FB03: Introduction
The Forgotten Temple is an artifact-hunting adventure intended for second level characters. In the scenario, characters will come upon ancient temple ruins while traveling through the wilderness. Outside the ruins, they will be tasked by a mysterious personage with recovering an artifact hidden within the temple. Exploring the temple will involve several instances of combat, the solving of several puzzles, and the avoidance of a trap or two. Successful characters will return with the artifact (and ideally give it to the mysterious personage that tasked them) as well as treasure and knowledge of an ancient cult previously lost to history.
While this adventure scenario is written within the Fortunebound Campaign Setting, it is purposefully designed to be easy to use within any official or homebrew Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition setting. Specific campaign setting mentions and tie-ins are very few, and where they do exist they are clearly marked. For example, { Fortunebound }, would indicate a reference to the setting-specific city of Fortunebound. Feel free to replace any such references with equivalent entities within your own game setting.
What is Fortunebound?
The scenario is designed to grant between 700 and 1000 experience points if completed, allowing 2nd level characters to advance all the way to 3rd level.
The Fortunebound World Building Project is creating a detailed, interactive, Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition campaign setting. In a way, this scenario (and others like it) is a part of that project. The scope and detail of the campaign setting is always expanding and all of it (in full or in part) is always available for DMs and players alike to use as they see fit. Follow us here on WorldAnvil to keep up with all of the latest developments.
Synopsis
The scenario begins with characters having accepted directions to a supposedly ancient ruin from a local hunter in a nearby village. They have traveled nearly the whole day through untamed wilderness, which has made the going both slow and tiring. In the early evening, as the scenario opens, they come within sight of a small, ruined, ancient temple complex. Here, they will meet with a group of mysterious wood elves who will both warn them to not enter the ruins at night and ask them to retrieve a powerful and dangerous artifact from the underground complex beneath the temple. As they proceed to the temple and discover the secret door that leads below, they face off with a Nothic obsessed with gaining access to the secrets and magic below. They will then explore a hidden underground library/laboratory that was once home to the sect that built this ancient temple ({ the Aorato Mati }). After passing through a trap in a stairwell, animated skeletons, and a guardian statue that tests them with three questions, the characters will face off with a wight that has possession of the artifact they seek. With the wight defeated and the Transcendent Circlet recovered, the characters can easily return to the surface and should leave the circlet to the wood elves who tasked them with retrieving it. If they do, the wood elves will reward them. If not, they will carry with them a powerful artifact that is more likely than not to seal their own doom.Running the Adventure
The Forgotten Temple is a scenario that presents players with a lot of options to put their characters in unreasonable amounts of danger. Should they follow clearly given instructions and listen to better judgement, no issues will be had. However, should players willfully make bad choices, there are several random encounter tables within the scenario that offer options likely to kill off an entire party of 2nd or 3rd level adventurers. Further, the powerful magical artifact that they are tasked to retrieve is truly dangerous and very likely to completely destroy anyone who tries to use it. These difficulties were not added to the scenario in order to be cruel or vengeful. They were added because players need to have the ability to make real choices -- even choices that can kill them. Should your players make poor decisions and stumble upon one of these difficult encounters, give them the chance to have second thoughts, flee, and escape. Doing so allows the "lesson of a dangerous world" to be learned without forcing the group to suffer too badly. If, however, they insist upon charging headlong into overwhelming danger ... then the deaths of their characters are on their own heads. In the world of Fortunebound, the Aorato Mati were a sect of individuals who worshipped the god of secrets (Xid'yg) and sought after knowledge at all costs. They held nothing above the importance of knowledge, not even life, and were therefore willing to go to somewhat extreme measures in their quest to know all. Some of the scenes that may have existed in such labs and libraries could be quite disturbing and grotesque. In an effort to keep everything as 'family friendly' as possible, I have left the disturbing and grotesque completely out of my descriptions of rooms and other areas. You can safely run the scenario without worrying about such things. However, if you are part of a gaming group that finds such things acceptable or your are looking to add a bit of a Lovecraftian feel to the scenario ... feel free to add relevant flourishes to the various rooms and encounters. The Aorato Mati freely experimented on living beings and even made attempts to create life themselves. Further, they were often themselves driven mad by their experimentations and explorations into other realms. Feel free to add (or not add) atmosphere as you like, to the comfort level of your own group.Table of Contents
Introduction The Adventure Begins The Ruins at Night The Ruins at Day Interactive Map - Ground Level Interactive Map - Level 1 Scenario EndFind Us Online
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The Forgotten Temple PDF
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 by Adam Scythe |
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