Haunted Village Adventure

[Allen Billings 11]

I've been curious ever since the magazine edition came out about this area near Cauldron. Has anybody ever set up anything in the Haunted Village area?

When I first ran the campaign, I slipped in an image of the village by using a map from the wizards site. Namely this one: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/mapofweek/city803.jpg

Then, I grabbed Dungeon #84 for the 'Dungeon of the Fire Opal', which was from 1st to 5th lvl. This was the dungeon under the ruins, and allowed me to play the part of Skazzyg, the Tiefling mage who was studying the dungeon. She made a deal with the party. They help her clean it out, and she would leave the area once she'd finished her research.

After reading the SCAP book, I'm changing all of that, to include the updated region information. Namely, that the village ruins are now being under the control of the Necrocants. So, here's my idea on what's going on.

The Necrocants have learned that the reason that Kozomagon was able to raise the undead in an attempt to assist in helping Redgorge against the demon army, was from a very powerful magical staff. The staff of skulls, as it was called, would allow the mage to cast summon undead 4th, grant the user mage armor at will, and could also allow the user to release a blast wave of negative energy in a fifty foot radius around the user. Any undead that were damaged previously, while within the negative blast, would be healed instantly of 3d8+10 points of damage, while all living beings must make a Fort SV 18 to avoid the effect as well.

Unfortunetly, any other powers or abilities have been lost to time, yet the Necrocants believe that they can find the staff.

Since the Cagewrights are interested in Cauldron, it's possible that they may decide to lure the PC's off track and to delay them from interfering in their operatins. This could be done by having Vhalantru send them out to investigate the Necrocant's activities near the Haunted Village, or maybe drop the information upon the party by other means that I'm sure you other DM's could easily come up with.

The trick, as I see it, would be to use it right after Flood Season, which would allow the PC's to gain enough experience to go up at least one level. This way, once they get thru Zenith, they'll have enough XP to reach 8th lvl, the minimum for the Demonskar Legacy.

So, any ideas my fellow DM's?

[Ogre_Bane]

Well I've always thought that the "Ghosts of Aniel" adventure from the WotC website would be a great throw in for the Haunted Village. I'd provide the link to you, but unfortunately the WotC site seems to be down at the moment...

Pretty sure the adventure is called "The Ghosts of Aniel." Just look around for it in the adventure section. It's made for 5th level parties, but I remember it being pretty easy to change around.

[delvesdeep]

That sounds like a great addition to the SCAP to me and it brings in the Necotaunrs too who I believe are a great collection of villians that otherwise barely rate a mention.

I too have recently written up an adventure involving the Haunted Village. I've replaced it for the Strike on Shatterhorn adventure which I felt was just a big dundeon trek killing a bunch of meaningless Cagewrights.

My adventure revolves around Embril, Alurad and the Kopru Necropolis beneath the village lake. Embril has captured Nidrama and the party will need to track her down to the ancient temple of Adimarchus which she now dwells to stop her from destroying the insnae angels mind completely and freeing his Inner Demon upon the world.

I'm posting it up on the RPGenius.com site in the next couple of weeks.

Great idea

Delvesdeep

[mobuttu]

I plan to adapt the Lich Lords adventure from 80's Role Aids. I have introduced some tips in Occipitus while the tomb robbers are looking for the Crown of the eternal night instead of those sun glasses. But I don't know if i'll DM it for a fill in or after SCAP as an Epic adventure, yet. What do you think I should do?

Q. (sorry for my bad english)

[exilas]

Hi all,
someone else has ideas to share about adventures to take place in the Haunted Village? I'd be very interested in some free or Dungeon adventure suitable to be placed there, for level 9-10 PCs.

Dungeondelve,
with RPGenius being currently unavailable, could you possibly share your aforementioned adventure via email at misc underscore web at jumpy dot it?

Thanks,
Marco

[EATERoftheDEAD]

My plans are a bit of an adaptation of the adventure presented by delvesdeep. I decided to leave the Necrocaunts there but forego the bit about the lake and the ruins beneath it. I don't care for kopru and wrote them out of Flood Season by turning the ruins into Drow.

I am inserting the side trek in the middle of Demonskar Legacy. I don't like the way Alkhast is introduced so I moved him to the ruins of the village. Nidrama appears to the party and implores them to aid in recovering the artifact. Currently the Necrocaunts are hard at work recovering it and time is running short.

the party will have to face undead and the Necrocaunt menace while recovering Alkhast (which I changed to be 4 separate legacy items) before departing Redgorge for the Demonskar. Upon returning triumphant with Alkhast the party continues on with the adventure and departs Redgorge.

[Sean Halloran]

DelvesDeep, with RPGenius down I too would also enjoy receiving your Haunted Village Adventure. My email is Sean_Smiley75 (at) hotmail (dot) com.

[deco]

I too would like to get this side adventure please! My email is thirteen at gmail dot com - thanks!

[TyroAmberhelm]

deco wrote:

I too would like to get this side adventure please! My email is thirteen at gmail dot com - thanks!

Yes Delves. I wopuld very much like to use the changes you made in your "Adimarchus & the Cagewrights" write-up you created.

It says that there are two adventures you created to go with that, and I have been unable to locate them.

Can you or anyone else provide a link to these?

[deco]

I too am still looking for these adventures! Hopefully someone out there still has them?

[Findas]

Just to let you all know, the RPGenius site is back up - I was just there :-)

[section8]

I have gone through the RPGenius site, and couldn't find this adventure. There are general ideas, but not the actual adventure to the depth of the Demonskar Ball or the Siege of Redgorge. I've brainstormed some ideas and wouldn't mind some comments.

I too am positioning the Haunted Village adventure as a replacement to Strike on Shatterhorn. There are 3 parts to the adventure:

1) Liduton itself - Two ancient will o the wisps (CR 11 each) patrol (similar to the SoS adventure). The town itself is occupied by a Deathshrieker (MM III) which is the souls of the original occupants. Lidu has become a Banshee (MM II) and resides on the shore of the lake.

2) Alurad's "temple" - Alurad has started playing with the flesh of creatures of the lower planes. In addition to the 4 advanced flesh golems (taken from Chapter 12), he has created an advanced stitched devil (MM V, CR 16). Unfortunately, his experiments have caused a bloodifer ooze (MM IV) to take shape out back.

3) Kopru necropolis - In the lake lies the remnants of the kopru necropolis. Under the water, closer to the shore is a cave with 2 greater stone golems (CR 16 each) protecting it. The party will probably assume they guard the necropolis, but in fact, they guard an aboleth mage (CR 17). Deeper in the lake lies the necropolis. It is guarded by 2 Charnel Hounds (CR 17 each, MM III) made from Kopru dead. 2 more guard the chamber where Embril is with Nidrama. (Embril is trying to use Nidrama as a conduit to get to Adimarchus). Once Embril is defeated, the necropolis awakens in anger (corpse gatherer, CR 19 from MM II) and attacks.

Obviously I need more work done to fill it out (treasure, stats, etc), and this is only 63000 xp if they defeat everything. Given a normal party going from 18 to 19th level need 18000 apiece, and there are 6 members, I'm still short 45000xp. So I need more ideas if possible.

[delvesdeep]

Sorry to all of you who anted the complete adventure but the truth is that I haven't written it yet. :'(

I like what you have done section8. If the party need to swim down into the lake to get to the Necropolis why not include a 'swarm' of Kopru ghosts and/or a host of undead or demonic aquatic creatures.

The Spellweaver who is assisting Embril would also increase the XP as would some traps, puzzles and perhaps some nightmarish creatures that pour out of the 'Dream Catcher' when the party disturb the ritual.

A reappearance of some of the villains that the party failed to kill alone the journey would also be a nice way to clear up some loose ends.

Just some ideas on the run.

Delvesdeep

[exilas]

As one of the original petitioners for Delvesdeep Haunted Village adventure, I'd just like to let you know that I ended up writing my own.

In short, I created a catacomb level under the Wee Jas cathedral in Cauldron, which my PCs explored after managing to drive away Ike Iverson and to steer off long enough the city guard investigation.

In the most remote rooms they found a Necrorift (a sort of teleport device for undeads I devised) that was bringing in a WHOLE LOT of assorted corporeal undeads, kept at bay by an Antiunlife Shell (again, my creation). The undeads were however digging thru the walls to find an escape route, and should they be successful there were grim troubles in for Cauldron.

So the PCs investigated about the Necrorift and thanks to a St Cuthbert divination they discovered the history of Liduton and its current status, which made it a likely location for the source Necrorift.

Reached Liduton by day, they found it in a big depression some 25 feet deep, quiet and nearly completely in ruin, except for a magically sealed tower (Kozomagon's) and the city hall, in good shape while completely empty.

Spending there the night, they discovered that by night Liduton was Thriller-like haunted by corporeal undeads, and the tower opened up revealing inside the source Necrorift (placed there by Ike Iverson with Fetor help).

The next night they tried to gain safe access to Kozomagon tower to cope with the Necrorift, but failed miserably. Running for their lives to escape the undead hordes (while low in CR they were a lot), they climbed up inside the tower and reached the safety of the last floor.

There they met the ghost of Kozomagon, who told them what really happened there. Foolishly driven by her friendly but fierce rivalry with Surabar, Kozomagon tapped the arcane knowledge of the Souls Pillars and created the Fulchrum, an artifact that should've give her full control over legions and legions of undeads to lead in battle against the demons at Redgorge.

While Kozomagon did succesfully lead undeads in the victorious Redgorge first demon war, she didn't gain control over them at all in the long run, due to a fatal mistake in the Fulchrum creation.

Unable to stop the Fulchrum to regenerate continually the undeads from the thousands of corpses the Spellweaver threw in the lake near Liduton after experimenting with them in the nearby Karran-Kurral, Kozomagon sacrificed herself to confine the undead inside Liduton.

The undeads were so forbidden to leave Liduton, until Ike and Fetor managed to open the Necrorift and fetch them to Cauldron (Ike planned to use them for its post-ritual goals).

Kozomagon instructed the PC about the Fulchrum secret location under the city hall, and they found it battling a lot of incorporeal undeads (the souls of the deads absorbed and held by the Fulchrum) in a vast maze-like underground library, finally managing to destroy it with the combined use of positive energy, light and a rod of cancellation.

Having put a stop to the undead menace both there and in Cauldron (the undeads turned into dust with the destruction of the Fulchrum), Kozomagon led the PCs to Karran-Kurral before getting to her final rest.

We had some good times with this adventure!

Ciao
Marco