Thursday 8 November 2012

NPCs of Ironmarket part 2

These non-player characters are all found in and around the city of Ironmarket in the Godsblood Straits region.

Arrack Highhand
10th level thief, align Chaotic, male
Str 10, Int 13, Wis 13, Dex 16, Con 11, Cha 16
AC 1, Move 120', HP 31, THAC0  14 (sword) or 14 (bow) Att 1 sword for 1d6+2  or 1 arrow for 1d6, Ml 8
Equipment: Leather Armour +2, Shortsword +2, Shortbow, quiver & 20 arrows, Ring of Protection +2, 3x potion of healing, Thieves Tools, 50' rope + grappling hook, crowbar
Arrack Highhand is both the leader of the local gang of thieves and the top local agent of the Red Hand. He will monitor but not move against PCs who disrupt Red Hand activities elsewhere, unless told to by his superiors. When left to his own devices he is greedy, ambitious and dominating. He seeks to turn the "Burglars' Guild" into a proper Thieves Guild, achieve dominance over other Red Hand members in Ironmarket and make lots of money in the process.
Appearance: Arrack is tall and thin (6'3" and 120lb) with short dark hair, clean-shaven  and a pinched, drawn face that makes him look almost emaciated. He wears a dark brown leather jerkin studded with dull iron rivets and his shortsword buckled on nearly all the time. His voice is deep and growly and it sounds very menacing when he wants to be. 

Velipnar the Zealous
7th level cleric, align Neutral, male,
Str 8, Int 14, Wis 14, Dex 10, Con 13, Cha 10
AC 2, Move 90', HP 26, THAC0  17, Att 1 warhammer for 1d6 or spell, Ml 10, 
Equipment: Chain Mail +1, Shield +1, Warhammer +1, Holy Symbol, 2 vials of holy water
Spells: Detect Magic x2, Cure Light Wounds, Light, Hold Person, Silence 15' radius, Find Traps, Dispel Magic, Remove Curse, Cure Serious Wounds 
Velpinar is in charge of a shrine to Khazep in Ironmarket, and keeps in contact with members on the Town Council (namely both the Clerics' Representative and the Mages Representative). Velipnar has visited the Students of Gerontium in Maquosmouth, and believes they are worth helping. He will often try to drum up support for their fight in Ironmarket, though so far without much success. He has a friendly rivalry with the churches of Law in town.
Appearance: Velipnar is 5'9", and average weight. He has short brown hair and has a moustache and sideburns, and grey eyes. Most of the time Velipnar is relaxed and jovial, wearing his clerical vestments around town, but if he is either expecting trouble or wanting to impress, he will wear his chain mail underneath his clerical robe. 

Garraville Shrelk
4th level thief, align Chaotic, male
Str 8, Int 16, Wis 13, Dex 15, Con 8, Cha 8
AC 6, Move 120', HP 8. THAC0 18, Att 1 dagger for 1d4, backstab THAC0 14, dam 2d4, Ml 6 
Equipment: Robe of Protection +1, Ring of Protection +1, Dagger +1, Potion of Invisibility
Garraville is an unpopular moneylender in Ironmarket who is also a member of the Red Hand. He is aware of Arrack Highhand, and avoids him when possible. Garraville sometimes gets debtors to repay him with questionable or even illegal favours when they can't produce the cash. Garraville does not like getting violent with debtors - he has plenty of contacts with street gangs who can do it for him.
Appearance: Garraville is 5'4", 95lb  and really not much to look at. He has a face that bears likeness of both a rat and a vulture, with a large hooked nose and crooked teeth. His hair is a dull grey and there is a bald patch on the top of his head. He will usually dress in cheap merchant clothes, usually dark grey or black. 

Lieutenant Vandergrun
5th level fighter, align Neutral, male
Str 16, Int 10, Wis 7, Dex 11, Con 14, Cha 13
AC 2, Move 60',  HP 40, THAC0 13, Att 1 sword for 1d8+3, Ml 10
Equipment: Plate Mail, Sword +1, Shield, Light Crossbow, case with 20 bolts
Vandergrun is a lieutenant in the Ironmarket town guard. He is heavily in debt due to an ongoing gambling problem, and has borrowed money from unsavoury sources, including Garraville Shrelk. He is now basically in Shrelk's pocket, albeit grudgingly so. Most of the time he is a tough and effective law enforcer. However, when Shrelk or money is involved, he becomes extremely untrustworthy and duplicitous. Vandergrun knows he's in a really difficult situation, but his instincts are to cover it up and hope that no-one knows what's going on. After all, he doesn't want to lose his job or his rank over this.
Appearance: Vandergrun is a heroic figure, 6'3", 200lb (most of it muscle) and a thick black mane of hair with a large black handlebar moustache and heavy black eyebrows. He has several scars, including one on his neck and another on his left forearm and back of the hand. He is usually in uniform (plate mail with an Ironmarket tabard over the top) and always armed. 

Sunday 4 November 2012

The Ruined Town of Brasstooth


Brasstooth used to be a bustling Toutian town of 2300 people, near to the provincial capital of Teiglin, Erkhart. During the Summoning, that all changed. The majority fled westwards, away from Erkhart and the Chaos Portal that was spewing out monsters. Some were caught and killed by the monsters.
A group of about 60 villagers fled into a small wood just outside Brasstooth and asked a powerful elf spellsword (called Gerrillion)  for help. His answer was to transform them into trees with a Massmorph spell. Since Gerrillion lived in a wood, the transformed townsfolk are now indistinguishable from the normal trees. Massmorph has no time limit, and as such they have remained as trees, in a sort of deep slumber, for nearly 50 years. Gerrillion has since moved to Glensor Town and he still remembers the incident. He honestly believes that he did the best he could as at the moment the townsfolk are still fairly safe as long as the monsters don't start chopping down trees. However, if the Massmorph spell is dispelled, there would be 60 confused and helpless non-combatant humans in the middle of the monster-infested lands of Chaos.
Escorting them 30 miles to Castellan Keep (which in itself is really only a temporary stop, not an end of their journey) would require plenty of soldiers and supplies (food and water) if it is not to turn into a massacre that has been merely delayed for 50 years. One adventure hook is if a brother of one of the townsfolk wants to have closure about what happened to his brother and asks the PCs to investigate. They fled Brasstooth 50 years ago in different directions, with his brother saying he was going to ask the elf "wizard" for help.
The town itself is not that interesting. It was not walled or fortified, just a sprawl around a crossroads and a marketplace. There is no Chaos Portal within the town, but plenty of monsters from Erkhart have wandered over here as the ruined capital is quite crowded.  
There seem to be two main camps - a band of ogres who have dominated a small tribe of hobgoblins, and wererats who have allied with both human chaos cultists and kobolds. The ogres and hobgoblins have taken over the surface buildings in the centre of town, including the desecrated church of Sestarna, the mayor's house and the town hall. The kobolds and wererats have taken over the sewers and cellars, and have been industrious in tunnelling under Brasstooth. The human cultists worship Pelepton and believe the wererats have been blessed by the treacherous deity.
 Beyond these two groups there are individual monsters and small clusters, including a lone owlbear that wanders the streets at night, several ghouls that seek to pick off careless humanoids and a single troll who the ogres are trying to persuade to join them.