H4 The Throne of Bloodstone.pdf - Free

edy of his wife’s death in childbirth.
He had counseled that his people give
tribute to the bandits—anything,
just to keep surviving. But slavery was
worse than death, and so he resolved
to fight back, even at the risk of losing
all.
He needed help—powerful help,
but where could he turn? There was
no treasure with which to buy mercenaries.
He could only beg. Garlen
and Garvin, two cousins, were sent
south just before the fall harvest to
seek the aid of powerful adventurers
who might save his people.
The Adventure of
Bloodstone Pass
In H1, Bloodstone Pass, Garlen
and Garvin approached a party of
adventurers in the town of Valls, capitol
of the Duchy of Arcata. Although
they could only afford to offer a fee of
five silver pieces per day, the adventurers
agreed to help.
Operating under a cloak of secrecy
and aided by the powerful magic of
the seven heroes, the village prepared
for battle. First, a party of tribute collectors
was ambushed and wiped out.
The villagers, long used to defeat,
were elated. Then came a battle on
the open field, and a punitive expedition
by the bandit army was defeated!
But then came a night of horror,
when a Priest of Orcus conjured the
dead of the Bloodstone graveyard to
unholy life, and corpses shambled the
streets. A simultaneous sneak attack
by enemy cavalry resulted in much of
the village being burned. The people
of Bloodstone were sore afraid, but
resolved that death was preferable to
subjugation and slavery. Thus it was
that the first clue of the presence of
the Prince of the Undead came to
light.
Then came the final battle, as the
Grandfather of Assassins himself took
the field. The aged, the women, and
the children took up arms, and all the
enemy’s might could not sway them.
The bandit army was broken, and the
Grandfather of Assassins retreated by
magic to his mountain fastness.
The beautiful daughter and heiress
of Baron Tranth, Lady Christine, fell
in love with one of the adventurers, a
brave paladin, and they planned to
wed. It seemed that with the powerful
patronage of these adventurers,
the Barony of Bloodstone might have
a bright future.
Yet even in the moment of victory,
the Baron realized that very soon winter
would set in. Even now, the cold
northern winds were bringing the
first frost to the valley. . . .
The Mines of Bloodstone
In H2, The Mines of Bloodstone,
an early winter set in and the villagers
began to fear a repeat of the Wolf
Winter. The military success of the
past few months had not solved all
the problems of Bloodstone, and the
adventurers were once again called to
action. But as they began to investigate
the food situation, a new night
of horror descended on the village. At
a home near the Abbey of St. Sollars,
a peasant family had been foully massacred
by worgs, and there was evidence
of vampirism. And painted on
a wall in the blood of the victims was a
goat’s head—sigil of Orcus, Prince of
the Undead.
All signs in the investigation pointed
to the long-closed bloodstone
mines, and it was there that the
adventurers traveled. The abandoned
mine shafts were redolent with evil; at
the bottom, demons and succubi
eagerly awaited new victims.
On defeating the demons and succubi,
the heroes rescued two
svirfneblin gnomes, who revealed the
existence of a huge cavern city of
duergar far beneath the mines. Once,
the gnomes said, the city had been
4
occupied by the svirfneblin, while the
duergar led mean and squalid lives
outside the cavern network. Over
many years, the duergar had preyed
on the deep gnomes, but never
achieved military victory.
But one night a lone duergar crept
into the gnome city to steal food and
perhaps murder a few gnomes.
Sneaking through an infrequently
used tunnel, he found an open mine
shaft. Curious, he crawled inside, and
found there a pool of mercury, glistening
coldly. He felt a calling from
it, a sense of implacable evil that
thrilled him. He stretched out his
hand, touched the mercury, and was
instantly transformed into a figure of
transcendent horror—an avatar of
Orcus, Prince of the Undead.
The spirit of Orcus ravaged the city
of the svirfneblin, driving them from
their homes and destroying their civilization
in a single night of horror.
The horror then stalked the mine
shafts near the surface to bring
death—and worse—to those who
worked there. Then the avatar dissipated,
leaving the strange pool of
mercury gleaming with its eerie blue
light.
The duergar were quick to exploit
the destruction of the svirfneblin,
and took the city for their own. Clerics
of the duergar found the glowing
pool, and learned its awful secret: it
was a gate to the lower planes of the
Abyss, and through it Orcus would
one day be able to enter the Prime
Material plane and claim it for his
own.
The duergar built a huge Temple of
Orcus with the pool of mercury at its
center. Guards, wards, and fiendish
traps were set about it to keep anyone
from penetrating its secrets. The
svirfneblin, shattered remnants of
their former glory, lurked in small
caves outside the city, hoping one day
to return.