9568 Moonlight Madness.pdf - Free

AS promised, a wagon loaded with silver weapons
waits in the square, surrounded by beaming towns-
people waving their bludgeons in a celebratory mood.
As you and your escorts approach, a cheer goes up
from the crowd, and several citizens rush toward you.
The citizens will try to hoist the PCs to their shoulders
and bear them off to the wagon. Snatches of song erupt
spontaneously from the crowd.
rnessed to the w
ruptly as you approach, their nostri
paw the ground nervously, whinnying
The horses have picked up the smell of predatory
beasts that clings to the character(s) with lycanthropy,
and they will not willingly cooperate with those PCs. A
speak with animals spell enables them to tell the user that
they want the affected PCs to go away because they
”smell bad.” A successful Animal Handling check or use
of the Teamster secondary skill makes the horses cooper-
ate, though they will not be happy about it. If the charac-
ters try to board the wagon without dealing with the
horses first, the frightened creatures rear and bolt through
the crowd, scattering townspeople as they go. The guards
are surprised and a bit suspicious at this turn of events-
the horses never act this way with anyone else. The
guards immediately take the party back into custody and
have them carefully examined unless the characters can
come up with a reasonable excuse for the horses’ reaction
to them. Anything plausible will do, but some reason
must be offered.
Once the characters are up on the wagon, the guards
hand them each a silver weapon and a small vial of bella-
donna distillate (”just in case”). Handsome young men
and pretty girls walk up and tie a sprig of wolfsbane
around each character’s neck. Any lycanthropes among
the PCs will not be able to stand the smell of the wolfs-
bane, yet refusal to accept the townspeople’s gifts will
cause a scene. Each character must succeed on a saving
throw vs. poison every round or tear the herb off and
throw it away. Even on a successful save, those PCs must
make a Wisdom check each round to be able to bear the
stench. Lycanthropic characters wearing wolfsbane will
not be able to fight or cast spells until the noxious herb
has been removed, saving throws notwithstanding.
After the gifts have been offered and accepted, the PCs
are escorted out of town by the enthusiastic citizenry. The
city gates start to swing shut as the party pauses through,
almost hitting the rear rank. The PCs hear the thud on a
heavy bar being slammed into place immediately behind
them. Check the Scrying Rules on page 47 and let the
characters make percentage rolls: any who succeed notice
a shimmer in the air over the party. While they might as-
10
sume tnis 1s Vancnc s TNIZ~~LL j1,messa) keep1 ~g ,In eye
on them, this time it is actually Grim (see page 30), the
wizard employed by Brant, the bandit baron, using his
crystal ball to watch the party’s departure. Both Grim and
Vanessa thereafter scan the PCs several times a day; the
timing of their spot-checks is entirely up to the DM (and
thus whether one of the two wizards spots PCs turning
into lycanthropes, ditching the weapon shipment, etc.and
if so which of the two).
Ditching a e WeApons
As soon as they are clear of Thornburg, the PCs may
decide to get rid of the silver weapons rather than deliver
them. While this makes sense in the short term, it has
some long term consequences the DM should know
about. Most importantly, Stewart the ranger is their chief
source of information in Cold Springs about the Her-
mitage’s whereabouts, and he will not aid characters he
suspects of being evil (failure to deliver the weapons con-
stitutes proof of the characters’ growing corruption in his
eyes). He will only help them if they redeem their misstep
by backtracking and recovering the lost weapons. Unfor-
tunately, the jettisoned weapons won’t stay where they’re
left for long. Brant’s bandits have had their eye on the
shipment since before it left Thornburg because of the in-
trinsic value of the silver, and if the cargo is abandoned
the bandits will find it and cart it off in short order (cer-
tainly before 24 hours have passed). Should this occur,
Stewart is adamant: he will tell them all he knows about
the Hermitage when they recover the weapons and com-
plete the delivery and not before, forcing the PCs to either
venture into Brant’s Castle in search of the missing silver
or to strike out on their own hoping to find the Hermitage
without a guide.
Ambush
The first day’s travel from Thornburg passes unevent-
fully. Ask the players what precautions the party takes as
dusk falls (regarding unhitching and feeding the horses,
setting a watch, etc.). The first night passes without inci-
dent. A few hours past noon on the second day, the road
that the party has been following plunges into a deep
ravine with a small river at the bottom. Inform the play-
ers that the road to the bottom of the ravine is very steep
and twisty. After this fair warning, it’s up to them to re-
alize that they will have to take precautions to insure that
they can keep the wagon under control on the slope. Any
character using his or her Animal Handling ability will
suffice (no check necessary), but allow any reasonable so-
lution the players may come up with.
This ravine is the site of an ambush from a group of
bandits trying to get the silver. They have placed hidden
archers, each specialized in the bow, at the positions
marked “A” on the map. For additional firepower, they
have brought along a bandit mage, who crouches at the