Dungeon Magazine 167.pdf

ISSUE 167 | JUnE 2009

A DUNGEONS & DRAGONS ® ROLEPLAYING GAME SUPPLEMENT

Contents

4 heart of the forbidden forge

By Luke Johnson

Many Cannith creation forges were lost on the Day of

Mourning, but a rogue artificer has uncovered one of

those that pursued some of the most experimental and

dangerous research during the Last War. But while

seeking the forbidden knowledge in the forge, this

explorer awakened a dark power that was more than

she could handle, and that now threatens the region.

An adventure for 7th-level PCs set in the Eberron

campaign setting.

on the Cover

Illustration by Matt Cavotta

3 editorial

99 ruling skill

Challenges

By Mike Mearls

Mike continues to educate on the

nature of skill challenges, with

unique applications and examples.

103 save My gaMe

By Stephen Radney-MacFarland

A DM’s best friend? Stephen

Radney-MacFarland, back with

more advice and letters from the

mailbag.

107 dungeonCraft

By James Wyatt

James discusses the latest changes

to his f ledgling campaign.

50 garaitha’s anvil

By Scott Fitzgerald Gray

The Scales of War Adventure Path continues. The

githyanki are on their heels after suffering losses on

the mortal world and in the Feywild. The PCs have the

opportunity to strike a telling blow for their world as

they undertake a mission of certain death at a githyanki

stronghold and planar nexus. But how can a small group

of adventurers possibly hope to defeat a fortress filled to

the brim with angry, fighting githyanki? An adventure

for 17th-level PCs.

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EDiToRiAL

WHOSE CAMPAIGN IS THIS,

167

Dungeon

June 2009

ANYWAY?

Editor-in-Chief

Chris Youngs

Senior Art Director

Jon Schindehette

i started building D&D ® campaigns when i was 11,

which means i’ve been building campaigns longer

than i’ve been driving (legally, at least). over the years,

i’ve learned exactly one thing about building cam-

paigns: Don’t do all the work yourself . Give your players

space to enhance what you create, and when they try

to add to your campaign, embrace their ideas as if

they were your own. Just say yes .

All kinds of D&D books are aimed squarely at

players. Just as i urge you to pilfer campaign ideas

from other sources, you should also incite your

players to pull ideas from core rulebooks, power sour-

cebooks, and campaign player’s guides. Encourage

them to explore and use what’s out there.

i dare my players to introduce new elements to my

campaigns. i double-dare them. Case in point, when

i sat down to build my first 4th Edition campaign

(which plays out every Monday and Wednesday

night with two different groups of players), i designed

the world of iomandra around the PC races in the

Player’s Handbook . i gave no thought as to how goli-

aths, gnomes, shifters, and other races might fit into

the campaign world, and i didn’t go out of my way to

create space for them, either. However, when Greg

Bilsland (one of our editors) joined the Wednesday

night game, he wanted to try out an early version of

the genasi, which hadn’t yet been published. i said

yes. When a player comes to you and asks to add

something new to your campaign, you should also say

yes. W h y? Because “your” campaign is the players’

campaign, too. if one of your players can imagine a

place for genasi in the world, then so can you.

When the time came to insinuate “Brell” into

the game, Greg came armed with a background for

his character. in f leshing out the how’s and why’s

of Brell’s past, Greg had questions about genasi in

iomandra. Where do they live? How prevalent are

they? Do they have any particular views? What do the

other races of the world think of them? My answer

to him was basically, “You tell me.” So, he wrote up

a couple paragraphs and sent them to me, and i took

those ideas and figured out a way to work genasi into

the story of the campaign. in fact, i was so inspired

by what Greg had done that i decided to turn one of

the major paragon-tier villains of the campaign into

a genasi. it forced me to make genasi relevant to the

campaign, and frankly the campaign is lot stronger

with them around, particularly since Greg and i have

portrayed genasi as something of a mystery to the

other races.

A campaign world that evolves to include new

game elements is much more fun and interesting to

players than one that doesn’t allow this or that . The

trick is to get your players to do some of the heavy

lifting, to make them the instigators when it comes to

expanding the depth and breadth of the campaign.

Sadly, Brell died before he had the chance to

savor the fruits of what he’d wrought. The day after

Brell’s untimely demise, Greg came by my desk and

said, “is it okay if my next character is a deva?” i, of

course, said yes . i didn’t have a clue how devas might

fit into the campaign, but i basically left that up to

Greg. Now it’s hard to imagine the iomandra cam-

paign without them.

Web Specialist

Chris Sims

Web Production

Bart Carroll, Steve Winter

Contributing Authors

Scott Fitzgerald Gray, Luke

Johnson, Mike Mearls,

Stephen Radney-MacFarland,

James Wyatt

Developers

Stephen Radney-MacFarland,

Peter Schaefer, Stephen

Schubert, Rodney Thompson

Editor

Miranda Horner

Cover Artist

Matt Cavotta

Contributing Artists

Rob Alexander, Vince Chui,

Wayne England, David Hammond,

Jeffrey Koch, Raven Mimura,

William O’Connor, Adam

Paquette, Frank Wall,

Cartographers

Sean Macdonald, Mike Schley

Publishing Production Specialists

Angelika Lokotz, Erin Dorries,

Christopher Tardiff

Web Development

Mark A. Jindra

D&D Creative Manager

Christopher Perkins

Executive Producer,

D&D Insider

Ken Troop

Director of RPG R&D

Bill Slavicsek

Special Thanks

Richard Baker, Greg Bilsland, Logan Bonner, Michele Carter,

Jennifer Clarke Wilkes, Andy Collins, Bruce R. Cordell, Jeremy

Crawford, Rob Heinsoo, Peter Lee, Mike Mearls, Kim Mohan, Cal

Moore, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, Peter Schaefer, Stephen

Schubert, Matthew Sernett, Chris Sims, Rodney Thompson,

Rob Watkins, James Wyatt

HEART

OF THE

FORBIDDEN

FORGE

By Luke Johnson

An adventure for 7th-level characters

illustrations by Matt Cavotta, Francis Tsai and Empty

Room Studio [David Hammond, and Frank Wall]

cartography by Sean Macdonald

“I knew hiring goblins was a bad idea.

I knew! But my respect for Jelia blinded

me and stayed my tongue. Now I sense

something has awakened deep within

the forge, and I am stuck here as a

hostage to ensure Jelia’s cooperation.

Dear reader, if you hold this book in

your hands, I beg you to make it your

sacred duty to return it to Breland and

the King’s Citadel. They must know

what happened here should Valsath

and her hobgoblins take the secrets of

this forge back to Darguun.”

—Journal of Marus, a Citadel novice

June 2009 | Dungeon 167

HEART OF THE FORBIDDEN FORGE

The Kech Shaarat goblins have numerous schemes

to unite the Dhakaani clans under the Bladebearer

banner. one such plan focused on beating the Word-

bearer goblins to an artifact called the Ashen Crown.

A group of adventurers defeated the goblins in this

quest, but other missions are moving forward. one

involves the capture of a destroyed creation forge and

the forbidden creature within it. The Bladebearers

have an unlikely ally in this goal: an eladrin artificer

working for the Brelish government.

“Heart of the Forbidden Forge” is a Dungeons &

Dragons ® adventure for five 7th-level characters in

the Eberron ® campaign setting. if the PCs have been

through the events in Seekers of the Ashen Crown, this

adventure can be easily slotted after the events of that

one have concluded. Characters do not need to have

been involved with Seekers of the Ashen Crown ™ to play

through “Heart of the Forbidden Forge.” The adven-

ture works fine for other PCs as well, and it can be

adapted easily to another campaign setting.

The forge’s importance was not lost on other

forces. Shortly before the Mourning ended the Last

War, a group of irregular special forces, thought

to be a freelance mercenary team in service to

the Karrnathi government, collapsed the forge’s

entrance, trapping everyone inside. Haestus and the

other artificers died slowly.

The Karrnathi irregulars were journeying through

Cyre with news of their success when the Mourning

struck. Nobody saw them ever again. in the chaos that

surrounded the ensuing events, the creation forge on

Darguun’s border was all but forgotten. Even though

House Cannith knows of the forge, its actual location

was secreted in documents held within Cyre. or so

the house officials think.

Several months ago, Jelia, an eladrin artificer

working for the Citadel of Breland, discovered a men-

tion of the forge while going through old documents

from the Last War. She also found captured docu-

ments indicating that the Cannith artificers had been

working on something that could have turned the

tide of the Last War: infiltrator warforged units and

an autonomous heavy assault construct in the shape

of a dragon. These documents, unseen since the Day

of Mourning, indicated that the forge had even pro-

duced working prototypes.

if she told her patrons about her discovery, they

would send a team from the Citadel, and Jelia would

gain little for her momentous discovery. She wanted

the credit; she wanted to help her country in a more

substantial way. She decided that she didn’t need the

Citadel to capture the forge for Breland.

But she knew she couldn’t do it on her own, and

her partner and apprentice Marus wasn’t enough sup-

port. She needed a neutral third party—warriors who

wouldn’t betray her to her superiors until her plan was

complete. Thus, she hired reputable hobgoblin merce-

naries in Darguun. one of their leaders, Valsath, struck

a deal with Jelia: For triple the normal fee, the goblins

would help her find the forge, set it up and running,

and then relinquish control of it to Breland. in return,

Jelia promised to share her secrets with the group’s arti-

ficers. Jelia realized that her new allies were dangerous,

but she felt that she could handle them. in her haste,

she failed to do enough legwork to discover Valsath and

her cohorts are far from neutral. They’re Bladebearers

working under the cover of a mercenary company.

The mission started out promising. The entrance

to the forge complex was beyond recovery, so Jelia

and her new goblin allies blew a hole in a nearby cliff.

This new cave allowed access to a small complex of

natural caverns that connect to the forge.

once inside, Jelia and the Bladebearers discovered

prototype constructs and Haestus d’Cannith, now

a forgewraith. Since Jelia and Valsath planned to

restart the forge, Haestus agreed to work with them.

Everything was going well, until Jelia and Valsath

arrived at the heart of the complex. Here they found

the creation forge, and next to it stood the hulking,

motionless form of the prototype dragon.

Several days of sweat and toil allowed Jelia to

activate the dragon. When the dragon stirred, the cre-

ation forge also came to life. Machinery whirred and

gears turned, although the forge was clearly damaged.

“i am Calmachia,” said the dragon, “and my heart and

this forge are one. And you are mine now.” it turns

out that before she went into torpor, the dragon had

linked the forge to herself.

Calmachia promptly set to work creating smaller

dragonlike constructs—her “children.” Valsath

quickly turned on Jelia, keeping the artificer and her

apprentice alive for further use. The hobgoblin com-

mander figures that Calmachia and her progeny can

help the Bladebearers slay their enemies and prove

their strength to the other Dhakaani clans.

BACKGROUND

During the Last War, a creation forge near Darguun,

on the border of what is now the Mournland, was

important in the experiments that led to the creation

of the warforged race. in the past, it produced many

prototypes that led the way for the creation of modern

warforged. Later, it continued experiments in this

vein. Then, the forge’s overseer, Haestus d’Cannith,

was also interested in necromancy and how he could

combine this art with Cannith’s artifice to create

other sorts of beings. Haestus and his people kept

working on prototype warforged and constructs. They

extended their experiments largely without oversight

from house officials.

June 2009 | Dungeon 167

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