Encounter Listing for October Weekend, 1993

The Three Prophets by John Finnegan







Event One:  Looking for a Few Good men, women, and necromancers.

Plot Theme Source:  Alaric Dragonhart and Kassevik the Elemental



Cast: 

     Averick Kavertall: Human Necromancer Level 7, Body



     Averick is the support caster for several undead creatures

sent to cause mischief as a diversion while Averick carefully notes

which earth casters in town are direly opposed to necromancy.  He

is a servant of former Duke Alaric and is attempting to discern who

in Ashbury can be gathered to support Alaric and who more

importantly is a necromancer.  Averick is the controller of several

groups of skeletons, each lead by a skeletal warrior.  They are

sent exclusively to test the mettle of specific groups in an effort

to learn the capabilities of individuals, potential magical items

in group possession, and their reaction to undead in general.

He invites promising groups on a fake and orchestrated adventure

which tests group response to necromancy, he accompanies groups and

remembers what they do.  So Averick sends squads to attack pc

groups specifically then asks them to accompany him on a mission to

root out the perpetrator who has created them.  Averick always

remains secretly allied with the undead, but allows them to be

destroyed in order to guage party response.  Any obvious

necromancers will be recruited to join with Alaric and his henchmen

at the meeting on Saturday night.  The NPC palying Averick is

responsible for reporting his/her "in game" findings to the

director and later to the plot committee.



Typical groups will be as the following, Averick possesses six such

groups of undead to use.



     Four Skeletons, One Cackling Corpse, and a Skeletal Warrior



The Module Will Consist of the following encounters:



     Module Encounter One:

          Charmed goblins fighting undead (which side does the

party fight on? Does anyone control undead?  Are the goblins killed

before or after the undead (undead are stationary and have been

ordered only to guard a certain area - they will not attack unless

ordered to by Averick)



     Module Encounter Two:

          There is a necromantic lock that the party can go through

if they cast a necromantic spell.  Otherwise they have to go

through encounter Three.



     Module Encounter Three:

          One ghoul and two ghasts guard the remains of a rotting

corpse that holds a silver dagger.  They all wear the tabards of

Alaric Dragonhart.

(They were former members of his honor guard.)  



     Module Encounter Four:

          A room contains a chest with instant death poison.  The

trap is nearly impossible to disarm and it is clear that someone

will have to die in order to open the box.  Averick offers to life

anyone who will open the box.  The box does contain instant death

gas ( and the ghasts will have blown toxin shields) and contains

several one shot necromantic items.  (one has a control undead)



     Encounter Five:

          A Charnal Juggernaut guards a large book (a spell book)

and a small coffer (that has some money and two minor potions). 

The creator has ordered it not to leave the room, but it will

attack all those that molest the items.  It has been chained to the

wall (quite close to the book and coffer).  The object of course is

to control the Charnal Juggernaut to get it to hand over the stuff.

Averick will thank all groups for helping stop this menace.  He

will of course be very sad that they didn't catch the necromancer

and will offer to seek out the players if he needs their help

again.  (The joke of course is that he is the Necromancer.)



Event Two: Rasmun's Revenge, or a Night on the town with the Rat

Lord

     Plot Source: Rufus Rasmun, The Lord of Rats

     Cast:     The Rat Lord:  Celestial Scholar Level 5\ Greater

Wererat: Body: 26   Str: 2 Threshold:1  Transformation at will from

Human for to Ratiod form, Control Rat creatures 10ft radius

(including rat scavengers) as vampire charm, Curse of

Transofrmation 1/Day, Cause Disease on Body Contact, Needs Silver

weapons to hit, Immune to Waylay, Resist Celestial magic 1/day   

Skills: Read\write, Read Magic, Alchemy 1, Small Weapon, Spells:

4444321

     From the beginning of the weekend to nearly the end, the town

will become overrun with Rats.  These rats are the devout followers

of the Mighty Kathraxus, Lord of Rats.  Kathraxus is the nom de

plume of a wererat scholar named Rufus Rasmun.  Rasmun was

originally an apprentice of the former Guildmaster of the

Magesguild, Avar Lychus, and after a frotunate run in with a dying

wererat became a lycanthrope and eventually ascended to greater

status.  Well, it turns out that Rufus is a still a little pissed

off at Avar and is set on gaining revenge against the Mages Guild.

(Which now is run by someone completely different named Shalizar -

something Rufus has failed to realize...)  Rufus imagines his army

of rats to be an invasion of the capital, and eventually expects

all the humans to move out and vacate it for him.  Rufus wants to

make himself king of all Ashbury.  Needless to say that Rufus is a

little daffy and spends a little to much time with his rats.  Rufus

also wants to turn prominent individuals into Rat underlings - so

he will send some of his wererats out to capture certain

individuals (for example Avar Lychus, Shalizar, the Duchess, any

baron, a prominent member of the healer's guild, the sherriff, the

overlord, etc.)

He will then transform them into a Wererat and send them to spy

upon his enemys.  Note that several individuals will be captured,

but only a few will be "blessed" will the priviledge to become

Rufus' servants.  The ones that snivel the most will gain the honor

most likely.



Encounter One:

     A group of 6-10 rats are sent out to attack groups. They are

all considered sewer rats, not giant rats.  Rats will only attack

groups that are smaller than themselves.  Kathraxus has trained his

rats to find silver coins and weapons, and bring them to him for

destruction.  Therefore every third rat will possess a silver

piece.  Rats are allowed to search victims and take any silver or

silvered items they find.  They of course bring them back to the

monster camp to be placed in the Katraxus module scheduled for

Sunday evening.  This encounter will be run multiple times all

weekend long, to a maximum of thirty times.



Encounter Two:

     Two Giant rats are sent to deliver a message to a wererat

operative of Kathraxus' somewhere in town.  A wererat is sent into

town and then fifteen minutes later the rats are sent out to find

it.  The Giant Rats carry a message and some money to given to the

wererat.  The message is ment to fall into PC hands in an effort

for PC's to locate the wererats.  Wererats all possess some

knowledge of celestial magic or are rogues of some type.  The rats

are let loose after the encounter is completed, and the wererat can

be followed into a module (or coerced into telling the party where

they can find information about the rat king.  Details of this

module can be found after the Encounter listing.)



Encounter Three:

     Three Wererats, 5 Giant Rats, and 20-30 Rats accompany the Rat

King around town in an effort to find Avar Lychus or the head of

the Mages Guild.  Rufus will kidnap any unfortunates he runs across

and will hold them for ransom in the Tavern.  (Setting it up as his

manor so to speak.)  He will demand to speak to the head of the

mages guild or he will kill his hostages, eat them, or worse...

Rufus is suppose to interact with Shalizar as if he is totally

paranoid and convinced that they are hiding Avar Lychus.  He will

even offer some ritual scrolls that he stole from the guild in an

effort to shake the truth free.  He will leave the tavern if it

looks like things are going to get a bit too hot, but he will vow

to return... Next time however he will inform the Guildmistress

that any prisoners he takes will be changed into wererat servants.

He briefly mentions that he will seek out Avar Lychus' mistress in

an effort to find the man.  (Searching for some knowledge of Avar

Lychus' mistress will allow PC's to find the location of a hidden

cottage of Lychus and result in a module.)



Encounter Four:

     Three wererats are sent into town to gather and destroy

silver.  They will ask people if they know who can silver weapons

in town, ask what the rates are, and how much it cost to silver the

weapons that they have on them.  Anyone who replies in a way that

can be considered to indicate that they possess magical or silver

weapons will illicit an attack.  All silver weapon tags are brought

back to the Monster Camp to be placed