A Fantasy Core Adventure
© Jerry Harris 2016
(This link will take you to the
Fantasy Core Playtest Rules.)
The Snake Hole
(1 XP for getting through the maze, if used.)
1 XP for meeting Satha and getting his help.
Into the dark heart of the continent. There are no colonists here and the natives
are not the group’s friends. All of the
areas here are hostile or require intense negotiation.
These natives are not “Friendlies.” If asked, the natives will say they are still
enemies of the Colonists, but there is a greater threat to them both. Their benefactor, Kurtz, has started using
sub-humans and turning the natives into demon possessed slaves; troops he can
control absolutely. There are tales of
him turning entire tribes into undead abominations. Soon, Kurtz will have no need for the natives
at all. This is a worse prospect than
putting up with the Colonists. The
native god, Satha, has heard of the
Characters. He has summoned them to an
audience, as their magic and power may help topple Kurtz.
The group is taken, assuming they’re willing, further up
river by canoe. They are then given an
hallucinogenic mixture (not an option if they want to continue) and lead
overland to a location deep in the jungle.
(Satha’s location is supposed to be a secret to outsiders.) The characters come to their senses in front
of a cave with a door.
[Part of me says, just get to the talking, which is the
point of this encounter. The other part
says, there should be some sort of test first.
So this is optional as far as I’m concerned. Maybe putting some kind of logic puzzle on
the door instead would work better, if you’re proficient at creating such
things.]
Inside the doors,
the stone walls of the maze are covered in moss and vines, almost like the
whole thing is a living organism. There
are four chambers with lit braziers and a central chamber with a large platform
and four unlit braziers. The sacred
fires from the chambers need to be brought to the central chamber. The flames are colored and the unlit braziers
are correspondingly colored. Standing in
the way of this is the temple guardian, the Elephantaur. (Yeah, it’s an
elephant/minotaur. Okay, not every idea
in this adventure can be stunningly original.
Again, you’re free to skip this or come up with something better.) He will issue a trumpet blast from his nose
when the Characters enter the maze and begin pursuit. The party shouldn’t have a huge amount of
trouble with him, the problem is, he’s going to keep coming back at them until
they figure things out. With each death,
he’ll come back 2 rds later in one of the chambers, with a trumpet blast.
Elephantaur
HD 6d8, Hp 48, AC 14 (None)
Fort +6, Ref +0, Will +5
Melee: Greataxe
+9 to hit 3d6+6 or Gore +9 to hit 1d8+4
Powerful Charge: Usual opening attack if given enough space to run. Gore attack does 4d6+6. Can normally only be done once per encounter.
Reincarnates in 1 turn if slain. It will issue a loud trumpet blast when back on
the hunt for the Characters.
Description: A large, elephant-headed humanoid.
After all the colored flame braziers in the central chamber
are lit, they suddenly go out and the entire room goes dark. (The Elephantaur will immediately disappear
to a place wherever bad ideas go when they die.) A tremendous hissing sound is audible. The lights come back up and a 10’ tall coiled
armored wall now appears on the central platform. Suddenly, a giant snake head rears up. His enormous tongue flicks out over the party
to smell them. With a voice like
thunder, the creature introduces himself as Satha, god of all.
"You may bow.”
Anyone not bowing, Satha will make a bite attack, without
biting, and attempt to swallow the heretic, who will then get quickly spit out. The person will be allowed to try bowing
again. Satha has severe delusions of
grandeur, but he’s pretty darn grand as is.
He is sane enough to realize that he needs the Characters to take out
Kurtz. Hopefully the Characters will
realize something this powerful with the same goal they have could be very
useful in their quest.
While he is certainly against the colonials, Satha has his
own plans for running them out. Kurtz is
fighting the colonials as well and has seduced many of the natives to his
cause. But what he is really doing is
trying to destroy both sides so that he can rule. “His actions will destroy my people, grinding
them to powder against you. He surrounds
himself with monsters, sub-human creatures, and demons. He is no friend of my people or yours.” Satha insists that “the devil must kill the
devil,” however Kurtz is tampering with even more powerful forces that will
require Satha to defeat.
He will have them led to the place where they can acquire another
possible ally and arms, and then to the Forbidden City ,
where Kurtz is. He’s open to answer any
questions that he has knowledge of, for example any of Kurtz’s backstory and
that the Demon Host were once his exploration party that found the Forbidden City .
He’ll tell them that they need to negotiate with the immortal dragon Hellion, who guards the Dragon
Boneyard. Kurtz’s alliance with
the dragon is close to breaking and they need his support. The Characters will then be dismissed and
Satha will disappear as the lights go out again.
The group will be left in the literal dark, but at least no
longer clueless. At best, the Players
will come out of this having just gotten a lecture and their marching
orders. At worst, they will have made a
powerful enemy. I’ll stick with the best
case here. Outside, they are met again
by Seeker and a Witch Doctor, Sane.
(Actually, it’s a 7-syallble name.
This is the short version. He has
the stats of a typical Witch Doctor.)
Sane will heal anyone injured and Seeker will have a variety of fresh
native food with him. In the morning,
the group will begin a trek to the mountains.
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