Domain of the Month
Kartakass
Adventure Hooks
Kartakass info in 3e: RL3E / RLPH, Gaz 1
Second edition: Black Box (Realm of Terror), Red Box (RL Campaign Setting), Domains of Dread
Adventure: Feast of Goblyns, QtR 1 (Tainted Love)
Novels: Heart of Midnight, Tales of Ravenloft (Song Snatcher), Death of a Darklord
David of the Fraternity
After a brutal wolf attack left a man dead his ghost now roams a city killing people to feed their spirits to the engelulva (spirit wolves) that are hunting him.
Players have to choice between slaying the spirit wolves (essentially grim reapers) and saving him or letting this formerly innocent man turned murdering ghost be devoured for all eternity.
An young child has found a lesser ivory amulet of beast (turns person into a were-beast on full moons). It can only be removed by a remove curse spell or pulled off while the magic is in effect and the wearer is in beast form. Can the party hunt down a werewolf that bears none of the usual signs (ie suffered a wolf attack) and save a child’s life?
A youth at the Harmonic Hall in Harmonia is quickly rising up the ranks and is potentially the new meistersinger. However, rumours state that he is receiving magical assistance from a powerful item and there is much jealousy. Are they just rumours or is the youth cheating. What happens when others in the Hall decide to take the item for themselves?
Paladine
I'll allow myself drop my 3 copper pieces. Mine idea isn't close to Kartakass, but i ran those adventure in Harmonia so here it is:
At the edge of town lies a well-established inn. Prices are considerable average; wine old and tasty, meals can easily feed even the most hungry man. Inn's speciality is meats prepared in almost every way, cook can imagine. One of the NPC's (friend, employer, guide) orders a dinner. It's important for PC's to know it was his/hers only meal that day. Some time later he's found vomiting and twisted in pain. After an emergency medic operation from his belly is take a whole bunch of meat that grows for some time. Pc's must find what is going on.
The plot is simple: a tavern keeper was adventurer who some time ago came upon troll's nest. He and his comrades slaughtered all beasts, sparing only small baby. Inn's principal kept beast in tavern cellar, chained to torture table, and now uses troll as never-ending source of meat. He cuts liver, muscles and other tasty parts, prepares them with spices on open fire and serves customers. Up to that time there was no accidents, but now something has gone wrong.
Maybe fire was to low, or belly acids to weak to stop trolls meat from regenerating itself.
ScS of the Fraternity
Here's something from an old article out of QtR;
Years ago, a demonic entity roamed Kartakas, preying on foolish bards. Known as the Fiendish Fiddler, the creature challenged the vain and greedy to a contest of music - taking the souls of those it defeated and offering one wish to the man who best it. The creature cut a swath through the musical community, until it was confronted by Harkon Lucas. After a ferocious battle of the bands, the Fiddler was soundly defeated. As his wish, Lucas forbade the creature to ever walk upon kartakan soil.
It has been years, and long have the bards sung of their Meistersinger's heroism. But now, to their terror, the Fiddler has returned! Honouring his bargain, the demon now leaps from tree to tree, house to house, tormenting all within ear shot with a hellish solo that drives men mad. He has become The Fiddler on the Roof!
Paladine
There is a rumor between Kartakan bards about "song over songs" when one hears it he feels that he's sacred duty is to write one phrase at last and add it to greatest song ever written. So he begins to think about words, right music, harmonies etc. After some time he composes his fragment, but it drains his strength and live force. Bard uses his life to give an art a real shape. After including his/hers part, a singer-composer dies.
Unfortunatelly (almost no one knows) by the process of making ideal song, unfortunate bard give his soul to the song and after death he joins carnival of tormented souls, waitnig for years to sing his little phrase
Nathan of the Fraternity
Here's an idea for what could become a campaign:
Mother Fury and her pack have decided to take over Kartakass once and for all, and have begun to abduct and infect humans even more rapidly. Because of their ability to spread lycanthropy by infection, the werewolves may actually be able to win a war of attrition with their long-time nemeses, the wolfweres.
Harkon Lukas realizes Mother Fury's goals and summons the adventurers to give them a mission: If they can kill Mother Fury and disband her pack, he'll reward them richly. If they refuse, he and his wolfwere minions will be forced to kill the entire human population of Kartakass to prevent their being used by Mother Fury against him.
Tobias Blackburn
The characters are called to a small village (either by the Brotherhood or some other way) to deal with a monster that the villagers have trapped. The beast fell into a dry well, and is now hiding in tunnels that connect with it.
Is it a wolfwere that got caught and wounded? Is some form of golem? Perhaps it is a young caliban (or Shifter if you have the Ebberon stats) who means the villagers no harm, but is being hunted by something far worse. Something that is about to reach the town...
Wiccy of the Fraternity
A pocket of werewolves has appeared in the northern forests of the domain, harrying several small communities in the area. Not willing to spend more of his Wolfweres on the task of eradicating them, Harkon Lucas puts out a call for hunters to come in and remove them for him. As he feeds out information related to the creatures and their rough location he leaves out the important matter of the fact that these creatures are lycanthropes, instead calling them wolves, based on his own principles of seeing the lycanthropes as nothing better than beasts. Those who accept this hunt should beware and would soon find themselves in a dangerous situation they will be desperately unprepared for.
AdamGarou
As the months pass in Kartakass, both Harkon Lukas's followers and those of Mother Fury begin to realize the same thing. Something is happening to the wolf population of Kartakass, from the tiny wolf pups all the way to the worgs and dire wolves of the deep woods--when either the werewolves or wolfweres let loose their howls to summon a hunting pack, the wolves don't respond... or respond with sullen, forced obedience, seeking to rebel and even to ATTACK those who summon them. It's almost as if they realize that the werewolves and wolfweres have been cruelly using them for sport and cannon fodder all these years, and are rebelling against the lycanthropes and shape-changers that share their form.
But how could this happen? What force could empower these simple, natural creatures to resist the calls of their dark brethren?
Naturally, both sides want to know... and both sides blame the other, escalating the few isolated incidents of hostility into a full-scale were-war. Kartakass becomes a giant combat zone, wherein humans, wolves, werewolves and wolfweres turn up dead every night. Native Kartakan PCs are in Skald or Harmonia as this begins to occur, and they are enlisted as aid by the Meistersinger to try to de-escalate the covert war and (in their ignorance) prevent the whole truth of their land from being revealed to the native Kartakans and/or outsiders. As they investigate, they pick up subtle clues that reveal to them that almost none of the people they meet are in fact human (or so it appears to them).
Where do they go? To whom do they talk? How are they to fulfill the duty with which the Meistersinger has charged them--and if they fail, will there be any Kartakass for them to return to?
Children in Kartakass have begun circulating stories of a new boogeyman that visits them during the night in the form of another small child. Each one describes the creature differently (differently-colored hair and/or eyes, different clothing, different gender), but the being's actions are always the same: He/She climbs in through a window or emerges from a closed closet, sits softly on the child's bed, and sings him or her a lullabye. While the words are not always clear, the children are wracked by nightmares and gradually appear to be wasting away from lack of rest. Slowly but surely, the entire village of Harmonia is affected.
The boogeyman's depredations have reached the family of Harmonia's Meistersinger, who enlists the PCs for help in guarding the youngest child--a young daughter with sky-blue eyes and hair blacker than a crow's wing. Mysteriously, however, none of the PCs can manage to stay awake, regardless of their heritage (such as elven or half-elven, who can naturally resist sleep spells) or the stimulants taken to keep them alert. They find that they are affected in the same way as the children, however, and gain no rest from sleep--their own dreams are racked not by nightmares but by a mysterious, haunting song that invites unfocused fear (made all the more terrifying by the fact that there appears to be no reason for it), physical pain, and crippling nausea.
Who is this mysterious child? A ghost of a slain bard, adapting a non-frightening form that he/she may get closer to the prey? Some being similar to those in the Nightmare Court?
The story gets even stranger as the children who are kept from resting begin to develop special powers, such as Ghost Sight or psionic wild talents (such as telepathy or telekinesis). While he won't necessarily intervene directly (it's not his style), Harkon Lukas may have a vested interest in keeping the PCs from their goal--he intends to find some way to utilize these powers (and the children who bear them) to his advantage.
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Send your adventure hooks to Joel@fraternityofshadows.com