dailyadventureprompts:Adventure: The Coup in the Caldera“If you can’t take the heat.. ge
dailyadventureprompts:Adventure: The Coup in the Caldera“If you can’t take the heat.. get your skinny, pyromancer ass out of my palace” Setup: Surviving from a time long before the current dynasty, the structure known as The Iron Palace was said to have been the cauldron of a giant, forgotten after being set down to warm in the volcanic heat of the caldera where it now rests. In the intervening centuries, this arcane structure has accrued all manner of interest, most recently serving as the sanctum to an order of alchemist-philosophers who have used the lava-moated fortress as a laboratory and spiritual retreat, performing research under the auspices of the imperial crown. That was, atleast, until a supernaturally empowered assassin by the name of Dhranis Cull decided to take the Iron palace for himself, leading a band of cutthroats to slaughter the order’s elders and install himself as the new master of the caldera. With the bloody deed done, Cull looks to use the alchemists’ learning to carve out a little kingdom for himself, starting with the surrounding foothills and then onto the surrounding lands. Adventure Hooks: Cull dispatches secretive minions to attempt to persuade the local lords to swear fealty to him, threatening arson or bloodshed if they do not comply. The party is likely to first encounter one of the upstart warlord’s minions after these “negotiations” end badly, encountering them on the verge of an assassination attempt, or chasing after the masked assassin for the sake of a bounty. Very few alive today know the actual location of the Iron Palace, sequestered as it is among the mountains, and with the isolationist Alchemist-philosophers using their influence to have it scrubbed from imperial maps. The task of reaching the villain seems insurmountable, atleast until the party is approached by an innocuous country doctor who claims to know the hidden road into the Caldera. This doctor is in fact a member of the order of alchemist-philosophers, looking to revenge herself for the death of her colleges retake the knowledge of the iron palace for herself. Can the party trust one who’s heart burns with vengeance, and the fires of occult magic? Years ago Dhranis was an agent of the order, one of many who’s bodies were made into a living arcane weapons through the use of sorcerous experimentation, sent out to kill the order’s enemies with little care for their long term survival. Dhranis did survive, though only through the intervention of a dark spirit by the name of Yihsini, a creature of shadow and hatred taking the form of a great bat that flits between the mortal world and the land of the dead. The bat has dragged Dhranis’s soul back from death more than once, each time demanding greater sacrifices and acts of violence in compensation. Far from being put off by these increasingly grisly demands, the ascendant warlord seeks a way to expand the boon, creating an order of undying assassins who could be unstoppable in carrying out his will. -- source link