The Drow War Book Two. The Dying Of - RoseRed

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Tyrant of Brass
This adventure follows on from the Topaz
Dominions’ pledge of assistance to the coalition
against the drow. Ata Huara, the ambassador
for the Topaz Dominions, asks the Player Characters
to help his monarch, since they are now allies. If the
Player Characters ask the Conclave for advice, they
urge co-operation with the ambassador, so long as the
Player Characters are of high enough level to tackle
this adventure. If they are not, the Conclave suggests
(after suitable divinations) that other concerns should
come first. This way, the Games Master can use the
Conclave to gently nudge the Player Characters towards
adventures that are not too tough for them to handle,
without railroading them.
The Player Characters travel to the Topaz Dominions,
where they receive the hospitality of the Sun King
himself. He explains the situation: there is a dark
presence in the desert, something unwholesome and
corrupting, and it has scorched and dried out the few
green places in the sandy waste.
There are tales of a desert horror that would do this,
but such things inhabit the Plateau of Skulls, where
nobody ever goes, nor would want to. All the desert
people avoid it, and no foreigner could possibly reach
the plateau without help. Some fool may have ventured
there in defiance of taboo, but the Sun King cannot think
of anyone who would want to thus imperil his soul.
In any event, the Phoenix Legions cannot cross the desert
to liberate Crom Calamar if the oases are destroyed, so
the matter must be dealt with. No denizen of the Topaz
Dominions is allowed to enter the Plateau of Skulls,
because of ancient taboos; if the Sun King sends any
of his men there, he will prevent their souls from ever
entering paradise. The Player Characters, however,
are foreigners, so they are ideally placed to enter the
foul place and defeat the evil. He equips the Player
Characters with the best mounts he has along with
supplies for the journey, and sends them to talk with
his men who are camped on the border of the Desert
of Sharn.
When the Player Characters reach their destination
(passing withered oases on the way), they find an almost
unbelievable sight. The village of Astercote, which was
torn out of the ground by the magic of a potent artefact
in Book One, hovers close to the ground, tethered there
by an enormous length of rope as if it were a balloon.
Humans have indeed ventured into the Plateau of Skulls,
though not by choice. Astercote was carried here by the
winds of random chance. The villagers have managed
to tether the floating island in place and explore the
ruins. They have carelessly unleashed the entity that
turned the forest into a desert so long ago, the entity
called the Tyrant of Brass, which had lain dormant in
the wreckage of the plateau for nearly a millennium.
It has resumed its original task, namely to wipe out all
plant life in the Sharn region.
Levels: The Player Characters should undertake this
adventure between 15 th and 18 th level if possible.
Event: Arrival at the Topaz Dominions
How the Player Characters reach the Topaz Dominions
is up to them. The easiest route is to take the sea-portal,
but teleportation can also be arranged through the
Conclave if necessary. Ata Huara insists on escorting
them to the Sun King’s palace, as he can vouch for their
identities and present them to his monarch in person.
The following description suffices for most Topaz
Dominion settlements:
The civilisation here seems to be a strange blend of
a rigidly stratified society in which everyone keeps to
his or her place, and an almost surreal dependence
on magic. There are sorcerers openly practising on
the street corners, offering oracles to passers-by, and
priests sell animals for sacrifice in the temples of the
Sun God. It seems that whenever anything other than
basic manual work needs doing, from mending broken
tools to healing a child’s grazed knee, a spellcaster is
visited to take care of it.
The place seems trapped somehow, locked into an
endless cycle of days in which nothing ever needs to
change. The buildings, made from clay and reeds, seem
more like those from books of history than from the
times you know. The hunters hunt, the fishers fish, and
nobody seems to want to be anything other than what he
is. The people seem to be happy, at any rate.
Ibon Presno Gonzalez (order #73006) 8