3.5E D&D - Adventure 10 - Return to the Temple of the Frog, RPG, DnD, Adventures

3.5E D&D - Adventure 10 - Return to ...

3.5E D&D - Adventure 10 - Return to the Temple of the Frog, RPG, DnD, Adventures

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IN THE BEGINNING . . .
The following comes from DA2
Temple of the Frog
:
RETURN TO THE
The Order of the Frog was led by a man of resource and ambi-
tion. High Priest Saint Stephen and his four sainted compan-
ions appeared out of nowhere and took over the order twenty
five years ago. They ruled it with an iron hand. Though
Stephen and his companions appeared normal enough (except
for the slight greenish cast of their skin), they were quite liter-
ally not of this world. They were aliens, members of a scientific
expedition that crash landed on this planet some years ago.
After the crash, a dispute arose among the expedition’s
members. Though their vessel was stranded and it might be
years before their distress beacon brought rescue, most of the
crew were against violating a service directive against contact
with primitive cultures such as that of Blackmoor. They
wanted to enter suspended animation and await rescue.
A minority, led by Security Officer Stephen (“The Rock”)
Rocklin, argued that rescue was uncertain and that the crew
might be forever trapped in their sealed hibernation cham-
bers. This faction maintained that contact with the locals
would be the key to survival if no rescue materialized. When
the captain and chief science officer overruled them, Rocklin
and his faction mutinied. Their bid to take over the stranded
ship failed, and a mere handful of them escaped in a l i f e b o a t
.
As they sped away, a loyalist sent a Hellbore missile after
them. Try as they might to evade the deadly seeker, it caught
up with the lifeboat and knocked it down in Frog Swamp
very near the Temple of the Frog.
When the awed monks from the nearby temple arrived on
the scene to see what all of the noise was about, they found
Stephen and his four surviving companions standing amidst
the wreckage in a state of despair. But the presence of poten-
tial danger, in the form of the monks’ armed retainers, soon
galvanized Stephen. Experimenting with his translator
badge, he quickly found a setting that let him understand
most of what the monks were asking him. Then, realizing
that the monks were already impressed by the circumstances
of his arrival, the size of his vessel, and the lovely froggy color
of his skin, Stephen made a desperate gamble.
Speaking with all of the hauteur that he could muster, he
informed them that he had come on a fiery comet to lead them
to the light of true knowledge. Though he had no idea at the
time of what exactly the monks might consider to be “true
knowledge,” it sounded good, and he carried it off with
panache. The monks made Stephen and his companions
honored guests. Within hours, Stephen had obtained an accu-
rate rundown on the order’s theology.
Within days, he had so awed his hosts with his technology
(and a good line of patter) that the order’s high priest had
FROG
An Adventure for Four to
Six 10th-Level Characters
CREDITS
Design:
Ted Albert
Editing:
Miranda Horner
Typesetting:
Nancy Walker
Cartography
:
Robert Lazzaretti
Design Manager:
Christopher Perkins
Web Production
Bart Carroll
Web Development:
Mark Jindra
Graphic Design:
Sean Glenn, Cynthia Fliege
Based on the original D
UNGEONS
& D
RAGONS
®
game by E.
Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson and on the new edition of the
D
UNGEONS
& D
RAGONS
game designed by Jonathan Tweet,
Monte Cook, Skip Williams, Rich Baker, and Peter Adkison.
D&D, D
UNGEONS
& D
RAGONS
, and D
UNGEON
M
ASTER
are registered trademarks owned
by Wizards of the Coast, Inc. The d20 logo is a trademark owned by Wizards of the
Coast, Inc. All Wizards characters, character names, and the distinctive likenesses
thereof are trademarks owned by Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
This material is protected under the copyright laws of the United
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without the express written permission of
Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
©2006 Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Made in the U.S.A.
This product is a work of fiction.
Any similarity to actual people, organizations, places,
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No portion of this work may be reproduced in any form without
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UNGEONS
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1
TEMPLE OF THE
declared him a saint. A few weeks later, at his command and
with enthusiastic encouragement from the order’s leaders, the
bewildered old High Priest “joined the frog,” and Saint
Stephen replaced him. His first official act was to put the
monks to work salvaging his lifeboat. Since a deep-space
lifeboat is a large vessel that carries everything needed to start
a self-sustaining colony, the material scavenged from the
wreck gave Stephen the wherewithal to turn the Order of the
Frog into a very powerful organization, indeed. The seemingly
powerful ‘‘magic” represented by its equipment also helped
Stephen to tighten his grip on the order.
Within five years of his appearance, Saint Stephen used
his alien technology to remake the Order of the Frog. Alien
technology was not all that Stephen has brought to Frog
Swamp. He reorganized the order along more efficient lines
and placed his own men in key positions. At the height of the
temple’s power, Stephen was the order’s absolute ruler.
Temple of the Frog
was first published in the 1975
D
U N G E O N S
& D
R A G O N S
®
Supplement II
B l a c k m o o r .
I t
was later republished as module DA2,
Temple of the Frog
in 1986 as part of the DA series of modules published
for 1st Edition D
U N G E O N S
& D
R A G O N S
. In the original
adventure, the PCs were hired to find a missing person
(Rissa Aleford, Baroness of the Lakes) and investigate a
strange cult based on the worship of frogs. The heroes
entered the swamp and some of the events of the DA
modules transpired.
Saint Stephen entered the temple hoping to salvage
anything that he could. The Order of the Frog was
done for, all his fellow aliens were slain, and his frog
cultists had fled or were put to the sword. He only
wanted enough to allow him to flee the swamp and
find a new hiding place. He found more than he had
counted on. While scavenging in the dungeon base-
ment, he accidentally knocked over a
mirror of life trap-
p i n g
that contained a vampire. The freed vampire was
grateful for his release, but also very hungry. Saint
Stephen, already weak after his fight with the heroes,
was easy prey for the vampire and was turned into a
vampire himself. For a while Saint Stephen and his
vampire sire (whose name is lost to history) worked to
rebuild the cult. By using their vampiric abilities and
some scavenged alien technology, they managed a few
raids against the
FSS Beagle
, also known as the
City of the
Gods.
However their vampiric state took its toll on the
remaining frog cultists in the swamp. With increased
resistance from the forces of the
FSS Beagle,
and yet
more interference from adventurers, the two vampires’
raiding was put to an end, and their allies and minions
were killed or driven away.
Eventually the two vampires retreated to the aban-
doned Temple of the Frog. Those adventurous souls
who dared to return to the deserted temple area fell to
the two vampires. Then, one day Weewak, the former
proprietor of one of the taverns in the temple-side
community, returned to the area. Weewak was a
cyborg sent by the captain of the mothership to track
down the mutinous crew members. Saint Stephen’s
vampire sire pounced upon Weewak only to be slain by
the cyborg’s advanced weaponry. Saint Stephen,
however, had fought cyborgs before. He destroyed the
cyborg before it could initiate its self-destruct program-
ming, and nailed its corpse to the altar that had once
been the center of worship for the frog cult. It now
serves as a warning to intruders. Saint Stephen also
removed the cyborg’s brain and is now using it to oper-
ate what remains of the temple’s main computer.
Realizing that the mothership must have sent the
cyborg, Saint Stephen now waits, an undead renegade
alien, for the inevitable confrontation with more forces
from the
FSS Beagle.
It took a long time for the crew of the
FSS Beagle
t o
repair all the damage caused by the failed mutiny and
raids, and even longer to track the escaping lifeboat
vessel to the swamp, but in time both of these things
came to pass. Now a recovery team has been dispatched
from the
FSS Beagle
to capture the mutineers and
remove all traces of their race’s presence on the planet.
INTRODUCTION
This adventure takes place in a vast swamp, which is
called the Great Dismal Swamp in the original adven-
ture and also referred to as Frog Swamp.
Return to the Temple of the Frog
is a D
U N G E O N S
&
D
R A G O N S
® adventure designed for four 10th-level
player characters (PCs).
2
ADVENTURE
BACKGROUND
During an adventuring party’s assault on the Temple of
the Frog over twenty years ago, Saint Stephen, the
leader of the cult, escaped the conflict and hid in the
swamp until the adventurers left. Seeing the temple
under assault and the priests slaughtered, those
dwelling in Frog Town, a small community that had
grown up next to the temple, fled into the swamp to
avoid the apparent anger of the frog god. Having
completed their raid, rescued the prisoner they had
come for, and hurriedly looted the temple, the heroes
left the area and never looked back.
Little do they know that the Temple of the Frog has
fallen, all but one of their mutinous comrades have
been slain, and several of their advanced technological
devices have already been claimed by the planet’s
inhabitants (the PCs who assaulted the temple). The
cyborg assault team sent from the
FFS Beagle
has made
its way through the swamp and reached the temple.
When the PCs arrive, the cyborg team is planting
remotely detonated explosive devices around the temple
compound and within the temple proper. The malfunc-
tioning alien electronic equipment inside the temple
has negated their radio transmission capability and they
cannot communicate with their built-in devices, so
they’re falling back on verbal communication.
Saint Stephen has become aware of the cyborgs’
arrival through his dracolizards (area 60), and he knows
another group of strangers is arriving on the scene. For
now he is content to see how the two groups interact,
knowing both the murderous programming of the
cyborgs and the ruthless efficiency of a band of adven-
turers. Besides, Saint Stephen is not alone in his
temple; he has the Frog Mother, a titanic mutated frog
corrupted by the energies of the damaged reactor core,
and his alien constructs to impede the invaders.
ADVENTURE HOOKS
Characters may become entangled in this adventure
through a wide variety of methods. Suggested hooks
include the following:
• The PCs hear of a great weapon (a blaster taken from
the temple by the heroes who assaulted it twenty
years ago), a wand that spouted rays of fiery death,
which was brought out of the swamp and out of “the
heart of the frog.” Perhaps the PCs can find more of
these weapons.
• While traveling through a great swamp, the party
finds the carcasses of vicious swamp creatures, each
killed by something that burned several 1-inch-diam-
eter holes in the creature.
• New strange and dangerous creatures have been seen
in the swamp. Perhaps the frog cult that once dwelt
within the swamp has been rekindled or maybe it is
something worse.
• A star was recently seen falling into the swamp.
(Actually the falling star was the cyborg’s space craft.
Finding the actual craft is beyond the current scope
of this adventure.) Many smiths highly value
“starmetal” for its purported mystical properties.
ADVENTURE SYNOPSIS
Deep in the swamp, the party finds the ruins of the
Temple of the Frog. While the site is in ruins, it is not
uninhabited. The area teems with mutated creatures
bred by the cult before its fall and with those exposed
to a leaking reactor inside the temple. Additionally, a
new threat has entered the area. A group of four
cyborgs has arrived to erase any trace of alien presence
in the area. They have begun to explore the temple and
place explosive charges to remove all evidence of alien
technology that they find.
THE TEMPLE OF THE
FROG AND ENVIRONS
Before the PCs can enter the temple, they must deal
with the dangers that the swamp may pose to them.
THE SWAMP
Surrounding the Temple of the Frog is a great swamp,
a pestiferous fen populated by all manner of carnivo-
rous horrors. The waters of the swamp are generally 2
feet deep, though in some areas their depth increases to
4 or 5 feet. Sinkholes up to 6 feet deep are common,
and deeper holes are not unknown. The uncertain foot-
ing in these slimy waters makes travel on foot a
constant agony of unexpected spills and unpleasant
dunkings.
Anyone trying to traverse Frog Swamp on foot has
an 80% chance each hour of taking a serious spill caus-
ing 1–4 points of damage. In 10% of these mishaps
(50%, if the character is of Small size or smaller), the
water is deep enough that the character could drown
(Swim DC 10). A character that succeeds on a DC 15
Survival check each hour may ignore the dangers of
PREPARATION
As Dungeon Master, you need the following books to
run this adventure:
Player’s Handbook (PH), D u n g e o n
Master’s Guide (DMG), Monster Manual (MM), Monster
Manual II (MMII), Monster Manual III (MMIII), F i e n d
Folio (FF),
and
Libris Mortis (LM).
To get started, print out the adventure, including
the maps. Read through the scenario at least once to
familiarize yourself with the situation, threats, and
major nonplayer characters (NPCs). Some text is desig-
nated as player information that you can read aloud or
paraphrase for the players at the proper times.
3
the swamp, and, for each 2 points her check exceeded
the DC, she may allow another character to ignore the
swamp dangers.
Dotting the swamp at intervals of between 10 and
100 yards are sandbars and grassy hummocks of dry
ground. The grassy hummocks are generally safe, but
the sandbars can be treacherous—some are actually
4
quicksand. Anyone trying to traverse Frog Swamp on
foot has a 10% chance each hour of stumbling into a
patch of quicksand (
D M G
8 8 ) . The PCs have a 15%
chance of locating an overhanging branch or other
feature that someone can use to pull free of the quick-
sand.
It costs 2 squares to enter a bog square (mud or
water is 1 foot deep) and Tumble check DCs increase
by 2 in bog squares. Deep bog squares cost Medium or
larger creatures 4 squares to enter, or a character may
swim. Small creatures must swim, and tumbling in a
deep bog is impossible (
D M G
88). Daily movement
through the swamp is reduced by 60%.
The locals avoid the dangers of quicksand and deep
water by using flat-bottomed rowboats (
PH
132) to
traverse the swamp. These allow them to travel faster
and at less risk, but only slightly reduce the peril posed
by the wild swamp’s abundance of monsters. If the
party is traveling afoot, check for an encounter once
every 2 hours; if in boat, check once every 4 hours. To
determine what the characters encounter, roll d%. The
result determines the type of encounter. Boats can be
purchased for 50 gp in any of the villages that dot the
edge of the swamp. In the interior of the swamp, the
price rises to 75 gp.
on a DC 25 Survival check may keep his party on track
and ignore the chance of getting lost.
THE MOAT
A 30-foot-deep moat crossed by three rotting draw-
bridges surrounds the temple compound and gardens.
In addition, three magic iron-barred gates (hardness 10,
60 hp) block passage both on the surface and under-
water (at G1, G2, and G3). The gates extend below the
water’s surface to the very bottom of the moat and
extend 5 feet above the water’s surface. They are
controlled by the magical rings carried by the order’s
members and are kept closed at all times. (Treat as if it
has an
arcane lock
on it cast at 7th level.)
Part of the moat abuts the curtain wall around the
temple and garden. The slippery, moss-covered, closely
mortared stones of these walls are climbable, but only
with great difficulty (Climb DC 30). The banks of the
moat that are not formed by the curtain wall are low
and marshy, providing easy entry and exit. These banks
are also choked with weeds that provide cover.
Attempting to cross the moat creates a 40% chance of
an encounter. Roll on the Moat Encounters table
below.
Moat Encounters
d%
Swamp Encounters
d%
Encounter
EL
Source
01–25 Swamp strider swarm (2)
CR 5 (40 hp) 7
MMIII
171
26–50 Mudmaw CR 7 (68 hp) 7
MMII
153
51–75 Giant crocodile (4) CR 4 (59 hp) 8
MM
271
76–00 Darktentacles CR 7 (67 hp)
Encounter
EL
Source
01–30 None
N/A
N/A
31–40 Dire toad (4) CR 3 (26 hp)
7
MMII
74
41–50 Will-o’-wisp (2) CR 6 (40 hp)
8
MM
255
7
MMII
54
51–60 Catoblepas (2) CR 6 (57 hp)
8
MMII
41
61–70 10-headed pyrohydra (1)
CR 11 (108 hp)
11
MM
156
THE CYBORGS
The cyborg team arrived by passing through the ruins
of Frog Town and entering the temple complex. From
area 4A, they split up to place their explosive charges.
Two went into the temple, with one going up to the
second floor while one set charges on the first floor.
The other two headed to the temple garden. One
climbed the stairs of tower 10A and set charges along
the top of the wall leading to tower 10C. The remaining
cyborg set charges along the top of the temple court-
yard wall and is inside area 7 when the party arrives.
Should they hear a commotion or see one of their
fellow cyborgs in trouble, the cyborgs move to that area
to provide assistance.
After setting its charges, each cyborg moves to the
front door of the temple and waits there for its
comrades. They wait for 1 hour before entering the
temple to look for their missing companions. Cyborgs
Alpha and Beta are encountered by the party in the
temple. If not encountered outside the temple, Cyborg
71–80 Shambling mound (2)
CR 6 (60 hp)
8
MM
222
81–90 Dire snake (2) CR 5 (52 hp)
7
MMII
76
91–00 Mudmaw (2) CR 7 (68 hp)
9
MMII
153
Obscuring Fogs and Getting Lost
As if monsters and terrain were not enough, the
swamp, the Temple of the Frog, and the nearby waters
of Lake Gloomen are subject to dense fogs that block
out sun and stars and make it difficult to determine
direction. On any given day, there is a 10% chance that
a dense fog settles in and obscures the landscape all day
and night (as the
obscuring mist
spell on
P H
258) There
is an 80% chance that fog covers the area all night and
throughout the morning. There is only a 10% chance
that the entire day and night is clear. Characters
attempting to travel through the swamp during periods
of dense fog have a 50% chance of getting lost during
each hour of travel and thus making no progress
toward their goal that hour. A character who succeeds
5
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Linki

: 2001.10 Genialne schematy, ELEKTRONIKA, Genialne Schematy

: 2002.10 Genialne schematy, ELEKTRONIKA, Genialne Schematy