D20 - D&D - Adventure - Bad Moon Waning.pdf - dnd - karolinaklecha.kk

WANING

A Short Adventure for Four

10th-Level Player Characters

BAD MOON

Bad Moon Waning is a short D&D adventure for four

10th-level player characters (PCs), though it can be

modified for higher- or lower-level play if desired (see

the Scaling the Adventure sidebar).

The adventure is set in and around the village of

Deepwood, an isolated town located as its name

suggests in the heart of a great forest. It can easily be

placed in a remote, wooded area of any campaign world.

PREPARATION

You (the DM) need the D&D core rulebooks, includ-

ing the Player’s Handbook, the D UNGEON M ASTER ’s Guide,

and the Monster Manual. This adventure utilizes the

v.3.5 rules, but it can easily be used with the 3.0 rules

as well.

You can place this adventure in any section of your

campaign world that features a remote, forested area in

which an isolated town might exist. If there is a small

town that the PCs visited in a past adventure but

haven t returned to in quite a while, so much the better.

As always, feel free to adapt the material presented here

as you see fit to make it work with your campaign.

To get started, print out this adventure (including

the maps). Read through the scenario at least once to

familiarize yourself with the situation, threats, and

major NPCs (particularly their motivations). Make

adjustments as necessary to fit the storyline into your

campaign.

CREDITS

Design:

Stan!

Editing:

Penny Williams

Typesetting:

Nancy Walker

Cartography:

Rob Lazzaretti

Web Production:

Julia Martin

Web Development:

Mark A. Jindra

Graphic Design:

Sean Glenn, Cynthia Fliege

Based on the original D UNGEONS & D RAGONS ¤ game by E.

Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson and on the new edition of the

D UNGEONS & D RAGONS game designed by Jonathan Tweet,

Monte Cook, Skip Williams, Rich Baker, and Peter Adkison.

D&D, D UNGEONS & D RAGONS , and D UNGEON M ASTER are registered trademarks owned

by Wizards of the Coast, Inc. The d20 logo is a trademark owned by Wizards of the

Coast, Inc. All Wizards characters, character names, and the distinctive likenesses

thereof are trademarks owned by Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

ADVENTURE

BACKGROUND

Deepwood is a small community consisting of hunters,

loggers, artisans, and a few hardy families who just

prefer to live far away from cities. There are a couple of

farms in the surrounding area, but the people here

subsist for the most part on fish, game, and naturally-

growing crops such as mushrooms, wild vegetables, and

seasonal fruit.

The people of Deepwood have always led quiet lives.

Traders come through a few times a year to exchange

goods and materials made in the cities for local furs,

pelts, artwork, and lumber, but otherwise there are few

visitors. The nearest town of any significant size lies

several days ride to the east. News from the outside

world takes a long while to reach this isolated commu-

nity, and word of events taking place in Deepwood can

take days or even weeks to spread to the rest of the

world. Until recently, however, very few people

noticed or cared about such delays, since so little of

interest ever happened here.

This material is protected under the copyright laws of the United

States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the

material or artwork contained herein is prohibited

without the express written permission of

Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

Made in the U.S.A.

This product is a work of fiction.

Any similarity to actual people, organizations, places,

or events is purely coincidental.

This Wizards of the Coast game product contains no Open Game Content.

No portion of this work may be reproduced in any form without

written permission. To learn more about the Open Gaming License

and the d20 System License,

please visit www.wizards.com/d20.

For more D UNGEONS & D RAGONS articles, adventures, and information,

visit www.wizards.com/dnd

In the past few days, however, word has begun to

spread in the outlying areas that all is not well in

Deepwood. The only point on which the rumors agree

is that the local priestess has been slain savagely

mauled by some sort of animal and that terrible crea-

ture now stalks the tiny village, seeking more prey.

Beyond this information, the details are sketchy and

sometimes conflicting. Some tales say that the beast has

already been killed; others claim that the townsfolk

have seen several half-man-half-beast creatures roam-

ing the woods at night. A few say that the woods around

the village echo with the howls of an unusual number

of wolves and wild dogs.

Naturally, the pack objected, and its leader (a hunts-

man named Trammil Nimman) challenged the new

wolf, even though the latter outweighed him by a

considerable amount. The pack knew that his effort was

doomed to failure, but rather than killing Trammil, the

new wolf merely beat him into unconsciousness.

I do not wish to kill any of you, he said. That

would only weaken my new pack. But I will brook no

dissent. The next one who fails to follow my orders to

the letter will feel the full extent of my wrath.

The new leader seemed so bloodthirsty that the

werewolves feared he might order them to attack their

human neighbors. To their relief, however, no such

order was forthcoming. The new werewolf simply led

the pack into the hills to a cave entrance that was

masked almost completely by thick foliage.

Once there, he assumed a hybrid form and pulled

the curtain of leaves aside. The moonlight streamed

into the cave, revealing walls speckled with gold. Using

his tremendous strength, he struck one of the walls and

released a shower of rocks several of which turned

out to be gold nuggets the size of a man s fist.

This cavern is as large as a house, he said. Each

night, four of you will come here and mine the gold as

I ve just shown you. If you do not, I will reveal the your

true natures to the humans in your town.

The werewolves saw no other choice, so they obeyed

their new leader. Each night, four of them came to the

cave and dug out pound after pound of gold from the

cave walls. When they were finished, they took the gold

first to Trammil, who recorded the amount in a ledger,

and then to a secret glade for hiding.

Night after night they extracted gold from the cave.

While working, they discussed several possible solu-

tions to their plight. Some members suggested that the

pack join together to attack this new wolf, but most

believed in the traditional practice of following the

strongest individual. Attacking as a group is for bring-

ing down food, not a brother wolf. To challenge the

new leader in any way other than one-on-one combat

was deemed dishonorable and cowardly.

A few members of the pack offered to travel to the

city and hire champions to defeat the new wolf. After

all, they pointed out, other communities often did such

things when a monster moved into the area, and their

new leader could certainly be defined as a monster. But

most of the Deepwood werewolves felt that such a solu-

tion would be just as dishonorable as ganging up on

their tormentor.

If they knew his human identity, they mused,

perhaps they could at least gain equal footing with him

by threatening to reveal his secret unless he left the pack

THE TRUTH ABOUT DEEPWOOD

Although most of the townsfolk do not know it, were-

wolves make up a significant percentage of Deepwood s

populace. All of these shapechangers are natural lycan-

thropes humans who were born with the ability to

transform into wolves or wolf-human hybrids. They have

chosen to make their homes in this remote village, where

they can indulge their wild natures in the nearby forest

without frightening or causing harm to their neighbors.

Despite the wild blood that runs through their veins,

the werewolves who live in Deepwood are all good

people. Not one of them has ever taken a human life,

nor do any of them plan to do so. Deepwood is their

home, and they consider everyone living there to be

part of their pack, werewolf or no.

Several nights per month (particularly nights of the

full moon), the Deepwood werewolves run through the

forest as a pack, hunting deer or other game and cele-

brating their wild heritage. This hunting ritual has been

going on for years, and no normal member of the

community has ever suspected the truth. Thus, the

members of the Deepwood pack have been able to live

in freedom and harmony with both their surroundings

and their human neighbors for many decades.

THE LEADER OF THE PACK

Two months ago, the peace and harmony of

Deepwood was shattered. The pack was hunting a

particularly large and powerful buck in the forest by

the light of the full moon. But just as the Deepwood

werewolves were about to bring down their prey, a

tremendous wolf bigger than any three members of

the pack combined burst from the surrounding

foliage and snapped the deer s neck with one bite of

his massive jaws.

By right of strength, he growled, I claim leader-

ship of this pack. You will all do as I say or face the

consequences.

in peace. But neither his hybrid appearance nor his

scent reminded them of anyone they knew. They were

sure that he had to be a citizen of Deepwood (or at least

someone who visited very frequently), else he could not

know so much about the pack and its relationship with

the townsfolk. But they were at a loss to identify him.

showed signs of disobedience, growling under his

breath as he recorded the amount of treasure in his

ledger each morning. As the pack s former leader,

Trammil desperately wanted to oust Armon, but he

could never get the rest of the pack to agree on a means

other than single combat to do so.

As time went on, Trammil became bolder. He spent

most nights sniffing around the village in his wolf form,

hoping to catch the scent of the new leader on a villager

and thus establish his identity. Alas, his attempts were

doomed to failure because, unlike a real werewolf,

Armon smelled like a human in human form and like

the ancient werewolf lord Gnarlpaw in wolf or hybrid

form. Thus, the scent that Trammil and the other were-

wolves recognized as their pack leader was totally absent

when he resumed human form. But although Armon

knew that the item protected him from detection by this

means, he also realized that it was only a matter of time

before he made some error that would enable Trammil to

discover the truth. Thus, Armon decided to gain some

unwitting aid in removing his rival.

One evening, Bistle used Gnarlpaw’s fang to transform

into Gnarlpaw, then prowled around town until Trammil

picked up his scent. He led the werewolf on a tremendous

chase that ended in the town s only house of worship a

small temple dedicated to the goddess Ehlonna. There

Armon savagely slaughtered Ishtal, the elf priestess who

ran the temple. As he had hoped, Trammil followed his

scent to the temple, where Armon waited to attack him.

With his teeth and claws, Bistle savaged his opponent, but

stopped short of delivering the killing blow. Instead,

Armon fled the temple, transformed back into his own

shape, and ran through the town screaming Murder! at

the top of his lungs. Trammil, who lay near death from

Armon s attacks, had barely staggered to his feet by the

time the townsfolk arrived.

Suddenly realizing the picture he presented as a

wolf covered in blood beside the corpse of the priestess,

Trammil changed back to his human form and tried to

tell his fellow villagers the truth. But seeing a killer

beast turn into their friend and neighbor only fright-

ened the humans more. The werewolf townsfolk tried

to talk some sense into their human neighbors, point-

ing out the need for a proper trial, but the terrified

humans refused to listen. They bound and gagged poor

Trammil, dragged him out of town, and hanged him.

Torn between loyalty to their friend and fear of discov-

ery, the other werewolves in town made no further

effort to stop the hanging, knowing that if their own

natures were discovered, they would face a choice

between shedding innocent blood and sharing

Trammil s fate.

ARMON BISTLE

The pack s new leader is actually Armon Bistle, the rich-

est person in Deepwood. Though he is not a werewolf,

he owns a talisman that allows him to mimic a were-

wolf s powers, including the scent ability. With this

artifact, known as Gnarlpaw’s Fang , he managed to

discover the true identities of the members of the

Deepwood pack by picking up werewolf scents on

them while they were in human form.

Armon actually has nothing against the pack. He s

known those people since moving to Deepwood more

than a year ago, and they have never been anything but

good neighbors to him. But Armon has always been a

manipulative, opportunistic man, and he will stop at

nothing to gain more wealth.

Before moving to Deepwood, Armon made his

living from confidence schemes. His typical ploy was to

move into a new town, make friends with the locals,

and then come up with an elaborate plan to fleece them

of all their wealth.

Bistle was good at his trade, and he managed to

amass quite a fortune in gold, gems, and other valuables.

Considering that he had been forced to flee from lynch

mobs in the last three cities where he had worked his

schemes, he decided that it might be time to retire. So

he took his ill-gotten loot, changed his name, and moved

to Deepwood, a community so remote that he was sure

none of his former neighbors could ever find him.

Initially, Armon had no intention of taking advan-

tage of his new neighbors. Their combined wealth was

less than one-fifth of what he d already amassed, so

taking it would hardly be worth his while. More impor-

tantly, though, he knew that this village was probably

the last safe place in the world where he could hide.

Greed, however, is more powerful than logic. And

when Armon happened to discover a cave that was prac-

tically made of gold, he decided to use Gnarlpaw’s fang, a

magic item he d acquired during his last job, to take

the form of Gnarlpaw, an ancient werewolf lord, and

coerce the Deepwood pack into doing his bidding.

THE LONE WOLF

For a while, events went exactly as Armon Bistle had

planned. The Deepwood pack obeyed his orders, mined

the gold, and hid it away. Only Trammil Nimman ever

SHADOW OF THE WOLF

In death, Trammil reverted to his human shape. But the

townsfolk left him hanging there and placed a sign

reading murdering dog around his neck as a warning

to any other werewolves that might be near.

Deepwood is now a town nearly paralyzed by fear.

Trammil had been a member of the community for years

and yet no one had ever suspected his dark secret. Worse

still, upon searching his belongings, the townsfolk found

a ledger containing notes in a language that they could

not read. Could this be a list of other local werewolves?

After all, werewolves often run in packs. Who else among

them might be a murderous beast in disguise?

The townsfolk decided to place the book in the

temple under constant surveillance, reasoning that

sooner or later one of the other werewolves would try

to steal it. If they could capture that person alive, they

might be able to gain more information. Alternatively,

if someone with knowledge of this language happened

through town, they might be able to prevail upon that

person to reveal the book s contents to them.

In fact, the book is Trammil s ledger, in which he

recorded the daily amounts of gold and the specific loca-

tions where the werewolves buried it. The language is a

shorthand used by woodcutters and caravan drivers (the

only language that Armon and Trammil shared, other

than Common). Although no member of the pack can

read the book either, they all know the general nature of

its contents and do not feel that they can gain any infor-

mation from it. Only Armon has an interest in the book.

Since Trammil s hanging, the pack has refused to do

any more digging. In fact, its members have stopped

transforming into wolves altogether. While they find

living solely in human form a bit restrictive after giving

free rein to their wild sides for so long, they can think of

no other way to break the big wolf s hold over them

and break it they must, before more tragedy ensues.

Since the werewolves refuse to take on wolf form

anymore, Armon has no further means to coerce them.

He cannot approach them in his human form and

threaten to divulge their secrets because that would

reveal his own identity. And he cannot move through

town in wolf form because the townsfolk are more than

happy to slay wolves on sight. At this point, Armon just

wants to retrieve what gold he can and leave Deepwood

forever. But first he has to find a way to get his hands on

Trammil s ledger.

To complicate matters still further, Trammil s death

has convinced the Deepwood werewolves to turn on

their unwanted leader. Various members of the pack

have been taking turns guarding the area where the

gold is hidden. They plan to assume wolf form and

attack anyone who comes to retrieve it, since the only

person who could know about it is their tormentor.

ADVENTURE SYNOPSIS

Upon arriving at the outskirts of Deepwood, the PCs

see Trammil s body hanging from a tree. As they

proceed into town, they sense that the inhabitants are

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THE MORAL QUANDARY

Although it may not be obvious at first, the pivotal

question on which this scenario turns is this: How

will the people of Deepwood react when they find

out that they have hanged an innocent man?

Trammil died both because of his lycanthropic

nature and because he allowed himself to be

maneuvered into a compromising position. He was

never permitted to plead his innocence because the

townsfolk presumed that, as a werewolf, he must be

guilty. But even though many characters would call

Trammil a “monster,” the fact remains that he was

punished for a crime he did not commit.

Several aspects of this adventure also hinge on a

tangential question: What will the ordinary citizens

of Deepwood do when they find out that their neigh-

bors are werewolves?

The werewolves of the Deepwood pack have suc-

cessfully hidden their true nature from friends,

neighbors, and even loved ones for decades. Can

the ordinary citizens of the town accept, under-

stand, and—most importantly—forgive the pack for

its years of deception?

There is no easy answer to either of these ques-

tions. Indeed, it is these aspects of the plot that

you as DM can most easily adapt to suit your pur-

poses. But before you can do that, you must decide

what message you want to impart. Possibilities

include:

• Appearances can be deceiving.

• Not all “monsters” are evil.

• Never hide the truth, no matter how monstrous,

from those you love.

• Punishment meted out too swiftly is often tainted

with injustice.

• Nothing is as simple as it first seems.

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extremely fearful about something. They can interact

with the townsfolk as much as they wish to gather

information regarding recent events. All such informa-

tion comes from the perspective of innocent humanoid

residents who know nothing about the Deepwood pack

or Armon s secret.

Eventually, using either their own abilities or a scroll of

comprehend languages that remains in the Temple of

Ehlonna, the PCs can decipher Trammil s ledger. The

information therein leads them to the Vale of the Silvery

Moon, where a confrontation with some of the Deepwood

werewolves (and Armon, if he still lives) occurs.

• In a previous adventure, the PCs confronted a were-

wolf that managed to elude capture. For months (or

even years), they were unable to locate their quarry,

but the news from Deepwood seems to match this

creature s modus operandi.

• The PCs are on a quest to find Gnarlpaw’s fang . Either

their own inquiries and research put them on

Armon s trail, or successful divinations point them

toward a tiny village in a remote forest.

BEGINNING THE

ADVENTURE

This adventure consists primarily of freeform encoun-

ters, which may be run in any order. Some encounter

areas are keyed to the maps; the specific placement of

the others is up to you as DM.

The adventure begins with encounter A as the PCs

approach the town of Deepwood. Thereafter, the

encounters may be used in any order, depending on

where the PCs decide to go and what they do.

ADVENTURE HOOKS

The PCs could come to Deepwood for any of several

reasons. They might come of their own accord after

hearing rumors about a werewolf terrorizing an inno-

cent village. Or they might inadvertently come across

Deepwood while traveling to or from a different adven-

ture. Perhaps one or more of the characters even hails

from this remote town.

As DM, you know best how to involve your players

and their characters in an adventure. You can use the

following adventure hooks to spur your imagination,

modifying them as necessary to make them appropriate

for the characters interests.

A. APPROACH TO TOWN

The first clue about what s happening in Deepwood

comes as the PCs reach the outskirts of the town.

Several details may vary depending on how much time

has passed since the night of Trammil s hanging.

If the PCs wander into Deepwood while in midst of

some other adventure, or if they come for some reason

other than hearing of the werewolf attack, they could

arrive as early as the morning after the horrific events.

In this case, all the evidence is fresh, and the towns-

folk s emotions are especially raw.

If the PCs are responding to the news of the attack,

they can arrive three days after the murder and hanging

• While traveling, the PCs encounter a merchant or

other wanderer who has just come from Deepwood.

In the course of conversation, she tells them of the

troubles there.

• Several people who were swindled by a con artist

named Sv rd Coppermill (Armon s previous iden-

tity) hire the PCs to track down their nemesis. After a

difficult investigation, they discover that Sv rd

seems to have relocated to Deepwood.

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SCALING THE ADVENTURE

Bad Moon Waning is designed for a party of four

10th-level adventurers, but it can easily be modified

to present an appropriate challenge for parties of

different sizes or levels. Consider adapting the

adventure as follows.

Four 8th-Level PCs: Run the adventure as

written, but with the following changes.

• Reduce the number of werewolves in encounter D

to three.

• Reduce Armon’s hit points when he uses

Gnarlpaw’s fang by 25%.

Four 12th-Level PCs: Run the adventure as

written, but with the following changes:

• Increase the number of werewolves in encounter

D to seven.

• Add two fighter levels to Armon in his werewolf

lord form. (The creature is currently a 10th-level

fighter with the lycanthrope template; see his

statistics in encounter D and the werewolf lord

entry in the Monster Manual .)

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