Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 20 May 2002 to 22 May 2002 (#2002-136) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 23/05/2002, 17:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 5 messages totalling 342 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. The latest on ESDs, direct from WotC 2. Dye Adventure part I 3. Dye Adventure part II 4. Dye Adventure part III 5. The First City adventure ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 10:54:30 +0100 From: Roger WINTER Subject: The latest on ESDs, direct from WotC The release of our ESD products internationally has been delayed by = some ongoing legal issues. We hope to make them available for purchase = from any country where we regularly ship as soon as possible. You may = want to sign up to receive our online store newsletter at http://store.wiza= rds.com/newsletter.asp as an announcement will be made as soon as the = country restrictions are lifted. =20 Darrin=20 Wizards Online Store ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 15:57:50 +0300 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Ville_V_L=E4hde?= Subject: Dye Adventure part I The Painted Bay… the Bloodied Streets by Ville Lähde This adventure was written originally in 1994 for the Finnish RPG magazine "Claymore". I designed it for OD&D, and the events were supposed take place in Specularum, Karameikos. For the sake of usability I wrote the adventure in a generic form, however. Now I have rewritten it to explicitly suit players who enjoy Mystara. However, it is still easy to convert it to any other fantasy world and gaming system. I think the adventure suits low-fantasy environments even better, as it is a "detective story"… divination spells and such tend to spoil them. Thus for OD&D I recommend keeping the power levels low, so that excessive use of magic doesn't spoil the fun. This adventure will also begin the series of five City-Adventures, all of which take place in Specularum. Taken together, perhaps combined with "the Monolith adventure"/"The Might of Rock and the Heavens" (see the Vaults of Pandius) and some commercial city-related adventures, the series is a good foundation for a long campaign. Setting One central feature in this adventure is the location of Specularum by the sea, both as an environmental factor and an important venue of trade. After all, the city was renamed due to the beautiful sight of the Mirror Bay, at its best when the rays of the morning and evening sun give it a hue of red. The DM should prepare in advance for this adventure by considering the importance of the bay in the everyday life of the Specularum residents: the noise and the smells of the harbour are ever-present, the swirling seagulls are everywhere, ever so nasty and annoying. The smell of the sea and the cold winds give the city much of its atmosphere. The spectacular events in the Mirror Bay during the course of the adventure will be a scary surprise to the Specularumians, especially the superstitious Traladara. One assumption has been made for this adventure. Certain rare and expensive dyes are imported to Specularum, since they cannot be produced here. Those dyes are used especially for expensive cloth used in even more expensive clothes, reserved for special occasions. This assumption is not unbased: in real-world medieval societies, for example, certain colours were actually reserved for certain social classes, forbidden from others. Some important locations and features of the city in this adventure are: The city guard, which has small offices in the city, mainly near the various gates, marketplaces and the richer areas. The Nest is mostly a no-go -zone for the guards. For the purposes of this adventure it is important that one can bribe the guards. Also they are not always too keen on finding the actual criminals, convenient scapegoats suffice for the smaller offences. This doesn't necessarily mean arbitrary arrests, but they are not very interested in examining the evidence. The Foreign Quarter will also be important in this adventure. It is an exotic area, which offers many services not available elsewhere, such as trade in foreign drugs and novel forms of prostitution. (The DM is of course the final judge in whether prostitution is legal in her/his Karameikos, but if any historical counterparts are used, illegality would be surprising.) The guilds are an important factor in the life of the city, and the events of this adventure touch some of them. The guilds control competition in various fields by keeping steady the number of practicing craftsmen, and controlling prices and production. Note: The residents of the Foreign Quarter are realtively poorer than the average citizen of Specularum, since they are less likely to get a job here. Foreign craftsmen need the permission of the guild to practice their trade, and sometimes it isn't given. Retail and wholesale trade is controlled by the Merchants' guild. Craftsmen are allowed to sell their own wares in their shops (by a rubberstamped permission of the Merchants' Guild), but all other forms of trade are strictly forbidden. Note: Merchants' Guilds of various countries make treaties which lay rules for trade in other countries. In this adventure the Dyers' Guild and the Tailors' Guild have and important role. In addition to this, the Kingdom of Thieves has a role in the adventure. Especially important is it's relation to freelancers practicing in the city, and the actions they make against them. Also one veterinarian (a rare occupation) will be met. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 15:59:32 +0300 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Ville_V_L=E4hde?= Subject: Dye Adventure part II General notes The events take place in early spring, the beginning of a new trading season. Karameikan ships will leave for foreign shores to trade domestic wares, and first foreign ships will arrive with the trade winds - mainly Thyatian, Minrothadian, Ierendian and Darokinian, with the occasional Ylaruamian, Sindian or Northern Reaches vessel, even though the latter are rare exceptions. Trade in foreign goods is vivid, causing fierce competition and fluctuations in prices. Fortunes are made and lost, as in an environment like this it is never certain which shipments arrive, which are lost. Merchants have only partial information on coming shipments anyway. Investing in certain goods may be disastrous, if the market is suddenly flooded. Black marketing around the Foreign Quarter is also strong, and it causes tensions within the Quarter and between local residents and foreigners - guildmasters complain of illegal trade, exotic drugs cause havoc, and sudden influx of funds after the winter make local gangs more aggressive. Streetfights between "ethnic" and local gangs are common. This causes a lot of grief for the already overworked city guard, which has to allocate a lot of its troops to the streets, even though a lot are tied up in protecting warehouses and markets. The Kingdom of Thieves (and other possible thieve's guilds) will no doubt react to these events. [Note: I haven't taken the Veiled Society and the Iron Ring to account in this adventure, but their thugs can easily give flavour to this adventure. For example one of the parties in this conflict might seek aid from them.] A new resident, Tegell of Ierendi, has recently moved to the Foreign Quarter. He belongs to the richest part of the foreign population there. He has a lot of contacts in his homeland, and he has invested most of his money in a valuable shipment of dyes. These particular dyes are produced from certain excretions of captured monsters, and they are used mainly in shimmering and glittering cloths used in festival costumed and banquet costumes. Tegell has bought information on the time table of the dye shipment in order to deceive the dyers of the town and get richer. His plan is this: in disguise, he will order an expensive costume from each and every tailor in the city, presumably in preparation for a coming masked ball in the Darokinian embassy (such an event is indeed coming). The down payments he has given for them are peanuts when compared to the winnings he is expecting. Of course Tegell will never come to collect the costumes, and he has made sure that the designs are so odd that nobody else would buy them - he has fashioned them after Darokinian and Ierandian customs, which are very elaborate in comparision to the Karameikan and Traladaran fashion. Then Tegell hires members of a foreigner gang to break into the house of the Dyers' Guild, to steal all of the dye and bury it somewhere. [Note: The DM should decide which nationality the gang represents and draw up some personalities for it, since the gang might become a factor in the coming events.] In order to divert the attention of the City Guard, Tegell organises a diversion, a robbery into the house of a veterinarian. He hires local freelance thieves for this, again using a disguise. To create a conflict he leaks information of the coming robbery to the City Guard and the Kingdom of Thieves. Unfortunately Tegell makes some small mistakes along the way, and serving as clues they may lead to him. But no matter what happens, the fate has still one cruel card left. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 16:01:08 +0300 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Ville_V_L=E4hde?= Subject: Dye Adventure part III TIMELINE DAY 1 This is the official first day of Spring, when the trading season opens. The citizens are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the first ships, and some are fearing the departure of the Karameikan vessels, when their sweethearts and husbands leave for the seas. A lot of drunken seamen can be seen in the pubs. Around noon the first ship arrives, carrying pipe tobacco and beer from the Five Shires. The partons of inns offer a free round of ale and tobacco to their quests. As Tegell has paid in advance to the above mentioned foreign gang, its members act more self-assuredly and aggressively, being able to buy more alcohol, drugs and weapons. Tensions are on the rise, and word of this reaches the City Guard and the Kingdom of Thieves. Today Tegell hires the local thugs to rob the Dyers' Guild. With orders from Tegell, a street kid takes word to the thieves and the guards, that someone has taken interest in the herb stach of the veterinarian. Of course the kid tries to squeeze a few kopec for this. Here is Tegell's first mistake: he hired a kid who is possible to recognise, as the boy has a constant twitch on his right cheek. The guards officer who receives the word changes his route for the night - the Dyers' Guild belongs to his normal route, but now he wishes to catch the herb thieves. He wants money and glory, but doesn't want to share it. The Kingdom of Thieves, agry about the appearance of freelancers, sends a few operatives to stake out the house of the veterinarian. The reasons for this are 1) they owe a favour to him, or are "protecting" him 2) the freelancers would step on their toes anywhere. The veterinarian is a sweet old man, with balding head. He munches cooking herbs constantly, thus it is hard to make out what he is saying. He charges very little for his services, but pays quite well for his servants (a stable keeper and two guards). He gets the extra money for this from his wife who is a healer. Her customers are mostly labourers of the South End, who can't afford priestly healing. The Guard officer is a young but experienced mercenary. Mostly he values his street reputation, money and a good job. he is susceptible for bribery. He also has some connections to a few nobles and merchants, but not enough to get him away from clear crimes. When Tegell's trap is sprung, he can keep things silent for a few days, though. NIGHT 1 Around midnight the freelance thieves approach the house of the veterinarian. It is a small house inside the city walls, in the southern parts, surrounded by a garden. (Select one such house from the map of Specularum, south of the Torenescu territory and west of the South End. - See the map in Thibault Scarlat's site, for example.) In addition to the house where the vet, his wife and the guards live, there's a tool shed, stables for 6 horses and the herb store. Beside the house is a small garden for herbs and a dozen bushes of medicinal berries. The operatives of the Kingdom of Thieves are in the berry bushes. The freelance thieves arrive from the direction of the South end, using the few trees as cover. The guards are at the front of the stables and the main house. Initially the two groups of thieves will no doubt battle it out, but suddenly the guards arrive (What's all this then?). This encounter can end up in many ways, but the guards have the upper hand and aim at taking prisoners, not killing the robbers. The operatives of the Kindgom will try to flee, or buy their way out if captured. Just when the offices is enjoying his catch, news arrive that the house of the Dyers' Guild has been robbed. The officer understands that he is in trouble, having abandoned his route without an order to do so. This can end in many ways. The Kindgom of Thieves has an opportunity to find out, that the same source leaked the information to them and the guards. If the guards captured members of the Kingdom, he can find out the same by interrogating them. The freelance thieves were hired by a redhaired man who spoke with a foreign accent. At least the officer doesn't want the issue to become public, so he may demand that his prisoners investigate the matter - after all, all three parties fell victim to the same hoax. He can bury the charges in return. It is also possible that the situation forces him to make a deal with the Kingdom of Thieves. Anyway, he'll use his contacts to keep this thing under wraps for a few days. Of course it is possible that the freelancers escape, and they might want to start investigating on their own. DAY 2 The morning starts with terrible news. A huge croud has gathered into the harbour to look at the Mirror bay, which used to be so clear, but is now tainted with swirling colours. The prayers of the priests won't work, and mages are baffled (one good addition could be that the monstrous ingredients of the dyes have reacted to each other, causing some sinister fumes etc.). Rumours abound. The truth is that the members of the foreign gang whom Tegell hired were lazy, and decided to dump the dyes into the Bay instead burying them outside the city. This was Tegell's second mistake: he wanted to save money and didn't use professionals. The Kingdom of Thieves would have been more trustworthy but also a lot more expensive. During the day the word hits the streets that the tailors of the city are angry: nobody has collected the elaborate costumes, and most of the exotic dyed cloth has been used. The Darokinian Embassy ball is in a few weeks, and orders for new costumes will start coming in soon, and no there's no dye left to make new cloth. The masters of the Tailors' Guild argue about improving communication between themselves and raising the level of advance payments. (Clue: The mystery man who ordered the costumes had the same accent as the red-haired stranger.) The little boy has received his reward and has hidden himself in the Nest. Even the Kingdom of Thieves would have a hard time finding him, for the guards it is impossible. If the culprit thieves are making investigations, they have to be persistent and resourceful. If the kid is found, he can tell that he was hired by a red-haired man with a strange accent. Tegell's third mistake: he didn't switch disguise. If someone has the brains to ask it, the Harmourmaster knows that a big shipment of Ierendian dyes is expected to arrive. Despite his disguises, Tegell wasn't able to hide his Ierendian accent, which can perhaps be recognised by the various wittnesses. This is Tegell's fourth mistake, as he didn't hire go-betweens to hide his tracks. Perhaps using smugglers and the black market of the Kingdom of Thieves would have been a better alternative, too. But then again, it would have been costly. Fights between the foreign gangs intensify, as the members of the gang that Tegell hired take advantage of their newly purchased weapons (and thugs?). The opposing gangs notice that the gangmembers tend to have some Ierendian currency on them (Tegell's fifth mistake). Rumours spread. NIGHT 2 or beyond Thus all tracks eventually lead to the Foreign Quarter. The Kingdom of Thieves would like to get their hands on Tegell, as would the guards officer and the other foreign gangs. Contacts and deals between the parties are of course just as likely as conflicts. In the Foreign Quarter the thieves and the guards are however walking on thin ice, as the gangs are in charge. If the culprit thieves are active, their success depends on their wallets, charisma, streetwise and muscle. During this night and perhaps the nights to come, the streets run red. The result of all this is uncertain. Perhaps Tegell manages to win still, as he has the foreign gang to back him up and enough funds left to buy out the thieves and the guards (although that would leave him skinned). He can also buy the culprit thieves off by promising the Guard won't bother them anymore - he is capable of this, although the officer would demand something in return. However, the Fate shows a dark sense of humor. The shipment of dye that shook Specularum never arrives. The ship sinks, taking lives beneath the waves, as the first spring storm surprises it. The few saved sailors ramble on about painted waves… And what about the PCs? The DM has the chance to place the PCs in many different sides of this conflicts. One good way to use this adventure is to begin a Specularum campaign (I did that) by placing the PCs on different sides and introducing them to each other during the veterinarian heist. IMC an elf PC was doing temporary labour for the vet, an unscrupulous mage apprentice PC was hired to back up the free-lancers, and a thief PC belonged to the Kingdom and was hiding in a bush. Or the whole PC party can be hired by Tegell, if they are suitable for a thief-related campaign.. Or perhaps there can be various PC groups playing simultaneously, whatever. But watch out for the cobblestones slick with blood, watch your back, and remember to check the colour of you morning bath. The adventure commences. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 16:03:49 +0300 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Ville_V_L=E4hde?= Subject: The First City adventure Hullo. I just mailed the first "Specularum-adventure" that I have translated. "The Dye Adventure" is the first in a series that I wrote for a Finnish RPG mag. I hope you enjoy, and I'll try to find time to translate more soon. Ville ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 20 May 2002 to 22 May 2002 (#2002-136) ****************************************************************