An Encounter With Belfor the Wizard

 This encounter had an... interesting resolution when I tried to run it, but I had fun coming up with it so I'm going to write up the original version and how I envisioned it going.

The Setup

Belfor the Wizard has left some sort of flyer in a place the party can find it that invites adventurers and skilled people. Belfor lives a few days' walk away from where the flyers are posted, in an ancient temple complex. The temple has been abandoned for some time, so Belfor has had to make some repairs to be able to use the space. There are three rooms that he has converted for his use, the machine room, the lab, and the storage room. 

The Rooms

The machine room is the largest of the three and contains what appears to be a massive brass cylinder covered in LED lights. The lights blink randomly in many colors, and the cylinder itself is hollow. There are several large red arrows on the floor that appear to guide people into one end of the cylinder. There are also several tables and a chair in the room covered in books and notes. If the party arrives during the day, this is where Belfor will receive them. Belfor also keeps several oozes under his command hidden behind the cylinder in case he needs them.

The lab is full of shelves, a desk, notebooks, writing materials, magical ingredients, and Belfor's bed. This is where Belfor sleeps, and he keeps the door to the lab locked at all times with a key that he keeps on his person at all times. This lab is very well-stocked and players have 50/50 odds of finding pretty much any magical ingredient or spell component. This lab also has notes which explain what the machine does and what Belfor's plan is.

The storage room is full of sealed jars, each of which contains a single green ooze monster. In total, there are 60 of these jars with room for 40 more. The door to this room, like the lab, is always locked and can be opened by a key that Belfor keeps on his person at all times.

Belfor's Request

Belfor, who is surprisingly kind and charming for a hermit living in an ancient temple, asks the party to go out to find and capture any living animals they can find, bring the animals back to Belfor, and then help him force the animals through the brass cylinder. Belfor explains that this will turn the animals into green ooze monsters, which he can then control. Belfor will be vague about how he controls the oozes, but if pushed he will admit that he found a magic wand that allows him to command the green ooze monsters at the same time that he found the cylinder. Belfor also mentions that he will pay the party a moderate sum of money for each animal successfully converted to an ooze, with a goal of converting 40 animals. 

How the party goes about getting these animals is up to the game master and what makes the most sense to them, as well as what ideas the party comes up with on their own. Of note is that other people count as living animals, so there is certainly a much darker route people can take with finding victims. Initially I thought it would be fun to have Belfor request other people specifically, but I think he has a bit more guile than to ask random adventurers to kidnap people to be turned into ooze monster slaves.

If the party does collect 40 animals for Belfor, he will congratulate them and then reveal his true plans with his new army of oozes. Belfor is going to invade and take over the nearest town, and then convert the population into oozes, growing his army even more so that he can eventually establish an entire kingdom of oozes with him as the leader. Animals keep their minds through the process of ooze conversion, horrifyingly enough, so Belfor believes that once he has taken control of enough places, he will only need to directly control a small cadre of elites and all the new ooze people will have no choice but to serve his kingdom and go on with their regular lives, just as oozes. Whether or not this plan could succeed is questionable, but Belfor is clearly much less stable than he initially appeared. He offers to let the party become his generals, not needing to become oozes until the final stages of creating Belfor's ooze kingdom when they will take their places as the aristocracy of Belfor's new ooze kingdom.

If the party is into Belfor's plan, well then they have just created an epic campaign for themselves, even if it is a bit evil. If the party is not into Belfor's plan, he will have his bodyguard oozes reveal themselves and attack the party. Belfor himself will try to stay out of the way of the combat until he gets hit, at which moment one of his defensive spells will activate and he will immediately teleport away to plot his revenge, leaving the now feral oozes behind for the party to deal with.

Notes

When I ran this encounter, one of the characters immediately tried to stab Belfor, skipping ahead to the part of the encounter where they fight Belfor's bodyguard oozes and he teleports away. The way things worked out, one of the other characters was able to grab Belfor's wand before he teleported away, allowing that character to stop the combat by controlling the oozes Belfor had tried to attack the party with. After this combat, the character who attacked Belfor began investigating the brass cylinder, but without finding any of the information that explained what it was, he followed the arrows into the ooze converter and became an ooze, after which he was immediately enthralled by the character with the ooze control wand. Obviously, the player of the ooze character needed to make a new character. 

If I'm being real, I think I want to try to run this encounter again sometime with a different group, because I think there are a few interesting ways it could play out. At the very least, I want to hear the conversations that arise about the ethics around the whole situation, and the looks of horror and disgust upon realizing what exactly is going on.

The Town of Polip and the Slimewater Valley

 

General Description

Polip is a small town in a high mountain valley of the Cephalus Mountain Range. The valley is a flat-floored glacial valley about 20 miles long with a stream, the Slimewater, that meanders along the center. Polip is situated along the stream in about the center of the valley, surrounded by the Tentacled Woods on all sides, with a cleared area around Polip. The primary industry of Polip is the trapping and harvesting of Arboreal Octopi, endemic to the Tentacled Woods, for their ink and tentacle meat, both of which have magical properties. The ink can be made into a potent potion of invisibility and eating the meat grants the ability to squeeze through any opening that is at least one square inch in width for a short time. People in the town trade these materials with merchants for most supplies, although there are a few farmers and tradesmen to provide some services. Most of the ~1,000 residents live inside the wooden wall, called the Mantle, that surrounds the town and which has one gate called the Siphon. The town is led by the mayor, Octavia of Polip, who inherited the position from her mother and directly commands the 12 town guards who operate the gate and enforce the laws. Lately, there have been concerning reports that kobolds, once thought extinct in the valley, have been seen in the woods, as well as reports of trading caravans going missing after they leave Polip, only to be discovered days later, skewered on the tree tops.

Adventure Hook

The session begins with the player characters, along with the rest of the townsfolk, being addressed by Mayor Octavia in the town square. She explains that the town is going to experience hardships if the trade caravans continue to be destroyed because no one will want to make the trip if it is dangerous. She also explains that kobolds have been sighted and she needs someone to go to the Kobold ruins at the head of the valley to investigate. Because town guards need to stay in town to do their jobs, she asks for volunteers to come forward to try to deal with each issue. Another group will take whichever job the party doesn't.

What is Actually Going On

The Queen Octopus, ruler of all of the arboreal octopi, is enraged that her subjects are being rounded up and killed en masse by the people of Polip, so she has been ambushing merchant caravans, resulting in the missing and skewered wagons. At the same time, the queen has been feeding rumors to the local kobolds, never fully removed from the valley, that the people of Polip are making plans to drive the kobolds out of the mountains, prompting them to start planning a preemptive strike against the town.

Enemy Factions

The Slimewater Kobolds

Driven into the high mountains at the head of the valley over 200 years ago, the Slimewater kobolds have been living a hard life in a difficult environment. Despite this hardship, their population is recovering and they have sent a group of soldiers, led by a kobold named Kassius, and a priest, named Kubuldikin, to reoccupy the ruins of their ancient headwater city. Most of the city was looted and then destroyed during the initial conquest, so the soldiers have attempted to rebuild and shore up what is left, although they do not appear to have excavated many rooms yet, and what they have done appears to be relatively crude. Kassius' orders are to scout out Polip and hold the forward location for the larger army that will be coming down from the mountains in several weeks' time.

The Queen Octopus

The Queen lives in a particularly dense patch of trees which she has cultivated into several rooms and tunnels leading to a clearing where she keeps her nest. The Queen Octopus must return to this location for at least one hour out of every 12 in order to tend to her eggs. She will defend these with her life. The Queen is horrified at the way her species is being treated, although it is worth noting that only her and the octopuses that hatch from her eggs are intelligent and have the ability to get to her size. She still feels a strong kinship with the smaller arboreal octopi and although she is open to a compromise where she is given offerings in exchange for more humane and regulated octopus harvesting, killing her would also work just fine.

Locations

• Polip

• Tentacled Woods

• Kobold Tunnels

• Queen Octopus' Lair

The Kobold Tunnels

• Room A: Entrance Chamber: The intended entrance to the tunnels that the kobolds use. The tunnel leading outside is blocked by a big, heavy gate that takes 4 kobolds to open and at least 2 normal sized people. The gate is made of wood and iron and is locked unless it is being used. To be able to open the gate, there are always at least 4 but usually 5 or 6 kobolds stationed in this room. In the center of the room is a big obvious trap door with no obvious way to open it. There is a lever in the tunnel behind the left barricade that will cause the trap door to fall open when flipped. Beneath the trap door is a 10 foot drop onto wooden spikes. If the players are exploring the tunnels after another group that failed, this trap is responsible for the deaths of all of the previous party's members.

• Room B: Bridge Chamber: In this chamber, a small bridge crosses over the slimewater, completing the path between the entrance chamber and the mess hall. The slimewater itself has a tunnel leading outside from the headwater shrine. There is an iron grate with bars 1 inch thick preventing people from getting directly to the headwater shrine from this room.

• Room C: Mess Hall: This room has several tables, a long counter for preparing and serving food, and a big oven. The oven almost always has at least a few embers in it, making this room relatively warm but also smoky and hazy, giving everything that sees with conventional vision disadvantage on checks involving sight. If the alarm has not been called, there are usually half a dozen kobolds in here plus the cook.

• Room D: Sleeping Quarters: One of the most protected rooms in the area, there are probably a dozen kobolds sleeping peacefully in the various mats and piles of hay scattered in here. Kobolds are very heavy sleepers and these kobolds will only wake up if the fighting spreads to this room or if they are woken up by an alarm.

• Room E: Headwater Shrine: The center of the tunnels and a place of worship for the kobolds. There is always one kobold priest in here to give guidance to the tribe, tend the three fires on columns that surround the spring, and use the spring for regular divination rituals to hopefully figure out the future.

• Room F: Kassius' Office: This is where Kassius will be no matter what happens in the rest of the tunnels. He will sit at his desk working on his plans. If the alarm has not been called, there will be two lieutenants in here with him, discussing plans. Kassius has a huge desk with a table behind it, both are scattered with bits of paper, notes, and even a few tools and scraps of metal. Among the notes is a summary of all of the rumors the Octopus Queen has been spreading. Kassius is carrying a note from the main force in the mountains detailing the timeline for their attack on Polip.

The Octopus Queen’s Lair

• Room A: Broken Carriage: This small clearing has a mostly destroyed merchant's wagon in it. Nothing of value is left of the wagon, although most of the planks of the wagon are still intact and it could theoretically be repaired.

• Room B: Refuse Pile: This clearing has a pile of waste from the Octopus Queen, her children, and the remains of the caravans she has been attacking. There are 4 of the Octopus Queen's babies fighting over a human femur in here, although they will attempt to run to the nest if anyone walks in on them.

• Room C: Treasure Clearing: The chest in this clearing contains 6 vials of octopus ink invisibility potion and 10 servings of arboreal octopus jerky.

• Room D: The Nest: This is where the Queen Octopus rests and tends to her eggs, which hang in large mucus-y sacks that hang from the branches of the trees. There are usually about a half dozen of the queen's babies hanging out in these trees, they will try their best to hide from strangers.

Notes for Running:

    When I have run this adventure, I have the party all take the same mission of the two offered and then have another party of NPCs take the other mission. This party of NPCs will die on their mission, prompting the mayor to ask the party to complete the other mission and also figure out what happened to the other party. I think it is important to note that I run the antagonists of this adventure as being open to talk things out if the players attempt that option, since much of this conflict is based on empathetic motivations and misunderstandings.

    When I ran this adventure, I would change up the numbers of creatures and the amounts of treasure to fit the group, so take those numbers more as suggestions than anything else. I gave one group enough invisibility potions to have all five members be nearly always invisible, and that somehow never got abused, despite that being a fairly low-level party.

    What I like about running this adventure is the opportunity to present multiple moral quandaries to the party without making things too heavy. While the Octopus Queen and her children are intelligent, their complaint is really about what they perceive as unethical and unsustainable market hunting, something that has caused the extinction of many real-world species. All of the other arboreal octopuses are relatively unintelligent animals, so the issue for the party is to figure out what their characters think is a fair solution. As for the kobolds, they are the true natives of the valley and they were driven out of their ancestral homes by the ancestors of the current inhabitants of Polip. The players may very well decide that they do not support the colonists and would rather help an oppressed native people retake their home. On the other hand, the player characters may come from a background that makes the characters more sympathetic to humans and the types of civilization that they are more familiar with. Overall, I think it makes a fun first adventure for a campaign set in the mountains and valleys around Polip.