torenescu faction noble, has the honor.

The procession arrives. A sedan chair borne on the shoulders of clerics has the Lady Magda on top. Then, the procession stops as an argument has broken out. Alzar leans in to see what is happening. Two men, one small plump and pockmarked, and one tall and lean, are arguing with the lead bearer of the sedan chair. The small, plump man says to the bearer, “Bald-headed fool, do you Torenescu think you own the streets? There’s space for all of us without your ape-like behavior!”

The lead bearer contemptuously rebukes the man tells the “Radu Rabble” to get out of his way. The tall lean man spits on a likeness of Lucor and spits on it.

The lead bearer strikes the tall man, knocking him to the filth. The smaller man tenses, ready to lunge. Alzar chooses not to get involved. A few seconds later, just before fighting would break out, two men in green break up the argument and pacify both sides.

Alzar hears more from the nearby folks about the two factions. Radu controls the waterfront and docks and run import/export shipping. They have a lot of money and influence. Torenescu controls the noble section and the old nobility. They are wealthy old wealth. The Vorloi, who were the men in green, are the newest house in town, and they have built a strong foundation very quickly in the merchant district. They have their own merchant fleet despite Radu’s control over that area, and fight against the old nobility of Torenescu. They have strong contacts in the military.

Alzar finds a room but it’s crowded because of the festival. There is just one private room, and it’s quite expensive for 5 gold crows. It supposedly comes with a bath, and Alzar laughs when he sees the “bath” is a barrel of water, cold, and his bed isn’t not even off the ground.

During the evening, the center room is crazy. An older distinguished gentleman tries to get Alzar to sign his name on a paper agreeing to work for him ,but Alzar was having none of that. He retires to his room to sleep, and then wake up and get ready for anew day, and try to find the shops he is looking for.

As he eats breakfast in the common room, a woman comes crashing in and sobbing about demons in her basement that she hears. She’s a bit incoherent and says she hears them sometimes, but they’ve gotten a lot worse just now, they were calling to her! She’s hysterical. The only person in the room besides the innkeeper and a few works are a few tradesmen and Alzar. He secretly rolls his eyes and agrees to come look at her basement, and grabs a few torches from the innkeeper.

A few minutes later and they are at her house, just a normal one. He is escorted to the trapdoor to her root cellar, and then he asks her to wait here. He lights a torch and moves in. A large earthen cavern is covered in ankle-deep mud. The room is criss-crossed with supporting beams. Three thin and naked men shovel by the light of a feeble lantern and three ugly, armored creatures are watching them work. They are hobgoblins. Alzar unwraps his staff.

Alzar grabs his staff and orders Megala to fly up and come down when needed. The hobbies arrive. Alzar takes two sword hits for 13 damage. 38/51. He swings his staff down on one for 3 damage. He orders Megala down to attack them from behind. They attack and hit him twice more for 5 damage. 33/51. Hi hits one for 5 damage and kills it. Megala scratches one for 2 damage and it falls asleep. Alzar wins init and crits the hobbie for 3 damage – bare minimum – ick. Meg hits for 1 and it fails its save. Alzar kills those ensleeped.

XP – 105

The naked men come to Alzar and thank him profusely. They were captured almost a year ago and have been digging tunnels under the city ever since. Alzar take the hobgoblins back to the inn, strips off their armor and weapons (for a magic pile) and has the innkeeper care for the slaves. He then goes back down and takes that tunnel he saw.

It wins a bit and then opens out into a cellar with a light wooden panel. There are cured hams and sausages in here. A large bundle lies nearby and two men are fighting over how far to bury it. Alzar puts them to Sleep and checks the bundle. Inside in the body of a murdered young woman. Alzar slaws the sleeping assassins, and searches their bodies for anything of value and finds nothing. Alzar keeps going.

XP -100

He arrives at a dug-out cave dimly lit by torches. From the cave come sounds of several creatures – kobolds. There are ten or so in here, and they are trying to place a support beam. The beam slips and the tunnel begins to fall. They ask Alzar for help with the beam before they die. Alzar casts blastbones on a bone, with a magic mouth requirement on it. He then moves to help them. Just before he gets there, they run away and the beam falls amnd Alzar is covered to his legs in dirt. They grab their weapons to attack and Alzar sets off the Blastbones. They all take 5 damage – including Alzar. They all die.

28/51. XP - 50

There is nothing here.

Alzar follows a tunnel until it ends at a refuse pit, reeking of foul order. There is a scraping noise in here. There appears to be nothing in here when Megala flies in here, just a cistern above that fell recently and it is scrapping the walls.

Another tunnel leads to a dry dirt cellar with bags against the walls and cobwebs. There are dried apples split across the floor. Nothing else is here.

They move on to a chamber once the cellar of a house but now choked with rubble, burned beams and dirt. Several paths can be seen though. A chuckling vulgar sound can be head, and three zombies can be seen shuffling towards Alzar. He manages to control them (needs a 6 on a d20). They will go with him. Nothing else is found here.

The final tunnel leads to a cellar and a large pile of dirt. There is a wheelbarrow here, loaded with shovels and picks. Wooden beams are piled. There is a scraping of wood on wood as someone begins to descend the step ladder from the place above. A hooded man lands and notices Alzar immediately. He tries t run, but Alzar casts Charm Person. It succeeds. The fighter is asked to stop, and he does. He tells Alzar happily that this is a plan by The Veiled Society to tunnel under house and kill their enemies. The most recent one, Lucia Vorloi was an enemy. He does not know more than that. Alzar asks him to accompany him, and leaves the Zombies down here to get later if he needs to. Lucia’s body is brought up by Alzar’s new fighter friend, who goes with the slaves down to the local constabulary and turns himself in and tells them all he knows.

The police want to verify Alzar’s claims and use some magic scrying on him , which clears him immediately. There are some questions. Rumor has it that she had spurned advances of Stephanos Torenescu, and yet the hair under her nails was red. The fighter has implicated The Veiled Society, but to what degree? A tribune with Alzar goes to the Vorloi House. Fortunato Vorloi and Lucia live here.

The house is empty. Inside are signs of violence – dagger and bloodstains on the floor and broken dishes. There are some things that implicate Torenescu lie a signet ring found here. There is a dagger with more red hairs, and pitch on the rungs of the ladder going down.

They head to the house the fighter came from – Turano’s Guest House. It is deserted and someone was here recently. It is a small building recently rented to a blacksmith named Skevlos. There is an old bed, esk and a chair. Muddly tracks lead from the floor to the trapdoor. There is wine with the seal of Trouscan Estates, and trap door back to the cellars. There is a black leather hood in here, and bloody bandages in a corner. There is a roll of parchment in between the beams, with an X on Fortunato’s house, and also Zweis Radu’s house, Baron Vorloi’s guest house, and Rattlebone Inn. A search by constables shows no tunnels in any of those areas.

As the events and information from the day proceeds, some anti Torenescu people begin to agitate on the streets. They gather in small groups and then larger groups and larger still. By the end of the day, the speakers are emboldened and they connect Torenescu to the murders and The Veiled Society.

Late afternoon Alzar returns home and most of the stalls have closed for the day but many are still in the market. An orator stands on the edge of the central fountain and the crowd has gathered. He is shouting anti-Torenescu rhetoric. They begin to use anti-nobility invective against Torenescu “Who taxes you?” Their voices are raised, and the clatter of horse hooves can be heard as 30 of the Baron’s men have arrived. The orator and crowd grow quiet. Suddenly a rock flies from the crowd and strikes one of the horseman.

Silence reigns for a few seconds, and then the crowd charges the horsemen. They break ranks and charge back, and soon the horseman are cleaving into the crowd while the peasants are drawing them back. The orator is fleeing.

Alzar can chase the orator, attack the horseman, run away, attack the peasants, or just watch.

He has Megala fly after the orator and follows. He dives down a side street and changes streets twice. Eventually he ducks into a small shack and the door slams shut. Within a moment, Alzar has arrived and unsheathes his axe, spends a round hacking through the door, and then rebinds it.

It is just a bare room with a trapdoor, and Alzar opens it and drops to a passage running one way. Alzar and Megala follow it for roughly 300 feet before it ends at a ladder going up. Alzar hears scraping up in the room above. He leaps up the ladder and flings it open just as the orator was moving a heavy chest to cover it. The orator is totally surprised by Alzar’s speed.

Alzar is able to fire off Ray of Ondovir and the orator spends the next round continuing to push the chest while Alzar pulls out a dagger, grabs him, and holds it to the orator’s throat. It doesn’t take much convincing to get the orator to spill everything. Alzar ties him up and casts ESP. The orator is a member of The Velied Society, and there are at least 20 of them. He was paid 200 gold to stir up trouble for Torenescu. He does not know who leads the Society, or who are the higher ups. They meet in an underground chamber with a secret entrance from the Blue Water Mead Hall at the waterfront. The two killers were named Akarios the Shipwright and Zachariah Boeastes. He even provides a rough map to the location, and what’s there.

He asks for his life, and Alzar is tempted to end it. Instead, he leaves the man as a present for the authorities and heads to bed for the night.

The second day dawns. Alzar has leads. He memorizes all of the same spells as normal, but grabs Speak with Dead for today, instead of Blastbones.

The tension of the riots has largely subsided. Alzar goes to the waterfront to investigate what he can about the Blue Mead Tavern and the two murderers. As he reaches a few areas nearby, he spots a large number of beggars escorting a noble in Torenescu colors from a ship, and several people looking like they are about to ambush him. Alzar can ambush, watch, leave, or take out the ambushers.

He notices that one of the ambushers in the light is wearing a Veiled Society hood. He sends Megala up to a roof for a better view. There are three ambush spots. Alzar gets behind one just as the Ambush starts, and Sleeps the 5 fighters here.

XP – 75

Now there are just ten fighters against ten beggars and the Torenescu. Just to make sure, he has Megala swing by and sees nothing.

There is a guy in the back ordering the other ten around. Alzar makes for him. A charm person spell is sent, it fails though. The guy feels it, turns around, grabs a mace, and moves to fight Alzar. Alzar spends the round unfurling his staff. The cleric casts Light on Alzar’s eyes and it succeeds in blinding him! Alzar has blind fighting and is just fine! (Plus he can still see through Megala’s eyes).

Alzar is hit by the mace for 10 damage from this cleric. That’s way more than normal.

18/51

Alzar misses and drops the staff. He orders Megala in to attack. The next round the cleric misses, and Megala claws him and he falls asleep. Instead of killing him, Alzar grabs his staff and binds it back up. He searches the body and finds a mace, gauntlets, and other stuff. He strips the cleric of these items, holy symbol and more.


XP - 100

The beggars and Simion are finished with the veiled society men, who are fleeing. The sleeping ones are bound, and they are interrogated. This cleric has red hair and confesses to killing Lucia. The constables are considering closing the case, but Alzar has concerns, since the orator from last night said it was someone else.

He goes back to the bed and learns new spells for the next day. He is healed a bit by cleric allies of the constables who cast two Cure Light Wounds on him.

Alzar gets them constables to agree to cast Speak with Dead, and he does, talking with Lucia. She claims that she was killed by the Radu house. They go back and find some letters in the blood that spell RAD, and back up her claims.

33/51

The next day, Alzar awakens and there are more investigations. He swings back to Blastbones. No one in any of the noble families has red hair, according to the constable, including Radu. With a suspect hosue and The Veiled Society involved, there is suspicions that they are allied. However, it is just suspicion, the Radu person could have been acting on his own, she could have misidentified someone, and so forth.

Alzar has one clue to come back to – The Blue Water Mead Hall. He heads back out. As Alzar is a few blocks away, an arrow flies from the crowd from a hooded man holding crossbow and it misses. He begins to reload. Alzar has Megala fly over to him and he starts to run. Alzar starts to chase. Megala sees him go around a corner, and there are three crossbowmen standing there, waiting for Alzar to follow, so he stops. He lets the man go and takes another route to the Blue Water Mead Hall.

The Mead Hall is a bright and clean building. Inside there are several soldiers in the center of the room striking an off-key bawdy shanty. There are a few instruments being played here, and the small but growing crowd is being worked by a tavern keeper and several serving ladies.

There are two curtained doorways in the back. A red-haired man sits near the back to the room. It looks like Akarios. Alzar quietly approaches from the side, and has Megala fly down into Akarios’s field of vision so that his attention is on the Homunculous. Alzar puts his hands on Akarios’s shoulders very hard and introduces himself. Then he removes one hand, grabs the dagger and puts it into Akarios’s back. “This is the part where you tell me everything.”

So he does. He was ordered to murder Lucia, and there is a secret entrance to the Veiled Society chambers right there and nods his head. Alzar tells him to stay where he is and Megala flies over and they head in.

Two men sit on the floor near the curtain gambling after Alzar passes it. Both look up curiously and there is a hallway here with a door at the end. The top half is open, and shows the street beyond. Alzar draws the Wand of Secret Door Detection and uses it. The cleric and fighter don’t see anything, just Alzar drawing a stick, but Alzar now knows where the secret door is. He grabs the money from the gambler sand throws it in to the room, and then says good bye, dives for the door, jumps in, and closes it.

XP: 50 for cleverness

This chamber is barely large enough for two people to stand in, One wall has a red robes, and black leather hoods. Alzar grabs one of each and puts them on. He unbinds his staff and axe

The cave system here branches into two parts, southish and southwestish. Alzar goes southish. The passageway splinters off, and there is a door here. Alzar opens the door. There is a passage way to the westish, and a small passage that suddenly stops. Odd. Alzar fails to find anything and uses the wand, and detects a secret door.

Inside is a chamber brightly lit by hundreds of sputtering candles. In the center of the room is a table piled with books and papers. Standing over him is a middle-aged swarthy man holding a sword to a younger man’s chest. A dead man is on the floor. The younger man shouts “Stop him! He has slain out father! He is a murderer!” The middle aged man tells Alzar (in disguise) to get back or die, and makes for the door. Alzar tries to charm him. Failure! The middle aged man moves to attack. This looks like it might be an axe fight, but let’s try staff first. Alzar grabs his staff.

The younger man draws a sword and looks to help Alzar. The enemy misses. Alzar misses. The young guy hits for 3 damage with a scimitar. Megala pecks for 3 damage and a made save on the whole sleep thing. Alzar’s team wins and Alzar thwacks the foe for 7 damage. Megala misses, as does the unknown ally. The main guy misses. Next round, the enemy nails Alzar for 5 damage.

30/51

Alzar hits for 2 damage, The others misses. Alzar swings for 3 damage. Megala adds 1 and 5 damage from the scimitar ally. He rocks Alzar for 10 damage.

20/51

He wins init and hits again for 10 damage.

10/51

Alzar rocks back for 7 – his max. Megala misses and the unknown ally cracks him with the scimitar for 5 and he dies.

XP: 250

The guy introduces himself as Zweis Radu. The dead guy is Cartha Radu, and he just killed Anton Radu. Zweis is now in charge. He thanks Alzar but knows he is not a veiled society member after seeing him and Megala fight, but he offers Alzar a spot in the Society if he wants it., Alzar declines. He then offesrs 500 gold in jewels from the desk. Alzar still declines and moves to inspect the corpse. Zweis asks him kindly not to do that. Alzar moves to inspect the papers on the desk, and pissed off, Zweis attacks.

Alzar casts sleep. Zwies falls asleep. Alzar kills him off.

XP: 100


From the corpses he finds a long sword and a scimitar. A Ring, and armor. They are all added to the magic pile later. Alzar takes those jewels - 500 gold.


A search of the room finds papers and books that show House Radu and The Veiled Society are the same thing. There is also 3000 gold in gems in a small box, which Alzar procures.

Alzar moves out and goes down that tunnel that he just passed. There is a door here and Alzar opens it. In here is a member of the city’s town guard, named Estaish. He will be escorted out by Alzar, but is way to weak to fight. He gear is just outside the door and down the hall a bit. He has learned everything during his imprisonment and would be a good double check on the papers and books. Alzar continues down the hallway and a flower moves to attack - Sirenflower.

Alzar backs up and casts Blastbones and that barely scratches the Sirenflower (6 damage). He is immune to the charming pollen it has, and does not need to come it. He grabs his staff and starts poking the flowers, and killing them from a distance. He does not need to make his saves and kills it over a few turns.

XP - 75

Back here, the kills of the flower include 500 gold and a potion.

He heads back down the other tunnel and finds a meeting chamber here, with about 18 or so members meeting and about to kill one of their own for being a traitor. Alzar only has Animate, ESP and Ray left, so he skips the chamber and lets them kill whoever. Estaish grabs some books and scrolls, and Alzar grabs the rest, and they leave via the entrance to the alley that Alzar saw earlier. In a moment, Alzar melts into the city and twenty minutes later, the Constables have been given statements, Estaish, and the books and documents.

In less than a day, House Radu and The Veiled Society have been declared outlaws and most have been rounded up and killed as traitors.

Estaish wants to accompany Alzar, but so he brings him along.

XP Gained:1326
Total XP: 13765

Gold Gained: 700
Jewelry Worth: 3500




Used two charges of Wand of Secret Door Detection


Magic Pile: +1 Mace, Gauntlets of Ogre Power, +1 Scimitar, +2 longsword, Ring of Protection +1, Pot o’ Diminution.


It’s a bit early for GOP to be given away, but Alzar can’t use them until he is out of the Dual Class issue (level 8 as a Necromancer) or he gains no XP for using them. They can not be used by mages normally.


The Potion causes you to shrink for the while. Everything else is just weapons and a ring Alzar already has.


This was a fun little adventure.

Alzar moves to try to find some things, now that the drama is over.


Alzar makes some purchases:

10 flasks of oil, in metal flasks so they will not spill, stored in wagon. He will take three on each adventure.

Alzar buys a riding horse for Estaish

He finds 3 healing potions – 750 gold (Expensive, they are 200 each normally)

He finds a scroll of Ray of Fatigue. This first level Necromancy spell would make a monster, if they save a save, to get -1 to attack and AC and move 33% slower for the spell caster’s level. Not that hot. Just 150 gold though. It’s an uncommon spell.

He trades Alzar’s Undead Porter for Mount. He does learn it. Mount is a pretty common 1st level spell that enables you to summon a horse for a few hours.

There are some mages here willing to do business, and Alzar finds a few magical items available for sale. Here are the ones he can find here:

+1 spear
+1 banded mail
Scroll of Protection Against Acid
Potion of Animal Control
Three +2 javelins, a set
Potion of Giant Strength (Fighter only)
Potion of Sweet Water


Alzar purchases the Sweet Water pot, the healing pots and the scroll of Ray of Fatigue. He also picks up another spellbook (500 gold) and scroll. He trades a +1 mace and spends 3000 gold. He also picks up a scroll case


Alzar tries to find a mage who can cast a super high level spell, but fails. (Glassteel on the teleport jars so that he could take one with him into dungeons without much fear of breakage)

He decides to commit and tries to learn Bone Knit from the scroll he took from Vorthala’s old lair. It automatically succeeds (Always succeed with an 18 int and a specialist in your school).

He gives the extra Ring of Protection to Aleigha and a +2 longsword to Estaish

Gold Left: 14, 050 gold

Alzar’s Magic Items:

Potion of Sweet Water, Diminution, Gaseous Form, Invisibility
Pots of Healing x4
Gauntlets of Ogre Power
+1 Scimitar, Short Sword, Daggerx3, Mace, Battle Axe, Longsword
+2 Longsword
+1 Plate Armor, Chain Mailx2
Ring of Protection +1
Wand of Secret Door Detection – 5 charges
Wand of Paralyzation 8 charges
+2 Throwing Dagger
The Sword of the Rock
Longsword +1, +2 vs Undead
Crystal Ball
Necklace of Adaptation
Periapt of Proof Against Poison +2
Ring of Fire Resistance
Potion of Invisibility, Gaseous Form, Poison
Rope of Climbing
Scrolls of: Mordenkainen’s Faithful Phantom Shield-Maidens, Teleport, Read Languages, Continual Light, Agannazzar’s Scorcher, Odeen’s Magic Cloud, Levitate, Ray of Fatigue, Protection from Acid
The Book of Years, Windscribe, 4 teleport jars

I feel like I should roll up Aleigha’s character, so here it is. All mine.



Aleigha, 3rd Level Fighter, Werebear

Neutral
Human

Str: 15
Dex: 14
Con: 11
Wis: 12
Int: 14
Cha: 9

HP: 21
THAC0: 18 (+2 for sword, +3 for Werebear form)

AC: 7 with Ring of Protection +1, 2 when in Werebear form

Total XP: 4900

Race Abilities: None

Class Abilities:

Specialization allowed


Non-Weapon Proficiencies:

Fire Building
Swimming
Animal Lore
Animal Handling
Riding
Hunting
Fishing
Foraging
Tracking


Weapon Proficiencies:

Swords Group
Long Bow


Werebear:

As a Werebear, deals 2d4/2d4/2d8, immune to non-silver normal weapons, can summon 1d6 brown bears if in wilderness once every two hours
Can cast Cure Disease once a month
Heals at 3x rate



Magical Items:

Sword of Spartusia
Ring of Protection +1







Aleigha knows nothing of her time prior to becoming a werebear. The only memory she has as a girl of 11 is being ill in the woods, and the only way she was able to be saved, was a werebear who happened upon her and bit her, turning her into a werebear, which was able to fight off a very strong disease.

She fled the place she was in, and lived by herself for a while, but yearned for company, so she moved to a small town. After a while, people began to learn about a werebear in the area, and she had to flee before they tracked it to her. This repeated over and over again and each time, she had to flee before being found out. One time she actually was found out and was attacked by the village.

It was fleeing from that village when she ran into the cleric, Catharandamus. He treated her well and gave her a home, despite knowing who she was. She thought he was really nice, and adopted him as a father figure. Instead, he despised her, but she was a powerful bodyguard. He did some vile things, and she stood by him and defended him.

Her experience with Catharandamus and with villages has turned her to Neutral, where most werebears are chaotic good. She detests “civilization” and will stay away from cities and larger towns. She does not fear Alzar’s undead, she has seen a lot worse from Catharandamus.

Unlike the cleric, she senses Alzar is authentic. He freed her from the Palace, and he gave her a home and Ring, and he has told her she is free to leave anytime. She is currently a follower in status.

Alzar’s Spells:

First Level:

Alzar’s Undead Porter
Armor
Animate Dead Animals *
Cantrip
Charm Person *
Detect Magic
Friends
Identify
Mount
Read Languages
Read Magic
Sleep *
Tenser’s Floating Disc
Unseen Servant


Second Level:

Attract Ghoul
Blastbones *
ESP *
Forget
Locate Object
Ray of Ondovir *
Speak with Dead


Third Level:

Bone Knit
Dire Charm
Searing Serpent
Skulltrap

Fourth Level:

Vorthala’s Undead Turning Immunity

Very nice run through that town. Still enjoying this, keep up the great work!

Thanks!

Estaish, Fighter level 1, human, 1d8+1 in combat (given a +2 longsword), Lawful Neutral, AC 4 with chainmail and shield. HP 8. Currently a follower.

Estaish at first grimaces when he sees the ghouls, but he seems to suck it up pretty well. He takes the animal skeletons more in stride.



What next? There are several ways to go. Alzar can stay in Athaly and see if there are any more adventures either in town or nearby. A city this size is gonna to have some things going for it. He could put down roots, buy a house, etc. Then use the place as a base of operations. That’s not what he wants to do though, not here, and not right now.

Another option would be to try and leave, and find more adventure.

What module? The In Search of Adventure campaign is over but I could inject one or more of the modules back into the campaign. I could have Alzar captured and him have to do The Great Escape, or Horror on the Hill or The Keep on the Borderlands or The Caverns of Quasqueton, or even the cleric and her orcs and raiders.

Or, I could slide into another module for the low in level. How about T1 The Temple of Hommlet, or C2 The Lost Island of Castanamir?


Let’s just do a quick little adventure.

B9 Castle Caldwell and Beyond







This will focus on the beyond.



Alzar has finished taking some goods back the wagon and Estaish is left behind to load and get the steeds ready, because after another trip, they plan to move off.

As Alzar returns to Athaly. Antonito Radu, the new leader of House Radu in Exile, and twenty hired thugs ambush Alzar and Megala. Arrows fly out and the horse is hit many times. At the same time, Antonito’s cleric casts Hold Person on Alzar. Alzar makes the save and looks around. There are about 20 bandits charging him. Three magic missiles fly into Alzar for 9 damage. 42/51.

Alzar’s steed is dead, and he orders Megala to fly into the air far away for now. He quickly does a check. 20 bandits, a cleric and a mage. He has sleep, which may put anywhere from 2 -6 of them down, and charm and such. There’s no chance of making it through, so he surrenders.

Antonito swings down and punches Alzar hard. All of his items, gold, and such are taken. He is stripped down to robes, bound, and then knocked unconscious.

Alzar awakes to find himself in the jail cell of an unknown place. He took some damage from beatings and kicks. They actually missed the Ring of Protection, and Alzar is still wearing it.

34/51

There is flickering torchlight from the hallway illuminating the cell. Alzar does not know where he is, or why he is. Torture? Information? Conversion? He still has all of his spells – Blastbones, Sleep, Charm, ESP, Ray of Ondovir and Animate Dead Animals. He checks the spell components. Charm and Ray don’t need any, so that’s good. Sleep requires sand, and there’s some on the floor on the cell – that’s good. Animate Dead Animals needs a bone chip from the species of animals to animate, and that is usually obtained from the corpses itself, so thats a check. Blastbones needs the bones to be destroyed, and anything else to be used like debris and nails. ESP on the other hand, needs a copper piece – and unless Alzar can find a few, that will not be castable.

Alzar awakens Megala to get a look. Megala followed, and Alzar sees an outpost where he is. He orders Megala to hold tight. Lastion is outside of the one mile radius and must be going stir-crazy. It is before noon, so about mid-morning by the sun.

There are double doors going out to the hallway. Alzar’s feet are in shackles, and they go through a ring in the floor. His hands are tied in front of him. Alzar tries to come with a way out. If his hands are untied, he can go with Charm Person. He could gather sand and cast Sleep. So there are options there. Alzar does not have the Rope Use proficiencies which would help him here. Therefore he will have to make a Dex Check at 50%. His Dex is 12, so he needs a 6 or less to free his hands. He rolls a 2. The rope slides off. He tests the ring and it is not bending or coming off the ground. Alzar tries the chain to see if it will come off, and then ties to see if maybe the hoop is screwed into the metal plate on the floor, but it’s not – it appears to be heavily welded. (Forge welded, the other forms do not exist)

He tries to find the edge of the metal plate. Perhaps it can come up. While he is doing that, he hears footsteps come up to the room, turn a key in the door, and in steps a gnoll.



It has a plate of food and water, and harshly tells Alzar to sit up. As he comes in, Alzar casts Charm Person and…it works! The gnoll is now Alzar’s good and dear friend. Of course it will unlock Alzar’s chains! This is a bandit outpost of men and goblinoids, and was funded in part by House Radu, and now House Radu uses it as a temporary base. Alzar was to be tortured, interrogated, and then killed. There is a hallway right outside, and Alzar’s things are in a room down to the left, turn left, and enter the door on the left. However, the door is locked and the gnoll does not have the key, nor does he know where one is. The gnoll happily gives Alzar his only weapon, a dagger. Alzar will be at -4 to use it. The gnoll does not know many of the rooms in this area of the outpost, but he quickly outlines the outpost on the wall with a fighter to give a rough showing of where things are.

Alzar convinces the gnoll to leave, and it agrees and does so.

XP 50

Alzar is out. He hits the corridor and can go left or right. He hears laughing from the left. There are branching corridors down each of the corridors. Which way?

Alzar goes left, the way towards his items. He hits a long corridor that goes to the right and skips it. He hits two doors on each side, and he skips them and comes to an intersection. He goes left. The corridor opens into a large training room. There are padded posts, bales of hay, and two discarded and battered shields. No one is here.

He goes to the door and checks it. It is very locked. Alzar is going to have to try and find the keys. He returns to the intersection, goes back, and enters door on his right, the one between the armory and his jail cell.

He sees a pantry. The room is lined with shelves and additional rows in the middle, stacked with barrels, sacks. A quick look shows pickles, fish, meat, and more. Alzar hears noise from the hallway, and slides the door closed. Some people walk slowly down the hallway. There is no light in here, so Alzar cannot see. When the noise has passed, he gets up and leaves. He can’t search rooms right now unless he thinks the key might be in them – he needs light, equipment and does not have time to search.
He enters the door across from the pantry.

This is an open kitchen with a dining room beyond. It has two openings into corridors. There are two women preparing a meal. At a table there are 22 others, a few females, and then some that look like warriors and some that do not. Alzar closes the door and continues. He heads past the intersection and into a room on his left. This is a bedchamber with a table, four chairs, a desk, a sword on the wall, and a woman dressed in leather writing. Her back is to the door. Alzar casts Ray of Ondovir on her. She fails the save and is forced to keep writing the same words in the same place next round. Alzar closes, and stabs his dagger in her neck and kills her.

XP – 50

She has a belt pouch, leather armor, and a belt ring with two keys on it. Alzar grabs her stuff including the sword on the wall, and leaves. One of the keys works on her room;s door, so hopefully, no one will find her corpse and blood for a while. Alzar heads back to the Armory and opens it, sneaking inside.

This room is full of racks and armor and weapons, plus all of Alzar’s belongings are here, and have no been divvied up yet. It takes a few rounds to check everything and put on everything. During that time, no one check up on the area.

Alzar searches the room for more, but finds nothing. He uses the Crystal Ball to check the kitchens, and sees that the 24 people at the table and serving are all still there.

Now Alzar has several options. Try to escape? Or try to get revenge?

There is a rear door to the armory, and Alzar unlocks it and takes it. This large chamber is the torture chamber, with a small number of cruel devices for punishment/ There are whips and branding pit here, smouldering. Alzar smiles and stokes the fire.

A Search turns up nothing. There is an adjacent open room, and this is where that Gnoll Jailer lived. He gladly told Alzar about his treasure and trap. He opens up the floorboard, disarms the poison needle, and takes 300 gold and puts it into a small sack along with some others nearby. Alzar disarms and takes the poison vial. He knows how to use poison, after all.

Another check on the Crystal Ball shows that the kitchens are still busy and the main course is almost done. Alzar heads back that way, opens the door, (I roll a 17), and the puts the poison in the batter – maybe some pancakes. He closes the door and continues. Alzar grabs a torch from the hall sconces, and takes them with him. He enters the pantry and searches, and finds five potions.

He goes back into the room where he killed the female officer and there is nothing in there. One last time, Alzar uses the Crystal Ball, and notices that the people eating are starting to feel sick. The poison must have been diluted too much – it should have killed them in a regular dose

Alzar leaves, locks the room and moves up to another door on the left. There is another room for someone, not here currently. Alzar checks and finds nothing but chain mail. He continues up and hits another bed room, As Alzar searches, he hears a few people coming to the bed rooms. The door to the room next to his opens and closes. A few seconds later, one of the female warriors from lunch comes into his room feeling sick and nauseous. She shuts the door, and Alzar attacks her viscously with his axe as quick as he can. He gets one free attack and hits, and then doles out 15 damage and kills her easily.

No XP gained.

She has 5 gp, 7 sp and 10 cp on her. Nothing else.

Alzar checks the hallway, locks her door, and then slides up to the last room. Alzar opens the door. There is a woman sleeping on a cot in here. Alzar steals her keys right by the door, and then shuts the door and locks it and moves on.

The corridor goes to the right, and then there is a wide open space beyond and a pen doorway to the right. Alzar checks the doorway. This is a meditation room. Beyond a curtain to the south is a door out. Alzar opens it. This is a bath area, with a stove to heat the water, and several tubs. Alzar searches, but slips on the soapy and wet floor and twists his ankle reducing his speed for 30 minutes. The next room is a common women’s quarters. There are several female servant here from lunch holding their stomachs and heads, and trying to rest, recline, or sleep. There are no accoutrements of war in here, and it looks like nothing of value, so Alzar skips it, heads back the way he came, and skips the big room.

He heads back down to the kitchen area, and then to the torture chamber. He hits the door across from it. This is a wine storage room. A search reveals nothing . Alzar hits the door to the east of the winery. This is another officer’s room, and the person actually is here, wounded form dinner. He sees Alzar and shouts for help. Alzar axes him for 9 damage and kills him. Did anyone hear? Alzar closes the door and then waits.

About 30 seconds later, a group of five soldiers arrive, and then force open the door. Alzar casts the only spell he can for this situation - sleep. Four of them fall asleep, but the other one charges. Alzar grabs his staff. He is critically hit for 10 damage.

24/51

Alzar swings and cracks the soldier for just two damage. The guard wins init and hits or 3. 21/5. Alzar swings back and cracks him for 5 and kills him.

Alzar quickly kills the sleepers. He strips off their items and finds nothing valuable. A search of the room turns up nothing. Nobody further ha followed, so Alzar moves to the next room. The door opens and it is a sick guy from lunch, who is completely dead on the floor. The others were just sick, so either he got a stronger bit, or he was very susceptible to the poison. A search reveals a short sword and chain armor. Nothing else.

XP - 80

The next room is across from a doorway, and Alzar checks both. He jumps into the door and hopes. There is no one in here, just a sword and armor. A search reveals nothing. Alzar heads across to the doorway, and this section appears identical to the female section he just passed – a meditation room, then probably baths and a servants common area.

There is no one in the med room, and Alzar pushes through the curtain and opens the door to the baths? Yes the baths. There is a man in here, trying to sleep and relax in a bath, eyes closed. Alzar goes up and drowns him by pushing him into the pool and holding him there. The man is unable to get a grip and drowns. This time, Alzar skips this room, sees the common male chamber, and then leaves back the way he came.

The next door down the corridor is an empty quarters, with no furniture in it. Alzar checks, and yup, nothing in it. The corridor bends and Alzar hits the first door on the right. This bedroom is nicer, probably an officer. The guy is sleeping face down on the bed with vomit on the sheets. Alzar lets him pass out, checks the room, and finds some shiny chain mail and 7 gp. There is another door to the rear so Alzar takes it and sees another hallway. He takes this, and goes forward. There are a door on either side, and he takes the right one. This is obviously a nice bedroom. There is a House Radu officer here, polishing her sword. She stands up, and challenges Alzar, shouting for help. Alzar swings his staff at her. Her plate armor is on the floor, so there is that. He misses, she misses. She hits for 1 damage, he hits for 3. Hit hits for 4 damage. She hits for 4.

Alzar is at 19/51.

Alzar swing and misses. She does too and drops her sword accidentally Alzar misses. She misses. Alzar misses. She hits for 8.

11/51

Alzar swings and cracks her leg for 7 damage. She swings back ad hits for 6. 5/51. Alzar quaffs a healing pot. He gains 7. She swings misses. He swings and slaps her for 4 damage an she dies. No one answered her call. Alzar quaffs another healing pot.

22/51

XP – 120

He searches her room and finds a bag on her body that appears much deeper than it looks. There are tons of coins in here.

2000 gold, 6000 silver – a bag of holding!

Alzar takes the door across from this and here is another house Radu servant, sleeping. Alzar quickly kills him and searches the room. There is nothing here. Alzar heads back to the corridor and can go up or down. He chooses down. There is a door here and it opens into a back porch. There are five doors into this porch, but it doesn’t go all the way down. In other words, the corner of the building does not have any doors going to it from inside or out ,unless the last few doors are bigger than the recent rooms Alzar has seen. He goes into the first.

Quarters. Guy is passed out, now dead. Nothing here Unused.killed, not here for the firs four rooms. Nothing found. Alzar hears someone in the 5th room. Quarters, the guy is here and he is dressed in leather asleep on the bed. Alzar tries to kill him but he awakens very quickly. He shouts for aid. He jumps off the bed and rolls along the floor, picking up a short sword and shield. Alzar chases him and swings. Alzar connects for 5 damage. The guy swings and misses. Alzar does too. Both miss. Alzar connects for 4. The fighter connects for 4. Alzar slams him for 4 more and he dies.

18/51

XP – 50

A search of the room turns up nothing. Suspicious. Alzar uses a charge and a secret door is,.,in fact, here.


This room is a treasury. There are several sacks along one side. Alzar checks the room and finds nothing. Two small sacks have 200 pp each – 400 pp total. Six larger ones have 500 gold each – 3000 gold total. There is also 1500 silver total in three sacks. There is a medium chest here that doesn’t weight hat much, totally locked. Alzar grabs it. He heads back to the corridor and goes up. He hits another corridor to the right and takes the branch and again, it ends in two doors, on on each side. Alzar nears them, and out of the south one comes Antonito Radu, a mage who sees Alzar, and then smiles before readying a spell.

Alzar grabs and uses the Wand of Paralyzation. Radu is casting Sleep. Who gets off what first? Radu does. If it can put to sleep a level four guy, then Alzar will fall. He needs to roll a 4 on 2d4. The first d4 is a 2, meaning if he rolls a 2, 3, or 4 on the next, Alzar will be out. He rolls a 1! Alzar is not asleep, the spell misses. Wow – total luck there. Alzar’s wand jacks him. Radu makes his save! Alzar fires the wand again, and Radu casts Charm Person. Alzar easily hits first, and this time Radu is paralyzed.

Alzar goes up to him, takes all of his stuff, pushes the paralyzed body into the room he came out of. He takes the Ring off Radu’s hands. Radu should be frozen for an hour. Alzar searches the room finds nothing. He then decides to just go ahead and kill Antonito now.

XP – 150

The other door is opened and this is the commander’s bedroom. It is opulent, large, has a door to the back, and a huge bathroom. As Alzar searches, the commander’s wife enters the room and screams. The commander follows in a few seconds, but he armor and weapons are in the room. He jumps out and leaves and Alzar can’t get to follow him through the wife.

Alzar punches the still screaming wife and knocks her unconscious after a few blows with his staff. A quick search shows nothing in here but a drawer of 100 pp.

Alzar goes into the commander’s living room and the commander is here with five fighters that he found. He grabbed them from several local rooms. The commander has no armor, but he found a short sword and shield.

Alzar tosses a bone at the door where he is and casts Blastbones. He retreats back into the commander’s bedroom. The soldiers come forward, and take 4 damage from the Blastbones when they go off.

There are windows here to the outside, and Alzar punches out one with his staff while they are getting blasted. He orders Megala to join him and stop scouting.

This is axe time. Alzar drops his staff, draws the axe, and starts the battle.

Alzar swings his axe at the first soldier through the door. He doles out 11 damage and kills one. The others pour through. One slashes Alzar for 5 damage.

13/51

Alzar walks to the window while fighting. They win init and swing. Two hit for 4 damage. 9/51. Alzar aims a axe right at the commander and dices him for 13 damage – his max damage. The commander is still standing. Suddenly, Megala flies through the window and attacks a soldier. He misses, but the confusion gives Alzar a chance to quaff a pot. He can attack and quaff at the same time.

He gains 9 and is at 18/51. He axe cuts into the commander for 7 damage and he dies. Alzar is sliced for 3. 15/51. Megala misses. They win init and Alzar takes 5. 10/51. His axe misses, and Megala does as well.

Alzar win init, and slices one for 10 damage, killing him. The two left make a morale check and fail and begin to run. Megala follows and claws one on the back, and she falls asleep. Alzar kills her.

XP – None – fought as fighter.

15/51 and out of healing pots after he swallows the last one.

A search of this room and the next show nothing. The commander had a gold diamond bracelet worth 750 gold.

In front of the living room was a private dining room, and there are some overturned chairs, like the commander got help from here. Alzar searches and finds china and silverware sets worth 600 gold.

Alzar head back to the corridor he left and finds three bed rooms in a row, and all are empty. He searches and finds nothing in any of them. The only room left was the big room in front of the main entrance, the foyer. He enters and sees where some soldiers were gambling, and then left as an emergency. There is 25 gold here.

He comes across few servants and he scares them out of the outpost. He has Megala fly around and scare the servants out, and double checks all of the rooms to make sure that they are all empty of people. The wife is dropped outside in a creek and left there. Alzar and Megala find stables outside and he takes a horse. Megala knows the way back, and a few hours later, it reunited with a Lastion that was going crazy, and his followers. They take the wagon back immediately and load it up with the goods they found. There is a huge magic pile with dozens of weapons and lots of armor to check.

They stay here for a few days.

What Alzar found


Gold: 8562
Total Gold: 22612
China and Silverware – 600
Gold Diamond Bracelet – 750 gold

Bag of Holding


Used two charges, Wand of Paralyzation
Used charge of Wand of Secret Door Detection

A huge selection of chincey magic items.

+1 short swordx2, 3 pots of healing, one poison, one telekinesis. +1 chain mail. +1 shieldx2. Chest has Ring of Fire Resistance, Rod fo Cancellation, pots of growthx3. Ring of Pro +1, cursed -1 dagger.

Most of this stuff is ho hum. The fighter follower is given the magic chain and a magic shield and Ring.

Estaish now has an AC of 1, and still deals 1d8+1 in combat.

The Rod of Cancellation is odd. It is a one use item that will destroy any magic item it is used against. Then, it is gone.

Alzar’s Bag of Holding will hold, at no weight, 10,000 coins or that equivalent in weight, and that’s a lot.


Xp Gained: 770

Total XP - 14535


One of the things you note is how the number of monsters and magic items are not increasing in diversity. To my mind, it’s time to leave the D&D modules behind for a bt and grab some AD&D experience, before heading back.

With the bag of holding, Alzar will now be taking two teleport jars with him, jars 1 and 3. Items in the Bag are not subject to destruction by falls, fire, etc. Alzar can take them out, use them, and then put them back.


After a couple of days of rest, the group brings back Antonito’s corpse to turn in. They arrive back and find that there was a 200 gold reward for his capture or kill, and Alzar is given the gold.

Gold Gain 200

Dungeon #50 The Vaka’s Curse



Alzar goes to a local inn for the night and hears gossip about a cursed ship at the decks. Sounds interesting. A lot of people are talking about the dead Antonito that was turned in today as well. Many of the minor families are vying for the turf House Radu left open in the Athaly power structure.

Alzar heads to bed, and then awakens to a new day. He wants to try and find more portable ways of dealing with his extra gold. There is a shop near the docks that may have some nice jewelry. Alzar slides down and starts looking for the shop. He finds it, but it doesn’t have anything that he wants.

He starts back when he sees a darkened ship in the docks. That must be The Vaka, the cursed ship. It’s so close. Might as well check it out.

Alzar swings by, and has Megala do a fly over while he is still blocks away. Megala notes that the ship has a medium size to, an odd but decent figurehead of a man who looks like a clerk, and no crew to see seen at all. Alzar approaches the docks and enters the area where The Vaka is moored.

Captain Segel sees Alzar’s interest, and tells him that it’s a good ship, despite all the troubles. It’s worth a few problems, but over the year since its been built, there have been strange reporting of people getting weaker or sicker on it. They feel drained.

Now, that does sound interesting. Alzar is interested. This doesn’t sound like a normal curse. Captain Segel tells Alzar that if he can end the curse, he get 50 gold. Alzar tells Segel to keep the gold (it’s not that much). And to take everybody off the boat. It’s time Alzar went hunting.

Alzar grabs some stuff and heads to the boat for the night. He has a theory, and he tries to see if he is right. He puts Megala in a quiet corner to watch and wait, and Alzar pretends to fall asleep. He keeps his breathing regular and slow, and watches through Megala’s eyes, not his own.

Several hours into the night, Alzar begins to feel another presence. He can always tell when undead are around. He keeps his breathing regular and Megala/Alzar spy a creature come through the wall and get close to Alzar. It looks like an unusual shadow. Alzar lets it touch him, knowing that he is risking an energy drain, but doubting it, based on the captain’s tale. It drains a point of Constitution from Alzar, and leaves.

Now that was interesting.

In the morning, Alzar has noted several things – he is an expert in undead, and never seen or heard of a shadow quite like this one before. Sneaking in, stealing health, and leaving is not normal shadow behavior. They steal strength and keep stealing and kill you. That is not what this one is doing. Time to actually hunt.

Here are Alzar’s spells for the day:

Speak with Dead
Locate Object
Ray of Ondovir
Detect Magic
Animate Dead Animals
Unseen Servant


He picks up a few vials of Holy Water. He gets a rod and attaches it to a cup, and then puts a rod on the other side. Inside the cup, hidden, are five vials of Holy Water. He has this placed above where he sleeps, and above where the creature came into the cabin. He will probably use the same path next time. Alzar ties a string to the cup and hangs it down. Now, if he needs to, he can pull the string, tip over the cup, and spill a lot of holy water.

That’s his backup plan, all ready to go. His primary plan is to control it. If that fails, he will Holy Water it, and then try to kill it.

Alzar casts Unseen Servant and has the invisible force stationed directly where the shadow-ish thing came in. If it comes in the same way, it will be unable to detect the Unseen Servant, since it is just a force, and not hot or a creature made invisible. There is nothing to see there. Alzar has cast a cloak around it, and it will hold a dagger. Alzar intends to scare the undead creature with something it cannot see or understand. Hopefully that will prevent it from taking the easy way back out.

The next night arrives, and once again, the actors take their places, and once again a certain visitor arrives, just as Alzar had planned. As it nears him, Alzar sits up and tries to control him. It dives towards him. The control attempt fails, and Alzar tips the holy water. It takes 16 damage from the holy water, and it hisses loudly and in pain. It starts to leave, and Alzar tells it, “You really are a beautiful thing. It would be a shame to kill you.”

The Unseen Servant is commanded to rise and it makes motions of menace. I roll an INT check for the bad guy, and he makes it, and doesn’t believe the Unseen Servant is anything threatening and penetrates the wall. Alzar orders Megala to pursue and does likewise.

Within seconds, Alzar doesn’t feel the presence here anymore, and they never saw it again. Interesting. Time for a search of the ship. The captain said that this was going on since the beginning of the ship’s travels. Sounds like something in the ship then, and not something gathered later.

The obvious place to start is near the area on the other side of the wall from where the creature came in. Alzar looks out and sees half the deck. He moves in that direction. He carefully examines every major pole and element of the ship in that direction, including the ship’s wheel. Nothing jumps out at him. He reaches the end and starts looking more closely at the figurehead. Then he cast Detect Magic. The figurehead glows faintly. Why would it? Alzar looks about the rest of the ships and sees nothing else glowing.

He moves over to the figurehead and begins to rap it with his staff, and nothing comes, until he raps the chest. There is a hollow in here. A very close inspection shows a cache in the figurehead. Alzar swings over and opens it, and inside are 100 gold pieces and a few minor rings worth between 1-10 gold each.

That wasn’t the answer Alzar was looking for, but that does not end the mystery of the Detect Magic spell either. Time to change this up a notch.

Alzar grabs an oil flask and pours and smears oil all over the figurehead. Let’s gamble.

Alzar grabs a torch from the docks and returns. “I will light this on fire unless you come out!”

Within a few seconds, the creature has emerged from the figurehead. As Alzar looks at it in the light, there is a sort of resemblance in the stretches face of the creature and the figurehead. Probably another tragic death ending in undeath. It’s an old story. Alzar casts Speak with Dead.

Alzar asks if this is his body. The creature says yes. Alzar asks if he was tragically killed. He says yes. Alzars asks if there is any way to put the spirit at rest beside killing him or destroying it. He says no. Alzar asks if he wants to die. He says no.

All questions asked.

So now Alzar has a choice. Kill it, or destroy the figurehead, or let it stay alive. If Alzar could have controlled it, this would have gone a lot more smoothly. Alzar tells it, I will kill you. It nods, and then attacks.

Alzar throws his +2 throwing dagger at it before it gets too close. That’s at -2 because of the weapons penalty. It nails the creature for 6 damage – max damage. Nicely done.

It arrives. It attacks and Alzar takes 2 damage and loses a point of Dexterity. This really is a beautiful creature, he sighs. Alzar unsheathes a dagger, +1 and swings. A hit (rolled a 19). Deals 4 damage to it. It hits for 5 damage and an extra 4 from the touch. Alzar swings and misses. It misses. It finally wins init and hits for 3, but causes no loss. Alzar misses. It misses. Alzar misses. It hits for 4 damage and a loss of constitution. Alzar hits for 3 damage (minimum – yuck). It misses. It hit for 3 and a str loss. Alzar fumbles and drops the dagger. It misse.s Alzar hits after picking it back up – 5 damage. It misses, Alzar misses. Alzar missies, it hits for 4 and a con loss. Alzar nails it and it dies. Alzar gains all lost sats back.

The creature was worth 3000 XP.

3300 for Alzar.
Total XP now is 17835

The captain is delighted with the story and the death of the creature. Alzar recommends burning the figurehead anyway, just in case, and the captain agrees.

Another adventure completed.


A week later, Alzar is healthy and healed and ready for more action. He has moved some gold for more portable gems and jewelry – 10,000 of it in fact. He cast Friends spell and then went into a store and got it for exactly the amount – no money lost, so he traded 10000 gold for 10000 in jewelry.

Alzar was trying to trade spells with a local wizard, and he mentioned that there was a lost island in the river, about thirty miles away, that was once the home of a wizard. Perhaps there might be scrolls or items on the island?

Sounds like an adventure!

Alzar finds that The Vaka is still in the docks, trying to find a crew for a long journey. Despite the loss of the curse, people still have heard about it. Captain Segel would be happy to take Alzar to the island. Not only would it give him something to do, and a way to repay Alzar, but it would give his ship a successful journey, and thus give him facts to prove the curse broken to more sailors and eventually cargo and passengers.

Estaish is accompanying Alzar on the ship to the island, along with Megala. The werebear and ghouls and animal skeletons are going up river by wagon, and then will be at the shore line about a third of a mile away.

C3 The Lost Island of Castanamir










Castanamir was a strong wizard who was a sage in many areas, and wanted to leave behind the normal pace of life so he retired from Athaly to the unclaimed island thirty-ish miles hence. That was more than fifty years ago, and since then, no one had heard from him. Is he still alive? He was a fan of making many of his own spells, so if Alzar could find a few of Castanamir’s spells, they would be highly valuable trade commodities.

The legends of Castanamir are interesting, but one of the most interesting is that he had been alive for more than two hundred years as of his move ot the island, and he was once an apprentice off…..Elyas, the maker of the tower and temple that Alzar encountered near the qwith village when fighting for Rahasia.

(My own little changes, additions and subtractions from the published the story are significant here)

They arrive at the island. Most traders here go to the left side, because it has a deeper riverbed, but it’s not as long. The other side of the island the river is much wider, but more shallow. That causes some traffic on the left side. Capt. Segel has chosen to anchor off the south side and keep us away from the narrow passage, frequently traveled. A rowboat is prepared. Alzar and Estaish row themselves to shore. Then Estaish rows to the other shore to get Lastion, his ghoul and Aleigha.

They arrive back while Alzar was investigating. The towers only appears to be two or three floors tall – its hard to tell because it has no windows – exactly what you might expect from someone trying to get away. He found a door behind some rocks heading into the base of the tower.

As a reminder, here is who we have:

Alzar
Megala
Lastion and one other ghoul
8 animal skeletons
Estaish – 1st level fighter with +2 sword, +1 chainmail, +1 shield and +1 ring of pro
Aleigha – 3rd level fighter, werebear with +2 sword, no armor (it hurts badly when she changes), and Alzar convinced her to take a +1 shield, and +1 ring of pro

Here we go.

The door is unlocked and easily opened. It’s made of an unknown rock and shaped with an old bow in the middle. They enter a living area with dark green walls, gold fabric wall hangings, paints of the wilderness and a mirror. There is a small watermelon sized metallic object moving back and forth, and the room continues around the wall. There are couches, chairs, and a fireplace and table. The little object moves over to where some mud was tracked in by Alzar and zaps it, and it disappears, then it continues moving around the room.

There is a cabinet here, and when opened, it is super cold and there are awards and trophies given Castanamir by creatures of cold and ice and they are made of ice. As people get close to the fireplace, it magically catches on fire, but it produces no heat. There is a closest in the back which Lastion opens. Immediately out come two leprechauns and one grabs Estaish’s shield. It dances around teasing Estaish, who gets red. Alzar waves Estaish to calm down and he does. Alzar asks for the shield back, and the leprechaun polymorphs it into a rock, and then hands it back. Estaish confusedly takes the rock back and tries to say thinks, but the leprechauns laugh and one turns it back into a shield.

Alzar asks about Castanamir, and they admit they haven’t seen him for some time. He was their playmate and brought them out a lot to play with, but no one has been around in a while. They’ve been lonely. Alzar points out that the door is open, they could just leave, and then realizes, as he points to the door, that the outside can no be seen through the door way they just passes through, but instead, its another room!

As he sees that, the leprechauns have a good laugh. Alzar asks if there is anything in the closest that he might want, and they toss him a coat. He thanks them and they move to the other section of the room behind the wall.

This leads to a library with bookcases lining the bottom and left walls (who knows direction if they’ve been teleported). In another wall is a clear glass window that allows Alzar to see the lounge area where the mirror was. There is a desk in here that has been tussled. On the floor lies a human figure, motionless and turned over. Alzar sends Estaish over to check the body. Suddenly, two arrows ring out in quick succession from behind the table. Both bounce off Estaish’s good armor. A person jumps and heads for a doorway with another room beyond, then turns and throws a potion bottle in front of Alzar and his group and it splashes its contents to cover for the body who jumps up as well and runs off. Alzar can get off one spell before they leave and casts Sleep. The nearest one falls asleep. The other one hesitates, and then move to the doorway and leaves.

Alzar ties up Joblo and cracks his head awake. Alzar casts ESP and begins an interrogation for four rounds, asking questions and reading the answers. Joblo and his friend Doblin are thieves who heard about this tower and decided to come here. They’ve been here for a month, moving through teleporters and never quite figuring everything out, but they’ve scavenged and taken things. Joblo believes that Doblin will come and try to rescue him. Their goal was to weaken Alzar’s party to the point where they could be taken by the thieves and this was a trap.

Alzar asks what the items he found on Joblo are and he has to acknowledge that there is a Javelin of Lightning and Potion of Levitation here.

Joblo is tied three times, once with his arms behind his back. Then one arm is bound to his chest, and the other is similarly bound – three spate bindings. Additionally, his weapons are confiscated. Joblo is handed to Lastion, bound with cord, and Alzar tells Lastion to kill him and turn him into a ghoul if he tries to run. “Then he’ll listen,” and Alzar looks right at Joblo. Joblo looks suitably frightened

Alzar spends a good half hour perusing the library for books. He takes a lot, because there is a whole section on conjuring demons, spirits and other powers. Approximately 5000 gold in library value was taken and put in the Bag of Holding, which is of course now empty save for the teleport jars (two of them)

Nothing else is turned up in a search. There are four doorways, each looks to go into a room. Alzar is undecided. (Choose randomly with a die) he goes with the first one, the way back he came, supposedly.

He enters an L shaped room with light gray walls and a deep floor covering. There are doorways in each door. In one corner of the room are stacks of furniture, carefully arranged so as to make a barricade. Alzar can hear breathing on the other side. Alzar flies Megala up to take a look over and sees a bunch of hobgoblins. One throws a javelin at Megala and misses. Alzar brings it back down. Well, Alzar now knows what’s back there. He grabs a bone, throws it up and over and casts Blastbones on it. It deals 8 damage to all of the hobbies nearby, and kills them. Only five survived.

XP: 350 for just Alzar, no one else participated in that.

They push aside furniture and begin to address Alzar, saying they’ve surrendered. Alzar goes in. It looks like 10 died, and that included their leader. They will give anything or do anything for Alzar as long as he lets them live. Alzar thinks it over, and then agrees. He gets the items from the dead chief, and then the hobbies will take Alzar’s orders in the Tower. If they survive, they will be free to go. They agree. They are not willing allies, so Alzar knows they may try and break away, and they won’t jump in the way of big baddies like his skeletons and zombies and such would. There is a scroll and potion on the leader. Plus a gold medallion worth 300 gold.

Alzar looks through the doorways, and then go back the way they came, and enter a room with a few doors, and a kitchen, with a table, stoves, an oven, and a cistern. There is a large spice cabinet. Pots and pans are strewn around. There are gnawed bones and a few parcels of food have been opened. Alzar orders the hobbies to mill around the doors while he and his crew search. They begin searching and make some noise from banging the pots on the floor around and such. Suddenly, two berserkers emerge from one door and start cleaving into the hobgoblins.

Alzar orders a quick defense. One hobgoblin is hacked to death by a battle ax, and the other berserker misses. The four remaining hobbies swing and one hits for 2 damage. The next turn, the berserker that killed the hobgoblin hacks at its corpse instead of attacking. The other one nails a hobgoblin for 9 damage and kills it. The one hacking at the corpse leave sup no defense and is automatically hit by a hobbie for 3. Two hobbies hit for 6. Alzar orders everyone to concentrate on the more damaged one and swings his staff and misses. Aleigha stabs out and hits, but she can’t get to the more wounded one. The less wounded one took 8. Megala flies in and misses.

Next turn, the hobgoblins roll for morale and make it. They stab out and hit once for 6 damage on the wounded one. He galls and takes mortal wounds but keeps fighting. The guy who killed one last round is hacking and its corpse and Aleigha gets in a free hit for 7. Alzar nails the wounded one for 6. Megala misses. Alzar orders the people to switch and attack the other berserker. The berserkers go first and kill another hobgoblin, hitting him twice for 16 damage total. The two hobbies deal 7 damage back. Alzar adds 4 and megala hits for 1 and Aleigha for 10. Both are critically wounded. Next round, the one that has been dead for two rounds finally dies. Alzar orders an all out attack. Hobbies fail their morale and run through the top doorway. Alzar hits for 6 and the guy has now taken more than -10 damage and dies.

Alzar and the others swing by the other door and open to an icebox. The first room was a pantry. There are tons of food in each. A search finds axes on the berserkers added to a magic pile along with all of the dead hobbies armor and weapons. Two pots on the berserkers.

XP – 150 each for Alzar, Aleigha and Estaish

There is nothing else to be found in any of these rooms. Go north and follow the hobgoblins? Sure, why not.

This is a large empty room with an enclosed square area in the center which runs from floor to ceiling. There are a selection of weapons on the walls, and they are added to the magic pile (Bag of Holding). After a bit grabbing weapons, there is a magic noise from the central walled in area, and suddenly two doors slide open, and outs walks an unusual and very angry creatures (Feral Slasher).

It is hunched over, looks like a ton of muscle, has claws and fangs, howls, and is charging. Alzar orders Lastion and his ghoul to move in front and flings the Throwing Dagger. It misses. The Feral Slasher arrives and Alzar’s team wins init. The first ghoul dices it for 9 damage from a crit and all three hit. (He rolled a 16, 15, and 20). It fails at least one save is it is paralyzed. Lastion finishes it off.

There is nothing in the room, or the teleport chamber. They can go in any direction again. Alzar chooses up.

They seem to be in a closest sized room with three blank walls facing but when they are touches, they seem insubstantial. You can walk right through. Lastion walks through without problem. Alzar does so and he is immediately hit with an illusion of powerful joy. He is elated and super happy. It takes all of his will to wrench his mind away from it. He returns and tells the others to stay here. He sends out Lastion to see what is out here – the illusions have no impact on him. There are four walls, and Lastion ignores the illusion. There are different illusions in four different sections of the room. Alzar chooses to return.

The next room, is a hallway with two doors on the left and four doorways on each side like normal.

Alzar moves down and has Lastion open the upper door. The lock seemed broken on the south? door. Alzar orders his thief to open it. He is untied, and given tools, and had multiple blades drawn on him. After a few tries, he manages to pick the lock, and he is retied and reattached to Lastion.

This rooms appears to have been exhaustively searches, with a set of comfortable furniture, and stacks of books ripped apart and tossed in corners. There is a wooden door in the far corner. Alzar has the other ghoul go and open it. This is another furnished bedroom. The linen here is old and musty. Suddenly, two lizard men leap out from the corner and throw darts at the ghoul. Both hit and the ghoul takes 6 damage. Alzar order sit to retreat and his people move in.

Aleigha leads and runs to the lizard men with Estaish right behind. Alzar orders Lastion and the ghoul to stay and watch the thief and watch the hallway. Estaish misses, and Aleigha nails one for 10 damage and kills it. Alzar misses The Lizard Man drops his weapon and sits down. That ends that fight. Alzar orders a search and finds nothing but a bunch of weapons. Suddenly, Alzar feels pain in Lastion and runs out to the hallway.

Lastion has just been backstabbed by the other thief, trying to free his friend. He just took 10 damage and is down to 5/15. Lastion turns and the other ghoul is with him. Megala flies in as well. The other thief tries to rum but Alzar sees him and Megala is faster and catches up to him. Megala gets one attack in – a hit for 3 damage and…made his sleep save and runs into a teleporter. Alzar makes a command decision and orders Megala throw it too.

They are in the first room again, entering from the south. Megala pursues the thief into the room with the leprechauns. They begin to play with the thief, and Alzar charges after, and tells everyone to stay here. The thief’s armor just got changed to a dress. The thief is angry and the leprechauns are upst. Alzar arrives and casts Charm Person Success. The theif is now Alzar’s friend. Alzar turns him into a much nicer playmate for the leprechauns and they are happy and turn his dress back to armor. He returns via the path he took originally – L shaped room, kitchen, teleport room, illusion room and then hallway.

The new friend is named Doblin and Joblo’s eyes get big when he sees Doblin as Alzar;s new friend. Alzar points out that Joblo has no one left to save him. Doblin request that Joblo be untied, and Alzar agrees, pointing out that Joblo has nowhere to go anymore.

They enter the south room, and find nothing in the first chamber, and then nothing more in the second. Searches reveal nothing.

Alzar sees the first room in the end of one corridor, the L room in another. He sees another hallway room so he drops a pitchfork from the magic pile on the floor to tell which one is which. He then goes into other room.

This room is a large dining hall with a U shaped table, 12 chairs, and tapestries. There are two fireplaces, and a junkpile in one corner. There are lots of rat droppings here. This was the theives’ hideout, and Doblin tells Alzar where their treasure is. They have:

Two gloves
A large brazier
A large steel pitcher
Two gold statues worth 2000 gold each and weighing 1500coins each
Alzar procures everything and puts it all in the Bag.

The rats have not attacked. Alzar looks at his options. One exit goes to the kitchen, another to the teleport room, and third to the illusion room and the last one to a round room.

There is a sign hanging from the ceiling saying in big letters in typic, Gingwatzim exhibit, DO NOT CROSS LINES. In each quadrant of the floor is a bright orange painted line in a semi circle. Next to each is a sign. The first quadrant has a glass cabinet. From it shines a blue globe of light. There appear to be a plant and an amulet in here. The second has a green light, and a staff in its cabinet, with another glowing green sphere behind the line, outside of ht cabinet and to the right. . The third is a grey light, and a cabinet with a sword and another lying to the immediate right. The last one has a broken glass cabinet with no light. Normal exist show the first room, the hallway room they left, the other hallway room and the L room. The signs say Tim, Pakim, Graegzim and Eoluzim.

The center sign says, “In each area are found the three typical forms and one multiform example of the lower orders of Gingwatzim. Do not contact any objects or manifestations behind the warning lines. “

That is a lot of stuff. Alzar orders the other ghoul to enter the Tim quadrant and just stand there. The sphere glows and the ghoul growls a little, but that’s it. Alzar has the ghoul bust open the cabinet. The plant is a dangerous plant (Yellow Musk Creeper) and Alzar tosses the ghoul an oil flask to drop all over it. The ghoul grabs the amulet, and then Alzar tosses a torch to kill the Creeper.

They do the same game with the Pakim. The spheres both glow brightly and some light for the on outside the cabinet is obviously glowing at the ghoul but doing nothing. The ghoul busts the cabinet and brings Alzar the staff.

The ghoul enters the third area and the same glowing attack? occurs. Alzar has the ghoul bring back both short swords.

When Alzar takes one of the short swords, it begins to chuckle. Alzar starts talking to it, and it changes form to a fremlin. It introduces itself to its new master. It is a Multi-form Graegzim, and it can change into a +2 short sword or a fremlin or a globe. It’s doens;t know too much just what it regularly sees. It’s been here for a while. It knows that two hobgoblins just ran through here, and then were killed by the Pakim. The globes drain strength and paralyze, and they don’t work on undead, so Alzar’s ghoul was always safe. The items they found are bound Gingwatzim in just an animate form and can’t change shape.

The Eoluzim were taken and destroyed and Castanamir uses it as the opening to another section of the castle. The roof above it is an illusion.

Alzar uses his Rope of Climbing to climb up to the roof and go through it, making a robe ladder. It orders it to knot, which it does.

The bound Graegzim goes back to sword form and Alzar goes up.

This room has a floor to ceiling mirror.. There are black openings on three walls and a narrow corridor. Something is moving, and they suddenly see a giant wolverine. A quick slash of a staff, and two swords and it dies and then disappears.

XP – 20 for each.

There is just a hallway here, and Alzar suspects something more, so everyone searches. Somebody finds a secret door, but there is no lock. Alzar has the thieves search and search, to no accord. There are four hallways here, with four new rooms. A circular room, A room with shelves, a small room, very small in fact, and yet another really small room. Alzar goes to the room with shelves.

One half of the room is devoted o wood and glass cabinets, and the other half contains art like paintings and statues. The cabinets have trophies in there, and there are stacks of chests. There are boxes, belts, robes, sashes, statues, sculptures, musical instruments, rugs, glassware, and more. It looks like a heap of someone;s memories. The value of everything here is roughly 6000 go, but it would weigh a lot more.

There is an old man in robes bending down in front of one of the chest. He is poring through papers and a large crow is on the floor next to him. He leaps up in surprised and prepares a spell. Before Alzar can react, he turns invisible and tells the party to leave him alone or he will roast them.

“I Castanamir, tell you to leave. How did you get there anyway?”

Alzar turns the short sword into a fremlin, while hiding in the back. “Is this Castanamir?” The fremlin looks at him like he’s joking with the question. Realizing he’s serious, the Fremlin shakes his head.

Alzar replies that they are sorry, but they heard Castanamir was dead, so they were not invading his space, only seeking fun. After all, Castanamir has long been legended of his great sense of humor, so we thought we would see it.

Prompted to be funny, the invisible mage laughs . Alzar asks what the crow is – the legends say that Castanamir never had a crow familiar. "Castanamir" makes a joke about how it is a new familiar, just from the last decade. Alzar got him. He admitted the crow, which is still quite visible, is a familiar. Let’s look at our familiars together, Alzar says. Have you ever heard of a ghoul familiar? It’s from the necromantic Attract Ghoul spell, let me show you, and Alzar finds his spellbook and opens it up to the right page. Meanwhile, Lastion is secretly ordered to get near the familiar.

Lastion gets close, and then is orders to launch a sneak attack to kill the crow. The crow is hit twice and takes 3 damage. It is paralyzed, and Lastion grabs it and eats it. The crow dies. The wizard must make a system shock roll and failure means death. Success means a loss of a Con point. I roll 3d6 to see what his con is and get a 9. 65% chance of success. He rolled a 68, and dies.

(FYI, he was also blind, so even if it were successful, he would have been taken out)

XP – 250 for Alzar only.

They run into his corpses, and set it aside until the spell wears off. They search the room and find nothing, Eventually he turns visible and they search his corpses and find a few items added to the magic pile.

The exits from the trophy room are to very tiny room, sphere looking room, a smaller room with furniture, and a very small room. He takes the firts very small room, and drops an item to be able to make it out from the others. The very small room has all four hallways in it, and then a door. The spare ghoul opens the door and sees….a ghoul. It’s just standing there. Alzar tries to control it and…nothing? It’s not undead. The ghoul tears into it for a crit and a claw for 6 damage and it disappears.

XP – 50 to all

This contains two workbenches with small ovens, lab equipment like tubes, alembics, jugs, retorts, and such. There are everything from potion bottles to books and scroll cases.

There appear to be spell components in some of the jars on one shelf. The bound books are reference works on alchemy and alchemical experiments and Alzar (With the Alchemy proficiency) recognizes their value – 10 of them, 100 coins heavy, 1000 gold value to a library.

No spell scrolls in the scroll cases, just formulas that are in the books as well, but easier to find this way. The first rack of potion bottles has sealed racks and Alzar grabs them.

There are a lot of spell components here, but nothing too exotic. This was a good room for Alzar, with the finding of nice usable potions and such.

They go back out and find doors to a library, spheres, a small room with furniture, and a very tiny room. Alzar goes to the library.

This is a larger room that before, with book sleeves and a scroll cabinet along all of the walls. In here is a tables, chair, and a grey haired man wearing long robes and covered with magic writing on them. He is silent and motionless. There are books and manuscripts on the table.

A quick inventory of the library shows books on languages and dictionaries. There is also a general reference section. On a shelf next to the table is a collection of spellbooks, and there is a scroll cabinet, and books on general magic. Alzar is smiling the entire time. Alzar orders no one to touch anything. Mage books are notoriously trapped with numerous spells. On the floor are several books that appears to have been burned. One is still okay, and Alzar finds a partly burnt spellbook with 6 level two spells and 3 level 3s to be looked at later.

He is wondering what this mage is doing here, just standing there. He orders everyone to draw weapons. Simultaneously, they all strike the standing figure, and he dies.

XP – 100 to Alzar.

Alzar touches one item on the desk, just to see, and nothing happens.

They’ll leave and come back later. The doors out are to a large pool, back to the first room,trophy room, and a small circular room with a power.

The pool room.

This large circular room has a pool in the center about 8 feet across. Filling the pool is a clear liquid, and at the bottom is an incredible wealth of coins in all metals and denominations, plus other items, and bones.

Alzar dips in his non-magical staff, and suddenly, a large orange one of the Gingwatzim appears. It’s a much larger globe that before. It says that Castanamir would pay for answers to questions, and then toss the money or items in the pool. It will either answer question in turn for money, or kill the characters. Alzar asks its terms, and it will answer.

Alzar tells it that he would like to finish exploring and then he may have more questions for it, and it agrees.

They can go to the first room, alchemy lab, trophy room or round room with a tower in it.

They arrive at a room and Alzar suddenly feels like he is falling. The four hallways here open to empty space in the middle of the room, just handing there. So are Alzar and his party. Several are very disorientated. There is a tower above you going up 20 feet. And a rocky platform 40 feet below. There tower stands on a 2000 foot high ride rising out of an ocean of mist. As more perception is gained, the floor can be seen of the room, just at the edges of the illusion.

They enter the tower and there are stairs here going up and down. At the top is a trap door and out there is a Hippogriff nest with eggs there and mommy and daddy flying above. They retreat and go down the stairs. Here there is a egg shaped translucent object about ten feet long, and inside is a mage. Alzar can tell this is suspended animation. The egg cannot be opened, and they cannot take anything, find anything or talk to the mage.

They leave. Options are trophy room alchemy lab, small room with furniture, and very tiny room.

Very tiny room it is. This is very similar to the very tiny room at the front of the alchemy lab. They open the door and there is another really tiny room with another door at the end. The next door is opened, and inside are a forge, anvil, workbenches, and golems along the walls.

There are few books on golem design and repair. However, there are also two fully functional miniature Iron Golems. As soon as the cover over them is removed, they begin to attack. Alzar really doesn’t have a way of dealing damage to them. So, he orders everyone back out to the antechamber and the chamber before that, and tells them to go forward. As they do so, he grabs a few books, slams the doors on the golems, and slams the next one too.

This is the small room with the furniture. There is a small table, a small book stand, a brazier, and a cot and a table with a wand, ring, and glass sphere on it. This appears to Alzar to be an enchanting room. He takes the sphere, ring and wand. A search finds more books, and they look like spell books, so Alzar tells them to stay away.

They head into a room with spheres. On one wall are four glowing large metal spheres that float in the air. There is a cabinet with a glass door, and shelves and workbenches.

There is not much in here, there appear to be signs of a struggle with a knocked over chair and broken quill. Who knows what happened. A search finds nothing except three more Gingwatzim bound as low level magic items. Alzar takes them.


Okay, there appears to be no obvious way out, but there was the secret door with no lock. What would open it? No key. Alzar and party head to the pool and talk to the creature here.

How to get through the door? One magic item. Alzar gives up a Gingwatzim he just picked up for the info. It is Wizard Locked.

Tell us about other ways to get in. He doesn't know any,no item needed.

Tell us how to get out other than getting through that door. There are none, no item needed.

Alzar checks the burnt out spellbook to see what spells are in it:

2nd level Darkness, 15’; Magic Mouth; Breath of Bewilderment; Bladeleap; Levitate; Flash
3rd level Icelance; Nystul’s Expeditious Fire Extinguisher; Item

None of those will help

Is there anywhere in the tower that we can get a Knock or Dispel Magic spell? One item. Alzar gives another of the guys he founds in the summoning room. There used to be Knock and Dispel Magic spells in the library. Have they been destroyed? I don’t know.

Alzar decides to spend the night in the tower. There is food and lodging. He has the two thieves stay near Lastion and the ghoul.

In the morning, he tries to identify the scrolls he has, to see if he can find an answer.

Scroll o Tongues, Invis 10’, Fly from the coat given by the leprechauns, , and a cleric scroll of fire resist, cure twice and sanctuary. Ah, the leprechauns! Of course!

Alzar goes back to the Leprechauns and asks for their help. They agree to help after hearing his pleading. They hop into a box, because they don’t like the portals, and shortly later, Alzar opens the box and they pop out. They polymorph the door into a jar of flowers. And Alzar thanks them bunches. He takes them to the room with the creature from the pool so that they can talk to each other.

This secret room is the bed chamber of Castanamir. Inside is a flesh golem who attacks as soon as someone steps in. Alzar orders everyone back because only magic will hurt it, and Aleigha, and Estaish move forward. Alzar throws the +2 dagger at the golem. Crit for 10 damage (the max). Very nice. The Sword of Spartuisia doles out 9 damage. The golem hits Estaish for 8 damage and Estaish is ordered back:

1/9 hp left for Estaish

Alzar grabs a staff and hopes its magical and moves in. He swings and misses. Aligha tags it for another 4 damage. It punches Alzar for 12 damage.

39/51

It wins init and hits Aleigha for 10.

11/21 for Aleigha. Aleigha crits it for 8 damage and Alzar’s staff rattles it for 3 damage, so it is magical.

Alzar orders Aleigha back. He swings and misses. He is hit once for 3 damage.

36/51

He loses init and is hit twice for 21 damage

15/51

He slaps it for 6 damage and it dies.

XP – 675 XP each for Alzar, Aleigha and Estaish

There is lots of dusty junk in here. 2000 gold worth of Castanamir’s own personal journals.

There is no bed, just a belt tethered to a pole.

Chests of clothes Sack of 1000 ep and another of 1000 gp. An amulet.

There is a normal looking door o the south east.

It is opened and reveals a beach on the island. The thieves are let go, and they leave. Aleigha is ready to leave this dusty place too, and she goes. Alzar is going to stay for a while, and look at the library. Estaish goes with Aleigha to row her to the shore, and to the wagon they have there. Alzar may take a day or so, he admits. Look for the teleport jars, because he may be teleporting over items, and they should clear them out regularly.

They grab the gold and electrum and leave.

Everyone but Alzar got 895

XP – 2139
Total XP - 19974


As Alzar moves back to get some food, he goes through the teleport room, and more creatures teleport in. He has no first level spells memorized (they are all Detect Magic and Identify in order to figure out the stuff) . Two ogres pop in. Alzar will need to avoid this room in the future.

Alzar has Ray, Blastbones, and ESP. He tosses a bone to them and casts Blastbones on it. They ogres take 2 damage – the minimum. Wasn’t even worth the effort. They arrive and Alzar swings the magical staff at one and misses. He takes 4 from a giant club.

9/51

Alzar is totally unprepared for this – drank no healing potions, and prepared no spells. He backs up and fires off a cone of magic from his wand of paralyzation. The Ogres swing. Who attacks first? Alzar does, by miles. One ogre fails and is frozen, the ogre is still swinging. Its the damaged one. It totally misses Alzar. Alzar casts Ray on it and it is forced to attack in the exact same way. Alzar uses the free turn to dash back, and grab both his throwing dagger and a healing pot. As the ogre comes out, Alzar throws and drinks. The dagger hits for 3 damage (the minimum again), and aAlzar is up to 18/51. The ogre has charged him and swings. He misses and drops the club from a fumble. Alzar swats with the staff and misses as well. The ogre pounds him for 8 damage

10/51

Alzar is down to just ESP. He grabs and drinks the potion of invisibility. He disappears and slides to the slide. The Ogre tries to find him but Alzar is not is weapon range. He drinks another healing pot.

18/51

He slides over, picks up the throwing dagger from the floor, then grabs his staff and swings as hard as he can at the back of the ogre’s head.

Called shot to the head is hard but with the ambush and invis bonus, they sort of even out. Alzar nails him, he just takes 5 damage, but he is dizzy and there is a chance he will fall down, and perhaps slid einto unconsciousness. Dex check fails - falls. Then he is groggy but still conscious. Alzar gets into a free hit on the ground. Hit, 6 damage. The Ogre stands back up. Next round. Alzar swings and misses, and the ogre does not, nailed him for 8 more damage

10/51.

Alzar wins init, hits, and smacks him one more time for 4 damage and puts him away. Dead ogre. Alzar goes over and kills the other paralyzed one.


XP kill for two ogres – 540 + 54 = 894

Total – 20568

Welcome to 5th level

That was totally in the module too. The teleport room only works so much in a day, and then it resets, and it has a list of the monsters summoned.

Alzar maps out the first level teleporters completely and creates paths to all of the rooms that avoid the teleport room. Then he does so for the second level.

Gold Gained: 1500 gold.
Total Gold: 24,312
Items Gained:
2000 gold worth of Castanamir’s own personal journals.
3 books on golems and repair – 500 gold.
5000 gold in books on summoning and conjuring.
10 of them, 100 coins heavy, 1000 gold value to a library. Alchemy texts
Plus a gold medallion worth 300 gold and jeweled dagger worth 300
Two gold statues worth 2000 gold each and weighing 1500coins each



Spellbook:

2nd level Darkness, 15’; Magic Mouth; Breath of Bewilderment; Bladeleap; Levitate; Flash
3rd level Icelance; Nystul’s Expeditious Fire Extinguisher; Item




Used charge in Wand of Paralyzation, used Pot of Invis and 2 pots of healing

Amulet +1 save vs spells. This is technically a Tim Gingwatzim. +1 staff technically a Pakim Gingwatzam. Short sword +2, technically a Graegzim Gingwatzim, and a multiform one.



Magic stuff: The coat given by the Leprechauns was an illusion of a scroll of of Tongues, Invisibility 10’ and Fly. Cleric scroll – sanctuary, fire resistance, cure light x2; healing pot, philter of love, pot of spider climbing, Staff (+3, one of the Gingwatzim inbound animate form), Dagger +1, Bracers of Defense, AC7. One shot items Ring of Monster Summoning 1, Wand of Repulsion and Sphere of Otiluke’s Freezing Sphere. Belt of flying, 54 charges. Amulet of the Planes, Javelin of Lightning, Pot of Levitating, Gloves of Fire Resistance

First rack of potions – Longevity, Animal Control – horse, Diminution, Healing, Fire Resistance, Extra Healing, ESP. In the back is a pair of traveling cases for potions. One is full, and the other is now loaded with the findings. The full one has a bunch of potions with dust on them as cracks wax stoppers. Alzar knows that means they may be spoiled. Five smell bad. Two smell okay (and are both healing pots)


That large steel pitcher will fill with mead on command. We will call it the mead pitcher.

Nice way to win against those ogres. Really tough fight to go into cold like that!

When Alzar levels up, he can start casting third level spells, and thus, as a specialist, he can add one Necromancy spell to his book form 3rd level. He will be adding Undead Summoning I, which is fairly similar to Monster Summoning I, but for skeletons instead.

As Alzar is studying the things in the tower, he goes to put some things in the teleport jars, and notices a note has been sent. They are telling him that the door to the Tower has become locked and sealed somehow, and there is no way back in. They told the captain to go home, and purchased the rowboat from him.

Alzar tells them to wait by the wagon with the rowboat, and he may take a while to clean the tower out.

Alzar starts casting Detect Magic in each room on a daily basis to see if there is anything he missed. He finds some additional items in the leprechaun closest and library:

+1 two handed sword. Scroll of protection from demons. Potion of levitation. Ring of Free Action.

The larder refills daily, so Alzar can get new food each day.

Alzar can fit 1000 books in the Bag of Holding if he has nothing else in there, so there is no question that he can tote out his own personal library. He tells the group to leave for a while, and he’ll be fine for a couple of weeks. Use his gold to get a nice hotel along the road and relax. Don’t forget to feed the purple moss, and Alzar sends over his Necklace of Adaption for an hour so they can do that. Then they send it back.


Alzar pays the pool guardian 1000 gold to learn the command words for the Amulet of the Planes. Alzar escorts out the Lizard Man. He finds servants quarters in the first floor and searches them but finds nothing.

In the library is a paperweight with two charges of Rary’s Mnemonic Enhancer in it. The command word is etched into it.

Thanks! It was a totla case of I knew, but Alzar didn;t, so I had t play it straight.

Oh, because we are ending Island, I thought I would give you a bit of info on Thorasia. Here are my gods. Many of them came from research into mythology to find deities from various cultures that fit my own world and desires. If so, they have parentheses with that culture.




The Gods of Thorasia:



Magister – God of Life, Triplet with Harryth, Barastyr
Mithris – God of Battle and Duty, Husband of Harkangi, Brother of Camulos
Harkangi – Goddess of Mending and Peace, Wife of Mithris
Tangaroa – Goddess of the Sea, Wind and Water, Sister of Bathala (Maori Goddess)
Lonna – Goddess of Stars, Sky and Serenity, Daughter of Gontia and Malekbel
Chasca – Goddess of Light, Color, Music and Art (Incan Goddess)
Teminia – Goddess of Forest, Hunt and Faerie, Sister of Berstuk
Qetesh – Goddess of Love and Beauty (Phoenician Goddess)
Bathala - Goddess of Agriculture, Harvest and Fertility, Sister of Tangaroa (Philippine Goddess)

Harryth – God of Balance, Betrothed of Shafina, Triplet with Masigter, Barastyr
Ravister – God of Magic and Knowledge
Shafina – Goddess of Law, Justice and Trade. Betrothed of Harryth
Belisama - Goddess of Crafts (Celtic Goddess)
Azeban - God of Lunacy, Madness, and Insanity, Teshub’s Twin (Abenaki God)
Teshub – God of Chaos, Randomness, and Luck, Azeban’s Twin (Hurrian God)
Malekbel – God of Fire and the Sun, Husband of Gontia (Palmarene God)
Kothar – God of Earth, Rock, and Mountains (Canaanite God)
Laima – Goddess of Distance and Travel (Latvian Goddess)

Barastyr – God of Death, Triplet with Harryth and Magister (Ossetian God)
Camulos – God of Conflict and Strife, Brother of Mithris (Celtic God)
Mahte - Goddess of Pain and Pleasure (Latvian Goddess)
Aminon – God of Destruction, Anger, and Vengeance (Ossetian God)
Arentia – Goddess of Decay and Disease
Gontia - Goddess of Night, Ice, and the Moon, Wife of Malekbel (Celtic Goddess)
Baetylus – God of Deceit and Greed (Phoenician God)
Berstuk - God of Faerie, Trickery, and Mischief, Brother of Teminia (Slavic God)
Melqart - God of the Underworld and Undeath (Canaanite God)

Alzar spends a lot of time in the library and has found a few things. First of all, on the desk, is a reference book . It catalogues all of the books in the library, along with symbols to show which ones are trapped. How convenient of Castanamir.

There are some evil spellbooks with spell traps on them, and normal ones. Three spellbooks are still untouched, but the rest of the normal spellbooks were destroyed.

Alzar has a task for Estaish. Go to Athaly, and find me a scroll of Dispel Magic. Money is no object. Teleport it back when you have it.

Five days later, the scroll appears. It cost Alzar 1000 gold – a lot more than it is worth. He unfurls it and tires to learn the spell. He rolls a 39 - success. He now knows Dispel Magic.

(Here is the problem. Alzar has only a 5% chance of success at dispelling the explosive runes and/or fire traps on the books. In order to reliably ensure that it worked, he should cast around 40 Dispel Magics on JUST ONE BOOK in order to make sure the book is ready to be used. However, that would take 40 days for just one book. That’s way too hard. I can’t, as a DM, have one of my characters do that. So, instead, we’ll make up something.

Alzar’s research into the library has brought some success. He has discovered that the trapped spellbooks can be held, not opened, but held by cold. Alzar goes to the freezer in the first room and freezes the gloves of Fire Resistance, and then takes them to the library and puts them on and takes the first spellbook. Success. Alzar puts the spellbooks in a chest and closes and locks it with a key he found. Now no one will touch them.

He has secured, for the future, 3 regular spellbooks and 9 evil spellbooks – one for each level of magic.

Alzar has found all of the information needed on how ot summon and control gingwatzim. 2500 gold for this unique information, and the five books and two manuscripts that show it.

He finds info on how to make the portals, but it’s a bit over his head (needs a20 Int to get it). He gets some basic stuff, but not a lot. He files it for later. (12 books, worth about 1000 total)

The catalogue shows that many of the books here have little value. The dictionaries, language books, notes on culture, these are several sections, and not a lot of value.

However, Alzar finds a section of books to be very, very interesting. These is a section of roughly 100 books on summoning and conjuring. Some of these are very detailed and very interesting. It’s worth roughly 15,000. It is a complete research library on conjuration spells and magic all the way up to 9th level. Any research that needed to be done on conjuration and summoning, from rituals to spells, can be found in here, at least as a starting base.

They are all added.

Very much enjoying this and looking forward to more, especially some of this new found knowledge coming into play (though I'd expect the really fun stuff will take a while to work up to).

Glad you like it!

Actualy, one new thing is coming up very soon I suspect

There is nothing magical in the trophy room, which was a big surprise to Alzar.

In the enchantment lab, Alzar finds another pair of enchantment spellbooks from Castanamir. He adds these two spellbooks to his collection. He suspects they will have spells like Permanency and such.


Alzar is tempted to stay for a bit, but he has 14 spellbooks, a while research catalogue on summonings, all of the magic items, and more. It’s time to go.

He offers the leprechauns a way out, and they decide to take it, but then they will leave Alzar and go off on their own. They leave.

Alzar looks back fondly at the place that has been his home for twenty days. In some ways, it would be a perfect place to make his home for a while – it has all of the rooms he would need. But, it’s a little too close to civilization for his taste – and there are too many open holes – like the teleport room. Plus, Castanamir could return someday, who knows?

He steps out of the tower with the chest in his hand. His undead follow him. Waiting with a rowboat is Estaish, and Alzar can see Aleigha and the wagon and horses on the shore. They row back. It’s time to leave the island to the myths and rumors.

Alzar’s stuff.


Alzar has the following magic items:



Potion of Sweet Water, Diminutionx2, Gaseous Form, Poisonx2, Telekinesis, Healingx5, Levitationx2, Longevity, Spider Climbing, Extra Healing, ESP, Animal Control – Horses, Fire Resistance, Philter of Love
Gauntlets of Ogre Power
Bag of Holding
+1 Scimitar, Short Swordx2, Daggerx3, Mace, Battle Axe, Longsword, two-handed sword
-1 Dagger
+2 Longsword
+1 Plate Armor, Chain Mailx2
Ring of Protection +1
Ring of Free Action
Wand of Secret Door Detection – 4 charges
Wand of Paralyzation 5 charges
+2 Throwing Dagger
The Sword of the Rock
Longsword +1, +2 vs Undead
Crystal Ball
Necklace of Adaptation
Periapt of Proof Against Poison +2
Ring of Fire Resistancex2
Rod of Cancellation
Rope of Climbing
Scrolls of: Mordenkainen’s Faithful Phantom Shield-Maidens, Teleport, Read Languages, Continual Light, Aganazzar’s Scorcher, Odeen’s Magic Cloud, Levitate, Ray of Fatigue, Tongues, Invisibility, 10’ Radius, Fly, Protection from Acid, Demons
Bracers of Defense AC7
Amulet of the Planes (with command words)
Javelin of Lightning
Gloves of Fire Resistance (As the ring, but a pair of gloves)
Belt of Flying, 54 charges.
Cleric scroll – sanctuary, fire resistance, cure light x2;
Paperweight, Rary’s Mnemonic Enhancer – 2 charges

The Book of Years, Windscribe, 4 teleport jars, Mead Pitcher

Spellbook:

2nd level Darkness, 15’; Magic Mouth; Breath of Bewilderment; Bladeleap; Levitate; Flash
3rd level Icelance; Nystul’s Expeditious Fire Extinguisher; Item


Chest – 2 spellbooks for enchantment 9 for evil, and 3 others, all trapped


Temporary Magic Items - Ring of Monster Summoning 1, Wand of Repulsion and Sphere of Otiluke’s Freezing Sphere – just waiting on Permanency to make them a real magic item.

These gingwatzim: Amulet +1 save vs spells, a Tim Gingwatzim. +1 staff technically a Pakim Gingwatzam. Short sword +2, technically a Graegzim Gingwatzim, and a multiform one too, can turn into Fremlin. Staff (+3, one of the Gingwatzim in bound animate form, and it talks a lot to its owner and complains)


Estaish has Ring of Pro +1, Shield +1, Chain +1, Longsword +2. Aleigha has Shield +1, The Sword of Spartusia and Ring of Pro +1.


That’s a lot of stuff, and that includes a lot of stuff Alzar doesn’t even want.

Apparently Alzar was supposed to have gained an extra level 1 spell at level four, and I didn’t give it to him. Whoops. And now he gets another level 1 at level 5, so he’s getting two more daily)

Alzar’s Spellbook:


First Level:

Alzar’s Undead Porter
Armor
Animate Dead Animals *
Cantrip
Charm Person *
Detect Magic *
Friends
Identify
Mount
Read Languages
Read Magic
Sleep * *
Tenser’s Floating Disc
Unseen Servant


Second Level:

Attract Ghoul
Blastbones *
ESP *
Forget
Locate Object
Ray of Ondovir *
Speak with Dead


Third Level:

Bone Knit
Dire Charm
Dispel Magic
Searing Serpent *
Skulltrap *
Undead Summoning I

Fourth Level:

Vorthala’s Undead Turning Immunity

Alzar has two character points he has not spent, but he is not taking anything right now.


Alzar decides to make a decision now. He purchases 3000 gold of necromantic books from wizards in Athaly and spent 4000 to do it.

Alzar’s current gold: 18, 312 left


Alzar rents a house outside Athaly, a large one, for the winter months ahead. Estaish shows them around, and Alzar has most of them stay away for a few months.

Five months pass, and they are comfortable in the cabin with food, mead, and plenty of money, a mile from the city, and so forth. Lastion and his ghoul lair in a nearby cave and don’t really like the cold.

He spends two weeks researching and creating a variant of the Find Familiar (Nec) 2nd level spell. 1110 XP. -600 gold.

Here is Alzar’s version:


Alzar’s Familiar

2nd Level
Necromancy, Conjuration/Summoning

Casting Time: 10 hours
Range 20 miles
Components: VSM
Duration: Special


Except for the casting time (only during a full moon), and the cost (3000 gold for obscure ingredients) this is very similar to the 1st level Find Familiar spell or the 2nd level Find Familiar – Necromancy spell. However, there are two major differences. Firstly, it always succeeds and finding something. Secondly, the caster can choose the familiar type from the following list:

Imp
Quasit
Mephit
Vampire Bat
Galltrit, Gremlin, Fremlin, Mite
Large, two foot long spider
Screaming Devilkin
The Mystara “Homunculous” which are not true Homunculous, but just misnamed. There are five of them


And can also choose any other creature in range that normally can be a familiar (snake, owl, raven, crow, black cat, etc)

The rest of the time was spent by Alzar writing a book and making a major change.

OOC – When I created Alzar a while ago, I already knew he was going to do this, but I never knew when, exactly, it would happen. I didn’t create a history that detailed. I knew it would have to be at least level 5, and probably sometime before level 9. I wasn’t sure if I should do it now or not for a awhile, but it feels right with him just coming out of the Tower. This is the reason I love Alzar though, so it’s time.



Alzar’s book is entitled “The Fivefold Path to Power”


This book outlines the five paths to power. In it, Alzar outlines five principles that make a mage the most powerful, and also outline pits and traps that mages often fall into.

(Okay, this next section will be a bit complicated for those who may not be familiar with the rules stuff of AD&D)

This is a new type of Specialist Mage, called a Path Mage or Fivefold Mage. Let’s go over the principles.


There are five principles, each of which is a route to power. In order to maximize the power of a mage, this sub-class focuses on effects of a permanent nature, when applicable.

A). This is the sub principle that all of the paths use. Consider the paths the way to power, but the sub principle the guide on those paths. Information is not power in and of itself, but it gives you the knowledge of how to obtain power.

Path 1). Charm, Cajole, Entice and Dominate the Living. The first path to power is the easiest one seen, with the power gained from subjugating the living. Living creatures are all around the caster, so using them is vitally important. This includes spells like Charm Person, Domination, and Confusion.

Path 2). Summon and Conjure Allies. The living do not end at the barriers of this plane, but continue throughout existence. The second path to power uses magic to summon and conjure allies from beyond the barriers. This includes spells like Summon Elemental and Gate.

Path 3). Animate and Invest the Unliving. The third path takes those living energies and uses them to reanimate the undead. Undead allies never need food, are unresting, have unwavering loyalty, and can never go rogue. This includes spells like Animate Dead and Summon Shadows.

Path 4). Create Artificial Constructs. Along with animating the dead is imbuing the lifeless with the spark of life. Creating constructs is another entry on the path to power.

Path 5). Make and Use Powerful Items. The final path is the creation of powerful magical items which can be used or given to allies to use in the gaining of power.


As a result, the following schools are considered the area of specialization:


Divination
Enchantment/Charm
Necromancy
Conjuration/Summoning
Artifice

These are referred to as The Path.

However, there are caveats to this, as noted below.


Fivefold Mage Views of Illusion/Phantasm:

The Fivefold Mage path views Illusion and Phantasm magic as the worst possible misuse of mystical power. Unlike other specialist mages who may not have the time to devote to all schools, so they cannot use a few, the Fivefold Mage does not merely fail to study Illusion magic, but they downright disown it. Why create something temporary and meaningless that does not even exist?

Views of Invocation/Evocation:

The Fivefold Mage distinguishes between Invocation and Evocation. Invocation is the communication with higher powers in other planes and channeling their power to make magical effects. Fivefold Mages are willing to use Invocation in their magic without question, but it is a very small school (Perhaps twenty spells total are Invocation spells). The vast majority of spells in this powerful school are Evocation spells. Although Fivefold Mages agree that Evocation magic appears powerful at first glance, they believe the power offered by Evocation is an intoxicant and belies a false understanding of power. Creating or forcing another to be an ally who fights for you permanently will be much more powerful in the long run than a splashy spell such as a fireball or lightning bolt. Therefore, Fivefold Mages ultimately see Evocation magic as barely above illusion magic on the chain. It is a seductive school that provides little long term benefit and little power.



View on Alteration, Abjuration, Alchemy and Geometry:


The Fivefold Mage views these schools as tools, but not the real path to power. Therefore, although a Fivefold Mage has access to these schools, they cannot have more than one spell per level memorized by all of them together, except for special circumstances. For example, a Fivefold Mage might want to keep a Dispel Magic or Banish in their back pocket for an emergency situation, and that would be fine, but they could not memorize a bunch of spells from this category. Note that Alchemy and Geometry are lowered to tool status because of the temporary nature of their work, which would otherwise increase in stature to be truly part of a Fivefold Mage’s path.

It is possible for a Fivefold Mage to memorize more than one spell per level when facing a highly specific and unusual situation. Adventuring or meeting guests or going shopping are not unusual situations. For example, a Fivefold Mage who knows Transmute Rock to Mud might want to memorize it exclusively because she is delving into the back of a cave in order to create a complex to house her and her minions.


View on Evocation Bleed


Alzar identifies what he calls the Evocation Bleed into other schools. He points out, that Evocation creates a ball of fire, and that is powerful. If conjurers conjured a ball of fire from the Elemental Plane of Fire, and it had the exact same range and damage dealing capacity, they might be different in method, but they are identical in purpose. This is an example of what Alzar calls the Evocation Bleed. It is when other schools try to mimic the power of Evocation by another method. Common spells that he calls out for this are Burning Hands and Melf’s Acid Arrow. While one is technically alteration and the other technically conjuration, Alzar argues that they are Evocation-like, and then subject to the Evocation Bleed.

No spell in the Path counts for Path bonuses, if it is an example of the Evocation Bleed. So, for example, despite Melf’s Acid Arrow being a Conjuration spell, it is NOT in the Path.

Class Abilities:


One Extra Spell/Level is Gained, must be Path.

Fivefold Mages reduce the spell level by one when researching spells in The Path.

Chance to Learn spell in The Path increased by +15%

Saving Throw of Targets when targeted by spells from The Path at -1.

The wizard can only gain one weapon when created, and must put all other weapon proficiencies into non-weapons.

No more than one spell per level can be from the group: Abjuration, Alteration, Alchemy and Geometry barring a highly unusual and temporary circumstance.

Because of the focus on external aids for power, the Fivefold Mage must invest a focus item as the method through which magic is cast. Loss of this item requires the crafting of another before the Mage can cast magic again. This is usually a hidden and secret item kept on the Mage’s person at all times.

Due to the intense physical nature of the class, they must have a lab, library and workbench with 1,000 gp value per level, and an upkeep of 50 gp/level/month in order to do the necessary research to keep themselves sharp. This is a requirement for both library and workshop, so a 10th level Path Mage needs a 10000 gp lab AND a 10000 gp Library, with 500 per month upkeep for both. If they lose this, then they lose all benefits of this class until they are again equipped. They do not lose the hindrances of the class, however.

They can store spells like an Artificer, but cannot begin to do so until level 6, instead of level 4 like an Artificer that focuses purely on the enchantment of items.

Fivefold Mages have a chance to identify a magical item by spending a turn peering at it closely and examining it. This chance is their level times 5. This is similar to, but not as strong as, the Artificer.

Fivefold Mages can control undead as an evil Priest of the same level, and this ability extends to extra planar beings which are considered undead with the same hit dice for this purpose.

In addition to being a class, being a Fivefold Mage is also a kit that is required for the class.

Non-Weapon Proficiencies: Necrology, Netherworld Knowledge, Spirit Lore, Hypnotism, Ancient History, Ancient Languages, Reading/Writing, Herbalism, Alchemy, Research, Sage Knowledge (Alchemy, Inner Planes, Outer Planes).

Weapon Proficiencies: Staff or dagger are the only two choices, and a Fivefold Mage can never use non-weapon proficiency slots for weapons or combat related skills.

Recommend Traits: Precise Memory, Obscure Knowledge, Glibness

Benefits: Due to their ability to talk smoothly and brush aside complaints, Fivefold Mages never suffer from a negative reaction penalty due to controlling or animating undead.

Hindrances: Fivefold Mages revel in power and the various accoutrements that it gives them. They enjoy decorating their undead with weapons and clothes, giving their constructs extra gems or metals, granting charmed allies magical items, and so forth. As such, the Fivefold Mage must spend a large portion of their money to make their home, creatures, and themselves comfortable, nice, and rich, as only suits a person of their power.

Additionally, a traveling Fivefold Mage must carry a large supply of books, ink, supplies, fine clothes, fine food, fine drink, a portable workshop, and more. They may have golem porters, wagons pulled by skeletal horses, and so forth,





Okay, most of the advantages are normal specialist ones, although a few have been lost – like automatic spells. They cannot have a kit beyond the base Fivefold Mage one. The limitation on spells outside their specialization is quite new and powerful. They have a wide specialization but a very important restriction on them based on the Evocation Bleed.

On a full moon, with a werebear watching over him, Alzar leaves this world mentally for 10 hours, and casts Alzar’s Familiar. Success. Meet the newest member of the team:


Dryshik, Mist Mephit

Lawful Evil

HP: 19
AC: 7
THAC0: 17
2 attacks/rnd: 1 damage each


Dryshik is Alzar’s second familiar. He can breathe a ball of mist 3x/hour. The target must roll a save vs. poison or take 1d4+1 points of damage and be blinded for 1d4 rounds – they hit automatically. He can also cast Wall of Fog once/day and can assume gaseous form once/day.

Dryshik was originally forced to join Alzar’s force when summoned by Alzar’s Familiar spell. Note that other-planer familiars are not eligible for the increased hit points that come from being a familiar, but they are more powerful than any familiar.

He can, once an hour, try to summon more Mephits and has a 20% chance of success, for 1d2 Ice or Mist Mephits.





Lastion is not happy about losing his status as Alzar’s one true familiar and thus, in a sense, closest ally.

(According to the Attract Ghoul spell, the familiar is in addition to any the Necromancer normally has, so Alzar can totally have both)

Alzar spends some time and learns Fly, Mordenkainen’s Faithful Phantom Shield-Maidens and Teleport and Continual Light. He can no long cast Tenser’s Floating Disc but it is in his spellbook.

He drinks the Potion of Longevity and loses 9 years. Alzar is still 37, but looks and has the body of 28.

Here is Alzar today:


7th level Fighter (Myrmidon), 5th level Path Mage (Fivefold Mage)

Lawful Evil
Human

Str: 16
Dex: 12
Con: 10
Wis: 16
Int: 18
Cha: 14

Hit Points: 51
THACO: 13 (Increased with Axe Weapon Master and +1 Axe) or 19 as Necromancer (+1 for staff, 18)
AC: 6 (Bracers, Ring) Gets +1 when fighting with Axe
Total XP: 21,668
Total Gold: 8,800
Age 37, Body - 28

Race Abilities:

None Taken

Class Abilities (Cannot use as Necromancer without losing XP gain):

Specialization
Leadership (Alzar can command the tactics, strategy, logistics and more that a large force requires)
3 attacks every 2 rounds


Non-Weapon Proficiencies:

Myrmidon Bonus:

Tactical History 14
Fire-Building 16

Riding 11
Swimming 12
Reading/Writing 13
Survival 14
Blind Fighting
Etiquette 13
Endurance
Heraldry 13
Hunting 10
Fishing 14
Weather Knowledge 10
Orienteering 15

As a Necromancer/Fivefold Mage

Necrology 14
Netherworld Knowledge 10
Herbalism 14
Alchemy 12
Poison Use 11
Ancient Languages 10
Spellcraft 12


Traits:

Empathy
Fast Healer
Precise Memory


Weapon Proficiencies:

Bonus Kit Specialization:

Battle Axe

Battle Axe
One Handed Weapon Style x2 (-2 AC when using one weapon in combat)
Crossbow
Battle Axe Weapon Mastery
Spear

Total with normal battle axe - +3 to hit, +3 to damage, -2 to AC. An additional +1 with the axe and +1 damage for strength


Staff – Can only use this as a Necromancer, +1


Class Ability:

1). Alzar can control undead as an evil Priest of the same level, and this ability extends to extra planar beings which are considered undead with the same hit dice for this purpose.
2). One Extra Spell/Level is Gained, must be Path.
3). Fivefold Mages reduce the spell level by one when researching spells in The Path.
4). Chance to Learn spell in The Path increased by +15%
5). Saving Throw of Targets when targeted by spells from The Path at -1.
6). No more than one spell per level can be from the group: Abjuration, Alteration, Alchemy and Geometry barring a highly unusual and temporary circumstance.
7). Fivefold Mage must invest a focus item as the method through which magic is cast. (Alzar’s Father’s Ring)
8). Must have a lab and library and workbench with 1,000 gp value per level, and an upkeep of 50 gp/level/month
9). They can store spells like an Artificer, but cannot begin to do so until level 6
10). Fivefold Mages have a chance to identify a magical item by spending a turn peering at it closely and examining it - chance is their level times 5.
11). Fivefold Mages never suffer from a negative reaction penalty due to controlling or animating undead.

Spellbook:

Alzar can no longer use: Tenser’s Floating Disc


5/3/2

First Level:

Alzar’s Undead Porter
Armor
Animate Dead Animals *
Cantrip
Charm Person *
Detect Magic *
Friends
Identify
Mount
Read Languages
Read Magic
Sleep * *
Tenser’s Floating Disc
Unseen Servant


Second Level:

Alzar’s Familiar
Attract Ghoul
Blastbones *
Continual Light
ESP *
Forget
Locate Object
Ray of Ondovir *
Speak with Dead


Third Level:

Bone Knit
Dire Charm
Dispel Magic
Fly
Searing Serpent *
Skulltrap *
Undead Summoning I

Fourth Level:


Mordenkainen’s Faithful Phantom Shield-Maidens
Vorthala’s Undead Turning Immunity


Fifth Level:

Teleport

Jewelry and Gems

Crowns: 5000x2 and 50x4, bracelets 600x2, necklace 1500, necklace 700, Tiara 200, wristbands 100x4,bracelets 10,000,500, 300; pearl necklaces, 400x2; Gold Medallion, 300, Jeweled Dagger 300;Gold Statues – 2000 gold each; Gold Diamond Bracelet – 750 gold

China and Silverware – 600

Gems: 1000, 500x4, 300, 200, 100x37, 50 x29, 10x4

Six pieces of jewelry worth 6000 gp total
Jewelery worth 3500
26 gems worth a total of 3100 gp
10,000 in jewlery

Books:


1000 gold worth of texts from Tower in Rahasia
2000 gold worth of Castanamir’s own personal journals.
3 books on golems and repair – 500 gold.
5000 gold in books on summoning and conjuring.
10 alchemy texts, 100 coins heavy, 1000 gold value to a library.
15,000 specialized summoning and conjuring texts
2500 gold Gingwatzim information, and the five books and two manuscripts that show it.
1000 gold, 12 books, info on making portals
3000 necromatic tomes for research



Items:

Potion of Sweet Water, Diminutionx2, Gaseous Form, Poisonx2, Telekinesis, Healingx5, Levitationx2, Spider Climbing, Extra Healing, ESP, Animal Control – Horses, Fire Resistance, Philter of Love
Gauntlets of Ogre Power
Bag of Holding
+1 Scimitar, Short Swordx2, Daggerx3, Mace, Battle Axe, Longsword, Two-handed sword
-1 Dagger
+2 Longsword
+1 Plate Armor, Chain Mailx2
Ring of Protection +1
Ring of Free Action
Wand of Secret Door Detection – 4 charges
Wand of Paralyzation 5 charges
+2 Throwing Dagger
The Sword of the Rock
Longsword +1, +2 vs Undead
Crystal Ball
Necklace of Adaptation
Periapt of Proof Against Poison +2
Rod of Cancellation
Rope of Climbing
Scrolls of: Read Languages, Aganazzar’s Scorcher, Odeen’s Magic Cloud, Levitate, Ray of Fatigue, Tongues, Invisibility, 10’ Radius, Protection from Acid, Demons
Bracers of Defense AC7
Amulet of the Planes (with command words)
Javelin of Lightning
Gloves of Fire Resistance (As the ring, but a pair of gloves)
Belt of Flying, 54 charges.
Cleric scroll – sanctuary, fire resistance, cure light x2;
Paperweight, Rary’s Mnemonic Enhancer – 2 charges

The Book of Years, Windscribe, 4 teleport jars, Mead Pitcher

Spellbook:

2nd level Darkness, 15’; Magic Mouth; Breath of Bewilderment; Bladeleap; Levitate; Flash
3rd level Icelance; Nystul’s Expeditious Fire Extinguisher; Item


Chest – 2 spellbooks for enchantment, 9 for evil, and 3 others, all trapped


5000 gold on a workshop/laboratory


Temporary Magic Items - Ring of Monster Summoning 1, Wand of Repulsion and Sphere of Otiluke’s Freezing Sphere – just waiting on Permanency to make them a real magic item.

These gingwatzim: Amulet +1 save vs spells, a Tim Gingwatzim. +1 staff technically a Pakim Gingwatzam. Short sword +2, technically a Graegzim Gingwatzim, and a multiform one too, can turn into Fremlin. Staff (+3, one of the Gingwatzim in bound animate form, and it talks a lot to its owner and complains)


Estaish has Ring of Pro +1, Shield +1, Chain +1, Longsword +2. Aleigha has Shield +1, The Sword of Spartusia and Ring of Pro +1. They each have been given 500 gold and each are now earing a Ring of Fire Resist



Here is what Alzar has on him typically:

Gloves of Fire Resist – They are smooth, sleek, do not hinder him at all, and give Fire Resist as the Ring.
Ring of Protection +1
Ring of Free Action – Moves at normal speed, while underwater, immune to Hold, Paralysis, Web
Amulet - +1 save vs Spells
Periapt of Proof Against Poison, Necklace of Adaptation
Bracers of Defense AC7
Belt of Flying


Bag of Holding

Throwing Dagger +2, Dagger +1, Wand of Paralyzation, Secret Door Detection. There are all in sheathes and hosters on Alzar’s chest and available for a quick grab and use

Short Sword +2, multiform Gingwatzim. Kept in a sheath on Alzar’s thigh
+1 Axe, kept on Alzar’s back with handle up, blade down, for easy retrieval
+1 Staff, used to walk with and poke things with

In Bag of Holding –

2 Teleport Jars, Mead Pitcher
Spellbooks (just two of them)
+3 staff for emergencies
Crystal Ball
Minor Potions and Scrolls in cases for them.
Rope of Climbing
Rod of Cancellation, encased so it won’t accidentally be used against something else
Javelin of Lightning
3 Oil Flasks


He keeps several pots on him in metal containers – Extra Healing, Healing Ones, Gaseous Form, Invis

He has a belt pouch with 100 pp. He has several empty pouches on his belt. He does not carry a backpack while adventuring, unless he came across something valuable.

Alzar has created a lab/library wagon with books and lab equipment, and nothing else. He purchased two more wagons, so that they now have two living wagons, and a lab/library one.

Alzar has decided that Athaly and this region no longer has the sorts of things he is looking for. He needs a place with a larger city or more mages to trade spells with and trade items with. This is not it. The journey will take a while, perhaps a couple of months, but the relocation is needed. Aleigha has not allegiance to any place, so she is game, and Estaish has only been in Athaly for about 5 year, so he’s not native and south is closer to home.

The path south will be through woods, plains, and hills, and eventually the River Storm will become the new haunt. There are two major cities, lots of wilderness, and hopefully, the perfect combination thereof for Alzar.

They start out. The road follows the river for four days until the rivers turns off to the east. The road is relatively peaceful.

The main road continues to the east, but Alzar is going south. Lastion and his ghoul run into trouble on the fourth day, they land smack into three centaurs, who automatically start firing arrows at them. Alzar orders Lastion to flee back to the wagons and jumps out. He orders Megala to fly up so he can see the area, and jumps off, telling the others to stay here for a bit. They do, and Alzar runs in.

The Centaurs kill one ghoul (not Lastion). Lastion is arrowed for 6 damage 9/15.

Alzar sends Dryshik and Megala to the area to give him more info. He also gives Lastion some commands on where to go to meet him.

In three rounds, Alzar will meet Lastion. The Centaurs get three rounds of shots off. They hit four times and deal1d6 each time. Will the Centaurs kill Lastion? They easily do. Lastion dies.








With his familiar dead, Alzar suddenly stops. He makes a system shock roll. Failure means he is stunned for 1d6 hours, success means nothing. He rolls a 4 and makes it. He is pissed.

Alzar finds the Centaurs checking Lastion’s body and he casts Sleep. One falls asleep and the other two nock arrows and look for him. He has Megala and Dryshik fly through the trees to distract them. He readies another Sleep spell. They both fall asleep. Alzar smiles.

It’s hard to tie a Centaur up. He starts a fire. After a bit, he is sure he’s got it, and he ties them up. And then wakes them all up. He’s gagged them of course, just in case any are spellcasters. He lets them sit for a few minutes and gets a few sticks nice and hot. Megala and Dryshik are around.

“Would you like to know why you anger me? Would you like to know why people who pretend to be “good” annoy me so? Let me tell you a story. A griffon is trying to stay alive, and it does what it has to. It kills a horse and eats it. Is the griffon evil? Or is it just hungry? It’s just a predator. None of you would call it evil.”

“But a ghoul? Oh that’s different somehow. A wraith? A wight? All different. Some of your kind would shed a tear at the passing of a griffon. But a ghoul is “Evil,” isn’t it? Ghouls go out and kill to eat. They don’t torture their prey. They don’t prolong its death. They don’t have any moral choices, they just hunger, so they eat.”

“Did you ever stop to ask yourself if the ghouls you just killed were killers? Would you like to know the last time Lastion even killed an intelligent creature? It was more than six months ago. Lastion and the other ghoul have been feeding off animals, just like your griffon, or your wolf, or your wolverine. Did you stop and try to negotiate with it? Did you stop to see if it was a danger to anyone in your woods? Did you stop to think, in any way shape or form?

“This is why I detest those who claim to be doing things for good. You don’t care if you are right, or wrong. You don’t think about acts before you take them. You kill two ghouls because you think you are making things better, you think you are making this safer. But Lastion has spent the last year with me, killing goblins, orcs, and other evil creatures. Did you care? No you didn’t. Your kind never does. You don’t think, you just believe and act. You never stop to question what next. You never stop to ask about the orc children that you left parentless.

“You see, I don’t have to worry about that. I don’t have any pretention at all. I will kill a creature because it is in my way, or because I want the experience or because I want the items it has, or I am hungry. I never kill a creature because in my own demented head I have somehow justified to myself that it makes the world a better place. What kind of an ego you must have!

“So, you know that I not good, like you. I never will be. I think things through, and I make actions for selfish reasons without lying to myself about why. So, understand this. This is not some sort of lesson for you to live by and take home with you and try to understand. That would be what a good person would do. I am not going to give you an opportunity to learn from your mistakes. And that’s because, unlike those you have slain, I am evil.”

Alzar takes the hot sticks from the fire and begins to penetrate the Centaur’s flesh. He pins down each of the Centaurs’ six limbs to the ground with ember sticks. He opens up his three flasks of oil and smears it on each of their main bodies, but not limbs. He searches their bodies and finds 50 gold and takes it. Then he grabs their weapons and inspects them to see if any are magical. He casts Detect magic, and nothing the Centaurs have glows.

Alzar casts ESP. “Oh, and btw, where is your village? And how many of you are there? Thanks for your help. “

He stands up, and says, “So, here’s to making the world a better place.” He flings a burning brand onto each of the Centaurs, and they light up.


425 XP + 42.5 for 468 total.

Current XP 22136