d20 Necromancer Games The Doom of Listonshire.pdf

by Ari Marmell

A d20 adventure for 4 or more characters 5th level or higher

NECROMANCER GAMES ™

THIRD EDITION RULES, FIRST EDITION FEEL

www.necromancergames.com

Credits

Design/Author:

Ari Marmell

Interior Art:

Patrick McEvoy

Wr it i n g :

Ari Marmell

Front Cover Art:

Rick Sardinha

Developer:

Bill Webb

Cartography:

Ed Bourelle

Producer:

Clark Peterson

Playtesters:

Necromancer Games staff

Editor:

Anthony Pryor

Special Thanks:

To Gary Brandon, for lending me his eyes, and to

Ryan Hall, for lending me his name. Profuse thanks

to Anthony Pryor, for going above and beyond to

help me acquire the material I needed for this project.

And particular thanks to Stephen Bourne. When I

was a child, it was his First Edition module, Destiny of

Kings , that opened my eyes to the possibility that not

all modules had to be straightforward dungeon crawls,

that a story based around a variety of locations was a

viable one. Without Destiny of Kings , there would be

no Doom of Listonshire .

D20 Content Editing:

Scott Greene

Art Direction and Design:

Bill Webb

Layout and Typesetting:

Steve Johansson

Product Update Password for The Doom of Listonshire: Roderick

This product requires the use of the

Dungeons and Dragons® Player’s Handbook,

published by Wizards of the Coast®.

This product utilizes updated material from the v.3.5 revision.

In Association with

publisher is expressly forbidden. Necromancer Games, Necromancer Games, Inc., the Necromancer Games

names, places, items, art and text herein are copyrighted by Necromancer Games, Inc. D20 System and the

D20 System logo are trademarks owned by Wizards of the Coast and are used under the terms of the D20

Trademark License contained in the Legal Appendix. The mention of or reference to any company or product

in these pages is not a challenge to the trademark or copyright concerned. Dungeons and Dragons and Wizards

of the Coast are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, and are used in accordance with the Open Game and D20

Trademark Licenses contained in the Legal Appendix. Creature Collection and Relics and Rituals are

trademarks of Sword and Sorcery Studio. The Kenzer and Company logo is a trademark of Kenzer and Company.

NECROMANCER

GAMES

THIRD EDITION RULES,

FIRST EDITION FEEL

This book uses the supernatural for settings, characters and themes. All mystical and supernatural elements are

fiction and intended for entertainment purposes only. Reader discretion is advised.

Check out Necromancer Games online at http://www.necromancergames.com

Check out Kenzer and Company online at http://www.kenzerco.com

Distributed for Necromancer Games by Kenzer and Company.

Ta b le of Contents

Introduction

Chapter I: Castle Liston and the Liston Estate

Chapter II: Liston Estate Guard Post

Chapter III: Lake Obar

Chapter IV: Lake Peradus

Chapter V: The Village of Brond

Chapter VI: The Bridge at Turin’s Crossing

Chapter VII: The Old Well

Chapter VIII: The Road’s End Inn and Tavern

Chapter IX: The Ruins of Old Liston Keep

Chapter X: The Abandoned Village

Chapter XI: The Greentail Wood

Chapter XII: The Ogres’ Cave

Chapter XIII: The Conclusion

Epilogue: A Parting Gift from the Archfiend

Appendix A: Listonshire Random Encounters

Appendix B: NPCs and Monsters of Listonshire

Appendix C: Magic Items of Listonshire

Introduction

The Doom of Listonshire is a multiple-site-based

adventure for parties of 4 or more characters, of 5th

level or higher. Ideal parties should begin with a total

of 20 to 26 levels and be balanced with respect to

magic and combat. Much of the adventure takes place

outdoors, so wilderness-oriented characters such as

rangers and druids should prove useful. A cleric is par-

ticularly important to the events of this story,

although parties without one can still succeed in

accomplishing their objectives. Evil-aligned charac-

ters are not appropriate to this tale.

This adventure draws substantially on the creatures

from Necromancer Games’ Tome of Horrors . Use of

this book is invaluable and should add substantial

enjoyment to the game, but complete monster stats

are provided for those who do not have it. See

Appendix B: NPCs and Monsters of Listonshire for

these entries. The monster stats given in this module

may not match those in the Tome of Horrors precisely,

as they have been updated to revised 3.5 edition rules.

The Duchy of Listonshire, in which the adventure

takes place, stands at the edge of civilization, where

much of the terrain is still wooded and untamed, and

foul creatures lurk out of sight, just beyond the range

of the guardsmen’s crossbows. The province, and the

wilderness surrounding it, can be placed just about

anywhere in your own campaign, so long as its posi-

tion at the very edge of the wilds is maintained. The

deity Archeillus is left deliberately vague, so that you

may either fit him into your pantheon or easily

replace him with a deity of your own choosing. Place

names, descriptions and cultural eccentricities can be

altered to fit your own setting as needed.

always been a good place to live, generous to those

who are willing to work for their own betterment, and

the betterment of all.

At least, it was. A little over a decade ago, all that

changed.

The most recent Duke of Listonshire, a man by the

name of Roderick, was a popular man among his peo-

ple. Wise, kind and just, few who dwelt within his

province had reason to complain. As with all just

men, however, Duke Roderick made his share of ene-

mies, men and women who have more interest in

enriching themselves than in seeing justice done. One

of them — not even the wisest wizards or most devout

clerics the duke has hired over the years has been able

to determine who — took his revenge in a most hor-

rible manner.

Twelve years ago, Roderick was made the subject of

a powerful, hideous curse. No minor malady this, but

a blight of the worst order. It began small, with a turn

of bad luck for the duke and his immediate family, but

it did not stop there. In time, the entire duchy began

to suffer. For years, the crops have not fared well;

grains are sickly, and often refuse to grow at all. The

mines of the Edriss Mountains seem to have given up

all they intend, and no prospector has found more

than the smallest vein of substandard iron in many a

year. Accidents and illnesses have swept the duchy as

never before in its history, and the people’s prosperity

has eroded away beneath a wave of misfortune and

unforeseen expenses. Worse still, the monsters that

were formerly content to remain beyond the borders

of Listonshire, leaving the human population largely

alone, have migrated inward, drawn by the malevo-

lent power of the curse. Once-safe roads are now beset

by humanoid bandits, and more than one of

Listonshire’s towns has suffered the violent raids of

rampaging humanoids. The forests are no longer safe

for those who would harvest the trees for timber, as

creatures far deadlier than the occasional hungry wolf

have appeared therein.

To day, Listonshire is a shadow of its former self.

Vast portions of the people have moved to other

domains, at times leaving entire abandoned villages

behind. Those who remain live in fear and growing

poverty, and as popular as the duke is, a creeping

resentment spreads through his citizens, who have

begun to see him less as the victim of this curse and

more as its cause. Most of the soldiers who would nor-

mally be patrolling the roadways and doing their best

to make the duchy safe once more have instead been

recalled to the estates of their various lords and barons

— the knights and other landowners who are vassals

to Duke Roderick — to defend the homes and lands

of the nobility.

Adventure Background

For generations, the Duchy of Listonshire has func-

tioned, for all practical purposes, as an independent

province, a kingdom in miniature. Sitting as it does so

far from the heart of civilization, perched at the very

edge of man’s domain, few kings have ever felt it

worth their attention. The duke pays his yearly taxes

to his liege lord, and is otherwise left to rule as he will.

It has, for the most part, proven a most equitable

arrangement. Listonshire has always been quite pros-

perous for its size. Its crops are healthy and abundant,

providing more than enough to feed the people who

live here with a surplus left every year for sale to other,

less fortunate territories. The Edriss Mountains in the

southwest have always provided adequate veins of

ores and repositories of gems to keep mining a worth-

while (if not fabulously enriching) proposition, and

the duchy’s many forests provide substantial timber

for use locally and sale elsewhere. Yes, Listonshire,

despite the dangers of the surrounding wilderness, has

INTRODUCTION

Several weeks ago, the curse finally came to a head.

The wife of Connor, Baron of the neighboring

province of Durneth and one of Roderick’s most loyal

vassals, gave birth to a child. Duke Roderick and his

entire family, traveling from their own estate to

Durneth for the infant girl’s naming ceremony, were

set upon by a band of ogres and slaughtered, leaving

the duchy without an heir. Kendrick, Baron of the

province of Shrievmar, far and away the most power-

ful noble of Listonshire beyond the duke’s immediate

family, has stepped in. He intends to serve as regent,

to keep the duchy running until he can legally be pro-

claimed the new Duke of Listonshire after a suitable

period of mourning. He, his family, his retainers and

his soldiers have moved from the Shrievmar estate

into Castle Liston, and his own personal priest is han-

dling the funerary affairs for Roderick and his family.

For now, the bodies of the duke’s family lie in state in

the courtyard of Castle Liston — in closed caskets, as

the ogres did a handy job of mangling the bodies —

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