Fragments
I shall periodically include scenario fragments here, adventures which can be worked in to your own games, or used in the context of the Ancient Realms campaign. Feel free to contact me about any fragments you would like to add at camazotz@zworg.com!
I: The Crimes of Lucinius and the Plague of Drauga
An Ancient Realms Fragment
The Bythinian merchant Hestius owns property for storage of goods in Syria, just off the docks of the North Bay. He has a beautiful daughter who is admired by all for her geauty. The aristocratic Gaius Lucinius, son of the elder senator Lucinius, has been fascinated by her ever since being appointed to the task of Harbor Master and Tariff enforcer. He is a fairly rutheless sort who will let nothing get in his way, and he is obsessed with her.
To secure his Bythinian princess, Lucinius hires a troop of stalwart mercenaries, led by the mysterious Colatan, a servant (unknown to Lucinius) of the Drauga cult. He pays them to sail with a pirate galley, which, on the next trip in with her father, assaults their trade ship, and captures her, while killing her father.
The heroes are made witness to the attrocity so committed when the derelict ship is found off the coast, its crew slaughtered. The priest of Drauga called upon the power of the Nasu Druj, and raised the dead in to zombies, but the merchant’s Mane spirit wanders the ship, unwilling t rise back to life. The vessel is approached by a small cog which is driven back in terror and reports the mystery. The PCs are part of the group sent to investigate. In the midst of battling terrible shades of the dead (zombies and ghouls and shadows, oh my) the Mane spirit (ghost) of Hestius appears and commits to writing a message in faint blood. Any augurs in the group can understand what he is saying.....he will impart the location of his hidden fortune if his daughter is saved and he is avenged. His spirit is linked to the golden wreathe crown his daughter wore, left behind by accident, and he may be “taken with” in this manner.
Hestius’ ghost knows only of the Drauga priest and his apocalyptic coven, and still believes Lucinius a good friend, and so some investigation will reveal him to be a good source for help, since lucinius directs the naval efforts against piracy. When Lucinius is approached, he will provide a bounty of information about the location of the pirates they might be seeking, suggesting they sail south towards Egypt. When away, he hires the same group to follow the PCs and dispatch them, but not before the Drauga priest calls upon the powers of weather to bring down a tumultuous storm upon them, to try and dash their ship against the rocks.
When the actual battle occurs, the priest will summon a number of Lemures and other demonic spirits of his dark god to battle with him, all lesser entities, along with his pirates. The PCs will have shipwrecked on a little coastal island in the storm. The PCs find an old Phoenician city, long abandoned, on the island, and dwelling within is an old witch-augur named Augustia, who promises to help them survive if they will do her a favor. She wants them to deliver a message to a distant king in the north, in the city of Tanais, who exiled her to this isle decades ago. If they do agree, she will help them magically (with stoneskins and invisibility and weapon enchantments), as well as reveal Lucinius to be the betrayer!
The heroes, if they defeat their enemies and escape, will make passage on a passing merchant ship and return to Tyre, where they confront Lucinius in his own mansion and defeat him and his guards, whereapon they must state their reasons for assault to the governor. The princess, once revealed (they must save her for Lucinius will try to kill her first) will substantiate their story, as will the ghost of her father. At last, all things are happy, and the ghost will show them where, on his lands in a small county estate off the Bythinian coast near Amastrys, is a fortune of gold and exotic valuables.....
