Plots Best Served Cold
December 7th, 2010
Hello everyone, and welcome to another exciting Grave Plots, where we bring you new plot hooks and adventure ideas each and every week. Winter is almost here, and so, as you may have guessed, it’s Ice Week. As such, all of the plots will be focusing on tough road conditions and the near suicidal and, frankly, heroic task of trying to navigate frozen roads in the dark on your way to work. Ok, well, maybe not, but the plots will all carry an ice theme. I hope you enjoy these cool plots!
Ice Cave
One winter day, while traveling through the lands of Hintergald on the way to that nation’s capital city of the same name, the PCs are interrupted by a terrible winter storm. The fierce winds, blinding snow, and constant pounding of the hail mixed in with the snow threaten more than the PCs’ schedule, and unless they find shelter soon they will surely perish in the storm. Luckily a nearby cave offers a solution. The cave being the PCs’ only reliable refuge from the storm, they head in to wait it out. As hours pass it quickly becomes clear that the storm isn’t letting up any time soon.
In fact the PCs’ situation really just got a whole lot worse: heading into the cave may very well be a mistake they will not live to regret. As it happens, the mouth of the cave was a one-way portal to an identical cave in the deepest frozen reaches of hell. The cave, like the ice storm, was magically conjured by the ice devil Zarmon in order to trap mortal souls in his own personal territory in that realm of torment. Had the PCs but endured the storm for a short while longer, they could have avoided Zarmon’s trap and been in Hintergald by nightfall.
When it becomes clear that the storm is not abating, the PCs might try to reach Hintergald some other way, perhaps with teleportation magic or something similar. This naturally fails, as the PCs are no longer on the same plane as Hintergald. When these attempts fall short, the PCs might decide to investigate their surroundings. Heading a short distance out the cave mouth is enough to tell even the most unobservant of PCs that something is amiss, and that they are no longer in Hintergald, but are instead trapped in a hellish valley of reaching jagged obsidian stones, and frozen spires which seem to twist and seethe with the freezing wind. Inside the cave appears to be a small, one-chambered area with solid walls. One of the walls is illusory however, and leads to a larger cave system.
The PCs’ only hope for survival is to find some way back to their home plane. It should be abundantly clear that the outer hellscape extends too far for them to find hope out there; if the PCs want to venture out anyway, feel free to impress upon them the doom of that place with some once-a-round cold damage. The PCs’ only chance is to search the cave for some kind of way out. Luckily, there are three ways out, though none of them are easy.
1. Somewhere hidden in the cave is a scroll of planeshift and a tuning fork for the elemental plane of air.
2. When they first confront the ice devil Zarmon, he offers the PCs their freedom in exchange for doing him a simple favor once they reach Hintergald.
3. In a section of the cave complex even Zarmon doesn’t visit is the entrance to an icy tunnel, at the other side of which is said to be an exit back to the PCs’ home plane. Unfortunately, this exit is guarded by an ice linnorm and the PCs will have to figure out some way past him.
Now, just assemble an ice cave dungeon and have a good time.
Wrath of Triumvor
While visiting the humble town of Briggs in the spring, the PCs arrive to notice a rather extraordinary sight. Despite the warm temperatures, the river that is the life blood of Briggs is completely frozen over. The townspeople are gathered around the river weeping and cursing the gods for their misfortune. Should the PCs inquire about the villagers’ woes, they state that their river, which has never been frozen before, even in the heart of winter, suddenly froze over this morning without any warning or provocation, as if by magic. The villagers further complain that surely they have been cursed by their gods, and offer a 1000 gold piece reward to anyone who can solve the problem. Should the PCs accept, an old woman comes to them claiming to be a seer; she states that if they want to help, they should follow the river to its source. Should they be disinclined to help the same old woman comes up to them and, depending on the source of the PCs unwillingness, either pleads with them for the sake of the village, or tells them if they follow the river to its source, they will have a chance to wield power immeasurable.
As the PCs follow the river to its source atop the mighty Mount Collins, they begin to notice other strange phenomena along the way: a forest turned to stone, a village full of wild animals but devoid of people, a pair of spheres of fire simply hanging in the air. As the PCs ascend the mountain, the frequency of these events increases dramatically. The higher up the PCs travel the colder it gets and, mysteriously, the less frozen, as though it is freezing on the way down as it flees the colder temperatures of the mountains peak.
At the mountain’s summit they find a massive lake suspended in the air where there was once a glacier. At the heart of the suspended lake is a vibrant crystal containing a man garbed in black robes. Before the PCs’ very eyes, tiny fractures are forming in the crystal and strange energy begins escaping them and streaming across the landscape, striking natural features and transfiguring them in some fundamental way, causing deserts to bloom with overgrown plant life, or great mountains to become valleys, destroying mountain towns and ecosystems in the process.
As the PCs stand in wonderment, the old woman from the town emerges from behind a tree to explain what the PCs are seeing. She claims that the man entombed in the crystal is called Triumvor, and that he will destroy the world and remake it in his own dark image unless the PCs can stop him. She doesn’t know exactly how they can do this but suggests that they speak with the four holy sages in service to the world’s four great kings.
Can your PCs save the world from the wrath of Triumvor?
The Song of Fodin
For those of you who haven’t checked it out yet, the Song of Fodin, available for free download in our downloads section, is a fantastic first-level mini-adventure, taking place on the frozen isle of Mjoren.
That’s all for this week; until next time I would like to wish you all the best in your gaming endeavors.