| The adventure begins with the story
of two wizards, Guphs and Johandri.
Each have been friends since they met in the wizard academy. Once
in their early travels together they came across a 2 piece stone amulet
of some unknown origin with unusual markings. The pieces of the amulet,
when put together, were triangular in shape with a small circle depression
in the center and had engravings of magical lettering it seemed. They
had purchased it together in their youth for a mere 50 gp.. The language
of the amulet resisted any spell to read it, but some symbols were
known.
Each knew that somehow that magic within the
amulet was used to summon or create something. After a bit they
gave up on deciphering the amulet and went on with their lives.
Each took a piece of the amulet as a token of their youthful days
and went on with their lives.
After several years Guphs came across an old
parchment that detailed more of the cryptic text on the amulet from
his youth. He contacted his old friend and shared the information.
After this new information each had figured out that the amulet
was not magically protected but that the letters were encrypted.
Thats why they could never figure it out with "magic writings".
They also realized the potential of the amulet, it was a necromancer's
tool for controling undead called the Amulet
of the Dead. While Guphs saw this amulet for what it was, an
item of dark magic, Johandri saw it as new found power. The amulet
was of special interest to Johandri since he had specialized in
necromancy these last couple years.
Johandri decided to visit his old friend in the
hamlet of Derelorn.
They shared what each had found out about the amulet but obviously
had different views of what to do with it. Johandri wanted the amulet
for its potential and Guphs wanted it destroyed. A bitter arguement
broke out over the amulet and its wonders. Johandri realized that
Guphs was not going to give him his half of the amulet so Johandri
poisoned his old friend and took it by force. Johandri only wanted
to disable his wizard friend to get the other half of the amulet
but the poison he used killed him instead. Fortunatly for Johandri
no one at the hamlet ever bothered the Guphs except in severe emergencies.
After gathering all the new information and the
whole amulet, further evidence was discovered that there was one
more piece to the puzzle. There was a center piece gem that completed
the amulet's abilities. Without it the amulet was only partially
activated. Through several spells and lots of reading Johandri determined
a possible location for the gem, which coincedently were not to
far from here. It was the secret lair of the wizard who created
it, a wizard named Vothra.
He traveled the country side and located the
place where the secret dungeon was. Unfortunatly for him it was
in a cave, in the middle of an orc settlement, under the chieftain's
water supply. Now Johandri could handle a few orcs pretty good by
himself and a few undead, but attacking an orc stronghold in the
nearby caves was another story. Even with multiple undead he would
lose to the vast number of orc within the cave.
He devised a cunning plan to aid himself with
this dilemma. He knew the hamlet of Derelorn and the orc settlement
had signed a trade agreement and were at peace, so he had to make
them go to war. He figured the more that died, the more he could
animate, and the easier it will be to get inside the dungeon. With
luck the humans would kill the orcs and return to their homes leaving
the caves uninhabited. If they both take heavy casualties then he
can raise enough undead, with the amulets power, to take the caves
by force. If the orcs won, well that was the only bad part of the
plan. he would have to fight through a tough and victorious orc
army. Johandri was an opptimist and thought that 2 out of 3 isn't
bad.
He snuck into the human graveyard at night and
animated some corpses. He sent these undead to attack the orc settlement
with a note describing the disatisfaction of the humans with the
trade agreement. The note stated that orcish goods where of terrible
quality and that they were consuming the resources of the land,
"Orc goods suck, stop destroying our lands, die pig faces!"
He wasn't creative but against orcs it would work. Orcs being orcs
of course are not to bright and took on the attack as a sign of
good things to come. War is good for orcs, it means they can take
what they want.
So it started, orcs attacking humans, human attacking
orcs in response. The human settlement thought that the orcs went
mad and they had to be destroyed, no more agreements. And this is
where the PCs begin.
continue...
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