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\title{Pile of Palpable Plots}
\author{Original Compiling by Aaron Sher}
\date{ars3\_cif@uhura.cc.rochester.edu}
\maketitle

{\it \noindent
{\Large H}ey GameMaster! Ever find yourself groaping for
that one idea which will spice up the campaign? Here's a
pile of palpable plots selected from Aaron Sher's Net.Plots.Books,
muchos thanx to the various authors. Read 'em for inspiration or
plagerize to your heart's content. We don't care; we'll make
more!}


\begin{description}

\item[Turnabout:]

Save the Dragon from the Evil Princess.

\item[The Hijacked Alchemist:]

An alchemist hires the party to recover a shipment of supplies that
was hijacked enroute.  If he doesn't get them back, he faces bankruptcy.

\item[Takes a Thief:]

Caught while stealing from a mage, the thief in the party is sent on a
geas to steal an artifact from a colleague as punishment.

\item[Mind F$\star$ck:]

You are assigned to protect a person, but don't let them know you're
protecting them.  Defer to them in all things, but don't let them know
you're deferring to them.

\item[Inheritance:]

An obscure sect of a dark church is seeking the eight necessary
items used in summoning a sleeping demon. Just so happens that one
of the PC's inherited one of the items (it should be something innocuous
like a simple pendant with inscriptions) from a dead relative.

\item[Look-alikes:]

The party uncovers a plot to replace high-ranking officials with exact
look-alikes (shapechangers): nice little conspiracy action.  Which
one of your trusted patrons is really an evil doppleganger? Who can you
trust? Who will believe you? Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean
someone {\em isn't} out to get you.

\item[The Renegade:]

The party is hired by the local Mage Guild to find and capture (and/or
kill) a renegade wizard who is breaking Guild laws (selling magic items
to criminals, assassinating the previous Guildmaster, attempting to
assassinate the current Guildmaster). Local law enforcement is not
involved because the Guild likes to solve its problems internally.

\item[City Adventures:]

Here's a bunch of {\em real} short descriptions of adventure ideas that work
well in a city: Second-story jobs, picking a pocket and finding a map, searching the
tunnels under the city for a tomb or catacombs, competing with the
Thieves' Guild, smuggling arms into the city, spying on foreign
officials, helping an orphan fight against cruel thugs, racing another
party in a city-wide search for a magical artifact, investigating a
corrupt church, wooing a noble lady, searching for your weapons
instructor who has been abducted by a rival, trying to get apprenticed to
a truly weird mage, etc.

\item[The Accidental Lich:]

Go to kill the evil lich, get captured and put at his/its mercy only
to have it ask, ``Why are you bothering me?"  Apparently it was/is a good
wizard who got kind of absent minded as he died and sort of drifted off
into lichdom without noticing.  Since he's quite powerful, none of the
various local monsters that he's geased into serving him have given him
any trouble, nor have they pointed out the problem of his lichdom\ldots

   Play the lich as an absent minded old british gentleman, sort of
surprised that anybody would want to kill him and having considerable
trouble grasping the idea that he's a lich.  A few accidental pats on the
back while the players are held by some sort of spell should be amusing.

   If you can't figure out how to set things up so a lich can
capture and hold helpless a bunch of PCs, {\em shame} on you!  Liches are
something like 30th level M-U/Clerics, not to mention the hordes of
followers, servants, summoned monsters, demons, elementals and the
like.

\item[L$\heartsuit$v at First Sight:]

One of the PC's falls in love with a woman who happens to be a
witch. Perhaps she is allied with a group working against the party?

\item[Ambassadorial Retinue:]

The PC's are sent with an ambassador to another country to protect him
and do his bidding.  There may be some espionage, rescuing, downright
bullying, etc.  Could make a nice medieval special operations background.

\item[To Catch a Thief:]

After a rash of thefts from wizards in the Guild, the PC's are hired to
catch the perpetrators.  They could be other mages, three dozen halfling
thieves, demons, or even time travelers.  PC's need to figure out who
might get hit next, how to catch the criminals, who are they, etc.

\item[Enslaved:]

After a fight where all the PC's seemingly died or are captured, they
wake up to the crack of a whip, as they have been sold into slavery
onboard a galley.  They have no equipment, they have to work to
exhaustion, they get very little food, but if they play well, they might
be able to escape.

\item[Queeny's Pissed:]

The Queen's beau (a very handsome knight-errant or something) is
missing, and he was last seen in a tavern at the edge of town.  The PC's
are the people who were determined to have useful information, after a
lengthy interview/screening by the Queen's Marshall-General, etc.  They
set out to find him, since it is thought he is in grave danger.

\item[Forgotten Memories:]

The party wakes up around a table with wine goblets at hand.
They discover that they have forgotten everything they did over the past
two weeks.  Apparently, as they uncover clues, they were hired by someone
to do a job, and when the job was finished, the person invited them to
dinner.  Interesting events abound as the party attempts to piece
together the events of the last fortnight.

\item[Bonecrusher's Rampage:]

Bonecrusher (an Orc, now a Giant Orc Chieftain) has found the Gauntlet
of Grummsh (an orcish Artifact) and is kicking some serious butt, raising
an orc army and is about to invade the country to\ldots  er\ldots root, pape, and
lillage the area (he's powerful, but he's still an orc).  Of course, the
destruction of this gauntlet is very important to the party.
Bonecrusher could be considered the Guardian of the Gauntlet, and
destroying it {\em will} bring curses from Grummsh onto the party.

\item[The Egg:]

In a cave, in an incredibly cold pool of water, is a large round white
stone (about 3 or 4 feet in diameter).  It feels to all the world like
marble, and radiates magic.

   It's actually a white dragon egg.  It stays in stasis, just hours from
hatching, until it's heated up\ldots to just about room temperature.  Then
it hatches.  If your players are like mine, they'll take a big white
magic rock without thinking twice; it should then hatch at exactly the
worst time.  My players made it all the way back to their ship, and put
it in the hold, before it hatched.  Great fun.

\item[A Bad Joke:]

One of the things I do for comic relief is have the PC's run across a
particular ship full of really stupid sailors.
They are almost always in dire trouble when the PC's come across them,
like the one time they were out in the middle of the ocean and their
sails were on fire.  The PCs had to put the fire out for them, because
they didn't think of using sea water to put it out themselves.

   The name of the ship is the {\em Storm}, and the captain (pilot) looks
and sounds an awful lot like Robert Plant. It
shouldn't take too much prodding before the PC's start calling it
the {\em Ship of Fools}.

\item[Wolf in Sheep's Clothing:] 

A demon (e.g. Cambion demon) has taken the shape of a respected member
of the community (using polymorph self) and, masking his true alignment,
shape and abilities, is slowly spreading death and terror in the city.
The PC's are hired to find the perpetrator and
capture/kill them before it gets even more out of control.  The demon is
able to change shape easily and hence occasionally changes to take the
form of one of its victims to throw off the scent.  Its sole purpose is
to cause disruption and Chaos (or perhaps was brought here by someone for
other reasons and escaped or was turned loose).

\item[Curse of the Incontinent Dragon:] 

The party ventures into a small town after their latest expedition
only to find that the towsfolk are in an uproar.  The mayor tells the
party about the ``cursed beast of darkness" which rises from its burrows
to the north and flies over the hapless village dropping flaming missles
from his bowels.  As the characters pass by the mayor's house, they note the
gruesome stench.  Gobs of acid-spitting larvae still snake through the
burnt ruins.  To make a long story short, the witch of the {\em wyrmwoods}
which surround the village has cast a curse upon the foul dragon who used
to be a nature loving and solitary beast.  Now, in his incontinence, he
regards the town as his private toilet.  Furthermore, the curse has also
reduced his intelligence by, oh say, 15 points.  "Aww\ldots duh\ldots
you mean you know ahh\ldots I wasn' a 'spose to poop der\ldots dahhhh!"

\item[The Doppleganger Brigade:]

The party is hired to transport scrolls to a temple in the hills, far
from their hometown.  They arrive in town, and discover that some
townsfolk have disappeared.  They meet the high priest, deliver the
goods, and are prepared to leave, when they find the body of the high
priest somewhere in town.

   It seems a small band of doppelgangers have uncovered a lead to a
magic item/relic that is buried beneath the tombs under the temple.  The
scrolls provide information of some sort the doppelgangers need to get to
the item.  The missing people are being used as slaves to dig beneath the
tombs (which of course are full of nasties).

   The final scene should be between the head doppelganger and his
cronies just as the item is unearthed. To be explored:
Did their employer know the high priest was a doppelganger?
Is there a conspiracy to get doppelgangers into power in the human world?

\item[Chez Ralph:]

In a big classy town that the PC's have reason to go to every once in
a while (I have it set in a city near a paladin training center) is an
even classier restaurant called Chez Ralph.  It's about as nice a
restaurant as you could possibly have.  Waiters check on you every minute
or so, there's a string quartet playing in the background, and glasses of
water (``Mineral water, imported from halfway around the world" is what
they tell you, and they're telling the truth) cost around 20 g.p.

   Besides being a wonderful place to have players dump some cash, it's
also Soap Opera City.  The bizarrest people show up there, at the same
time the PC's are there --- but since nobody wants to make a scene, the
whole feeling is very tense.  Old girlfriends, major enemies, spies,
polymorphed dragons, you name it, end up eating there --- and usually with
each other.

   This requires a lot of continuity in the game.  Most games couldn't
support the type of background and tension Chez Ralph requires.  You need
long-term NPC's that the PC's have come to hate --- and put them here, where
you just can't {\em do} anything about them!

\item[Tower Snatch:]

   A mage returns home after a year away and finds that someone has taken
over his tower in the city.  He wants it back and hires the PCs to
reclaim it.  He can supply maps of what it was like when he owned it
(but someone may have moved ``Walls of Stone" and placed whole new trap
areas).  The PC's can keep anything in the tower which is not
specifically his (of course he can claim anything interesting and they
won't know) and a cash reward.  Nobody knows who has it but he suspects
someone respected in the community, hence the attack must be done fairly
quietly so as not to warn the current possessor (the mage can prove that
he is the owner however, he is not setting them up --- unless you want this
to happen).  The tower is appropriately trapped and guarded, mostly with
the expectation of killing the mage who owns it when he tries to return.
The guards and traps are there to kill (not capture) anyone breaking in.
City guards will not take sides unless the conflict extends to outside
the tower.

\item[Gamma World:]

   An item has been stolen from a temple/mage/lord, the thieves
trailed to a portal leading to an unknown plane/realm.  The PC's are
hired to follow and retrieve the item and/or scout the realm.  The realm
escaped to is from the \underline{Gamma World} game.
Several thousand years after an
atomic war, patches of technology still exist.  Most survivors are animal
and/or human mutants and have a mix of equipment.  Laser pistols, bow and
arrows, smart missiles, swords, armalite rifles, battle axes, war robots,
etc.  Survivors are {\em tough} and many have physical and/or mental mutations,
as the weak ones have already died out.  Several technological
installations still exist, guarded by robots.  The PC's must trace the item,
find the current owners, retrieve the item and return before radiation
traces in the atmosphere slowly kill them.  (Optionally, the portal is
now set so that it can only be used by someone carrying the stolen item,
hence stopping the PC's escaping or more raiders coming through).
Equipment bought back may or may not work.  PC's with laser pistols,
rocket launchers and mini-tanks are problematic in fantasy worlds.

\item[Sword Of Kadorn:]

Players are a group of village
adolescents who have discovered a Sword of Power.  The local lord
responsible decides that it should be sent to the capital where they
have mages who would understand such an item, and since the PC's are not
needed between spring shearing and harvest, the lord sends them with an
advisor (village hedge-wizard, old man-at-arms, family retainer,
whatever).  The sword has chosen one of the PCs as its carrier.

   Beyond the simple journey to the capital is the fact that the sword
has its own agenda.  Possibilities include:

\begin{itemize}
\item The sword was created to kill a particular ethnic group in a war;
    that ethnic group subsequently won the war, and it turns out that all
    the PC's but the chosen carrier are descended in some way from that
    ethnic group. Over the course of the journey, that PC argues with the
    sword over whether or not the other PC's should be killed.
\begin{description}
\item[PC:]  ``It will be rather a long fight if I have to kill everyone in the
province"
\item[SWORD:]  ``But the glorious fight will at last be won!"
\end{description}
\item The sword is a Lawful Good sword created a millennium ago, when
    morals were considerably different.  {\em It} wants to encourage the kind
    of behaviour that it believes is good, probably rough eye-for-an-eye
    justice that is frowned upon in most civilized societies.
\item The sword is a weapon to be used in an upcoming {\em Apocalyptic War
    between Good and Evil} $^{TM}$ and is searching for the best Hero
    for the war.  In this case, the PC's are simply a vehicle for it to
    get to the capital.  It may have magical abilities that keep the PC's
    alive during the early parts of the journey, but after it leaves
    them, they must learn to live without it.
\end{itemize}

\item[The Fall Guys:]

Here's a great way to get the starting-out party together.

   Each PC is doing normal, everyday things (sword practice, study,
drinking, etc.) when he is arrested by the city police (knocked unconcious
if they do not go peacefully).  The PC's all end up in the same jail
cell.  The next day, they are brought to trial for the murder of some
important official.  They are convicted and sentenced to burn tomorrow.
They are returned to their cell (stripped of all equipment) to await
their execution.

   The PC's have at least two escape paths  (more, if they're creative):

\begin{enumerate}
\item If they carefully search the cell, they can find a loose stone
under a cot (everyone gets a {\em notice concealed doors} check).
By falling through, they can drop into the sewers,
float to the exit, and batter away the grate.
\item Have a mage do something to the single guard ({\em charm} comes to mind).
\end{enumerate}

   Once they are out, they must flee the city (if they stay for long,
they learn that the police have begun a house-to-house search).
They may wish to steal some equipment, or maybe a friend will
provide them with weapons, urging them to run.

   The PC's can travel either to the ocean (if they can capture a small
vessel) or to the unexplored mountainous regions.  There, they can gain
experience and hide until they are ready to return and find out who
framed them for the murder.

\item[Double-Cross:] 

   The PC's are hired to retrieve a family heirloom which was stolen from
five years ago.  The family has just found who now has the
heirloom and want the PC's to steal it back.  The current owner is the
original thief and is an accepted member of the community (probably not
Lawful Good but not Chaotic-Evil either).
The theft must be done quietly so as not
to attract attention, as the familiy would lose social esteem if it was
known that the object had been lost (i.e. don't ask questions in town).
The current owner has a normal house with normal traps and precautions to
protect this type of treasure plus whatever skills or guards are
required.

   After the theft has been performed, the object handed over, and the
PC's are still congratulating themselves on a job well done, reward
posters go up around town for the return of the object, the thieves
wanted dead or alive or the object returned and no questions asked.  The
PC's have been suckered, the object has {\em always} belonged to the person
they stole it from, and they are forced to either flee the area (never to
return), or to get it back again from the person they originally stole it
for (probably a member of the local Thieves' Guild or similiar).  The
preferred method is to lead them toward stealing it back again (if they
can break into the thieves' guild) as there are no other safe
alternatives.  If they are captured, nobody will believe them unless the
PC's pay for a cleric to {\em Detect Lie} (very expensive under the
circumstances), and nobody will mind if they are accidently killed while
trying to retrieve the object.

   Last time I ran this adventure, the object was a diamond tiara which
was used in royal
coronations (one of which was due in two months)\ldots nearly brought the whole
political structure down.

\item[Time War:] 

   An experimenting Cleric/Mage has opened a portal to another realm.
Accidently, this corresponded with an experiment in a modern-day
underground military base which is performing a physics experiment on
time/space.  A trans time-dimensional portal is formed, both attuned to
each other such that neither can be closed until both are closed
simultaneously.  Meanwhile, a military scouting party of Rambo types have
passed through and are exploring the AD\&D world (walky talkies, hand
grenades, sub-machine guns and pistols, hand-to-hand combat).  They
don't believe what they've ended up in (save vs illusions and
mind-affecting spells at +4) and are taking prisoners of anyone who can give
information on the situation.

\begin{description}
   \item[Mission \#1:]  Stop the scouting party (including retrieving their gear
if possible).
   \item[Mission \#2:]  Find what equipment is needed to close both portals
simultaneously (sages can probably help with this) and get the required
equipment  (I used a Redeye missile and Staff of power, both of which
were in the possession of a Barghest on the plane of Gehenna).
   \item[Mission \#3:]  Go through the portal to the Underground base, find the
source controlling the portal, and get control of the area.  The guards
are the US-Army equiped with modern gear.
   \item[Mission \#4:]  Destroy both portals simultaneously.  For example, fire
the missile into the controlling computer complex while simultaneously
breaking (retributive strike) the Staff of Power at the fantasy-side
entrance to the portal.  Then, get the surviving PC's from the underground
base to their home realm (either use plane shifting magic or have a time
delay on the portal's destruction).
\end{description}

\item[The Great Robbery:]

The elderly Lord of a small adventuring town was found missing from
his home after a visit from some strange men.  The man's family
determines that he has been kidnapped and hires the PC's to find him.
The PC's, following various clues, find the man, and, after a bit of a
fight with some Kenku, the Kenku call for a truce.

They say they were hired to kidnapped the man, and the person who hired
them has not shown up with their money.  They want no more trouble with
the PC's and hand over the old man. What the PC's
don't know is that the {\em man} they take back is actually the Kenku leader,
shape-changed into the old lord's appearance.  The Kenku were able to use
magic (my version allow them to be up to 3rd level mages) to {\em ESP} and
{\em Charm} the lord into telling them about his home, servants and treasure.

All goes well until a few days after the PC's return the {\em lord}. It seems
that most of the servants have been fired, the guard captain dismissed for
failing his duties, etc.  In other words, the {\em lord} is clearing the
castle of any who could recognize a difference in him.  His family (if
any --- in my campaign there was a granddaughter set off to a nunnery and a
son who was locked in the dungeon for treason; he was blamed for the
kidnapping) have been done away with and most of the loyal
servants/guards are gone.  The {\em lord} has hired new {\em people}; more Kenku
coming in as advisors, guards, etc.  Once this was done, they began
cleaning out the castle treasury.  Needless to say, the PC's will be
curious and the townsfolk furious.

The {\em lord} has diverted all monies
to his ``new and worthwhile projects" while neglecting the town and
allowing things to decay.  In the meantime, servants (Kenku) are looking
for a ship (with a captain that would not ask questions) to come to the
castle's dock during the night.  This does not go unnoticed by the PC's.
It all comes down to a battle between the Kenku, their mercenaries, and
the PC's on a treasure-ladden boat.
If the PC's are victorious, they find the true lord and his son in the
castle dungeon.

\item[The Hide of Harker:] 

   Baron Harksheen requests an audience with the adventurers.  Background
checks will reveal that very little is known about this baron.  The local
vassal is named G'caird, and is a duke.  G'caird has never heard of
Harksheen.  Harksheen castle is rather remote, to say the least.

   If asked, Harksheen will relate a story about saving the life of one
of the kings' children many years ago and how he received this barony
quite by surprise some years later.  If the party asks too many
questions, they may be imprisoned in the baron's dungeons.  The baron has
fifteen men at arms, and can command the skeletons which inhabit all of the
numerous suits of armor displayed in the great hall  (Note that this
armor gives the skeletons much better than normal defenses and weapons).
If the party notices the skeletons in the armor, the baron will claim
they are the remains of the great warriors who died in battle.

   The Baron's story is that he would like to obtain a certain suit of
armor that has fallen out of sight.  He has uncovered some clues (which
he will be glad to show any mages in the group), that indicate that the
armor, called {\em The Hide of Harker} was interred with the remains of one
Keforid, apparently a priest of some sort.  The Baron would like to
commission the party to recover the armor, will provide escort and
livestock, and will allow the party to keep all other booty.

   The Baron's real name is Harker, and he's a demon.  The armor was once his
hide. Besides the defenses of the armor and the fact that it is nearly
weightless, it has the following abilities: telepathy with Harker, sense
danger, and protection from cold.  If Harker is killed, the telepathy
converts to a sort of scrying from his skull.  Without it, he is pretty
weak, but if he gets his hands on it (or rather, the other way around),
look out.  He will warn the party that the armor is cursed and to be
careful not to wear it  (It isn't cursed per se, but with it's special
abilities, wearing it might be a tip off).  The real reason Harksheen
won't go after the armor himself is that the {\em Wraith} wearing the armor
would know what he was going to do next and would be an extremely
formidable opponent.

   If the party looks closely at the warrior statue in the crypt, they'll
notice that the base of the statue is a defeated demon who looks a lot
like the Baron.  One of the Tapestries depicts the skinning of the demon.

\item[Puff the Magic Dragon:] 

   The PC's hear rumors of a Dragon down the coast, not far (30 miles)
from the village through which they are currently passing.  The local
council can't afford to pay anyone to get rid of it, but it's been a pest
to all the local fishermen for years. It used to be worse, they say, but has been
a bit quieter for the last 15 years.  The PC's will be heros and a small
reward may be found.  The Dragon is actually {\em Puff the Magic Dragon} (from
the song for anyone who knows it) and was drawn into this realm from the
dimension of Dreams by a young boy's imagination (young Jacky Papers).
They always used to play together terrorising pirate ships (fishing
boats) until Jacky outgrew his boyhood's ``imaginary" friend.  Puff has
become broken-hearted with the loss of Jacky and just mopes around all
day in his cave (hidden in the mists of the coast).  He is also a
compulsive coward, and the only valuables he possesses are those things
he and Jacky collected when Jacky was younger (balls of string, used
pirate's flags, blocks of sealing wax).  Puff is a green dragon
(nonstandard) with a sonic breath weapon (his cry/wail) which
shatters/disintegrates metal/crystal/etc within 40'-70' (save applies)
and does appropriate damage to people as suits the scenario.  He can wail
every 2nd round with {\em no} limits and will usually do so (he really is
depressed). This makes it hard for fighters to do much to him unless
they are lucky with their magic armor, magic swords, etc. Great way to
get rid of those pesky +5 defenders.

   At any time the PC's approach him, he will be sobbing gently.  He appears
as a huge ancient dragon of green color but is not {\em not} the Monster Manual
variety. He is
hit only by magic weapons, and the tears he is crying (every round) are
actually large drops of acid (splash all within 20' for appropriate damage.
If the party hurts him much at all, he will try to escape, still
sobbing and wailing.  Even when escaped, he will try to stay close to his
cave (Jacky's toys are there) unless it is too dangerous.  He will {\bf never}
try to seriously hurt anyone!  Any damage is incidental and caused by
crying.  If the PC's try to talk to him, he will check to see if Jacky is
with them, then stop communicating, breaking into even more heart-rending
sobs (tears in all directions splashing out to 40' for 3 rounds).

   The preferred solution to all this, if they bother to actually find
out what's going on (the local sages/mages know and will explain for a
fee), is to either send Puff back to the realm of dreams (extra
adventure) or find Jacky Papers and reunite them (he is probably that
madman wandering the kingdom having lost his memory with a great feeling
of unease about dragons).

\item[Artifact Search:]


   Recently, a farmer in a rural area fell into an underground cavern
while hunting.  Within the cavern are remnants of a vanished culture with
gleaming buildings and strange creatures moving about on unknown errands.
The farmer fled the scene immediately but his stories soon spread,
prompting several expeditions by locals and greedy adventurers.  The only
person to return from these was found dead outside a village in the area,
clutching an object fashioned of a strange crystal form.  The area is now
treated with caution and fear.

The crystal form was soon acquired by a local mage who tells the players of
a great, despotic race of Wizard-kings which once
ruled before the alliance of freedom, long ago
in a fabeled era of the world's dim and distant past.
The mage wishes to hire a capable group of adventurers
with the intention of exploring further in search of greater treasures.

   Options:

\begin{itemize}
\item The item was actually an artifact from the Wizard Kings and where
there is one there should be others.
\item The item was a portion of a legendary artifact, and the rest is
desired.
\item The item is now known to have been the key holding a major
servant of the Wizard-Kings imprisoned.  He/She/It is now free and the
PC's are required to capture/track/kill it.
Maybe the servant knows where some of the Wizard-kings are still alive,
hiding in suspended animation or with their souls held in a magical gem,
waiting their moment of rebirth.
\item The item is actually a map to a hitherto hidden realm (in a
magically shielded valley or alternate dimension) where the cavern's
inhabitants have come from.  They have been preparing themselves for a
looting/slaving expedition into this realm and must be stopped before
they have a chance to expand out of their cavern. This sets up a
number of linked scenarios:
\begin{enumerate}
\item Clean out the cavern area.
\item Gain access to the hidden and unknown realm, and scout it.
\item Find those who control the raiding expeditions, and stop them.
\end{enumerate}
\item The item is the key to time-travel.  The mage who has it wants to
travel back to the time of the Wizard-Kings, alter history so that the
Wizard-Kings defeat the alliance of freedom, and rule with them
over one of their realms.  He intends
to trick the PC's to act as his advance guards and protectors and take
them with him to spoil the plans of the allied freedom fighters. This would
involve lots of trickery and be sneaky to manage, as the players can't
find out what's going on until too late --- at which point they will
probably want to stop the mage and go back home.
\item The object has given its new master some great abilities and he
now wants to use the powers of the PC's to slowly build his personal
power until he is able to rule as the great Wizard-Kings ruled.
\end{itemize}

\item[The Obsidian Castle:]

In the far west, under a permanent cloud, sits the Obsidian Castle.
Twice it has protected powerful beings bidding for domination of the
world, and twice is has been foiled.  But the Castle is patient and has
nuturing a third Dark Lord who has already begun his march.

The Castle is made of jet black obsidian, each block is exactly the
same size, mortared to the next with a dull brown film, the blood of the
victims sacrificed to build it.  Enchantment runs through the entire
structure, and oridinary weapons can make no mark upon its walls.  The castle
is black, gloomy, and horrific. Light cannot travel far within it, being
absorbed by the walls.  The floors within are pure black ebony, with no
trace of light or color.  It's hard to breathe in the castle, though
characters never seem to run out of air.

   The castle actively protects the Dark Lord.  It has a nearly infinite
supply of glassy obsidian or ebony or black granite guardians.  Gargoyles
guard the upper heights; razor-winged obsidian bats range the great
halls; the moat has no water but is filled with delicately balanced
sheets of razor-sharp glass that would instantly shred anyone who fell
within, even in armor, for the points would find every gap and pierce the
body within.

   The Castle is the home and last redoubt of the Dark Lord.  Your
characters must raise an army to defeat his orcs, ogres and trolls.  They
must forge a treaty with the beings of the light and air, the eagles and
the ki-rin, to provide protection and cover against the Dark Lord's
leather-winged reptilian flyers.  But the army is a mere diversion to get
the players inside.

   Deep within the bowels of the Castle is a room perhaps 100 feet wide
and nearly as tall, paved with gold.  The walls are of brightly polished
marble, hung with cloth-of-gold and studded with a multitude of tiny gems.
The ceiling has an enormous crystal chandelier, the bright glow of which
is nearly
eclipsed by the six-foot-diameter gem on a low dais in the middle of the
room.  The gem is a composite made of thousands of smaller gems, from
fist-sized to tiny grains of every shape and kind.  They are packed into
a great sphere, facet-to-facet, edge-to-edge, and the sphere is alive
with light of every color in the spectrum.  Bolts of lightning flash from
point to point within, tiny dots of color swirl about inside. It contains
the evil spirit of the Castle --- its {\em brain}, in effect.  No living being
has ever entered this room, but until the gem
is destroyed, the Obsidian Castle will always rise again, and new Dark
Lords will threaten the world.

Of course, you'll need to work out the details, but this idea
should be good for three or four campaigns before the PC's figure out that
they aren't facing ``just another Dark Lord" but rather the Castle
itself. Destroying it is merely a temporary setback.  You'll need
to decide who built it, and why, and when.  You'll need more monsters in
the ``broken glass" idiom --- many people are afraid of broken glass, it's a
powerful symbol.  Perhaps the Castle is lit with black light torches;
you can see, though all is black and dark, and the flames rime the walls
with frost and burn like frostbite. Good luck\ldots

\end{description}

\vspace{1.5in}

\begin{quote}
``\ldots I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game
in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids,
and nobody's around --- nobody big, I mean --- except me. And
I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to
do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the
cliff --- I mean if they're running and they don't look where
they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch
them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in
the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing
I'd really like to be."\\

\ \ \ --- Holden Caulfield\\
\end{quote}

\newpage

\begin{center}
\parbox{2.5in}{
\begin{center}
{\large \bf The Unspeakable Oath}
\end{center}

An excellent {\bf CoC} fanzine for \$4 an issue.\\

Every issue so far has had an excellent listing of guns; so far
they've done Small Arms of Europe \& Asia (1871-1936), Automatic
Weapons (1897-1936), and U.S. Handguns (1847-1920).  In addition,
they feature scenarios, stories, new mythos books, and new monsters.
Issue \#3 had three scenarios in it!  The zine runs 50-60 pages, is
well-formatted, and has some excellent art by Blair Reynolds.\\

Write to:

\begin{center}
Pagan Publishing

c/o John Tynes

1409 Wilson Ave.

Columbia, MO  65201
\end{center}

or E-mail:

{\em uc521832@umcvmb.missouri.edu}

\begin{tabbing}
\ \ \ --- \=Dakin Burdick\\
\>Indiana University\\
\>{\em burdickd@copper.ucs.indiana.edu}\\
\end{tabbing}}
\end{center}


\vspace{1in}

\begin{center}
{\large \bf Mapper Magazine}\\
\end{center}
Mapper is a computer-written RPG magazine, each issue consisting of a
randomly generated dungeon level. To check it out, send \$5 to Mark Manning at:

\begin{center}
Simulacron I

P.O. Box 58598

Webster, TX 77598
\end{center}

\end{document}

