Adventure Pack One Free RPG Adventures
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Chapter Three: The Quest for the Holy Grail
You’re all sitting around in your favourite pub on a Saturday night like usual, having known your companions for the better part of five years now, when you hear news of a great debacle: Someone has broken into the Citadel of the Mouse Queen and stolen something of great value; anyone who retrieves it shall receive a great reward.
If anyone asks what this ‘great reward’ is, think of something outrageous and make that the reward. If anyone comes up with anything semi-reasonable to be the reward, you can use that as well. If no one can think of anything, you can just make it 100,000 pieces of gold.
If the PCs actually decide to go and see the Mouse Queen in the Citadel they find the whole place to be made of gold and a great stream of stalwart adventurer’s marching on the place to claim the ‘great reward.’ If anyone asks what was stolen, no one has any clue.
You enter the vast domed enclave of the Citadel and are surprised to find it made of solid gold. It appears the rumors are true. You’re just about to polish a bit of rust off the gold, when you see about 30 mouse guards snarling at you, whiskers barred.
If anyone attempts to steal the gold it’s RR 18 to do so undetected. If the mouse guards catch anyone being untoward, they attack viciously and sound the alarm. Mouse Guard RR 15 HP 1 Damage 1d6 Speed 3 Gold: 3 XP: 200 each. There are 30 guards and within 6 rounds 100 more will come: Squad of 10 mouse guards RR 20 Damage 1d8 Speed: 3 Gold: 15 XP: 1,000 per band.
If melted down, the Citadel is worth at least 1 million gold coins but doing so will start a vast war between the humans and mice and you may feel free to have bands of feral mice-men attack the PCs at random throughout the rest of their careers.
If the PCs actually make it to the throne room without incident you can read them the following:
You see a huge throne set with a giant emerald upon which the Mouse Queen, Sharon, sits. She has the longest whiskers you’ve ever seen and the biggest—but no, you’re distracted by the concern on her angular, pointed, furry face. She beckons you nearer with a tiny clawed hand. “Welcome, brave heroes.” You start to reply but she’s talking to someone behind you who raises his spear and grins, huge muscles bulging. “No doubt you’re wondering why I have summoned you here and offered such a great reward.”
If the PCs decide to fight any of the other heroes they are all 1st to 10th level characters from the basic book with stats along these lines: Hero RR 10+level HP 10+level Speed: 3 Gold: 100 XP: 200 x level. They can have any 5 powers from the basic book, or anything you can think of. These powers take effect only when one of the PCs miss them.
“A golden chalice was stolen last night from our most impenetrable vault. But this is no ordinary golden goblet, it is said that the chalice is imbued with such Holy might that it will make the owner immortal and is known in some lands as The Holy Grail. It has no doubt fallen into the hands of evil which will use it for diabolical purposes, retrieve it and you will be greatly rewarded.”
The PCs can investigate or question the Mouse Queen further but all they can learn is that the thief broke in at somewhere around midnight, he was working for the Black Scorpions, he wore a chiffon nightgown, and his name is Eric and he lives on 1030 Blackmoore street in the city of Torm.
The PCs can head to the assassin’s residence, or to the Castle of the Blackmoore Assassins.
The Assassin’s House
You find that the assassin’s residence lies right next to your favourite pub, you must’ve passed it by a thousand times and never noticed the evil smell of poisons, the boarded up windows, and the deadly spiked traps on all the windows. It appears the house is empty, but you never can tell, can you? It is now around 1 AM and very dark.
Any PC attempting to enter anything but the door springs a deadly poisoned trap. RR 14 to disable, spot, or evade with an Acrobatics skill check. If the PC is hit he or she takes 1d6 damage and 1d6 poison damage per minute until healed or dead. At death the character can make a single physical strength save to negate the poison and remain at 1 hp.
If the PCs enter through the door they make it within without incident. Have all PCs roll a RR 16 perception check when they enter the house. If they fail they see nothing, otherwise read the below:
You see a man wearing a chiffon lace nightgown crouched up in the ceiling, short blade dripping with poison and preparing to jump down upon you with a smirk on his face.
Eric the Assassin RR 14 HP 13 damage 1d6+1d6 per minute poison as above Speed: 4 Gold 200 xp: 2,000. If he surprises the PCs he’s RR 16 on all of their first rolls against him.
If anyone captures him for questioning he says the following:
“It was a job alright? I stole the Holy Grail, gave it to Prince Evil Death Ray the Third, and was on my way, okay?”
If further pressed he reveals the location of Blackmoore Castle where the Black Scorpions and Prince Evil Death Ray the Third can be found. He also tells them the defenses are impenetrable and the only way they can get in is to be invited to the Prince’s upcoming wedding next Wednesday. The man has no clue who he’s marrying and all he will say is “Some rich hot tart, sirs.”
Blackmoore Castle
As you approach the castle night falls and you see a load of other adventurers, of higher levels than yourselves, approaching the castle ahead of you. As you look on from the cover of a nearby bush you see them all being killed by countless arrows, fireballs, and various steel bear traps and snarling dogs in the grounds outside the castle who viciously rip them apart. Using your above-average intellect scores you think that a frontal assault might be a bad idea.
If the PCs try a frontal assault anyway, they face the following deadly opponents: 1,099 Archers RR 24 HP 200 Damage 10d6 Speed: 5 Gold 10,000 XP: 1,000 Perception +40, 100 Wizards RR 20 HP 20 Damage 20d6 fireballs Speed: 24 fly Gold: 2,000 XP 1,000, and Impenetrable Death Traps RR 20 to spot or disable damage 2d6 Reflex save to drop to 1 hp, up to three traps hit each trespasser.
If the PCs somehow manage to kill all these people and traps, a band of vicious dogs assaults them. Dogs RR 26 HP 150 Damage 6d6 Speed: 7 Gold: 0 XP: 2,000 and Bear Traps RR 26 spot or disable damage 3d6 Reflex save to drop to 1 hp. Xp: 2,000.
If the PCs try anything sneakier they may gain entry into the castle or learn that the Prince Evil Death Ray the Third is planning an upcoming wedding on Wednesday. If they can be invited to this wedding it may be a spiffing way to enter the castle.
The Wedding
You should let the PCs come up with their own way to get into the castle or get invited to the wedding. Some options are: hopping into to the bride’s carriage, forging an invitation, stealing an invitation, buying the Prince a present and getting invited, or simply wandering in as the guests arrive.
The bride is a very scared but very beautiful farm girl who wants nothing to do with the Prince and will try anything to escape, but she’s guarded by a big Buffoon RR 16 HP 1 Damage 2d6 Speed: 2 Gold 20 XP: 500.
Inside the Castle (Without Wedding)
Amazingly you make it within the castle and sneak into the keep. You gain 2,000 xp for sheer daring. Within the keep you see a maze of corridors and an evil voice laughs in your minds. “Welcome, uninvited guests, you’re just in time for my pre-wedding bridal shower, ha ha ha ha.”
The corridors start shifting around and forming crushing wall traps. The heroes will have to do some fancy footwork (RR 14) to evade getting smushed and find a way through your maze to the villain (now’s the time to draw a random, maze-like map). You can proceed to The Dungeon below.
Inside the Castle (With the Wedding)
Magical lights in all colors light up the night sky, booze pours freely, and many men and women laugh gaily at the marriage of a very despicable man. The villain himself, Prince Evil Death Ray the Third, takes the stage. He’s a thirty-year-old man with an evil leer wearing a badly fitting tuxedo with overly long duck tails out the back. You immediately sense great evil radiating off him and wonder if you’ve somehow
turned into a paladin. Before anyone can take him out, he snatches up the bride, who looks horrified, kisses her roughly and runs away into the keep cackling melodramatically, “I will now kill you all, fools. The Holy Grail is Mine!”
Everyone goes silent for a second, then they shrug and keep dancing.
The PCs will have to fight his two orc guards RR 10 HP 1 Damage 1d6 Speed: 3 Gold 5 XP 100 each and bash down the door to the keep: RR 20 strength or RR 10 pick lock or thievery.
Inside the castle they see his duck tails zooming around corners as he laughs maniacally with the woman in his arms. If anyone manages to catch the zany loony he puts his dagger to the young woman’s throat and, being heroes, the PCs are forced to let him run for it again. If they somehow manage to peg him, he dies but laughs, and says, “You’re too late to stop it, you’ll never find it, mwa ha ha…”
Once the PCs make it through the maze you’ve doodled, they reach The Dungeon.
Final Encounter The Dungeon
The smell of water and the sharp tang of gold meets your nostrils as you gaze upon a black stairway leading down into oblivion in Blackmoore keep. You wonder vaguely why you haven’t seen any of the Black Scorpions yet. Just as you’re thinking that a trap door swings around in the wall and a small green goblin steps out in front of your path onto the landing of the stairs. He grins wickedly and raises a small, rusty dagger. “None shall pass.” He belches and pats his fat stomach.
The Goblin is actually an elite Terrorist Ninja Zombie Controlling Wican Witch Doctor Supernaturalist. RR 20 HP 42 Damage 2d6 or any curse effect you want, he can hit all party members if he wants. Speed: 24 lightning move or teleport and fly Gold: 1 and Magic Rusty Dagger +1 which melts all non-magical steel armor touched (but not doors). XP: 1,000.
If the PCs chat with the Goblin they must answer his three riddles to pass without harm, otherwise they must fight him or find some other way of outwitting him. The three riddles are:
“What’s small, round, comes in a yellow box, and has a hole in it?” A. a Cheerio.
“I Hate That Monkey” A. Pirates of the Carribean
and “What sucks, happens yearly, and rhymes with axes?” A. Taxes.
The PCs are allowed one false answer each, but that’s all the goblin will allow. Answering each one of his riddles is worth 1,000 xp to the group and a bonus 500 xp to whoever answered it.
As the GM you should doodle 10 encounter areas on your own piece of scrap paper of the dungeon below and assign the areas as you wish.
Dungeon Room 1
You push in a fungusy door and see a stagnant pool of water which glows with a bright blue light. As you are about to close the door it snarls, jumps off its hinges and attacks you.
Animated Door (Invincible) RR 15 HP: infinite Damage: 1d6 Speed: 3 Gold: 0 XP: 500 The only way to kill this door is to swim to the bottom of the pool and claim the blue sword of Sedarath which is the only object which can kill it. Swim RR 14 or Hold Breath RR 10. Retrieving the sword takes 2 rounds.
The blue glow comes from the sword of Sedarath which is a 1d8+2 longsword with the ability to blow holes in things like a stack of dynamite once per day (2d6 damage and bursts stone and suchlike). It also grants the owner +4 swim and the ability to breath underwater. It is rumored to be the only weapon that can kill the Heart of a terrible sentient Dungeon known as “The Terminator”.
Dungeon Room 2
You enter a huge 100 ft. by 100 ft. hall made of solid marble. There are 10 massive pillars in the room and as soon as you set foot within they all start sliding towards you as if by magic.
These deadly pillars deal 1d6 damage each on contact and are difficult to avoid as they move in a pattern. Escape Artist or Acrobatics RR 14 to dodge a pillar. Any blow from a weapon kills a pillar instantly (it disappears) but there is one real pillar which supports this room and if it’s broken it cracks and the room collapses in 1 round (killing all those still within [after the one round] and possibly blocking off escape). You should role-play the desperate dash across the room and have anyone not roleplaying it get hit with a really big rock in the head and become unconscious for a while.
Dungeon Room 3
You enter a long corridor and see row upon row of Death Rays. It appears the Prince wasn’t named for nothing.
The death rays are RR 10 to disable. RR 8 to dodge. And there are about 20 of them. Running through at top speed results in only 3 rays attacking the character. Anyone struck with a death ray must make a physical save at +10% (+2 for you) on the roll or be disintegrated. Death rays pried out of the wall can be shot once before losing power.
Dungeon Room 4
This armory is full of ten soldiers, but none of the fabled Black Scorpion Ninja Assassins you’ve heard so much about. You’re disappointed but the soldiers scream and attack you in the name of the Prince anyway.
Soldier RR 10 HP 1 Speed: 3 Damage 1d8 Gold 5 XP 50 each.
The PCs can question any captured soldiers as to the best route to take, drag them along, or salvage any weapons and armors they want from the armory which is clearly overstocked. Careful inspection RR 16 perception reveals a quiver of 16 +1 arrows which bite the target fiercely lowering morale and imposing -1 RR for the first round so struck.
Dungeon Room 5
This appears to be some kind of chemical magical laboratory. You find a load of acid, alchemical fire, smoke bombs, shrapnel grenades, beakers of gunk and whatnot, and some plans which appear to show a Holy Grail like object hooked up to a load of wires and a giant demon skull. This definitely doesn’t look good. It appears the bride of the evil figure on the plans must be sacrificed to get the whole thing going. You have little time left.
If the PCs waste a lot of time here they hear a distant scream, diabolical laughter, and then a huge demon bursts through the walls and tries to eat them. Demon RR 28 HP 80 Damage 2d6 Speed: 12 fly or move/tunnel Perception +20 and see invisible, ranged and melee attacks. Gold: 1,000 xp: 5,000
Dungeon Room 6
This room appears to be completely empty.
If anyone looks they can find a secret panel in the floor, inside is a chest full of rubies worth at least 250,000 gold coins and whoever find it earns the team 4,000 bonus xp.
Dungeon Room 7
This room is full of maids who scream when you enter. There are mirrors, pillows, a bridal suite, fancy bits of silk and clothes, and other various girly type things scattered around.
The maids can tell the PCs that the Prince (if still alive) ran off ‘that way’ with his new queen and there was no funny business because he was in too much of a rush to feed her to a giant demon skull in order to use the Holy Grail to summon a demon.
The contents of the room are semi-valuable and the silks and dresses in particular will fetch a good price but if the PCs wait to long they hear screams from up ahead. If they’re still keen on wasting time you can skip to Dungeon Room 5’s description of the giant demon.
Dungeon Room 8
A hot wind whips your tunics. You know you’re close to the villainy now. As you burst through the door you find yourself skidding to a halt before a seething sea of lava below. A bridge fashioned of human skulls leads over the expanse and several ropes hang from the ceiling.
As soon as anyone makes it halfway over the massive bridge the skulls all start cackling and dive into the lava. The bridge collapses and everyone must jump on the ropes and then swing across to the other side while the magmafied skulls leap out of the lava like piranhas and try to bite their heads off.
Jump or Acrobatics RR 14 to swing a rope. 3 swings to reach far side.
Flaming Skull Piranha RR 15 or bitten HP 1 Damage 1d6 per round attached to posterior + catch fire on second round and start to light rope on fire (+2 Jump RR to make it before rope burns and snaps). Speed: 6 jump Gold: 0 (flame skull souvenir?) XP: 300.
Making it to the far side without burning alive in molten magma is worth 2,000 xp to each survivor. Making it there without being bitten by a flaming skull is worth 3,0
00 xp.
Dungeon Room 9
You can see beyond this room a huge chamber shaped in a sphere at the center of which is a giant demon skull with wires hooked up to it and tubes connecting it to the Princess suspended in her wedding dress and hooked up to the dread machine. But before you stands a ten-foot-tall colossus of steel, stone, and evil magic. It’s chained to the wall and guards the whole of the entry. It sets its empty eye-sockets on you and a blade of steel springs from its arm.
The animated construct simply wants to be free. His name is Gary and if anyone breaks the chain he just wanders off and escapes and that PC gains 1,000 xp.
Gary HP 24 RR 17 Damage 2d6 Speed: 3 (stuck to wall by chain) Gold: 0 XP: 300.
Dungeon Room 10
This huge spherical chamber is dominated by a giant demon skull. You see the Holy Grail’s waters pouring into the Princess’ mouth: making her immortal as her life force is simultaneously sucked out for all eternity into the Demon skull by lines of fell dark magic power. The Prince, Death Ray, stands before you on a catwalk barring your way before her and smiles. “You’re too late, in moments the machine will be at full power, and then, my friends, you’ll get to witness the full power of this fully armed and operational…Demon Making Machine!! Mwa ha ha ha ha!” The Prince rips off his shirt showing the giant Black Scorpion tattooed there. He raises his fists. “Who wants a piece of me, eh? Huh? Who?” He sniffs like a boxer and bounces around.
If the PCs already killed the Prince it turns out to just be an illusion and all they have to do is free the princess. If not the Prince is: RR 14 HP 15 Damage 2d6 Speed: 4 All skills +5 Gold: 10,000 in bag of holding in pocket, XP: 2,000
The PCs have 2 rounds to save the Princess and must find a way to get past the Prince and also swing out to the Demon skull suspended over the chasm. RR 16 ish. Freeing her from her bonds is use rope or equivalent RR 10 and swinging back is RR 16 again. If anyone drinks from the Holy Grail you should inform them they are now immortal (but can still be killed by unnatural causes such as swords or giant demons).
If the Demon is freed he roars, smashes everything, and escapes. The Prince laughs. The Demon comes back and kills him then goes after the PCs. See Dungeon Room 5 for Demon stats.
During the battle the Prince shouts:
You fools, do you not see the brilliance of my plan? I have hooked the now immortal princess up to the demon making machine, her eternal life force prolonged by the Holy Grail powers my sinister work. Mwa ha ha.
When they finish him off he says, “Doh, I have the last laugh…” and hits the self destruct button in his pocket. The roof starts to collapse.
The PCs must grab the Princess (actually a farm girl) and make some kind of break for it. The Demon Making Machine is destroyed, the giant skull buried, and the castle of the prince blown to smithereens. The Mouse Queen pays the PCs the full reward of 100,000 gold pieces if they should choose to return the Holy Grail.
The Final Bit
“Well done, mighty heroes, you’ve done the right thing. For a minute there I thought you might just keep it for yourselves ha ha.” The Mouse Queen stands from her throne and bows to you all, as do her subjects.
They throw a huge posh dinner in your honor and all the hottest mice make out with your characters, which is quite weird, to say the least. Before the feast is over a fat Halfling passes you a charred and yellowed treasure map bearing the legend “Monster Land” you then pass out from too much drink and drool on it, ruining the directions.
Everyone receives 5,000 xp for completing the adventure which will put them all at roughly around level 10 and give them a brand new Player Power and +5 hp at least. You should also allow the Players to go shopping for any new gear they may want or need, including magic items of your own creation should they have enough money to buy such rare items.