The Circle of Hell
In a nearby town villagers tell tales of adventurers being driven mad by an unknown force within the woods...
Over the past few months in the town of Sethilla about five or so brave adventurers had been driven insane; screaming about fire no one can see, then screaming that they cant hear their screams as well as claiming blindness. These effects wear off after a while and the adveturers (now considered as lunatics) who experienced them are now under tight survelance in the towns jail. The one thing that ties these adventurers together is that they have entered the Belipila Woods (a nearby forest) looking for a legendary treasure.
When the PCs arrive in the town any local person they talk to has heard of, and probly witnessed the events. The town is run by a Mercenary Guild (located near the back wall). The Guild will gladly pay a high price to adventurers who go to the forest, find out whats going on, stop it, and come out with the treasure.
If the PCs agree:
The forest is about a half hour walk away. The woods cover a lot of ground so they could be in their for a while.
After a while of random wilderness encounters the PCs will come across what appers to be a shrine. There is an alter with fresh blood on it, a statue of a Demon and sacrificial knife. If any characters have a way of knowing: the blood is Goblin blood. When the PCs leave the shrine an Arrow of Personal Hell is fired at two of them. Any attempt to locate the the attacked fails.
Every hour another AofPH (Arrow of Personal Hell) is fired at a PC. They may succeed at attempts to locate the atacker at this point.
It continues like this until the PCs leave the woods or locate the attacker.
If the attacker is located he tries to run away, if the PCs follow they find a fortress made in the trees. This is the head quarters of The Circle of Hell.
They find the attacker inside the head quarters along with a few other low ranked guard members. The PCs can find out that The Circle's most powerful spell-casting members are in a clearing not too far away completing the ritual to bring Hell's highest mountain and all of its hellish occupants to this plane.
The Spell-Casters are all between mid to high level.
(Except for the Leader)
The Lower-Rank guards are low-mid level.
The guards at the clearing are all mid lev.
The PCs must defeat the Leader in under an hour (Game Time) of the ritual succeeds and well... yeah.
First the Guards fight, if needed the Spell-Casters help out but the Leader wont attack until the mountain has risen or he has been injured three times.
If the mountain does rise all hope is lost unless one of the PCs destroys the statue of the Demon found earlier, uses the sacrificial knife to draw blood from them selves then bleeds on the broken statue. This will force the mountain to return to Hell, but anything that left the mountain remains on this plane when the mountain goes.
The Leader is high level.
This adventure could start at a lower level and have the PCs track down The Circle of Hell to prevent the mountain from rising. Just to extend the time the plot would last.
~ Hope you enjoy (hope i didnt miss something like i usually do).
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? Responses (5)
I like the idea but would get rid of the treasure and make it more of a mystery instead of pointing them straight to the forest. Let the PCs be the first to successfully interrogate the crazies and get coherent information. They could use magical means the town doesn't have or the crazies will only talk to strangers or something, anything.
One arrow an hour doesn't set well with me either. Why one an hour? If I was releasing my demon god then I would spare no expense to try and get rid of those that may ruin my plans.
For my game I would instead find a way to give the PCs better protection from the arrows. They could discover what they are and get a protection spell from a cleric (there has to be some other good cult that knows about these Hell dudes and have some protection from them) or something. The arrows are less effective but still do their thing with proper failing saves. So the PCs have more hope fighting them but it is still gut wrenching whenever they get hit and have to save.
I like the idea of using this Hell cult as a growing cult in the world and maybe the shakers behind the evil. I would want to build up the pressure of them to a climax of discovering the ritual and foiling it. I would probably draw the Hell thing out for a long time, slowly introduce it to the compaign with madness slowly building through the country, the occasional conflict with the cult and their arrows until they become true enemies of the PCs culminating perhaps with this plot.
I like the Arrow Of Personl Hell A LOT so would want to draw it out as long as possible.
Sounds good to me.
Im glad you like the Arrow of Personal Hell, and as I've said before you can use my submissions any way you want to...
That was supposed to be me, keep disconnecting for some reason.
Pieh, this sub has possibilities of being the stronghold of one of my chief baddies. Going to put it in my Favs for possible alteration and use. Thanks!
A lot of unanswered 'whys' and coincidences here, along with a massive escalation from investigating a mystery to a campaign-shaping event. There are neat details and it would a great base to work from.
