Denis Antonenko
This isn't one of my games. User "Big Aristotle" from the N@TO server ran this scenario for myself and some others. I played as Velites the Orc.
A fortress city on the edge of the Five Kingdoms. Four adventurers passed by plate armoured guards sweltering in the desert heat to enter the central keep. They'd heard the Commonwealth's local representative, Governor Hariwinkle, had a job for them.
- Egas the Adept, Human Wizard.
- Ged, Human Cleric.
- Ser Cyrwin, Elven Bard.
- Velites the Purple, Orc Fighter.
The governor poured two glasses of wine and drank them both, explaining between sips that there was an abandoned citadel two day's march from the castle. Used to belong to some tyrant back when the plains were ruled by roaming horse lords, now it housed an unknown evil. Probably bandits or goblins. Hariwinkle wanted the ruin secured and an ancestral glass bottle of his house recovered.
After Ser Cyrwin conned the fat noble into paying them upfront, the adventurers purchased a donkey, wagon, extra rations, strong booze for Ged and a chainmail hauberk for Velites. On their way out of the city gates they ran into some autochthons herding sheep, who Cyrwin asked about the citadel. They said the place was cursed and warned the adventurers not to touch any corpses they found inside.
Ged was interested in the herdsmen's jackets, beautiful animal skins dyed red and purple. They babbled among themselves, before asking for ten gold pieces. The cleric nearly paid them, before Cyrwin caught his wrist and handed over a single coin, having translated their discussion about how best to fleece this foreign dog. Grumbling, they accepted the payment and gave Ged one of their coats.
Velites wished them and their wives good health as the party walked away. Egas asked how he knew the tribesmen were married. The monsterman grinned and pointed a claw at their herd of sheep.
Wigglewood
Travelling along sand-covered roads, the adventurers stopped to rest when the sun reached its zenith. Egas crawled under the wagon, while Velites set up a shade cover with two spears and a wolfskin. After the pair napped for an hour, Cyrwin shook them awake. Some lizardmen were approaching, dragging dead goats behind them on a pair of travois. The reptiles hadn't spotted the party yet, so Egas and Ged dropped buffing spells as Cyrwin and Velites prepared their weapons.
The lizards finally noticed the wagon and sent two of their number to investigate, so Velites stepped out and menaced them with his spear. The sight of a 6' 3" Orc wearing the skin of a dire wolf routed the monsters, who fled so fast they forgot one of their travois. Velites grinned a toothy smile, bringing the sled and its dead goat back to the wagon. After waiting for him to dress the corpse and drain its blood into glass flasks, the party continued on their way.
The adventurers rested for the night on a flat-topped mesa, Velites building a fire from the travois and cooking the goat on his spears. After a meal of roasted meat and fresh blood, the party set up a watch rotation and went to sleep. The night passed uneventfully, aside from Cyrwin's awful attempt at singing, so they continued their journey the next day.
After their customary midday nap, the adventurers spotted the profile of the citadel on the horizon, an edifice of sandstone jutting out above the plain. Cyrwin shouted a warning, his elf eyes having picked out something in the desert. A man made from iron, 10' tall and moving towards them. Fast. Velites called a retreat and the party fled towards the dungeon. Egas tried to reason with the Golem, shouting pleas in primordial tongues, but only received the same flat affected response. "LEAVE".
The adventurers made it past the citadel's crumbling portcullis, gasping for breath and trying to keep their donkey from collapsing. Glancing behind them, the war construct had stopped short from entering the gatehouse. It stared impassively, unmoving. Velites shouted insults and lifted his tunic to flash it. No reaction. With no prospects of escape, the party hitched their wagon and entered the dungeon under the light of Egas' titular spell.
The first room was a large columned chamber with black and red tiles. Engravings on the walls showed supplicants kneeling before an onyx bull, horns lowered and ready to charge. As the party moved to examine the decor closer, they spotted something on the ceiling. A gross bugman covered in purple hairs scuttled across the roof, clutching a glittering pearl in one of his four arms. He babbled nonsense in accented common and moved to flee. The party quickly debated what to do. At Egas' prodding, Velites threw a spear into its back and Cyrwin shot it with a crossbow. The Ettercap proved surprisingly resilient, unlocking a door while upside down and scuttling out of the room. The Orc donned the wizard's light-enchanted hat and chased after it, followed by the rest of the party.
Wizards of the Coast
The next room was a natural cavern, covered in fractal crystals that reflected the hat's light, nearly blinding the party. Velites blinked away the sunspots and charged down the bugman before it could escape, skewering it with his pilum. He pried the pearl from its claws and milked it for venom, before trussing it up for transport back to their campsite. The other adventurers filtered in and noticed a pile of man-sized silk bundles. Slashing them open, they found the corpses of Beastmen inside. One had a gemstone hidden below his tongue, and another drew a rattling breath when they pulled him out. After he had a drink of water, the zoanthrope introduced himself as Borvin. His people - the rightful owners of the citadel if he was to be believed - were warring with the Ettercaps. The hated bugmen had invaded their dungeon and begun capturing them for food.
The adventurers said they found the idea of a bug that thinks offensive. Suitably impressed, Borvin offered to take them to his tribe's slice of the dungeon. Velites lent the monster a spear to lean on and the party set off. He led them into a small temple, decorated with offering bowls and bas reliefs of humans proffering gold, grain and blood to the onyx bull. Borvin preached the dungeon belonged to the Godking Minoros, and dropped a brown bag into one of the bowls. Velites sacrificed his remaining goat meat, feeling a burst of divine luck. Ged threw in an empty wine jug and Cyrwin a crossbow quarrel. Neither were worthy offerings, so Egas tossed in a pouch of gold and received a blessing. Grumbling, Ged sacrificed his fancy coat and Cyrwin also discarded some gold. Expecting to be horribly cursed, no one was brave enough to steal from the bowls.
Borvin led them up a winding hallway of smooth sandstone, warning them that Minoros still stalked the citadel. Though it would be a blessing to die by his sacred hand, the Beastman wanted to get back to his people first. The hallway ended in a wooden door, surprisingly sturdy despite its age. Borvin approached the portal, but slumped over unconscious before reaching it. The party feared a trap, but Egas and Cyrwin couldn't find one. Velites snagged the zoanthrope's clothing with his spear and dragged him to safety, finding grisly bite marks beneath his clothing. Ged tried to remove poison, but he couldn't get his prayer to penetrate the shadowdark. The party discussed making an antidote with their flasks of spider venom, but no one knew how. The cleric loaded the Beastman into a makeshift litter, passing Velites his hammer for safe keeping.
The Orc took point and opened the door, entering a brightly lit courtyard open to the desert sky. Egas' Light spell petered out, but with ample daylight the party decided to venture forth. The courtyard terminated in a statue of that same onyx bull, except this one had a Minotaur kneeling before it.
The Godking Minoros raised his head, an Ettercap and Beastman head impaled on each horn. Velites swore and slammed the door, yelling for everyone to retreat. He hurriedly hammered a steel piton into the door, spiking it shut right before the Minotaur's horns pierced the ancient wood. Egas cast Light and fled down the hallway alongside Cyrwin, the pair trampling over each other in their desperation to escape. Ged was weighed down by Borvin's body, but refused to abandon the dying man. The Orc dipped his spear in spider venom and prepared to fight a rearguard action, but the door held fast. The adventurers made it back to the offering room and spiked that door too. They waited for signs Minoros was following them, but only heard distant bellowing that eventually receded into silence.
George Frederic Watts
As the party listened for the Minotaur, Cyrwin noticed the sound of pathetic sobbing somewhere in the room. Alerting his fellows, the adventurers advanced on one of the offering bowls, finding a terrified man hiding behind it. He introduced himself as Giuseppe, a herbalist who'd made the mistake of coming to the citadel in search of treasure. He'd been chased around by countless monsters and taken to stealing offerings from the Beastmen to survive. Surprised, the party wondered why he hadn't been cursed. Velites asked how old he was. Why, twenty five of course. The adventurers glanced at his yellowed hair, rotten teeth, black tongue and countless liver spots.
They resolved not to steal any offerings.
Suddenly the room began to darken. Giuseppe gave a yelp and leapt back behind the bowl. An awful octopus thing descended from the ceiling, squirting vantablack ink and making a beeline for Egas' glowing hat. Velites interposed himself between the wizard and Dark Mantle, scoring a strike with his poisoned spear. But the monster didn't care, floating past the Orc and latching onto the old man. The Light spell winked out, plunging the adventurers into darkness. Panicking as the cephalopod masticated his shoulder, the wizard blasted the entire room with Sleep. Having knocked his entire party comatose, Egas hurriedly shook everyone awake and together they stomped the Dark Mantle to death. As Velites bottled its endoluxic ink, the party got Giuseppe on his feet and made a beeline out of the dungeon, eager to heal and regenerate spells.
Back outside, the party couldn't see the Iron Golem, but resolved to camp within the citadel's inner bailey anyway. They set up a fortified camp against one of the intact exterior walls, using their wagon and a door salvaged from the dungeon to build a makeshift barricade. Velites made a campfire with scrap wood and cooked everyone's rations as Egas interrogated Giuseppe. He didn't trust this weirdo's convenient story, and demanded he prove he really was a herbalist. So the curse-eater took a flask of spider venom from Ged and brewed a dose of curative. After administering it to the insensate Borvin, the zoanthrope's breathing steadied and his face regained some colour. With his paranoia satisfied, Egas allowed Velites to pay their new hireling a fistful of silver.
Though they camped right outside the dungeon, the party's rest was uninterrupted. By the time the sun crested the horizon, Borvin had regained consciousness. He thanked the party for saving his life a second time, but was too agoraphobic to remain outside. He fled back into the dungeon after taking a spear proffered by Velities, promising to meet them by the offering room. Grumbling, the party told Giuseppe to look after the donkey and prepared to renter the citadel.
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