Scales of War - [Lvl 9] - The Temple Between.pdf - Scales of War - Kitraida

“Our eyes are open,

our ﬁ sts are closed.

Our walls are stone,

our shields are steel.

Our faces are many,

our soul is dwarf.

And thus is there no

foe against whom

Overlook cannot

stand.”

It is an ancient Overlook

proverb—some would

even call it a prayer—

and it’s about to be put

to the ultimate test.

by Ari Marmell

illustrations by Michael Komarck,

Rob Alexander and William O'Connor

✦

cartography by Mike Schley

Temple Between

An adventure for 9th-level characters

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The Temple Between

The western end of Elsir Vale has been greatly

troubled in recent days. The threat of the orc hordes

from beyond the Stonehome Mountains, though

turned back at Bordrin’s Watch, still lingers in the

people’s minds. Peculiar and hostile creatures of

shadow lurk in the caverns and caves below. Political

squabbling grows among the city’s powerful dwarf

clans.

All this makes the city particularly vulnerable

to an enemy nobody saw coming—that nobody even

imagined. This enemy has goals and objectives far

beyond the ultimately unimportant Elsir Vale, but the

first step is the utter subjugation of Overlook.

An enemy who, at least in part, is already here.

“The Temple Between” is an adventure for 9th-

level characters, and it is challenging enough to take

them to 11th level by the time all is said and done.

Although intended as the final chapter of the heroic

tier portion of the Scales of War Adventure Path, it

can be run as a standalone adventure, or as an adven-

ture in a campaign of your own making, with a small

degree of modification. It contains elements of urban

investigation, dungeon delving, and even wartime

conf lict, making it a suitable adventure to players of

many tastes and preferences.

other worlds. In the course of the Adventure Path,

the PCs have already discovered one, traveling to the

Shadowfell through the caverns beneath the Happy

Beggar poorhouse. What they do not yet know—

though they might discover it soon enough—is that a

gateway to the Astral Sea waits in a great cathedral

beneath the Stonehome Mountains, and a doorway to

the Feywild lies hidden where the Elsir River f lows

from the mountains. (The region might well also con-

tain a portal to the Elemental Chaos, but if so, it does

not inf luence this adventure.)

No, the humans and elves and dwarves of Elsir

Vale know nothing about this, but not everyone is so

ignorant. A few sages know. A few priests know.

And the githyanki know.

Indeed, at the behest of their leaders in the

astral city of Tu’narath, they have caused much of

Elsir’s worries of late. They arranged the theft of the

platinum sword from Brindol, and they employed

the shadar-kai, not only as weapons suppliers but

to encourage the orcs of the west to rise. For the

githyanki want Elsir Vale, badly, and particularly the

planar portals it contains. Using it as a beachhead,

they could easily launch an incursion, not merely

into the mortal realm, but other worlds besides. And

there is no reality, no plane of existence, on which the

githyanki do not have some design or other.

The semi-disgraced General Zithiruun is in charge

of this operation, or at least commands the forces

seeking to carry it out. Forced to make use of mer-

cenaries and lesser soldiers, to keep the githyanki

involvement secret, he has carefully set up his pawns,

maneuvering and manipulating, and now the time

draws near to take Overlook by force.

Unknown to Zithiruun, and even to his com-

manding officers, they themselves are merely pawns

WHAT IS AN

ADVENTURE PATH?

Scales of War is the fourth Adventure Path to

appear in the pages of Dungeon ® Magazine . But

what, you ask, is an Adventure Path? Quite simply,

it is a series of related adventures intended to form

a complete D&D campaign that takes your players

from 1st level all the way to, in the case of Scales

of War, 30th level.

Previous Adventure Paths, presented with the

3rd Edition D&D® rules, took characters from 1st

to 20th level. But with all three tiers in the new edi-

tion ripe and ready to explore, we’re pushing the

limit with Scales of War. Each tier takes roughly six

adventures to traverse, which means we’ll finish off

this Adventure Path in about eighteen issues. Each

adventure advances characters from between one

and a half to two levels of experience. We recog-

nize that not everyone will meet every encounter

or complete every quest, however, so periodically,

we’ll point you to a supplemental Side Trek or short

adventure to keep your PCs on pace. Plus, roughly

every few months, Dragon ® will feature new sup-

port content for Scales of War.

Finally, this Adventure Path is intended to func-

tion as a complete D&D campaign. That means

we’ll be making assumptions about the history of

the world as we move along, just as you would in

any campaign you run. We’ll be borrowing heavily

from the D&D mythology of 4th Edition, as well as

all the great ideas that have cropped up in other

products over the years—including the pages of

past issues of Dungeon !

Enjoy your stay in Scales of War, and keep an

eye out for next month’s installment.

BACKGROUND

Few today are aware of it, but the western regions

of Elsir Vale have long been rich in planar magic.

Perhaps this is due to the fact that the giants, sol-

diers, and servants of the primordials once dwelt

nearby in large numbers, driving their dwarf slaves

to great works. Whatever the cause, the region is run

through with “cracks” in reality—portals that lead to

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The Temple Between

on a larger board; schemes far more devious than a

simple githyanki invasion are afoot. But this is a dis-

covery, and a challenge, for a future adventure. For

now, the PCs have more than enough on their plates

as it is.

Was it Moradin’s wrath? A curse brought upon

them by the giants they’d so long ago escaped? Or

simply a natural catastrophe without greater mean-

ing? None can say. Whatever the case, some centuries

ago, the mountain was struck by an earthquake.

Portions of the inner tunnels collapsed, damag-

ing several chambers of the Mountainroot Temple,

destroying others entirely. Panicked, the priests and

the faithful grabbed up their treasures and holy

icons—at least most of them—and f led using the sur-

viving magical portals.

Once they’d settled elsewhere, the bulk of

Moradin’s priests decided that this way was better.

By scattering from the temple, they would allow the

dwarves to build their own shrines, without feel-

ing constrained by the other races, and the jealousy

that marred the priesthood would fade. Although

they mourned the loss of the great cathedral, and

those few treasures they’d been unable to save, they

declared the quake to have been Moradin’s will and

left the temple abandoned. In time, most faithful,

even most priests save those most thoroughly learned

in their history, forgot it had ever been.

Most, but not all. After a few decades, a small

group of Moradin worshipers—mostly dwarves, but

with members of other races as well—returned to the

Mountainroot Temple. They cleaned it up as best they

could and vowed to maintain it until it should some

day become important once again. The most power-

ful of their number took on the title of Caretaker and

lived within the temple, in a small structure built

inside the larger reliquary. The Caretaker carefully

attuned himself to the temple’s surviving magic,

allowing him to control the constructs and divine

defenses and traps that protected the structure from

outside invasion.

Zithiruun’s Plan

And so it remained, until the githyanki learned of

the temple and decided controlling it would better

enable them to control Overlook, and by extension,

Elsir Vale.

Zithiruun’s plan is to take Overlook by simulta-

neously attacking from without and from within.

Already he has a force of mercenary soldiers hiding

in the wilds, ready to march on the city. Now, he’s

working to gain full control of the Mountainroot

Temple—and the Stone Anvil, its anchor in Overlook—

through which he can move a second force from the

Astral Sea into the city’s undefended heart.

To that end, Zithiruun has suborned a number

of Overlook’s priests and military officers. Most of

them, including several priests and Watch Captain

Aerun, were kidnapped and subject to a difficult

psychic ritual cast by incredibly powerful githyanki.

The result is that these poor people’s minds were

destroyed, and they have been possessed by several

githyanki, who are even capable of manifesting some

of their normal powers (albeit in weakened form).

Unfortunately, the possessing githyanki cannot

access anything more than the victim’s base personal-

ity; they have no access to specific memories. So High

Priest Durkik of the Stone Anvil has not been pos-

sessed. Rather, he is being held captive and tortured

for information, while a hired doppelganger takes his

place in public, holding the Stone Anvil in readiness

for Zithiruun’s forces.

All of which would have gone undetected, if not for

the alertness and curiosity of an old woman named

Haelyn . . .

The Mountainroot Temple

A subterranean structure built by the same order that

would later go on to construct the Monastery of the

Sundered Chain, the Mountainroot Temple stands

deep beneath the Stonehome Mountains. Built when

the dwarves were still celebrating their freedom

from the giants, it was not a dwarven structure, but a

temple built for anyone who wanted to pay tribute to

Moradin, of any race. It held great reliquaries of holy

icons, enormous cathedrals where hundreds could

worship at once, and even a doorway to the Astral

Plane whence angels and exarchs of Moradin would

appear to discourse with the god’s most favored

priests and champions. To facilitate a grand commu-

nity of Moradin worshipers, the Mountainroot Temple

had, in addition to its astral doors and its main

entryway into the mountains, four mystical door-

ways constructed. Each linked to another temple of

Moradin elsewhere in the world, so the faithful could

come and go with ease.

And for decades, even centuries, the temple

thrived. Slowly, however, relations between

Moradin’s faithful grew strained. Priests assigned

to other, “lesser” temples grew envious of those at

Mountainroot. Many of the dwarf faithful grew

haughty, considering themselves Moradin’s “true”

children, and sought to oust all others, or at least put

them in lesser places, denying them access to the

temple’s wonders.

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The Temple Between

THE QUESTS

“The Temple Between” offers PCs several oppor-

tunities to earn quest XP. Provided here is a list of

quests, and their rewards, in the adventure.

ADVENTURE SYNOPSIS

✦

The Caretaker of the temple is currently being

tortured, and the pain and madness inf licted upon

him have thrown the temple’s defenses into chaos.

This is why, among other things, nobody can leave.

The PCs have just completed an adventure of obvious

importance (the freeing of Amyria from her impris-

onment in the form of a platinum sword, if they’re

playing through the Adventure Path). It appears as

though nothing of consequence immediately follows—

at least until the next night, when the PCs, through

one of various means, receive hints that all is not well

back in Overlook.

Returning to their home away from home, the

heroes initially find nothing amiss. Slowly, however,

they discover—through the prodding of Lavinya,

priestess of Erathis, if not on their own—that several

of the city’s priests are acting peculiarly and, perhaps

more importantly, Haelyn, keeper of Erathis’s shrine,

has vanished. Following up on these minor discrepan-

cies, the PCs swiftly find hints leading to a conspiracy

worming its way into the city’s hierarchy. Several of

the conspiracy’s members are possessed (though the

PCs do not learn by whom), while others—including

High Priest Durkik Forgeheart of the Stone Anvil—

have been replaced by doppelganger mercenaries.

The PCs trace the conspirators back to their head-

quarters in a large warehouse, where they have the

opportunity to rescue the real Durkik.

The PCs then learn of the Mountainroot Temple

and find out that one of its mystical portals is located

in a hidden sepulcher beneath the Stone Anvil. Using

it, the PCs go to the abandoned ancient temple, where

they must confront both a cadre of fey and a band of

mercenaries employed by General Zithiruun. They

also find, unfortunately, that they cannot leave! Here,

assuming the PCs defeat their various foes, they make

the following discoveries:

✦

The fey are seeking an ancient tome of great

power. They were sent by Cachlain, the Stone-

Skinned King, a fomorian noble who—along with

his new advisor, Sovacles—will play an important

role in future installments of the Scales of War.

Minor Quest—Learn Haelyn’s Fate

As requested by the priest Lavinya, the PCs must

investigate the shrine of Erathis, and Grovald, its

new caretaker, to learn what happened to the

kindly old woman who once attended it.

Reward: 400 XP.

✦

The mercenaries serve someone called General

Zithiruun, who seeks the temple—and indeed, the

entire region!—for access to the various planar por-

tals. The conspiracy in Overlook was only the first

step, and the city will soon be facing a full-scale

military invasion!

Major Quest—Recover the Incunabulum Primeval

This ancient religious text, dating back to the dwarf

rebellion against the giants, exists somewhere

within the depths of the Mountainroot Temple.

Durkik wants it returned before their enemies

can get their hands on it. (It’s currently on the

hag Hethralga, in area M8 of the Mountainroot

Temple.)

Reward: 2,000 XP (and 3,600 gp—the equiva-

lent of three 9th-level treasure parcels—as promised

by the priests of Moradin).

Finally, once the Caretaker allows them to leave,

the PCs must return to the Council of Elders with a

warning of the forthcoming siege. Here, the PCs can

finally cement their place as heroes to this military

city, as their help proves instrumental in Overlook’s

survival—and as they finally come face to face with

General Zithiruun, and learn of the githyanki involve-

ment in all that has come before.

Major Quest—Prevent the Fall of Overlook

Once his scheme is prematurely cut short, General

Zithiruun decides to take the city with what forces

he already has available. Although Overlook is

hardly a population of weaklings, they do require

the PCs’ aid.

Reward: Up to 2,500 XP, depending on Victory

Point totals; see page 37 (and up to 7,000 gp—the

equivalent of four 10th-level treasure parcels—as

promised by the Council of Elders).

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The Temple Between

PREPARING FOR

ADVENTURE

figure out the right questions to ask the right people.

As such, it’s important that you, as DM, have at least a

reasonable level of familiarity with the events herein.

It’s best if you can read through the entire adventure

beforehand, but if you’re in a hurry, you should at

least review each specific section, and its related

encounters, before play. (The adventure is divided

into three chapters, making a piecemeal approach

feasible, if not the most recommended.)

For overcoming an encounter, a group earns the

XP value noted beside the encounter level. This

amount should be divided by the number of group

members, and an equal amount should be awarded to

each character.

ADVENTURE

“The Temple Between” allows the PCs a variety of

opportunities to shine, from investigation to explora-

tion, and from skill challenges to a variety of combat

situations. They face a diversity of foes and must

ADAPTING THE ADVENTURE

“The Temple Between” is designed with five play-

ers in mind. You can easily adapt the adventure for

larger groups easily by adding more treasure and

inserting a few extra monsters using the guidelines

presented in the Dungeon Master’s Guide . When

adapting the adventure for larger groups, keep

it simple. Where possible, just add one monster

whose level equals the encounter level for each

additional PC. Otherwise, look for appropriate

monsters from this adventure (see the Appendix, in

particular) and the Monster Manual to help stiffen

up the resistance.

This adventure is also designed for 9th-level

characters. As written, a slightly larger group of

8th-level characters can play through the adven-

ture, but be sure to give the characters plenty

of chances to take extended rests so that they

can have a fair shot at surviving the expedition.

For higher-level groups, adapting the adventure

takes a bit more work. You need to add monsters

and increase the treasure rewards to amounts

appropriate for the characters. In all, adjusting

the adventure is not too arduous, and with a little

work, you can run this scenario for groups of three

to eight players, and for characters of 8th through

13th level .

SKILL CHALLENGES AND

EXPERIENCE POINTS

This adventure makes use of a number of skill chal-

lenges—in particular, offering several opportunities

for the PCs to interrogate prisoners or survivors

of their various combats. It’s important for you,

as DM, to give XP only for those skill challenges

that are meaningful, without allowing unneces-

sary repetition.

Here’s what we mean, by way of example. In

the Shrine of Erathis, the PCs have the opportunity

to interrogate Grovald, as well as a number of his

soldiers, both human and doppelganger. Because

the PCs receive different information from Grovald

than from his soldiers, they can receive XP for both

skill challenges—one for Grovald, one for any of the

soldiers. Once they have successfully interrogated

a soldier, however, they should not receive XP for

interrogating any other soldiers at the same loca-

tion, because they all offer the same information.

Similarly, because all the fey in the Mountain Root

temple give the same information, and all the sol-

diers of the githyanki give the same information,

the PCs can gain XP for only two interrogations—

one fey, one other—in that area.

What You Need to Play

This adventure includes the encounters the PCs face

as they explore and adventure in the area. It also pro-

vides tactical maps and more for the adventure. If you

and your players haven’t read through the DUNGEONS

& DRAGONS 4th Edition rules yet, that is your first best

step so that you make certain you understand the

rules. Also as mentioned above, read through at least

the first of the adventure’s three “chapters” before

starting. This review enables you to become familiar

with the material and the style of presentation. You

might also want to take a look at the sections below

regarding the adventure format.

Using Tactical Encounters

Each encounter includes several common elements,

as described below.

Encounter Level

Each tactical encounter assumes a group of five player

characters. An encounter of average difficulty is one

where the encounter level is equal to the level of the

party. Encounters that are 1 or 2 levels lower than the

party are easy encounters, while encounters that are

2 or more levels higher than the party are difficult

encounters.

December 2008 | DUNGEON 161

PREPARING FOR

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