Over the past couple of years, I’ve been doing a lot of experimentation-by-necessity with the party-planning scenario structure I shared here on the Alexandrian back in 2015. It seems like almost every other time I sit down to design or develop a scenario these days, I find the party-planning scenario structure staring back at me:

• In Welcome to the Island for Over the Edge, I used it to fairly pure effect with Jonathan Tweet to design “Seversen’s Mysterious Estate,” which I describe in more detail over here.
• In Quantronic Heat for the Infinity RPG, Nick Bate and I used it to model a full season in an illegal remote racing circuit. This took the basic structure and spread it across multiple days.
• For “Battle of the Bands,” also in Welcome to the Island, I worked with Jeremy Tuohy to adapt the structure for modeling a road trip studded with micro-adventures.

Basically, the more designers who pitch me awesome, expansive concepts for adventure scenarios, the more I find myself coming back to the party-planning scenario structure as the foundation we can easily adapt to make those concepts work in practical terms.

This has been really interesting and exciting work. I had largely thought of the party-planning structure as being fairly narrow and specific (but very useful!) in its utility, but the more my designers and I have been using it, the more powerful and flexible it has proven to be.

I haven’t been sharing these new insights here on the Alexandrian largely because, for a long time, I thought of these scenarios as just being specific applications of the party-planning structure. (Any time you use a scenario structure, after all, you’re adapting it to the needs of the specific scenario.) But while this is true for some of the scenarios I’ve been designing, I’ve recently come to the conclusion that several of these structures have developed enough that it’s not just a matter of them being adapted to a specific scenario; they’ve been adapted to support whole new classes of scenarios, making them distinct scenario structures in their own right.

Today we’re going to look at the scenario structure for festivals which I developed for Jonathan Killstring to use in his upcoming Burning Dragon scenario for the Feng Shui roleplaying game.

THE FESTIVAL

Burning Dragon is an outdoor art and music festival in the Gobi Desert that gathers each summer to “forge the dragon.” Lasting more than a week, it culminates in a huge wicker effigy of a dragon being literally lit aflame to complete the symbolic purging of the festival.

This structure, however, can be used for any large gathering that the PCs will be exploring in detail: a large convention, a long weekend at RenFest, a visiting carnival, a theatrical fringe festival, the Fortnight of the Blood Moon, the Conclave of the Goblin Princes, the solar migration of the star-whales… whatever.

DISTRICTS

Break the festival location into separate districts. These should generally be diegetic (i.e., the PCs should be able to understand the divisons; they’re not arbitrary game concepts) and are likely to reflect the organization of the festival itself. If the people running the festival were to publish a flyer for participants, what would the map look like if you flipped it open?

Another rule of thumb you might find useful is that if the PCs are in one district they should generally not be aware of what’s happening in any other districts unless it’s an event of cataclysmic proportions. (The idea is that if you want to know what’s happening in another district, you’ll need to go there and find out.)

You don’t need a lot of different districts, but if you’re having difficulty breaking your festival into separate districts then it’s very possible that it would be more appropriate to handle your event using the party-planning structure (even if it’s a party on a very large scale).

DISTRICT CHARACTERS

For each district, create the NPCs the PCs are likely to meet there. Again, you don’t need a lot. Just two or three can be enough. These can include characters who are particularly important to the district (like an event organizer or guest of honor), but also think about characters who can be representative of the average festival attendee in that district.

For ease of use, I recommend that ANY character you want attending the festival be associated with a specific district. (Everybody at the festival has to be somewhere after all.) But although they’re associated with a particular district, don’t be afraid to have the PCs run into these characters in other districts. To that end, I also recommend prepping a master list of festival NPCs (and the districts they’re keyed to) for easy reference.

In prepping the characters, use the Universal NPC Roleplaying Template to make it easy to keep all the characters straight and quickly pick them up during play. Print out on NPC per sheet and keep them loose so that you can quickly pull out the sheets for each NPC participating in a particular conversation.

DISTRICT LOCATIONS

Define your district physically by describing major sites or landmarks there. These points of interest may be places the PCs are going to (and, therefore, potentially serve as motivations that bring them into the district) or the PCs might discover them as they explore a district for the first time.

Once again, a little can go a long way here. In fact, if you find yourself listing a whole bunch of locations in a district, you might want to take that as a cue to split the district into several different districts.

DISTRICT EVENTS

District events are things that happen in the district. Some events will naturally be keyed to specific locations and/or characters, but don’t lock them down too tight unless you need to. (It’s more useful to keep things flexible for when you’re actually running the scenario.)

Every district should have at least one event keyed to it. There’s no limit to the number of events you can choose to include in a district, but an over-abundance of events are likely to be wasted prep. Generally speaking, PCs will tend to go to a district once, do the things they need to do there, and then move on. This generally means that keying more than two or three events to a district will make it necessary to really cram stuff into that single visit. There are situations where that can work, but they’re probably the exception rather than the rule.

(Another exception is if your scenario is structured in such a way that the PCs are motivated or required to repeatedly crisscross the festival, visiting districts over and over again. Additional events can be useful then.)

TOPICS OF CONVERSATION

The last tool you’ll prep, as with other social events, are the topics of conversation.  These might be momentous recent events, fraught political debates, or just utter trifles (like an argument about which ska band is the best). For example, in Burning Dragon the topics of conversation include:

• Ganbaatar is the odds-on favorite in the traditional wrestling competition this year. He bench-pressed a pickup truck over in the Badlands earlier. For real, though!
• There’s a big-shot director (S. Khünbish) shooting a film here at the festival.
• Did you know the festival grounds are actually the site of an ancient Mongolian fortress? I heard that the place was ruled by four Wu sorcerers, but it was burned down by four evil shaman-kings who came to steal the secrets of the Wu.
• A young woman was apparently assaulted or kidnapped during the opening ceremony this year.
• How many wheels are too many/not enough on a vehicle. (Later, the topic shifts to how many spikes are too many/not enough on a vehicle.)
• How far along has construction gotten on the dragon effigy.
• There’s a big turtle over in Dust Town. Like, a really big turtle. Nobody seems to know how it got there, but everybody’s trying to get a selfie with it.

I recommend mixing in a few “irrelevant” topics of conversation to camouflage (or, at least, contrast) the “important” stuff. During play, these topics of conversation should also pick up stuff that’s been happening in play (either keyed district events or just whatever mischief the PCs have been getting up to).

RUNNING THE FESTIVAL

Start with your Opening Shot: What happens when the PCs arrive at the festival? What do they immediately see? What’s immediately happening that they can either choose to interact with or be provoked to interact with?

Ideally, this opening shot will also orient the PCs. By the end of it, the players should clearly understand how the festival is organized — i.e., which districts exist and how they relate to each other.

Now that the PCs are at the festival, follow their lead as they attempt to accomplish whatever goal brough them here in the first place. This will usually involve them going to one of the districts. (If they don’t choose a district and instead just want to do something “at the festival” in a general sense — look for information, look for a GMC, etc. — that’s fine. You can either arbitrarily choose a district in which they find the thing they’re looking for or are interrupted by something interesting happening.)

When the PCs are in a district, you’ll mostly be picking up the various tools you’ve prepped for that district, putting them together in different ways, and figuring out how to have fun with them. Broadly speaking, in each district there are three “slots” that you can drop elements into:

• Arriving in the district.
• While doing something in the district (i.e., the reason the PCs came to the district in the first place).
• Leaving the district.

Pay particular attention to how different elements can be combined. For example, if the PCs want to talk to a NPC, could that conversation be happening in one of the specific locations within the district? Are there other NPCs who could join the conversation? Could the district event start happening in the middle of the conversation?

Similarly, if the PCs are in a location, what NPCs might be hanging out there? If there’s an event, how might it affect one of the locations? And so forth.

Although some things may happen to the PCs and force them to react – for example, an NPC might com up and start talking to them – mix things up by also including characters, locations, and events that the PCs can observe and then choose to react to (or ignore). If they don’t react to Old Bill stealing horses from the inn’s stables, that’s fine! They’ll probably see them again.

Similarly, if the PCs are wrapping up a scene, don’t feel like you need to immediately push them into a new one: Ask the players what they want to do next and then use their answer to frame up the next set of tools.

If the PCs are heading into a particular district and you find yourself looking at all the tools in the district uncertain of what should happen, just trigger the district event when the players arrive and see where things go from there.

TIMING OF EVENTS

Festival-type events often have a formal schedule of events: Such-and-such a convention panel happens at 1pm on Friday; so-and-so is performing on the Lilliputian Stage at 6pm on Saturday; the draconic convergence will be at high noon on Sunday.

It will therefore be tempting to prep this schedule. Inasmuch as possible, however, you actually want to try to avoid drawing up or otherwise establishing any such specific schedule.

There are a couple reasons for this. First, even a modest festival-type event will likely have dozens and dozens of events on its schedule. Few of them will be relevant to the PCs, creating a ton of wasted prep.

Second, this type of schedule tends to tie your hands too much when actually running the scenario: It would be ideal for the PCs to see Professor Clayton’s presentation on quantum fluctuations in Antarctica, but the event was scheduled for 1pm in the Lilac Room and the PCs went  to the Lilac Room at 2pm instead. (This is why the structure keys events to districts instead of specific times. The events are being mapped to the decisions and actions most likely being taken by the PCs.)

Note: If this still feels weird to you, take a look at a typical dungeon key. Frequently these keys will feature room descriptions in which some specific event is happening at precisely the moment when the PCs arrive at that location. It’s not that the game world is standing still; it’s that our prep is abstracted in order to make it possible to manage the infinite complexities of the world.

This is also why festival-type events, unlike other social events, don’t have a main event sequence: You don’t want the festival to feel like a meeting with a specific agenda. You want it to feel big and messy, with lots of things happening all the same time.

So what should you do when the players want to know when a particular event is happening? Broadly, there are two responses:

• It’s happening right now, so you’d better hurry if you want to make it.
• It’s happening a little later, giving you enough time to either make preparations or do something else first.

Now, there can be exceptions. The two most common ones are, in my experience, an Opening Ceremony (which probably doubles as your opening shot) and the Big Finale at the end of the festival (which might be the epilogue of the scenario or a huge, tangled convergence of everything and everyone the PCs have encountered, mixed together into a single, huge gathering modeled as a subset party-planning scenario.)

Other Landmark Events like this are possible depending on the exact nature of the festival you’re creating, but my recommendation remains that, unless it’s absolutely necessary, you’re better leaning away from this and just keying these events to an appropriate district.

If you’re interested in seeing this scenario structure in practice, Jonathan Killstring’s Burning Dragon will be released in June 2021. If you’d like to get early access to the PDF next month, you can join the Feng Shui Dragons subscription program, supporting the creation of new Feng Shui supplements.

In the Open Table Manifesto, one of the pillars I discuss for running a successful open table is fast character creation: When any or every session you run might have a new player sitting down for the first time, it’s essential that they can create a character and start playing as quickly as possible.

Back when open table-style games were far more common – and, arguably, the default mode of play for D&D – you can find all kinds of stories from people whose first experience with a roleplaying game was wandering past a table where people were playing and being invited to sit down and join the game already in progress.

(I don’t think it’s really a coincidence that D&D had its first – and arguably biggest – boom at precisely the time that it was designed for a style of play which was so conducive to being spread virally. But I digress.)

To a modern audience, these stories can sound almost absurd. That would basically never happen with an RPG today – including the 5^th Edition of D&D – because there’s no way you could generate a new character for the player and immediately drop them into the action.

But in OD&D, the original 1974 edition of D&D, I can get you a character in five sentences:

1. Roll 3d6, total them, and write them down in these six boxes in order.
2. Are you a human, an elf, a dwarf, or a hobbit?
3. Are you a fighting-man, magic-user, or cleric? (If they picked a dwarf or elf you can skip this step. Randomly roll hit points and the magic-user’s spell.)
4. What’s your character’s name?
5. You have a sword, chain armor, a shield, 8 rations, a small silver mirror, 2 torches, flint and steel, a bedroll, and 16 gold pieces. (Customize equipment list appropriately.)

Let’s play!

It’s an incredibly streamlined system that’s built on a powerfully modular base. (Which is why people have been adding new classes and races to D&D ever.)

Is this the One True Way™ of character creation in roleplaying games? Of course not. There can be a lot of advantages to multiplying the number, complexity, and even opacity of the choices players make during character creation. (Note how all of the decisions in OD&D’s character creation are immediately accessible and comprehensible to a new player who has zero understanding of how the game works. Compare to the mechanical knowledge you need for even something as straightforward as point-buying attributes in newer editions.)

But the speed with which OD&D goes from, “Do you wanna play?” to stabbing orcs in the face can be a huge feature in its own right. And it’s not one that I think should be so casually dismissed.

(Rolling ability scores can, in my experience, also enhance this. See, players new to D&D associate “rolling dice” with “playing the game.” So when the first thing I say to a new player is, “Okay, let’s roll your ability scores,” they feel like they’re already playing the game. It consistently engages them in a way that pure-build systems just… don’t.)

Note: Hey… what about alignment and languages? I find these non-essential for jumping into play, but you can include them and still have character creation wrapped up in just seven sentences.

THE PROBLEM: BUYING EQUIPMENT

The one place where character creation in OD&D can still bog down is in purchasing equipment: The player rolls 3d6 x 10 to determine their starting gold pieces and then they need to spend that budget on individual items.

In practice, there are steps you can take to mitigate and streamline this. (For example, making sure you have enough copies of the equipment list so that everyone can buy their equipment simultaneously without needing to pass the book back and forth.) But in my experience, it still results in equipment buying taking three to five times longer than the rest of character creation put together.

This is why, in my example of fast-paced five sentence character creation, I leverage my own expertise in the system to effectively buy the equipment for them. Players can also get through this step very quickly once they’ve similarly mastered the equipment available and know what they should be buying.

What would be ideal, though, is if we could find a way to systemically mimic this mastery so that new players could buy their own equipment without bogging down here. To do that, we can split buying equipment into its own sub-process and literally package up our expertise.

STARTING EQUIPMENT PACKAGES

Note: These specific packages tacitly assume that you’re using my house rules for OD&D, which you can also find conveniently summarized in the Blackmoor Player’s Reference. But they should be broadly useful for any OD&D game regardless. The general equipment list has also be lightly amended with some items not found in the original 1974 books.

STEP #1: ROLL FOR STARTING GOLD

Roll 3d6 x 10 to determine your starting gold pieces.

STEP #2: BASE ADVENTURER KIT

Spend 15 gp to purchase the base adventurers kit.

• Large sack (2 gp)
• 1 week of standard rations (5 gp)
• Water skin (1 gp)
• 6 torches (1 gp)
• Flint and steel (1 gp)
• Suit of clothes (2 gp)
• Bedroll (3 gp)

STEP #3: ARMOR

Pick one type of armor.

• Leather Armor (15 gp)
• Chain-type Armor (30 gp)
• Plate (50 gp)

Optionally, pay for any or all of the following:

• Shield (10 gp, +1 AC)
• Helmet (10 gp, without helmet suffer -1 AC)
• Gorget (10 gp, +1 AC vs. vampires)

STEP #4: MELEE WEAPONS

Choose a melee technique:

• Sword & Board
• Dual-Wielding
• Two-Handed

(If you select sword & board, but don’t buy a shield, you’re just fighting one-handed.)

Sword & Board: 1d6 damage unless otherwise noted.

• Dagger (3 gp, 2d6 take lowest damage)
• Hand Axe (3 gp, 2d6 take lowest damage)
• Mace (5 gp)
• Sword (10 gp)
• Battle Axe (7 gp)
• Morning Star (6 gp)
• Flail (8 gp)
• Spear (1 gp, provides reach)

Dual-Wielding: Pick any two Sword & Board weapons.

Two-Handed: 2d6 take highest damage.

• Pole Arm (7 gp, provides reach)
• Halberd (7 gp, provides reach)
• Pike (5 gp, provides reach)
• Two-Handed Sword (16 gp)
• Lance (4 gp, must be riding horse)

STEP #5: MISSILE WEAPONS

You can optionally select a ranged weapon in addition to your melee technique:

• Sling (1 gp, 2d6 damage take lowest)
• Light Crossbow (15 gp, 1d6 damage, fire one-handed but requires two hands to reload)
• Heavy Crossbow (25 gp, 2d6 take highest damage, fire one-handed but requires two hands to reload)
• Short Bow (25 gp, 1d6 damage)
• Long Bow (40 gp, roll 2d6 damage take highest)

Ammunition: Sling stones can be gathered from the wilderness at no cost.

• 20 arrows (5 gp) + Quiver (5 gp)
• 30 quarrels (5 gp) + Case (5 gp)

STEP #6: ADDITIONAL EQUIPMENT PACKAGES

Optionally select one or more additional equipment packages. You can also roll 1d6 to select one randomly.

Delving Package:

• Lockpicks (30 gp)
• 20’ spool of wire (10 gp)
• 6 sticks of chalk (1 gp)
• 12 iron spikes (6 gp)
• 6 wooden stakes (1 gp)
• Mallet (2 gp)

Prepared Adventurer Package:

• 10 sheets of paper (2 gp)
• Silverpoint (5 gp)
• 50’ rope (1 gp)
• Lantern (10 gp)
• 3 flasks of oil (6 gp)
• 10’ pole (1 gp)

Wilderness Package:

• Bedroll (1 gp)
• Small tent (4 gp)
• 1 week iron rations (15 gp)
• Leather Backpack (5 gp)

Basic Mount Package

• Light Horse (40 gp)
• Saddle (25 gp)
• Saddle Bags (10 gp)

Note: A silverpoint is an historically accurate writing instrument. The scribe drags the silver stylus across the surface of the paper. Specially prepared paper can make the lines even clearer, but this “underdrawing” can also later be inked.

ADDITIONAL READING
Reactions to OD&D
Running Castle Blackmoor
On the Importance of Character Creation
Character Creation in 7 Sentences: Magical Kitties Save the Day

DISCUSSING:
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 23D: The Chaos Cultists

The end of the key seemed to be twisting and, looking more closely at it, Tee could see that it was actually made of innumerable pieces almost too small for the eye to see – they were constantly in flux, seeming to warp and twist and move in an almost impossible manner, as if their movement were not truly determined by the limitations of the natural world.

Tee was fascinated – almost enthralled – by the artifact. With delicate fingers she reached down and picked it up…

And felt a coldness rush up from her fingers and seem to bury itself in her soul. Despite the throbbing pain and waves of weakness emanating from the key, her curiosity could not be contained. She turned to the next chest, the one labeled “Mysteries of the Purple City”. Inserting the golden key carefully into the lock she turned it.

The lock opened with a satisfying click. But the pain and the cold intensified. Tee almost felt as if her soul were being ripped out through her. Her hand flew to her head and she sagged, nearly fainting where she stood.

“Tee!” Elestra cried. “Is everything alright?”

“I’m fine,” Tee said. “But I don’t think I should be using this key any more.” She slipped it into her bag of holding… but even there she could still feel its presence like a cold weight on her soul.

Dungeons & Dragons generally embraces a fairly simple binary when it comes to enchanted items: There are magic items, which are good. And there are cursed items, which are bad.

This dichotomy, of course, leaves out a fairly large middle ground. And it is, in fact, a middle ground that is occupied by many magic items in fantasy and mythology. Often these items are not simply a boon, but carry some price for their use: Tyrfing, the sword that would never rust or miss a stroke, but which was cursed to kill a man each time it was drawn. The Necklace of Harmonia which granted eternal youth and beauty, but also ill fortune. The Nine Rings given to mortal kings which grant immense power, but slowly transform their wielders into slaves of the Lord of the Rings.

Requiring a price to be paid for the power offered by a magic item can create interesting stories and also unique dilemmas for the wielders (or would-be wielders) of the items. Pathfinder introduced the Drawback curse, which was actually a collection of minor curses that could be applied to an item so that it could “usually still be beneficial to the possessor but carry some negative aspect.”

But you can push the concept farther than that by using the cursed price of a magic item to actually balance (or limit) abilities that would otherwise by unbalanced or undesirable for the PCs to possess.

You can see an example of such an item in the all-key found by the PCs in this session: The key (referred to by the players as Freedom’s Key based on the inscription of the chest they found it in) allows its user to open ANY lock that has a keyhole.

The narrative potential of this key is really interesting. But it’s also problematic because it would essentially excise an entire slice of game play: With the all-key, the PCs would never have to pick another lock or kick down another door.

Removing an entire facet of gameplay like this isn’t inherently problematic, but should be approached with caution. And that caution, in this case, is the price paid by the user of the all-key: Merely carrying the all-key inflicts negative levels, and additional negative levels are inflicted each time the key is used.

The intended result (and, in fact, what ends up happening in the campaign) is that the PCs can’t just carry the all-key around with them and whip it out for every lock they encounter: They need to tuck it away some place safe and only fetch it when they have great need for its power.

This not only keeps the lockpicking and key-finding aspects of a  typical D&D generally intact, but it also makes each use of the all-key momentous: It requires a certain threshold of need to even consider using it, and then its use explicitly involves careful planning. Ironically, the all-key actually feels MORE powerful because of its limitations than an unfettered item with the same ability whose use would become a trivial bit of irreverent bookkeeping.

One of the risks of attempting to balance otherwise undesirable power with a price, however, is that such drawbacks can end up being highly situational and thus, with a little effort, easily avoided. This can be particularly true if you are drawing inspiration from fantasy and mythology, where the drawbacks of the items are often not only idiosyncratic, but would be non-mechanical when translated into D&D. Such limitations either put the weight on the DM to make them meaningful or, in some cases, are simply irrelevant to the PC who might get their hands on the item. (“Using the One Ring will slowly corrupt my soul and turn me into a Dark Lord?” said Sir Patrick ‘the Bloodstained Butcher’ Rasseroth. “That’s adorable.”)

Of course, if you’re designing an item for use in your own campaign, you can tailor its design to the PCs to make sure that the price will, in fact, be paid.

NEXT:
Campaign Journal: Session 23E – Running the Campaign: Diegetic Mechanics
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 23D: THE CHAOS CULTISTS

June 7th, 2008
The 10th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

… and found their way blocked by more than a dozen sinister men and women.

At their head was a massive, humanoid creature with wings of darkness and shadow that crackled with blue arcs of lightning. His flesh was a sallow yellow-green, and his long, grey-white hair seemed to be coming out in clumps. His drooping eyes glowed with a white malevolence, and his muscles seemed to bulge unnaturally beneath his skin. Strapped about his broad chest was a silvery breastplate.

Behind him, flanking him to either side, were a litorian and an adrak: The litorian had familiar symbols of chaos shaved into her fur and burned into her skin. The adrak, likewise, had symbols burned or branded onto its scales.

And behind them was a rabble of another half dozen thugs.

The sallow-skinned leader chuckled darkly as they halted in their tracks. “Give me the weapons of chaos and you can leave here with your lives.”

“We don’t have them,” Tee said.

“Don’t lie to me child,” the creature said. “Or you will die.”

“We don’t have them!” Elestra cried. “We didn’t get them yet!”

The litorian waved her hand and a beam of light swept over them. She scowled. “They’re telling the truth, Wuntad.”

Wuntad turned to her. “You’re sure?”

The litorian nodded.

Wuntad turned back to Tee. “Very well. Then you’ll go and get them and then bring them back to me.”

“We can’t do that right now,” Tee said.

“You will do it or you’ll die.”

“It’s not that we won’t, we can’t. We need to rest first, and then—“

With a bellowing roar, Agnarr charged. He caught Wuntad by surprise, but his sword caught on the cultist’s breastplate. With an answering roar of rage, Wuntad swung a muscular claw at Agnarr’s head.  The barbarian laughed. “You don’t look much like your picture!”

The other cultists, after stepping back in shock at the suddenness of the assault, were recovering and drawing their weapons.

But they were too slow for Ranthir, who was already completing the casting of a spell: A thick, bulbous sphere of viscous web exploded in the midst of the cultists. It entangled them thoroughly and suspended itself between the wall of the keep and the ground.

Unfortunately, the web blocked their own path of escape. Fortunately, the torch Tor had carried during their explorations through and beneath the keep was still burning. He darted off to one side and began burning a path through the web.

Agnarr had also been caught in the web and he began tearing himself free. But Wuntad was the faster, his wings of lightning-lit darkness tearing through the webs like razor blades and – with a single, powerful beat – propelling him into the air above.

Nevertheless, it seemed as if things were going well: Ranthir’s spell had neutralized most of the cultists, and if they could capitalize on that moment of opportunity, then—

The litorian managed to free her hand and held aloft a bell of tarnished silver. She rang it and, at the beating of its clap, a wave of dizzy darkness swept over them. Tor fell unconscious, the burning brand which had been leading his path falling uselessly at his side. Dominic fell behind him. Agnarr sagged where he stood, only the thick webs holding him aloft.

Elestra, Tee, and Ranthir struggled on… but the bell rang again, and this time both Tee and Elestra toppled.

Ranthir, too, fell… but he was bluffing, hoping that the ringing of the bell would stop if the cultists thought they had all been affected. He was right. The litorian lowered the bell, and the cultists set to work trying to burn or chop their way out of the web.

Once the cultists were thoroughly distracted, Ranthir eased himself over to Tee, who was laying only a few feet away from him. He gently shook her awake.

Unfortunately, as Tee stirred to wakefulness her movement attracted the attention of the cultists.

“Kill them!” Wuntad cried.

“Wait!” Tee shouted. “Just wait! We’ll get the weapons for you!”

Wuntad smiled grimly. “A wise choice.”

AN UNRESOLVED DEBATE

Tee woke the others. They were upset at the thought of surrendering, but she made it clear that they had no choice. In sullen silence they retreated back to the hall where the statue of Segginal stood.

“What are we doing?” Elestra asked. “We can’t help them!”

“Do you have a better idea?” Tee asked. “They took us out pretty easily last time. I’m pretty sure they’ll be able to do it again.”

After several minutes of discussion, it became clear that the group was divided: Some felt they should at least find out what these “weapons of chaos” were. Others felt strongly that they should try to fight. Others suggested that they might escape.

The tide of their argument seemed to be turning strongly towards this latter course of action – escape – when the statue spoke to them: “Wuntad’s patience wanes. I see everything that happens in this house. Bring him the weapons of chaos now.”

Tee grimaced and slapped the spiraled disc into the statue’s keyhole and twisted. The shaft opened. “Let’s go.”

THROUGH THE CAVERNS OF ICE

(09/11/790)

They went down, but they didn’t go far. They stopped in the first chamber and began unpacking their camping gear.

“All right, we’re down here,” Tee said. “Now Wuntad can just wait until we’re ready.”

They kept watch in short shifts throughout the night. In the morning, Elestra and Dominic prepared and cast the spells which would allow them to endure the freezing temperatures below.

Agnarr’s flaming sword easily chopped through the ice above the underwater tunnel and, with the spells of Elestra and Dominic, they were able to pass imperviously through the frigid waters.

At the other end of the watery tunnel, Agnarr needed to hack his way through a second sheet of ice, allowing them to emerge into another icy cavern. On the floor here, rimed with frost, were six chests. An iron door, entirely free of ice, stood on the opposite wall. Off to the left and the right, frozen into the thick ice covering the walls, were two minotaurs.

Tee eyed the minotaurs carefully, but they appeared to be dead. Satisfied that they were no immediate threat, Tee crossed over to the chests and began inspecting them while the others hung back near the pool from which they had emerged (with Agnarr, in particular, making sure the hole in the ice – and their potential retreat – remained open).

The heavy iron chests had been bolted to the stone floor beneath the ice. The top of each chest was marked with an inscription:

“Mysteries of the Purple City”
“Blades of the Galchutt”
“The Kingslayer Spear”
“The Despairing Word of Chaos”
“The Tools of Chaos”
“Freedom’s Key”

Tee pulled out her lockpicks and set to work. The locks on the chests, however, proved difficult, and she reflected glumly that if she had received the magical tools she had requested from the Dreaming Apothecary this would be a much easier task. Magical protections or not, she could still feel the cold of this place seeping into her bones.

As Tee was struggling with the first lock, however, her work was abruptly interrupted: The sudden, sharp sound of cracking ice made her look up to see one of the minotaurs punching his way out from his icy tomb. The ice in front of the other one was clearly melting, and she could already see thick cracks spreading through the ice as it, too, struggled to be free.

Thinking quickly, Tee reached quickly into her bag of holding and pulled out the least damaged set of Crimson Coil robes. She quickly slipped the robes on and stood up.

“Ah, the Night of Dissolution is come at last!” The first minotaur was stepping free from the wall of ice, shaking the ice from his eyes. The second was also emerging.

The first minotaur turned bleary eyes towards Tee. “Who are you?”

“A servant of Wuntad.”

“And has the Night of Dissolution come?”

“Yes.” Tee moved up towards the door on the far wall, trying to position the minotaurs with their backs to the others. “What’s behind this door?”

The second minotaur approached her. “Did Wuntad not give you the password?”

“He didn’t,” Tee said truthfully.

A worried look entered the minotaur’s eye. “Then I wouldn’t go in there.”

“Wait,” Tee said, looking meaningfully at the others. “You wouldn’t go in there?”

But none of the others were taking her cue, so she decided to take a different tact. “Do you have the key for these chests?”

“Wuntad didn’t give it to you?”

“No, he did not.”

“And why isn’t Wuntad here to greet us?”

“He has been barred from the keep by magic,” Tee said, expressing a truthful suspicion that she had. “Go to him and fetch the key.”

The minotaurs seemed guileless – or perhaps deferred completely to those wearing the crimson robes. Without another word they both headed to tunnel of icy water and dived out of sight.

Tor, having watched them go, turned to Tee. “Did we just send him reinforcements?”

“Does it matter?” Tee said. “I didn’t see any of you leaping to stop them.”

“They won’t get far in any case,” Ranthir pointed out. “The statue is shut.”

“Well, let’s get these chests open before they come back.”

THE SIX CHESTS AND THE KEY OF FREEDOM

Tee turned to the smallest of the chests, the one labeled “Freedom’s Key”. She was certain that this was what they had come to Pythoness House for in the first place. Once she defeated the lock, she opened the chest to reveal a golden key laying on velvet lining.

The end of the key seemed to be twisting and, looking more closely at it, Tee could see that it was actually made of innumerable pieces almost too small for the eye to see – they were constantly in flux, seeming to warp and twist and move in an almost impossible manner, as if their movement were not truly determined by the limitations of the natural world.

Tee was fascinated – almost enthralled – by the artifact. With delicate fingers she reached down and picked it up…

And felt a coldness rush up from her fingers and seem to bury itself in her soul. Despite the throbbing pain and waves of weakness emanating from the key, her curiosity could not be contained. She turned to the next chest, the one labeled “Mysteries of the Purple City”. Inserting the golden key carefully into the lock she turned it.

The lock opened with a satisfying click. But the pain and the cold intensified. Tee almost felt as if her soul were being ripped out through her. Her hand flew to her head and she sagged, nearly fainting where she stood.

“Tee!” Elestra cried. “Is everything alright?”

“I’m fine,” Tee said. “But I don’t think I should be using this key any more.” She slipped it into her bag of holding… but even there she could still feel its presence like a cold weight on her soul.

Inside this second chest there was an ancient-looking box of ironwood inscribed with several strange, round-shaped runes. Ranthir confirmed that these, like those on the robes of the giant skeleton above, were Lithuin runes.

Opening the ironwood box revealed four crystals as large as a fist and a journal with a worn leather cover and yellow, blood-stained pages. Without even bothering to glance at it, Tee passed it over to Ranthir and moved onto the next chest.

Tee returned to her lockpicks and began opening the other chests as Ranthir began to quickly skim through the journal. The “Blades of the Galchutt” were two matched longswords of blackened steel with hilts carved in the shape of demons’ heads. “The Kingslayer Spear” had a shaft of adamantium carved with strange runes similar to those they had seen on the idols within Ghul’s Labyrinth. “The Despairing Word of Chaos” was a rod of strange metal.

The last chest, the “Tools of Chaos”, contained several strange items: A cloak of rich red fabric, two small vials filled with ash-like dust, and a skull marked with several symbols of chaos.

Ranthir, meanwhile, was comparing what he was reading in the journal to everything he knew of the lost city of Lithuin. He knew of the ancient tales which claimed that a fleet bearing mystic giants known as the Titan Spawn founded the legendary city of Lithuin on what was now the coast of Arathia. It was said that the earliest caravans and merchant houses were specifically founded to ferry goods to and from the great city. After generations of such trade, the Titan Spawn succumbed to some form of madness and their ships sailed back across the ocean to their mysterious continent of mists. Lithuin itself “fell into the sea” and its treasures and lore were lost to the ages. But the journal claimed that the city – or some fragment of the city – had been found…

LITHUIN JOURNAL

This hand-written journal appears to be the record of an archaeological exploration. No specific year is given, but the entries seem to be spread across at least three months.

Several names are mentioned, most notably Wuntad – who appeared to be in charge of the expedition, although (in the opinion of the writer) not particularly proficient with the methods of excavation. The other names explicitly mentioned are Ibard, Kambranex, Coluvien, Falant, and Navanna – although it’s clear that there were at least several others, left unnamed, accompanying them.

The location of the expedition is eventually identified as the ancient city of Lithuin – or at least, what they writers believe to be the city of Lithuin. Progress appeared to be slow, and hindered by a variety of small catastrophes. Over the course of the journal, these catastrophes grow in severity. In one particularly tragic collapse, Coluvien was apparently killed.

Wuntad’s frustration with their lack of progress – marked by frequent rages – also become a common theme of the journal. Then, after nearly two months, they find a “box of remarkable crystals”. Wuntad becomes fascinated by these and, reportedly, retires to his tent to study them incessantly.

The last entries of the journal become short and erratic. There are references to “moving shadows”, “ancient shadows”, and “the shadows are coming”. Then the entries come to an abrupt end.

NEXT:
Running the Campaign: The Price of Magic – Campaign Journal: Session 23E
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

Go to Table of Contents

Design Note: This post contains the revelation lists associated with Lulu’s Memory Mystery, including a lot of material that the PCs discover while exploring Avernus in Part 7 of the Remix. See Using Revelation Lists, for tips and tricks on how to make best use of these lists.

REVELATION LIST – ESSENTIAL

This revelation list features revelations I’ve deemed “essential” for the players to (a) have a comprehensive picture of Lulu’s missing memories and (b) fully comprehend and appreciate Zariel’s story (particularly any path through the Avernian Quest which includes returning or using Zariel’s Sword).

LULU MEETS ZARIEL:

• Triggered Memory: Hearing Zariel’s Name
• Zariel’s Bridge (Hex G5)
• Questioning Mahadi

TRIAL OF ASMODEUS

• Triggered Memory: Heated Argument With a Devil
• Adjunct Court of Hell (Hex G1)
• Asmodean Pillars (Hex A3)

FOUNDING THE CRUSADE

• Questioning the Hellriders
• Triggered Memory: A Gathering of Forces
• Memory Dive: The Dream Machine

THE THREE GENERALS: YAEL

• Questioning the Hellriders
• Triggered Memory: Downed PC / Companion/ Ally
• Memory Dive: The Dream Machine
• Memory Dive: Vision From Torm
• Questioning Lux Arakxis (Hex F2)

THE THREE GENERALS: OLANTHIUS

• Questioning the Hellriders
• Triggered Memory: Lulu Comes to High Hall
• Memory Dive: Vision From Torm

THE THREE GENERALS: HARUMAN

• Questioning the Hellriders
• Memory Dive: Vision From Torm
• Zariel’s Bridge (Hex G5a)

CHARGE OF THE HELLRIDERS: THIRD VISIT TO IDYLLGLEN

• Questioning the Hellriders
• Triggered Memory: A Magic Portal
• Memory Dive: The Dream Machine
• Memory Dive: Vision From Torm
• Questioning Lux Arakxis (Hex F2)

CHARGE OF THE HELLRIDERS: BATTLE OF AVERNUS

• Questioning the Hellriders
• Triggered Memory: Downed PC / Companion / Ally
• Memory Dive: The Dream Machine
• Questioning Lux Arakxis (Hex F2)

ZARIEL FELL AFTER THE BATTLE OF AVERNUS

• Memory Dive: Claiming the Sword / Vision From Torm
• Questioning Haruman / Olanthius
• Mirror of Mephistar (Hex I1)

LULU & YAEL SENT TO HIDE ZARIEL’S SWORD

• Triggered Memory: Seeing the Styx
• Triggered Memory: Yael’s Last Words
• Memory Dive: Vision of Torm / The Dream Machine
• Questioning Yael

LULU WANDERING: THE WANDERING EMPORIUM

• Triggered Memory: Seeing Zariel’s Flying Fortress
• Memory Dive: The Dream Machine
• Questioning Agamemnova Hex (Hex F2)

LULU WANDERING: AT ZARIEL’S COURT

• Triggered Memory: Seeing Zariel’s Flying Fortress
• Questioning Haruman
• Questioning Mahadi

LULU WANDERING: L’ZETH’S AMBUSH

• Triggered Memory: Meeting Bitter Breath
• Questioning Bitter Breath

Homework: In her wanderings in Avernus, Lulu could have visited any or many other locations in Avernus. You can add these to the revelation list (perhaps including triggered memories) to further flesh out Lulu’s back story, provide useful lore, or both.

REVELATION LIST – COOL STUFF

These additional revelations cover material from the Zariel/Lulu backstory that are significant, but not required for the Avernian Quest to make sense. Mostly I’ve created this list to properly distribute this lore throughout the campaign. Because these are non-essential elements, it’s not strictly necessary to follow the Three Clue Rule. (Although I generally have because it’s just good praxis.)

AVERNIAD

• Memory Dive: Claiming the Sword
• Sibriex (Hex E5)
• Zariel’s Bridge (Hex G5)

ZARIEL’S LONG MARCH

• Memory Dive: Claiming the Sword
• Questioning Haruman
• Sibriex (Hex E5)

FIRST VISIT TO IDYLLGLEN

• Memory Dive: Claiming the Sword
• Questioning Olanthius
• Questioning Yael

SECOND VISIT TO IDYLLGLEN

• Memory Dive: The Dream Machine
• Questioning Olanthius / Yael
• Random Encounter: Allip’s Secret

“DREAM A LITTLE BIGGER”

• Memory Dive: Vision from Torm
• Memory Dive: The Dream Machine
• Questioning Olanthius / Yael

THE RECKONING: SIEGE OF DIS

• Questioning Haruman
• Mirror of Mephistar (Hex I1)
• Random Encounter: Escort to Dis

THE RECKONING: ZARIEL’S IMPRISONMENT

• Questioning Haruman
• Mirror of Mephistar (Hex I1)
• Zariel’s Bridge (Hex G5)

THE RIFT WAR

• Questioning Haruman
• Baron Barur Tolmanen (Hex F2)
• The Rift Mound (Hex C2)

THE RIFT WAR: ZARIEL’S SECOND AVERNIAN MARCH

• Questioning Haruman
• Baron Barur Tolmanen (Hex F2)
• Zariel’s Bridge (Hex G5)

THE RIFT WAR: ZARIEL BECOMES ARCHDUCHESS

• Questioning Haruman
• Baron Barur Tolmanen (Hex F2)
• Zariel’s Bridge (Hex G5)

Go to Part 6D-H: Lulu’s Memories (The Four Memory Dives)