d20 E.N. Publishing War of the Burning Sky - Under the Eye of the Tempest.pdf - E.N. War of the Burning Sky - R5700

Under the Eye of

the Tempest

An Adventure for 18th- to

20th-Level Characters

by Wil Upchurch

Cover Art

Claudio Pozas

Interior Art

Claudio Pozas

Hunter McFalls

Leo Lingas

Cartography

Sean Macdonald

Layout

Eric Life-Putnam

Note on Rules Content:

This 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 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.

Everything in this book, other than the covers, the title and

contents pages, 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.

EN PUBLISHING

7 Rutland Court, Balaclava Road

Southampton, Hampshire

England SO18 6RX

EN Publishing is an imprint of EN World.

Please visit http://www.enworld.org

Under the Eye of the Tempest – Illustration by Claudio Pozas

Table of Contents

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

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

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

Adapting the Adventure, continued .............

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

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

Act One: My Brother’s Keeper..................

Looking to the Sky..........................................................

Don’t the Heroes Know All This? ...................

You and What Army? ...................................................

What Is Longinus Up To? .....................................

Get On Your Horse and Ride! (Optional Encounter).

Seaquen: Home Away From Home..............................

Sunken Prison..................................................................

e Pyromancer’s Tomb .................................................

Who is Hedrenatherax?.....................................

Act Two: He that Dies Pays All Debts .

e Battle of Battles ......................................................

Attacking the Tempest Alone .........................

On Board, Chaos! ........................................................

In the Belly of the Beast ................................................

Where’s the Challenge?.....................................

Digestive System............................................................

Respiratory System .......................................................!

Heart Chambers ............................................................

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

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

Act One ..........................................................................

Act Two ..........................................................................

Appendix Two: The Tempest .....................

e Flying Ship ............................................................

External Description....................................................

Internal Description......................................................

Pilus and the Tempest .................................................

Attacking the Tempest ................................................

Approaching on the Ethereal Plane .............................!

Attacking From Above ..................................................!

Attacking From Below...................................................

Defeating the Tempest .................................................

Appendix Three: New Spells ....................

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

Under the Eye of the Tempest

I NTRODUCTION

e end of the War of the Burning Sky draws

near, and the fate of Ragesia and the surrounding

lands rests in the hands of heroes forged in the war’s

intrigues and battles. After recovering a lost artifact,

uniting armies in defense of cities and nations, and

uncovering an alien conspiracy that threatens the

survival of all those who make war, the heroes still

have work yet to do. e liberation of Gate Pass was

a great victory for the Resistance, but it revealed a

trio of threats greater than even the Ragesian armies

that still ravage the land.

e ﬁ rst of these threats is represented by the

dream creatures known as the trillith. ey seek to

extinguish a powerful artifact, the Aquiline Heart,

without the protection of which all reality will bend

into a living nightmare. Second is Empress Leska, the

heir apparent to the throne of Ragesia, whose hubris

threatens to keep the lands in turmoil indeﬁ nitely.

e heroes may have already confronted one or

both of these threats before turning their attentions

to Pilus, the sorcerer-monk whose biomantic

laboratory has created a weapon so fearsome that no

nation could hope to stand against it without the

Torch of the Burning Sky. It is this threat to which

the heroes now turn their attention.

e heroes have already glimpsed Pilus’s weapon,

the living airship known as the Te m p e s t , but its true

power is only now being brought to bear. Unknown

to any but Pilus and his allies, the Te m p e s t brings

with it the same destructive power that nearly laid

Seaquen low months ago: it is a mobile platform of

destructive storm magic. e mile-long monstrosity

also carries an invading army that could spell doom

for the Resistance if it is allowed to occupy the city.

Under the Eye of the Tempest assumes that the

characters have decided that Empress Leska is the

greatest threat to peace, and that it is the middle

adventure in the trilogy of endings. In this case, the

characters will have already activated the Torch of

the Burning Sky by invading the dreamlands and

destroying or freeing Trilla, and will be attacking

Pilus and his ship as the ﬁ rst step toward stopping

his ally, Leska. If this is not the case, see the Adapting

A DAPTING THE A DVENTURE

Under the Eye of the Tempest can be adapted

for use as a stand-alone adventure, but it’s going

to take some planning and adjustments on the

part of the DM. First, the PCs will need access to

a loyal army. Second, you have to make sure they

have a way to control the planar portal, as well as

to teleport an entire army across a continent and

then onto and off of the living airship. It would

be good if they had at least heard of the airship

before, but if they haven’t then you’ll need to

ﬁ nd a way to get them some lore on the ship so

they’ll be able to plan their assault.

End of the Campaign

If this is being used as a stand-alone ending

to the campaign, then you may want to ﬁ nd a

way to rid the PCs of the Torch of the Burning

Sky. The easiest way is to have it fall dormant

once the heroes teleport their armies to safety

at the conclusion of the adventure. The artifact

has done its job and it can now rest.

Leska is still out there, however, and several

nations still have momentum for war. Shaaladel

takes his army of elves to where Leska has holed

up and lays siege to the valley. The elves warn

off all others that this is their ﬁ ght and help

is not appreciated. With the war contained in

Ragesia, and the two armies at a stalemate, the

rest of the continent can begin rebuilding and

planning their defenses for the next war.

continued on next page

the Adventure sidebar for suggested changes to ﬁ t it

into the ﬂ ow of your campaign.

Background

It seems that threats in this war are like the

many heads of a hydra: destroy one and three more

grow in its place. So it is for our heroes, who have

recently journeyed back to Gate Pass in order to

Under the Eye of the Tempest Introduction

save it, only to learn that while they were distracted

their enemies were on the move. e ﬁ rst order of

business was to stop the nightmarish trillith in their

quest to destroy the Aquiline Heart, and in so doing

reignite the Torch of the Burning Sky. at task

complete, the heroes can now focus on their ultimate

objective: the destruction of Empress Leska and her

allies. One such ally is an old “friend” of the heroes,

the sorcerer-monk Pilus.

It has been several months since an expedition

into the mountains of Ostalin introduced the

heroes to Pilus and his laboratory full of physical

aberrations. While trust was a rare commodity in

the Monastery of Two Winds, Pilus did not stand

in the way of the heroes and their quest to retrieve

the Torch. Since that time, however, Pilus has been

working tirelessly to fulﬁ ll his ambitions – desires at

odds with the heroes’ quest.

After the disruption at his biomantic lab and

chaos left in the wake of the heroes’ journey through

Ostalin, Pilus abandoned the pretenses under which

his brother, Longinus, was able to overlook the

consequences of his work. He and Longinus argued

over the role of the monastery in the war, and the

two chose to separate rather than deepen the rift

between them. Pilus disappeared into the Valley of

Storms to continue his strange arcane experiments,

while Longinus meditated on the war’s long-term

consequences and the potential for wisdom

in his brother’s plans.

e heroes’ deeds convinced

Pilus that the Resistance was just as

dangerous to peace as a fractured

Ragesian Empire. He secretly

contacted Empress Leska and once

more proposed an alliance, this time

dangling the power of his mighty

airship as a lure. e Supreme Inquisitor

is no fool, however, and she had her

suspicions about Pilus’s ulterior

motives. Still, the two were

able to reach an agreement

about their next course of

action: Pilus would test

his airship’s capabilities

A DAPTING THE A DVENTURE , CONTINUED

First Adventure in the Ending Trilogy

You don’t need to change much, other

than the assumption that the PCs have already

been to the dreamworld and back. In this case,

defeating the Colossus was such a heroic feat

that the Torch of the Burning Sky repaired itself

in the wake of the action. Leska remains a target

for the heroes, and they must still take the Torch

to the dreamworld in order to stop the trillith

once and for all.

A more detailed summary of this plot

thread can be found in adventure nine, Festival

of Dreams .

Final Adventure in the Ending Trilogy

Same as above, except that the heroes have

already dealt with both the Aquiline Heart and

Trilla. The only thing left to ensure peace is to

stop Pilus and his doomsday weapon.

A more detailed summary of this plot

thread can be found in adventure nine, Festival

of Dreams .

on the weakened town of Seaquen, a familiar target,

and then use its threat to force the allied nations to

submit to Leska’s will. Meanwhile, Ragesia would

begin withdrawing from Ostalin, a move that would

win an alliance with Khagan Onamdammin, the

lord of Ostalin, and focus its eﬀ orts in the east,

where the Resistance was gathering for a ﬁ nal

push against the Ragesian invasion.

Pilus, for his part, was content to play

along with Leska long enough to further his

ultimate goal: to steal the power of the Aquiline

Heart. After learning of the relic’s existence,

he became convinced that he was the

reincarnation of the ancient eagle

spirit known as the Stormchaser,

and that gaining the heart was

the ﬁ nal step in the process

of his rebirth, a process he

unknowingly began when

he linked himself to the

Pilus Contemplates – Illustration by Claudio Pozas

d20 E.N. Publishing War of the Burning Sky - Under the Eye of the Tempest.pdf

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: