d20 E.N. Publishing War of the Burning Sky - The Scouring of Gate Pass.pdf - E.N. War of the Burning Sky - R5700

War of the Burning Sky

The Scouring of Gate Pass

An Adventure for 1st-Level Characters

By Ryan Nock

Cover Art by Cris Grifﬁ n

Interior Art by David Hendee

J. L. Jones

Leo Lingas

Ryan Nock

Claudio Pozas

Todd Schumacher

Cartography by Sean Macdonald

Ryan Nock

Layout by Eric Life-Putnam

Playtested by Jeremy Anderson

Austin “Trae” Cooper III

Neil D’Cruze

Matthew Kertz

Rob Parks

Hamid Raoof

Judson Stowe

Special Thanks To the other guys who

inspired this campaign:

Ted Brzinski, Michael Gallogly,

Tom Jones, Laura Kertz, and

the artist David Hendee.

Everything in this book, other than the covers, the

title and contents page, the illustrations, maps,

“EN Publishing,” the EN Publishing logo, character and

place names, story elements, and the EN Publishing

product titles, is designated Open Game Content.

Additionally, thank you to

Russell Morrissey for pushing

me to get this going, and

Blaine Seitz for giving

feedback and encouraging

some unique critters.

EN PUBLISHING

1646 Ridge Road

Vankleek Hill, ON

Canada K0B 1R0

EN Publishing is an imprint of EN World.

Please visit http://www.enworld.org

Leska – Illustration by Cris Gri n

Table of Contents

Introduction ..........................................................................

Background ..........................................................................................

Adapting the Adventure............................................................

Adventure Overview ..........................................................................

Character Motivations ......................................................................

Psionics in the Adventure .........................................................

Act Four: The Gauntlet ....................................................

e Plan.............................................................................................

Running the Gauntlet (EL ).................................................

Bounty Hunter Horsemen .....................................................

Renard Woodsman .................................................................

Dream Shroud .........................................................................

Act One: The Secret Meeting ............................................

e Mission ........................................................................................

Inquisitors — Knowledge (Arcana or Religion) Results ......

Lyceum — Knowledge (Arcana or History) Results ............

e Ambush (EL )...........................................................................

e Black Horse Bounty Hunters ...........................................

Ragesian Bombs.......................................................................

Torrent ......................................................................................

Black Horse Bounty Hunters ................................................

Kathor Danava.........................................................................

Navigating a City Under Attack .....................................................

Aiding the Wounded (EL )...................................................

Burning Building (EL ).........................................................

What if Torrent Dies? .............................................................

Terror in the Skies (EL ½) .....................................................

Animal Crossing (EL ) ..........................................................

Act Five: The Inquisitor....................................................

e Situation .....................................................................................

Weakly Enhanced Fire Magic.................................................

e Farmhouse ..................................................................................

e Attack (EL ).............................................................................

Haddin Ja-Laﬀ a .......................................................................

Crystin Ja-Nafeel .....................................................................

Boreus .......................................................................................

Ragesian Soldiers.....................................................................

Krarlrak and Emran ................................................................

Smarg “Smiley” Hobbler .........................................................

Appendix One — Gate Pass ...............................................

City Layout .......................................................................................

Reaction to Magic-Users ...................................................................

Weather ..............................................................................................

Combat in the Streets........................................................................

Interdistrict Gates .............................................................................

e Main Gates ................................................................................

e North and South Gates .............................................................

Act Two: Retrieving the Case .........................................

Spy versus Spy (EL ) ......................................................................

Larion Prevarieth .....................................................................

Enemy Good Guys? ................................................................

Treasure Lockers......................................................................

Reaching the Safe House...................................................................

Fallen Devil (EL ) ..................................................................

e Safe House ..................................................................................

e Elvish Spymaster (EL ) .................................................

Diogenes ...................................................................................

Shealis Amlauril ......................................................................

Gabal’s Superior Missile .........................................................

Elvish Ghetto Hideout (EL ) ...............................................

Gatemakers Shop (EL ) ........................................................

Amidst the Badgers (EL or ) .............................................

Spy Quarters (EL ) ...............................................................

Shahalesti Warriors ................................................................

What if

Appendix Two: Combat Stats ............................................

Allies & Potential Allies ..........................................................

Act One Enemies & Antagonists ...........................................

Act Two Enemies & Antagonists ...........................................

Act ree Enemies & Antagonists ........................................

Act Four Enemies & Antagonists ..........................................

Act Five Enemies & Antagonists ...........................................

Open Game License Version .a ......................................

ey Fail? ...................................................................

Act Three: Escaping the City ..........................................

e Dawn of War .............................................................................

Other Ways Out? ...................................................................

Exit Gates (EL ).....................................................................

Use Your Charm (EL )..........................................................

Councilman Menash (EL ½) .................................................

Street Ambush (EL ) ............................................................

Roguish Rescue (EL n/a) .......................................................

Designer’s Notes — Rantle ....................................................

Rantle ........................................................................................

Captain Herreman’s Barracks (EL n/a) ................................

e Scouring of Gate Pass

I NTRODUCTION

Welcome to the ﬁ rst adventure in the War of

the Burning Sky campaign saga. roughout the

course of the campaign saga, a party of heroes

will become involved in an escalating war between

mighty magical nations, and after many adventures,

military battles, and mysterious intrigue, it will be

up to them to decide who will emerge victorious and

rule in the aftermath.

A DAPTING THE A DVENTURE

If you are running this episode as a stand-

alone adventure, you can have the heroes

escort the courier and her message to any

organization you want them to become involved

with for the rest of your campaign. You may

want to change some of the encounters, since

several of them are designed to hint at events

that take place later in the saga. The majority

of the encounters can work ﬁ ne as is, however,

just providing local color.

If you plan to run this adventure as part

of the campaign saga, you’ll want to refer to

the Campaign Guide , available free through

E.N. Publishing. The Campaign Guide will help

you work the events of the campaign into your

own setting, provide suggestions for getting

the characters involved in the adventures, and

give you an idea of what lies further down the

road so you can prepare.

As with any 1st-level adventure, there is

little in the way of a safety net for the PCs.

If you want to start the campaign off with a

more heroic feel, consider starting the PCs at

2nd level. By the third adventure, the slight

XP boost gained by this will be imperceptible,

and you won’t have to worry as much about

accidentally killing your party before things

get underway.

Background

e following information details only the

background of this adventure. If you are running

it as part of the campaign saga, you will ﬁ nd more

information in the Campaign Guide .

It is New Year’s Eve, and near midnight on this

frigid evening the heroes gather in a small condemned

tavern in the Free Citystate of Gate Pass. Located

in the mountain pass which separates two hostile

nations — Ragesia and Shahalesti — Gate Pass has

been neutral since the end of their last war, but now

from Ragesia a scourge comes for the city.

By now, every magic-user in Gate Pass knows

of the Scourge. e Emperor of Ragesia died barely

a month ago, and in a move to cement herself as

the next emperor of Ragesia, Leska, leader of the

Ragesian inquisitors, has decreed that all disloyal

users of magic — arcane or divine — are to be

tracked down and killed, to prevent future threats

to the empire. e inquisitors, clerics specialized

in countermagic, travel with military escorts to the

borders of Ragesia. eir ﬁ rst target is Gate Pass,

its neutrality long viewed as an insult to the nation’s

honor. ose who resist them will have to face the

searing power of the Ragesian Empire.

An entire army marches for Gate Pass, and the

people of the city fear that they will not be able

to resist the might of the Ragesian military. e

city leaders are bowing under pressure, and have

barred the exit from the city, intending to welcome

the inquisitors that come with the army, for they

foolishly hope that the Ragesians will reward their

cooperation with mercy.

A local resistance movement, devoted to keeping

both the Ragesians and the Shahalesti out of the

city, has gathered vital military intelligence, and they

need messengers to deliver the information to allies

at a distant wizard’s school. With all their strongest

warriors preparing to hold back the Ragesian assault,

this vital mission falls to a party of inexperienced

heroes — the player characters.

e Ragesian army is nearly at Gate Pass’s

doorstep, so time is short.

e war is about to

begin.

e Scouring of Gate Pass

Introduction

Adventure Overview

e heroes’ main goal in e Scouring of Gate Pass

is to get a cleric named Torrent out of a city under

siege before a group of mage-hunting inquisitors

arrive and begin capturing and killing spellcasters.

Before they can leave, though, Torrent needs the

heroes to help her retrieve vital military intelligence

from one of the rebellion’s spies. However, spies

from Shahalesti have already captured the contact,

and the heroes will have to track down their base

of operations in an elvish ghetto, all while the city is

under attack from the Ragesians.

Even after retrieving the information, simply

walking out of the city is not an option, so the heroes

will have to call upon allies in the city, most-likely

going to a sympathetic city councilman, or receiving

aid from a cocky enchanter. While they seek a way

out of the guarded walls of the city, the heroes are

constantly followed by a group of mercenaries hired

to capture them. Once the heroes make it out of the

city, they must defeat the mercenary commander

and his men, who have laid a gauntlet along the one

safe road.

Finally, the heroes head for the edge of the

Innenotdar Fire Forest, a dangerous passage where

Torrent thinks they can evade pursuit. At the border

of the ﬁ re forest, however, they come across a hermit

and his daughter. e daughter asks their help to

convince her father to ﬂ ee, but just as they are ready

to depart, a Ragesian inquisitor, sent on a special

mission to retrieve the hermit, arrives and attempts

to capture them all.

If they survive, the adventure ends with the

heroes preparing to enter the ﬁ re forest, the passage

through which is detailed in the next adventure, e

Indomitable Fire Forest of Innenotdar .

P SIONICS IN THE A DVENTURE

This adventure does not require the

psionics rules at all, nor do any of the

installments of campaign saga. However, if

you are using psionics, make the following

slight adjustments.

The trillith (dreamborn monsters that play a

role in later adventures) possess abilities similar

to psionic powers, and two of the characters in

this adventure — Kathor and Crystin — have

connections to the trillith. This is represented

by them possessing sorcerer levels, but if you

are using psionics they could instead have

similar psionic abilities.

from any neighboring nation would have a reason

to want to keep Ragesia and Shahalesti from going

to war, so it is easy to justify any sort of character.

Characters who are part of the rebellion would have

been given orders simply to help Torrent, whose

mission is a secret, though their superiors would

have told them to trust her.

Characters could be natives of Gate Pass

who want to protect their city. e Player’s Guide

contains a selection of bonus feats that you can

grant characters if they are associated with one of

these groups. All of these groups have the welfare of

the city in mind and want to help Torrent and her

message reach Lyceum safely. A PC associated with

one of these groups might have been recruited by a

resistance member, and told to meet Torrent.

Traveling PCs simply looking to get out of the

way of a war might have tracked down the resistance,

and been told they can earn safe passage if they join

the mission. Or, for a sinister twist, a PC might be

a spy for an enemy nation, sent to inﬁ ltrate Lyceum.

Magic users of any sort would have a great stake

in escaping the city. In general, the players and

characters should be aware of what the “Scourge” is

before the game begins.

Character Motivations

e easiest way for characters to be involved

in the adventure is for them to be part of the same

resistance group that Torrent works with. People

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