The King With a Thousand Daughters (Location: Valemon and Tureshol)

Introduction

This is a brief adventure scenario with more of the extreme emotion and zazz that I felt was missing from my previous dungeon. It's also a small experience in mingling keyed areas-- like the last one, this one is roughly twenty areas. Unlike the last one, the areas are divided between dungeon chambers, town features, and surrounding environs.

Timeline

• For the past ten years: King Osgood has ruled Valemon, keeping it neutral in the raids and wars of neighboring city-states and danelaws.
• Five years ago: a clan of gnoles began camping in the ruins on Tureshol, paying rent to Osgood.
• Three months ago: a general truce in the land makes Osgood's arrangement with the gnoles tense. The elf Quirinia approaches him, asking to lead an expedition to drive the gnoles out and retake the structure while the majority of their raiders are abroad. The king waffles.
• One month ago: The king's daughter Mary leads a group of friends on Quirinia's mission, where they discover a magic mirror which duplicates them and switches places with their copies. The doubles, thinking they are the original conquistadors, start using the mirror over and over to imprison new copies and take their stuff. They deputize the gnoles.
• Three weeks ago: As far as anyone in town knows, the princess is missing and the gnoles have turned bandit. Everything is in disarray, and the common folk are beginning to suspect dopplegangers and street conjurers making false coins and stealing faces.

Mary's Party

1. Princess Mary of Valemon (fighter 2) Daughter of King Osgood. Overconfident and charming. Wields the sword Chardonnay, a +1 arming sword that can lock any door 1/day.
2. Vicar Conan (cleric 2) Chaplain and confessor to Mary. Friendly and airheaded. Carries a gilded purse with the Heart of Saint Ismay, which can cast Sanctuary 1/day and a geas to abide by one's oath 1/week. For complex soteriological reasons, Conan's god would love to cease empowering the clones of Conan, but to do that the deity would have to defrock the original, who hasn't erred enough to justify it. Tragically, the many duplicating hearts of Ismay torment her more and more in Fantasy Heaven, and the purses have begun to bleed and whimper. Knows the spells Detect Magic and Protection from Evil.
3. Landrada (barbarian 3) Exiled from foreign parts for concealing a couple murders, she has enjoyed the hospitality of a string of nobles for the past six months. Rough and impolitic. She carries a Poultice of Healing (1d4 hp, two doses left) and the Ring of Gest, which grows three mundane rings (worth 1 GP) each day.
4. Quirinia (elf 1) Hedonistic but distant, she was stranded in these lands a century ago when King Arathur Elassar defeated the Fantasy elf Roman Empire and sent their quastors and caesars away. Proposed "reclaiming" Turishol to King Osgood, who hesitated too long, and so Quirinia convinced Mary to lead an expedition. Carries a Scroll of Clairvoyance she found in the tower. Knows the spell magic missile.
5. Elinor (thief 2) The naive daughter of one of Osgood's supporters, she has responded to the ennui of entering into adulthood by deciding to live her life like she stole it. Wears the Torc of Charisma +1
6. Beatrix/Ingibjorg (gnole) A gnole they encountered in the tower and inexplicably decided to adopt. Properly named Ingibjorg, but the Valemonters found it hard to pronounce so they told her she was named Beatrix now. Thrilled to be here, guys!

Activity

The party has cowed and cajoled the gnoles into acting as their lackeys, and imprisoned the "clones" (actually the originals and every previous clone) in the bottom of the dungeon. The city fears and hates them, though it is not yet commonly known who they are. Their grindset:

• Duplicate Mary's magic sword to make a world-shattering army.
• Duplicate Conan's relic and Ladrada's poultice for their powers.
• Duplicate Landrada's ring a bunch of times to get rich fast.
• Stack as many copies of Elinor's torc onto the same person as possible. At 24+ Charisma, those with less than 13 wisdom save or are charmed. At 30+ Charisma, those who see the wearer save or are stunned for 1 Turn.

Da Gnoles

• Hoss Olaf (gnole 1) husband of the Värdinna of the clan, Aud Lodleggr. Wields his wife's metal nunchaku. Not respected in his own right, but speaks in her stead while she leads raiders abroad. Led by Mary's group to turn bandit against Valemon, he worries that he has spelled his clan's doom. He's probably correct.
• Everyone else (gnole 2) is happy to go with the flow. They're not worriers, and anyway Aud should be back soon to pull our bacon from the fire.
• Aud's (gnole 3) Expedition isn't coming anytime soon. The last raid went poorly, and she's been captured by some foreign margrave, her warriors sent to the mines. She does not feature in this adventure.

The City

• King Osgood (thief 1) seeks to find his daughter, and figure out who's duplicating his family's sword.
• The people are pissed! What in the numerable hells is going on? Damn wizards and face-elves and humanoids. Where's our princess? Who's going to do something?

The Prisoners

• Real Conan has convinced many of the clones that he really is an original, and they have united around him.
• Real Mary, Real Elinor, and Real Beatrix have not distinguished themselves from their duplicates.
• Real Quirinia has escaped, wandering half-mad northeast of Valemon
• Real Landrada is dead, too hard to control.
• Of the Clones, most are Beatrix or Mary. There are very few Landradas (too defiant) or Quirinias (too magic).

d4 Random Encounters

1. 1d2 adventurers and 1d4 gnoles, all with Chardonnays

2. 1d6 gnoles (-2 MOR when not supervised by an adventurer) with Chardonnays

3. 1d3 Escaped clones

4. Angry mob (1d10+10 burghers with torches and clubs)

Kingdom of Valemon

• Valemon Town (see below)
• Due south, the river flows. Under ten feet of water, a riverboat was recently sunk after an inept hijacking attempt by a Landrada and her gang of gnoles.
• Salvagers will find two Chardonnays, a Ring of Gest and twenty-one other rings, and a couple corpses. The door to the captain's quarters is watertight, and opening it will possibly suck you in— save or take 1d4 damage and get winded. Strapped down in the captain's desk, however, is 2000 gold coins, a Free Mason ring, and a Telado Flail, made by Iberish smiths to bristle and clank in the tense air that precedes an ambush or storm, conferring the wielder immunity to surprise rounds and a +2 to saves vs. white squalls.
• West and southwest, hilly terrain has been tamed into fruitful vineyards, mostly chardonnay and seyval blanc grapes.
• North and northwest are the high mountains that feed the river running through the town. Travel is slow and little can be found there except the odd hermitage or woodcutter's cottage.
• To the northeast, marshlands predominate. Here, propitiated each year with wine and sick dancing demonstrations, lairs the green vire Gallfang. It absent-mindedly hunts a mud-covered fugitive from Tureshol, the original Quirinia.
• Due east, prosperous villages along a fine road lead out of the kingdom.
• Southeast of the town is Tureshol (see below), a series of hills where nothing good nor green will grow. Wandering monsters are found there on a roll of 1 or 2 when making encounter checks.

Valemon Town

• Palace of King Osgood: the small-yet-prosperous home of a small-but-prosperous man in a fine silk shirt and a sash over the shoulder that says "KING" on it. He is good at kinging, and knows the value of keeping everyone happy. Wants to find his daughter, not offend the gnoles too badly, and maintain his truces with all his neighbors.
• Two pubs: The Leopard and the Fruit of the Vine. A good place to get rumors.
• Everyone's on edge— at the first excuse, an angry mob will form.
• Market: weapons getting snapped up in these uncertain times.
• Sewer: An ill-maintained folly, in light of the encroaching marsh.
• The core was built in elven times, with notes and graffiti in Elvish, but beware suddenly unblocking blockages, floods, and fouled footing which may throw you into the drink; save or be fouled (-1 to all d20 rolls until clean) and make a further save vs death (if wearing medium or heavy armor) or vs getting carried out to a drain south of city, sputtering and d6 HP fewer.
• Embassy: the residence of Brian the Red, envoy of Osgood's neighbor Earl Guy. Uncreative but mustachioed. Increasingly concerned by how things are proceeding in Valemon. If he thinks you have a good shot at bringing down the temperature, will give you a crossbow with ten +1 blessed bolts "as a gesture of friendship from Earl Guy,"
• By the way, angry mobs hate Brian, Guy, and anyone they think are connected to them.

Tureshol

1. Improvised kitchen: outside the tower, an elder gnole supervises a gang of gnole cubs in the preparation of gruel for prisoners in area 5. Pilfered sacks of grain sit under makeshift tents.

At the first sign of trouble: they run off.

2. Base: Elinor (or one of the other adventurers if she's busy) guards this spartan chamber with four gnoles, explaining some aspect of the human feudal culture they're unfamiliar with. A ladder leads down into a dirt tunnel (branching to areas 3 or 4), while stairs lead further up (area 6).

3. Cairn: The resting place of the ancient gnole warrior Gunnvor Brotnskjalta. Packed in around her bier are twelve gnoles. 1d4-in-4 of them are asleep at any given time.

The body of Gunnvor (gnole 4) wears a rusted corslet shirt and clutches a +1 halberd of undiminished splendor. Careful investigation of her teeth reveal that one is a hollow fake ("Brotnskjalta" is the Gnorse word for "broken tooth") with the rune meaning "bear" carved on the back. It contains a potion of polymorph (up to 5 HD). Gunnvor stays very very still, even ignoring combat around her, and will acquiesce to polite requests, but will only part with her halberd if someone answers her questions in proper rhyming call-and-response, otherwise challenging them for it.

4. Tunnel Trap: the dirt becomes looser and shows no footprints for the last ten feet of the tunnel before coming to a staircase of worked stone (going to area 5).

Crossing over the loose dirt has a 3-in-6 chance of breaking through the dirt, depositing the victim 20 feet down in an area 5 cell. Mary's party and their duplicates are familiar with the trap, and skirt around the edges. The gnoles are instructed to reset the trap whenever it's set off.

5. Donjon: a cramped complex with a hundred cells and connecting hallways in the Elven architectural style, each elven lock still functioning perfectly. A hundred and ten duplicates and most of the original members of Mary's party are locked away here, fed near-starvation rations by sympathetic but unhelpful gnoles who visit twice a day.

Negotiation: Freeing the prisoners will lead to a frantic, instinctive rush in all directions. Anyone freed will rush to help others escape, then (d4) kill the clones currently in power, smash the mirror, use the mirror to make new clones to exploit themselves, report to king Osgood (but probably get got by an angry mob first. If the party appeals to the prisoners as a group, the Real Conan is the closest they have to a spokesman, and may (3-in-6 chance) get them to stick to a course of action.

Ghoulizers: two prisoners, a Landrada and the Real Elinor, are kept in separate cells from the rest. They are convinced that if the prisoners kill and cannibalize each other, they will be afflicted with ghoulism and empowered to fight their jailers.

6. Stairwell: Faded murals show scenes from the earliest Elven colonies, including a pact with the trees, twin elven wizards staring at each other, and humans working with elves to slay a giant and a dragon.

Pressing on the twin wizard scene: pops open a secret door to a small chamber within the stairwell, once the study of the elf wizard Snamolas. Among many expired magical ingredients, there is a scroll ordering his banishment from the Fantasy elven Roman capital, an ioun stone that gives off a weak lime green light, a potion of Hold Person (colored with ink, a trap for thieves), a jeweled handmirror (worth 1000 gold coins) and an account (in Elvish and the common tongue) of his attempt to resurrect his companion, the human wise man Oelfwine, after Snamolas's folly led to his pointless death. Powering it with his own magics, he intends to spend centuries in meditation within the mirror of his creation, gathering his failings and felony until he can invert them, turning himself into the taken saint. He warns in bold, underlined text that the mirror should be covered until then, as anyone who stares into their reflection will spend a vast amount of his painstakingly stored energy, only creating a hostile copy of themselves and "transposing their positions,"

7. Pad: 1d4 of Mary's party, hanging out and probably arguing. Mattresses and pillows cover the floor. In the middle of the room is a pile of Rings of Gest and 3000 gold rings.

In a fight: If they have forewarning, one will put on twenty Torcs of Charisma +1 and a second (if any) will wait in a corner to ambush attackers. Otherwise, they'll fight unstrategically, protecting those they love, shouting unhelpful advice to those they subtly hate, and leaving those they openly hate out to dry.

8. Shrine: roughly turned over in the process of seeking a secret door. Little murals of an elf wizard, robed man, hooded woman, and armored gnole going on adventures. The secret door (to area 9) is wide open.

9. Great Mirror of Salomans: a dusty, spartan chamber, fresh manacles ready to use piled up along the wall. In the center of the room is a heavy full-length cobalt mirror covered in script: "Let none disturb this mirror, by order of Salomans, for I sacrifice my self in service of all the world and redress of a great wrong I have done,"

Staring at yourself in the mirror: Makes a duplicate where you stood and rotates you to the other side of the room. The duplicate, polluted by the gathered selfishness of Salomans, disdains and resents you.

When someone created by the mirror dies, each object that was reflected with them dies too. It twists out of the world like an image in a spinning mirror

Holding another mirror up to the Great Mirror shows you the elf wizard Salomans himself, annoyed as hell but unable to stop what's happening.