The next room past the hall is a mortuary that was used to seal the dead, and a trap is on the sarcophagus here. They move on and encounter a pair of major illusions, seen through via the Gem/Star.

A few more minor rooms, like one with canoptic jars, are passed. A few traps are triggered, and then Alzar loses the small controlled golem when it triggers a fire trap spell and dies.

In a morgue there are an 8-set of Coffer Corpses, which Alzar controls. They require magical weapons to hit, and add to Alzar’s invulnerable army. There is a hidden crystal ooze that his minions kill in the army, and the key gets stuck in a lock and it takes him a few minutes to get it back out

A storage chamber with an acid trap triggers and hits for no damage on a Corpse. There are some stairs down a level, but they are forward and not below the previous one. There are a few crumbling holes in the walls and floors here.

Another lock is answered and a trio of mummies emerge are killed by Corpses (5 Corpses die)

9k

A large group of 21 zombies appear from a crypt and are controlled.

Behind the crypts the tunnel opens into a large, vaulted chamber supported by four carved stone columns, an Alabaster throne on a dais stands on the east end of the room and is flanked by two huge coiled snakes with female heads and a archway heads to the north.

They speak to Alzar and tell him to leave the place. Alzar rolls….and succeeds. These are guardian naga. He tells them he was sent by the family and rightful Sheikh to return the Annulus of power to its rightful owner They refuse to let him pass. Time to kill some lawful good guys!

(Good characters are supposed to trick, lie, and sneak across, in the text, btw “Good characters must not kill or injure the naga, which are also good.”)

Alzar’s zombies head in, followed by Corpses and his heavy hitters.

A few rounds later…(Random.org to the rescue!)

Both Naga have died, as have a bunch of zombies. Alzar carves their skin, teeth, and such.

And gained 14k

The archway opens into a royal burial crypt, where in a few cobras are angrily upset. Zombies, immune o poison, kill them. 1250 XP

The sarcophagus are opened and each one explodes, and more zombies die. Inside are four

4x Jeweled Death Mask, 2000 GP;

A doorway is on the far end, and a trap is opened and cracked by our zombie (now dead).

Just 2 zombies left after all of that.

There is an illusionary wall at the end of this corridor they walk through. Friezes in this crypt depict scenes of the former Sheikh’s life. The Gem/Star reveals a glyph in the floor they avoid.

Centered in this room is a huge sarcophagus, the final crypt, on a tiered dais, the top is carved in an effigy of a humanoid figures with the head of a squid- like a Mind Flayer. As each corner of the lid Is a stone scorpion with their tails coiled over their backs.

A zombie opens it, and the scorpion tail stings it for no damage (immune to poison)

There is a carefully preserved and wrapped mummy bearing a fabulously done gold death mask encrusted with jewels. The mask is in the form of a squid.

The zombie pulls off the mask, and the eyes underneath are a mind flayer, and they snap open and move to attack!

A Mind Blast tears into Alzar and…he is not stunned. Luckily, one of his anti-Mind Flayer weapons, the golem is here, and it moves to the front and smashes. Surrounded by undead, a golem, and an elemental, there is nothing for the Illithid to harm. Alzar takes some psychic attacks, but nothing threshes him

It dies two rounds later.

9000 XP for Alzar

The head is a mask and comes off. Apparently someone took the head of an Illithid, including the skull, tentacles, and everything, and turned it into this nasty little helm that gives the wearer powers like an Illithid, including metal attacks and more.

Alzar secures:

Bracers of Defense Ac2
22 Bolts of Ice, +1 Bolt, deal 1d6 extra damage, 2x damage vs fire

And the flail taken earlier is:

Ptah’s Royal Flail - +3 Flail, acts as Mace of Disruption

It’s identical to Osiris’s Royal Flail, in case you care.

According to legend, there were 10 such flails crafted in this area around 1350 years ago when Ptah’s cult was at its height

Alzar heads back, drops off the Annulus, and gets his reward all nice and snug.



End of Temple, Tower, & Tomb

Using the new Bracers, Alzar is -3 AC when he wields his Axe and the Bright Mirro in combat


Alzar has leveled up and is now level 11

Total XP: 379,725 (Level 12 at 750,000)


He gains a new spell each in levels 3, 4, and 5


Begin Treasure Chest




This is another of the quick little adventures we’re adding in to spice things up. Again, not a lot here but a quick little stop.

One of the death masks he took from the Tomb of the Faceless One looks a bit odd. It has a very different shape than the others do.

He takes it back to Ber-Gathy, and the Vizier knows the basic shape. There is a Great Stone Face that looks over a valley about a day’s march north-west of here, on the north-face of a small chain of sharply spiraling hills.

The next day, Alzar memorizes some spells, grabs the Flying Carpet and heads over, and arrives, eventually, at the Great Stone Face.

It’s a stone, grey, idol, with an unknown type of stone. It’s about 20 feet high, still has carving marks on it, and it located about 150 feet halfway up a cliff, so Alzar is on his carpet while examining it. The Gem/Star shows a hidden path behind it, and he can’t get to it. The Stone Face is too big, can’t be moved, and after 30 minutes of trying to find a way to that path, he just gives up and teleports the 25 feet away.

There is a old cavern back here, and a pair of Behir use it as their home. They see Alzar and move forward.

Alzar uses the Warp Marble and it fails to capture a Behir. He should have known to summon the elemental early. Ah well, not doing it in the middle of combat. His axe is out. A lightning bolt is breathed from one for 17 save for half and the other for 19 save for half Alzar takes 27. Alzar mentally activates his Zoster of Zeal. They arrive and battle begins

Alzar 33/60

Init – 3 vs 9. Alzar needs a 2 to hit them, and hits the first one three times for…3, 5, and 6 for 44 damage and its still around. They need a 14 to hit him, but get a few attacks to do so. He takes 11 more.

He uses his Ring of Quick Action to make sure he gest Initiave. He kills the first Behir, and nails the second twice for 21 damage. It hits once for 5.

Alzar 17/60

2 vs 1. The Behir wins init and bite shim once for 7. Alzar slays it.

Dead lizards walking.

14k XP

He’s not going to do that again, and summons a Earth Elemental.

He carves some stuff from the Behir

There is an exit on the back side. The Elemental leads.

Back here is a large natural chamber, and a few accoutrements of the presence of a mage, long ago. There is a locked and trapped chest, a few books, and items. There is no way into this room, and a quick check shows that the mage spread lead and other items all around to prevent some scrying and some teleportation. (Not all). The chest is wizard locked, and knock, and a Dispel Magic on the traps, opens them right on up.

This appears to be a hideaway place – the sort of place a mage secures in a secure location that they can use in case things go really badly. The items here suggest it:

1 Spellbook
2 Potions of Healing
1 Potion of Neutralize Poison
1 MU Scroll – Stone to Flesh, Teleport Without Error, Dispel Magic
A handful of gems worth 2000 gp

There’s also some emergency rations and water. You can see everything – potions to heal, items to repair, dispel, and send you back with a spare spellbook here.

Alzar takes everything, and will send the gems to the College.

To be dispelled and opened later

Transmuter’s Spellbook :

1st: Burning Hands, Fist of Stone, Detect Magic, Read Magic, Identify, Cantrip, Color Spray
2nd: Strength, Shatter, Wizard Lock, Knock, Bonewood, Melf’s Acid Arrow
3rd: Dispel Magic, Lightning Bolt, Blink, Explosive Runes, Haste, Fly
4th: Wizard Eye, Stoneskin, Polymorph Self, Dimension Door
5th: Passwall, Teleport, Farscry, Feeblemind
6th: Teleport Other, Disintegrate, True Seeing
7th: Teleport Without Error, Phase Door, Power Word Stun


Even here you can see the Spellbook has spells that are defensive, reparative, and information-gathering, and are selected to help the Transmuter who came here. Alzar will use Dispel Magic until it’s free to crack this open, dispelling any harmful protections.



( I removed a major item from the area – Censer of Controlling Air Elementals, and gave It the potions and scrolls instead)

Alzar spends the night, and then teleports back out and flies home.

End of Treasure Chest

The Dungeon of Death




Produced in 2000, this is one of the final 2nd Edition modules that was published. It’s got a few fun things, but for the most point, it’s a bit…blatant…

Alzar checks in and does another 3 month stint with the College teaching a course on Necromancy. Due to the Ring of Sustenance, he can teach and do other things at the same time, and he’ll study and research some of his old spells again:

Alzar’s Familiar
Alzar’s Axethrow
Alzar’s Quest

They want and will take the Quest spell. They aren’t really interested in the other two.


He finishes dispelling the spellbook, memorizes some stuff from it, and also prepares his own spellbook for 6th level magic by adding spells from the College’s Archives and spells from other spellbooks such as Summon Least Yugoloth.

While teaching, the College puts together an expedition to a place in the south, beyond the ridge on the south-facing edge of the ridge down there. The expedition pierced into the dungeon and after a few hours had to leave. The evil acts done in the centuries of history of that place have tainted it and made in evil. They’ve nicknamed it the Dungeon of Death.

People who are not evil steadily lose their powers and confidence, becoming shells of their former selves. After they came back, they ask Alzar to head out once he finishes the course, since we would be unaffected by the evil curse and taint the place has.

As the course ends, he prepares to head out and one-and-a-half days by Flying Carpet (you can fly at night with the Iuon Stone and Ring of Sustenance.)

According to research, there have been numerous things done of an evil nature on the Dungeon. A local race of tribal enemies bred human and feed on the babies, there were multiple evil planar creatures doing torture and more, a hag was sacrificing humans for evil powers, and a lot more.

The first-party-in found a lot of traps and such, that appeared to support people below. The Dungeon is inhabited. Time to head in and see what an evil Alzar can find.

There’s a small hill on the south-facing side of this ridge to the far south of Khaibar, about 100 miles from the end of Sand Mire in this direction. It used to be a mine back before the beginning of the Sand Mire, and continued in that capacity for some time afterward before that role ended and more villainous people took ahold of it.

The weathered grey stones and shattered gate of the stone blockhouse speak of a time long past, when skilled hands crafted a mighty defense, such as a large tower or small fort, to protect this mine. Chunks of rubble from scattered towers and tumbled walls litter the ground and yet there is evidence of recent habitation, tracks in the sand and some of the rubble has been moved to make walls and rudimentary defenses.

Since Alzar sees in the dark, he uses his Continually Lit stones less frequently, led instead by his new Iuon Stone. The way down is unit. He does not have Warp Marble with the Stone Golem hidden this time, instead he has brought it out just now, and they’ll head down into the Dungeon of Death together, a mage and his golem.

The detritus of previous inhabitation litters the entrance, and there is graffiti on the walls. A barbarian tribe must have lived here recently, perhaps leaving a few years ago. There is a wide stone ramp heading down from the entrance, and it is unguarded, and big enough for wagons or such. As always, the Stone Golem leads down.

After a while, the ramp ends, and neither the Gem/Star nor the Mage/Golem blunder into any traps or such on the ramp.

There are empty iron torch sconces in the wall as the ramp flattens and it levels out and a corridor stretches past for around 20 yards before it reaches a pair of iron double doors, rusted, with an iron frame and lintel. One is partway open and Alzar peers inside.

In the next room are some door embossed with an odd symbol of four vertical diamonds, three forming a triangle with the largest diamond in the center. There is a message inscribed in Sand Mire Common on the door that reads “Stand Fast the Iron Tower.” This door cannot be opened further without a lot of strength and noise. But it’s big enough for a mage and his golem.

There is a light breeze coming up from below, with an unusual damp feel to it – unusual for the Sand Mire.

The Gem/Star reveals a line of pit traps all around the edge of this room. There are three sets of double doors out, and all appear to have traps on them as well. There is a secret door that they will be using, untrapped. The first party here almost a month go found a lot of traps in areas near this room as well, but mentioned nothing of a secret door. Magic found it.

There are huge shadows here, despite the lack of light, and a heavy pall over the entire area. The dungeon beats to a different rhythm

The secret door is opened, and there is on the far end of a short corridor as well, and they open up into a strangely shaped room, with the south wall shaped like the head of a hammer, or the top half of an anvil. Exploring reveals a large number of murderholes beyond the wall here to the east, and this must have been a major room for defense. There is no door or way into that area. There are a pair of double doors to the west so they are opened and they head down a long corridor. After a while, double doors off to the south can be seen so they turn off the hallway and arrived at some iron doors.

A vaulted ceiling rises 20 feet above the floor in this vast room. Although it is now empty, its purpose is plan to see –it was one a great storage area, where enormous quantities of supplies and materials could be kept until needed, There is a lift mechanism here at an alcove house that is constructed of stone and metal chains, gears, and pulleys.

There is a doorway off to the east, and out of the hole come 8 shadows and flying from above a handful of mephits of various types – the undead creatures that have just waltzed into the command of their new master. As the shadows switch sides, the mephitis turn and flee before even beginning to attack.

As Alzar explores, a platform is still in good condition, and can be used to winch someone down. There’s no way he could get his Onyx Stone Golem down that thing though – it’d break.

The doorway opens into a hall that has a door to the south. There is, silently and quietly, a staircase down, no traps to speak of here. The dampness on the air comes up from there. On the other side is a on abandoned armory that had a passageway to behind the murderholes in that secret-door-led room off the entrance. The armory is smashed, broken ,and long since rusted. There are dozens of guards’ quarters off the armory, all of which are disused, and even and old, dried up bath house is here

Before heading downstairs, Alzar conjures an Earth Elemental. Because he is underground and near rock, the elemental is bigger than normal – 12 HD

Larger Rock-sy – 61 HP, 9 THACo, 4d8 damage, AC 2

After finding nothing of note, they head down the stairs.

All of the doors that once enclosed this room are missing, leaving behind a trio of open corridors, one in the center of each wall. Although nothing can be seen down the hallways, there are some odd sounds that emanate from the various directions.

A pair of humanoids, rutterkin, are here. They are demons, chaotic evil creatures from the Abyss also sometimes called tanar-ri. Their presence probably indicates more are here.

Alzar’s shadows flank out as the two move in and roar to bring in more assistance. Behind them Alzar’s has his major two allies – the golem and elemental as shock troops.

Rutterkin -




If this were Thorasia, Alzar could control these lesser tanar’ri with his normal powers. But he can’t. He’s just as much an outsider as they are. But he can kill them! The shock troops smash one Rutterkin easily enough and Alzar blows through the other.

(4000 xp)

However, there are defenders moving here, and he doesn’t want to get hit on the move. He creates a defensive formation, pulled away from the three entrances, defending the stairs up and the back of the room.


Coming down the hallway in front is an intriguing sight. There is a woman, with bat-like wings, and virtually no clothing, leading a group of flying mephitis and lesser demons. She is an alu-fiend, and she has with her 16 dretch ,8 mephits of various types, and she begins to cast a spell. She casts Minor Globe of Invulnerability but out of range of anything Alzar can do, and begins ot keep moving.

That’s not good. It’s rare to have an alu-fiend that can cast magic. Now,the even worse news is that the allies Alzar could summon, from his Horn of Valhalla, would be weak to the dretch and their stinking cloud attack.



As the children of Succubi, Alu-fiend can be quite dangerous on their own. They are similarly sexualized in order to attempt to distract men, but Alzar’s past that. Alzar did have one as an ally, Varley, one of the people in his circle of contacts back on Thorasia who would occasionally visit his lair.


And dretch? They are among the least of the demons:

None of these lesser tanar-ri are immune to normal weapons. That’s a good sign.

8 mephits, 8 dretch, and a magic-using alu-fiend. Vs 8 shadows, a golem, elemental, and a mage/fighter. Not great odds. While coming in, he uses the staff of Amun-Re to turn into a snake:


Serpent - AC4, HD4, 28 HP, 1d4 + poison (save or die) THAC0 17

They are now in range. As they get in range the Alu-fiend makes out the mark on Alzar’s soul, and cackles. She orders for more reinforcements. The Mephits are flying up and will likely be using their breath attack in a moment. Alzar casts Evard’s Black Tentacles right where the dretch are. Two of the dretch are going to use Stinking cloud to cover the area. The alu-fiend is going to charm person Alzar.

Let’s roll init. 5 vs 7.

The Tentacles drop and grab a bunch of dretch. It makes 1d4+level – so…13 tentacles, AC 4, with level of wizard as hp (11). Tentacles attack the dretch. Some hit for 1d4 and disappear (made save), some fail their save and take 2d4 and are trapped (and take 3d4 next turn). Meanwhile, dretch that were not entangled drop Stinking Cloud over the room, and Alzar easily makes his save. Alzar makes the charm save. The mephits fly up and breathe on Alzar four times for…1d8+1 x2 fire, 11d6x2 ice, and there’s a chance to save vs half as well. 13 total damage to him.

Alzar - 47/60

Three dretch are dead.(Tentacles that attach to someone will keep on strangling it even after death)

Alzar grabs his axe, and orders folks to move to melee them while their ranks are dropped.

8 vs 2. The alu-fiend casts Acid arrow and Alzar takes 6, and another 14 from the mephits. He kills a mephit with Vampiric Touch (for 5d6 damage – 21 damage). Two more dretch have died from tentacles, and the shadows have killed more. The mephitis are the next concern and he orders the heavies to take them on.

Alzar 48/60

4 vs 6. Alzar slays a mephit with weapons and shield bashes another for 10 damage and it’s reeling, and a shadow finishes it, and the last of the dretch are finished. Suddenly, the sound of creatures on the flanks can be heard, and 16 manes are coming from the east flank and 8 more dretch from the west. Alzar takes 5 from the Arrow, 15 from mephitis, and the alu-fiend begins ot back up, and casts hold person, but he is immune (Free Action Ring).

Alzar 28/60

2 vs 8 Alzar pulls off the line and uses his Horn of Valhalla to summon some berserkers on the left flank to deal with the manes. The shadows are ordered to handle the dretch, and that leaves the alu-fiend and mephits against Alzar and the Earth/Golem. Alzar takes 5 from the Arrow and the breath weapons have been used up for now, so a few claw attacks come his way for 7 damage. The enemy wizard casts mirror image to protect herself. That won’t work on Alzar (he sees through low level illusions) but it does on his other stuff.

6 level 2 fighters arrive and the snake is sent to back them up - AC4, 15 hp, spear or sword.

16/60

1 vs 2. Alzar drops the shield, and swings with his axe twice, killing two mephitis, and then quaffs a pot of extra healing with the now free hand. He then takes 7 from the acid and another 8 from mephits. The dretch lose some members, as do the shadows, and the manes and fighters are exchanging as well. The minions finish off he mephits, and the various shields that the alu-demon had are now gone. She casts invisibility.

26/60

Alzar uses his Ring of Quick Action to move this round first. He thinks he can kill the alu-fiend. Moving quickly due to his ring and Sandals of Speed, and immune to invisibility and mirror image, she probably thinks she’s safe. His axe leads the way and he swings. He first swing is a 5 (on a d20) and that…actually hits. (She has an AC of 2) He carves her for a lot, and the second hit finishes her off (she had 16 HP in this adventure, but that’s not right according to MM so I gave her full HP rolls (at 30) but that’s precisely what Alzar just dealt to her.

A ring she was wearing falls to the ground, the rest disappears with her. Alzar grabs the Ring and moves back. He shock troops are there to clean up. The snake is killed and turns back into a staff, and the fighters are losing to numbers. Plus, whenever a manes is killed, it leaves behind a noxious vapor that does damage to those close by.

At the end of the battle:

Alzar has 1 unwounded and 1 badly wounded shadow, 2 fighters, and unharmed elemental and golem.

Kills – 16 dretch, 16 manes 8 mephits, 1 alu-fiend sorcerer –

Alzar - 28/60

Ring of Protection +3

52500 for everything, mephits, rutterkins, etc.

Led by shadows and fighters, Alzar begins to move out and explore the level. There were several rooms of monsters that combined to come in and attack him. Let’s start exploring this stuff. To the west is the lift station on this level. It comes from above, and it can keep on heading down to the mines. This appears to be more of the living quarters for the abandoned mine.

There’s an area guarded as that hallway continues, and then it hits a storehouse here, with massive stone pillars that reach and hold the ceiling at least 50 feet in the air, and there are tons of objects on the ground like stone, cracked urns, rotted clothing, rusted metal, and in here is a crash of something cursing in a lower planes language that Alzar recognizes. A group of dretch moved in here to cover for those that came down the hallway, and there are 8 here too, guarding the area

Alzar has his heavies lead first, and pulls the fighters out, but stinking clouds hit them before they can and they die. Undead and constructs and elementals are immune. They move in and tears through the front ranks of dretch. The shadows die quickly, and the golem takes some damage, but the dretch are finished two turns of combat later.

10,000 XP for the dretch.

59/70 for the Golem


They run into a dead carrion crawler that had been fed on by the demons here.

Alzar heads back and takes the east passage from the entrance chamber and runs into a room that opens up quickly, in a large, barracks-like living quarters. This is where the 16 manes were, and it smells bad. There are stairs that head down to the mines, and a hallway that leads off on this level.

That hallway is followed, of course led by the golem. There is a feast hall here, with some discarded dung being used to heat a fire, long since allowed to go out. The room has suffered a lot of chaos and disorder. Many stone tables were turned over for defenses long ago, broken, and more. Old bones show evidence of a battle fought here long past memory.

They head into a nearby kitchen and check it out, and it’s equally not-inhabited. A pair of mephits and a quartet of dretch on patrol head into the feast hall as they are in the kitchen, and are noticed. They wait until about halfway across before Alzar sends the elemental and golem to take care of them, followed by himself flanking with the speed of his sandals.

In a moment they confront the two, see how powerful they are, and begin a fighting retreat as dretch is pummeled dead. Alzar has flanked them and their lane of retreat is cut off. They choose to face the fighter/mage. Wrong choice. They are dead quickly, before reinforcements can arrive. Or even hear them.

7650 XP

There’s a cold storage room here, with a permanent enchantment to keep things iced and cold. There are body parts for the demons to snack on. They return and this time take the hallway forward from the entrance room.

They arrive at a ruined auditorium with a variety of exits off it.

Left/west takes them into a smithy and there were dretches here, pulled for the alu-fiend’s attack force, and the sharp stench of hot metal can still be felt. There are various rooms off the main one, each a specialty of forging. A group of 10 manes arrives from a hallway to the left as they investigate, and charge happily into battle, happy to die for the cause. Alzar’s two major players keep them off him, and drop a few, but they both take damage doing do (although not much and they are both immune to the death-poison).

51/70 – Golem
54/61 – Earthy

9000 XP

There is nothing of note being made at their workshops, which included carpentry and leatherworking.

To the left is a gem workshop, long since disused by the inhabitants, and now just used as a home for now-dead manes. They return to the auditorium and head another direction. It ends in a waiting room.

As they begin to move through it, four larger lesser tanar’ri, bar-lgura charge into the room to attack.





Two come after Alzar and one each his minions. They spring from 40’ away and attack first.

They have three attacks and a THAC0 of 15. Alzar has a -3 AC so the two on him need an 18. He is hit twice for 9 damage. Alzar axes and hits the AC0 twice out of three times for 25 damage from axe and shield. The elemental and golem hit once for an alive demon.

19/60 Alzar

8 vs 4. Alzar is hit once for 5 damage from a bite (2d6 on that one). His axe finishes the wounded one and he hits once more for 12 damage. The earth takes 11 from two hits and the golem slays the one on him


13/60
43/61


4 vs 8 Alzar casts Vampiric Tutor from his stored spells and kills a wounded demon for 22 damage. The golem and elemental gang up and smash the last one

Alzar - 36/60
Earth 43/61
Golem 44/70

24000 XP

To the right/east is a temple that the bar-lgura came from. This is a massive hall with vaulted ceiling and a large set of runes, carved into the floor, but have been defaced and written upon. The Gem/Star reveals a secret door, and after searching for a while, (Three search rolls, each 10 minutes long) he finds it and presses down a rune. Because it’s wounded, and abut to be un-summoned, Alzar uses the Earth Elemental to head first into traps and such.

A natural cave opens up, with doors down to a small cavern, with a statue of the original god the mines were dedicated to back here, undefiled. In fact, Alzar can feel the taint of the place ebb in here . Alzar finds a second secret door here, trapped by glyphs of warding. He casts Dispel Magic at them and they ebb away. The door Is trapped magically as well and triggers harmlessly on elemental skin.

The door opens and reveals a crypt and recalls the god worshipped here – Osiris. His symbols are on the coffins here.

There are a set of shallow stone steps leading to the long-lost forgotten crypt – no one record this here, and the current inhabitants have clearly not found this area at all. The lid of each of the three stone coffins is carved to resemble Osiris’s symbol and statue. Rulers? Clerics? Builders of repute? No idea!

Alzar’s never been afraid of a little tomb robbing. There are skeletons on the walls as well, arrayed. Non-necromantic ones. Alzar casts Detect Magic see what they have.

On the skeletons glow:

Platemail +3
Shield +2
12 stun bolts
Hammer, un ID’d
Scimitar, un I’Dd
Pair of Glowstones

The elemental opens the two coffins on the flanks, and each was trapped and decoys. The middle one though….

There are runes of power on this one that completely obliterates the elemental (failed its save). The golem opens it up. Inside are the long-since decayed remains of a major smith, buried in honor long since. There is a powerful looking pickax here and a shovel with the corpse and both are glowing from the DM spell.

Pickaxe of Piercing
Shovel of Digging

They head back and take the left/west exit from the waiting room. Next is a hallway that has two doors off it. The first heads into a set of makeshift chambers. These are empty, and luxuriant, with a beautiful table carved from a dark stone and chairs, and such. This might have been the dead alu-fiend’s quarters.

After a quick search:

3 Beads of Force
Philter of Love

Anderia’s Spellbook:

1st - Burning Hands, Chill Touch, Identify, Enlarge, Nystul’s Magic Aura, Shield, Taunt, Pro. from Good, Melt,
2nd – Melf’s Acid Arrow, Invisibility, Detect Invisibility, Ray of Enfeeblement, Tasha’s…Laughter, Infravision, Mirror Image, Blindness
3rd – Explosive Runes, Dispel Magic, Fly, Slow, Vampiric Touch,
4th – Life Bolt, Enervation, Charm Monster, Confusion, Minor Globe of Invulnerability
5th – Wall of Force, Demishadow Monsters


To be dispelled later.

The final room on this level opens into a chamber where another alu-fiend waits. It was once a storage room, now a makeshift quarters, not nearly as pimp as the other room. She looks up and asks what in the Nine Hells does Alzar want?

Alzar tells her and she agrees to sit and talk.

She’s been shabbily treated by the leader her for sometime, and excluded. Alzar agrees to fail a save for her ESP ability and she asks him questions. After seeing how well he has been doing, and the fact that he is marked by her kind, she offers to help him until the leader here is dead, and then she’ll be off to find a new master.

Alzar implies that he can be her new master. His mark is not hard to remember, he is powerful. After talking, he tells her that he has a Scroll of Binding and she can voluntarily expose herself to the magic. She considers, but instead offers her Wand of Secret Door and Trap Detection he takes it.

Before they are done, she should be able to tell who marked him since it was one of her own. She’s a bit surprised. “You don’t know?”

“I’ve made a few enemies here and there. Lolth? Zuggtmoy? I’ve killed both at times.”

“No. It’s neither of them. You really don’t know who marked you?”

“No.”

“Jubilex”

“Never met him. Last time I checked, he was romantically linked with Zuggtmoy. Are they still tight?”

“Yes they are, and from what I’ve heard, they’ve been getting tighter in the last few years. But I haven’t been to the Abyss in a while, it’s all rumor.”

“Alright, that’s good.”

She then tells him about the next level, and the leader, a nabassu tanar’ri with a magical sword and necklace of missiles.




On the mine level there were undead like ghasts and ghouls, and that’s it, the demons on this floor would normally have headed down for defenses but Alzar killed them all.


His group heads down and to the mine level. They move around the maze for thirty minutes, one hour, 90 minutes. Suddenly a flying shape emerges from a side tunnel, flying at Alzar, leading with sword.

The demon’s sword is on target and smashes for 11 damage. Alzar can just get in one counter attack with axe twice. The nabassu has an AC of -3 and Alzar needs a 9 to hit. He misses twice (rolled 8 twice) and the demon flies back into the side tunnel and is gone.


Alzar 25/60

The pair move on, and run into some minor bats, who fly off. About ten minutes later, another surprise attack comes from above, down a chimney. It flies down with the blade leading again and misses. Alzar slides the axe once for 1 and once for 9 and hits for…14 damage.

Nabassu - 53/67


Alzar’s chop slows it and the golem pushes it down to the ground.

Init – 2 vs 5. Alzar’s weapons roll an 18 ,18 . 29 damage from the axe twice. Then he uses a healing potion with the other hand. The golem swings and…rolled a 13 and…that’s a hit for…1, 8, and 2 – 11 damage total. 40 this turn. It pops off a large item from the Necklace of Missiles and tosses a globe at Alzar for 8d6, save for half – 22. Save? Rolls a 6, fail

13/60

13/67

Alzar cannot use his Ring of Quick Action . (Once per day, not even wearing it right now). So just have to go to init. Alzar’s side rolls a 4…not bad…versus…7. Faster. Alzar’s axe carves it once for 16 damage and it dies.

11000 XP

They follow the trail and it leads ultimately to his home:

Necklace of Missiles – 1 6d6, 3x 4d6
Iron Flask
Sword +3

Total XP gained?

114150

He gives some of the non-special weapons and armor and Necklace to the College. He’ll keep everything else.

What was unidentified?

Scimitar of Defending +4 – You may spend some of the + each round to increase AC for that round, but the weapon is weaker when doing so (so you could drop it to a +1 Scimitar that attack to give a -3 AC bonus).

Hammer of Luck - +2 Hammer, gives +2 vs saves as well when wielded.


End of The Dungeon of Death


A pretty simple by-the-numbers adventure that had little to recommend it.

Begin Book of Lairs II





For the next little bit we’ll use books like The Book of Lairs and II and maybe Treasure Maps or Chests to do some quick lil’ adventures, the sort that flesh things out a bit here and there but otherwise are

As Alzar leaves the Dungeon and gets onto the Carpet there is a chimera nearby and it sees him and flies at him. He grabs his Wand of Lightning and shoots it once for 14 (save for half to 7) and it breathes fire and hits for 12 (save for half). It arrives and lands. Alzar lifts off, casts Hold Monster and….it works. Alzar flies down and slices the Chimera into pieces and it has died.

5000 XP for the thing.


As Alzar’s Carpet lifts off, suddenly there are roars and four more Chimeras fly from out of a large cavern to the west a few miles away and begin to fly after him.

Uh oh. Too many creatures right now for Alzar to handle, and he’s used potions and Vamp Touch spells. Discretion, better part of valor and all that. He turns and flees. But they are faster than his Carpet and are getting close to breathing on him range. New plan.

He grabs an emergency potion of gaseous form he keeps on his belt and turns into mist.

The beasts are confused, as the Carpet is hovering in air, without an owner. They fly in and around for quite some time, one lingers while the others leave and head back, and then, after another almost hour of being on guard, it leaves too. Alzar waits, and they are gone. Then reappears.

He flies the Carpet back down, scrys on his tower in Khaibar, teleports in, swings by the temple to pay for some healing, and spends the night in the tower, and then learns a new set of spells and scry/teleport back.

After heading out, Alzar grabs the Carpet and flies and heads towards the Chimeras’ lair, carefully.

He flies to the entrance and then heads in. The cavern opens and is one giant room, and the four Chimera roar and swing towards him. He has time to cast one spell before their reach breath range. He casts Hold Monster targeting just one Chimera (gets a -3 to save for one target, and -1 for class ability) and here’s the roll….it works. Paralyzed Chimera.

He spins and retreats. Mentally activated the Zeal of Zoster of Zeal.

Three are flying after him, and he spins to charge them. They all three use their breath attacks to hit him hard. 3d8 x three, with saves for half. Here we go. 14 save to 7, 12 no save; 14 save to 7.


Alzar 34/60


He slashes with the axe as he turned and charged, and…hit twice for….31 damage. He takes a few pecks

28/60


They move to follow him and swoop after him. They are faster, but have used their long range weapon. Alzar turns and casts Polymorph Other. It makes it’s save and is not turned into a caterpillar. They swoop in, and another melee round occurs.

Alzar swings and…kills the wounded Chimera, and is hit for 8 more.

20/60

2 left.

Once again he grabs a Wand of Lightning to spit off 6d6 at an unwounded one. 21 and …misses its save. Melee again. He carves and kills it and takes 4.

16/60

The last one cries out and begins to fly off. He reaches into the spellcrux and grabs a darkness 15’ radius spell and sends it at the Cockatrice. He can’t use something like Continual Light blind its eyes, since it has three sets of eyes. The Darkness falls around the creature, and he swings in – he can see in Darkness 15’ Radius; and flies in to hit it now that it’s roaring and dismantled. He attacks a few times and it flees. And it flies out another charge from the Wand spits out and slays it.

20000 more XP.

He swings back down and kills the frozen Chimera. The rest of the area reveals a few items after he casts Detect Magic and flies around.

Philter of Persuasiveness
+2 Knife – Given to College of Wizardry


End Book of Lairs II for now

And I won’t be surprised if we hit it up for Book of Lairs I as well.

Alzar uses the stored spell to teleport back after collecting everything. He will restore Vampiric Touch today and Teleport tomorrow into his focus, the Sigil Ring he collected from the dungeon he entered here on Hamedh.


Alzar heads back to the Tower in Khaibar he captured from Nadir months ago. He has put all of his undead in here as guardians and his Stone Golem protects one area for him. His library and workshop were moved.

Alzar’s latest project is to build a large circle of containment that will be used to Summon Lycanthropes around the full moon. He can summon them to the restraining circle, and then force or bargain when them to make some allies.

A few days later, while Alzar is working on his project, a town crier begins to move through Khaibar, and announcing that something tragic has happened in the north…

X4 Master of the Desert Nomads



It’s time.


Can you believe that we’ve only mapped out half of the Sand Mire as of right now? We still have the entire western part to go! These final two modules (X4 and X5) are going to wrap up my mega-Sand Mire campaign, planned around a variety of backgrounds. Get ready for the last chapter of this campaign.

By the way, this is a really good module. X5 is solid, but this one is really strong stuff. Published in 1983. I’m just saying…

Word has just come down that a nomad army from the north hit and destroyed a town a few days north of the Kasbah of Ber-Gathy, called Prama. Apparently an army of nomads swung through and destroyed it almost completely to the ground.

Alzar heads up and begins to pack and get ready. He flies to the College to see what they know.

There’s just one Regent around, and she tells him that a couple of wizards teleported over to Ber-Gathy, where a battle is ongoing. Alzar teleports over as well and unfurls his Carpet and heads up to get a look at the ongoing battle.

Up here are about three or four Airlancers still alive, but barely holding on, and a pair of wizards surveying things as well. Alzar knows battles, strategies, sieges, and more. He is better than normal fighters and is a student of warfare from his days as a myrmidon leading campaigns and mercenaries.

This is a losing battle.

There are thousands of nomads pushing in and they have two large juggernaut golems with them - three more were destroyed by the mages. They have breached the defenses and are poring en masse into the town proper. Fires have been ignited.

Japheth Arcane appears near the group and orders a retreat of all people magical, and in a few moments o gathering everything, casts Mass Teleport and they all head back, taking some soldiers and civilians with them.

They arrive just outside of the College of Wizardry and head in.

A half hour later they begin to discuss what has happened and how Prama and Ber-Gathy have fallen.

It seems that the Master heard of the services that Mage Alzar did for the Sheikh of Ber-Gathy, Alzar, and his vizier in collecting the three items of power they needed to defend themselves. Apparently he wanted to strike back quickly, before defenses could be mustered or the items fully understood. Meanwhile, an almost simultaneous strike at the northern town enabled him to hit twice.

There has already been an army assembled from local places, like the Oasis of the White Palm, Khaibar, and Bralizzar. Survivors of Ber-Gathy and warriors of Ak’Ridar are assembling. People are coming quickly, and dervishes and other troops from holy sites in the north-east are heading in as well. The Bastion of Faith has sent a bunch of paladins and clerics already to the place the army is assembling nearby, and various wizards are heading out. Nadia and Retameron are both on site, and many of the caravan guards of the Sandvoyagers are being loaned out. Mercenaries like Locinda and Zira are arriving. The stronger soldiers from Khaibar are already en route and many of the shadier element are even being sent.

After being set back by attacks from Khalitharius and the loss of Xanathon and their plots in Ber-Gathy, the Master has rebounded and begun to send out these attacks.

The Master has assembled the most powerful coalition and union of forces the Sand Mire has seen since the fall of Amun-Re, and then the fall of the various powers that warred and fought for his empire in the wake. Those death throes of the ancient kingdom severed the land long ago and ever since.

To the west are many barbarian tribes who war on each other constantly. There are also a small area that is united under one banner – Sind, on the western end, and includes a few towns.

In order to gather these people together, this must have been someone with a tremendous amount of power. Or perhaps a huge amount of respect – religion there is vitally important. Perhaps the tribes were unified by faith. Alzar points out it could have been both. That gets a pause.

Anyway, the tribes, who began to be unified by the Master around 12 years ago, have now strengthened to the point of attacking and destroying nearby areas. While the town of Prama was easily destroyed, with few defenses, Ber-Gathy was fully ready, had a very professional army, defenses, magical items, and more, and was taken in a day.

They spend the night resting, and in the morning learning new sets of spells. The Arcane Order will send 3 of its 7 Regents, 4 of its 12 guild wizards, and 10 of 30 initiates to help with the main army.

The next day around noon, the Vizier from Ber-Gathy has arrived at the rallying point for people who fled. He has the Fasces but the other two items were lost. The Annulus is a major loss in particular. Sheikh Alzar did not make it, and was killed in his palace. The town brought more soldiers than expected though, and will make a large presence in the assembling army.

Alzar is being tasked with helping to assemble a reserve force to move in after the main force has fought and such. People that arrive late and stragglers, survivors of battles, and that sort of thing. He’ll be the college’s contribution to the reserve force, and has a vote of confidence from the Oasis and Khaibar in doing so.

Over the next week, the armies are assembled, and the major one heads out. Their goal is to hit the nomad forces that have taken and hold Ber-Gathy and push them back. Meanwhile the reserve force is just starting to coalesce

Reinforcements have arrived at Ber-Gathy, and a second siege in 8 days occurs. With battlements still destroyed (although assembled with magic quickly) the battle is not a long one. After a few hours, the attacking force is again triumphant, but the Kasbah has been destroyed in the two battles, and as the defenders flee they burn what is not torn down and the town of Ber-Gathy has been destroyed.

With no post or fort to defend, the force chases the retreating army of the Master.

A few days later and a reserve force of more than 1000 troops, plus clerics, paladins, dervishes from various places sets out to the ruins of Ber-Gathy, a day away.

Two days later they are in Ber-Gathy, using it as a temporary camp. The main army is a few days away to the north. No one is striking the army, not even bandits, who seem to know better right now. They are going to head out and hit the ruins of Prama to the north, closer to the main army to support it as needed.


They have the water needed from a pair of Decanters of Endless Water that give the army the liquid life. Food is easy to provide as well. Clerics cast Create Food, Alzar uses his magical implements, and those all supplement the food they brought and hunt for. They are eating roasted scorpions, snakes and insects of various sorts.

A few days pass and they arrive at the outskirts of Prama but the main army has fled deeper into the west, so the reserve army will head out. Alzar decides to stay here to explore the ruins of Prama and to see what he can find out. He can always teleport in later.

Prama:



(just ignore the river/water on the west side.)

As Alzar arrives there are smoking ruins, and a handful of stone buildings still showing signs of life. There is a small contingent of soldiers who have made the place their own. The palisade is broken and the locals are trying to rebuild. There were a few pens that held animals but those have been broken and the animals were killed or eaten. Or both.

Alzar has landed and steps in. He passes by the commander’s house and leaves to speak with him for a quick ten minutes. He’s very busy with lots of things, but gives Alzar a run down of the major incidents that occurred in the wake of the attack. There were subsequent attacks by scavenging monsters that carried off some of the corpses before they could be buried.

A cleric from a local temple swung by for a few days and concentrated and healed what she could and then left. She should be coming back soon from doing the same for other locals that fled.

Alzar heads out and finds some locals, including a impromptu sanitarium for a few locals that lost their sanity after losing their homes. A few villagers are staying here, hardy and headstrong.

He heads out to see what is in the surrounding area when all of the sudden there is a sound of combat from further away. Alzar unfurls the Carpet and heads out and a few hundred yards away, behind some rocks, is a cleric and she’s being attacked by something hard to make out.

Alzar rolls his Sage Knowledge proficiency and….he gets a 5 – he can tell what this creature is. He has never seen one, but this is a Soul Eater. Is an insubstantial clawed thing from another plane. There is a spell to summon them and then kill one victim it is targeted against. It will hunt that creature to the death, and then leave. It drains the Wisdom from its foe from each hit, and on 0 Wisdom it dies if it hasn’t already.




Here’s the problem with a Soul Eater. If it is defeated, it will return and attack the one who summoned it with twice the power and strength (and HP). That makes a bad choice compared to things like an Invisible Stalker or something else.

Alzar moves over and grabs his axe to help the cleric. It’s immune to anything but magical weapons, but her gada smashes into it – it’s magical. Luckily, she’s taken a few hits, but as a cleric, likely had a high wisdom already.

He activates the Zoster of Zeal, and then orders her down and his three attacks carve into the soul eater as he hits the creature for 1, 18, and 19, and hits for 15 and 12 for 27.

It roars and spins to attack. It slashes and Alzar and its claws hit him for 11 damage and he loses two Wisdom. He then stabs out and finishes it off (and gains 8k)

The beast fades and Alzar helps the cleric back up. They head back to Prama and discuss what happened. That would only have attacked if she was the target of a major spell-caster. She has some information she found on the outskirts of the area. She heard some nomads mentioning that they came through a great pass and then arrived in the nearby area to strike from the north, rather than the west as expected. There’s not that much north, but there are a few buildings from the pre-Sand Mire days.


The cleric heads back and Alzar heads north instead and find something that will give a clue as to where the enemy’s army came from or holed up. Any base of operations needs to be scouted out



As Alzar moves on, the sun hangs low over the hills in front, shining like red glass. There is a low throbbing sound, like a distant drumbeat. Everything else is suddenly still. From the horizon is a something – something flying. About a mile away is a large, winged creature flying into a lazy circle towards the area. It circles around and moves back, and again, patrolling as Alzar swings his Flying Carpet to see.

It sees him and begins to move closer. As it nears Alzar and his familiar can make it out – there is a rider on it. The creature is a wyvern, and riding on it is a wizard.

Probably a scout of the enemy. Maybe they must have a version of airlancers with wyverns. They begin to get closer, and flying at each other will quickly bring folks into each other’s range. Alzar prepares by casting Hold Monster at the wyvern. The mage has cast haste while out of range, and now they are knifing in even faster.

The Hold spell is released and….it has a -4 and….it rolls a 5. It failed. It is held, and begins to drop. Surprised, the magic user looks up in fear. Apparently he doesn’t have any other method of flying. He begins to chant a Levitate spell and it works, just before the wyvern crashes, dead, the mage begins to float, about 35 feet off the ground or so. Meanwhile Alzar was charging and casting Hold Person, and the mage….rolls a 7 and fails. Alzar finishes him off:

Ring of Spell Storing – Haste, Lightning Bolt

On Hamedh, Rings of Spell Strong only hold one spell. They are not keyed to the level like on Thorasia, so only these two spells can be stored. Haste was used, the Bolt is left.

Amulet of Finding.
500 gp


The Amulet allows anyone wearing one to concentrate and see anything else the person is wearing. Alzar pockets it for now.

Alzar heads over and extracts the poison gland and sac and prepares them from the Wyvern. (Poison Use proficiency)

Then he heads out. The night continues, and his Iuon Stone is placed around his head.

Alzar spies a few creatures on the ground and then begins to near the ground himself. There are some large wolves here, heading toward the killed wyvern. If he were traveling on ground, he would likely have had to deal with them.

After another hour, Alzar spies a warm glow to the north-north-west about a mile and a half away. As he nears he sees a camp with more than 40 nomad soldiers. It looks like the enemy isn’t dumb, they have a camp here to protect their supply chain. That’s smart.

This camp appears to be a place to use for operations, supplies, and more. There are racks of food, weapons, tools, and such. Alzar flies over and high above, where he won’t be seen – he’s more likely to be spied out by landing than by being really high in the air at nighttime. There are sentries and some hastily build pickets. It’s not a permanent camp, just one used to secure things for the moment.

Alzar finds a few people in the center and unleashes the Staff of Amun-Re from his back. (He doesn’t carry any other staves with him). He uses it and spends this round spinning it. He continues to do so round after round after round ,building up a huge charge, and then unleashes the 10d10 lightning ball from the sky down on them, and then slides the Carpet over to a new vector and angle.

The ball crashes and kills 5 people outright and mayhem erupts. Everybody is up and scanning the sky. Lightning from the sky isn’t the most unusual thing ever, but this has the mark of magic lightning. The guards on the defenses are sent out and double guards are placed there and the fires are stoked. The commander comes out and orders some arrows to be set on fire and launched into the sky to see if they can find anything there by the arcs.

From his new angle, Alzar watches and waits. He then watches as a group meet to discuss what happened and then casts Evard’s Black Tentacles. The tentacles spring from the ground and more soldiers are killed.

Not wanting to continue to be harassed by something up above, and not wanting to abandon their post, the commander orders every one out of the camp searching in twos only. He’s lost more than a quarter of his command, he doesn’t want to lose any more to area effects.

Alzar’s Sleep drops some, who are killed, and Hypnotize another. By the time he has handled the various fighters, 24 of them have been killed. Time to finish this.

He flies down into the camp, with Bright Barrier ready. He casts Confusion as they move towards him, and some begin to mill around. A few missile weapons clank off him, and one actually hits for 4 damage. Then melee is reached and he blazes through them quickly, and then Vampiric Touches the last one to kill him.

The camp is unnaturally quiet. Alzar casts Detect Magic and takes the amulet from the leader and a banner that was hung above the camp and flies off again.

Alzar flies about 40 minutes away and finds a nice place to land. He casts Identify on the banner that he can’t figure out:

Banner of Renown

It gives +2 morale, +1 to hit and damage for up to 100 troops on the side of the Banner Wielder.

After id’ing it, Alzar casts Teleport and heads back to his tower for the night. He rests, memorizes new spells and stores Haste into the Ring of Spell Storing he procured from yesterday. He gains a slightly different cast of spells.


He scrys the place he finished at, Teleports over, and continues on.

Here there is an old caravan track that the army recently used. The desert in the northern part of the Sand Mire here tends to be a bit more rocky than sandy. No one uses the caravan any more (in the actual module you come across a caravan heading your way and join it. To be fair, in the actual module, the attacks are not in the desert, but adjacent to it, s you have to head over. Easy changes to make)

As Alzar flies, he sees a large force of more than 100 people moving toward shim at a quick clip. He flies down to the ground and casts Conjure Earth Elemental and summons a creature. Then he flies over to the top of a nearby ridge and sets up spying here. Passing below is a large troop, probably to reinforce the camp, or to find out what happened if they know it was destroyed.

Alzar has the Elemental swing in and attack from the side as they pass and it carves into them. It will kill 13 of their soldiers before some magic is used to kill it. Nicely done. They pass and Alzar moves on.

A mirage of an oasis is ahead and as he closes, the Lost Oasis disappears into the day. Hours later he lands for a meal up on the rocks.

As he does, an unusual creature, hiding silently and moving in shadows, approaches non-magically, thus staying off Alzar’s radar. Not even Gilded Ears detects it, until all of the sudden Alzar is backstabbed for 19 damage.

After spinning, it reveals a creature called a tabi. This creature looks like a cross between a small demon and a monkey. Demon wings and tail and humanoid head with monkey body, but demon legs. Alzar recalls it from reading the bestiary of creatures from Hamedh, and they might only be found here. They can be magically bound to wizard and forced to serve for life. But not as a familiar, they’re more powerful.

Alzar’s axe is out but it flies away. Alzar grabs his stuff and jumps on the carpet to catch it, but it’s too fast and too far away. He follows as it moves to a ridge and then disappears into the ground. There are some old ruins flanking where is disappeared, and the site here appears to have been a temple once a while ago.




Alzar flies down and gets off the Carpet. There is a narrow ramp of pillars here that rise from the sand and at the low end, only broken tops of columns can be seen but as the ramp reaches the top, the columns are taller and more complete. Propped against the six uppermost columns are six skeletons, with ragged closing. They are held upright by nails.

Above everything under the sky three is an open area almost completely free of sand. In the center is a stone pool, now dry, and sand chocked. There is a doorway into a small chamber, still standing on the other side, and in here are three dead, aging coffins, once stood against time. One of the coffins has writing that can just be made out, and talks about these three lesser priests of the temple in these coffins guarding the rest.

There is what once was a secret passage but now is worn open a set of stairs that heads down. The stairs head under the earth, and there is a statue of a crouching sphinx on either side. They are carved out of a beautiful amber. They animate as Alzar descends and begin to attack – amber golems.

Alzar grabs the whistle of golem control and….fails to control the first one. He backs out (he’s faster) and tries the second and….it works and is under his spell. He forces the two golems to attack each other. As they do, he swings down and introduces his axe to the taste of amber (to the tune of 25 damage) After slaying the first golem, and controlling the second, he moves into the room.

Covering the walls of this room are frescoes that have been worn to time. The depict scenes of the afterlife and proper burials. They have been purposely defaced recently. At the far end of the hall is a raised platform on which stands a Vulture-headed man covered in gold-leaf. Broken bits of stone reveals other statues were once here as well, but only this one remains. The Gem/Star reveal a secret passage to the rear, but Alzar heads opens a door to the right first.

Back here is a storeroom, with canoptic jars, broken urns, and more rubble There are a few ancient scrolls that survive that tell of an ancient scorpion-like god that this temple once worshiped. He was charged with keeping away evil from the hidden world from this very temple.

There is a door on the left that leads into a burial chamber, and there are two ornate sarcophagi here resting on platforms. There is a warning not to disturb the peace, and the golems probably killed anything that came down here. They were the high priest and priestess of the faith that practiced here.

Alzar feels a faint tug, and opens the first and yes, as expected, out comes a mummy, and another opens the other sarcophagus. So easy to predict!


The amber golem moves into them and begins as Alzar slips behind, and nips in for some axes. They kill the mummies and the golem took 14 more damage. In the now-empty burial area are a handful of gems and jewelry, all cheaper. Alzar returns and opens the secret door.

This is the room of an odd creature –




It’s tabi is here too, and they move forward. Alzar’s golem moves forward and he uses Warp Marble on the tabi and….it disappears. The Stone Golem appears. The amber golem moves around to the rear of the creature, because there is a passage out. As Alzar moves towards it, it casts a spell at Alzar’s axe and….it fails its save and dissolves.

The axe is destroyed. Alzar pauses as it turns and gets punched by the stone golem. Alzar throws the Trombash of Returning and hits for 10. The creature casts darkness at Alzar. Golems bite it as Alzar grabs the black Iuon stone for his head and uses it.

The creature roars in pain, and then dies. 12k for both

There is a pit back here with a small gate on it. Alzar orders the Amber Golem to jump into the bottomless-looking pit before he loses control of it. They search and find a Mirror.

On the other side is a figure dressed in black. Hooded. It writes on two pieces of paper, and hands them to the mirror and they appear. Alzar grabs them.


“Come and enjoy my hospitality. I await you beyond the great pass.”

“The bearers are to be given escort to the great temple by the hand of the Master.”

It bows and fades.

There are a few notes the creature and the Master passed back and forth via the Mirror of Sending. It too big to take and too strong to break, so they do a quick search and a Detect magic spell is cast:


MU Scroll of Bind Tabi (5th level)
Potion of ESP

The procedures to bind a Tabi requires a lot of additional supplies Alzar doesn’t have. But he does have the tabi in the Warp Marble.

Alzar loads up the shattered shards of amber from the first golem that died (worth 4750 GP and weigh 525 lbs) in a chest from the room and heads out. Alzar swings over and hours more pass and he flies over something odd. There is a force of 140 (148 actually) soldiers marching from the east. Alzar flies down and there are a group of dervishes and adjuncts from places to the east. Some of there were guarding places like the Pyramid of Amun-Re, among others. They are heads west, and then south to link up with the reserve force.




Alzar rests with them tonight after securing the amber away. In the morning he heads out with his golem and familiar on the carpet.

He skips an enemy patrol a few hours into his flight. He heads down to check out the patrol and lands onto some sandy area in between rocks on the east and south. From here, the patrol can be seen almost a mile away, but to far to make him out. He slips over to consider what to do.

As he walks a tremble can be felt, and then suddenly, a bunch of heads pop from the sand beneath him and a sand hydra is attacking him with its 9 heads!

Alzar takes 29 damage from a few head.s Because he no longer has a magical axe, he is using a backup weapon – his +2 Pesh-Kabz, a dagger-like weapon. He does know how to use it, so he gets 3 attacks every 2 turns, and the shield-bash too. But its harder to hit and such. He casts Hold Monster while the golem moves in. And….-4 penalty to the spell (Can the monsters get unlucky three times in a row…rolls a 9, - to 5 – that’s a fail). Paralyzed. Alzar slays it easily.

The Carpet heads on a few moments later.

An hour later, an army of at least 1000 soldiers is moving south from the north. This looks like the enemy. They are marching in groups by tribe. Together, but each own with the standard of their own kin. Once again he’ll drop an Earth Elemental in their path, and once again, it’ll slow them down and kill some folks. He flies on by at the edge of sight.

The way the army came is followed for a few hours, and then ends up in foothills, by an…abbey?

Alzar floats down. And heads in. It’s located in the hills, near the mountain. A large point of rock juts out from above the level of the surrounding area, and on that, the abbey was built. It’s another ancient building that was built in the pre-Sand Mire days, and unlike most of the Sand Mire, it’s been attended to and kept nicely. There are several buildings in the abbey, and Alzar can see them as he closes. There’s even a wall here to keep out invited guests.

According to legend, the abbey has never fallen, remaining a mighty bulwark against the forces of chaos that rule the Sand Mire. Alzar lands and knocks. A handful of monks arrive and welcome in Alzar and his entourage.

They warn that the abbey has been put under a curse by the Master and that at night the undead and other creatures walk the night.. Alzar is welcomed for a few hours. Alzar surreptitiously uses the Detect lie on his Bright Barrier, and they are lying. There is no curse.

A;lzar welcomes them, and they regale him of talks of a man who is not a man, and accept Alzar’s aid when offered. But he knows they are lying to him. He asks who they are – humble monks. Also a lie..

There are stables here, and a food storage shack as well. Two monks lead Alzar, and they tell him about the monster that strikes at night., That’s true. They want it killed. Also true.

Let’s see what they’ve got.

Alzar agrees to check it out. In case they are using DLie back, he wants to keep his statements neutral.

Alzar checks out the Abbey and finds a meditation chapel, sleeping chambers, a guest house, and a lot more. There’s even a well here – very rare, but they must be so high up they are able to drain water from an aquifer.

They suggest checking out the area where the blacksmith was. He heads back out and finds bellows and anvil and such in good repair, but disused. The air is icy and cool. Alzar can feel something down there, icy cold. Not necromantic, but something else.

Alzar grabs a hammer and smashes the ground. With his ogre strength girdle, he tears into it easily enough. In a few moments the ground cracks open, and a creature awakens, and pops out. This is a frost salamander, an ice version of the flame salamanders you often see. Alzar talks to it as it approaches, but it doesn’t make out his language, so he unstoppers the Iron Flask and tries to capture it (it’s an extra-planar creature). It works.

(I am not making this up. In this smith room are a pair of magic items that shake loose in the battle with the salamander. According to the module they are: Ring of Invisibility and Battleaxe +2. Wow)

Alzar finds an item that shock loose. It’s a battleaxe, but just a +1 one. It’ll work for now.

Alzar heads back and as the sun sets and dinner is held, the monks here all transform into their true forms:






They appear undead, and have their defenses but they are not and Alzar can’t control them or anything. His new axe is out and Golem leading. He vamp Touches one and kills it to heal himself from the desert hydra today. He takes a few hits, and then kills some and a few more. (Random.org)

Alzar is – 31/60 at the end of battle, killed 12 of the 19 bhut and used a few spells. The rest run away to other places in the abbey.

They search and find classrooms, storerooms, an abbey kitchen and more. Deep in the complex is a temple compound that features a ornate gate, and an abandoned shrine in here. There is nothing here to demonstrate the evil of the bhut is here, the temples, shrines, holy symbols, robes, and more have all been subsumed into their lives, without defacing, replacing, or creating new.

Before entering the library, Alzar found a few bedchambers of major bhut leaders that had some gems and such he pocketed. But this is the goal, the library. He orders his golem to guard and begins to look around. This is a sprawling library. One section has books on the history of the abbey, and another on religious and theological debates, and a third on the other religions on Hamedh. There are thousands of scrolls and books here. Alzar reaches through to the spellcrux, grabs Detect Magic, casts it, and takes those that glow.

4 scrolls of cleric spells (to be determined later)

He then heads out after finding two more Amulets of Finding and resting the night. Everything seems to indicate that the great pass through this mountains is down the trail less than a mile away.

He skips the rest of the abbey, and heads out the following morning.


(Items he missed were a Ring of Djinni Summoning, and a scroll in the library that would have increased his Wisdom by one, but I chose not to include it).

End of X4. Master of the Desert Nomads

Obviously I had to change things up and move things around. But I think that’s a pretty fun module! Armies on the move, battles underway, and a lot more. It’s a very epic level adventure module.

Next up:

X5. Temple of Death



This is the grand finale of the Sand Mire. David Cook, deserts (I’ll make some changes again geographically to fit in everything. In X4 you cross for days, here Alzar did so for a couple since he was flying, and we changed the geography and some of the base concepts considerably. But the basic stuff is all there)

Alzar heads out with the golem and familiar towards the location of the great pass as indicated in the abbey’s archives. As the rock rolls away, the great pass is revealed. It’s a tunnel carved into the side of the mountain. One of the highest mountain chains in the area is here.

The entrance to the tunnel of the great pass is in a narrow box canyon, a quarter of a mile long. The mouth of the canyon is around 25-30 yards wide, slopes gently and then continues. It’s wide enough to fit wagons or supplies.

The Gem/Star reveals a hallucinatory illusion on the mouth of the canyon, covering the tunnel. This is the great pass – all hidden from view via an illusion.

The tunnel through the mountain is a natural passage, and the floors are irregular and cluttered with fallen stone and stalagmites. The light only penetrates so far so Alzar grabs the iuon stone to use it to see in darkness. In order for the great pass to serve as a way to move an army unnoticed through the mountains, it can’t be too hard to follow.

As Alzar crosses the open area just inside the tunnel , heading towards the cave mouth, there are wisps of what might be steam drifting from the opening. Around 30’ away there is a great rumbling noise and a cloud of steam billows from the cave. Suddenly the head of a green, dragon-like creature thrusts its head out of the cave and says, “What is this? More of the puny creatures who run the face of the earth? Go now and leave me alone!”

Alzar does an INT check and this is not a dragon, and not an illusion either (which the Gem/Star verifies). It’s a fake.

As Alzar moves forward, there is a second dragon image that appears as well. That’s an illusion though – level 2 spell. Alzar is immune to that one. Someone has really built some defenses in here. Hallucinatory terrain spell covering the place, and then a bunch of people masquerading as a dragon and then finally a fake dragon to back up the fake dragon. Clever stuff, really.

Alzar and the golem move in to the ”dragon.” It comes to them and a fireball flies out and hits for 19 damage, save vs half. The golem and Alzar carve it and it breaks, the framework all cracked. It tumbles away to reveal a fake system with real dragon hide, wooden framework, operated by almost a dozen fighters and a mage. They all begin to flee and Alzar heads after the mage while the golem tries to head off the fighters. The wizard sees Alzar approach and stops, casting invisibility. Alzar sees through it and his axe kills the mage in one hit. The golem is taking out fleeing warriors, and Alzar Sleeps the ones furthest away. A trio of soldiers escaped.

Amulet of Finding, Wand of Fear (9 charges), +1 pesh-kabz

Alzar 51/61
Aegis, Stone Golem – 60/70

The tunnel heads, and then opens up and there is a large valley in the mountain in here. It’s colder than expected – almost normal temperatures. The slopes of the mountains are all around. The floor of this alley is marred by large areas of barren rock, ripped and damaged.

As Alzar moves across, he makes out a faint cry and Gilded Ears can hear it as well. It’s coming from a great distance up above. The cry goes on, and then a large bird like creature can be seen, flying towards the area, and as it gets closer and bigger and bigger, it spies Alzar in the valley and the giant bird, a roc, attacks. Alzar prepares a Hold Monster spell. Again, -4 to the spell. The roc rolls…a 5. Would have been a fail no matter what. And it falls to the ground, damaged badly, and Alzar moves over and finishes it.

They continue and exit the valley a few hours later. The tunnels here veer off in three different directions, all of which are big enough to accommodate a passing army. After an hour or so or various passages, Alzar begins to make out something nearing, and they run into a wandering creature as a large, giant, segmented worm known as a caecilia emerges from the bend and moves to attack.



They are basically smaller, but no less hungry, versions of the purple wurm. Alzar steps behind the golem, and the golem is an auto win (no ability to hit magical stuff)

They continue on.

Soon there is a dim light ahead, not the color of a torch, lantern, or sunlight, but instead a pale icy blue glow. Except for a small trail down the middle, the light covers the floor, ceiling, and walls for more than 200 feet. It is bright enough that Alzar can make it out from some distance away, and seems to come from everything – walls, fungi , rocks. As Alzar nears, it advances onto the path a few feet ahead of Alzar and blocks his way into it. The light begins to move down the path towards him.

Alzar tosses a coin at the odd light, and it lands in it, and then quickly becomes a part of the light. He steps back, and orders a retreat to a different passage. It’s just odd. No sense playing around with it.

A few more hours pass as they continue to take various tunnels, and it’s almost the end of the day, and nearing the time to rest. Alzar and company begin to look for a place to call it a night and (Alzar makes a secret save) as he nears a bend in the tunnel, there is a faint light ahead. It’s not a lantern or torch light, but a different light than the previous encounter. Faint smell in the air too.

Ahead the tunnel opens into a giant, at least a mile across, with giant fungi, creeping moss, black and green water oozing from the ground, mold-covered bones, and a lot more. This is a virtual palace of fungi. There is a soft light from a handful of the fungus, and cave newts and insects of various sizes can be seen. There must be an aquifer high in this mountain here (since there was a well at the abbey). The room is giant.

Alzar grabs the Carpet and leaves the familiar and golem behind so he can make a quick sweep of the palace of fungi. There are a yellow musk creeper and more than 20 “zombies” the plant has killed and uses the bodies as defense mechanisms. There are other hostile plants and creatures, many of which Alzar doesn’t recognize.

He could miss things but there is no exit, no passage out, and he couldn’t imagine an army coming through this without carving a large path, and there is none. The Gem/Star doesn’t show anything either, so after a half hour of save-ish scouting he heads back and they will spend the night around a half mile away or so.

After a quiet-ish night, Alzar memorizes some new spells to replace those used and heads out. 90 minutes later or so they arrive at another of these hidden valleys. At the end of the tunnel is a valley, a broad plain broken by a lot of boulders everywhere. Some of them have been moved, and there’s a trail heading down the center. That’s an auspicious beginning. There are creatures moving around here, a herd of something on the distance. As they get closer, there is a herd of small antelope-like creatures, peaceful. They are a local Hamedhi variety that’s hardy in the deserts, and has a disgusting secretion on its skin that keeps away most predators. They are about 3-4 feet tall.

That helps to sell Alzar on how safe this valley may be. No rocs here! An hour and little bit longer and they have crossed this valley, and re-entered the wide, gently sloping tunnel. There is evidence of carving here, to widen the tunnel and make it easier to cross.

The tunnel curves gently, and ahead Alzar can make out the sounds of fighting. He arrives as a group of around 35 nomad soldiers or so (with around 15 dead petrified) are facing off against a pair of medusa, one damaged badly. Alzar waits at the end of the bend that enters this tunnel, and soon enough the men flee, and Alzar’s Aegis moves in to finish the medusa and the golem tears through them

Nothing of note here. A side tunnel reveals a small lair the medusa used, with nothing here, they must have gone elsewhere to hunt. He returns and they continue along the main tunnel. After a while here is another large valley and it opens up and there is a small defensive palisade along the route. Alzar observes for a while, and there are a number of unusual rock formations and such nearby, and th expected activity. It looks like this is a post for around 100 nomad soldiers from the Master’s army, keeping watch, holding a defensive formation and probably running a stockade of supplies as well.

Alzar slips on the Chameleon Nature and closes to the wall on the east side of the valley and hugs it as he tries to cross. The golem is hard to make out this far, the jackal too, and Alzar’s Ring keeps him hidden. Going slow, it takes more than 2 hours in the valley, but they make it and head into the tunnels again.

The tunnels are so wide that they clearly have been just carved out at some points, rather than merely reinforced or widened like much of the rest of the tunnel system. A wandering giant snake slithers up a side passage as they walk and the golem kills it easily enough.

It is approaching night. Tonight is the full moon. If the war had not come, Alzar would have finished the circle by now in his tower and would cast Summon Lycanthrope tonight to bind his first minion here on Hamedh, but that was not to be.

Alzar heads down, and they find a final valley. This one is not straight. There is a side valley to the west as well. But as the night begins, Alzar can make out a large defensive structure on the far side of the valley. It’s probably the exit/entrance on the other side.

Alzar spends some time scouting on his Carpet just to get the lay of the land, and as the first rays of the full moon strike the valley, something very odd happens.

In the west side-valley, suddenly a ladder of moon beams moves up from the ground all the way up to the moon. It just hangs there. As Alzar flies over, he sees a large pool, glistening the color of the moon’s radiance, from which the moon beam ladder arises.

As he approaches to investigate, there is a creature that sees him fly near, and doesn’t like it. Draconic wings arise and a creature lifts up to defend its moon pool, and this is no illusion, no artificial construction. This is a real dragon. A gemstone dragon – sapphire. Militantly territorial and distrustful, it tends not to be inclined toward evil nor good, but just wants to be left alone, and clearly considers the Pool of the Moon it’s treasure or territory and it’s snarling. Alzar uses the Zoster of Zeal.






Suddenly Alzar feels a pain in his mind. Instead of leading with its breath weapon as he expected, it led with mentalism. Alzar commands his golem to march here and take this thing down, but its guarding the entrance and won’t be here until the battle is long over. But Alzar might be able to lead it away. It tries to stun him with Mind Blast but fails (Ring of Free Action). Alzar sweeps up and casts Hold Monster on it and…..no good. This dragon is old enough to have some magic resistance, (25% chance of spell failure) and it never even made it.

Roll for init!

5 vs 3. The dragon does not breathe, it roars. Out comes a concentrated cloud of sonic sound. The “breath” weapon does 10d6+5 damage, save for half. 38 damage. Save? Nope. Alzar casts Polymorph Other at it, with the intention of turning it into a large hippopotamus, which would fall and die from this height.

Now, in order for that to work, we need to crack the magic resistance first. That’s a 1 in 4 chance of the MR working and….Alzar rolls a 3 and makes it. Now the next one is the save. A powerful dragon like this needs to roll an 8 or higher on a d 20. Here we go….19, it fails.

Alzar 23/61

Roll for init.

9 vs 3. The dragon wins and spends this round swooping toward melee range with the flying Alzar, who has been backpedaling a bit and dropping to the ground. It stabs him with a mental attack for 4 damage while it does – it’s only remaining range weapon (until its breath weapon recharges) . Alzar can’t beat the dragon in its own turf, in the sky, and seeks to bring this battle down to the ground. Alzar still can cast a spell back and tries continual light at the dragon’s eyes and…It doesn’t crack the magic resistance again.


19/61

Melee range has been reached, almost to the ground. Alzar forces a win of init with a Quick Action and uses Vampiric Touch and touches it. Magic Resistance fails, and he hits for 23 damage, and takes 11 back. They have landed, but are too far from the golem to see aid.

31/61


Combat – 6 vs 6 – reroll init. 3 vs 8. Alzar keeps initiative and uses his axe/axe/shield to try and bring this thing down. He needs a 7 to hit AC0, and this dragon is -4. He needs an 8 with the axe and the Zoster active. He’ll need a 10 with the Bright Barrier (+2 weapon instead of +1, but -3 to hit for lack of mastery). He rolls…13, 15, 10. That’s three hits for….8, 3, 2 (18, 13, and 10 damage for a total of 41 damage). The dragon roars in anger and bites and claws him for 17 damage, and then lifts off to fly up and out


Alzar - 14/61

Not wanting to see the dragon get away, position itself for another breath attack, or use psionics on him at range, Alzar lifts up as well to follow.

1 vs 3. Alzar drops the shield to the carpet as he flies up after it and swings with the axe before it flies off. He hits once for 16 damage. And then his extra hand quaffs his final healing potion. The dragon stabs out with its mind as it lifts off and Alzar takes 6 mental damage. It’s out of melee range.

Alzar – 18/61

3 vs 5. Alzar tosses the axe at the dragon while he grabs a wand and prepares it for next round. The axe…hits for…15 damage. The dragon spins and uses a psionic attack again for 5 damage. Then it spins and moves off. Getting further and further away.

6 vs 5. Alzar takes another 6 from mental attacks (they do 1d8 each, he’s just rolling really well) and then uses the Wand of Lightning to spit a bolt at the dragon. It penetrates the magic resistance, hits for 6d6 damage (2, 5, 5, 3, 1, 5 – 21 damage, save for half) and it makes the save and only takes 11, but that’s still enough to kill it and it turns, and just drops to the ground heavily.

Alzar 9/61

Alzar slides down and carves off all of the good dragon-y parts as the golem and familiar arrive. The golem leads Alzar to the lair, right by the moon pool, and in here cast Detect Magic and there is:

Potion of Speed, Infravision
Cleric Scroll of Spiritual Hammer
+2 khopesh
Medallion of Proof Against Detection

And 3400 gp, and some gems and jewels too. Alzar grabs the group and makes a camp, then teleports home with the booty and his familiar, heads to the temple for some healing, drops off the khopesh and scroll to the college, inquires about the moon pool and it told some things for a few minutes from local legend, and then rests in his tower and deposits the rest and heads back the next morning post-spell-memorization with another teleport.


He heads over to the moon pool to verify the tales and drops in a gem he grabbed from the tower’s stash, and it doubles in value. The moon pool is said to punish those who us it twice. Want healed? Drink from the pool. Use it again and you will be poisoned or diseased or somesuch instead. Want to be raised from the dead? It’ll work. Try it again and the body is permanently done for. That sort of things. To prove it, he drops the enhanced gem back in the pool and it dissolves. That’s the moon pool.

After gathering things, the golem, familiar, and mage head out. He flies up high for a while, and then over the mountain so he can skip this final check-point at the entrance to the great pass. There’s a large army of at least 1200 soldiers moving in and it just be stupid of him to move out. Plus, this way he remains a secret.

Alzar has left the great pass.

Behind it is the first stirrings of the land called Sind by the locals. It’s a small section of the Sand Mire, and it’s not very large. On the northern, southern, and eastern parts of the Sand Mire, the cities are independent, and there is a loose connection, but towns like Bralizzar and Khaibar and such are independent towns. Here in Sind there is a local government that units the small villages and other accoutrements.

After destroying the town of Prama and then the Kasbah of Ber-Gathy, the opposing army was pushed aside, and re-gathered in the central-west part of the Sand Mire, and chased by the main army of the combined forces, somewhere to the south from Alzar. Alzar then penetrated north and found an outpost along the enemies attack vector, and then found a hidden one in an Abbey that has supposedly never fallen (but fell indeed) and then penetrated the pass through the tall mountains of tunnels and valleys.

And here is Sind. The desert is less sand-y here, and windstorms aren’t inclined to turn into sandstorms or dust devils. To the north of Alzar is a mountain chain, and beyond that the end of the Sand Mire. There are several nearby passes out of the mountains up there, and to cities and civilization north.

Sind itself is a sort of meritocratic-theocracy. There is a ruling faith here, just like in the west. The western part of the Sand Mire worships Anu, the one true faith, and other people like the dervishes prefer the older faiths. There are lots of others, and Alzar has found living temples to Set, and Osiris, Nabilah and some others, although most of the local gods have been destroyed, like Ptah, Hextor, Amnissos or the unnamed one in the buried temple Alzar found on the way here.

The worship here centers on one faith as well, although a different nature. Anu worship never really took. Like other places, other faiths are here and there. Because there is a government here, there are official diviners who’s role is to find the “false faiths” and oust them. Since a lot of these faiths are the evil ones of gods like Set, they are pretty popular, and have helped to diminish the number of evil cults and evil religious adjunct services like sacrifices or plagues and such.

Of course, the diviners of the main faith has also stamped on a lot of good religions well, but that has been tolerated by the populace who is happy to get rid of both extremes as long as evil heads away forthwith. This faith extends to nomad tribes as well.

Here in Sind is the center of the Master’s rule. He took over the small nation, and thence extended to the nomads, who soon rallied around his banner as well.

Alzar flies down not wanting to be seen. He wants to get a nice look, away from the nearby army of 1200+ nomads.

About 40 miles away is a village (Magden). Alzar is looking for the temple that the Master invited him too here in Sind. It’s not a big country, it shouldn’t take long to find it. He swings over to the nearby village to see what he can find.

Magden is about twice the size of Ber-Gathey, at 4,000 people, and like Bralizzar, the town was once larger, but has shrunk with age. It’s swollen in size right out due to the presence of local nomad representatives from a variety of tribes and the infrastructure needed to support the war effort.

Apparently each of the nomad tribes have their own tribal language, but they also seem to speak Sand Mire Common as well. Their tongues can be heard all over, giving Magden an odd cosmopolitan feel to it.

Alzar arrives at Magden and gets in after donating 20 coin for the local shrine. The marketplace is in front, a large bazaar of merchants selling goods such as spices, incense, silks, food, and more. Wood imported from Sandvoyagers traveling north can be found as well, used as firewood or for making various wooded items. There are a pair of smiths operating here, and some permanent vendors or taverns that open into the marketplace.

There is a shrine to the holy man Hosadus here as well, right by the gate, that Alzar donated to. There are small bowls with various offerings from food and goat milk to coins of various sizes. The statue on the altar of an old, heavily scarred man. On one hand is mace set with small bits of mirror to shine prettily. The other hand holds a bat by its feet. Around the base is the name and date of this long-ago saint – 413 years ago. Odd.

That’s right around when Daffyd, the patron saint of the Bastion of Faith was fighting against the demon of Kahabros, servant-cleric of Hextor. Maybe Hextor’s faith was major here, and perhaps this is where Daffyd journeyed. But St. Hosadus apparently was involved with the founding of Sind. There are scenes from his life on the sides of the shrine that demonstrate that.

Alzar asks some locals and gets more stories about Hosadus and his life, sometimes conflicting ones. There is a temple here as well, and Alzar heads over and down a large street that runs from the marketplace.

It’s a low, one-story building that is partially surrounded by a 10’ high wall. Unlike a lot of structures in the Sand Mire, this was built more recently that the collapse of the area. It’s a humbler building for a humbler people. There are a pair of clerics and a diviner here working and they warmly greet Alzar (golem and familiar are outside of town). They are happy to teach Alzar about their faith and ways.

In addition to verifying a lot of information that he already received, they tell him about their faith and such. He asks where their main temple is, and they tell him. He pulls out a map and they point to the main temple of their faith, in the Dark Woods about 90 miles to the west. He thanks them and is off.

How is there a forest in the Sand Mire?

Alzar leaves Magden before sundown, not wanting to spend too much time here. He heads off down the road and is joined by golem and familiar. After pausing for a moment to ensure, they head off on the carpet and land in welcoming embrace of some hills a few miles to the north-west and bunker down.

Dawn breaks and spies Alzar already studying and preparing his spell selection. Shortly thereafter they begin to move again, floating over land, close to ground, staying to the north of the road by a couple of miles so as not to be seen overly much. The miles pass quickly enough, with a few stops and diversion to avoid shepherds with their goat herds, a tavern after the road bent towards them, and a small village.


Hours snake by and Alzar nears the Dark Woods. He was expecting trees, and a forest. But that’s not the Dark Woods, not anymore. He should have known better, and asked more questions. The Dark Woods was once a forest, a classic, deep, dark, sylvan forest like many others he has encountered. And then the Sand Mire hit, and the curses and destruction, both magical and natural, followed. And the woods petrified and are now dead trees of stone. It’s dark because it’s silent and foreboding. There is a main road through here though, and there are travelers moving through it, in both directions. In here is the High Temple.


There is an Obelisk poking above the trees, and Alzar heads to it, still on the edge of the woods, and lands. The obelisk is made of stone, and heads about 200 feet above the ground. It’s old – ancient. Made of a glistening blue stone. As Alzar watches, a bolt of lightning comes down from the heavens (it’s a cloudless day) to crackle into the obelisk and the stone glows, and archaic runes are revealed, and Alzar’s Helm of Fun Reading Time can make it out. It’s about the old forest, and the pre-Sind days.

A short while later Alzar has moved into the petrified woods and there is an alcove, with a ring of stones around an altar on a hill. He searches out and tries to find and possess him, so he destroys the altar. They move on.

The woods pass by, as the temple is just a few miles into the Dark Woods. As Alzar closes, a pack of spectral hounds fade into existence to strike at him.



They are basically evil versions of phase spiders that can phase into and out of reality. Imagine bloodhounds or tracker that can never be slipped or lost. Like evil blink dogs. Alzar’s axe is out and carves one dead, He is bit twice for 13 damage.

Alzar gets another set of hits in. Another dies. Alzar takes some more and a golem punches a doggie for some damage and death

A third dog falls, Alzar finishes the last one with Vampiric Touch, and heals himself.

5 slain Spectral hounds.

The great temple is built on the slope of a small valley. There are a number of buildings inside a walled compound. Workers wearing yellow and white are around the temple complex milling around and doing some work. A large road leads from the temple compound down to the road back through the petrified forest and then heads out of sight further west beyond the hill. Lining the road are statues of various saints and historical figures that are revered in the local official religion. Just before the entrance are six large statues of dragon-like horses, with yokes and harnesses and look like they are pulling the gatehouse as a great, big chariot. There’s even a large statue of a giant-like humanoid with a chariot whip in one hand.

There’s an old moat around the temple, and since there’s not a lot of water running around, they choose to fill it with tar. There is a water fountain inside, fed water via a permanent create water spell. Locals and priests cast heirlooms into the waters of the fountain in order to secure good luck with things. It only works though on things of sentimental value that were sacrificed.

The temple buildings are made of a soft whit stone, and all of the buildings are decorated with statues, friezes, elaborate eaves, towers, banners, and paintings. Much of the art from Ak’Ridar artisans have arrived here. This temple complex has been the central part of the local religion and faith for centuries, so, over time, various people have worked on it, and various items have been donated, collected, or salvaged.

Alzar takes time to observe things and notices that there are regular activities take by the local priests – certain rites and practices. There are priests in their purple robes, diviners in a rich red, initiates apparently in white, and even a few yellow robes for masters and leaders of the faith.

There are basically three sections of the compound, past the walls. The first is a building with four tall spires ,or minarets, and the road goes right through it, and it moves a second floor over top of the main path. That path ends at a second wall, that keeps off a smaller 2 level keep-like stature with a square, wide, flat 2 floor look to it. And the up a small incline is the actual proper temple. It’s beautiful, lacing upwards in a spiraling cylinder, stories and stories up, some great holy tower.

Alzar watches the traffic some more and makes out patterns. Initiates seem to be confined to the first building mostly, the regular priests move regularly up to and in the second building. Diviners and high priests move everywhere.

Alzar spends the night spying too, using his crystal ball and more, setting up a camp a short distance away. There are small buildings inside the first set of walls, and built against them, numerous places where people sleep. It seems like a lot of people sleep in the buildings. Alzar heads to sleep (guarded by familiar and golem) and rises in the morning.


There are a few ways Alzar is considering moving into the Temple Complex – he has the invitation from the Master that was handed to him. He could just walk up, hand it to the folks there, and wait. That puts him on the Master’s turf, and could backfire by just being attacked or trapped by overwhelming odds. (It also might skip the entire second half of the module and the part that‘s the Temple in the um…Temple of Death module) But that could be done now.

Another option would be to take out a priest, grab its robe, and head in that way.

He could also quaff a pot of invisibility and slip in that way.

Now the last two require him to do something about the Stone Golem. He’d need to store it in the Warp Marble. But he could certainly do it.

He casts a few spells to get rid of them, and then memorizes some more human-friendly magic:


1st Level - Charm Person, Sleep, Hypnotize, Detect Magic, 1 extra spells to use from the spellcrux
2nd Level – Ghoul Touch, Hold Person, ESP, Continual Light, 1 extra spell slot
3rd Level – Dispel Magic, Vampiric Touch, Suggestion, Haste, 1 extra spell slot
4th Level – Polymorph Other, Evard’s Black Tentacles, Confusion, Wall of Evil
5th Level – Domination, Transmute Rock to Mud, Teleport, Conjure Earth Elemental


He tells the stone golem to not resist the Warp Marble, and he capture the tabi that reappears as soon as it is out. He binds and ties it twice, with two sets of rope, just to make sure. He leaves Gilded Ears here as a guard over it, and then grabs the potion and quaffs it. He tosses on his shiny new Medallion of Proof Against Detection and heads in.

The wall that surrounds the compound is 20’ high, but not patrolled since people think the tar-moat is sufficient to keep intruders away.

The temple entrance is unguarded and large steps lead up a broad walkway. There are two guard posts here by the guardhouse, and some diviners and soldiers are in each looking around. Alzar crosses a drawbridge and the guardhouse, and enters the compound.

To the left and right, along the walls are the buildings Alzar saw in his scrying last night. They are chambers for initiates and a few higher level orders as well. Alzar heads forward and skips the small little things. They each have space for a lot of initiates or others.

Alzar is heading to into the covered promenade that the first building is built over and around. There is a walk here covered by the arched roof. There are long pillars that support the roof with scenes of holy ancestors and such. On the left war is a large face of a creature with fangs, a long mustache, for eyes and thick hair. Maybe a demon that was defeated? It glares down at all who cross the promenade. There is a patrol of 10 initiates and 2 priests here that patrols. Alzar pauses for them to pass. There are open archways to the left and right, three per side.

He heads right and pass a store room on the right and a stair up in front and a meditation closet in front, with glass panels and a door closed. There is an initiate in here praying. The left is a huge archway, and Alzar passes into here.

This is a large hall, arranged like an auditorium. It has five tiers of stone benches and desks. At the bottom sits a large table and chair, piled with scroll and writing supplies. There is someone sitting there writing, and in the back are 35 scribes at various stations doing work. This scribe’s hall is so large it takes up the next floor as well and the roof is above. There is an archway on the otherwise, and the hallway here heads left back to the promenade and forward to two small chambers – clerk offices. There are some initiates on stools working on desks. Alzar heads over to the other side of the building and finds a variety of scribe offices there are well 5 more. There’s also stairs up and a library here.

He heads back and the library is a dark and gloomy mess, with mounds of old scrolls and tomes scattered everywhere and no one is even in here. It would require at least a day of searching to find anything here.

Alzar heads up and into an instructional chamber with a classroom where higher level initiates are being taught to become full blown priests. A master and some priests are here lecturing on the ways of pure thought. There are five more scribe offices up here too. Alzar heads back down. He arrives at the Promenade and then leaves this building.

The pathway continues to the second building. There is a gateway here with a second wall that surrounds this part of the complex as well. Two walls help in case the first was penetrated by stuff. Alzar passes through as a group of priests do, and a pair of guardhouses follow.

The second of the main buildings also looks like a keep-ish structure here are well. There are defenses and battlements. It opens into a large Hall of Laws. Running down the center is an unusual mausoleum for the great holy men in the past ages of Sind and the faith. Clear crystal caskets line the walls on both sides of the hall. Under each casket is a plague with the names and personal information of the various people included.

There is a casket marked “Hosadus.” In it lies the body of a heavily scarred old man, like the one portrayed at the shrine. Alzar can’t cast any spells, and can’t get too close – there are a large number of people in here and many will stop and look.

Like the first building, there are archways off to either side. It’s not a promenade, but a large hall, but it works, and Alzar slips to the right. This is the court of greater judgment, ruling by various holy men and used for trials and such. Everything back here is for the court – judge’s chambers, lawyers and scribe ones. Alzar heads upstairs and finds a balcony that is guarded up here, with a few diviners and soldiers. The rest is all quarters for priests, and there appear to 10 such rooms up here.

Alzar heads back downstairs on the other side of the building and arrives at a lesser court. There are two more, and one is having a hearing right now on some aspect of law in Sind. Clearly the Holy Temple is not just the key to ruling the religion, but also to the small nation as well.

Alzar heads out. The first buildings was mostly for scribes and administration, the second for law. The third will likely be for faith.

He heads up and some large white stone stairs lead up the hill. There is a huge two story gatehouse here, and there are diviners and soldiers all over. Unlike the others, the gatehouse is closed and barred, and there are two portcullises here that are separately operated. He can’t easily slip in with someone else without being noticed, - the hallway is very narrow and guarded are standing side by side. At the base of the tower in front are some gardens, but the only way to get in on this floor is to come through the gatehouse and thence to the main entrance.

Alzar steps back. He needs a new plan. He thought about an alternate way in, and he already prepared it. He grabs the potion from his pouch and quaffs a potion of polymorphing, and changes into a bird. He flies to the top of the tower, five stories up, and there is a 20 foot flagpole and a small compass on a stand that points north. There is nothing up here, and a trapdoor that would have to be opened to head down. He doesn’t want to risk it, not yet. The next floor down is not windowed, but the third floor is. There are bars over the windows and they are all closed.

Inside, Alzar sees:

A circular staircase heading down, and a man dressed entirely in black cloth and armor, covered in a robe. He is on a table, flanked by two larger-than-normal tigers. There is a bed in here, as well as a study area and work area all in one. The man is facing the stairs. There is a trap door from the fourth floor down to this one. He does not have that in his area of vision. Alzar might have a better chance surprising him by dropping down into the room and then attacking.

Alzar looks around the room and plans.

Really enjoying the story/following along. That one on one with the dragon got a bit more intense than I was expecting, was starting to fear that the thread was coming to an end for a bit ;)

Awesome!

Glad you didn't have to read a premature ending in the final module of the storyline! (At least not yet......)

He has a few surprises. He can unleash the golem from the Warp Marble and the Frost Salamander from the Iron Flask that he captured way back. Alzar wants to drop the golem on the stairs. That would force the Master to fight him, and prevent others from coming up and hitting him, but that’s not how the Warp Marble works. It’s not that simple, he has to place the Marble down and then invoke the keyword to release the person inside, it’d take a full round. That would give the Master a round to react. Alzar could also try to end this in one round with a Polymorph or Domination spell or somesuch.

Alzar lands and he has a goal. He’ll open the door, and check the 4th floor. Grab the Wand of Salt, Activate the Zoster of Zeal, and then drop from the trap door, fire the Salt Wand, and then move over to drop the warp marble and summon the golem. Then head over and deal with the Master.

Here we go.

Alzar flies up and lands and turns himself into a human again, who checks carefully, sees nothing, and then pops down to the 4th floor. He readies himself, and then flings the door open, drops down, and fires off a charge. Then he turns visible.

Meanwhile, the Master looks up in stark shock, and then in a flash gets ready. Alzar is very lucky. The Master is wearing a Ring of Spell Turning – and that does not work against wands, rings, or charges used by objects -just against old fashioned spells.

The Master looks up, hood falling from his head without notice, and Alzar almost pauses. He looks exactly like a younger St. Hosadus, same exact scars and everything.

The Master takes 2d6 from the Wand. 6, roll for save for half – 3. Huge cramps begin, and the Master makes his INT roll and sees what the Wand is and grabs a pitcher of water from the table and quaffs it as the tigers jump in to attack and Alzar unfurls his golem.

Round #3 –

Alzar and Aegis
Vs
Two large tigers – AC6, hp 34, 30; THAC0 15, 3 attacks, 1d6, 1d6, 1d12
The Master – 53/56 hp

Initiative – 9 vs 4. The tigers are ordered to attack Alzar who has a -3 AC so they need a 18 to hit him. One scratch for 4 damage. The enemy casts Flame Strike and Alzar takes…15 (after he made the save). Alzar needs a THAC0 of 7 normally (modified with +1 axe) and his foe is -1 AC – so a 5 (after Zoster bonus). He rolls 11, 14, and 14. The Master just too three hits for….39 damage. The golem misses.

Alzar 42/61
Master 14/56

5 vs 4. The master casts Cure Critical Wounds and heals himself. The tigers miss. Alzar hits twice with axe and shield for 25. The golem punches and connects for…1, 7, 5 – 13 damage.

Master - 6/56

Alzar forces an initiative win with his Ring of Quick Action and carves into the master twice for 28 damage and he dies. A tiger bites for 4. The Golem smashes it back for 7. 2 vs 9. Alzar smashes it dead in one hit and then carves the other tiger badly and drops it to single digits, and the golem finishes it off.

Fearing company soon, and hearing some noise, Alzar makes a quick decision.

He orders the Stone golem to push the master’s body up to the fourth floor, grabs a mediu sized chest to do the same, and then back into the Warp Marble and casts Detect Magic. From the room he grabs:

2 collars on tigers
Pillow from the bed


Then Alzar grabs the Warp Marble, heads, up to the 4th, and then unstoppers the Frost Salamander and leaves it get all upset and destroy some stuff. Alzar hears noise of people nearing the room from lower levels.

Alzar closes the door and grabs these glowing items from the corpse quickly:

Ring
Amulet
Armor, Warhammer, Shield from Master
Boots from Master
Cube
Scroll
2x Potions

All to be indentified later. The chest is glowing too and a quick Dispel magic removes the trap and opens to reveal some books about the administration of Sind, and the complete plans for the war effort, which Alzar pockets, as well as a Jewel Studded Necklace – 10000 gp.

The folks haven’t arrived yet, so Alzar drops the chest and body back into the room, closes the trap door, and Alzar turns back into a bird holding everything and flies away.

He’s not invisible, he flies to the spot his familiar is guarding, turns back to a human, and drops the spare stuff he was carrying. Now he needs to do one more thing. Kill the Master.

He polymorphs to a bird again and flies back to the hall and then turns into an insect and perches on the shoulder of a guard and checks it. Yes, this corpse has gotten decidedly fresher. It wasn’t possessing the body of another person (the body didn’t change back or anything odd). Alzar suspects it was a manifestation of St. Hosadus. There are 21 people in here right now, including non-combatants. Alzar flies up to the second floor as a fly, and then cautiously turns back into a person. There’s no one here right now. He casts Hypnotism, Sleep, and Confusion. Before they realize a mage is here, they the attacking each other, falling asleep, dropping their weapons, or milling round in confusion. Alzar jumps down into the hall.

Alzar hears guards approached and he casts Black Tentacles to watch his back. They won’t come into that mass. He grabs his Axe and Bright Barrier and smashes the glass with a thrust to the chest and this for 15 damage. The eyes fling awake and it begins to cast a spell.

Init.

1 vs 1 – rereoll. 9 vs 3. The enemy casts another Flame Strike at Alzar, and his axe hits once, and then twice (on a naked body) and the shield does too, and after dealing 44 damage the body dies. Hosadus is dead. Probably, these things are odd. People are starting to get close. Alzar checks and see nothing else in here, and polymorphs back to a bird and flies back.

He arrives at the place he used as a camp, and uses the Iron Flask on the tabi this time. He loads up the Flying Carpet with everything he took and flies off before anything can check on a mage, his familiar, or his loot. After an hour of flying north and into the mountains, (Alzar suspects they would look south). He lands and investigates the area. Then he teleports out with various accoutrements and gives the magic shield, armor and Warhammer to the college (they were +2, +1, and +2 respectively) and keeps the rest. He gives the war plans to Arcane Japheth who teleports it to the army after making a few copies, and then distributes them to others around the united eastern half of the Sand Mire.

Alzar spends the night, is the target of a Teleport Other in the morning, grabs everything, and the teleports back one final time and leaves Sind behind.

With a dead Master and a revealed set of war plans, the war will be over soon enough . The coalition he assembled will soon crumble.

Alzar skipped the final temple spire, but did a nice little assassination thing, and slowed them down with his released Frost Salamander. With the icy wounds and damage all over, they aren’t sure what happened until Alzar’s strike arrived in the hall. That was a major turning point. Alzar missed some stuff, but here are the items he found:

2x Collar of Animal Control – Works like the Potion, but permanently.
Ring of Spell Turning
Pillow of Regeneration – Doubles healing rate when used with someone resting
Amulet of Finding
Boots of Levitation
Potion of Undead Control; Growth
Scroll of Protection against Lycanthropes
Spell Scroll – Summon Soul Eater, Dispel Magic, Abjure



End of X5. The Temple of Death

That’s just a fun duo. Tunnels and valleys in the mountains shift things around and makes things interesting. I changed a few details (in the tunnels, the Roc is trying to give you a ride to the other side, and stops, pauses, and waits for you to climb on, and will gently grab you and place you on its back if it doesn’t). (The nation in the module, called Hule, is beyond the desert, here I made it a part of one, and we also changed the forest to a petrified one – which I think suits things all nicely. I modified the dragon encounter (Why is a red dragon here guarding a Moon Pool without any treasure? And I just moved treasure from other places in the great pass over)


Did you know what – Alzar has spent more than 3 years in the Sand Mire? Yup yup!

He’s also close to level 12:

Total XP: 732,400 (Level 12 at 750,000)


So after a few days waiting, recuperating and more, Alzar heads right on back.

He teleports back to the western part of the Sand Mire, to face some of the local monsters.

He swings around on the Carpet and looks for anything to kill, but nothing is here. He sails up higher and higher in the sky to see, and finds a purple worm coming out of the ground and attacking a caravan. He sweeps down but he is minutes away from doing anything, and by the time he arrives, half of the caravan is dead.

Alzar moves over to attack. It’s still attacking as he flies in and chops for some damage. It roars and spins around beside him. He flies back up and throws the axe instead and hits for 11 damage. The Worm is decidedly biting and chomps down after leaping up at Alzar faster than he expected and he is chomped for 21 damage.

Alzar swings over for Vampiric Touch and 23 damage. The Purple Worm falls. Alzar swings down and craves open its stomach – large eaters like this, the caecilia, and other major creatures often have magical items inside. Nothing there though.

He splits 18k with the caravaners. He heads back out and scouts with his Carpet and kills a few minor creatures like some giant scorpions and such.

He teleports. He does the same the next day and the next. After a lot of fighting smaller stuff, he has gained enough XP to level up.

Alzar’s Spellbook: He can cast 5/5/5/5/5/2 spells.



Now that he can cast level 6 magic, he can learn level 7 spells ot get them into his spellbook for later, and he spends a few days in the College’s archives:



Banishment
Descry
Mass Teleport

He also grabs, from the spellbooks he’s already got:


Negative Plane Protection
Finger of Death
Power Word, Stun
Teleport Without Error


Then he teleports over and talks with the Dead King lich and swaps some spells:

Cacofiend


He takes another stint with the College for a while.



End of the Sand Mire Campaign

22 days later, Japheth Arcane gets a visit from one of the sages that serves Shalfey at the Towers of the Heavens. After having a conversation that lasts some time, Japheth brings Alzar in to his office.


“Alzar, we need to take you to the Tower of the Heavens, right now.”

“Alright, let me grab my gear.”

A few minutes a Mass Teleport spell moves the three of them to the Tower of the Heavens, where Elder Sage Shalfey is there. He looks haggard and beat. He looks worse than when he had been usurped by a coup and Alzar rescued him a few years ago.

Shalfey looks up at Alzar with resignation.

“Sit down Alzar.” Shalfey points out a chair. Alzar sits.

“I’m not going to waste your time on introductions. As you know a few years ago you obtained a new set of the Books of Prophecy for us after the first ones ran their course. The Books of Prophecy tell of major upcoming events for the whole world and involve major players. They do not depict everybody people or their struggles or anything else.”

Shalfey bends down and picks up Book #1 and opens it. “I know you can’t read these letters, only I can. But they say something very simple. In a little over a year, you will take the seed, and destroy Hamedh.”

“…”

“I know, it’s a lot to take in. I’ve spend some time going over it again and again. We’ve never had a prophecy of the entire plane getting destroyed. It’s unprecedented.”


“There are a lot of other pages and other books. Hamedh must go on in order for those to be.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps Hamedh changes or morphs. Or something lingers past the destruction. The unhinging. But we can’t look past this page. We can’t turn it, the pages are as they are.”

“I don’t recall previous prophecies being this specific.”

“They usually aren’t, they tend to be vague or hints. This one is not. I thought about summoning 50 wizards to meet you here and kill you to end the threat. But as you know, people can get raised, or brought back as undead, or even reincarnated if the body dies. Souls can linger as ghosts and possess or you could have a Magic Jar that we don’t know about to use to steal a body and so forth. There’s no easy way to end the threat by killing you.”

“I agree, but I’m glad you considered it.”

“So the best plan is to get you away from Hamedh. If you are elsewhere when the prophecy arrives then Hamedh won’t be destroyed. I’ve had some of the sages here working around the clock and we have a few ideas on your problem and moreover, the possible solution.”

“I used a wish effect from a genie, but it was badly bound to its item. When it failed to get me off Hamedh, it may have been weakened.”

“Alright, we’ll add that to the list of spells and effects we’ll try. Wish. Banishment. Abjuration. And a few other tricks we have squirreled away. We’ll try them all.”

“I know that I am sealed or tethered to Hamedh. Still don’t know the particulars. I’ve thought about what would happen if I were to break out. Perhaps, the moment I left the plane I would snap back immediately. Perhaps breaking out breaks it altogether and we go back to normalcy. Perhaps I break out, but wouldn’t be able to break back in, it would be sealed away. And maybe it would seem like normal, but if I came back to Hamedh, I would be locked in again. We wouldn’t know.”

“Right. We were thinking along parallel lines.”

“Well, I want to get some of my things in order here in Hamedh first. I’ll be ready in a week.”

They agree, and Alzar heads out.

He spends some time trading his gold, gems, and jewelry for other items, in case he is forced away. Spells, scrolls, and more. He has some mages in the College of Wizardry work on a spellbook with the 8th and 9th spells he would what if he was staying with the College. In case he leaves and can’t come back he trades back the Halberd he got, but frankly, they are okay with him taking the Bright Barrier to another plane.

Alzar teleports to his old mentor and tutor and rhabodomere back in the valley. He learns:

4th

Detect Ensorcellment

This divination spell lets Alzar detect things like curses, charms, and other spells that are on the items, and can be used to backtrace a charm or curse or similar spell to the person who cast it.


6th

Dwoemer Divest

This spell steals an enchantment from an item to give to the caster or other item temporarily. It’s pretty potent.

He secures some items in the Tower in case he is able to return, and makes a duplicate of his major spellbook and secures it here. He packs one chest of Weightlessness with the best books he has, spellbooks, stuff like the Book on how to make a Shade or the one on the Nasnas. The vital info he has.

A week later he is teleported back to the Tower of the Heavens.

He has all of his things ready to go. A few jewels and gems of massive value, and a bunch of his magic items, spells, scrolls, potions, and more. Anything expendable he traded away for other things or leaves behind.


The first thing they try is to abjure him. There are a variety of magics that will send an extra-planar creature home, like Banishment, Dispel Evil and Abjure. All of these spells are used on Alzar, and one work.

The next thing they try is a proper, honest, Wish. Numerous times magics aren’t able to be ended, except by a Wish. A proper Wish, first to try to send him and then to end it. None of it works. Remove Curse? Nope. Nothing….


“Well, we have one more way of getting you out. There are ways that one can leave a plane without leaving to another plane. There are roads, tracks, routes that are barely understand that can be used. We can knock you unconscious, and you can be taken out by that path and see if it’s unguarded.”

Alzar agrees and is knocked out. Afterwards a Chronomancer arrives, one of a handful of wizards who specialize in the harnessing of the magic of time. There is a underlining dimension of time that is not on the planes. The chronomancer takes Alzar and his belongings and from there heads into the corridor of time, heads along it, and then pulls out in Thorasia, in Alzar’s home plane. Then the time mage casts a spell and disappears back into time’s abyss.

A few moments later, Alzar awakens here on his home planer of Thorasia. He opens the OtherSpace that he used for storage and a home and places his extra items and books he brought back to it.

In just a moment the demon prince Jubilex appears in front of Alzar. Jubilex is basically the demon prince of ooze.



Jubilex and Zuggtmoy sort of have this romantic relationship thing going, and they share a layer of the Abyss plane. Jubilex is usually not the sort of demon prince to muck about with this sort of stuff. Jublilex curses Alzar, and then forcibly grabs him and they leave Thorasia and arrive in the first layer on the Abyss. Alzar is paralyzed by something major, that leaves the Ring of Free Action behind.

Zuggtmoy arrives and is quite upset. Through her hissing and such she arrives, with the Orb of Golden Death that Alzar found, upgraded, and used in her hand. There are several major demons here with Zuggtmoy as well.

“My but you are a persistent little one aren’t you. After you banished me from your prime world, and took my little trinket here, the rules of the multiverse prevent me from harming you. So I had my little pet wizards research the most powerful way I could hurt you without “hurting” you. What loopholes could we find? So they created a spell to reverse your timeline and reset you back a few years. And we could banish you to a plane and seal you in. I couldn’t mark you, that went too far, but Jubilex could, and you were marked for a bounty.

We had to wait until you left Thorasia to use the spells, since you banished me from that plane and my minions spells wouldn’t work there. We found the perfect plane to banish you to. You came through a portal and we set back your timeline, forced you to forget, stripped you of every item or scrap you had, send you to Hamedh, and then sealed you in.

And now look. Despite the mark and despite the reduced level and despite the lack of anything other than your skills from years ago, you still managed to survive, to thrive, and somehow to get off the plane. And now you are powerful again, potent again.

So what now? The first curse didn’t work at the end of the day. Maybe we underestimated your ability. Maybe we found the wrong plane. By finding a place where you were weak, we just gave you another route to power. So, now we do this again. You have the combined skills and knowledge of both places, both experiences. So, let’s reignite the concept.

This time we will seal you in a plane where your combined might is weak, where the mightiest of heroes make you look weak by comparison, and where you are a relatively minor power. Say hello to your new home. And goodbye again, for the last time”

Jubilex grabs Alzar and casts him mystically into a new Prime Material Plane, one in a very different part of the Prime Material soup, with some different rules again. Gone are the curses and the marks and the reboot timeline, and instead, something new is happening.


End of the Hamedh Campaign

Where is Alzar being sent next? Get ready!

By breaking out of Hamedh, Alzar broke all of the curses and magic on him. His transport to his new home is just a simple plane shift spell, and then locking him in, and this time, closing off the loophole that he exploited the last time.

Gotta love those demons!

Tell

Yeah, i didn't know if you all you could see the Zuggtmoy or Lolth angle from the beginning, I had a few very general hints. This was not random. It was punishment for his success. Alzar was spanked.

I think the Sand Mire campaign may be my favorite we've done with Alzar. We basically have 5 campaigns, with some modules begin done in between - The In Search of Adventure Campaign, Isle of Dread, and Underdark campaigns in Thorasia, and the Arjuni and Sand Mire ones in Hamedh.

Now we'll move somewhere a bit colder....