The Druid,
The Duke, and
the Turtles
November 29th, 2011
Hello everyone, and welcome to another exciting Grave Plots, where we bring you new plot hooks and adventure ideas each and every week. This week will be the conclusion of our long-running series of articles where I responded to emails referencing an article I did quite a while ago about animals. While we've been talking about all your favorite animals these past weeks, now that we've exhausted all those requests I want to get into the action. So as a result, I've decided to devote this week to my favorite animal: the mighty and most exalted sea turtle. Actually I'm not sure that sea turtles are my favorite animal, but I do think they're really cool animals and that they will work relatively well for the plot I have in mind.
This would normally be the part of the animal response article where I bore you with facts about sea turtles that you could have found with minimal effort cruising the internet. Even though sea turtles would make for one of the more interesting animals we've looked at, this being the last of the animal response articles I'd like to skip it and jump straight into the action. So without further ado, here's this week's plot.
The Druid, the Duke, and the Turtles
Our adventure takes place in the county of Hather, a large coastal region nominally in the kingdom of Gassor, well known for the large variety of wild life that thrives there. Like most counties in the kingdom of Gassor, Hather is ruled over by a governor who looks after the welfare of both the now surly and slightly displaced natives, as well as the new, rather arrogant, colonists. However, when Hather was first added to the empire of Gassor there were few people living there and no clear nobility or similar civil authority from which to choose a governor, and so the king's agent simply picked the wisest and most well-respected man he could find to take on the job. That man was Cholier, a druid who had served as a guide for the handful of colonists who chose the wilderness of Hather to be their new home.
Cholier was a simple a man, and when the duties of governor were explained to him he took it upon himself to look after the spiritual welfare of the colonists, as well as for the well-being of the plants and animals which called Hather home. The rugged woodsmen and other frontier settlers who made up the colonial expedition found Cholier's in-tune-with-nature approach to be both useful in surviving the rugged wilderness which they now called home, and conducive to the freedom-seeking frontier spirit which led them away from their homes in more civilized lands. With the support of the colonists behind him, Cholier cemented his position as governor of the coastal lands and set about his work of ensuring the health and safety of that wild place. Under Cholier's guidance, the men lived for twenty years in harmony with nature, and both thrived in Hather.
It seemed to Cholier then that nothing could go wrong: all his people were safe and it seemed Hather would go on to become a new kind of province, free of violence and in tune with the natural world. As a result, when reports started coming in from the coast that a group of fishermen bearing the symbol of Duke Weathergrad, a high-ranking noble from the wealthy and cosmopolitan island kingdom of Verst, had started to capture and kill sea turtles within his county, Cholier decided something must be done.
Believing at first that the duke's fishermen had simply forgotten where the border lay, Cholier set his men to arranging a series of buoys which clearly marked the ocean border as agreed upon by the two great nations a century earlier. When the ships were reported to be clearly straying into the marked territories to hunt sea turtles, a rare and expensive delicacy in Verst, Cholier was sure that that far out to sea the border was perhaps more ambiguous than he thought, and that the sailors found his buoys to be insulting. So he wrote a letter to the duke explaining the situation, and while he waited for a response that would never come he used his powerful magic to attract the sea turtles away from the border and closer to the coast where he could look after them.
With the sea turtles gone from the border, the duke was furious that he might lose his corner on this lucrative and prestigious trade. In his anger, he ordered that his men scour the Hather seas in secret and that they not return until their holds where full of turtle meat. This did not go unnoticed by Cholier, and he wrote his king for aid in dealing with the duke's fleet. Although poaching is a serious offence in the Kingdom of Gassor, the king in his infinite wisdom decided that since Hather was a poor county and Duke Weathergrad a mighty enemy, they should look to their own defenses. Not wanting to incite a rebellion within his kingdom, especially not with Weathergrad's silver tongue near enough to make those men forget that it was him who was causing the problem in the first place, the king decided to send a group of powerful adventurers (who coincidentally were in danger of uncovering that the he was working rather closely with the necromancer Gorthos to conquer the kingdom of Norm) to the druid's aid.
With a recommendation from the King of Gassor himself, Cholier is relived to see the PCs arrive in Newcoast, the coastal town where Cholier is making his base during this crisis. He explains that the fishermen have soldiers with them and that his final desperate attempt to turn them back ended in disaster when his messengers were killed to man. What’s worse is that the cutthroats seem to have discovered where the turtles have been gathering and are headed that way. While Cholier believes these men to be dangerous, they are few in number, having only 3 ships and still a day away. Cholier asks the PCs to save the lives of the innocent by ending the lives of murderers. He bestows upon them a small rowboat, enchanted to move of its own accord and with great speed, and asks them to attack the duke’s men before they reach the sea turtles.
With that, the PCs set off to fight the poachers. The duke’s men travel in a tight formation and once a battle begins on one ship, another will break off to help as soon as it becomes clear that something is wrong, while the third ship heads off towards the sea turtles. After the conclusion of the first battles, the PCs will have to race to catch up to the third ship before all is lost. Luckily, hidden among the maps in the captain’s quarters is a scroll of greater teleport which should make the journey somewhat easier. With the defeat of the last ship, the sea turtles are saved, for now.
The duke, as before, is still unwilling to give up on his profits without a fight, but this time he means to try a different tactic, sending a “diplomat” to make other arrangements with the druid almost immediately after his scrying spell determines that brute force has failed. The diplomat arrives momentarily and wishes to discuss a mutually beneficial arrangement with the governor concerning the sea turtles. Cholier, knowing that he isn't much for these kinds of politics, asks the PCs to conduct the negotiations on his behalf, offering them each a minor magical trinket in return for their help. The negotiations are fierce and the diplomat utilizes the glibness spell to hide his true purpose. He asks for a single clutch of turtle eggs in order to create an ecosystem of turtles which will be native to Verst and therefore can be farmed from there; in exchange, he offers to open peaceful and lucrative trade with the county of Hather. In truth, while the offer sounds very reasonable, it’s merely a ploy to lull the people into a false sense of security while the duke prepares his naval forces to destroy the county as retribution for denying him his fortune. Should the PCs figure this out, they will hold a critical advantage in stopping the slaughter of thousands of innocent people and sea turtles.
Once he finds out what's coming, Cholier is subsumed with rage at the blatent deceit, and calls upon his druidic circle to come aid in the defense of the turtles, inviting the PCs to bear witness to the power of nature. When the duke’s fleet arrives, commanded by Weathergrad himself aboard his dreadnought The Scourge, the druids unleash a wave of energy pulsing out into the sea, which begins to churn. Suddenly ships begin to collapse and the bellow of mighty creatures fills the air, as 21 dragon turtles suddenly answer the druids’ call to defend their mundane brethren. While the battle quickly turns in the druids’ favor, The Scourge somehow breaks through the fleet. As the druids are exhausted from their spellcasting, the PCs are forced to deal with the duke and his elite troops on their own.
Following a climactic battle, the PCs defeat the duke, who is forced to give up his plans of poaching the turtles, due to his burial at sea. An investigation into the death of the duke by the Verst royal council reveals his poaching, and the kingdom of Verst pays the king of Gassor a hefty prize in gold as reparations, to which the PCs are rewarded by the king 5% for all their hard work.
Well that’s it for this weeks Grave Plots; I hope you join me next week for more great plot hooks and adventure ideas. Until then, allow me to wish you all the best in your gaming endeavors.