The Missing Magician
The adventurers are tasked with finding the missing friend of a local scholar.
Plot points/Scenes
The group of adventurers have each arrived separately in the city of Quilport, looking to make a living in its rough and tumble streets. Any martial classed party members are instructed to seek out the Quilport Adventurer's Guild in the Salts District to find mercenary work, while adventurers of the magic persuasion are advised to visit the Institute of the Intangible or the Temple of the Moon in the Promenade District, depending on the source of the magic.
The Promenade
As you make your way through the Promenade, you're struck by the contrast between its wide, clean stone walkways and the narrow, dirty streets of the Salts District you'd just left. Its layout feels much more deliberate, as though careful planning went into the positioning of each block. The thoroughfares seem to go on for several hundred feet in either direction, and in the distance you can make out a few larger, important-looking buildings whose roofs rise over the tops of the Promenade's many homes and businesses. You're certain that, should you follow the main streets in any direction, you'll likely end up somewhere important. Something else you notice about this district is that, despite having a similar number of pedestrians, the atmosphere is closer to that of an open market. You see well-dressed men and women walking the paths, horse-drawn carts pulling boxes of who-knows-what up and down the road, and kids playing various childhood games under the watchful gaze of their parents. Whereas the streets of the Salts district were simply a means of getting from point A to point B, the boulevards of the Promenade are lined with trees and benches to provide shade and respite from the tropical heat of Zandrazil's summers.Despite the opulence on display, keenly observant adventurers should notice signs of economic inequality are much more pronounced in this portion of the city. Peasants move from person to person begging for coin or work, either going ignored by the wealthier citizens or being harrassed back into the alleys by soldiers of the Violet Brigade patrolling the district.
Temple of the Moon
Divine casters will arrive at the Temple of the Moon, though the exact nature of their business with the Temple will depend upon the player's backstory. Introduce the building as follows:You round the corner at the intersection in front of Palatine Hall and travel a few blocks toward the eastern end of the Promenade, where you come upon the courtyard of the Temple of the Moon. The temple's marble construction stands out from the wood, brick, and limestone architecture that surrounds it. It sits atop a three-step platform surrounded by a colonnade which extends to the street. The ornate stone doors at the building's front are opened to the public, with petitioners and worshippers freely moving in and out of the temple. You see the symbol of the Moonmaiden carved into the stone above the entrance: a crescent moon whose upper crest morphs into the head and beak of a heron. Two massive statues of a heron-headed woman flank either side of the entry, each adorned in a flowing dress with one clutching a moon-tipped staff and the other covering her eyes.
Institute of the Intangible
Arcane casters are directed to visit the Institute of the Intangible, which should be introduced as follows:Heading to the west end of the Promenade, you find an area of the city where the streets aren't flanked on both sides by rows of buildings. The street connects to a sprawling collection of buildings set atop gently rolling hills, the cliffs of the Dawncatch Veranda visible in the distance. This is the Institute of the Intangible, famed throughout Zandrazil for its collection of books and research on matters of ancient history and the arcane.
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