Three Patrons at the Vagrant's Tears Well
Located on the border between the Goat's Teeth Hills and the Thousand Diamond Desert, Vagrant's Tears is twelve scattered white stone buildings connected by a patchwork quilt of bright linen tents. At the centre of it all is the well, housed under a pillared dome painted with the constellations, where caravaners, food vendors and hopeful adventurers converge.
Avabor Dengwitt
A dignified older woman with curly grey hair and turquoise beaded earrings barely hidden by her silver silk headscarf. She gingerly holds a barbecued octopus on a stick and occasionally considers biting it, then decides not to.
Her husband Gerybrine is a wealthy bookseller. She believes he has been unfaithful to her. He has begun leaving their home on sporadic evenings, claiming that he is following a lead on a vague business venture, not returning until the early morning. The most recent time, she followed him to the edge of the village where he met a woman in red robes with two black horses, and they rode off into the desert. She doesn't want to confront him unless she is sure of his indiscretion. She will pay 500sp for someone to follow her husband and tell her where he goes at night.
Five miles from Vagrant's Tears is an ancient marble quarry, carved three tiers deep and half-flooded with drifting sand. At the bottom, a paddock of 20 horses and a handful of black tents surround the entrance to a tunnel. A small guard of 8 chaotic acolytes stands at ready, clad in blackened chainmail and red capes, armed with curved blades. Another 12 acolytes are in repose, tending to the camp or the horses and can arm themselves within a round. They will all fight to the death to keep intruders out of the tunnel.
The tunnel starts out as a square cut passage, 5' wide, but after about 50' shortens and narrows to a 3' crawl. It follows an aberrant vein of red stone that glows faintly in complete darkness, eventually opening into a 30' wide chamber dominated by a crystal of smoky red glass that pulses with red light and gives off a sickening heat. A toothy, scaled face can occasionally be seen in shadows shifting on the walls. This chamber is where Gerybrine Dengwitt and the mystery woman, Dark Vicar Senebri the Twice-Buried spend their midnight rendezvous, pouring through antique grimoires trying to recreate a ritual to free Zufal Tra'bek demon of pestilence and rot from his prison.
Gerybrine thinks they will use the threat of the demon to extort the nearby aristocracy, but Senebri has no intention of leaving her master imprisoned, and every intention of slaying Gerybrine as soon as his usefulness runs out.
Opal-Eye Faradon
A portly man with a thick, food-flecked beard and lip-concealing moustache clad in fur-lined rusty plate armour that has been patched so many times it resembles a quilt. He guzzles sugary agave water and mops his brow, but doesn't seem to recognize the unsuitability of his attire to the climate. He is loudly bragging to a pair of progressively disenchanted doxies of his intent to put together a crew to retrieve a lost caravan's bounty, a shipment of weapons meant for the Lord of the walled city of Haladion on the Mountain. Faradon doesn't have a map of the caravan's route, but he says that he has seen one, memorizing and then burning it so the only copy was in his mind. He offers an even split of the riches to anyone who would join him, but insists on the first pick of swords.
Thirty miles from Vagrant's Tears, four weatherbeaten tors protrude from the desert, like the fingers of a titanic hand, the first and tallest towering 80' from its base, and spanning 40' in diameter. Deep fissures in the brittle stone make it climbable, but anyone with a Dexterity less than 15 has a 2-in-6 chance of having a handhold or piton give out 1d6x10' up. Obvious lumps in the sand around the big tor hide coffin-sized bundles of the skin, hair and bones of both camels and humans. A larger sand drift against the shade side of the rocks hides saddle bags from a dozen camels, loaded with oiled canvas wraps of swords, axes and halberds, 100 of each, and of such quality as to be worth twice the common value.
Hidden in a hollow in the top of the tallest "finger" is a tangled nest of dry thorns -- home to a family of gryphons, three adults and five young. The oldest and largest has one eye put out in a jagged scar, and a thick mane in which are tangled several axes and a gleaming two-handed sword set with emeralds and etched with marching elephants. The blade, named Hundred Strong Force, has a +1 enchantment, +3 against a foe more than twice the wielder's height. She can speak Tradetongue, Fegdan and Ancient Boustrophedon, can detect evil and can read magic runes.
Faradon was hired by the lost caravan as a guide and escort. He led them past the gryphon nest in the hopes that he could steal Hundred Strong Force in the chaos, but he lost the blade in the melee and was forced to flee.
Ilor the Ever-Suffering
A gaunt brown-robed figure whose face is wrapped nearly completely in camel-coloured bandages. They sit on a mat with an empty alms bowl in a circle of isolation amidst the crowd -- even dogs and lizards seem to give them a wide berth. Ilor is resting here before leaving on a pilgrimage up Hell's Dagger Mountain. They would be happy for companionship, but can't offer any recompense or explanation, except that they are on a righteous quest to remove an evil from the world. Ilor carries a scroll of protection from insects, a ring of spell storing with a single fireball spell, and an amulet made of part a mandible of the death god Mel'rud but will not announce this.
While on the fifteen-mile trek up the mountain, the party has an additional 3-in-6 chance per day of encountering the following:
| 1d6 | Encounter | Description | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-3 | Swarm of Scarabs | 3 HD, AC as None, immune to weapon damage, Deals 1 damage to all creatures within 20' | ||
| 4-5 | 1d6 Chaotic Adepts of Mel'rud | 2 HD, AC as Chain, Damage as Sickle and Scimitar. Can each cast "Cause Light Wounds" once. | ||
| 6 | 1d3 Giant Rhinoceros Beetles | 3 HD, AC as Plate, Damage as Giant Beetle. Flying |
A crumbling lawful temple stands at the peak. A Chaotic Priest of Mel'rud and 6 Adepts, mounted on giant rhinoceros beetles, stand ready to prevent Ilor from entering the temple. The Priest bears a staff of command and wears a sapphire-set circlet worth 2000sp. Inside the temple is a deep well which goes all the way to hell, Ilor's objective is to throw the amulet down the well, but they won't share this unless they are nearly dead.
The amulet can be used once per week to summon a pestilence of 1d100 swarms of scarabs, 1d100 giant rhinoceros beetles and 1d100 zombies. None of these monsters will attack chaotic characters. Whoever carries the amulet suffers from grotesque lesions across their skin and cannot regain health.
If no one joins Ilor, they will attempt to undergo their quest alone. They will fail and the Priest of Mel'rud will take the amulet, arriving in Vagrant's Tears a week later to take over.