The Legend of Lipolis
November 16th, 2010
Hello everyone, and welcome to another exciting Grave Plots, where we seek to bring you new plot hooks and adventure ideas each and every week. This week I would like to share with you an idea for an adventure set in the aftermath of a high fantasy war that tore a region apart and shattered empires. In the following adventure, PCs will search the remains of the abandoned city of Lipolis on a quest to find answers in that ruined place. Unfortunately for the PCs, Lipolis isn’t as abandoned as everyone seems to think, and in addition to the challenges presented by their search they will find themselves confronted by a new and deadly enemy that operates in obscurity. Let’s have a look…
Lipolis -- The Abandoned City
Fifteen years ago the city-state of Lipolis embarked on a war of conquest, waged against the neighboring Arraber protectorate and the Miden republic. As these nations were unprepared for the surprise attack, Lipolis quickly began conquering territories with an army comprised mostly of golems, advanced warships, and strange towering siege devices of unknown design. To make matters worsefor their neighbors, Lipolis seemed to possess limitless resources and manufacturing capacity, and as the war raged on things looked bad for the Arraber-Miden alliance. It wasn’t until nearly ten years later, when the unstoppable armies of Lipolis were laying siege to the capital of Arraber, Arraber-Sarpolis, and all hope seemed lost, that a group of seven knights from the church of Tyar appeared in the court of King Alonso II. The king had been desperately praying for a miracle to save his people from Lipolian oppression, and, believing the knights to be the answer to his prayer, he asked if they would stand with his armies and help his people survive the siege. The knights agreed to aid the king, having heard tales of the Lipolin atrocities in their travels. By dawn the next day the siege was miraculously broken when the knights took up a valiant counter-offensive against the Lipolin line, driving home a charge that would kill several of the Lipolin war leaders, and dividing the Lipolin forces to allow the alliance armies to out-flank and ultimately defeat the besieging army.
Following the victory at Arraber-Sapolis, the seven knights rallied the remaining alliance fighters behind them for a crusade to retake their lost land and put an end to Lipolin oppression once and for all. Over the next two years of brutal fighting the alliance crusade retook most of their lost territories, but against the ever-renewing war machine of Lipolis, there could be little hope for a lasting victory. Shortly before the end of the war, a group of Lipolin defectors brought a critical piece of intelligence to the alliance army: the source of the Lipolin resources. As it would happen, shortly before the war began a pair of demons had approached the newly crowned queen of Lipolis, Vieber, and made her a deal: they would provide her with the means to conquer the world, if she would rule it in their names. Vieber agreed to the demons’ terms and they gifted her a magical altar which could call her a war machine from the depths of the very hells. The deserters then provided the location of the altar in a secret chamber in the queen’s palace, and the seven knights along with other alliance commanders began to formulate a plan in secret to defeat the Lipolins once and for all.
Armed with this new intelligence, the alliance forces sent a squadron of men under the command of the seven knights of Tyar to find and destroy the demonic altar. After they infiltrated the palace however, the demonic altar began to affect the group in ways they did not expect, corrupting their souls and turning them against one another, first soldier against knight and then knight against knight. Only the youngest knight, Richard, remained free of the altar’s foul influence, and with a heavy heart he left his brethren behind, hoping to destroy the altar and free his companions from the murderous madness that had befallen them. Richard reached to altar chamber in short order, only to find Queen Vieber standing in his path, flanked by the demons responsible for the war in the first place. The following battle was intense and would ultimately see Richard’s death, but with his last breath of life Richard hurled his blade at the altar, piercing the stone and destroying the magical core that gave the altar its magical powers.
When the core was pierced a mighty magic was released, encompassing Lipolis in an impenetrable dome of thick black smoke and cutting the city off from the outside world. Without the resources from Lipolis the war was over within a year, the Arraber-Miden alliance driving the Lipolins out of their lands and into the sea. Following the war, both Arraber and Miden were severely weakened and the alliance dissolved as both nations turned to their own needs.
Three years have passed since the dome first arose around the city of Lipolis, and the region is still undergoing a cumbersome and increasingly more futile recovery effort. This day is unlike any other day in the past three years, as, for the first time, the sun has risen to see the shadowed veil lifted from the city of Lipolis. Fearing what this meant, the governments of the Arraber protectorate and the Miden republic have marshaled their disparate armies to take up a defensive stance while preparing for the worst. After nearly a whole day of tense vigilance against a threat that never came, the governments of Arraber and Miden have jointly put out the call for the most capable heroes to investigate the apparently abandoned city, offering a great reward and a unique opportunity to examine the city of their defeated enemies without having to fight through their veteran security forces.
When the PCs answer the call, a man called Eli, the Director of Allied Affairs, gives the PCs a mission briefing. He explains that their objectives are three-fold: first, the PCs are to ascertain if there is any kind of threat left in Lipolis, gauge the threat and deal with it accordingly; second, they are to ascertain what happened in Lipolis since the day the allied commanders infiltrated the city; finally, they are to collect any artifacts of the old Lipolin power and return them to the Ministry of Allied Affairs for further study. At first the PCs’ investigation should go on more or less unimpeded. As they wander through the city they should find mounting evidence of repeated internal struggles and civil strife, likely the ultimate cause of the city’s undoing. A handful of Lipolin devices can be scavenged for parts, but, thankfully, nothing seems to be functioning. Of note are several strange temples that prewar records from Arraber and Miden do not indicate to have ever been in the city. These temples appear to have been devoted to the worship of a pair of demons. Despite the passing of years and apparent lack of people, at least one temple seems to be in use, with fires still going, and it is here that the PCs will first encounter a new threat.
The last surviving group of inhabitants in Lipolis is the Order of the Fallen Queen, a religious cult devoted to the worship of the demons that brought the long ago war and committed to spreading conflict throughout the world. Using their magical talents for remaining unseen and gifts for subtlety, the group turned one group against another within the city, until only they remained, waiting for their chance at escaping the darkened prison of the barrier dome. As soon as the dome lifted, a sizeable portion of their agents, including the two leaders (each possessed by one of the demons who consorted with the now long-dead queen of Lipolis), begin to spread chaos and terror in the world at large. Three groups of the order’s followers still exist in the city. One of these is based at the temple, and they attempt to assassinate the PCs, striking at them invisibly before trying to destroy them in a direct fight. Another group is located at the city’s grand library; this group merely observes the PCs, taking note of their abilities as they plunder that hold of dark knowledge, and engage in combat only if the PCs discover their secret stronghold under the library’s main chamber. The final group can be found in the palace, where they attempt to take advantage of symbols of persuasion, detect thoughts, and their helms of telepathy to convince the PCs to turn on one another.
Also in the palace, in what used to be the altar chamber and what is now the only area of the palace where the order has no influence, is the ghost of Sir Richard. He will happily give the PCs a full account of what happened in Lipolis since he first arrived if they will agree to grant him his final rest by taking up his crusade against the Order of the Fallen Queen. Should the PCs survive the whole affair and return to see Eli at the Ministry of Allied Affairs, they find that things are not well, and that the leaders of Arraber and Miden seem to be turning on each other. If the PCs don’t act fast, a devastating civil war and the destruction of both Arraber and Miden will be the first successful blow in the Order’s bloody holy war against civilization.
That’s it for this week’s Grave Plots. I hope you enjoyed the adventure idea, and if you have an idea for a future Grave Plots topic, feel free to write in and tell me about it; who knows – you may see your idea in a future article. Until next time, I wish you all the best with your gaming endeavors.