Scenes:
The City Gate:
-
The caravan gets ready to leave in the square next to the city gate, giving the characters a chance to make themselves known to each other.
-
Criers call out news.
-
It's the 20th anniversary of Dysus's departure for Thurb, and his widow, Governor Penelope, is throwing a festival that evening in his honor.
-
The story of how he left is common knowledge. His father, the old Governor had forbid him from leaving while he was alive. After his death, Dysus abandoned his pregnant wife in search of the old Empire. Stories are unclear about how many left with him. Some say he left alone.
Anyone from the palace will know he only took his tutor with him from the palace.
-
-
The crowd hoots and asks if Penelope will finally be choosing a new husband
-
Others ask if she's going to do anything about the crime wave in the low district
-
-
Elder Martin calls the caravan together, and it departs.
-
a highly regarded halfling on his way to trade with the tribes Martin is old enough to remember when Thurb fell and the caravans settled in Gonking.
-
He explains the mission of this particular trip - to deliver tradegoods and tithe to the goblin tribes.
-
-
The city road passes a number of farms on its way to the foothills. The farmers stop and stare,
-
if prompted, Elder Martin explains their distaste for the tithe they pay the mountain tribes, and their unease about whether it will continue to work.
-
further prompting will get Elder Martin to reveal that the first few farm raids after the fall of Thurb killed all the surrounding farmers, and that the farmers fear a repeat.
-
The First Encounter:
-
The caravan stops for the night in a small clearing, the wagons circled.
-
Elder Martin tells the group to be on watch, as the Goblin Tribes will try to steal the Caravan's goods before the trade. It's a tradition for them. He tells the party to knock heads, but don't kill them. Negotiating deathprices eats into his profit, and makes the job of bargining for the tribes to leave the farmers alone that much harder.
-
An assortment of goblinoids attack while the party is on watch. The bugbears come straight into the camp and begin making a ruckus. The hobgoblins will try to wait for the party to confront the bugbears before coming in on the sides to flank them. Meanwhile, the goblins will try to steal goods off the caravan while the party's distracted.
-
average encounter: 160xp 2 Hobgoblins 2 Bugbears 2 Goblins
The Goblin Warren:
-
The goblin warren encircles a spring that has eaten a wide hole in the limestone of the hillside, making a huge divot that the surrounding hills rise around. At the rear, it's sixty feet from the spring floor to the hillside above. It's a mixed place, with Bugbears periodically emerging from caves near the base, goblins crawling out of the upper level caves into adobe huts near the top, and the hobgoblins moving among all, keeping order with sharp smacks.
-
The hobgoblin chief's interaction with Martin depends on the results of the first encounter, but is still amenable to trade.
-
If the goblins made off with the trade and tithe goods, the tribe will throw a large party celebrating their good fortune (they don't consider a stolen tithe to have been paid yet, after all). Various subspecies may be more hostile to the party if they killed one of that subspecie during the encounter.
-
Among the coins used in trade (or in dicing if partying) are several new imperial silvers. All Gonking's coinage predates the fall of Thurb, so they stand out.
-
If tested, the coins show as magic. A sufficiently skilled roll reveals that they have an illusion cast on them. They are actually normal old imperial silvers, glamoured to look new.
-
If asked, the tribe explains that the coins came from a man paying for safe passage through their area the day before on his way to the city.
-
If the party shows it to Martin, he is visibly disturbed by the new coinage, and claims that it must be fake, though he can offer no proof.
-
If Martin is privy to the tribe's story, he'll claim that something's up in the city and hustle the party back.
-
-
The party can try to extract more information about the man who came through. They can get a basic description (graying hair, expensive clothes), and, with enough effort (diplomacy, bribes, liquor, whatever), a story that one of the goblins saw him coming out of a cave a ways to the west.
The Cave (optional):
-
If the party wants to search for the cave, they'll need to convince Martin. Given info from the goblin, though, it won't take long to find.
-
The cave's entrance is well sheltered. Unlike the holes next to the goblin's spring, there's a mass of boulders at the front. Finding the way back into where the cave opens up is a bit tricky.
-
The cave contains a dead elf, connected to the wall by a long chain around his waist. There is evidence that someone (possibly the elf) had been living in the cave for a long time (firepit, torches, an old store of food).
-
The dead elf is old and spiked. If the party brings the corpse back to the city, other spiked elves or Penelope would recognize him as Gram, Dysus's tutor.
-
At the very very back of the cave, there's a ritual circle. Each of the runes for the ritual circle has been carved into a separate stone, rather than been carved into or painted onto the floor. Good skill rolls will revel the runes as necromantic.
Return to Gonking:
-
Martin pays the party if they successfully defended the caravan.
-
The festival is in full swing. Stories and rumors are flying:
-
Last night Dysus announced his return, standing at the city gate and proclaiming himself. Reports say he spent 10 years in Thurb, helping them win a war, and to have had many troubles getting back, which is why it took so long. The celebrations swept the city, and he returned with Penelope to her villa.
-
Dysus spent money everywhere - the shiniest imperials anyone has ever seen. They must be fresh from Thurb!
-
Dysus asserted himself Governor, as the returned heir.
-
There's a huge party going on today at the Governor's villa for Dysus's return. Penelope's would-be suitors are attending, along with the leading families of the city.
-
-
Martin says he doesn't know whether that's Dysus or not, but he's lying. He hasn't been to Thurb. He urges party to confront Dysus - the talk of Thurb helps no one. Good skill roles or a balking party may get him to spill the beans (after swearing the party to secrecy):
-
It's not that Thurb fell. It's that Gonking is no longer on the same plane with it. The city moved to its current locale, and the citydwellers mistook it for the fall of the Empire. There were no farm raids - the people outside the city just didn't make the transition. The structures the tribes live in are well-established, and they have little interest in the city.
-
All the halflings had to do was set up new trade relations, the tribes had little interest in the city. The halflings figured it out pretty quickly (the stars were different but the city dwellers didn't notice), but decided not to tell to avoid a panic.
-
A Conversation With The Governor (optional):
-
If the party tries, they reach Governor Penelope directly.
-
She's been told to stay in her apartments by Dysus. She's happy at his return but a bit distressed too. Not the least of which by his assumption of her title.
-
With sufficient diplomacy, the party can work out that:
-
it definitely looks like Dysus, and sounds like him too, both in voice and knowledge.
-
however, his demeanor has completely changed. The young Dysus was kind of heart but a little thick. Not dumb, but overly trusting in his vision of the Thurban empire and what they could do for his city.
-
the new Dysus seems sharper, less empathic.
-
A Confrontation with The Governor:
-
The door to the reception hall is barred from the outside.
-
The party enters just as Dysus and two men kill three of Penelope's suitors. Dysus proclaims his rule over the city to all the nobility in attendance, telling them they'll meet a similar fate if they threaten his absolute power.
-
Detect Magic would reveal a layer of illusion over the man claiming to be Dysus.
-
If the party confronts him, he'll stick to his story at first, but soon send his men to try to kill them.
-
If the nobility leave, enough holes are poked in his story, or his men are surmounted, he'll raise the dead suitors as zombies and send them after the party as well.
-
Under sufficient provocation, he'll drop his illusion and summon a greater zombie (Dysus himself) to attack the party, while he does so himself.
-
Once the illusion is dropped, Saul will happily begin monologuing about what actually happened:
-
Dysus found Saul about to be hanged on his way out of the city and pardoned him in exchange for guarding him on his trip. Once outside of the city, Saul kills Dysus and imprisons Gram with Dysus's body in a cave outside the city.
-
Saul forces Gram to teach him magic, starting with illusions. He used that to create a new criminal organization in Gonking. Later he finds Gram constructing a ritual to bring Dysus back from the dead. He claims undead!Dysus as his own, and hatches a scheme to become Governor, by posing as Dysus with his magic (and getting details from the tutor).
-
-
hard encounter: 280xp 1 Human Witchdoctor (Saul) 2 Human Warriors (Crushed Poppies) 3 Zombies (Reanimated suitors) 1 Greater Zombie (Dysus; use stats for a standard Ghoul)
Yay you won!
-
Martin will tell the stories the truth of the city, if he hasn't already.
-
There is an exchange of congratulations for explanations with Governor Penelope.
-
The party is thanked, and charged to find out what really happened to the city.