Isle of the Necromancer Kings (CBN)

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Every campaign or adventure begins with an epic story such as the tale of the Necromancer Kings. Legends and lore form the backdrop of any campaign, creating a mood and background that will inspire your players and get them interested in your world and all of the things that occupy it.
A good campaign is created like an onion, with various layers of perception and reality overlaying one another. At each layer, a party of adventurers starts with a common perception, myth, legend, or rumor and uncovers the reality or truth behind that perception. This revelation leads to a new, deeper awareness of the world, which can be again challenged in another adventure. This cycle progresses until the entire onion had been peeled away, revealing a single, terrifying truth or reality at the core that irrevocably changes the PCs' perception of the entire campaign.
A detailed setting is extremely important to creating a vivid and memorable campaign. Sahu, the Isle of the Necromancer Kings, can easily be transplanted into the ocean of any world. Its official location is in the southern hemisphere of Toril, in a region of the Land of Fate setting known as the Ruined Kingdoms of Nog and Kadar. (Incidentally, the Old Dynasty, alluded to in Kazerabet's tale of Sahu, is fully detailed in the Ruined Kingdoms boxed set). But Sahu could just as easily be located off the coast of Amn or the Shining South in the Forgotten Realms, another region with a legacy of powerful ancient empires.
Sahu is an ancient place, the home of two destroyed civilizations: the New Dynasty of the Necromancer Kings and the Old Empire of Thasmudyan that preceded them. It is an island of ruined cities, magical pools, and cursed lakes. Its forgotten palaces are littered with the treasures of bygone epochs and scattered with the bones of foolhardy explorers.
Sahu itself is the outermost layer of the "campaign onion" mentioned earlier. It is important that, in the beginning of the campaign, Sahu appears like "just another interesting place to adventure." Indeed, Sahu is dubbed the "Isle of Serenity," though the actual meaning of the word is rooted in deep antiquity. Actually, in the ancient language of Kadari, spoken by the Necromancer Kings, Sahu means something like "Serene Eternity," an old euphemism for Death. The island's name is another example of the contrast between conventional popular belief and a deeper, more sinister reality.
Sahu is a perfect setting for adventure, and in this section, we present a brief guide. Note that you, as the DM, can "deconstruct" Sahu, scattering its individual elements anywhere in your campaign, especially if it is primarily land based with little or no access to the sea. Finally, these place descriptions also illustrate the varied settings and contexts in which a necromancer or death priest will feel most at home.
==The Twin Villages of Misbahd and Jinutt==
Sahu is not completely bereft of civilization. Two villages, Misbahd and Jinutt, can be found on the island's northern shore, at the base of the giant plateau. These settlements can be used as the starting point for most adventures, since the party will presumably have arrived at one of these ports by ship. Misbahd is a dilapidated and squalid den of rogues and pirates. The settlement is well fortified, protected by a small fleet of "privateers," and its shops and stores are filled with all types of merchandise, illicit and otherwise. Jinutt, on the other hand, is a small, simple village of fishermen who provide food to Misbahd in exchange for various necessities.
Despite the villages' serene or mundane appearance, there is something peculiar about them which should only be learned after several visits in which the PCs have become sufficiently familiar with the locals and village leaders. Eventually, the party members will notice that there are a few shrines to mainland gods, but there is no large temple or priesthood in either Misbahd or Jinutt. There are no healers or priests capable of raising the dead on Sahu. Neither is there a cemetery. When people die (which happens quite frequently in rough Misbahd), their bodies are carried in a funeral procession out to the edge of town, where they are abandoned to "the wild forces of nature," presumably to be devoured by wild animals. This ancient tradition is very sacred to the villagers, and it applies to everyone on the island—both natives and visitors. To break with this holy rite would anger the evil spirits of the highlands, who would punish the offending village. Those attempting to interfere or stop a funeral procession will be quickly confronted by a hysterical and violent mob.
Although they would never admit it to any visitor, many of the villagers are secret worshippers of the ancient god Thasmudyan and are fanatical members of the highly secret Cult of Worms. The entire ruling hierarchy in both villages is made up entirely by cultists who are sworn to absolute secrecy. The bodies of the dead are actually carried away by a pack of ghouls (disguised as plum-robed priests) to a nearby underground temple where the corpses are ritually devoured by the ghouls and a small hierarchy of death priests (Charnelists) whom the PCs may recognize as members of the village council. Each temple has a black stone idol of Thasmudyan and a small treasury which may contain a few magical items of minor importance. Obviously, important magical items are wielded by the priests and ghouls themselves.
Finally, these villages are also ideal locations to learn various rumors and lore about the island. In general, the superstitious villagers (island natives) consider the upper plateau to be haunted, a forbidden, dangerous place of ghosts and evil spirits. A few retired adventurers in the villages have more information. With suitable monetary encouragement, they reveal the location of "ruins along the shore of the sea" (Ereshkigal) supposedly containing fabulous treasures and magical items, virtually unguarded.
==The Iron Spires of Ereshkigal==
Further north along the coast from Jinutt lies Ereshkigal, a largely deserted city of ruined metal towers, located about five miles inland so its appearance cannot easily be discerned from the sea without a telescope. The ruins are quite extensive, spreading out over a few square miles.
The city encompasses hundreds of metal spires fashioned like giant mushrooms or fungi. The few intact specimens are hollow shells bereft of any kind of stairs, with only a few small entrances at the base (symmetrically arranged) and a central hole in the 120' high ceiling. Most of the outlying towers have already been stripped of anything interesting by explorers, but spires in the center of the city are filled with bizarre inscriptions in an unknown language (predating the Kadari tongue of the Necromancer Kings).
Contrary to rumor, Ereshkigal's treasures are hardly unguarded, since the towers of the inner city serve as lairs for several packs of ghouls and ghasts. These lairs are clustered around a central spire that has been converted into a lofty cathedral to Thasmudyan, guarded by a powerful high priest with the powers of a greater mummy, who carries an ancient horn of the exalted dead.
Concealed beneath the shrine's altar is a secret passage leading into a convoluted mazework of tunnels and subterranean corridors that stink of ghast breath. Ultimately, these caverns lead to the Garden of Eternity (detailed below), but they are filled with roving packs of armored undead soldiers, deadly glyphs of warding, and ravening beasts of the Underdark.
==The Colossus of Uruk==
On top of the plateau, overlooking Ereshkigal and the deadly Horn of Sahu, stands the Colossus of Uruk, easily visible from the coast. This gargantuan, 150'-tall granite statue was erected by the first of the Necromancer Kings and originally served as a lighthouse to protect incoming ships from the reefs. The Colossus has been completely overgrown by plants and birds' nests. The statue's stone body is entirely hollow, like an odd tower, and contains numerous chambers, including a small library and a magical lantern room in its hollow head. The eyes of the statue once contained specially enchanted lenses that magically magnified any light source in the room so it would be visible for miles at sea.
Now the huge eye lenses of the Colossus are shattered, but two of the broken fragments might still serve as makeshift eyes of minute seeing. The walls of the lantern chamber were lined with fire-proofed gold to augment the internal reflection, a source of fabulous wealth for the lucky adventurer who recovers it. However, the primary light source for the chamber is still a huge, imprisoned, and very angry fire elemental (16 HD, maximum hit points) who will attack any who enter the room and attempt to steal its valuable furnishings. Without the enchanted lenses of the Colossus, the elemental's glow can no longer be perceived from outside, except nearby and at night.
The first time the party visits the Colossus, the entrance at the base of the statue will be wizard locked (cast at 20th level), and the beautiful philosopher Kazerabet will be perusing some of the volumes in the library (see her separate NPC sheet at the end of this chapter). Luckily for the PCs, she will have already deactivated the most deadly of magical wards in the Colossus. She will not attack the party unless they assault her first, and will warily introduce herself as Zaribel, since her formal name might be too easily recognized by any experienced student of magic. Note that this powerful archmage could easily obliterate even an experienced party, so try to drop veiled hints about the kind of person the party is dealing with. Comments like "I'm glad you didn't come here earlier, before I disarmed the old symbol on the door" should work nicely.
Although she will not reveal anything about her past history or future plans, Kazerabet does not mind hinting that she is interested in the history of the Necromancer Kings and had always wanted to visit the Colossus. Most scholars like to flaunt their knowledge, and Kazerabet is no exception. The PCs might pump her for information about the ancient history of the island, learning all of the lore presented in the chapter introduction. Before she teleports mysteriously away, she warns the party not to take any of the books in the library, since she might want to return and peruse them later. Although the books are not warded in any way, Kazerabet will come looking for them eventually if the party takes any. The party is free to peruse the books in the library itself, however. Its shelves may contain copies of various histories of the Necromancer kings, including a copy of the Nycoptic Manuscripts and On Coming Forth by Day. This is a good opportunity for the DM to introduce the party to some of the necromantic lore or spells presented throughout this book.
==The Tower of Pizentios==
This spire lies on the eastern shores of Sahu, as described in the Tales of Captain Omar (see the introduction to Chapters 7 and 8, and the NPC sheet for Pizentios). The mushroom-shaped metal tower, similar to the spires of Ereshkigal, cannot be seen from shore, but there is a small collection of wooden buildings in a sheltered lagoon that serves as a supply base for a pirate ship of necromancers, the Scrofula (see the NPC sheet for Sarzec).
Normally well-camouflaged by palm trees, the wooden supply sheds might have been temporarily uncovered in a recent storm, making them visible from a ship at sea. Otherwise, a party might stumble across the lagoon by chance, with or without the Scrofula at port.
The supply sheds are guarded by a squad of twelve zombies (maximum hit points). The zombies will not attack if the party leaves the supply sheds alone. If the undead are defeated, the storerooms will be found to contain spare sails, spars, rigging, and planking—everything one might need to equip a ship, except food and water.
The palm groves near the sheds are the home to four newly made shadows, recent victims of Pizentios's shadowblade. These creatures only emerge from the grove at night. Of course, any sounds of battle at the lagoon or supply sheds will undoubtedly attract Pizentios, who will appear with his infernal familiar Ifrit to exact vengeance (and perhaps gain more zombies).
If the party leaves the sheds alone and explores inland, they are quickly spotted by the invisible Ifrit, who warns his master of their approach. The evil necromancer will attempt to dupe the party using the same ruse he employed on Captain Omar, but he will have telepathically summoned his zombies and shadows just in case the stratagem fails. He has learned from his past mistakes and is determined not to let history repeat itself.
The DM should place only a moderate amount of treasure in Pizentios's tower, since Omar's raid already stole most of the finer pieces in the necromancer's hoard. Should the party manage to defeat Pizentios, he will attempt to flee through a massive bronze door in the basement, leading to the Underdark beneath Sahu and, eventually, to the Garden of Eternity. The DM might allow a resourceful party to follow him there, only to be driven back by the Bone Legion after the PCs have briefly glimpsed the Garden.
==Capitol of the Necromancer Kings==
The ruined city of Nycopolis stands on Sahu's inland plateau, on the shores of an inky black lake. The desolate ruins are utterly devoid of life. No speck of grass grows within a mile of its crumbling walls. No animals, living monsters, or island natives will voluntarily approach it. The last of the Necromancer Kings, in his madness, opened a gate to the Negative Material Plane in the lake, and it promptly sucked all the life force out of the city's debauched inhabitants. Some believe it was the evil god Thasmudyan who inspired the last King's madness, a final act of vengeance against the dynasty that betrayed him. Others believe the King's vile act was performed out of sheer spite held against those that were destined to outlive his tortured soul's time on this earth.
At night, Nycopolis comes alive with the spirits of the dead. Pale ghosts, spectres, and banshees rise up from the lake every evening, flitting mournfully around the ruins. These spirits take on the shapes and professions they had in life, centuries ago when the metropolis prospered. Every night, the ghost of the last Necromancer King rises from the lake to hold court in his Royal Palace, accompanied by an entire doomed retinue of spirits. The living are not welcome in this ghost city by night, but there is nothing to deter adventurers from exploring the city during the day.
The monumental architecture of Nycopolis is at once sinister and beautiful to behold. The city was hewn from the blackest of volcanic rock, erected in the shape of a perfect nonagon with a monolithic black tower at each of its nine corners. Wide boulevards radiate into the city from each gatetower, opening into a network of palaces, bazaars, shops, and warehouses, all constructed from the same dark granite, all completely deserted and eerily empty. The city looks as if it were deserted yesterday, with laden carts still littering the streets and fully-furnished homes still lining the boulevards. Nycopolis has been frozen in undeath by a terrible curse.
The vast Royal Palace at the center of Nycopolis still contains many treasures of its past. There is enough wealth and magical items in the palace to fill a thousand coffers, but all of the gold is tainted with an irrevocable plague curse, and its only surviving artifacts are twisted and evil.
In the basement of the Royal Palace, past the vaults heaped with antique treasures, lies a massive copper portal tarnished blue-green with age and heavily traced with spirit wardings and ghost banishings. Indeed, the warded door is meant to keep out ghosts, spirits, and other undead, but these magic runes have no power over the living. The door is unlocked, and leads into a tiny, 10' teleportation chamber. Those who enter immediately vanish, reappearing in a similar chamber beneath Uruk's Summer Palace.
==Uruk's Summer Palace==
The Summer Palace was King Uruk's second great architectural wonder, a complete contrast to his capitol's dark and dreary buildings. Erected a hundred miles south of cursed Nycopolis, on the high plateau overlooking the Rubban's Tears, the Summer Palace was fashioned from tons of solid ivory and white marble. Its domed halls and wide courtyards gleam like polished bone in the bright sunlight.
The Summer Palace is completely secluded from the rest of the island in the heart of an impenetrable wilderness. There is no road across the ghoul-infested plateau from Nycopolis, and the approach by sea is impossible due to the cliffs, jagged reefs, and hungry schools of ixitxachitl. The safest approach is by air (and even that can be dangerous because of the wyvern roosts in the Spine), though the King himself favored the teleportation cell deep in the basement, for both its quiet efficiency and its unquestionable security.
The Summer Palace is thus a perfect, secluded retreat, shielded from the rest of the world by anti-divination wardings. Even the existence of the Summer Palace was a closely guarded secret, since according to legend, Uruk himself raised the building with immortal laborers, tasked genies, and fiendish servitors in only three days and three nights. He told its location to no one and filled the surrounding jungles with undead creations and fell guardians to safeguard his privacy.
Kazerabet stumbled across the Palace quite by chance, while flying over the island on a magical steed. She had read references to the Summer Palace in ancient texts from Uruk's reign and was delighted to find the palace uninhabited by any significant threat, with most of its library intact. She has lived there for years, leaving only to explore the island or pay a social call on Vermissa in the Garden of Eternity. Now she devotes much of her time to researching the various methods of attaining lichdom.
There are two magical gates in the basement of the palace, one ancient (forged by Uruk himself) and one new (created recently by Kazerabet). The ancient gate leads to the basement of the haunted Royal Palace in Nycopolis. The newer portal gates visitors directly to the Garden of Eternity. Both portals have been massively warded to keep out undead, and Kazerabet has placed an invisible symbol of stunning in the foyer to trap uninvited living visitors. An invisible stalker has been tasked with watching these doors and will report immediately to Kazerabet the moment one opens.
The archmage is bound by her own code of honor to offer hospitality to visitors, and she will be wryly amused if she encountered the party previously at the Colossus. Providing the heroes treat her with proper respect, Kazerabet entertains them grandly for three days. She then asks them not to trouble her research again, and she allows them to leave the way they came.
These three days are a perfect opportunity for the adventurers to ask Kazerabet more questions about Sahu and its many secrets. She might offer insight into Pizentios's loathsome character (particularly his vulnerability through Ifrit), some lore about the history and dangers of Nycopolis, and perhaps some veiled hints about the Garden of Eternity.
As noted earlier, Kazerabet should be much too powerful for the party to fight with any real hope of survival. References to invisible fiendish servants, the occasional glimpse of a genie, and the numerous embalmed ju-ju zombies maintaining the palace should be ample hints of her extreme power. If the party is rude, attacks her, or pries too much into her private research, Kazerabet will promptly subdue the offenders and let them rot in her oubliettes for a while. Days later, she will release them, stripped of all equipment and magical items, into the monster-infested jungle outside her palace.
==The Garden of Eternity==
Deep within the core of Sahu, somewhere beneath the Vishap's Spine, rests an ancient prison for an undying priestess of Thasmudyan, the lich Vermissa (see her NPC sheet). Imprisoned in the Garden of Eternity by King Uruk and eight lesser barons, Vermissa was abandoned in her subterranean abode and all but forgotten. The Garden is not a physical prison, but a magical binding that prevents Vermissa (or her spirit) from leaving. Others can enter and leave the Garden freely. Vermissa gives regular audiences from her prison to a steady stream of undead followers and living cult members.
The magical binding was formed with nine magical seals, each enchanted with life force transfer and wrought into the main doors of the Garden by a different necromancer. Vermissa will need another nine similarly powerful necromancers to free her, each casting revoke life force transfer on an unbroken seal.
Recently, Vermissa persuaded Kazerabet to break one of the seals, just as she convinced Nebt Bhakau (Pizentios's former master) and four other powerful necromancers in the past centuries to aid her, for Vermissa knows the secrets of lichdom, and she gladly bestows them on wizards who aid her. It is only a matter of time before she is freed, but just to help matters along, Vermissa bestowed her patronage on the young Pizentios, expecting him to break the seventh seal when he becomes sufficiently powerful.
The garden itself is in a vast cavern whose walls have been magically smoothed. The ceiling has been imbued with continual light, and the rich soil has given root to many strange plants that Vermissa has augmented over the centuries of her imprisonment. The trees and flowers in her garden give bloom to many horrendous human parts with grotesque limbs and faces grafted into the scaly brown bark of twisted mauve bushes or somehow fused into giant orchidlike flowers. These pale limbs and contorted faces are not dead, for that would be merciful and provide little entertainment for Vermissa. The trees and flowers in the Garden are alive, after a fashion, twisted into pathetic, fleshy things that crave new fodder. Vermissa feeds her Garden frequently, sometimes with the occasional visitors when they displease her, or with hand-picked enemies from the surface.
Vermissa lives in a U-shaped palace that wraps around one half of the Garden, embracing it in a semicircle as if it were an outdoor courtyard. The largest chamber in the palace, besides the audience hall, is a huge cathedral to Thasmudyan, beneath which rests a hidden treasure vault containing Vermissa's phylactery. The palace contains an extensive library of necromantic lore (stolen from Uruk's vaults in Nycopolis by Vermissa's ghouls) and a tall trophy room, where the lich saves the animated heads of her most entertaining visitors for moments when she craves light-hearted conversation. There is an entire wing of "guest" rooms, though only the necromancers Pizentios and Kazerabet (and other prominent, living cult members) make frequent visits.
Reaching the Garden is not an easy task, as it lies beyond a mazework of twisting tunnels, protected in key regions by powerful glyphs and symbols or guarded by well-organized detachments of Vermissa's Bone Legion, an elite force of mummies and ju-ju zombies. These caverns rise to the surface in a number of locations, such as the hidden shrines outside Misbahd and Jinutt, the ruins of Ereshkigal, and the tower of Pizentios. Cult members have a secret password that they use to gain passage through the various traps and guardians of the Underdark, but these code phrases change frequently (once every few months). Perhaps the most direct way into the Garden is through the multiple gates leading from Nycopolis to the Summer Palace, and from the Palace to the Garden, but these magical portals are used only by Kazerabet herself and would probably require her personal permission (unlikely given).
The Garden of Eternity is the secret core of the Necromancer Kings campaign, and knowledge about its location and true contents should be kept mysterious for as long as possible in the campaign. Infiltrating the Garden, confronting Vermissa, and defeating the lich priestess should only be attempted by the most powerful and resourceful parties.
A more likely scenario would involve the heroes' attempted infiltration of the garden, and their subsequent capture by the lich, who would be more then happy to give them a tour of her facilities, providing at least some opportunity for role-playing. If they entertain her sufficiently (or somehow manage to beat her at chess), the lich might release them. Otherwise, they will have to devise their own escape (possibly aided by Kazerabet if she has grown fond of the PCs by now). If not, the party will end up as souvenirs in the trophy room or as screaming nourishment for Vermissa's Garden.