Arc One: The Forbidden City

The ruined city of Kethis

Pandora Von Smythe

Pezzack Ingor

***The Forbidden City*** is the first Story Arc of Dead Evil. Also called the *"**Kethis Arc**,*" it details the party's first meeting, as well as their adventures in the cursed ruins of Kethis and their quest to obtain the Blade of Calleus and the *Necros Arcanos*. It is immediately followed by and leads directly into *Arc Two: The Forgeborn.*

## **Synopsis**

### **Prologue**

The young tribal Jorg-Hammer, of the Havsbladen tribe, is sent on a diplomatic mission by the one of the tribe’s elders, the seer Ysilda, to meet with Jorrick, chieftain of the savage Blood Dog tribe. Ysilda, gifted in the Sight, has seen visions of a dark army on the rise that could threaten their way of life, and believes that forging an alliance with the other tribes may be the first step to preventing this dark future.

Once he arrives at the Blood Dogs’ encampment, Jorg-Hammer and his goat, Tanngrisnir - also allegedly gifted with the mythical ability called the “Sight” - are met by Cedric, Jorrick’s son and heir apparent to the chiefdom. Cedric refuses to let Jorg-Hammer meet with his father until he proves himself worthy in a duel with one of the Blood Dogs. Nalder, a cook for the tribe, steps forward as a challenger. He and Jorg-Hammer do battle, and Jorg-Hammer seemingly bests him of his own accord. Nalder begs for mercy, but Jorg-Hammer - as a show of strength to the Blood Dogs - executes the cook. As is tradition, Nalder’s few possessions are claimed by Jorg-Hammer upon his death - including a halfling slave, Merric Mandrake.

Months earlier, Merric was purchased by the Blood Dogs from a roving band of slavers led by the dragonborn, Trask - who captured Merric, a young woman, and a dwarven gentleman. Merric had recently been exiled from the halfling village known as the Crater, deep in the nearby Deadwood, after he began to display magical powers after a close encounter with the meteor that gave the Crater its name, as well as beginning to hear a mysterious voice in his head that he dubbed Rekuza.

The two are granted an audience with Jorrick - who, on the advice of his much younger and beautiful wife Mersanda - advise Jorg-Hammer to pursue the legend of the King of Tribes - an ancient tribal that united the tribes in the past with the use of a magical sword that allegedly bent others to his command. The sword is said to reside in the King’s tomb, in the “haunted” city of Kethis along the southern border of the Tribal North. Accepting this quest, Jorg-Hammer and Merric depart for the city.

At a crossroads near the city, another group are accosted by a pack of War Riders. This group is composed of Pandora Von Smythe and Pezzack Ingor, accompanied by their dwarven driver and guide, Walden. Pandora and Pezzack are in pursuit of a legendary tome of necromantic lore, the *Necros Arcanos* - also said to be kept somewhere in Kethis. Pandora learned the location of the tome after interrogating and reading the notes of her mentor, Dr. Mordecai Von Smythe - who she disfigured and mutilated as part of a twisted experiment to convert him into a half-undead creature like herself, leaving his mangled, half-dead body behind in their laboratory in Dreadmont.

While Jorg-Hammer expresses reluctance to interfere with the War Riders’ business, Merric reveals his sorcerous powers, and aids the would-be victims of the attack. The War Riders are defeated, but in the distance - the snow leopard Cleo - mount of Rathos, the War Riders’ chieftain - views the affair, and disappears. After some debate, the survivors agree that since they all have business in Kethis, they should work together as they pursue their goals within the ruins. As they make camp, Merric reveals that he used his powers to aid Jorg-Hammer in his duel with Nalder to obtain his freedom. Recognizing that his victory was less legitimate than he realized, and out of respect for the halfling, the tribal grants Merric his freedom. As the next day dawns, the party  - together for the first time - head forward into the forbidden city of Kethis.

### **Navigating the City**

The party are initially met with a desolate, empty ruin of a city - with no evident survivors or immediate threats. They soon encounter a wizened old man, Oliver, who invites them to his home for a meal. Bizarrely, Oliver seems unphased by the emptiness of the city, and seems to regard the party as normal passerby - despite the city having not received proper visitors in years. Sensing a disturbing aura about the old man, the party departs his home, and continue further into the ruin.

They soon come face to face with the true perils of Kethis - as they are bottlenecked in the street by a horde of undead. While at first the party seem to be able to fend off the horde, more of the city’s undead citizenry pour into the square, until the party are rescued by a dwarven survivor, Gaffer, who tosses them a rope ladder to his second-story hideout, out of reach of the zombies. In the chaos, Jorg-Hammer loses consciousness, but is later revived - and shouts to send his prized horse, Sleipnir, away and out of the city, to be cared for by Walden at the camp.

Gaffer explains to the party that he and Oliver are about the only remaining survivors still living in Kethis (in addition to the decapitated but ghoulified head of his former neighbor, which Gaffer keeps as a sort of pet). It was intended to be a trading town about thirty years ago, after traders like himself discovered the ruin and intended to restore it. However, things slowly began to go wrong after a mysterious cloaked stranger visited the city, accompanied by a young, pale girl. While the stranger left, the girl was never seen again. Soon after, the city’s dead began to rise, and a plague seemed to infect the living as well - until nearly the entire city was overrun by the undead horde. Within the last year, a cult of Orcus arrived and made a base within the city’s central church, intending to use the undead plague for their own ends. Pandora and Pezzack infer that the source of this magic surely must be the *Necros Arcanos*, and Jorg-Hammer and Merric rightly assume that the Sword must also reside within the church, within the King’s tomb. Gaffer agrees to help the party navigate towards the church, in the hopes of putting an end to the plague that has cost him his livelihood.

The party traverse the ruins of the city, finally reaching the exterior of the church, and identifying an underground back entrance through an improvised slaughterhouse manned by cultists. They do battle with a cannibalistic cultist called the Butcher, who seems to be responsible for capturing and then infecting what few survivors and passerby there are with the plague. They manage to beat the cultist, and descend into the catacombs of the church, with Merric taking the Butcher’s helm as a prize.

### **Below the Church**

Underneath the church, the party discover a passage leading to a ritualistic chamber and dead end, as well as a prisoner - a half-elven man named Eddard - a Blood Hunter from Dreadmont. Eddard explains that he was sent to investigate the curse of the city, but was captured by the cultists, and kept as a sacrifice. Recognizing most of the party as “Darkbloods,” he shows resistance in working with them, though he explains that to proceed deeper into the tunnels the cultists have drained the blood of other prisoners to open the secret door in the dead end passage. Despite Tanngrisnir offering himself as a sacrifice, after much bickering, Merric attacks Eddard, and the party kills him. His blood fills the ritualistic basin in the chamber’s floor, and the passage opens before them.

Further down this secret passage, the party finds the source of the plague - a young dhampir girl named Ingrid - the same young girl from Gaffer’s story. Chained in the center of an antechamber, she is revealed to have a runic spell from the *Necros Arcanos* scarred into the skin on her back. She was brought to the city all those years ago and tortured, used as a sort of living sacrifice to power the plague’s magic. Pandora - fearing one of her own kind - instinctively tries to kill the girl rather than free her from her torment, joined by Pezzack - who deduces that if Ingrid is the plague’s power source, then killing her will end the curse. Merric and Jorg-Hammer try in vain to stop them, but Pezzack’s spear pierces the dhampir’s heart, and she dies.

Unfortunately, the tengu is wrong - as Ingrid’s death does not end the curse, but seems to amplify it as the dead bodies in the chamber rise to engulf the party. In the chaos, Merric is driven temporarily insane by a curse placed on the Butcher’s helm, and seeks to devour the flesh of the others. The party barely manage to escape with their lives, as they climb a ladder that leads to a storage room within the church itself. They barricade the trapdoor and the doors leading to the rest of the church’s interior, and rest for the evening. In the night, Jorg-Hammer’s paranoia nearly gets the best of him, as he moves to kill Pandora with a silver blade taken from Eddard, but backs away after noticing that Pandora is not asleep. For her part, Pandora hallucinates a vision of Dr. Von Smythe, who derisively encourages her to see the job through to the end.

### **Breaking the Curse**

The party finishes their rest, and moves forward with the last stretch of their mission. They proceed further into the church proper, dealing with the cultists patrolling the main halls. They then enter the main sanctum, and confront the cult’s leader - Myron Marro. Marro explains that Ingrid wasn’t so much just a power source for the plague, but also a sort of keystone - binding the undead horde to her location, keeping them trapped within Kethis - and under his control. Now that the party has undone this binding, his plans are momentarily foiled. However, Marro identifies that Pandora -as a dhampir - will do just as nicely as a living sacrifice as Ingrid did. Having raised the King of Tribes from the dead as a wight, Marro, the undead King, and the remaining cultists battle the party. The King is slain, and Marro - sensing that he has lost the upper hand - attempts to use the *Necros Arcanos* to summon a demon, but bungles the spell, and the demon is instead summoned through Marro’s body itself - a vermleck worm demon bursting out of his skin, killing him from the inside out.

Pandora manages still to destroy the demon, and - hearing the voice of the now-dead Marro - she burns the page of the *Arcanos* that contained the ritual that created the plague in the first place - ending the curse, as the remaining undead encroaching on the church fall to the ground, truly lifeless. As she holds the Necros Arcanos, Pandora sees a vision of the book’s author, the Archlich undead god Vecna, who extends to her a silent offer to become the tome’s new master after Marro’s death. She agrees, and her hand is singed with an insignia of Vecna’s eye to complete the pact. Jorg-Hammer in turn claims the Sword of the King of Tribes for himself, intending to deliver it back to Jorrick to cement the alliance.

Outside the church, Jorg-Hammer buries the body of Ingrid, and offers Pandora Eddard’s silver blade as a sign of trust and good faith. The party regroup and exit the city, after being thanked by Gaffer, who remains behind to protect the ruin and pick off any straggling cultists. Finding their dwarf guide Walden missing from the camp, Pandora and Pezzack resolve to remain with Jorg-Hammer and Merric and seek shelter at the nearby Blood Dog Encampment. On the way back, a spectral ghost of Marro appears to Pandora - and reveals that as the previous master of the *Necros Arcanos*, his soul has been absorbed by the tome, and he is now bound to it - acting as a guide and adviser to the new master - Pandora herself.

### **Mersanda Revealed**

Once at the encampment, the party is shocked to discover a grisly scene awaiting them. In his command tent, Jorrick is found murdered by his young wife, Mersanda - who is revealed to be an alu-demon - the half-human spawn of a succubus or incubus demon and mortal. She attempts to kill the party, revealing that she manipulated Jorrick into pursuing the King of Tribes’s sword - known to her as the Blade of Calleus. A dark, demonic voice from within the sword - wielded by Merric - appears to recognize and have some history with Mersanda, but instead sides with the halfling and his allies, encouraging them to strike her down.

Mersanda is slain, but still all is not well - as a crow carrying a message from Thor-Axe, Jorg-Hammer's uncle, arrives for the now-dead Jorrick as the party catches their breath. The letter is a summons from Thor-Axe to a summit of all the tribes, on the request of Dorumarr, chieftain of the Drakemunde tribe. Thor-Axe also asks after his nephew, and the status of his quest and possible alliance with the Blood Dogs.

### **Arrival of the Forgeborn**

As the party are reading the letter outside of Jorrick’s tent, overhead in the night sky a great airship appears - more advanced than anything any of them have seen. Armed to the teeth, the ship is interlocked in a battle with Dorumarr and the terrible black dragon, Drak-Vo-Ruul. Despite his legendary status, the dragon and rider are slain after the airship tears into it with a massive grappling cannon - the weapon plunging into the beast, and then pulled out with great force - sending Drak-Vo-Ruul and Dorumarr plummeting to the ground.

As the dragon is slain, a voice booms out over the Tribal North - that of a man calling himself Scourge, Lord of the Forge and leader of the Forgeborn. He calls his victory over the Drakemunde a warning to the other tribes, declaring the Forgeborn’s supremacy and dominance over the wasteland. He promises to return to every major settlement in the eastern wasteland within a month to accept unconditional surrenders. With that potent warning declared, the airship travels south and disappears into the night.

As Scourge departs, Cedric arrives. The party explains the fate of his father to him, and Cedric himself explains the sudden attacks on the various tribal encampments by the Forgeborn. Informed of the Tribal Summit called by Dorumarr before his death, Cedric makes plans to attend as the Blood Dog’s new chieftain the next day, preparing to head north to a neutral ruin that serves as a neutral ground for the tribes.

The party resolve to camp with the Blood Dogs for the night, but Jorg-Hammer is determined to recover Dorumarr’s body, and departs out into the wastes alone with his horse, Sleipnir - into the night. He locates the corpse of Drak-Vo-Ruul, as well as Dorumarr’s body in the snow. He takes the body with him, as well as his sword fashioned from a dragon’s tooth. He also harvests a handful of scales from Drak-Vo-Ruul’s body. Upon returning to the Blood Dogs’ encampment, Jorg-Hammer finds his childhood friends and fellow warriors from the Havsbladen, Hel-Star and Jon-Shield have also arrived, searching for him. After getting to know the party and parlaying themselves with Cedric, everyone rests - with the Tribal Summit, and the culmination of Jorg-Hammer’s quest  awaiting them all further north the next morning.

## **Characters Introduced**

* Jorg-Hammer
* Merric Mandrake
* Pandora Von Smythe
* Pezzack Ingor
* Tanngrisnir
* Sleipnir
* Ysilda (mentioned)
* Cedric
* Nalder
* Jorrick
* Mersanda
* Walden
* Cleo
* Oliver
* Gaffer
* Orcus (mentioned)
* Lucian de Lamperouge (mentioned but not named)
* The Butcher
* Eddard
* Ingrid
* Dr. Mordecai Von Smythe (appears as a hallucination)
* Myron Marro
* King of Tribes
* Vecna
* Calleus
* Thor-Axe (heard from)
* Dorumarr
* Drak-Vo-Ruul
* Scourge
* Hel-Star
* Jon-Shield