Legacy Module 4

Back to DMs Only: Legacy of Heroes

Tested

Game: Legacy of Heroes

Projected Dates: July-Sep 2012

Author(s): Kathy Ice

Starting Party Level: 3

Summary of Module: As a final test before graduation, all students in the Adventurer track are taken to the Monster Preserve. They meet a group of tough-looking rangers, who have selected monsters for the various student groups to defeat. (These would be monsters whose population is getting a little to large for the ecology of the Preserve; their ranks need to be thinned a bit.) The PCs face and defeat their monster, but then the ground shakes and they hear calls for help. Ankhegs have unexpectedly burst through the ground and attacked another group of students. With the PCs' help, they are able to defeat the Ankhegs. The other students turn out to be the rival group from the previous module; the ones who attempted to sabotage the PCs. The students make their way back to where they were supposed to meet their professors and the rest of the groups, but find there is nobody there, the ground is all churned up, and there are several dead Ankhegs. The PCs have a choice of what they can do next; they may end up rescuing one of the rangers, defeating some more ankhegs, or helping more of their fellow students escape.

[Jerry suggestion: Great Minds and all that. I’ve been working on something similar for the local group and for a future Tap perhaps in July. I was looking at Plateau City recently and thinking that it was boring to me at this point in time. I decided one thing I could do to help create a distinctive identity for the city would be to design several holiday/celebrations that would give the city an edge.

I came up with Beasting Day. We had the Monster Preserve and never had a good reason to have it here next to PCity. Weird place to put it if you think about it. So anyway, Beasting Day gave a reason for the preserve to be so hear the city.

Summary: Once a year, druids and rangers hunt the great beasts of the Monster Preserve, hold them and then on Beasting day, open up portals to teleport them into the city, which is already known as the City of Adventurers. The Beasts are hunted in the city as a great social event with each city party hiring an adventuring group or two to hunt for them while they follow on fancy “pillow carts” and open bed taxicabs to cheer them on. Then they use the best chefs to cook and eat the beasts while having a party. The after-party is at the Coleseum where the best portions are laid out on the floor for the gods. This day is one of the few days during the year that the gods will appear. At least one, but usually several of them will come, eat the presented beasts, praise them, give out a few pronouncements in general and for several individuals, then depart ending the celebration. [I do have this written out in a better form--this writing of it sounds a bit hokey.]

History: Once in the City Debate House, a man described how he had been trapped in a cave and had to eat this horrible thing and that. All beasties. Another stood up and said he had been deserted on an island for one year longer than the other and all the things he had to eat. The two then bet that they could eat a stranger beast than the other. They did. Everyone joined in and now it’s a holiday.

I said all that to say that if you want to make this module the “hunting end” for that city celebration where the beasts are trapped and sent to PCity and all the problems that might involve you could. They could still kill one at the end or beginning, then trap a few others, keep them in the pens, perhaps heal what they had damaged in the capturing process, and help with the teleportation. No pressure. Just making the offer.]

Scene 1: Future Tense

[2 weeks] [500 xp]

As graduation nears, students in the Adventuring track begin forming themselves into companies. The rival group from Module 3 forms a company called the Claws of the Griffon. Fizzle (NPC from Module 3) joins a group of mostly halfling and gnome students who call themselves The Short Order—which amuses some professors and horrifies others. Pretty much everyone expects the PCs to form themselves into an adventuring company, and only wait for them to name themselves. Also, students are discussing where to begin their adventuring careers.

Barristers from Plateau City come to sign up the groups as official allied adventurers of New Elenna. Students who have not yet formed groups can sign up as individuals, but students are urged to form groups wherever possible.