AD&D FR-Black Courser.pdf

by Troy Denning

Table of Contents

Introduction ...................................... 2

Part I: Solon.. ..................................... 8

Part II: Through the Mountain Kingdom ................. 14

Part III: Khazari .................................... 39

Part IV: Kuo Meilan .................................. 45

Part V: Beneath Kuo Meilan ........................... 57

Cover

New Monsters: ............................. inside covers

NPC Statistics: ........................... inside gatefold

New Magic Item: .......................... inside gatefold

Credits:

Design: Troy Denning

Graphic Design: Roy E. Parker,

Dee Barnett, Paul Hanchette

Cartography: Diesel

Typography: Angelika Lokotz

Cover Art: Brom

Interior Art: Paul Abrams

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Introduction

A wise sage once

said that human

beings cannot long

live on the bitter

bread of malice. Be

that as it may, Toril has no shortage of creatures

who thrive on the fear of others or the pain of the

innocent. To these evil ones, hatred is the stuff of

life and the manna of immortality.

Once, possibly, they were men, and have since

been turned into something else by their dark

appetites. On the other hand, maybe they were

never human at all, but simply masqueraded as

men until their foul practices gave them away. Or

could it be that they are still menthat the wise

sage was wrong, that some men can live forever

on the diabolic food of malevolence?

As any adventurer who has ever felt the chilling

touch of one of these abominations will confirm,

such questions are better left to the sages. When

a mortal finds himself struggling against an evil

beings cold grasp, there is no time for reflection.

If a man is to survive an encounter with such a

fiend, he must concern himself with only one

thing: discovering his tormenters weakness and

using that weakness to destroy it.

Soon, this will be the very problem facing a

small group of wanderersyour player

characterswho have stumbled into the grasp of

Ambuchar Devayam.

early parts of the adventure, so you will need

their descriptions handy.

The color mapsheet shows the city of Kuo

Meilan and its subterranean facilities, to be used

in Parts IV and V. Again, this map is intended for

your eyes only. Do not show it to your players.

The 64-page booklet is the heart of The Black

Courser. Before beginning play, read this book to

familiarize yourself with the plot of the adven-

ture. Dont try to memorize it, however. Simply

familiarizing yourself with the story and organi-

zation of the book will insure an enjoyable adven-

ture. If you dont have enough time to read the

entire book, read at least the introductory mate-

rial and, before each session, the events you plan

to use.

Portions of the adventure are made up of a se-

ries of events. Each event is divided into sections:

boxed text, DMs notes, and statistics (when

needed). As an event begins, read the boxed text

aloud. This sets the scene.

The DMs notes detail the action of the event,

describing such things as combat tactics, NPCs,

and treasure. Often, to identify key information,

the DMs notes are divided into subsections by

bold subtitles.

Statistics are located at the end of the encoun-

ter, where you can find them easily. Note that

statistics do not include information on the mon-

sters morale. Unless indicated otherwise, all

monsters in The Black Courser attack until

destroyedor until the party is destroyed!

Because The Black Courser occurs close to and

inside Kara-Tur, many of its characters and mon-

sters are of an oriental nature. In many cases,

you will find it useful, but not necessary, to refer

to the Oriental Adventures reference book. Some

spells listed for the NPCs in The Black Courser are

from Oriental Aduentures. If necessary, substitute

appropriate spells from the Players Handbook.

A few terms might be confusing if you have not

read Oriental Adventures or The Horde boxed set:

-kalat a knee-length tunic, usually silk.

-khahan the chief of Tuigan chiefs, em-

peror of the Tuigan nation.

-khan leader of a Tuigan army.

-kumiss a beverage made from fer-

mented mares milk.

-lamellar armor armor of successive layers of

protective material, such as

hardened leather and small

metal plates.

How to Use This Book

The Black Courser is the second installment in

the Empires Adventure Trilogy, which also in-

cludes the first adventure, Storm Riders, and the

final episode, Blood Charge. The Empires Adven-

ture Trilogy is a series of AD&D® Game Adven-

tures set in the new FORGOTTEN REALMS

campaign world territories described in The

Horde campaign set. They concern events derived

from the Empires Novel Trilogy, Horselords,

Dragonwall, and Crusade, also published by TSR.

The Black Courser contains a 64-page adven-

ture book (youre reading it now), a color

mapsheet, and a cover gatefold. The front side of

the gatefold is a map to be used in Part II of The

Black Courser. Do not show this map to your play

ers, as it contains information they are not in-

tended to see. On the back of the gatefold are

statistics for various important NPCs and a new

artifact, the Stone Sceptre of Shih. If you wish, use

a pair of scissors to cut the gatefold off the cover.

The front and back inside covers contain repro-

ductions of the descriptions of Sandiraksiva and

Gaumahavi from Storm Riders. Both appear in the

-minghan

1,000 soldiers.

-noyan

commander of a group of 1,000

soldiers.

-ordu the Tuigan name for camp, used

in the same sense as hometown

or village.

-quiver-bearer Tuigan name for a servant.

-shukenja

holy men or priests.

that the PCs guide

him through Ra-

Khati, then go to

Shou Lung to re-

cover the stone

scepter.

As The Black

Courser begins,

Hubadai is preparing to move into Ra-Khati. He

must take Khazaris southern flank by surprise,

so he intends to move through Ra-Khati

undetectedeither by killing everybody his army

encounters, or, preferably, by relying upon the

PCs to guide him away from the natives.

Despite the possibility of recovering the Stone

Scepter of Shih and destroying the Raja, some

PCs may wish to keep their promise and deliver

Bhrokiti to Solon. Part I is dedicated to this possi-

bility. PCs following this course of action soon

discover evidence that Ambuchar Devayams

threat to invade Ra-Khati was not so idle, after

all. An army of assorted undead and foul mon-

sters is marching toward Ra-Khati. Unless they

flee the army, the PCs are given a short audience

with the Raja. If they have both Bhrokiti and San-

diraksiva with them, the Raja thanks them for

fulfilling their promise. He then returns the PCs

to the edge of Solon, where they meet Hubadais

army again. If the party does not have both the

horse and the princess, the Raja angrily sends

them away, saying that he wants both of his gifts

before he will accept either. Again, the PCs meet

the Tuigan army. Whether or not the PCs gave the

Raja what he wanted, they now have mysterious

tattoos on their foreheads.

In Part II, the party must guide 40,000 Tuigan

soldiers through Ra-Khati undetecteddespite

the PCs own ignorance of the terrain. If Devayam

now has Bhrokiti and Sandiraksiva, Gaumahavi

breaks her alliance with the foul Raja for reasons

of her own. She returns the Princess and the

Black Courser to the party for safe-keeping, then

goes off to fight the Rajas army of undead.

A short time later, mysterious tattoos appear

on the foreheads of Hubadai, his personal guards,

Bhrokiti and the PCs (if they werent tattooed in

Part I). Eventually, the PCs discover that the tat-

toos are the Stamp of Tan Chin, identifying them

as the property of an ancient emperor from Shou

Lung. When several tattooed Tuigan die, become

zombies, and then march toward Solon, the party

should realize that the tattoos mark them as the

Rajas property. Upon their deaths, they will be-

come the Rajas zombies. If they wish to avoid

such a fate, the PCs must recover the Stone Scep-

ter of Shih and destroy the Raja of Solon.

Clever party members will also realize that the

Raja and the ancient Shou emperor Tan Chin are

-taloc

a contest of proclamations.

-Tuigan

nomadic horsemen (detailed in

The Horde boxed set).

- tumen

a Tuigan army, 10,000 mounted

men.

-wu-jen

sorcerers and magicians.

-yurt

a large dome-shaped tent of felt.

DMs Synopsis

Read through this synopsis before beginning

The Black Courser.

In Storm Riders, a large force of Tuigan chased

the PCs into a wealthy mountain kingdom named

Ra-Khati. Unfortunately, Ra-Khati is rather xeno-

phobic and seldom allows visitors to leave alive.

Shortly after the PCs learned this, a messenger

arrived from Ra-Khatis enemy, Raja Ambuchar

Devayam of Solon. The Raja threatened to invade

the mountain kingdom unless Ra-Khatis leader,

the Dalai Lama, sent his daughter Bhrokiti and

the magical black stallion Sandiraksiva to Solon

as gifts.

After learning that Devayam had awakened the

sleeping dragon Gaumahavi, and mistaking the

huge army which had chased the PCs into Ra-

Khati for Devayams, the Dalai Lama agreed. The

Dalai Lama offered the PCs their freedom in re-

turn for taking his daughter and Sandiraksiva to

the Raja.

Before the PCs reached Solon, however, they

were intercepted by the Rajas ally, the purple

dragon Gaumahavi. The purple dragon urged the

PCs to take Bhrokiti to Solon, but she wanted to

have the Black Courser freed immediately. At this

point, clever PCs realized that Sandiraksiva was a

reincarnation of Gaumahavis child, and that the

dragon was working with the Raja in retaliation

for all the years the Dalai Lama had kept the

magical courser in captivity.

When the PCs arrived at the deserted city of

Kushk, the appointed place for meeting the Ra-

jas emissaries, they were intercepted by the

same Tuigan army that had originally chased

them into Ra-Khati. It quickly became clear that

the army which the Dalai Lama feared did not

belong to the Raja of Solon.

After inviting the PCs into his camp, Hubadai,

the khan of the Tuigan army, showed them a di-

ary which had come into his possession. The di-

ary revealed the existence and rough location of

an artifact called the Stone Scepter of Shih, sup-

posedly the only means of destroying the Raja.

The adventure ended with Hubadai suggesting

one and the same.

After learning that

a powerful wizard

named Shih chased

Tan Chin out of

Shou Lung, the PCs

can guess at Am-

buchar Devayam/

Tan Chins goal: he intends to capture the

mountain kingdom of Ra-Khati, then use it as a

base from which to launch a reconquest of Shou

Lung.

The rest of the adventure concerns the PCs

journey through Ra-Khati, their discovery of the

Tan Chins capital, the lost city of Kuo Meilan,

and, finally, their recovery of the stone scepter.

The next adventure in the Empires Adventure

Trilogy, Blood Charge, details what they find

when they attempt to destroy the Raja.

Both she and her father believed the Raja

could carry out his threats, for a huge army had

been reported on their border, and it was ru-

mored that the Rajas ally, the purple dragon

Gaumahavi had been awakened.

As she and her escorts were traveling to

meet the Rajas emissaries, they discovered that

the army belonged not to the Raja, but to the

Tuigan.

On the other hand, the purple dragon has

definitely been awakened, so she suspects the

Raja is up to something.

She also discovered the reason that the pur-

ple dragon, which normally does not interfere in

the affairs of humankind, has become an enemy

of her father. Her fathers favorite horse, the

Black Courser, is the reincarnation of Gauma-

havis child, and Gaumahavi resents the Dalai

Lamas attempts to tame it.

The dragons hatred for her father aside,

Gaumahavi has little reason to remain faithful to

her current ally, either. Many years ago, the Raja

captured Sandiraksiva and used the horse to co-

erce Gaumahavi into making war on Ra-Khati.

Fortunately, Bhrokiti has discovered a way

to destroy the Raja, a very powerful magician

that can control the dead. Somewhere in Shou

Lung, there is an artifact called the Stone Scepter

of Shih. It is her intention to recover this weapon

and use it to destroy the Raja. She takes care to

hint that anybody brave enough to aid her will be

richly rewarded.

Her escorts died battling the purple dragon,

who is now trapped within a prism in Hubadais

possession.

Her host, Hubadai, wants to sneak his army

through Ra-Khati undetected, and wants her to

lead the way. His only alternative is to kill every-

body who sees his army, so Bhrokiti has agreed to

help him. Unfortunately, shes led a sheltered life

and doesnt know the way.

Finally, she suggests that the PCs act as if

they know the way through Ra-Khati, for she

doesnt know what Hubadai would do if he didnt

think they could be of use to him.

Beginning the Adventure

The Introductory Encounter of the The Black

Courser assumes that you and your player char-

acters have played the first adventure in the Em-

pires Adventure Trilogy, Storm Riders. If not, you

may need to make a few adjustments.

First, it is necessary to get the party into the

general region of Ra-Khati, an unexplored moun-

tainous wilderness. If you are already running a

wilderness campaign, simply describe the terrain

as growing colder and more rugged, then have

the PCs stumble into the Tuigan army. The sen-

tries will naturally take the PCs to Hubadai, who

asks them to be his guests at the evening meal.

On the other hand, if your characters are

tucked away in some civilized location such as

Cormyr, perhaps they could be offered the oppor-

tunity to accompany a party of explorers on an

overland expedition to the mysterious East. The

journey would pass without incident until it

meets Hubadais army. Everybody except the PCs

flees or perishes in the resulting fray. Hubadai,

claiming to regret the misunderstanding deeply,

invites the PCs to dinner to make amends.

However they come to join the Tuigan army, the

PCs meet Bhrokiti, who tells them the sad tale of

what befell her in Storm Riders (see DMs synop-

sis). Specifically, she mentions the following

points:

She is the Princess Bhrokiti of Ra-Khati, the

daughter of the Dalai Lama.

The foul Raja of Solon threatened to invade

her fathers country unless she was given to him

as a bride, along with her fathers favorite horse,

the magical black stallion Sandiraksiva. Her fa-

ther was reluctant to agree; but she volunteered

for the good of her people.

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