Something Borrowed by Jarrah James

Something Borrowed
Introductory Text: Today is the day Robert the Fighter and Sarah the Sorceress are to be married. The sun is bright, the weather is perfect. The music is playing as the bride walks down the aisle. Slipp the Rogue is standing as best man, while John the cleric is officiating... *CRACKOOM* The dungeon is dark, and as usual, rather dank. It bears all the hallmarks of the partys nemesis, Dark Lord Anthrax Skullhelm. To confirm this, his voice magically booms out from the very stones. You have insulted me for the last time, weakling adventurers! This dungeon shall be your doom! The party look at one another as he trails off into his usual maniacal laughter. Cold feet and ornatelydecorated cakes will have to wait. Theres a dungeon to escape from, traps to best, monsters to slay. Hopefully all this can be done without ruining the brides dress. The Rules: This is, in essence, the D&D/d20 System, cleaving most closely to the 3.5 iteration thereof. If youve played that, youll be vaguely familiar with this. If you havent... The basic mechanic works like so: the person doing something rolls a d20, and adds either an ability score modifier, or a skill bonus, or a save modifier, or an attack bonus to it, as appropriate. You then compare this to the Difficulty Class (DC) of the task, or the Armour Class (AC) of the target. If the roll it equal or over, its a success. Otherwise its a failure. If its some kind of contest between two people, they both roll, and whoever gets the higher result wins. If the d20 comes up a 20 (before modifiers), its always a success, and an impressively awesome one at that. Attacks do maximum damage, other things manage something extra cool. Likewise, a roll of 1 (before modifiers) is extra bad. The action always fails, and in a particularly spectacular way. Damage and Hit Points (HP). HP represent a mixture of actual structural integrity, fatigue, luck and ability to keep ones cool when somebody is trying to jam a sword into your chest. Damage rolls are usually some kind of dice, plus something, and are subtracted from HP. When a player character is on 0 hp or less, theyre unconscious and slowly dying. They probably wont bleed out or anything, theyre the main characters after all, but they cant do anything. If they get to -10 hp, theyre properly dead. Un-named villains die at 0 hp. Named ones are incapacitated, at 0 hp, but can still monologue in a suitably pained voice until killed at -10 hp.

Right, so, that bit up there is the opening to the adventure. You should probably read it to your players. But its also here so you as GM can read it, and get a feel for my style, and whats gonna be happening. The adventure continues in a few pages, but until then... RULES AND WHATNOT! What youll need: A complete set of dice d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20. Multiples would be good, but not absolutely essential. A copy of this document. A copy of the character sheets for the players. Pencils. Suitably awesome players.

Something Borrowed by Jarrah James Hang on, That Attack Bonus Thing... On each character sheet, the characters have their weapons listed like so: Sword (+3, 1d8+2). The +3, or whatever it may be, before the comma, is the attack bonus, and is what you use on rolls to hit somebody with that weapon. If its got a slash and another number after it, then the character gets a second attack because hes that good. Slipp the rogue has the option of attacking once with one dagger, or using two daggers at the same time, albeit less accurately. Actions in Combat Characters can do one major thing each turn, generally, plus move around. Like cast a spell and run away, or charge in and attack , or whatever. Order of Actions Generally, whoever has the element of surprise should go first, then go around the table in whichever direction takes your fancy. Saves and Skills These are the things that will get rolled most, after attack rolls. There are three, and here is what they get used for... Fortitude Resisting anything where being big and tough would help you resist Running, Jumping, Climbing, moving heavy weights, that sort of thing Resisting or avoiding anything where being fast and nimble would help you resist Jumping, climbing, shimmying up ropes and along ledges. Resisting or avoiding anything where being iron-willed would help you resist Remembering useful information on a given subject, puzzling things out. Be flexibly with the interpretation of what skills can do. A total of 15 on a roll will get reasonably good results, a 25+ will get REALLY good results. Some stuff will give a bonus to saves, which means the bonus only applies when resisting horrible perils to the character, rather than when the character is actively trying to achieve something. Wait, I didnt see any social skills... Yeah, social interaction is the players job. Arbitrate as best you can. Be sensible. Or hilarious. Whichever you think suits. Spells and Magic (specific notes) Each spell can only be used once. If a spell is converted into healing or damage, then it is no longer available. Targets may get saves against spells, in which case use your best judgement as to what kind of save is needed. What follows are the descriptions of a select couple of spells the PCs have, as well as a few GM-only notes in italics. Arcane Sight: you can see magical auras. Where detect magic is vague, you can see specifically where magic effects are, and can take an educated guess as to what they do. This lasts for one fight or scene. This spell WILL allow somebody to see invisible creatures, or at least where they are as a blue outline. Augury: Aon will give a one-word answer to a question you ask him. Hes a God, so his opinion is probably worthwhile. Aon, the grumpy sky-father god, may or may not be terribly helpful. He does only have one word to answer. Charm Person: one humanoid being that fails a Will save is convinced youre its best friend for a day. If asked something, Charmed characters will have a hard time lying about it. Command: you yell a one-word order at your target (you can also point to make your intent clearer), and if 2

Athletics

Reflex

Acrobatics

Will

Academics

Something Borrowed by Jarrah James they fail a Will save, they must comply with it for one round. Smart targets can be inventive with their interpretation of such commands. Detect Thoughts: you can either check to see if anybody is thinking nearby (revealing sentient beings in your vicinity), or you can cast it on one particular target, whose thoughts you can read if they fail a Will save. Sarah the mage might want to use this spell on her fellows, in which case, yes, they probably should go to one side and tell her all their secrets. Fog Cloud: a largish area of your choosing is covered in fog. Its thick as pea soup (well, figuratively speaking. If it were literal, that would be delicious), and those inside will have a hard time hitting anybody. Essentially, this makes everybody inside invisible, although you still know where they are. Invisibility: one target is invisible until they attack or cast a spell. Or for a few hours, whichever comes first. If, and its a big if, somebody can guess roughly where an invisible guy is, theyll still miss him on any attack roll that is an odd number. Mending: you can fix a damaged item. So long as the wedding dress has at least one box of health left un-ticked, this spell can fix it. During the last adventure, Sarah and Robert had sex while separated from the group and sure they were going to die. When they got back to civilization, Slipp made a joke to Robert about Sarah being pregnant. Robert thought he was serious, and so decided that he would have to make an honest woman out of her. Slipp, seeing a chance to profit by stealing the expensive wedding ring and replacing it with a cheap fake, did not correct Robert. Sarah, thinking she can never have Jonathan, agrees to marry Robert, as hes nice (if a little thick). She doesnt know he thinks shes pregnant. Barbara and Hanna just like fighting, drinking and sex. Theyre not actually involved in this stupid love triangle, but they might become so... Lord Anthrax Skullhelm, being the partys oldest nemesis, and secretly Roberts father, is hugely upset that he hasnt been invited to the wedding. He deals with this like he deals with everything... deathtraps.

Last Random Thing: If somebody tries to throw something at something, they roll d20 + their attack bonus + their Dexterity modifier, against the targets armour class, or some difficulty of your choose. Its come up once or twice.

So, what the heck is going on with the characters? (most of this is secret, so dont tell the players) Jonathan loves Sarah, but is too shy to say anything, as he thinks shes never shown any interest in him. Sarah really likes Jonathan, but due to growing up in another country with different traditions, thinks all clerics are celibate, so shes tried to ignore her feelings for him.

Also, Really, feel free to make stuff up. Be silly. Have fun.

Something Borrowed by Jarrah James THE ACTUAL ADVENTURE (Yay!) There are some old skeletons, and a few rusted bits of weapons and armour around. A single tunnel exits, sloping downwards slightly. The only decent bit of gear the skeletons had was the shield that Robert has. If somebody really wants to thoroughly search for loot, theres 7 silver coins scattered around. What a hoard... See if anybody has anything to say in character. They probably dont, but you never know. Then ask them what marching order theyll be taking down the tunnel. It doesnt matter now, but it will later, so at least pretend to take it seriously. As they move on, so you shall you, to...

Room 1: Entry
First, read: Today is the day Robert the Fighter and Sarah the Sorceress are to be married. The sun is bright, the weather is perfect. The music is playing as the bride walks down the aisle. Slipp the Rogue is standing as best man, while John the cleric is officiating... *CRACKOOM* The dungeon is dark, and as usual, rather dank. It bears all the hallmarks of the partys nemesis, Dark Lord Anthrax Skullhelm. To confirm this, his voice magically booms out from the very stones. You have insulted me for the last time, weakling adventurers! This dungeon shall be your doom! The party look at one another as he trails off into his usual maniacal laughter. Cold feet and ornatelydecorated cakes will have to wait. Theres a dungeon to escape from, traps to best, monsters to slay. Hopefully all this can be done without ruining the brides dress.

Room 2: Hall of the Crystal Statues

Read: After travelling through various tunnels too nondescript to even warrant a travel montage, you come to a new chamber. In this room are [number of players] statues carved in intricate detail out of some kind of crystal... and they appear to be representations of your own party, right down to the equipment that you usually use. Beyond them is another tunnel, blocked by a door made from a similar crystalline substance. Anthraxs voice booms out again Now adventurers! Prepare to face your suitably ironic doom! Do you know enough about yourselves to best my diamond statues?! The statues move to attack, but theyre not overly bright. They try to engage as many people as possible, and generally go for the last person to attack them. As each statue gets destroyed, the door cracks further, until it shatters along with the last statue. Crystal Statue AC: 14 Attack: Fist slam or crystal weapon (+2, 1d6+1) HP: 31 Strength 12/+1, Dexterity 8/-1, Mind 0/-5 Fortitude +0, Reflex +0, Will -5 Special notes: (see overleaf) 4

Now put the character sheets out. If you have only three players, put out Robert, Jonathan, and Sarah. With four players, add Slipp. With Five players, add Barbara (or Hanna). With six players, all the characters are available. Dont let them read past the first page of the sheets until theyve each settled on a character! Of course, once they all have their sheets, give them a little while to read all the background stuff on their sheets. When thats done, read: The Room you find yourselves in is, as previously mentioned, dark and dank. Not entirely unlit, mind you. Anthrax loves to populate his lairs with torches. Probably wants to show off how dungeon-y it all is.

Something Borrowed by Jarrah James Mindless the statues have no mind, so things that influence their minds wont work on them, despite their terrible Will saves Protection Spell the statues ignore the first 15 points of damage from every attack, except those explicitly targeted at their weak spot. A Dispel Magic spell targeted on one statue that gets a result of 20 or better (d20+level) will remove the protection spell from that statue. While the spell applies attacks will almost bounce off the statues, leaving only the slightest scratches be sure you tell the PCs that. Weak spot each statue has one or more weak points. Any attack that specifically targets that weak spot will deal double damage and bypass the protection spell, cracking the statues quite noticeably. The weak spots have been selected by Anthrax based on his spying on the party, and so are actually kind of indicative of their personalities and issues. Dont tell the PCs this though. Let them work it out for themselves. Robert his head (hes not overly bright) Sarah her feet (shes got cold feet) and her heart (shes still keen on Jonathan) Slipp his fingers (sticky fingers), and his pockets (greedy bugger). Jonathan his heart (keen on Sarah), and his back (hes got no courage, no backbone) Barbara and Hanna Groin (do you really need an explanation for this one?) on it or something. On the far side of the chamber is another matching ledge, with another matching tunnel. Anthrax, of course, chimes in. You may have bested my new statues, but how will you fare against a classic, hmmm?! Lickspittle! Bring me some popcorn! Put out the map for the characters (its at the back). They can use all sorts of interesting tactics to get across the room. Slipp has 50 feet of rope. Sarahs levitate spell would allow somebody to float, so they could be pulled along behind a character, or go up to the ceiling and push themselves along to the other side. She might also need her Feather Fall spell to slow people down if they fall, so they can be rescued. Failing that... better hope shes still got Protection from Elements, because that Lava does 60 points of damage every round a character is submerged in it (brief contact will only deal 3d6 damage). Jumping... now, we dont really want anybody falling to their doom. Which is why, when somebody jumps, ask for an Acrobatics or Athletics check (whichever the character is better at), and then based on their roll, offer them the appropriate options in regards to distance cleared by the jump and damage taken on landing. The damage takes the form of a hard landing, or the character nearly falling, and freaking out. Roll 14Options 10ft and 1d6 damage OR 15ft and 2d6 damage 15-24 10ft OR 15ft. and 1d6 damage. 25+ 25ft and 1d6 damage OR 15ft. When somebody reaches either the middle pillar, or finishes looting the chest (see below), the invisible stalker attacks. It will switch what character it attacks each round, unless forced to continue attacking one person. It will occasionally spend an entire round flying around. Characters can prepare actions to execute them when the Stalker attacks, if they like.

When theyve defeated the statues, see if anybody has any more actions to take. People might ask if the shattered crystal is valuable an Academics check with a DC of 15 will reveal that theyre not really valuable except for making cheap jewellery. When theyre ready to move on, ask for the marching order again. Still not important, but pretend it is.

Room 3: Lava and Other Fun Things

Read: You step out onto a large ledge. In the chamber beyond a series of natural stone pillars rise out of a huge pool of lava far below. This probably shouldnt surprise you. Anthrax loves lava. Considering how much he uses in his lairs, he must get a bulk discount

Something Borrowed by Jarrah James Invisible Stalker AC: 17 Attack: Invisible fist slam (+10, 1d8+[number of PCs) HP: 52 Strength 18/+4, Dexterity 18/+4, Mind 10/+0 Fortitude +6, Reflex +10, Will +4 Special notes: Flying the stalker can fly around very fast, and could easily carry even one of the half-orcs. Two of them, on the other hand... probably not. Naturally Invisible the stalker is, well, obviously, invisible. Attackers will have to make a guess as to where it is (generally pretty easy if its just attacked somebody), and even then they might mis-calculate and miss any odd-numbered attack roll will miss, even if its high enough to hit. Unlike the invisibility spell, this effect doesnt wear off. Notes on Spells: Arcane Sight will let Sarah see the stalker (it looks like a constantly-agitated storm cloud with fists and an attitude problem), and she can tell everybody where it is. Detect Thoughts wont let her see it, but it will let her know where it is. Searing Light can target it even if Jonathan doesnt know where it is. Anthraxs laugh echos from the stones. Its a (pit) trap! It will separate out a few people as the DM sees fit, generally two of them. Get those stuck in the pit to go hang out somewhere else and talk amongst themselves, in character. They also take 2d6 fall damage. If the bones at the bottom of the pit are searched, theyll turn up a healing potion like the one in the chest in the previous room, and some gold fillings in the skulls (if the rogue is that desperate).

Room 5: Boss Fight

You enter a large, vaulted chamber decorated with tapestries, at the other end of which is Anthrax Skullhelm, on his throne of bones. On one side of him is his side-table of bones, on which sits his scrying crystal, and on the other side is his chief minion, Lickspittle, who is holding the popcorn. Aha! Foolish heroes! You may have bested my fiendish traps, but how will you fair against my fiendish dire wolv.... erines! Anthrax summons 1 + [half the partys number] of wolverines. See below for further stats. Hell cackle and gloat and rage and generally be a large ham throughout the combat. His stats are on the next page. Lickspittle vanishes in the shadows. He never gets involved in fights. In case youre wondering, a Wolverine looks like a rather large, badass Badger. These ones have horns as well. Fiendish Wolverines: AC: 14 Attack: two claws (+4/+4, 1d4+2) and a bite -1 (1d6+1) HP: 28 Strength 14/+2, Dexterity 15/+2, Mind 12/+1 Fortitude +7, Reflex +5, Will +2 Energy Resistance: the wolverines take 5 points less damage from each energy-based attack, such as Arcane Fury.

The chest contains approximately five hundred gold coins and two potions one of invisibility (like Sarahs spell), and one of healing (heals the drinker for 2d8+3 points). Theyre helpfully labelled. Isnt that nice? At some suitable point, please read Anthraxs voice booms out once more Haha! What could be more classic than a Halfling fighting an invisible monster in a room full of lava! Wait for the players to stop groaning, then continue the fight. When they finally defeat the stalker (it vanishes with a howl), and get to the other side, ask for marching order again. This time, its important.

Room Tunnel 4: Pit Trap

You continue down more nondescript passages... until the nondescript floor nondescriptly swallows up half the party.

Something Borrowed by Jarrah James

Anthrax Skullhelm:
AC: 15 Attack: Evil-looking staff (+8, 1d6+3) HP: 65 (ish. You might wish to pad this a little if the heroes seem in danger of defeating him before he can actually do anything cool) Strength 16/+3, Dexterity 14/+2, Mind 16/+3 Fortitude +6, Reflex +5, Will +10 Spells: Transmute Rock to Mud: an area becomes mud. Takes ages to travel out of or through. A reflex save (DC 18) might get a character out of the area before it de-solidifies. Quickened Reduce: Cast as a free action (i.e. in addition to whatever else he does on his turn) One target must make a save (Will, DC 16) or be reduced in stature (-4 weapon damage, +2 AC, -4 on grapple checks). Deep Slumber: two PCs must save (Will, DC 18) or fall asleep. A successful save still makes them drowsy (-2 on rolls for 1 turn). Any harm, even shaking, will wake slumbering characters. Evards Black Tentacles: Area filled with tentacles. They grapple (Athletics +10), and deal 1d6+4 damage if they get to squeeze. Arcane Fury 6d6+6, DC 17. Anthrax can Fury up to three times IN ADDITION to the spells listed above.

Yes, he just let slip hes Roberts long-lost father. Hes known about this for ages, but didnt want to get in the way of Roberts career. Well, any more in the way than he already was as an evil sorcerer. Anthrax is quite happy to let everybody go and teleport them back to the ceremony, so long as he gets to come along, and make a speech at the reception. Assuming theres still going to be a wedding, that is. If the characters are persuasive, they could even get him to cut out most of his stupid world domination plans. Of course, if it seems appropriate, hell also offer Robert the chance to join him Have you ever considered a career as an anti-paladin? Just wing it. If they want to kill him, they can. If Robert, or Slipp or similar want to join him, they can. Once people leave this room, one way or another, the adventure is over. Ask everybody what their characters will be doing in future (settling down and having a family, continuing adventuring, hunting their hated ex-party-members, etc), then wrap it up.

I fully expect to hear awesome stories afterwards.

When Anxthrax is defeated, like all badguys, he gets to monologue for a bit, regardless of how many negative HP hes on. Damn you all! I mean, you foil all my traps and worst of all... *sniff* you didnt even invite me to your wedding *sob*. Im your oldest nemesis! Dont I deserve an invite? I was there for all your greatest adventures! And who holds a wedding and doesnt invite their fath... er. Um.

Something Borrowed by Jarrah James