Hi all my buddies! (any TAH fans in the house?) I would like to start developing fan-made scenarios for each character that helps explain their backgrounds better than can be expressed on the lower half of a playing card. The goal for each will be to offer a unique solo scenario that can be played at any time in an adventure path, but (except for a custom card or two) uses only the base set. The reward for each scenario will be a custom character-exclusive boon.
This thread is dedicated to a scenario for Ezren, whose origin story can be found HERE.
Scenario
- Setting: Abandoned Monastery
- Text:
-- Start with only the Temple and Deeper Dungeons locations. When the player defeats the Ancient Skeleton henchman, build the Shrine to Lamashtu location deck, adding the Heretic’s Journal villain card before shuffling.
-- For this scenario, you must roll 1d6 for your Arcane die. You cannot attempt any checks to recharge a card with the arcane trait.
Any skill feats for Intelligence are ignored.
- Prologue:
Having spent most of his adult years desperately searching for the cause of his father’s unjust arraignment for heresy by the Church of Abadar, Ezren’s hope was replenished when a dark, well-traveled man brought word of the hasty abandonment of a monastery less than three days away. This monastery, Ezren knew, was once home to Father Gragory Vincent; the man who had leveled the accusations that threw his family into misfortune! If he can manage to hunt down the evidence used against his father, he can surely reveal the truth of his father’s innocence. Bearing only food for the journey, Ezren set off into the countryside.
As he arrives at the abandoned monastery, Ezren pauses to reflect on the downfall of this once holy site. Its walls, still pristine and white, were now surely home to goblins, ghosts, or possibly some other unspeakable horrors. “Surely the Gods, who have shown their favor at last, would not abandon me to die before delivering my father from injustice?” Ezren pondered to himself before prying open the oversized wooden door.
- Villain
-- Heretic’s Journal
-- Check to defeat: Knowledge 10
-- Text:
--- If undefeated, shuffle this card back into the current location, then place the top card of the blessings deck on top of each open location.
- Henchmen
-- Ancient Skeleton, Poison Trap
- Locations
-- Temple
-- Deeper Dungeons
-- Shrine to Lamashtu
- Epilogue:
Ezren was relieved to find that the accounts contained in the journal were not penned by his father’s hand, but that relief turns sour as he begins reading. Page after page recounted years of secret rituals, orgies, and human sacrifices; all taking place in this secret shrine below the monastery, and always lead by some unidentified prophet. Appended to the very last page of the tome, Ezren discovers a pact of conformity and secrecy, scrawled out in an ink that he had never seen before, and signed in blood. He quickly scans the list, and stops cold when he finally recognizes a name. There, written in blood, was Gragory Vincent’s signature. This was the evidence he had been searching for all these years! Feeling the weight of decades of torment lifting from him, Ezren frantically surveys the remainder of the signatures. His newfound giddiness suddenly catches in his throat as he comes across the very last signature, which belongs to his father, and is followed by “Most High Prophet of Lamashtu.” Gasping for breath, and bracing himself on the cold, damp altar, Ezren struggles to remain upright as a torrent of thoughts solidify in him. He was wrong. His family was wrong. The church was wrong. Even the Gods themselves were wrong. Composing himself once more, Ezren quietly exits the shrine.
Swinging open the thick monastery door, Ezren is greeted by a different world than the one he left behind just hours earlier. This world was cruel to the unknowing, and contained no justice for fools. His tireless pursuit of the truth all these years has left Ezren with no friends, no religion, no home, and after a brief audience with the Church of Abadar, no family. Armed only with his wits, and vowing that never again would he allow his ignorance to get the better of him, Ezren sets off for adventures unknown.
- Reward: Heretic’s Journal loot card
-- Heretic’s Journal
--- Loot/Item
--- Traits
---- Magic
---- Owner: Ezren
--- Powers
---- Reveal this card to add the Adventure Deck number to an intelligence check.
---- Bury this card to move a spell from your discard pile into your hand.
Another item of interest that might help you is the new Pathfinder comic series call Origins. They might give you some scenario ideas as well. Valeros is out and Kyra is next up.
I'm actually thinking about trying to stay away from the Origins story lines because I want to write the fan scenarios waaaay faster than the comics will be released. Plus, they cost extra $ that I already have tucked away for Wrath of the Righteous :)