The Unusual Predicament of Sophie De Murtas

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PapersAndPaychecks
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Re: The Unusual Predicament of Sophie De Murtas

Post by PapersAndPaychecks »

Er, not yet because I'm an idiot. I stupidly numbered the thumbnail instead of downloading the high-res version and numbering that. Bear with me: I'll fix that shortly.
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Re: The Unusual Predicament of Sophie De Murtas

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Renata's lair

The expected course of events at this stage of the adventure is for the players to approach Renata's lair, declare their peaceful intent, speak with her and go on their way. However, to allow for the possibility that the party decides to go poking about, the other rooms are detailed hereafter.

1. A Warm Welcome:

Unless the party has taken steps to conceal their approach to the building, they will be greeted by Valentina Bellini, Renata's concierge.

[box]
You are met outside the building by a tall woman with bright eyes and strong cheekbones, wearing an elaborately-draped peplos. She has eagle-like wings.
[/box]

Valentina introduces herself and asks the party their business. She will find out their names, and then conduct them into room #5 to meet Renata. If asked about her wings, Valentina will explain that she comes from a distant plane where many kinds of speaking creature can fly.

Valentina Bellini, AC20, HD7, hp 26, #AT nil (will flee combat), dam N/A, Mv 30ft or 50 ft flying, Save as Cleric 6, ML 7, XPV 800.
]]]]] ]]]]] ]]]]] ]]]]] ]]]]] ]
Spell-like abilities (all as a 12th level spellcaster): Charm person, suggestion, darkness 15ft radius, dimension door, ESP and clauraudience. Valentina can use these powers at will, one power per round, instead of her normal action.

She is a shape-changed succubus, and so she can drain experience levels by means of her kiss; but Valentina has clear instructions from her infernal masters not to be discovered, so she will not use this power, nor any of her spell-like abilities. She is content to be "killed" (i.e. her material form destroyed) to avoid being revealed as a succubus. If she is discovered then she will use her powers to try to prevent the information from spreading.

If the party approaches the building by stealth, Valentina will not be there, and the outside door will be closed and barred from within. If they knock then she will answer the door and the adventure will proceed as before; but if they sneak about the complex then she will be in her chamber, which is room #22.
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chiisu81
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Re: The Unusual Predicament of Sophie De Murtas

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Added for R7.
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chiisu81
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Re: The Unusual Predicament of Sophie De Murtas

Post by chiisu81 »

Hi Stuart; once you have the map fixed I'll upload R7, thanks!
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Re: The Unusual Predicament of Sophie De Murtas

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Apologies for the delay.
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Re: The Unusual Predicament of Sophie De Murtas

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2. Hallway:-

[box]
The narrow entrance hall contains two dozen bookshelves. Each contains books in a seemingly random order, piled haphazardly on the shelves. There are benches for guests to wait on.
[/box]

If the party pauses to inspect the books, Valentina will encourage them not to keep her mistress waiting. These books are the standard reference works a scholar would keep around -- dictionaries of elven and draconic languages, a thesaurus, Dogwood's Philosophical Principles, Unwin's A Scholar's Companion, and so on. A player character magic user will probably have most of these in his or her tower. They are out of order, and some have been put back on the shelves upside down.
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Re: The Unusual Predicament of Sophie De Murtas

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3. Hallway:-

[box]
The inner entrance hall is also lined with bookshelves.
[/box]

These are works a literate person might read for pleasure -- biographies of various archmages, a volume of epic poetry in the High Elven Courtly Style (which requires each stanza to conform to a complicated pattern of rhyme, alliteration, assonance and stress; each line must have an odd number of syllables, each stanza must have an odd number of lines, and no line or stanza may be the same length as the previous one -- non-elves tend to find it either impenetrable or contrived), an Orcish Opera (scored for thirty bass voices, crashes, thuds and the cracking of a whip, while the audience keeps time by rhythmically beating their weapons against their shields -- this one would take about fourteen hours to perform from start to finish. Like all Orcish Operas it's about revenge.)

Everything is haphazardly ordered. Most of these books are large, with thick, heavy pages which could be opened with a dragon's claw, and some of them bear marks showing that this has happened. The Orcish Opera is slightly singed at the edges.
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chiisu81
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Re: The Unusual Predicament of Sophie De Murtas

Post by chiisu81 »

Thanks! R7 uploaded.
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Re: The Unusual Predicament of Sophie De Murtas

Post by PapersAndPaychecks »

No, thank you. :)

R7 errata (I checked the .pdf):- (1) Map on p. 19 needs scaling; (2) On page 10, "group comprises of" should read "group comprises"; (3) "In defeat" on page 13 belongs at the end of the content on page 11.

Does the Cheiropteran encounter need its own map?
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Re: The Unusual Predicament of Sophie De Murtas

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4. Rear hallway:

[box]
The books and scrolls on the shelves in this corridor appear to be recent arrivals that are awaiting being sorted and catalogued.
[/box]

None of the books are of much interest to adventurers; there are ledgers, a catalogue of fossils, a study of an ancient battle, a concordance for the holy book of an extinct religion, a book of recipes involving dinosaur meat and a theoretical study of spider webs which purports to prove that some spiders are left-handed. (This is total bunk, as any elf or druid will know without having to roll.) Most of the scrolls are similarly useless, but one ---- unknown to anyone in the hall at the moment ---- contains a genuinely new magic user spell. (If the optional illusionist class is in play then illusionists can also cast it.)

Pyanpi's Charm of Corpse Distraction
Magic-User 3 or Illusionist 2
Range: 20 ft/level
Duration: 1 turn/level

Most undead creatures lack eyes and ears, or if they have them they are typically too decayed to function properly. Instead, the magic that sustains them imbues them with an eldritch awareness of their surroundings and, usually, a lust for life force which the undead experience like a terrible hunger.

This spell creates an illusion that affects even the eldritch senses of the undead. The phantom life force is highly alluring to undead. Such creatures must save vs spells or attack the illusory animus in place of any genuine living creatures in the area. Of course, if struck in combat then the animus is dispelled and will disappear, so typically what the spell really does is to buy one combat round of time to attack or flee.
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