d20 Goodman Games Throwdown With the Arm Ripper.pdf

THROWDOWN WITH THE ARM-RIPPER

By Luke Johnson

Cover Art: Nick Greenwood

Concept Design and Cartographer: Jeremy Simmons

Graphic Design: Alvin Helms

Interior Art: Nick Greenwood

Editor: Aeryn “Blackdirge” Rudel

Editor-in-Chief: Luke Johnson

Publisher: Joseph Goodman

Playtesters: Seth House, James Johnson, and Jason Nilsen

www.goodman-games.com

THROWDOWN WITH THE ARM-RIPPER

INTRODUCTION

Y our adventures are already exciting. Characters explore

lized folk a lesson, she released them back into Almack, Sun-

dan’s capital city.

The boys’ families were overjoyed when they returned, but at the

next moon, their lycanthropy took hold. They became vicious

werebeasts and rampaged throughout the city, slaying almost a

dozen people.

The series of events that followed was brutal and lengthy. By im-

perial mandate, all the boys were locked in a dungeon —

permanently. All the boys, that is, except Prince Roberre;

since his father was the king, his family had enough power,

influence, and favors to afford numerous expensive scholars,

wizards, and clerics who, after almost a year, succeeded in curing

Roberre’s lycanthropy. Or so they thought.

While guards were hurling the boys into the dungeon, the king-

dom sent soldiers and spellcasters into Darkpine Forest to find

this Mythra “witch” and make her pay. However, the forest is a

place of shadows and thorns, and creatures stranger and dead-

lier than Mythra dwell within. Besides, the woods were Mythra’s

territory, and she knew how to avoid detection. After losing sev-

eral of their number, the soldiers fled the forest. Subsequently,

the king declared the place permanently off-limits.

Years passed. Most people forgot about the events surrounding

Darkpine Forest and the so-called Night of Blood, in which sev-

eral young noblemen turned into beasts and slew Almack citi-

zens. Some people, however, didn’t forget. Roberre never did,

nor did Mythra. The witch was bitter that Roberre had escaped

her punishment, but she bided her time, knowing that an op-

portunity would present itself eventually.

That opportunity came shortly after Roberre turned twenty-six,

ten years after his fateful excursion. Over the preceding year, the

people of Sundan had been making an effort to tame and har-

vest Darkpine Forest. Woodsmen had been cutting down trees

on the fringes, while soldiers protected them and rangers hunted

and destroyed some of the more dangerous creatures within.

Prince Roberre was involved in these efforts, as he had a per-

sonal stake in the forest. Mythra noted his presence, and she

knew it was time to show the civilized savages that they were

what it meant to toy with her or her forest.

Mythra, a band of goblin cohorts, and her newest creation, an

enormous, once-human brute, ambushed the prince and his

small train of soldiers, as they wound their way among the trees.

The combat was short and barbaric. The goblins overwhelmed

the soldiers with their numbers, and the witch’s great brute had

a tendency to grab people, twist off their arms, and fling them

into trees. One such victim was Prince Roberre, who, at the end

of the battle, lay bleeding and broken at the base of a tree.

Mythra and the goblins left him for dead.

Yet Roberre was tougher than he appeared (in a large part be-

cause of the healing magic items he carried). He regained con-

sciousness and staggered back to civilization, covered with blood

and missing his right arm. He never got a good look at the spell-

caster who was behind the ambush (and does not suspect

Mythra, his old nemesis), but he certainly got up close and per-

sonal with the creature that tore off his arm. He called it the

Arm-Ripper.

Roberre made it back to his castle. He wasn’t content to live the

rest of his days as a cripple, so he leveraged his position, and

what money he could obtain, to conduct extensive research. The

kingdom had entered lean times: war threatened on the borders,

Continued on page 5…

dungeons, crush monsters, and score loot. But maybe you

want your adventures to be more. Maybe you want adventures

that are over-the-top, in-your-face, BADASS THRILL RIDES!

Maybe you want adventures that are things of LEGEND! Maybe

you want adventures that are WICKED SICK! That’s what

Wicked Fantasy Factory gives you: axes hacking, spells exploding,

and blood spewing. Don’t just crawl through dungeons — make

them sorry they ever met you!

Throwdown with the Arm-Ripper is a Wicked Fantasy Factory

adventure for four to six heroes of 2nd–4th level. The party’s

total levels should be 12–18. All characters will have a good time

in this adventure; the party should include at least one healer

(like a cleric) and one or two characters with serious combat

potential (fighters, barbarians, paladins, and so forth). An

athletic, dexterous character (like a rogue or monk with ranks

in skills like Balance, Climb, Jump, and Tumble) will find be in

high in demand in some places. A slippery character that is

adept at escaping grapples or an unusual character with a

through-the-roof grapple check (+20 or higher) will be useful

when the party confronts the Arm-Ripper. In addition, a

character with a permanent injury (blindness, a missing limb,

or the like) might find himself cured by the end.

Though it’s designed for characters of around 3rd level, you can

easily adjust the adventure to challenge heroes of higher or lower

level. See the “Adjusting the Challenges” sidebar for ideas.

Adventure Summary: In Throwdown with the Arm-Ripper, the

heroes lend a hand to Prince Roberre. The prince is missing an

arm, but he knows how to regain it, and he hires the heroes to

help him journey to a magic altar rumored to repair things that

are broken. The heroes descend into a cave in Darkpine Forest,

confront numerous creatures that have taken up residence in the

cave, as well as guardians placed by Roberre’s nemesis, and at

the end confront the Arm-Ripper and the beast’s druidic master.

Roberre then regains his arm… but the magic also triggers his

dormant lycanthropy, and, as a werewolf, Roberre speeds into

the nearby town to kill. The final phase of the adventure is a

moonlit dash over rooftops to stop the transformed prince.

ADVENTURE

BACKGROUND

W hen Roberre, prince of Sundan (or whatever nation you’d

care to substitute in your campaign) was sixteen, he and

a group of friends went on an adventure to Darkpine Forest.

Their excursion would have been simple teenage foolishness, ex-

cept they ran into someone who lived in the forest and didn’t

like to be disturbed: the druid-witch Mythra. Tales called her the

Mistress of Change, for she studied how druidic and arcane

magic could enact changes both permanent and temporary in

living creatures. Mythra didn’t take kindly to a bunch of adoles-

cent pranksters poking around near her home, but she also saw

them as ripe specimens for her experiments.

Mythra captured the boys and, over long days, infused them

with permanent, “natural” lycanthropy. Then, to teach the civi-

THROWDOWN WITH THE ARM-RIPPER

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