The temple of Elemental Evil, considered to be unplayable is an evolving adventure. For this group, it is an army that is being built to destroy the City of Jarda to the North. The temple was all but destroyed a century ago when it was revived about fifty years ago by the current ruler of Greysteel in an attempt to perform a coup against his father and the rest of his family. The coup was successful, but then the new Duke turned on the Temple and tried to eradicate it. The Temple survived barely, and took years to revive more fully but it has an ace up it's sleeves; one of the survivors of the family, a paladin and true heir to the city was kept alive and in stasis. The temple staff have been blackmailing the current ruler and it has stymied his advances. But he has a plan, he will get some adventurers to attack the temple and take out his enemies so he can launch his War.
If the characters mention the taxes, he will say that he is trying to raise an army to deal with a threat to the south, a hoarde of Orcs that is gathering on the edge of the Dukedom. He says they have been raiding these lands for years and they have been increasing. They are enslaving the populations. He needs the threats within his bourders to be taken care of elsewise he will come back from the battle with no nation at all. Please investigate these rumours for me. He mentions that there were a number of observation forts built a while ago. That is a good place to start. He also mentions that he will buy any surplus magical items they recover and any unusual monsters too.
Encounter with the Baloc's Crew, who has the lead with 250gp with the Orc Ear Challenge, but the reason is because they have been waylaying adventurers and killing them for their ears that they have collected. The group consists of a number of fighters with the support of a Cleric Stromida Light cleric level 6 or 7, an Invoker of level 5 or 6, a Bard level 6 or 7, a rogue assassin level 4 and four fighters level 5 and one level 8, Baloc himself. They do not like a fair fight, as such they will release a Dragon Bear at them and come to their "aid" as the fight is ending, after hopefully they have expended their best attacks. The Dragon was charmed and released to attack the party. Perhaps it might be best to make the attackers lower level, the cleric 5, the Mage 4, the Bard 4th, the three fighters level 4 and Baloc 6th., they are going to be attacking from surprise.
The location has been used several times for this purpose. The there are signs of a recent circular burn patch and trace blood, if they think to look the party member coming in will be seem to be saying that they are attacking. But to target key individuals. The Crew will have Forty-two Orc ears, 23 goblin ears and three Ogre ears, in their possession. As well as a purse of twenty gold and five platinum apiece.
If the characters go via Sunnydale they will encounter a tree fall over the road and a group of eighteen Orcs, with an Orc sub leader and a cleric to a storm god.
If they approach from the other way they will encounter a similar tree fall and a group of gnolls that have attacked some farmers already.
Both these encounters will have occurred in the early morning before the attack on the party by Baloc's Crew.
They will be given a map of the area and the location of the temple and the observation posts.
Observation of the Duke one might see an artifact that he carries with him.
That was the Plan the initial result was that the players decided to head to the village of Hommlet, because they had not been there before. The result was that I was unprepared, because I was working all week and watching Babylon5 at night and not doing prep work. Also I thought that they would not investigate the village as deeply as they wanted to. Luckily I knew enough about the area. But still there were holes. Many of the characters had purchased mounts or more mobile means of carrying things which means they were not slowed down much by treasure and stuff. The mounts cost more because of taxation. The costs were moved up a bit, just a bit. The characters also paid a 25% income tax on goods they looted from the temple. Some of them paid the tax, some did not. They found about 1200go and so they each owed 300gp, steep I know, but the point is that they should begin to resent the ruler, he is Lawful Evil, how do you portray the leader of a country's alignment, Good leaders might impose an import tax and a tax on the land, because the ruler owns all the land and everyone rents from them. The income tax is in addition to all that. He uses the taxes to build barracks in each town and places a tax collector there who oversees the town. The barracks house troops and keep the people safe, but not so safe that Adventurers are not needed. He is planning to build up troops to a level where he can then launch an attack on the temple, but knows that if he does that, they might reveal his complicity in the deaths of his family, so he is held in check. His story line for the build up of troops is to stop the Orcs invading the lands. If someone deals with the Temple, he will make good on his plans to invade the Orc nation to the south. But right now the taxes are an unfair burden on the people, ala king John and the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Some of the characters paid the tax outright, the lawful ones, two of the characters did not pay it fully, the tax tab sits 1320gp. One of the characters says he will disperse the tax money to the common people and began spending lots of money on lavish dinners and such.
He then went on to seduce the Innkeeper's daughter, so he was just throughing around cash to feed his own ego, whatever. He will be back to the area frequently, it may take a year to completely vanquish the temple, so it may become an evolving situation there. They actually managed to hit four of the evolving locations of the village. The Inn, the Trading post, the Temple of Scoria (St. Cuthbert), and the Driud's grove. The villagers will be as secretive as the village of Neloar, but with that adventure under their belt, a hero status will catch up with them soon enough. The people are more cosmopolitan than Neloarans, they are at a crossroad between Greysteel, Neloar, and the two smaller villages of Nulb and Saltmarsh, so they see more travelers than Sunnydale and Neloar. Indeed, because of establishments like the Welcoming Wench, more people travel that route than the route through Sunnydale. So the Six freaks will feel more welcome in town.
They ran into the twenty gnolls and defeated them, but the fight was the most difficult encounter that they have had to date, the paladin almost died and the DM was rolling where his dice could be seen and I should have been in a casino, because I rolled, well a statistically slightly higher number of critical hits. I mean I was rolling for twenty critters and many of them had advantage so that I was rolling thirty dice and getting a lot of criticals is not unexpected, rolling five attacks against one player and getting three criticals and one normal hit was odd especially because the character had the highest armour class, which meant that the gnolls needed a 19 to hit her. The characters defeated the gnolls and I did not cheat for them to win. The gnolls were carrying some serious wealth for gnolls, 5gp apeice and the leader had a ring for the temple on his finger, they were fresh recruits.
They did not get to the second encounter, but that was good because I had not finished making the NPCs for it.
Baloc 8th level fighter AC 16; HP 68; two attack per round +8 to hit, +5 damage, 1-8+5 and hand axe 1-6+5. He holds the ears bounty.
Baloc's Bard 4th level, AC 16; HP 35, +5 to hit, +3 damage, 1-8+3
4 level 1 spells, 3 level 2 spells
And a few others. The combat went well the characters were depleted of spells and of many effects but they defeated the challenge with difficulty. Mostly because I was not playing the NPCs with the certainty that the encounter deserved, but then if I had, the players might have lost. But there were a number of lessons that they learned from these encounters. The first was that when they encountered the priest of Stromida and he was an enemy, and the Half Orc player, priest of Stromida, was confused, how could this be happening . . .. Like they conveniently forgot the religious wars of Europe where Protestant and Catholic fought and killed each other over differences in doctrine…. The connection did not stick though. The paladin was happy that the leader of Greysteel was a follower of Scoria just like he was but Scoria is a lawful deity, not necessarily a a good deity…. That is the point.
Xeric is a god of balance, Drogath and evil deity, Hestium a god of good; the Greater Divinities are Gods and Goddesses of extremes: Law, Chaos, Good, Evil, Balance and, No Side. D&D is a battle of Law over Chaos; Civilization over Wilderness.
The Tax total for the party has gone up again. The defeat of Baloc's Crew added 70gp times 7 NPCs, and Baloc adds 250, so about 750 gp, or 125 apeice, the ones that pay their taxes and the ones that don't total to about a full share of the loot, so 125gp added. 1320+125=1445gp. The taxes are becoming a sore point among some of the characters, but that is design. The prices are inflated in the Dukedom; a 75gp purchase is now a 100gp purchase, because the taxes affect everyone in the nation, so the salesmen pass it on by raising prices by a third.
How do you show alignment of a leader without telling the characters outright? Through their actions. Through the the policies of the nation. Typically taxes were raised in mideval nations through import duties and plunder of other nations, threats etcetera. Income Taxes, never. So stealing from the people through legal means, to fuel a war of revenge against a fictitious enemy built on a lie, so he could gain power, that none of the characters know any of this but they feel his claws in their purses every day. And there is resentment.
I think when the tax take for the characters hits 2500 gp, the next stage of his oppression will start, pressing young men into the army, maybe controls about who the farmers can sell their produce to and for how much…. The claim will be to fight the war. The War on an Orc nations to the North.
The village of Hommlet
The key is to make the town come alive. It is a small town, smaller than Neloar, but bigger than the town in the module. The area has been settled longer than any area except Greysteel. It has kept its charm, but it is more provincial. The area recieves more trade than any village other than Greysteel. Many of the people in Hommlet have connections to Jarda, which is different from even Greysteel. They are more worldly than those others. They still stare at elves and gnomes, but they have seen them from time to time, they do not discriminate. When Jarda stopped sending tax men to the area, they did not cease to pay attention to the area, they recruited locals to the task; an order called the Watch.
There are more temples in the area than just Scoria (St Cuthbert) and Xeric, the Grey Warder, and other nature deities (Old Faith). There is a shrine to the Hidden Goddess, there is a temple to Stromida, a temple to Xeric, Jard, Auristia, Hestium too. The keep is completed and old. The keep includes a detachment of the local troops, the taxman and money changer, and it includes the new council chambers. There is a company store in the keep as well where farmers can sell their produce for a guaranteed sale, lower prices but a sale.
