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\title{The Smuggler \& the Smith}
\author{\copyright 1990 Mike Sellers}
\date{msellers@pdx.mentor.com}
\maketitle

{\it \noindent
{\Large H}ere's an FRP adventure for all you module runners out there.\\}

\begin{center}
{\Large Some Notes}
\end{center}

{\noindent
  The adventure takes place in a large city-state, and can involve some 
role-playing, intrigue, combat, a little magic, and a brief peek 
at the high-stakes power plays going on in the city.  I think this will
work best with characters who are not high power, though I suppose you
could scale it up if necessary.}

  The patron, Sir Eric, is a well-known noble associated with one of the more
powerful trading houses in the city.  A deep background check might reveal
a hint of some connections that might raise a few eyebrows, but the characters
have no reason to suspect duplicity on his part.

  Jules, the smuggler, is a tall thin man with lank brown hair (why? I don't
know, but that's how I imagined him).  He is well-paid, though his forte is
smuggling, not fighting.  He died quite conveniently when I ran this before
as he was covering the PCs retreat.  He did it more out of shock that a plan
of his could have gone so far wrong than out of altruism for the smith or
the PCs (though I *did* have some vague thoughts about Carl being Jules'
hated older brother whom he regretted at the last minute having sold to the 
Sisters, but thankfully that little subplot never had to see the light of day).

  The city has many large temples to various gods.  Most of these are set on
a hill near the center of the city, and are well appointed and attended.  
There are undercurrents of conflict or rivalry between some of the temples,
though this rarely touches the worshiper-on-the-street.  The temple in 
which most of this adventure takes place is devoted to the goddess Reltira,
also known as ``she who walks in the night" (as some people know, an equally
viable translation of her name could be rendered ``she who stalks in darkness").
Reltira is the patron of thieves, astronomers, lycanthropes, shape changers,
prostitutes, and others who practice mainly beneath the moon.  This temple
is at odds with the temple of Greenslade (god of life and illusion [if you've
ever seen Roger Dean's artwork, you may recognize where the concept for 
Greenslade came from -MJS]), and is rumored by some to have secret dealings 
with some of the priests in the temple to Thet, the sea god.  \\

\begin{center}
{\Large Adventure in brief}
\end{center}


{\noindent
Sir Eric, a noble of wealth and manners, has contracted with the characters to 
rescue a certain smith (named Carl) from the clutches of the Temple of She Who 
Walks in the Night, where he is currently illegally being held prisoner.  
If pressed, Eric will admit that the smith is a master, and has a reputation
for making magical devices that the Sisters of the Night are attempting to 
forcibly cash in on.  Certain people do not want the Sisters to gain the sort
of power they could from this smith, and so have determined that it would be 
best if he left their employ (though this is not, strictly speaking, the PCs 
concern).  All of the PCs have been selected more or less at random (from the
pool of nascent adventurers) so as not to arouse the Temple's suspicions.  
To help them find the smith and bring him to safety is a smuggler named Jules.
Jules says he knows where the smith is being kept and has been hired to help 
get him out.  In fact, Jules knows about this because he was the one who 
smuggled the smith into the Temple in the first place, and now bigger pay 
has helped him change sides.  Jules will admit this if it comes up, but will
not volunteer this information [note: this was played for much hilarity on
my part when I ran this; all the player's mouths dropped open when Jules
casually admitted that he knew which way to turn because ``this was the way
I carried him in here in the first place"].  Eric also gives the PCs each a
small ebony panther amulet and gives one of them (optionally the confederate,
see below) two keys that will help them get into the Temple (one fits the
outside garden gate where the gardeners throw out their clippings, and the
other a grate leading into a series of steam tunnels).  The amulets will
be needed to circumvent the temple's passive guardians when the PCs are
on the way out.\\}

\begin{center}
{\Large What's going on}
\end{center}

{\noindent
The Temple wants Carl to make a magical cloak that will aid in shapeshifting,
something Carl is not excited about doing.  He is in fact a consummate master,
but his mainstream ethics prevent him from willingly giving in to the Sisters.}

Carl wants to escape, but is being held both in chains and by the fact that
the Temple has something on him (maybe a family member held hostage?).
[Note: I conveniently let this latter aspect of things drop when everything
started to get hairy and the PCs were running like crazy.]

Eric ostensibly wants the smith rescued because it will deal a blow to the
Temple.  In reality he is deeply involved with the Temple himself, and this
is part of a power play on his part to gain more control over it. While he
cannot directly supplant the High Priestess, he {\em can} replace her with 
someone more tractable.  If the current high priestess were shown to be
incompetent (say, by losing an important commodity like the smith), her
opposition would have the leverage it needs to overthrow her with the 
popular (though vapid) Clarise at their head.

Jules is just in this for the money. (Or is he?  Decide depending on how
many twists and turns you want in this thing.)

One of the PCs might be a confidant of Eric's.  He (or she, which works 
even better, since most of the people in the temple are women) would know 
about Eric's plan and be along to make sure things go okay.  Maybe this 
character knows a coupe of passwords or something that is all too 
convenient... in any event, if things go well, the confederate will probably 
expect some credit from Eric, though if things go badly he or she might 
just fade out with the rest of the PCs.\\

\begin{center}
{\Large What They Have To Do}
\end{center}

{\noindent
Get into the Temple, via the garden gate.  (Possibility of being seen
by a random person/priestess walking in the garden, or of being seen while
stealing across the garden towards the locked grate that leads toward
the basement where Carl is.  Jules can unlock the gate and grate, or the
confederate can, or another party member can.)}

Get from there into the steam/ventilation tunnels (unused at this time 
of year).  The grate leads down into some steam tunnels.  These are about
8' on a side, with a square cross-section, and are lined with a marble-like
stone or ceramic that is fairly slick with condensation.  Jules knows his
way perfectly, though it might be interesting to have him fall or something
so that the characters are left to their own devices.  At any rate, Carl
is in the lowest basement.  The tunnels open out into the ceiling of this
room about 20' off the floor.  I also decided at the last minute that 
the floor of the tunnel sloped precipitously above the grate in the ceiling
above Carl's room, which made opening the grate and lowering a rope quite
hazardous with the slippery footing.  

Along the way, steal some robes from a wardroom for later use.  Jules
can go get these, or a couple of the characters can for a small side
adventure.  They'll need these on the way out (but see below).  Also,
if there is a confederate along, at some point he or she should drop the
small panther amulet they were given, or trip a tripwire ``by accident" or
something similar.  Basically, one of the confederate's jobs is to raise
the alarm before Carl is taken out of the temple so that the Sisters 
can see who it is who is taking him.  Once they see that he is being
taken out by physical rather than magical means, they won't suspect that
this is really (in a twisted sort of way) an inside job, and all their
fury will be directed at these unsuspecting adventurers.

From there get into the special forge that has been set up in the lowest
basement underneath the temple.  Carl is a large fairly handsome smith 
standing in the center of the room, hammering with large stone hammers in
both hands over a glowing anvil.  He is hammering at what looks like very 
thin shiny black metal/cloth, and sparks fly from it each time he hits it
(this cloth is *very* valuable, but needs more work by a non-smith before
it can be made into a cloak of shape changing).  Carl is chained at the 
waist to long chains, each terminating in an opposite end of the room.  
He cannot move far from his anvil, and cannot get a good angle to break 
the chains.  

Once down into the room, the PCs have to free Carl.  Jules will watch
the door, and bar it from the inside.  Only Carl's hammer (wielded by 
someone else until he is free on one side) will be able to break the 
chains; there is enough slack to get a piece of it on the stone floor, 
and it will break after being hit a few times (this will also make rubble
of the stone underneath it).  A dwarf or smith will be able to see that 
the links in the chain are iron that has some sort of crystalline 
treatment on it to make them magically strong.
  
  Carl is very grateful about being set free, but will not leave without
his hammer, the metal/cloth he was working on, a beautiful dagger, and a 
few miscellaneous items.  He will look longingly at the anvil (in my system,
such an anvil assists expert smiths in making magic items; to a master 
smith, it is what a +4 flametongue would be to a fighter), but there is
no way to move it (unless your characters have one of my patented 
collapsible pack mules).  

Once Carl is free on one side, the PCs will here a lot of running and
shouting coming toward them in the hall outside the room.  Either the
alarm the confederate tripped or something else (breaking the chain?)
has raised the alarm, and troops are coming down on them quickly.  While
they are still trying to free Carl on the other side, a big booming step
can be heard in the hall outside.  Troops are now right outside the door,
and they are trying to open it.  A huge booming starts up, like a big
fist or a small battering ram hitting the door.  The party is trapped
(since they can't go back up through the tunnels, given the slope)!\\

\begin{center}
{\Large Or Are They?}
\end{center}

{\noindent
Carl shows them an ancient trap door he found under some boxes and rags
in one corner.  If the PCs Dally, the door bursts open, revealing several
temple guards preceded by a large, angry troll on a leash with a spiked
collar.  This is where Jules bought it before, and I think it worked
well.  As the PCs struggle to get the trap door opened, Jules fires a small
crossbow (where did he get *that*?) at the troll.  The troll, now really
angry, rips Jules' arms off.  It pauses to bite the top of his head off
while the PCs, now truly motivated, open the trap door and descend the
steep stone stairs.}

  They should all get through the door just before the temple guards 
reach it.  Rather than pursuing them, though, the guards quickly shut 
the door; sounds of it being spiked shut or something heavy being 
moved on top of it can be heard, along with muffled laughter.  Clearly,
the guards are not worried about the PCs or the smith escaping this way.

They are now in small circular room with five passages leading off in
various directions.  The passages appear to be storm sewers; there is
a small amount of stagnant water in the bottom of each and a smell of
stale air and refuse around them.  

If any of the PCs have any religious training, they might have heard
tales of the passages underneath the temples, but these are never given
much credence.  In all the tales, however, the passages are supposed to
be the homes of deranged lunatics, old insane shape-changing priestesses,
prisoners converted to animal form, lycanthropes, sluks, ghouls, and
other miscellaneous uglies.  

In fact, all of the above do live in various parts of these passages.
I drew up a very random map on unlined paper showing how the passages
proceed, intersect, dead-end, and (in a few cases) actually empty out
into an empty field, the basement of a slum house, or into the pit outside
the city walls.  The PCs have to roam around for a while, and the number
of hideous things they encounter is basically up to you.  To be fair, I
quickly noted on my map where the old insane priestess lives, where most
of the lycanthropes converge, where the party of goblins trying to break
in to the city is located, etc..  The party skirted the area (and heard
bone-chilling hysterical cackling in the distance) where the priestess 
lives, hit some werebats and weretoads, and eventually got out -- it had 
been a long evening).

Along the way, the party discovered a large room with a stone ceiling
that resembled the underside of a huge bowl.  A little ways beyond this,
they found a stair way leading up on one side of the passage.  At the top
was a long dis-used door, with a brass fish for a handle.  They guessed
(rightly) that this door led into the sea-god's temple, though they 
didn't even want to {\em think} about what those people might be keeping
in a large bowl or pool deep in the basement of their temple...
This little tidbit will come in handy in later adventures :-)

The party eventually finds its way out of the sewers and into a field
or some such (they almost ended up coming out of a secret door (whose
presence is unknown to the proprietors) in a sleazy beer-hall in the 
slums).  Carl wants to take refuge in the Temple of Greenslade if he 
has any choice, and suggests that the PCs come along.  If they agree
and they make there without being sighted by the other temple's guards,
he will give them the dagger (beautifully wrought, with some really nice
magic on it).  For their part, the priests of Greenslade will be so glad
to see Carl (he was originally coming to see them when his trip was
interrupted) that they will agree to give the party safe passage out 
of the city [this is where the PCs actually set up their next adventure
when I ran this, as the priests had a task that needed doing, and since
these folks really did need to leave town anyway...].

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