Giants & Dragons Teaser Quests of Doom Author: Ed Greenwood Editor: Steven Winter Cartography: Ed Greenwood Layout and Typesetting: Charles A. Wright Developer: Steven Winter Interior Art: Chris McFann Necromancer Games is not affiliated with Wizards of the Coast, LLC, and make no claim to or challenge to any trademarks held by Wizards of the Coast, LLC. Necromancer Games, Inc., 2014, all rights reserved. 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Necromancer Games 5th Edition Rules, 1st Edition Feel 1 Quests of Doom Giants & Dragons — By Ed Greenwood — Wise rogues join the government, where their larceny has the cover of can do the trick. In either case, a pack of wolves or other hungry, desperate “legality” and the cash comes in heaps and piles from deceitful receipts creatures shadowing the characters is a nice bit of added motivation for and pocketed procurements rather than in small, bloodstained purses from the PCs to seek a safe refuge. breaking windows, scaling walls, and risking traps and long-fanged guard In short, the characters must find shelter or face dire peril—and they dogs. find the Cavern of the Club. Wise rogues do not, by choice, go up against towering giants armed Alternatively, characters who begin the adventure in an urban setting with clubs larger than the tallest rogue in the guild. Nor do they try to nick or a rural town find, in some dark alley, shed, or vacant warehouse, one treasure from dragons without a group of powerful fellow adventurers shattered end of a gigantic club—as thick as a tree trunk, battered into behind them, who can hurl mighty spells, hack and hew toe to toe with roundness, hardened by fire, and studded with iron spikes. It is lying an angry wyrm, heal the injured, and (when things go as they usually do), abandoned, apparently discarded and forgotten, and pulsing with a faint, resurrect the dead. eerie, purple-white magical glow. There are wise rogues, and then there are player characters. Giants and If the club is touched, moved, or even approached too closely, it triggers Dragons awaits them with open arms, offering special challenges and a teleport effect that relocates all of the characters and the club fragment rewards to rogue characters—but as always, the prospects are much better to area 1 of the Giants’ Warren, “the Cavern of the Club.” for a party of adventurers from a variety of classes, with wide skills and experience. Some might find that a broad base of experience is not only helpful, but essential for survival. Giants’ Warren Foreword 1. The Cavern of the Club Giants and Dragons draws characters into the caldera of an extinct Characters espy a dark opening in the mountainside, a tall, narrow volcano that has become the lair of an ancient red dragon. The dragon, crack in Highfang Peak. It leads into a huge, irregularly-shaped cavern however, isn’t alone; it is allied with a clan of fire giants, who in turn have that’s lit faintly by patches of phosphorescent fungus on the walls and hill giants and ettins in their service. The volcano, therefore, is every bit ceiling—furry, amorphous, jellylike masses that emit a steady, pale, as dangerous a place after its death as it was while it was actively spewing brownish-white glow. lava. Strewn around the cavern lie the crushed and rotting bodies of six The potential reward for defeating an ancient red dragon and a clan orcs who were felled by the blows of a huge, blunt weapon—perhaps of giants is immense, but so is the risk. This adventure should prove particularly rewarding for rogue player characters, both because the grandest treasure in the dragon’s hoard is especially valuable to a rogue, but also because there’s more opportunity—and more need—for stealth, Glowflow scouting, and sneakiness than in most adventures. All too often, rogues who’d like to be out front performing reconnaissance are forced to walk These mindless, harmless fungi range in size from the span of a in the middle of the marching order while paladins and barbarians lead human hand to about as large as the top of a dining table; whatever the way. In Giants and Dragons, brash warriors who barge into chambers their area, most are about as thick as a human adult’s wrist. They relying on their armor and their hit points won’t survive long. After one can join and divide at random or in response to attacks. They are or two encounters, they’ll be glad to let the rogues lead from the shadows. ambulatory, creeping very slowly toward sources of warmth and A party of adventurers can be introduced to this adventure in several movement. When no such sources are present, they flow slowly ways. The events take place in a remote mountainous area. The most over stone, readily sticking to walls and ceilings, to reach the natural manner to begin the adventure (i.e., the least suspicious) is for highest points in an area or the apex of a cavern ceiling. PCs to innocently draw close to Highfang Peak, a long-dormant volcanic If characters sleep in the cavern without a sentinel, or if they try caldera that from below looks like a rounded mountain soaring to a high, to remove the fungus (it can be scraped from the stone easily with narrow spike on one side (somewhat like a splinter protruding upward a stick or a shield), they might awaken with the fungus on them. from one side of the sawn-off stump of a large tree). If viewed from the lip The fungus likes to cover the faces of living creatures because of or from the air, Highfang is revealed to have a deep, verdant green crater the warm breath, but it won’t suffocate the sleeper. at its heart, where wild cattle roam and cascading streams are plentiful. Glowflow tastes rather like beef fat, and if ingested, it does no Characters can be pulled into the area with the usual rumors of harm at all. It does cause the skin of the ingester to glow softly unplundered tombs or wealthy bandits, or they can be pushed in by severe with the same steady, faint, brownish-white luminosity of the weather. In winter, you can rely on a howling blizzard with bad visibility, glowflow for 1d6 +2 days. Glowflow avoids areas of rushing slick footing under deep, wet snow, and the threat of severe frostbite or or open water but can be found just about everywhere else hypothermia if they spend the night exposed to the elements. In summer, underground, throughout all subterranean areas in Highfang Peak a blinding, pelting rainstorm with lightning crashing all around, wind and the surrounding mountain range. tearing trees from the ground, and hailstones the size of cockatrice eggs 2 Giants & Dragons Teaser a giant’s club—and amid them are the two halves of the broken giant’s The cleft has over time become a passage, with a continuous roof and club that slew them, dropped by the disgusted giant when it broke. (If the a rocky, uneven floor of fallen and wedged boulders. Moving along this characters were brought here magically by a glowing, broken club, it is floor is more akin to climbing than to walking; the entire stretch is difficult one of the halves. It flashes brightly upon arrival, then goes dark, its magic terrain. exhausted.) The route is roomy enough for giants to traverse. The rough-walled, At the back of the cavern is a huge cleft, about fifty feet tall and twenty irregular passage bends to the right, then curves left again, for seventy feet. feet wide, that’s blocked by a wedged-in boulder that fills the cleft from side to side and is a little more than twenty feet tall. It was placed here by the giants to keep out wolves and casual intruders. The boulder can be climbed over easily, or it can be dislodged by characters if the combined Strength modifiers of everyone working on it totals 10 or higher. If it tumbles into the cavern, it makes enough noise that every creature in the next two encounter areas is alerted to the presence of intruders. It also has the potential to crush anyone foolishly standing in front of it when it breaks free. At the back of the cavern is a huge cleft, about fifty feet tall and twenty feet wide, that’s blocked by a wedged-in boulder that fills the cleft from side to side and is a little more than twenty feet tall. It was placed here by the giants to keep out wolves and casual intruders. The boulder can be climbed over easily, or it can be dislodged by characters if the combined Strength modifiers of everyone working on it totals 10 or higher.