A Plague in Asheburg
February 1st, 2011
Hello everyone and welcome to another exciting Grave Plots, were we bring you new plot hooks and adventure ideas each and every week. This week, as may have discovered, is Cleric Week here at Necromancers of the Northwest, and so in this article I will be focusing on clerics. Writing adventures for clerics is tricky, because, well, they’re designed to be support characters, which makes it hard to find things that really put clerics in the spotlight. To make things worse, an adventure centered on the cleric still needs to be interesting for everyone else. This means finding something clerics can excel at that other characters can still be interested in doing. I think the adventure that follows does a good job of finding that balance. It is a desperate struggle against disease and undeath, with high stakes and a real chance to make some positive changes.
A Plague in Asheburg
A nightmarish plague has struck the town of Asheburg, and the local government has quarantined the city, trapping the PCs inside a town gripped by the deadly epidemic. Looting and rioting have become the norm in the plague-maddened town, and the streets are no longer safe to travel. To make matters worse, a previously unknown cult of vampires has begun to operate within Asheburg’s walls, preying on plague victims. Disturbingly, the vampires have begun to gather influence within the city, offering the terrified masses a chance to escape a horrific death by plague by offering the vampiric embrace to any individual depraved or frightened enough to pay their price: two sentient lives ended and the corpses to prove it. In this time of trouble only the PCs, and perhaps a small church all but forgotten by the people, stand between Asheburg and ruin.
A small local church devoted to the worship of a little-known sun goddess by the name of Lienira has managed to get a courier through the chaos to the PCs, asking for an audience with them. Should the PCs agree, the courier brings them straightaway to a small, out of the way, creaky wooden chapel surrounded on all sides by sigils glowing with a soft golden light. When the PCs enter the chapel they see around a dozen humbly dressed monks tending to about threescore semi-conscious plague victims, applying various salves and potions to the sick and working their healing magic in an effort to help those worst off, all to no avail. The wretched screams of the infected leave little doubt that few of these individuals will make it through the night. Wading through the dying, the courier leads the PCs to a small office in the back, where an older gentleman in unadorned robes, the color of polished silver, dismisses him with a sad smile and steady nod. He then asks politely if the PCs would to sit down before getting up to close the door behind them, explaining that the infected only get worse with time and that they cannot afford to be disturbed. The man then resumes his seat and begins introducing himself to the PCs, soberly proclaiming himself as father Oliver Medily, high priest of the Order of the Golden Lily, in service to her most exalted Lienira.
Following further introduction, Oliver states that he called the PCs before him because he needs their help to put a stop to the plague ravaging Asheburg. Since the plague has proven resistant to magical attempts to cure it, Oliver suspects that the plague is itself magical in nature, and, after looking at who has benefited most from the plague, suspects the vampires now taking over the southeastern portion of Asheburg. Oliver theorizes that the vampires must have some kind of knowledge of how the plague works hidden within their compound. Unfortunately, Oliver lacks the skill necessary to effect such a raid against the vampires, and that’s where the PCs come in. Oliver begs their aid in fighting the foul creatures, asking them to infiltrate their base of operations and uncover some evidence of their connection to the plague and report back to him so that he might cure the plague and end the quarantine.
On the way to the southeastern edge of town, they encounter a small group of well armed guards defending a makeshift wall, effectively blocking access to the main road leading southeast. They attempt to stop the PCs and caution them of the chaos beyond their simple border. They warn of murderers and bandits, looking to pay the vampire’s blood price, roaming skirmishes of sick and healthy eager to take a swing at anything that moves if it means saving their skin, and of raging fires and swarms of vermin which have recently taken up refuge in the district. The worst, the guards relate, comes after sunset, when the vampires and their wretched spawn begin gliding down the streets, killing at will and terrorizing the citizens. Once the PCs make it past the guards they find the situation to be truly horrific: smoke thickens the sky from fires set to storefronts by looters; the screams of tortured plague victims are only muffled by the battle cries of the desperate. The streets are covered in blood and filled with headless bodies, indiscriminate of gender or age, discarded in the alleys and gutters. The PCs are assaulted several times by groups of men and women crazed with bloodlust. Wherever they go, the PCs hear street preachers encouraging the violence with glee, sycophantically proclaiming that they are doing the will of the great ones, or madly babbling about how only through Treous can salvation be found.
At the furthest southeast point of Asheburg lies the vampires’ base of operations, a massive temple once belonging to Weirimar the city’s chief deity, now profaned beyond recognition, the walls marred with demonic etchings and bloody sigils, the holy symbols burned and warped and displayed high like the pennants of a fallen enemy. In the temple courtyard, barring entrance to the vampires’ stronghold are a number of men in black robes, apparently some kind of dark clergy all intoning softly and using wicked barbed whips to keep the desperate masses away from the shelter offered by the temple. The acolytes won’t admit the PCs without either the appropriate offering or a potentially deadly battle, which might alert the vampires to their intentions.
Either way, once the PCs gain entrance to the Temple they find the upper floors unoccupied save for a few more dark acolytes strolling about the place with foul-smelling incense. The vampires, it would seem, instead dwell exclusively in the catacombs. Without one of the acolytes to guide the PCs, the catacombs could turn deadly even before they reach their undead foes, as lethal traps meant to keep out grave robbers now prove equally effective at keeping the vampires safe from would-be invaders.
Past the traps the PCs find themselves in an elaborate complex of tunnels and dark cramped chambers, all decorated with grim occult images proudly on display. Numerous undead creatures, including skeletons, wights, and zombies, roam throughout the complex, proving a potential threat to the PCs. Nine true vampires dwell within the complex, each in separate areas and supported by a number of their personal vampire spawn, which may guard their chambers or fight alongside the vampires. While most of the vampires keep to relatively small chambers that perhaps at one time served as family tombs, beyond a broken stone seal at the very end of the catacombs lies a mass grave which the inhabiting vampire has converted into a sinister parody of the cathedral above. The vampire, floating several inches above the ground, demands to know what the PCs hope to accomplish by facing the Treous in battle, and regardless of their answer ensures them that they will receive only death for their trouble. Following the battle the PCs are able to recover from Treous’s personal chest a series of letters from a mysterious figure calling himself the Great Father, which provide instructions for the vampires eventual takeover of Asheburg, including the creation of the plague.
With the death of the vampires things in the southeast quickly improve, and after the PCs deliver the letters to Oliver, he is able to discover a cure for the plague before things get much worse. In recognition for the PCs’ help with the plague, the local government awards them with a hardy sum of gold, and asks that they investigate into this Great Father figure. Finally, the local governor declares the church of Leinira to be the new official religion of Asheburg, and commissions the building of a new temple in her name, much to the great satisfaction of Oliver and the monks of the Order of the Golden Lily.
Well that’s it for this week’s Grave Plots; join me next week for a discussion on arena-style adventures. Until then, allow me to wish you all the best in your gaming endeavors.