Sample file The Second Test: Honor 60 Introduction Everyone Has a Price 6 How to Use This Product 3 Druidic Advice , ., 62 Why Blow Up the World? 3 The Third Test: Mercy 62 What If You Don't Want to End the World? 4 The Shrine 64 Preparing for the End 5 A Sign 65 The Castle and the Stone 6 The Fourth Test: Justice 65 Background Information 7 Finding the Clues 66 The Black Sheep 7 The Village Witch 67 A Villainous Plot 8 The Fifth Test: Generosity 69 Chapter I: The Beginning of the End Fighting the Behir 70 DM Background 9 The Castle Achieved 71 Party Like It's the E9nd of the World! 9 Journey's End 71 Baiting the Hook2 9 The Wounded King 72 Setting the Hook 12 Questions and Answers 73 Hook, Line and Sinker 14 One Last Fight 74 The "Truth" Revealed 15 Chapter 5: The Keep at the End of the World Chapter 2: The False Test DM Background 75 DM Background 17 The Bleak Shore 75 The Test Begins 17 The Black Keep 75 Reaching the Island 19 Ground Level 76 Environment and Terrain 20 A Mighty Fortress 77 Traveling to the Castle 21 Upper Level 83 The Dragons 22 The End Is Nigh! 86 The Wreckage 23 Option 1; Out with a Bang 86 Swaths of Destruction 25 Option 2: As Good As It Gets 86 The Smoking Ruins 25 Option 3: Brave New World 86 Random Encounters 26 Now What? 86 Gaining the Castk Sample27 Chapte filer 6: Apocalyptic Advice Castle Pescheour 27 Going Out with Style! 87 Grounds and Outbuildings 29 Killing Player Characters 87 Keep Ground Level 31 Making It Yours 87 Keep Lower Level 33 After the End $7 Keep Second Level 34 The Great Escape 88 Keep Third Level 35 Starting Over 88 Keep Fourth Level 37 Divine Retribution 89 Keep Fifth Level 38 The Post-Apocalyptic Campaign 89 The Wounded Land 38 Knights of Corbinet .89 The Proof 40 Rebuilding the World 91 Rebellious Characters,..,, 40 Renegades 91 Chapter 3: Interlude Converting the Campaign 92 DM Background 42 Appendix A Lonely World 42 Player Character Death Knights 93 Specific Effects 42 Death Adept (Priest) 94 The End Times 44 Death Knight (Warrior) 94 A New Enemy 45 Death Stalker (Rogue) 95 Setup: The Eight Faeries Inn 47 Death Warlock (Wizard) 95 The Horror; Keeping It in the Family 50 The Stone ofCorbinet 95 The Revelation: Bloody Vengeance 51 Origin 95 Chapter 4: The Wasteland Primary Powers 95 DM Background 54 Secondary Powers 96 Blood on the Snow.,. 55 Tertiary Powers 96 The First Test: Foresight 56 Limitations 96 The Homed Beast 57 The Armor of Lies , 96 The Survivor 59 rendered. This is a classic opening that shouldn’t arouse undue suspicion. The most important piece of advice is: Lie to your 1 about the end of players. Really! Hide it inside another module, pull 2s images of out the pages and put them in a binder, whatever it lagues, crumbling takes to keep your group from suspecting this civilizations, and a host of. other terrifying catastro- adventure is different from the rest. Without the phes. These are powerful, evocative images of final- shock value, its impact is considerably less. ity and are not to be introduced lightly into an Second, make recovering the Stone of Corbinet AD&D@campaign. But if you intend to bring your seem like the end of the adventure. Try to ensure campaign to a memorable close, you can’t beat the that the game session ends after the PCs give Garloth impact of the world’s destruction. the Stone and collect their payment. This will make it Many reasons might motivate a Dungeon Master seem like they have once again emerged triumphant (Dhl) to bring about the end of a game world, and from a deadly situation. They should have no idea with it his or her campaign. This book helps you do that their actions may spell the end of the world. just that! The story of your campaign’s final days Though intended as an adventure to end your can be one of the most difficult and challenging current campaign with the proverbial bang, this tasks you ever undertake as DM-but it can be product is also a guide to running a compelling among the most rewarding as well. story with an apocalyptic theme and contains general information on adapting these concepts effectively to your own campaign style. It can also establish a dramatic transition from your current campaign setting to an entirely new one, if you so choose. Chapter 6: Apocalyptic Advice offers some This adventure end your campaign and will suggestions to the DM looking for a challenge. destroy your world! Sample file

~ Why Bbw tke Wurb? The Apocalypse Stone is an adventure for four to six Up characters of level 15 and above, for a total of 60 to By this point you might be thinking, ”Hey! Wait just a 90 experience levels. The player characters (PCs) minute! I’ve put a lot of time, effort, and energy into undertake what they initially believe to be a divine creating and developing and running my campaign- quest, which they later discover is a terrible lie. why on earth would I want to bring it to a screeching, Worse, their unwitting participation leads to a dire smoking halt?” That’s an excellent question with sequence of events that culminate in the destruction several equally excellent answers, each of which leads of their world. The PCs eventually learn that they to a possible conclusion (see Chapter 5: The Keep at had a hand in setting these events in motion and are the End of the World). If you’re uncertain about the partially (albeit unintentionally) responsible. They wisdom of destroying your campaign world, read on. also realize that they can do little, if anything, to prevent the coming apocalypse. The End Times Read this adventure carefully before running it: It happens: You’ve been running the same campaign The plot is complex, and requires you to pull the for years, and your DM intuition tells you that the wool over the eyes of both the player characters and time is right to bring closure to all the stories you the players themselves. Yes, that’s right: The players have told. It’s time to retire the current campaign must believe this is just a typical adventure for and possibly prepare the stage for a new one. This is Garloth‘s setup to work. A reclusive wizard wants a especially true if events in your campaign have group of adventurers to get back a family heirloom, altered the course of its world’s history or destiny; and he’s willing to pay handsomely for services cataclysmic natural disasters, divine intervention,

3 and the ultimate battle between good and evil can that endurt3 for years, unless managed very carefully, all herald the end times. often see tl.le player characters ascending to tremen- Every story has a natural endpoint, and long-term dous heighits of power. When this happens, there’s campaigns are no exception. But when you have not much J7ou can throw at the PCs to seriously chal- poured heart and soul into yours, it’s unsatisfying to lenge themL any longer, and both the players and their simply tell your players, ”Sorry, that’s it.” Both they characters Ibecome jaded with even cosmic-level and you deserve a conclusion that has meaning, threats. It’s a struggle to come up with bigger and involves the player characters, ties up all those loose more dangerous story elements for every game ends, and creates great, lasting memories of equally session, and once the characters have truly climbed great roleplaying. Concluding your campaign with the hi:ghest mountains, what else can they look a shattering apocalypse achieves all these goals, ward to? Ending the world ”cleans house” and lets you have a lot of fun in the bargain. In a campaign that’s gone over the top.

Out with the Old, Taking a Break In with the New Sometimes even a well-loved cam- Perhaps your campaign has reached paign, one that has provided the point where it no longer has the many hours of fun and excite- same excitement and challenge as ment, reaches a point where you when it was new, and you’re looking just want to take a break from it. for something different. Nonetheless, Maybe you need time to think up you may be reluctant to destroy all new stories, or perhaps your that you have labored long ti regular game group is in transition create-quite understandabll and you don’t want to continue An apocalyptic adventure the campaign until it stabilizes. doesn’t necessarily mean Sample file Or maybe you just don’t like the the literal end of direction it’s taking and want to your campaign. figure out how to put it back Instead, the campaign world, or just a portion of it, under- Stone offers a goes dramatic solution: Destroy changes that effec- tively create a /‘ world with a ,i%i 1 fl/ new campaign a A+ dramatic flour- setting. The conclu- ish, but allow the sion of The Apocalypse player characters to survive. This Stone changes your campaign world significantly and puts your Icampaign on hold until you’re prepared permanently, but also leaves it relatively intact as the to continuc3 it and at the same time offers an array setting for a whole new range of possibilities. of entirely different story possibilities. Once you’ve New stories can be set on the same world as the decided w1 here you want to go with the campaign, old campaign, but the changes wrought by these you can tal ke it out of ”retirement” and carry on. apocalyptic events give the new campaign an entirely different atmosphere, tone, and style. WkIf: yuu Don’t Want tu dLe Wmb? Correcting Mistakes €A Sometimes what begins with the best of intentions Perhaps, o-n reflection, you have decided that you doesn’t quite turn out right in the end. Campaigns don’t want : to end things once and for all. Maybe

4 Sample file presented in Chapter 2: The False Est places the your own creation, you’ll have to set up this locale. island in the tropics and suggests appropriate loca- See Chapter 2 for some more suggestions about cus- tions in various published AD&D campaign settings. tomizing this island to your campaign. But if you’re running this adventure in a world of

those qualities your gods deem best. I am what is best in mortals.” Long ago, before the very beginning of things, So saying, Pescheour [pesh-UR] turned his the gods assembled in their place of meeting. horse away without another word and rode They agreed to build a world and set in its navel straight to the castle. Its gate opened before him, the Stone of Corbinet [kor-bee-NET], the center of and he passed inside without difficulty and beheld its existence and the source of its life. To protect its secret, the Stone ofcorbinet. The God of Justice this precious seed, they raised around and above crowned him ruler of the castle that very day, and it a fabulous castle, built of gleaming marble and King Pescheour made a pact with the gods: darkest obsidian. But the gods could not agree Neither he nor his descendants would ever on who should guard the castle-each desired remove the Stone from the castle or reveal the his or her own champion to have the honor, and secret of its power to any other living creature or none would permit the chosen agent of another being, lest a terrible curse befall their line forever. to take up the task. Finally the God of Justice The newly crowned King Pescheour gathered to addressed the assembled deities and proposed a his seat others of purity and honor, and after test to determine the best guardian for the castle swearing them to the same pact with the gods, and the Stone. made them his household. With such folk at his ”Let each of us choose a champion to seek the command, he was well satisfied that the Stone castle,” said Justice. ”The one who first finds it will would be safe. He took a wife from among their become its ruler and will sire a family of guardiansSample number, file and together they began a dynasty of to defend the Stone ever after.” guardians who remain the defenders of the castle The gods saw the wisdom of this plan and and its secret to this very day. agreed. They selected champions who embodied King Pescheour ruled in peace and wisdom for those virtues their respective divine patrons more than three centuries and then stepped down thought most important and sent them forth. from the throne, crowning his eldest son in his These questers traveled the length and breadth of place. Still vigorous despite his unusually the world, seeking the elusive stronghold. But advanced age, Pescheour departed the castle on though the castle was part of the world, as the axis horseback and rode away from its gates, never to rnundi, the umbilicus of the cosmos, it possessed a return. Some of his line speculate that he ascended unique feature that made it difficult indeed to to the realm of the gods, to sit among their number locate: It moved about the world, seemingly at and serve them; others believe that he simply wan- random, appearing one day in one location, only dered the world and died in some foreign land. to disappear the next. The champions searched far His true fate remains unknown, even to his family, and wide but could not find their goal. The quest and if the gods know they have not said. seemed impossible. Since that time, King Pescheour’s descendants One day the champions met to discuss their have ruled the castle and honored their pact with progress, each admitting failure and declaring the the gods. Once or twice in each generation, a lone goal to be unreachable. It was at this time that a hero locates the castle and its mysteries; any such man, who rode a horse without a saddle and who worthies are admitted into the household and sworn bore no symbol, device, or weapon, appeared to the pact, swelling the number of the Stone’s among their number. The champions asked the defenders. None who gained the castle are permit- newcomer which god he served, and he replied: ted ever to set down their burden, and thus its exis- ”I am called Pescheour. Each of you embodies tence remains the most closely guarded secret.

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