The journey home will be similar to the journey south, except that it may be shorter if the characters decide to travel due north instead of retracing their steps.
There are a number of things in this adventure that could lead to other adventures. There are the occasional references (in the contracts in the Gemini room and in Lieutenant Courlander’s diary) to an unknown area of Illustrious Castle. Any part of Illustrious Castle that has not been searched and ransacked might still contain treasure, information, and magic.
Further exploration of the Chaotic Mist might lead them to an understanding of the “passing on” of the world, especially if they can tie it to a Dry City adventure.
The Elvish sword, Lirel len-Elessan, may well lead them to the Elves, and thence to a quest to find the rest of the sword. The Elves of West Highland have never heard of it, and in fact had sent an emissary to the area about eighty years ago in search of a rumored sword with Elvish runes. He never returned (his skeleton is in the back of Illustrious Castle). Of course, the sword itself may well attract the attention of undead creatures the characters would rather avoid.
Some adventurers may wish to search out the Dwarves.
Some adventurers may wish to find some way to empty out Kristagna of all of its treasures; this would be a heady undertaking: the larger the group heading into the Deep Forest, the more danger they’ll attract. And if the characters have activated the goblin skeletons, you can provide a running adventure in the style of “The Evil Dead” or “Army of Darkness”.
And there is the evidence right before their eyes that the Goblins, not normally organized or particularly advanced, led a modern campaign against West Highland a hundred years ago. No one ever did find out who the Goblin Mage was or even why he led his armies against West Highland.
Some of the texts in the castle might reference a historical or magical relic the Astronomers had on display, but which is clearly missing now. No text mentions it having been removed. The characters’ best choice in finding it is to track down the descendants of the Orcs who stole it.
The spell research notebooks from the Sagittarius room of the dungeon contain enough research notes for any sorceror to reconstruct the dream spells of the Astronomers. The spells in question are: Dreams, Sleep, Dream Omen, and Dreamwalk. It will take about one week per level of the spell to try to “extract” each spell from the book; a Learning roll will be required to successfully extract the spell. The character can try again as often as desired until the spell is deciphered, with standard penalties.
The spell descriptions can all be found in the “Arcane Lore” rulebook.
You may also allow the research notes to be useful in researching other dream-oriented spells, perhaps with a bonus of 1 or 2 to the Learning rolls required to successfully create such spells.
Master Astronomer Abiram Forney’s diary details the day-to-day construction of the clock, as well as his day-to-day consultations with the Dwarven builders. He also has a binder of notes planning the clock’s design and summarizing his original consultations with the Dwarves. Combined, the two books would be worth 200 to 300 shillings, depending on the buyer. The diary alone is worth about 50 shillings; the plans about 100 shillings
The Abbot’s diary is written in both Ancient and Anglish, depending on what the Abbot felt like. It concerns itself mostly with the bureaucratic aspects of running an order. The last entry, for example, concerns a dispute between Captain Cambel and Lieutenant Courlander. Another recent entry indicates that the harvest was extremely good this year. The diary also contains, about a year previous, the code word for “Abiram’s book case”. (The code word is “Ne Lucere”.)
Beyond that there isn’t much of interest in Parthane’s diary, although you are of course welcome to place any clues or foreshadowings you wish into the text.
It is up to you how much information the lieutenant’s notes contain. One of the trivial things it contains are some of the names of the other members of the order, such as Captain Cambel, Abbot Parthane, and Master Astronomer Abiram. Towards the beginning of the book (while he is merely a minor officer, probably a sergeant), he agrees that the Dwarves are being too paranoid about the Gemini room. “Their idea is too dangerous.” But he thinks they were right about needing a secret passage out of the dungeons. “We may come to regret the lack of an exit.”
When he discusses the goblins, he calls them “orcs”. The last entry, dated May 3rd in the 896th year of the Cataclysm, mentions an argument with “Captain Cambel” about what to do if the “rumors of orcs is true”. Cambel wants to “take the field and wipe them up as we always do. Parthane agrees.” Courlander thinks “we ought to hole up. This time different. Should send courier north. Still technically at peace with Illustrators.”
Courlander’s diary also, towards the beginning, describes how he and a group of five other soldiers and sorcerors made a pact of mutual benefits. Among the things the group did were commission a special ring of silver strands and soft white pearl from the Dwarves. It describes his and their adventures acquiring the pearl back in East Highland. It tells of their journey into an underground tomb of the Druids, though it does not say why. Sometime after that he and the rest of the group moved ahead more quickly. Nothing sinister about it, but something is missing from the diary. He becomes a better spy; it was he who copied the “No More Stars” piece by sneaking into Illustrious Castle. He does not describe sneaking in, though he does describe sneaking around and going into their underground living quarters.
You should fill the diary with entries that relate to adventures you might want the characters to discover. For example, on a journey to find a ghostly castle that appears but once every year:
Date
We have come further south than I ever imagined possible. The sky is diamond-studded pitch, and the forest is alive with ghosts. We must retrieve a stone from a castle that does not exist.
There are special keys for certain rooms. The Pisces room, the Pisces treasure room, the Gemini room, and the Gemini lock box, all have special keys. If the characters find them, they can avoid the traps on those locks.
Gemini room key: brass, ornate, it is the sign of Gemini. It is in the borogove nest on level 2, room 3, the east overlook.
Gemini safe key: on a corpse in Stelopolis.
Pisces room key: in Captain Cambel’s closet. The Pisces symbol is on it.
Pisces safe key: on Master Astronomer Abiram Forney’s bookshelf, in a vase.
The “moonstone ring” is made of silver strands woven together around a pale, soft white pearl. Under normal circumstances, the ring offers the wearer a bonus of 1 to defense. At night, it offers a bonus of 2 to defense. On nights of the full moon, it offers a bonus of 3 to defense. On nights of the new moon, the wearer and up to ten pounds of clothing or other items may walk through any door as if the door were insubstantial.
The ring is also enhanced with Indestructible Object, for +8 on saving rolls or defense against destruction.
“Night” means after sunset and before sunrise.
This is the ring commissioned by Lieutenant Courlander and his friends from the Dwarves. They then adventured to find the right ingredients and magic to enchant it to its current power.
Forged by Dwarves and wielded by Elven kings, the sword was broken in the last battle of the Deadless Lord on the eastern continent. The Elf call it “Lirelen Elessan” (which means, simply, “the sword of Ellesan”). It was last wielded by Elessan Torilarvan, whose name means “Sword of the Silver Forest”.
The sword is now in two parts, the hilt and the lower part of the blade, and the middle and tip of the blade. This is the hilt and lower part. There are five lines of Elvish runes on the sword, clearly incomplete:
tiale waya: “tiale” means “in the reign of”. The next part is almost certainly the first part of a royal name.
panvono vira: “panvono” means “victory”. The next portion, if it is a whole word, is “gratitude”. It might make sense for this to be “viralva”, which would mean “In gratitude for victory”.
dier dencarotuh: “dier” means “transported”, and “dencarotuh” is “across the wide earth” or “across the wide lands”.
lirelilen ciri: “lirelilen” is “this sword of” and “ciri” is “Elves and” something else.
daya lirelen ele: “daya” is “I am” and “lirelen” is “the sword of”. The fragment “ele” could be many things, such as “elessar” (starlight) or “elessan” (weapons, swords), or a name. That is, “I am the sword of swords” or “I am the sword of starlight.”
The hilt and base of the sword confer the ability to Turn Undead (as the Specialty), as a fifth level prophet. Prophets who bear the hilt gain a bonus of two to their level when “Turning” undead (but turn at a minimum of fifth level). In the presence of undead, it grows a full blade, glowing green, which confers a bonus of 2 to attack and a bonus of 1 to defense against undead. Even when glowing, it may not be used to attack anything other than undead: it simply passes through other creatures or things. The magical blade ignores certain physical defenses of undead, such as the skeleton’s ability to take only half damage from slashing weapons.
The hilt is also cursed, depending on your point of view. It will attract nearby undead, and evil things killed violently, or in the act of committing evil, near it have a slight chance of coming back as skeletons or walking dead.
The hilt came to the western continent via the underground. The Elves of the west do not know its origin, although they have heard rumors about the glowing sword with Elvish runes on the blade. They are very interesting in finding the sword, and in discovering its origin.
If the player characters (or anyone else) takes the broken sword, this will “activate” the goblin skeletons surrounding the castle. The skeletons will, at three in the morning, animate and move across the moat and crawl over the walls and into the castle, and attack anything living in their path. There are 67 animated goblin skeletons in total--far too many for your average first to third level adventurers to defeat.
There are very few goblin skeletons actually inside the castle. The goblins won, after all, and pulled their friends out for proper burial. (The adventurers may be looking for a more sinister explanation for the lack of goblin bodies, and they’ll certainly be able to make one up, but the real reason is much more mundane.)
For those goblin skeletons that do remain in the castle, you’ll have to decide whether they can leave their not-so-final resting places and how much time it will take them to get to the sword-bearer. On the first floor there are still two goblin skeletons in the library (room 18), three in room 15, and three in the grand ballroom (room 2). On the second floor there are three skeletons on the battlement, and one in Abiram’s bedroom (9).
The skeletons will not follow the sword hilt out of the castle where their last battle took place. They will, however, remain animated, though still, within the castle, and anyone entering the castle afterwards will have to deal with them.
67 Goblin Skeletons (Undead: 1; Move: 10; Defense: 3; Attack: short swords; Damage: d6; Special Defense: Pointed weapons do 1 point; Slashing weapons do half damage)