After the death of the Monarch, the assets of his supporters were seized and redistributed to benefit the victims of his tyranny. The tower of the wizard Cloudkill, one of the Old King’s archmages from the College of Wands, was given to a pair of mutants who fought alongside the rebels. The retired partisans hired mercenaries to clear the “squatters” out of their dream home. The magical monsters are more than the hired guns can handle.
The Doppelgänger Horcha
The Doppelgängers were created by the Old King’s vivisectionists as the perfect infiltrators, able to take on any form and replace anyone they killed. The plan worked too well, Horcha’s alchemically perfect sense of empathy made him too sensitive to injustice and induced him to turn against the Monarchy. Horcha's mission was to clandestinely kill and replace the Slave King, ruler of Dwarvenkind, called such because he turned the Mountainhomes into a slaver-state and because was himself a groveling servitor of humanity. Horcha carried out his mission flawlessly, ordering numerous atrocities to maintain his cover. When the time was right, he beyrayed the Monarchy and turned the Mountainhomes over to the rebellion.
The Medusa Marlene
Marlene was used as a portable flesh-to-stone box in one of the Monarch’s Torture Gardens. Like freezing people in carbonite, petrification is a foolproof (if heavy) way to prevent prisoners from escaping. The torturers enjoyed chiseling small pieces off prisoners while they were stoned, then unpetrifying them with fingers and noses and eyes missing. From the perspective of the victim no time had passed, the parts just disappeared. Her act of rebellion came during a prison break, when the guards turned her on the escapees surging out of the dungeon. Marlene glared at the mirror-polished blade in one of the rebels’ hands and stoned herself instead.
The happy couple met after the rebellion in a healing temple of Leper Heart, God of Mutants and Aberrations. Horcha was having trouble controlling his transformations after spending so long twisted into different forms, suffering body image disorders that impaired his proprioception. Marlene was undergoing physical therapy so she could use her freshly regrown limbs, which the torturer-mages lopped off so she couldn’t escape the Garden.
Con is Marlene and Horcha’s mutant baby. His hair is crowned with tiny snakes but so far he doesn’t appear to have inherited either of his parents’ monstrous powers.
The Wizard Tower
Though the archmage Cloudkill committed any atrocity asked of him by the Old King, and many the tyrant would never have dreamed of, he didn’t take work home with him. His tower by the sea was a pleasant retreat with only a few alchemical horrors to spoil the bucolic pastoral atmosphere.
In the Wizard’s absence, the Tower has been infested with magical creatures and defense systems gone rogue waiting for their master to return. The happy couple could deal with it themselves, but have a complex about using their powers. Horcha is trying to minimize his transformations and Marlene doesn’t want to stone anyone ever again. In deference to the pair of retired rebels, the realtor graciously hired exterminators to deal with the problem.
One Ear
Bounty schemes are a tool the Trade Wardens use to induce monster-people to participate in the extractive economy of the Commonwealth's various frontier colonies. Demonstrate your usefulness to the colonial project or be slaughtered for pay by roving bands of adventurer-scalphunters. One Ear is the logical outcome of this paradigm. A mercenary army of Orcs, Half-Orcs, Goblins and other Green Men, so-called because new recruits are required to cut off their own ear so the company can claim the bounty on it. Most are recruited from tribal communities on the frontier, but they quickly grasp the basics of gunpowder, maneuver warfare, logistics, doing the bare minimum to convince the officer of the watch you aren’t slacking off…
Normally One Ear uses dirty tricks to win. Level enemy positions with artillery, burn lime and throw it in the other guy’s face to blind him, flood the dungeon… Their scum tactics don’t work if they have to preserve the structural integrity of the position they’re storming. Clearing monsters out of a house without knocking it down isn’t their style.
There are 19 Orcs in the detachment assigned to clear the Tower. Their 4 HD leader Captain Balboa owes the realtor a favor, but he’s burning money on this job. The grunts wear munitions armor and carry muzzleloading muskets, halberds, broadswords and the occasional pistol. They brought a fat little culverin because they misunderstood the nature of the job, and now swear to the client that it’s just for intimidation purposes.
FUMIGATION OF THE ESCHEATED WIZARD TOWER
1: Attic. Specimens stored here, horrible trophies from Cloudkill’s magical experiments. Mongrelmen and Dragonoids and deformed psychic children pickled in bottles. Starving tiny Gelatinous Cube in glass terrarium. Grell trapped in runed stasis jar, still alive but immobile and unable to use psychic powers. Any reagent needed for magical research can be found here.
2: Bedroom. Spare Robe of the Archmagi in closet. Bed casts Sleep on user when command word is spoken, trapping doors with Alarm spell. Window trapped with Command spell that orders climbing thieves to “fall”.
3: Storage attic. Old dusty gorgon head mounted on wall. Chest with Robe of Powerlessness, Gem of Monster Attraction. Window trapped with Wall of Force that pushes climbing thieves outward.
4: Library and workshop. Shelf packed with rare books on hypnosis and demonology from the Ancient Empire. Spell tomes hold Arcane and Illusionist spells. Table with alchemy set, standard array of acids, bases, chemical fuels...
I put one of the Fire Gremlins from the Bronze Golem entry here. I don’t know what a Fire Gremlin is. Gremlins don’t appear in the Basic or AD&D monster books. We’ve already got sprites in the tower so I’m going to use the Will-O-the-Wisp stat block instead, reflavoring the lightning attack to a fire attack instead.
Instead of attacking the players, the Gremlin waits for them to browse the shelves and shoots jets of fire to destroy random books, blows up the alembic to send glass everywhere, and generally acts like a huge nuisance.
(My favorite Gremlins are the ones in Dwarf Fortress, sneaky little saboteurs who pull random levers around your fortress. This can do anything from opening a harmless hatch to sending a torrent of magma cascading through a crowded meeting hall).
5: Bridge. Exterior doors are Wizard Locked to only allow Cloudkill and his slaves access. Casts Phantasmal Force on intruders with illusion of bridge collapsing for lethal fall.
6: Summoning room. Old candles in melted heaps gnawed by insects. Palimpsest of symbols drawn and carved on the floor. Scorch marks and bloodstains. Six invisible SPRITES prank visitors by making sounds of summoned monsters and cursing with temporary maledictions.
7: Parlor. A BRONZE GOLEM built by the Archmage stands watch here, stuck in a loop chasing two Fire Gremlins around. The Golem attacks intruders, in this event the Gremlins stop tormenting it and do everything they can to inconvenience the visitors. Cursed Sword -2 used as a fire poker, spell scroll of (wraithform, suggestion, illusory stamina, solid fog, phantasmal force) on a shelf with assorted curios and petty cash box filled with 5,230 GP.
(The Orcs are putting off dealing with the Golem because they don’t have any magic weapons. The cannon is their ace in the hole, and probably won’t compromise the structural integrity of the tower)
8: Slave quarters. Cloudkill had two slaves, bound with Geases and Suggestions to stop them from betraying him but otherwise not subject to the magical mutilations the Old King’s brain trust typically inflicted on their servants. They are nowhere to be found. Left behind among their meager personal effects are Wands of Prestidigitation and Mage Hand used for cleaning. Six invisible SPRITES chase each other through the air. They pretend to be the trapped spirits of slaves, using their curse powers to temporarily simulate level drain on visitors.
9: Wizard Kitchen. Lightning trap on exterior door disarmed by Orcs. Chromatic Orb oven studded with gems, Wall of Ice freezer, lightning bread cooker. Self cranking well down to water at 13. Six invisible SPRITES make jets of fire shoot out of the Oven, cones of cold from the freezer, sparks from the toaster… Goal is to terrify rather than harm visitors.
10: Balcony with ocean view. Verdigris crusted +1 Trident of Submission and empty bottles abandoned around deck chairs. Deck dumps intruders off cliff into ocean if trident is disturbed.
11: Kitchen stairs down to cave. Enchantment casts Hold Monster on anything ascending, preventing cave animals from entering tower.
12: One Ear camp. Weapons and ammunition, food, armed Orcs looking busy. Horcha and Marlene manage baby Con and discuss the fumigation with the Orc leader Balboa.
The happy couple are having second thoughts about this whole mercenary thing. Getting rid of the Bronze Golem is fine, but sending soldiers to exterminate a bunch of little fairies playing in an abandoned house isn’t how they wanted to spend their retirement. It’s how things got so fucked up in the first place. If someone could clean out the house without killing everyone, that person would be welcome to take all the Archmage’s magic items and treasure. Marlene doesn’t want her son crawling around triggering Necklaces of Fireballs and Horns of Cave Ins.
13: Cave with monolith dribbling pure water into pool. Stone carved with Sign of the Starhelm, a vanished chaotic social movement of undead fighters. The mage built his tower here because the shrine prevents undead from entering the building above. Three GIANT SCORPIONS hide in the cave, emerging at dawn and dusk. Seven GIANT BATS roost here by day, emerging at night. 240 GP in currency fallen into pond.
THE MAKING OF
I made this to demonstrate the OSE Encounter Activities to the FATAL and Friends thread. I randomly chose five encounters.I realized on completion that this dungeon is lacking in monsters, mainly because I assigned most of them to the “friendly” forces outside the tower. I gave them all backstories full of exciting shit that happened before the players show up, leading to a bucolic scene with a handful of mostly-harmless fairies. If it were up to me, I’d add a couple more mutants or summoned creatures. Maybe a Displacer Beast (Warp Beast in OSE) pulled into the tower by strong residual magic. Or Blink Dogs from the Advanced Fantasy book. They’re the national animal of the Commonwealth and it’s illegal to kill them, but they can teleport around so trapping and releasing them doesn’t work…
- Sprite Frightening a band of Orcs by making spooky, ill-portentous sounds
- Scorpion, Giant Crawling low to the ground, due to flying Bats above
- Medusa Holding a swaddled babe to her breast, looking for a Rattle
- Bronze Golem Infested with tiny Fire Gremlins constantly insulting and cackling
- Doppelgänger Conspiring to overthrow the King of the Dwarfs
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