The Pale Moon Light
The players get a go at taking out the Pale Queen.
Plot points/Scenes
The players find that one of them or the council may be infected by the will of the Pale Queen.
They are going about their business and find that one of themselves or the council have become dominated by the Pale Queen. when interacting with the individual, they find the person is fully open to the idea of working with the Pale Queen and no amount of persuasion etc, seems to change their mind.
What they do notice is the up take in rats, bats, wolves and vampirekin in the area and it points towards the cave leading down to the Underdark. The cave is the one just north of the Motte-and-Bailie.
When they go down they find the cavern below filled with Mucoids, all of which are afraid to go near the players. They seem to think that they are powerful creatures that feast on blood and serve the "Queen". They are also starting to fall under her sway and attack if forced.
They point to the old cavern where the First Men lived.
If the players enter they will find that the Star Seer has had the hamlet of the First Men killed. The structures are still there but there is no life, and the First Men are being used as Zombies and the old religious buildings are inhabited by the Pale Queen and her servants.
She may not be there and they may have to stalk her to the Black Elf township to the east.
There, she has hidden amongst the local court and trying to woo them to her cause.
The players have to work out who to trust and who isn't while which one is possibly the Pale Queen herself. Exactly who is random.
The court is made up of the following:
- Morgana, the leader & Jarl, slightly arrogant and inward looking
- Rikard, the military leader and Thegn, bombastic and strong-willed
- Agatha, the merchant, the merchants follow her and she is outgoing and friendly
- Markus, the worker, the leader of everyone else, and prone to having a darker outlook on life.
The players can work with these to try to work out who it is. It is more likely to be Morgana or Markus.
There may be the odd attack by swarms of animals and vampiric creatures both in the caves and in the Black Elf team.
To find the actual lair, the players will find a temporary camp / bolthole in the shrine / graves in the First Men cave. There is little left here for the First Men.
Looking around they may find the remains of biomechanical enhanced corpses of First Men, Elves, Dwarves and the Kin. Also, they find a number of ancient coin (about 30 gold altogether), and moon stone & soap stone jewellery worth about 75 gold altogether.
There is a 50% chance to find a notebook wrote in Sumerian mentioning that the "Daywalker" is to be fully converted or killed, and the rest are expendable, with Adalwolf to be told. Any time one of the players are killed or turned to vampirism will result in Adalwolf supplying either spells or magic items to the Court of the Pale Queen.
If the Pale Queen is killed or driven off, she may never return to the area, though still may hold a grudge looking to take revenge on the players or their descendants.
The Offer
The players may get an offer from an unknown entity. It promises to save them from the Pale Queen if the party returns the amulet & mask taken from the altar, and help start a new cult within the First Men hamlet cavern.
They need to persuade members of the Black Elf community and Eschbach to become members. The yare offered the leadership and gain a boon. This is in addition to being saved from the Pale Queen.
They will gain longevity if they survive in the world and slight alterations will occur to their bodies, with strange unearthly patterns appearing on their skins, a smell that's slightly fishy, and sweat that appears more like slime at times.
They get the impression that the entity is a mass of flesh and eyes of different kinds, and one of extreme power. It will come across as a dark and ancient, and able to bend reality at will. It also comes across as wanting followers and secrecy.
If turned down, they'll be dumped back in the same situation as they were in.
If accepted it will draw them out and place them in the Black Elf township or Eschbach and immediately have to get the amulet & mask from the church vault. They'll have to immediately start recruiting too. How they do this is up to the players, and the same for who they try to recruit.
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