d20 E.N. Publishing War of the Burning Sky - Tears of the Burning Sky.pdf - E.N. War of the Burning Sky - R5700

War of the Burning Sky

Tears of the Burning Sky

An Adventure for 11th-Level Characters

By Ken Marable and Ryan Nock

Edited by Ryan Nock

Cover Art by Brandon Leach

Interior Art by Daniel Chavez

Rick Hershey

Luis Nuñez de Castro

Claudio Pozas

Cartography by Sean MacDonald

Layout by Eric Life-Putnam

Playtested by Theodore A. Brzinski III

Neil D’Cruze

Michael Gallogly

Tom Jones

Campaign Director Ryan Nock

Everything in this book, other than the covers,

the title and contents page, the illustrations and

maps, “EN Publishing,” the EN Publishing logo,

character and place names, story elements,

and EN Publishing product titles,

is designated Open Game Content.

Note on Rules Content: is adventure

uses Open Game Content as well as

material that is in the System Reference

Document but is not in the core rulebooks.

All the information you need to use this

EN PUBLISHING

1646 Ridge Road

Vankleek Hill, ON

Canada K0B 1R0

material is presented in this adventure, but

if you are interested in learning more, search

for the System Reference Document online,

available through various sources.

EN Publishing is an imprint of EN World.

Please visit http://www.enworld.org

Tears of the Burning Sky – Illustration by Brandon Leach

Table of Contents

Introduction.......................................................

Background .....................................................................

Adapting the Adventure.............................

Assassinating an Immortal Man ..............

Adventure Overview ......................................................

Allies and Enemies within Korstull...............................

Clan Millorn and Deception ..................................

Psionics in the Adventure .........................

Lore of Korstull ............................................

Army Remnants.......................................................

Sindaire Forces ........................................................

Devils ........................................................................

Inquisitor Griiat ......................................................

General Magdus and Shalosha of Shahahlesti ....

The Burning Sky .............................................

Deception ................................................................

Rescue Mission ...............................................

Act One: The Firestorm....................................

Aid of the Two Winds....................................................

e Road.........................................................................

Approaching the Firestorm ............................................

Gathin Garrison (EL )..............................................

Without the Monastery .............................

Effects of the Firestorm ............................

Crossing the Battleﬁ eld..................................................

e Canyon ...................................................................

Burning Warriors (EL ) ..........................................

Friendly Rivals .............................................................

Weakly-Enhanced Death and Fire

Magic .................................................................

Getting Into the Castle.................................................

Archery Bunkers (EL +) .................................

Bulette Tunnels (EL ) ......................................

Main Entrance ......................................................

Act Two: The Castle ........................................

Getting Upstairs ...........................................................

Castle Traits .................................................................

Defenders ......................................................................

Overwhelming Odds? .................................

Patrols (EL +) ...................................................!

Assault (EL +) ...................................................!

Assassination (EL ) ...........................................!

Progress of Clan Millorn .............................................

Keyed Castle Encounter Areas.....................................

Ground Floor........................................................

Second Floor.........................................................

Pilmat the Imp ...............................................!

Foyer Stairs Tracking Results ..............

Ambush .................................................................

In Case of Firestorm… .................................................

Time is Short (EL ) ............................................

e Ascent (EL ) ..............................................

Precise Timeline...........................................

Act Three: The Dark Pyre .............................

e Planar Rift..............................................................

Defenders of the Dark Pyre ..........................................

Welcoming Party (EL ).....................................!

Second Wave (EL ) ...........................................!

Dance Before the Dark Pyre (EL )..................!

e Fall of the Emperor ...............................................

Solving the Mystery......................................................

Getting Out ...................................................................

Pressure (EL !)....................................................

Deception Revealed (EL ) ................................

Staying and Talking....................................

e Flight (EL ).................................................

Conclusion.........................................................

Appendix One: Combat Stats .........................

Clan Millorn ................................................................

Castle Foes ....................................................................

Deception’s Boon .........................................

Ragesian Forces .............................................................

New Item: Inviso-Lance ............................

New Item: Ragesian Dragonbomb ..........

New Item: Hurling Bracers......................

Appendix Two: New Feats ...............................

Appendix Three: New Magic ..........................

Open Game License Version .a ..................

Tears of the Burning Sky

I NTRODUCTION

Welcome to the sixth adventure in the War of the

Burning Sky campaign saga. In previous adventures

the heroes have battled the great Ragesian Empire,

smuggling military secrets out of the besieged

city of Gate Pass, thwarting a conspiracy to use

a magical hurricane to destroy the seat of the

rebellion in Seaquen, and holding back one of

Ragesia’s mighty armies from the lands of Dassen.

eir slowly-growing force of allies was recently

joined by the Monastery of Two Winds, whose

wind-worshipping monks have pledged their aid to

the heroes after being rescued from the magic of a

strange dreamborn creature, and from the blades of

a Ragesian garrison.

Now, with the wind at their backs, the heroes

set out for Castle Korstull, a canyon fortress in the

where Emperor Drakus Coaltongue was slain, and

where it is believed the Torch of the Burning Sky

may lie. An endless ﬁ restorm wracks the surrounding

lands, animating as undead all who die to its falling

ﬂ ames, including all those who defended the castle

that was to be the emperor’s ﬁ nal conquest. e

castle holds the clue to the fate of the emperor and

the Torch, but the heroes will have to contend with

demons, rival treasure hunters, and the survivors of

Coaltongue’s army to learn it.

A DAPTING THE A DVENTURE

Tears of the Burning Sky works easily as

a stand-alone adventure, where the focus

can be on recovering any precious item that

several groups would pursue. A break in the

ﬁ restorm, which divinations show will only

last a few days, calls other treasure hunters

and even a small army to the perilous castle.

The trillith Deception could simply be a unique

doppelganger working as an agent for some

nefarious group, and the rift could have been

created by some sort of magical catastrophe.

e Old Dragon’s foes assumed his only

strength was in martial warfare, but in truth he was

also cunning: he decreed that every noble family

would oﬀ er up a son or daughter to serve in the

armies of Ragesia’s heartland, far from the safety of

Sindaire. e loyal noble families readily complied,

whereas many among the rebellion hesitated or

balked. Conﬁ dent he had weeded out enough of his

opponents, the emperor ordered his garrisons to

arrest the rebels. Some tried to ﬁ ght, and they ﬂ ed in

force to the highly defensible Castle Korstull in the

badlands of central Sindaire, which had itself once

served as a Ragesian fortress when Coaltongue ﬁ rst

attacked Sindaire sixty years ago, before the nation

pledged fealty to Ragesia.

On a morning in late fall, Emperor Coaltongue

called together his loyal First Army and mustered

the ten thousand men and their many beasts of war

on a broad ﬁ eld outside the Ragesian capital. With

him he had brought the son of one of the Sindairese

rebels, shackled and held fast in the clawed grip of

two skull-masked inquisitors. Holding aloft the

Torch of the Burning Sky, the emperor roared to

his men that they would put down this challenge to

their authority, this insult to their invincible might.

e tip of the Torch began to ﬂ icker with ﬁ re, and

then, with a strike that caved in the skull of the

rebel son, the ﬂ ames ﬂ ared to blinding brilliance.

Background

For years, wealthy noble families throughout the

region, especially in Sindaire, suﬀ ered under Emperor

Coaltongue’s rule. In the summer of the last year, Lord

Pietr Gorquith organized this disapproval into an

outright rebellion. e rebellious nobles were smart

enough to realize, however, that Coaltongue’s military

might surpassed anything they could ﬁ eld, so instead

of warring outright, they fought with subterfuge and

politics. Shipments were delayed or rerouted from

military garrisons to disgruntled peasants, threats

were made to Coaltongue’s supporters, and pledges

were made to stand together when the time came;

soon even the Exarch – the national leader installed

by Coaltongue’s orders – feared that he could no

longer tell whom he could trust.

Tears of the Burning Sky Introduction

e sky roared, and an inferno descended upon the

army, engulﬁ ng them and carrying them through the

burning sky to the gates of Castle Korstull.

Emperor Coaltongue dined that evening in the

castle’s throne room.

at evening, however, as the emperor slept

soundly with the satisfaction of his victory, a trio

of assassins struck. Avoiding or striking down

every guard, defeating every magical and mundane

defense that protected Coaltongue, the assassins

managed to reach the emperor’s bedchambers,

located behind the throne room. Vile poison struck

down Darius, one of his inquisitor bodyguards, but

not before Darius sounded an alarm. e assassins

slew the emperor before he woke, and then, bearing

the emperor’s body and the Torch, they battled their

way to within sight of the open sky and activated the

Torch, teleporting away.

But somehow the assassins sabotaged the

Torch’s power: when they vanished, they left behind

a rift in the fabric of reality, crossing the Astral Plane,

the Plane of Elemental Fire and the Negative Energy

Plane. Within moments the castle and miles around

it were engulfed in ﬂ ames, and all those slain by the

blaze were infused with necromantic energy, soon

to rise as undead. Only Darius survived, protected

by the wards on Coaltongue’s throne room, but

the assassins’ poison seared his mind as the rift

incinerated his comrades, and he lay in a nightmare-

wracked fever for days. Now he survives in the

emperor’s chambers, barely aware of who he is, or

that he alone holds the secret to the Torch’s fate.

Now, the ﬁ restorm created by the rift drifts for

miles in every direction, raining liquid ﬂ ame upon

the land, turning anything it slays into undead. In the

months since Coaltongue’s defeat, many have tried to

reach the heart of the ﬁ restorm, where a burning pillar

ascends into the heavens, but none have emerged.

Meanwhile, within the castle, a strange heirarchy

has emerged. ough most of the undead retain

only the faintest sliver of a mind, they still obey the

commands of those creatures whose spirits were

strong enough to survive their deaths. Now the

castle is commanded by Inquisitor Griiat, once one

of Coaltongue’s bodyguards. Since his death he has

A SSASSINATING AN I MMORTAL M AN

Rumors have said for decades that Drakus

Coaltongue is immortal, invulnerable to wounds

and to the ravages of age, for in his nearly

hundred years of life he has survived hundreds

of battles. As the heroes will discover in this

adventure, these rumors are true. Decades ago,

a young servant of the Ragesian Empire, a priest

and mage named Leska Merideus, discovered the

location of the Aquiline Heart, a relic of a god-

like elemental entity, the blood of which grants

immortality to those who drink it. Leska shared

this discovery with her emperor, and the two of

them became immortal.

Coaltongue, then, is not truly dead. The

assassins slew him, impaling his heart and slicing

off his head, but they had to bring his body with

them to ensure he did not simply regenerate and

track them down. In the next adventure, The Trial

of Echoed Souls , the heroes will follow clues to

track down the assassins and recover both the

emperor and the Torch.

Who Were the Assassins?

In case the heroes use divinations to learn

about the identities of the assassins or ask Darius

questions about them, they were, in brief:

• Quillathe Nailo – A dark elf woman with

red-violet hair who wields a bladed whip

and a rapier. She struck down Darius with a

poisoned kiss.

• Yvonnel Machuel – A white-haired dark elf

woman who wielded a two-bladed sword.

She carried off Coaltongue’s body.

• Rhuarc Knightsbane – A swarthy half-elf

man who could vanish into shadows, and

whose charcoal-black scimitar beheaded the

emperor.

These assassins had their own motives to kill the

emperor – vengeance and a desire to topple a

tyrant – but they were given the necessary magic

to complete the act by a third party unknown to

them. We leave it deliberately uncertain who was

behind the assassination so you can choose, but

in general it can be assumed that Leska was the

mastermind.

d20 E.N. Publishing War of the Burning Sky - Tears of the Burning Sky.pdf

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: