Fragments:

The Forgotten Priest

Outside of Pompeii, about thirty miles from the city, is a small monastic Temple to Apollo which manages a famous vineyard. The elder priest of the monastery is a 50 year old man named Gaius Dentatus, who was once destined for the Senate, but paid an Iberian sorcerer named Raggadacco to cast a geas upon his heritage, obscuring himself from his wealthy connections forever more, and insuring he would be forgotten from such mortal affairs. Dentatus went on to script “The Treatments of Apollo,” a book of the true virtues and medicinal cures of Apollo, which may well be accepted as the new cannon of the order.
Unbeknownst to Dentatus, the sorcerer Raggadacco, who was old thirty years ago when he paid him for the ensorcellment, was neither so powerful, nor so crafty as he claimed. To commit the spell, he stole an artifact, the Stygian Rod of Forgetfulness, from a Faceless One Cultist, an Egyptian mage named Nitharos, who dwelt in Alexandria. Raggadacco has discovered that The Faceless Ones discovered his theft only recently, when his apprentice joined their ranks and ratted him out. He now seeks out Dentatus to reclaim the enchantment, and use it on the Faceless Ones against himself so that he will no longer be pursued. To lift it from Dentatus, he may have to kill him....but he has to find him first, since he last met the priest in the distant Iberian city of Narbo three decades ago.
The Heroes are involved when they are approaching Pompeii. A crippled raven pesters them, and will not leave them alone. It is able to repeat, “Help, help.” This is Dentatus’s pet, a messenger raven of the monastery. On it’s leg is a message, from Dentatus, stating, “Luvia, I need your help. I must break the silence, for my past is attempting to reclaim me. You may not remember me at first, but you will if you come to the Winery of Apollo.-Dentatus.” Clever heroes know Luvia is the wife of the Governor of Pompeii, Aulus Maximinus.
(During this point, the raven will continue to try and stay with the PCs, to get them to care for its superficially injured wing. It can become a smart little pet, providing warning when ambushes or spies are near in the wilds, and serving as a distraction in combat.)
Three decades ago, Luvia and Dentatus had an affair, and his shame led him to flee from his duties as son of a prominent Senator at the time (a tryst among enemies, and Luvia’s son is his, not the governor’s....therefore the rightful heir to his family estates!) He trusts only Luvia to keep secret his presence.
At this time, agents of the Iberian sorcerer appear, hunting for the raven. They have been paid well, but will retreat if one of their number dies. On one of them has a writ of payment from the sorcerer, stating that they are conscripted servants who may carry arms. It bears his stamp, and marks him a native of Herculaneum (north of Pompeii). A prisoner would admit that he hired them in a tavern outside of Herculaneum, and that he intended to pay the rest of them to defile a temple shrine and do in an old priest.
At this point, the PCs have the option of pursuing the lead offered in tracking down Luvia, or going straight to Dentatus, if they can figure out where he is. Dentatus is fairly straight-forward, and he will pleade for assistance if they reveal his message did not get to Luvia. Luvia will require some diplomatic cunning, as she is now a fairly aloof governor’s wife, and busy catering events and occasions in Pompeii. She will listen to them if the PC can impress upon her and her aids just how serious and genuinely well-intentioned they are, otherwise it may require subterfugre to gain access to Luvia.
Amidst all this chaos, if the PCs decide to escort or help Luvia to the priest, or go there themselves, they should discover from one or the other that the sorcerer needs the Stygian Rod to recapture the dweomer that it unleashed. The sorcerer left it with Dentatus, who in turn placed it in a cave near the top of the volcano, before the Shrine of Apollo, where thousands of pilgrims go every year. The rod remains there and he must get it. The priest would implore the PCs to insure the shrine is not defiled by an offering removed by the sorcerer. The Rod is not actually in the shrine itself, it is located in the hidden tunnel behind the shrine. A little traditional delving, and monsters most natural or unnatural may be inserted at this time.
During all this madness, the near-legendary personage Quintus Helvius, the questing Equestrian (knight) of The Elder Senator Publius Dentatus (angry father of Gaius), is going to that very shrine to interdict in the defacing of it, for he will not allow the monk to be revealed, since he alone remembers the dark secret Dentatus sought to hide; after all, they were once good friends, and on pain of honor he allowed Dentatus to flee so long as he hid himself forever more. The problem was, he had been ordered to kill the errant son, not send him away, and he was punished horribly by Senator Dentatus, giving him his scarred appearance. He has sought Dentatus for revenge for a long time. Quintus Helvius paid a Bythinian witch to enchant himself to always remember his dishonored brother-in-arms, and he holds in his power a small rod, which contains the spirit of an angy spirit, a Larvae, which manifests as a black dog with glowing eyes. He has used this supernatural connection to keep tabs on the priest, and the larvae, when seeing that Dentatus was dangerously close to fouling up the exile, returned gleelfully to Helvius with the news.
(Helvius will attempt to interfere in the events to his satisfaction, but will, in the end, when least expected, intervene to help, realizing that even after all these years he cannot dispatch his old friend.)
If, in the end, the PCs keep Dentatus alive and prevent his dweomer from being broken, he will be grateful. Dentatus will offer each a blessing of Apollo, and small blessed amulets. Luvia, if present, may offer some denarii if she was given any servitude by the PCs. However, if the PCs fail to save Dentatus, they will be targeted by Raggadacco next, who does not want them to despoil his reputation, and possibly the Faceless Ones as well if they somehow have acquired the Stygian Rod of Forgetfulness. If the dweomer is lifted from Dentatus, then all the parties involved who have sought him, or been duped by the magic into forgetting his affair with Luvia, will suddenly remember, and those who aid or ally with him, like the PCs, will be wanted for Dentatus’ crimes, too. A new scandal amongst the Elder Senator Dentatus and the govenor of Pompeii might come to pass with the revelation of Dentatus’ and Luvia’s indiscretions.

Characters Invloved:

Dentatus (Priest of Apollo Level 5; Lawful Neutral)
A dedicated priest of Apollo, but with a sordid past. He and his actions are the foil for this scenario.
Personality: a distant, soft-speaking man who grows increasingly nervous and stressed.

Luvia (Aristocrat 4; Lawful Neutral)
The indiscreet former lover of Dentatus, and the bearer of the illigitimate child who will inherit the governor’s estates, but is in fact also the oldest rightful heir to the Dentatus properties.
Personality: a busy woman, angy at her life but very involved, as well. Eager to put things right.

Raggadacco (Sorceror 6; Chaotic Neutral)
A foul Iberian sorcerer who is said to have been whispered the secrets of magic by wolves in the Pyrenees wit whom he ran for many years, before returning to civilization. He is too old for most to figure out his true age.
Personality: An angry spitter, if you know what I mean, and a strong-willed belligerent sort who is unused to being questioned. He has a preternatural fear of holy places, and fears the wrath of the gods.

Quintus Helvius (Fighter 7; Lawful Neutral)
A famous Equestrian who served in many previous campaigns, but a bitter man as well. He is friends with a Bythynian witch who nursed him bac to health during a slave revolt several years ago, who gifted him with some enchantments.
Personality: a quiet, driven man, who radiates anger. He is unstoppable if opposed, a killing machine.
The Larvae: The Larvae is an evil spirit, locked in a natural form of pure evil, whihc an polymorph in to a dog-like form as well. I would suggest that you use a demon or devil from the MM appropriate to you group’s power level. If this is a lower-evel scenario, then You could always overlap a Fiendish Beast template on a Dog, and add shepshifting to it’s repertoire.

The Stygian Rod of Forgetfulness:
This stylized, seemingly Egyptian rod has been enchanted with a powerful dweomer, in which the subject touched on the forehead by the rod can declare in a sentence that which he wishes the world to forget. Only those directly invloved: the one making the decaration, the one most affected, and the one holding the rod, will remember; to the rest of mankind, common knowledge fo the affair is lost, and any written or verbal evidence to bring up the subject of the matter is provoked in to immediate disinterest. Any character affected by the effects of the Rod (such as the PCs will be in this adventure each time some information is revealed to them) must make a Will Save at DC 16 to retain the knowledge in question, when they want to recall it later on.
The rod is unique, an artifact from a forgotten age of Egypt, and said to have been crafted by the Faceless Ones, aCult or cabal of sorcerers who claim to have worshipped the Spirits of the Sands for many millenia. These sorcerer’s are known to call upon Djinni for aid, so their claim may well be true. The Rod is said to contain one such Djinn, locked away forever in it’s tomb. a PC who has Spellcraft and the Tongues spell may attempt to read or decipher the encrypted heirglyphic symbols on the rod, and if he succeeds at casting the spell and making a DC 24 Spellcraft check, he will unlock the code of the written dweomer that allows the djinn to communicate. It speaks an ancient Semitic language, a form of Akkadian, and only magical means will allow further communication. The Djinn will likely try to encourage the PCs to return it to the forge, hidden deep in the Arabian deserts, not far off the trade outes to Sheba, where it can be freed in exchange for a fabulous treasure, gold, or some other cool stuff that will lure the PCs in to another story arc......!