This is the first CARDS adventure based on Children Of The Blue Star (COTBS) I've written. To play this module, you'll need both the core rules and the random quest generator rules.
While the level system is in place, the Day & Night rules may/may not be used during play, depending on the whim of the GM and players. The entire adventure module spans 3 separate games. It is built for 2-3 players, guided by one Game Master (GM). Ability checks refer to both special ability and test & feat checks in this document. In-character stories and passages are referred to as "extracts" because they originated from my COTBS tales.
Background Story
You have heard stories about how the land was once populated by wise beings who lived in great towers of stone, and rode chariots drawn by great steeds which spat fire. You shake your head- knowing that whoever created these tales must have been too intoxicated in Ju, or mesmerized by the sounds of his own Yinkha.
Yes, how could people have stared into blocks of glass and found wisdom? How could these ancients- mighty as they are, have died out? Both the ancients and their wonderful civilization must have been products of the same disillusioned mind, you mused.
Your eyes wander to where the nameless one lay in sleep beside you. Just hours ago you rescued the sleeping one from a fiery death within the burning buildings of a village razed by mysterious forces. Dazed and shocked, the sleeping one couldn't speak, and couldn't seem to recall anything about past events. You wonder what it is like to live without reason nor understanding...
Enough of this nonsense! You were given a task, and accomplish that task you will.
Two weeks ago, the illustrious Il'gen Senna herself arranged for a meeting with you and another group of the Fell Hand. Knowing that you were the best within her order, you were assigned to complete a secret mission of great importance.
"Inquisitors, as you know, our order has been divided. The Guardian faction is growing increasingly influential- and it is even rumored that Sa'gen Phelan has found allies within the Kingdom of Cianste.
This must not be allowed to continue! We have ascertained that a member of King Telas's court is in reality an Inquisitor of the Guardians. One of you groups must infiltrate the Palace, and kill the Guardian.
While this is being carried out, the other group is to renew the search out the Orb of the Ancients in Cianste. While this is meant to draw Sa'gen Phelan's agent out of hiding- for they want the orb for their own purposes- the orb will prove to be quite useful to our order.
Go now! May the crusading spirit of the Fell Hand speed you forth."
Play Preparation
Players begin at Level 1. One of them must choose to become the nameless one. He/She will receive ability cards as usual, but will not be able to use them in any way. He/She will count as classless. The other players choose from the 4 player classes as usual.
They may develop their character personalities and backgrounds in order to enrich the role-playing if they like.
There are two starting missions to choose from:
While the players' group goes on one mission, another group of Fell Hand Crusaders controlled by the GM will be carrying out the other.
(a) Infiltrate & Assassinate The Guardian Agent
If the players chose this as their starting mission, read the following extract:
Night has fallen. You and the nameless one are dressed in splendor befitting nobles from a far off kingdom as you enter the palace of King Telas to attend the royal ball. You smile warily at each passing noble, aware that one of them may be your enemy. You hope that you will find out who he is before he finds out who you are! You will have to attempt to investigate all of their living quarters and find clues as to which of them is the agent. After the agent is dead, a group of Crusader Enforcers will meet you outside of the palace and escort you safely out of Cianste.
For the moment, Jokers may only be gained from defeated opponents.
Allow the players to roam the vast palace. All random encounters are with noblemen and ladies, who will not attack the players. Once the players are able to cross 3 tiles without any random encounters, they can choose to sneak off into the forbidden sections (yet unexplored tile branching off into a new section) of the palace.
Whenever they attempt this, the next yet unexplored tile they move into must not contain any random encounters. If it is empty, they successfully sneak off. If it is not, the players must attempt a special ability check, or may choose to role-play their way out of being dragged off by guards into the dungeons for dubious behavior.
Successfully snuck off: Jokers may now be gained by entering new tiles. The temporary rule preventing this has been revoked. They are now able to gain Jokers from new tiles as well as from defeated guards.
Players may now wander around a new section of the castle, rifling through the noblemen's rooms. All random encounters are now with guards. Players must defeat all guards they encounter, or risk other guards being alerted if they flee. Once they recover their first joker, ignore the 'caught by guards' section below and proceed on with the next section: "A clue is found".
Caught by guards: All of the players are thrown into a dungeon. A new map is used. Players are now subject to low visibility problems and rules similar to night. Players must perform tests and special ability checks until they are able to escape from their prison cell. If they fail their checks, they will have to fight guards without their special abilities. If they succeed, they will be able to avoid combat.
Whether or not combat took place, as soon as the players are free, they must search for their confiscated equipment. It is now possible for players to gain Jokers from entering new tiles in addition to defeating guards. They must wander around and fight random encounters with guards until they chance upon their first Joker, whence they will be able to use their special abilities again, regardless of whether their special ability cards were spent before they were captured.
Now they must wander around and investigate the noblemen's rooms until they encounter their very next Joker. When that happens, proceed to the next section: "A clue is found".
A clue is found
Read the following extract:
Your eyes catch a glimpse of something shiny hidden beneath a bundle of cloth. Deftly, you reach out and retrieve the object- which turns out to be the Blades.
The Blades are a weapon used exclusively by ranking Inquisitors of both factions of the Fell Hand. They are long, sharp blades attached to a ring-like handle which is swung about during battle to assault an opponent with a wall of whirling metal. Unfortunately, none of the players possess the skill needed to handle one.
Before you can ascertain the resident of this room, the doors burst open, and a nobleman hurries inside alone, swinging the Blades deftly in his hands. Fortunately, he is as yet unaware of your presence.
Players can now perform a special ability / task check in order to ambush the nobleman. If they succeed, he will have his hit points reduced to 1. If they fail, they will have to face him as a high hit-point character. He has no special abilities.
If the players defeat him, read the extract below:
You rifle through the dead agent's pockets. Surely enough, a ring signifying his rank as Inquisitor of the Fell Hand Guardians is among his possessions. In addition to that, you find a freshly-written note in a hidden pocket.
It reads:
Asath, make haste in your search for the orb. The Crusaders are renewing their search.
So, the other team is making progress. However, you have little time to ponder that, as guard-horns blow from all parts of the palace- you must escape!
The players must now make their way out of the palace through a back entrance. All previously traversed tiles must not be traveled through again, as guards are swarming up on them. All random encounters are with guards. The players will have to pass through 3 new tiles before they successful escape from the palace.
Upon successfully escaping, a group of Crusader Enforcers approach them and identify themselves as planned. However, they attack the players when their guard is down. The players must now face a group of high hit point enemies, and fight without the aid of their special abilities. The Enforcers have no special abilities.
After the fight, read the following extract:
You flip the hood off the leader of the enforcers, who lies dying in a pool of his own blood. With a gasp, you discover that it is actually one of your friends back in the order!
"I always knew that you were better than me..." He smiles as his lifeblood leaves him in painful coughs. "No offense, but orders are orders..."
Players will discover from him that the Enforcers were led to believe that the players have defected to the Crusader faction, and were ordered by Il'gen Senna to kill them because they were attempting to contact the Guardian agent. The enforcer dies after imparting this information.
The players are now hunted by the Fell Hand Crusaders. Knowing well how powerful their organization is, the players must now attempt to defect to the Guardians in order to survive, and to find out why Il'gen Senna used them.
The adventure continues in part (c)
END OF PART A
(b) Search & Recover The Orb Of The Ancients
If the players chose this as their starting mission, read the following extract:
Dawn has come. You awaken the nameless one and step outside the inn. The outskirts of Cianste have become a home to marauding bandits as of late, making travel hazardous. As if that wasn't enough, wild beasts and maybe even Guardian operatives prowl this place. Il'gen Senna has made sure that your search for the orb is known to the Guardians in order to facilitate the other Inquisitors' mission. You are to search and retrieve the orb, then return to the inn and await further orders from her.
You have a lead to the whereabouts of the orb: Bandits had been selling trinkets unlike any seen before in Cianste for incredible amounts of money. Perhaps capturing one of these bandits would help...
For the moment, Jokers may only be gained from defeated opponents.
Let players wander around a random board. All random encounters will be bandit(s) (A few 1 hit point weaklings, or 1 or 2 tough thugs). When the first Joker is recovered from a defeated bandit, read the following extract:
Ah, a trinket! And a very old one too... You turn your gaze to the bandit(s) lying comatose on the ground before you. How does one extract information from bandits?
Players may make use of any abilities they have at their disposal, or may rely on role-playing to coerce information out of the defeated bandit(s). If the players are unsuccessful, they will have to wander around again until another group of bandit(s) with another trinket (joker) is found.
When the players finally succeed in extracting information on the whereabouts of the trinkets (the bandits know of a cave nearby where more of those trinkets can be found), allow them to rest if they wish, before moving on to the next part of the adventure.
Position a cave entrance near the inn. It is guarded by a large group of bandits (Number of hit points must high). The players are forced to fight, dash, or trick their way through these bandits and into the cave. Once in the cave, players are subject to the same visibility problems and rules as those for night.
Random encounters in the cave are either Large rats or wandering bandits. After travelling 3 tiles into the cave, read the following extract:
You come to the entrance of a giant vault yet unopened by bandits. All around you lie ancient trinkets in disorderly heaps. Suddenly the Nameless one collapses on seeing the sigil inscribed upon the vault door!
At this point, the player playing the nameless one gains the ability to speak, and will recall that he/she lost his/her family and home in the fire. However, he/she will become confused as the sigil somehow leads him/her to memories of another time, when ancients walked through these very caves.
Entering the vault will require characters to perform ability checks, or somehow role-play their way in with ingenuity alone. The door is made of solid rock, yet can be opened by simply tracing one's fingers over the sigil. Players will notice how the sigil seems covered by dust and untouched by human hands.
Once they succeed, read the following extract:
The inside of the vault is large beyond belief! Strangely enough, it is also devoid of objects as far as the eye can see.
The nameless one will now feel an irresistible urge to rush into the vault. The vault is one huge 9x9 tile structure totally devoid of random encounters and objects. As the other players follow, the vault door will slam shut, and can no longer be opened. The vault is thrown into darkness. They are trapped!
Remove the tile leading out of the vault to represent the impossibility of exiting the vault via that place again. Every tile the nameless one moves into will result in him/her losing one hit point. When he/she loses all of his/her hit points, read the following extract:
The Nameless one collapses again! Suddenly, liquid seeps into the vault and rises slowly but unceasingly in level.
Players will all lose one hit point per movement phase, whatever they do. When everyone has run out of hit points, read the following extract:
You awaken to a soft light. Everyone seems to be alive. Wait! There's a strangely glowing crystal orb with tubes jutting out of it lying beside you. Could it be...
Your elation is interrupted by a sudden cry of anguish from the nameless one- whose flesh seems to be shifting and altering before your very eyes!
The Nameless one's character class is now known. He/She is a shape-shifter. He/She possesses the ability to change into any of the 4 classes at the cost of 1 ability card. After the shift, his/her remaining ability card(s) can be used to utilize the class' special ability.
The vault they were in was actually the orb itself, which has now shrunk to the size of a basketball. The Nameless one's entry activated it, and it in turn unlocked his/her memories.
A shape-shifter has no identity, and has an unlimited life span. Because of this, they feel an urge to be someone. Many of them assumed the lives and memories of dead people, and lived out their lives never knowing their own true nature.
The passage out of the vault is now open once again. The players' are now fully rested and healed. They recover all of their lost hit points and ability cards. Now they must make their way out of the cave and back into the inn, bringing the orb with them. There is a new group of bandits guarding the cave entrance. The players must find a way past them as before.
Upon reaching the inn, the players discover that it is being ravaged and its occupants systematically slaughtered by Crusader Enforcers. Upon seeing the players, the Enforcers turn upon them and attack. The enforcers count as Clerics, and have a lot of hit points.
After the fight, read the following extract:
You flip the hood off the leader of the enforcers, who lies dying in a pool of his own blood. With a gasp, you discover that it is actually one of your friends back in the order!
"I always knew that you were better than me..." He smiles as his lifeblood leaves him in painful coughs. "No offense, but orders are orders..."
Players will discover from him that the Enforcers were led to believe that the players have defected to the Crusader faction, and were ordered by Il'gen Senna to kill them and to smash the orb. The enforcer dies after imparting this information.
The players are now hunted by the Fell Hand Crusaders. Knowing how strong and influential their order is, their best chance of survival and of finding out why they were betrayed by their leader lies in joining the only force which can match the Crusaders- the Guardians.
The adventure continues in part (d)
END OF PART B
(c) Stop The Crusaders From Recovering The Orb
All players gain a level, and recover all their lost hit points and ability cards. Read the extract below:
It seems as though you will need a bargaining chip in order to join the Guardians, the only force strong enough to prevent the Crusaders from killing you. Towards that end, the Orb of the Ancients, long coveted by both factions seems like your best bet.
Will you be able to reach the orb before the other team does?
As you rest in an inn safely located in the outskirts of Cianste, you are suddenly aware of fingers reaching lightly into your purse. You reach out to catch the thief, confident that no pick-pocket had ever escaped an Inquisitor. Your fingers grasp empty air! Shocked at the skill no ordinary vagrant could possibly possess, you check your purse. Strangely enough, it is still there... but wait, there's a recent addition to it... A map- detailing the possible whereabouts of the orb! You hurriedly glance about you, but the strange messenger has gone. You turn your attention back to the map: and discover the crest of the Guardians marking a corner of the parchment...
Early next morning, you arrive at the entrance to the cave indicated in the map. Strangely enough, no one, not even bandits, bothered your journey...
When players advance beyond the 3rd tile into the cave, a cave-in occurs. Players will now have to rush 4 tiles to safety. The tiles they have passed will be removed at the rate of 2 each turn. Any random encounters during this flight will automatically result in 1 hit point of damage from falling rocks to all players on the tile, but do not count as monsters, and no combat is required.
Immediately after the players escape to safety, the players are confronted by the very group of Crusader Inquisitors they set off with. Read the extract below:
"We have been expecting you." announced the lead Crusader Inquisitor chillingly. "Hand over the nameless one, traitors, and we will grant you honorable death."
The players are now in front of a large rock door leading into what seems to be a huge vault. Apparently the 2 Inquisitors lacked the means to enter the vault, and were told to wait for the players, who provided the key in the form of the nameless one.
Reasoning with the inquisitors or handing the nameless one over will provide the players with a chance to ambush one of the inquisitors. Do a feat / ability check to see if this succeeds.
If it is successful, one inquisitor is killed immediately, leaving only one more for the players to fight. If it is unsuccessful, or if the players elect to fight rather than resort to trickery, they will have to face 2 inquisitors.
Each inquisitor has 5 hit points, and 1 ability card which restores their hit points to 5 when used.
Alternatively, the players may try to make a dash for the door. However, the door is impossible to open within one turn, and this rush will enable the inquisitors to inflict 1 hit point of automatic damage on all players. The players are forced to kill both inquisitors.
After the fight, the nameless one feels an irresistible urge to approach the vault door. When he/she touches the door, it glows so brightly that the players are all blinded for a few seconds. When they recover their senses, they will notice that the door is gone, and that in the middle of the 3x3 tile vault lies the Orb of the Ancients.
The nameless one will now have recovered all of his/her memories. He/She is a summoner, with the ability to call upon fantastic creatures to aid the party in battle. When he/she uses an ability card, a creature with hit points equal to his/her current hit points will appear, and will act as another player under the summoner's control. They will exist for as long as the nameless one doesn't rest, or as long as they have hit points above 0, whichever comes first.
When both the summoner and his/her creature(s) attack an enemy from 2 or more sides at once, they have the ability to co-ordinate their attacks and inflict 2 hit points of damage (double the usual damage) per successful hit from both the summoner and each summoned creature. The summoned creatures may distract opponents by fighting them, freeing the players to do other things- such as flee.
With the orb in their possession, the party will now have to look for an alternate passage out of the cave. Allow the players to wander for 9 tiles before they find an exit.
Once they step outside of the cave, they are immediately assaulted by 3 groups of Guardian Inquisitors, intent on wresting the orb from the players. The players will have to defeat 1 group of Guardians and make a dash over the opening created.
Each of the 3 Guardian groups possess 10 hit points. At this point, the summoner should call 2 creatures to fight 2 groups of Guardians while the players concentrate on 1.
When players are outside of the cave, and when all players are at least 3 tiles away from the Guardians (summoned creatures do not count as players), or if all of the Guardians are dead, read the following extract:
You are now safe. But your minds are confused- what should you do? You have been betrayed not only by the Crusaders, but now the Guardians too. You run off into the night, the orb clutched safely to your breast...
The adventure continues in part (e).
END OF PART C
(d) Stop The Crusaders From Assassinating The Guardian Agent
All players gain a level, and recover all their lost hit points and ability cards. Read the extract below:
It seems as though you will now have to contact the Guardians via their agent within King Telas's palace. This is going to be a desperate gamble for favour in order for you to survive the Crusaders, and the only Guardian you know of is marked for death too. You wonder if you will be able to make it before the other team assassinates him, and you?
(e) Release
All players gain a level, and recover all their lost hit points and ability cards. Read the extract below: