Lair
of the Vampire Queen
Pirate
Kingdoms Adventure #2
A
Pirate Kingdoms adventure set on Fibber Island for 1st and
2nd Level characters.
Note
to all readers. This is an original adventure module designed for the
Dungeons and Dragons game. This module is compliant with all Open
Gaming License and D20 SRD regulations. If this sort of thing
doesn’t interest you then you might want to click here.
This adventure is
designed for game masters who run light hearted games, and is not
intended for more serious campaigns, although it could be used a
break in a normally serious campaign.
GM
Background: This adventure begins at
Alvin’s Hot Dog and Pie Haven, which is located on the beach
at the tail end of high street on Fibber Island. The gamemaster may
want to download a map of this location, which is available at
http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x135/pjoliver/HotDogandPieHaven.jpg
Fibber
Island is largely a resort and trading island, with a smattering of
hotels, eating establishments, a boat harbor, several beaches, and
other tourist type attractions. Think of it as similar to Hawaii.
The island is officially owned and managed by the dwarves (who
consider it part of their kingdom), but most of the population is
human. The Elven Empire also claims this island as well, but they
have no offices here, and elves are generally made to
feel a bit unwelcome.
General
Adventure Outline.
The
general plot of this adventure is fairly simple, the characters
venture into a set of purple worm tunnels in search of a missing
man and possible vampires and encounter fake vampires of several
kinds. If the players do not have existing characters then you may
want to hand out some of the 2nd level sample characters
from the Pirate Kingdoms rulebook, if you have it.
The
Pirate Kingdoms rulebook and the Fibber Island sourcebook are not
required to play this adventure, but it would be extremely useful if
the game master has a copy of one or both, as those books detail
many locations on the island that do not appear in this module, as
well as providing campaign specific rules options
A
few things are usually frowned upon in the Pirate Kingdoms; they
include heavy armor, direct damage spells, and finishing off downed
opponents. People wearing heavy armor either stick out as completely
clueless, or people assume they are looking for a fight. While
direct damage spells and finishing off downed opponents is seen as
cheating like the dirty elves do.
Characters
who are not native to the island should begin at encounter #1, while
characters native to the island, (or at least familiar with it),
should begin at encounter #2.
Text
in bold is meant to be read aloud to the players.
Encounter
1. Landfall.
Ah,
you are finally here, the world famous Fibber Island, you can't wait
to relax on the beach with a fruity drink, perhaps eat at Alvin's
World Famous Hot Dog and Pie Haven, and maybe, just maybe venture
into the Safari Zone to hunt the really big game. As you make your
way down the gangplank onto the beach you are greeted by native
women (wearing nothing but gray body paint) waving at you, while
several donkey carts await, each carrying a driver and bearing the
sign of a different hotel. The drivers call out at you, listing
their various amenities and asking you to climb aboard.
The
native women themselves are not actual native women, they are
simply locals who work for the various hotels, if the players
interact with them they attempt to steer the players in onto the
cart of the hotel they work for. The various hotels are detailed in
the Fibber Island Sourcebook. Although they are all pretty much the
same and the GM can feel free to make up their names if he doesn’t
have the Fibber Island Sourcebook. Amenities they might have include
hot springs piped in, bicycle track, full fruit bar, authentic
native "massage", hairstylists, souvenir
towels, and cat racing. The GM is responsible for handling any
action that might go on at the hotel.
Encounter
2. Alvin's Hot Dog and Pie Haven.
Ah,
some of you might have been waiting for this place, hot dogs and
pies served in a large swimming pool where you swim up to your table
and a beautiful waitress serves you hot dogs, pies, and fruity
drinks. A man of about 30 years old with tan skin, dreadlocks and a
large stain on his shirt waives you over and tells you to sit down,
from what you have heard you would say that is Alvin.
Alvin’s
Hot Dog and Pie Haven is one of the most popular restaurants on the
island, it is located in the Southern Bay area. The entire seating
area is located in a swimming pool. You swim up to your tables,
where the waiters serve hot dogs, pie, and fruity drinks with
little umbrellas in them. They open each evening at around 6 PM,
and are usually open late into the night.
Most
of the restaurant itself is absolutely ancient, the main pool area
and tables were already present when the island was first developed
50 years ago. The restaurant building proper is a much more recent
structure, built in standard Hawaiian style.
Alvin
is a human in his mid 30s, his life dream was to own a hot dog and
pie restaurant on Fibber island. Of course Alvin was never much of a
worker, and wasn't particularly intelligent or motivated, but then
he hit it big at the roulette table, and used his proceeds to open
his restaurant.
Alvin
has no important statistics as far as this adventure is concerned.
He is of mixed African and European heritage. Alvin is mostly a
slob, but is very personable. He spends much of his time eating pie
and hot dogs with his customers. Hot dogs and pie are his passion
though, and he gets up at the crack of noon every day in order to
start baking pies. His favorite subject is jousting and he tends to
talk about it all the time, although on Fibber Island most jousting
tends to be done by small characters riding donkeys and dogs and not
by humans on horses.
The
price is one gold piece, and everyone pays before anything is
served. Alvin himself prepares the food, and his waitress Katie
does most of the serving. You don't actually select anything from
the menu; Katie (or Alvin) will just carry trays of hot dogs and
pies to each table. Beverages consist of fruity drinks with
umbrellas. They are all basically the same drink (rum and water),
but they look quite different and have different kinds of fruit in
them.
Katie
is an attentive server, she keeps the pie trays full, the hot dog
plates full, and makes sure everyone has a drink in their hand at
all times. She deftly dodges unwanted attention from the assorted
drunk patrons, and his pretty much what keeps the place running. She
is unrelated to Alvin, having run away from home at a very young
age, she is currently 16 and has been Alvin's only waitress for 3
years. Alvin thinks of her as a daughter, but that doesn't stop
him from making lots of suggestive comments to her.
Who
is here?
The
current set of patrons are a mix of island residents, sailors and
tourists. If using the Fibber Island Sourcebook the following
characters are present. The Vaughn Family (minus Alberto),
“Brackish, the black hand of Bordeaux”, Iuliia with a
random boyfriend (Tailor shop), Daria from the Pet Shop, 6 male
sailors, and a tourist family. There is a cat juggler
performing at the entryway, and another group of 4 sailors watching
the juggler and making bets on the cats.
Allow
the characters a bit of time to enjoy themselves and interact with
the nonplayer characters before moving on to the next encounter.
Encounter
3. Runaway Cart
You
hear a clattering sound up the road that gets louder and louder over
a period of a few seconds. You manage to look up just in time to
hear someone yell “runaway cart” and watch a halfling
sailor dive out of the way just in time to miss a donkey cart going
full tilt down the hill and into the pool, striking a sailor and
throwing an old man from the seat onto your table. You can almost
swear you could hear the old man yelling “bad donkey” on
his way through the air.
The
old man, (one 83 year old Jeremiah Finch), got into his donkey cart
at the top of the hill and started off, unfortunately he had trouble
remembering how to drive the thing and kept whipping his donkey trying to get it to slow down, which of
course made it go faster. The donkey does not survive the crash, it
was nearly dead from exhaustion and whipping when it crashed into
the pool.
Jeremiah
himself comes through the crash relatively uninjured, although the
same cannot be said for the sailor that the cart hit, who is at -6
hit points, and pinned underneath the remains of the donkey under
the water.
It
will take a DC 16 strength check to pull the sailor out from under
the donkey. If the sailor dies then his shipmates will be out for
blood and will try to kill the old man, even going so far as to toss
him a weapon before attacking him. If the sailor is healed then he
will also attempt to duel the old man, albeit by himself. The old
man will attempt to fight and will not flee.
If
the sailor is merely stabilized then his buddies will carry him off
and the old man will sit down to eat like nothing happened.
The
sailors are not pirates and none of them have any allies on the
island. There will be no repercussions if the players fight them,
provided they fight fair.
After
the cart crash Alvin will ask for help in pulling the cart out of
the water and he will stash the cart behind his building, he
absolutely refuses to give it back to the old man for fear the old
man will crash it again.
Once
the action dies down the locals will start telling stories about
crazy things that old people have done recently.
“Why
I remember about 5 years ago when old Captain Harding crashed his
ship full speed into the dock. Most of the ship is still down there,
although divers have recovered everything of value from it.”
The sailor then produces a jeweled dagger with the word “Harding”
engraved upon the blade, and smiles revealing a few gold teeth that
don’t seem to quite fit correctly.
A
half-orc (Brackish the Black) begins another story. 3 days
ago crazy old man come to Brackish Meat shop. He ask for lots of
meat. He say he go to worm tunnels to hunt vampires and wanted to
bring lots of steaks. Brackish not see old man since then.
If
asked Brackish can remember that the old man’s name was Marcus
and that he used to come to the shop every day, but he hasn’t
been seen since then, not by Brackish, or by anyone else present.
Other
people around are mixed in their opinions about the worm tunnels,
some of them insist that it is perfectly safe, while others insist
that there are vampires down there. Almost any of the locals can
give directions to the tunnels. One local (A Farmer Lister) is
particularly insistent that the tunnels are safe, one comes out near
his field, and he travels in them on almost a daily basis.
You
can use the following statistics for the sailors. There are as many
or as few as you wish to use.
Sailors
CR1
Male
Human Fighter 1
N
Medium Humanoid
Init
1 (+1 Dex); Senses Listen +0, Spot +0
Languages
Common, Orc
AC
11, touch 11, flat-footed 10
hp
12 (1HD)
Fort
+4 Ref +1 Will +0
Speed
30 ft. (6 squares)
Melee
mwk rapier +4 (1d6+2/18-20)
Space
5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
Base
Atk +1; Grp +3
Abilities
Str 15, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 8
Feats
Blind-Fight, Dodge, Improved Unarmed Strike
Skills
Climb +6 (+4 ranks, +2 str), Handle Animal +3 (+4 ranks, -1 cha),
Intimidate +3 (+4 ranks, -1 cha), Swim +6 (+4 ranks, +2 str).
Possessions
mwk rapier, 13 gp, 15 sp, 16 cp.
Jeremiah
CR1
Male
Human Commoner 1
N
Medium Humanoid
Init
-2 (-2 Dex); Senses Listen -2, Spot -2
Languages
Common
AC
8, touch 8, flat-footed 8
hp
5 (1HD)
Fort
-2 Ref -2 Will -2
Speed
30 ft. (6 squares)
Melee
mwk rapier -1 (1d6-2/18-20), whip -5 (1 hp damage).
Space
5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
Base
Atk +0; Grp -2
Abilities
Str 6, Dex 6, Con 6, Int 10, Wis 6, Cha 10
Feats
Endurance, Toughness
Skills
Disguise +2 (+2 ranks), Jump +2 (+4 ranks, -2 str), Use Rope +2 (+4
ranks, -2 dex).
Possessions
mwk rapier, whip (non proficient) 13 gp, crashed donkey cart, dead
donkey. He doesn’t actually own a rapier, it is included in
his stats because it is highly likely that someone will throw him
one to defend himself with.
Personal
Info: Background:
Sailor, Ht: 5' 9", Wt: 164lbs, Hair: bald, Eyes: Brown, Age: 83.
Encounter
4. The Worm Tunnels
The
Purple Worm tunnels are a huge complex of tunnels that start north of
town and lead to many different places on the island. The worm that
dug them was killed about 10 years ago and may have been the last
purple worm on the island, as no one has seen one since then. Some of
the tunnels are used rather extensively and are easy to follow due to
all the footprints. Those tunnels all lead to various other places on
the island, most of them coming out by various plantations,
farmhouses and fields. Other tunnels lead further underground and do
not appear to have many footprints at all.
There
is no map for the tunnel complex, as the characters will have to
wander around quite a bit if they hope to find anything. The
encounters below can happen in any order the GM wishes, although
running them in the order presented is just fine.
It
will begin raining lightly before the characters enter the tunnels.
4a.
Arr’
This
should happen in one of the commonly used tunnels.
You
spy a light in the tunnel ahead, it appears to be moving towards you,
and you can hear whistling. Coming towards you is a man in a black
cloak, carrying a torch; you see that he is wearing a pair of
pistols.
This
is farmer Lister. The characters probably spoke to him the previous
day at the Hot Dog and Pie Haven. If this happens to be the same day
then he went home to change before going back out to a different bar.
He
is all dressed up because he is going out drinking, and is going
through the tunnels to minimize the distance he has to walk in the
rain. If the characters do nothing he will tip an imaginary hat as he
passes by and say “Arr’”.
Farmer
Lister CR1
Male
Human Commoner 1
LN
Medium Humanoid
Init
0; Senses Listen +0, Spot +0
Languages
Common
AC
10, touch 10, flat-footed 10
hp
8 (1HD)
Fort
+1 Ref +0 Will +0
Speed
30 ft. (6 squares)
Melee
none)
Ranged
mwk pistol +1 (1d6/18-20)
Space
5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
Base
Atk +0; Grp +1
Abilities
Str 12, Dex 10, Con 13, Int 9, Wis 11, Cha 8
Feats
Endurance, Toughness
Skills
Handle Animal +3 (+4 ranks, -1 cha), Intimidate +1 (+2 ranks, -1
cha).
Possessions
mwk pistol with 28 bullets, 9 gp, 10 sp, 16 cp.
Personal
Info: Background: Farmer, Ht: 5' 5", Wt: 134lbs, Hair: Red,
Eyes: Grey, Age: 42.
If
the characters talk to farmer Lister they will find out he is a
sheep farmer and one of the tunnels comes out at the edge of his
field. He has recently lost about a half dozen sheep. He has been
finding them in the mornings with bite marks on them. He thinks it
must be some sort of animal.
4b.
Old Man
Up
ahead at the far range of your light source you can see what appears
to be a man laying on the ground, as you come closer you can see that
he is obviously dead, his neck has been ripped open and dried blood
covers the ground near his body.
This
is the old man who went into the tunnels several days ago to look for
vampires. His backpack full of steak attracted a passing dog who
killed him and dragged his backpack off. He still has 3 copper pieces
in his pocket.
Characters
may attempt to track to find out some information here. The track
check to find the tracks of the wild dog is DC 18 +1 for every day
the characters let pass since hearing about the old man. Those tracks
will eventually lead out of the tunnels and into the woods, where
they will be lost in a stream. The remains of a ripped up bloody
backpack lay beside the stream. A DC 10 track check will find
another set of tracks, a group of barefooted humanoids, who seem to
be fairly lightweight, perhaps elves or goblins? Those tracks are
fresher, they approach the body, stop about 5 feet away, and then
turn around and head back out to the main tunnels, where the tracks
get mixed up with all the other ones that are already there. Track
checks made at all the rest of the keyed encounters in the tunnels
can find those same tracks.
4c.
River
The
tunnel appears to have intersected an underground river. The slow
moving water appears to be very deep, but only about 10’ wide.
There looks to be a crude raft tied up to a rock on the other side.
The raft strangely enough has a small sail that has been decorated
with a holy symbol of Blocky. A single paddle lies on the
shore near the raft.
If
characters search around here they can find the evidence that people
regularly eat here, specifically crumbs of food and the remains of a
small fire. Several of the rocks have been carved upon. They are
mostly crude drawings of fanged humans wearing capes, but there is
also a picture of a man with a whip, and several messages.
The
messages include the following, “Beware, Vampires past this
point”, “Kim loves Donald”, and a series of
scratches keeping track of something that adds up to 254, surrounding
a carving of some sort of 4 legged creature that is too
crude to identify.
4d.
Hideout
Someone
appears to be living at the end of this short tunnel. There is a
small chair, a blanket, a pile of torches and a wooden box here. It
looks like a fire is lit here on a regular basis.
The
box contains a half empty bottle of brandy and several rather dull
wooden stakes. Underneath the box is message written neatly in pencil
on a sandwich wrapper. The I’s are all dotted with neat circles
instead of dots.
I
fear that I do not have long to live. The dreaded vampire queen has
bitten me and I fear that I will soon be one of the undead. If only
the vampire hunter Donald had came sooner.
The
last sentence is crossed out and the entire sandwich wrapper has been
crumpled up.
4e.
The Lair of the Vampire Queen
You
can see the flicker of torchlight around the bend. Before you can
come any close you hear several voices. “You will never get
away with this Vampire Queen, Lady Katarina will be here any second.”
a softer voice says, “Ah, poor deluded fool, Lady Katarina has
already been turned!” “You evil fiend, you will never
take me alive”.
The
characters come around the corner to see several short figures in the
dim light, which comes from a single torch and about a dozen candles.
The tunnel contains an ornate wooden chair and a crude coffin.
One
of the figures is young, male and wearing and adventurers costume, he
is holding a short female vampire at bay with a comically large holy
symbol of Blocky. The “vampire” is wearing a long black
cloak over a dirty white dress. Rising out of the coffin is a
slightly taller female “vampire” dressed identically and
holding a candle. Another “vampire” girl in a black
velvet dress jumps out from behind a wooden throne at the party, but
then she stops short and just sort of stares at the party.
The
rest of the vampires (all children 10-13 years old), quickly drop out
of character and stare at the party waiting for them to
say something.
There
are 4 children here. Their complete statistics are in the Fibber
Island Sourcebook, (they probably won’t be needed, so they are
not listed here). None of these children are real vampires. They did
not kill the old man, although they did find his body the previous
day, they left it because they didn’t want to get in trouble.
They are not responsible for the dead sheep either. In fact the only
thing they are really guilty of is going further into the tunnels
than their parents would like. If the players appear to be carrying
any of the things they left behind in the tunnels then they will ask
for them back.
Donald
is 12 and lives at the Bottle Shop with his father and sister
Katarina. He is wearing an adventurer’s outfit, carrying a
short whip, several rather blunt stakes and a very large holy
symbol of Blocky. He is very protective of the girls, and
everything they have here.
Katarina
is a blond girl of about 11. She is wearing a black velvet dress in
poor condition and is the one who jumped out at the party, she
assumed that they were more of their friends. She is likely to quiz
the party on what they are doing and write it all down in her
notebook (which contains mostly fanciful vampire stories and
listings of things that many random townspeople were seen doing). She
has several blunt stakes and a large holy symbol of Blocky sitting on
the ground.
Ally
is a rather plain brown haired girl of about 13, she will be rather
quiet and prefers to let everyone else do the talking. She is dressed
in a dirty white dress with a black cloak and is carrying a candle.
Ally and her sister Kim live on Port Street.
Kim
is a blond girl of about 10. She was playing the vampire queen.
After the initial shock of encountering the party wears off she will
start fooling with her dress and her hair and will try to apologize
for appearing in such a messy condition. She will also try to subtly
kick a doll underneath the coffin before anyone sees it.
4f.
Exit, stage left.
On
your way back out of the tunnels you see the crumpled form of a
black-cloaked man lying upon the ground. He doesn’t appear to
be moving.
The
dead body is that of Farmer Lister. He has two puncture wounds in his
neck and has been completely drained of blood. He is in a
well-traveled tunnel with so many tracks that tracking is impossible.
He is still wearing his pair of masterwork pistols.
The
end.
The
real vampire (if there indeed is one) does not appear in this
adventure.