Episode #4: Cultists and Natives

There was to be no parley. The figure atop the ziggurat waited, while the other figures drew back and appeared again with bows in hand. As the PCs came closer, they loosed their arrows and a battle had begun.

The leader was a cloaked figure, human, ritually scarred. Carrying a wooden staff, he wielded magic that blasted the earth and sent the PCs reeling. The others were more direct, wielding bows and outlandish, wicked-looking weapons: large, flattened wooden clubs with jagged, obsidian teeth embedded around its frame. As heavy as a greatsword, and at least as deadly. (These would later be called macuahuitls.) With livid scars like war paint, these humans didn't look like natives of the island. They wore leather armor, studded with strange ornaments and bits of metal, much of it piecemeal. And they seemed to relish the fight, though they didn't have the advantage of numbers. One of them was female, and though strategically smarter than her comrades, she didn't shirk from the violence, either.

Near the cloaked leader, a large cauldron atop the ziggurat was still fuming black smoke, and through this screen he used his magic. But the power of the PCs was greater:  While Ecaris and Gregor waded in as quickly as they could with blade and fist, Elody and Penitence followed with divine spells. Gruff hung back, loosing arrows back at the bowmen. The tide turned when Edrathior used his sorcerous magic to yank the cloaked leader and one of his henchman down from the upper tiers of the pyramid.

The PCs made short work of their foes, but before the battle ended, a small gray-skinned creature crawled from the black cauldron and leapt upon Ecaris's back. A tiny demon of some kind that moved with the ease of a monkey, it tore and bit at him, weakening him with its teeth as much with its foul presence. Eventually, the creature turned invisible and fled. Gruff managed to spot its tracks, which led due north off into the jungle, but tracking it through the lush vegetation seemed impossible.

Meanwhile, Bartholomew spotted a swiftly-moving fog coming in from the nearby beach. Hiding out, he was the first to encounter four humans whose sparse clothing and weapons associated them with the slain villagers. Two were darker skinned, with tiger-like war paint marking their bodies. The other two were paler skinned, a woman and an old man. The woman carried a tortoise shell for a shield, while the old man carried a scythe-club made of bone and a grisly headdress fashioned of humanoid skulls. Three had javelins and carried the same obsidian-toothed weapons the cultists had been using.

Barthlomew, assuming these newcomers to be enemies and wanting to get the drop on them—or acting on other motive—emerged from his hiding place and attacked the elder with his dagger. The natives turned and fought back, but not before blows were exchanged and blood was shed. Elody came onto the scene and broke up the fight, furious and upset, and the violence abruptly ended. The other PCs soon arrived, outnumbering the natives.

The natives didn't speak the Common tongue, so diplomacy was an awkward, pantomimed affair. The natives were especially wary of Penitence for her horns and tail, and for Gruff, who refused to put away his bow. But some sort of truce was reached and the leader—he called himself "Uja Zem"—convinced the PCs to follow them somewhere eastward, following the shoreline. Gruff followed from a distance, bow still ready.

A short while later, they reached a hidden cave in an unassuming clearing, where two more tiger-striped natives stood guard over four burial mounds and the body of another of their dead. The others headed in, but Gruff and Penitence opted to stay outside.

Episode #3: Reptiles and New Allies

First Day on the Isle, Continued

Gruff is well named. Apparently there’d been some dispute earlier in the day about Elody giving him unwanted healing. I just smiled and nodded. Around that time we saw two more survivors walking along the beach to the west, coming toward us. Elody cried out; one of them had the hat she'd lost.

Our two groups approached slowly, not yet knowing if we were friends or foes. Some of us almost missed the rustling from the jungle. When we heard it, we stopped. I looked across the beach at the newcomers and pointed to the trees. It seemed they had heard the sound, too. Four green man-sized creatures sprang out from the jungle, vaguely dragon-shaped but also wingless, led by a larger red one. The halfling and I fought the red one and two of the green ones. Our new companions to the west fought two of the green ones. Ed, Elody, and Gruff provided support from afar. The battle was over in short order.

Our new companions, a human in full plate armor and a tiefling in priestly vestments, said they’d sailed aboard the Sea Scepter and had also set out from Ierendi like us.

The human introduced himself as Sir Ecaris, a knight of the Thyatian Empire. Strong but a bit haughty, he looked the part. He told us the Emperor of Thyatis himself had sent him here on the same mission we were sent.

The tiefling said her name was Penitence, and that she was an avenger of the Raven Queen—goddess of death. When Bartholomew told her about the orb he’d taken from the undead, she immediately wanted to see it. She didn’t have much to say about it though, and Bartholomew was eager to have it back.

So, putting our plans to investigate the giant stone head on hold, we followed the shore eastward, skirting the jungle’s edge. Eventually we entered the jungle, making our way towards the smoke. Those of us who could be stealthy—Bartholomew, Penitence, Gruff, and I—moved ahead and kept an eye out for trouble. Those who could not—Elody, Ecaris, and Ed—trailed behind where they could avoid attracting attention. Some ways in, we had no idea whether or not we were heading where the little simian had directed us. I decided the best bet was to stick my head above the trees for a quick look around, so I climbed up the tallest tree I could find and took a look. A couple hundred feet to the northeast, I saw an almost conical mass of rock rising above the canopy. Several hundred feet beyond that was the pillar of smoke we’d seen earlier. I told my companions what lay ahead, and we decided to approach the stone and see what it was.

A few minutes later, we came upon that stone, standing alone in a clearing. This close, it was clearly meant to resemble the fang of some animal, though gigantic in proportion. Its southwest face (facing us) bore mystical writing of some kind, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Penitence said it was probably a warding stone, meant to keep something in—or something out. Looking about, we could see other, similarly shaped stones spread through the jungle, as if to trace out a circle. When we saw the long-necked behemoth, or one of his kind, reaching his neck overhead, but refusing to move his bulk closer, we thought the stones might be there to repel such beasts. There was a brief debate over what to call the creature. From now on I will refer to him as Bill.

Putting aside all thoughts of warding stones and of Bill, we carried on. After several hundred feet, we came to a broad clearing in the jungle. Here we found a wide circle of earth, with four little circles around its perimeter. Where you might expect a fifth to be, a mudslide seemed to have wiped out whatever had been there.  At the center of the circle sat a ziggurat from which issued the smoke we’d been following. Each little circle appeared to contain a cluster of buildings, apparently each its own village. As we approached, we began to see bodies scattered about the ground, almost skeletons really. They were blackened, not with soot but with some acrid chemical residue. Approaching as we did from the west, we came upon that circle first, and found it filled with nothing but burial mounds. We’d had our fill of the dead today, and so moved on to the circle immediately south of us.

There we found the remains of one of the villages, composed of little huts on stilts, all but destroyed, as if a band of savages had ridden through breaking things just for the sake of breaking things. More of those blackened skeletons littered the ground, and the earth was covered in booted footprints. At the center of the village was a large statue of a sea turtle, carved of some hardwood I couldn’t identify. Our companions searched for food among the wreckage, but everything had spoiled, as if by the same force that had afflicted the dead villagers. Elody and I investigated the largest hut we could find, reasoning it might be a meeting hall or chief’s house, and thus more likely to contain some clue as to what had happened. We found the body of a woman—blackened skeleton really—pinned to the floor with a spear. Her headdress marked her as chieftain or some similar office. Elody wished to grant all these dead a proper burial, but lacked the sacramental materials. She offered prayers alone. I wondered who’d done such a thing, and wished I’d have a chance to meet him.

That was when we noticed the man, or what looked like a man, watching us from the ziggurat. He was accompanied by a group of other humanoids with spears. They seemed spoiling for a fight.

Episodes #1 and #2 : Waking Up

It began with Elody, Gruff, Bartholomew, and Edrathior waking on a slick, but relatively flat rock as a female voice spoke sharply, "You must wake up!"

Battered from a shipwreck they could barely remember, they found they had been deposited somehow at the end of a jetty thrust out from a beach. It was early morning, in the dimness of early dawn, and the nearby waves were choppy and shot through with dorsal fins. Rising, they made their way to the beach, contending with aggressive sharks and even the thrown spear of some sort of scarred or war-painted native (the former were mostly avoided and the latter soon fled). An old wall of worked stone divided the jungle and vanished into the sea.

Soon they spotted a massive reptilian beast marching through the nearby jungle, though it made no aggressive moves toward them. They even spotted some sort of little monkey-raccoon creature they'd never heard of before, and it even seemed to warn them about the jungle on one side of the wall.

There was no clear evidence of the ship they'd sailed on, the Manticore, no indication that it had even wrecked at all. Were there any other survivors? How had they made it to this jetty relatively unscathed? Sure, they had only their favorite weapons and no gear to speak of, but even so, it seemed a coincidence to be precisely here. Wherever here was. Was this the island they'd spotted just before the storm hit?

As Gruff fortified a base camp, the other spotted another castaway further down the beach to the east. It was a half-orc named Gregor, who they'd soon learn had sailed aboard the White Countess out from Ierendi.

Diary of Pancratist Gregorius Half-Orc the Cenobite

First Day on the Isle

I awoke on a boulder just off the south shore. My first sight was of a giant stone warrior’s helmed face glaring at me. That is to say, the rock jutting before me was carved into the shape of a helmed warrior’s head. The helm’s eye-slits seemed to recede deep into the rock, like symmetrical tunnels or caverns. I decided to investigate. It was a short jump across, but I was immediately repulsed by the stench issuing from those eyes, as if the slaughterhouse had taken up with the powdermill and this were their baby. Changing my mind, I jumped down into the water to swim to shore. 

Just then I saw three figures on the beach, shouting and pointing out to sea. I looked over my shoulder: A shark fin split the waves. It was far away; I wasn’t worried and got back to swimming. The party on the sand grew louder. Splashing ashore, I looked back again. Not far behind, quicker than it had any right to, came a dweller from that stone helm. It looked as bad as it smelled, like a waterlogged hermit corpse, teeth and nails grown into fangs and claws. The figures on the beach were sprinting toward me now, allegedly to aid me; I could make out a halfling, a cloaked eladrin, and a tall figure all in cheery yellow, struggling to keep up under some sixty pounds of mail.

I knew the creature would catch up soon enough, and saw no reason to dawdle. I pivoted about and punched the corpse-thing square in the jaw, following with a short sharp kick to the floating ribs. We traded blows while the party on the beach hurried to catch up. The creature, being undead, was tougher than it looked. Its teeth and claws deadened the nerves wherever they struck, leaving us all but helpless to retaliate. Worse was the smell, the kind of stench to drive the breath from your lungs and the strength from your limbs. For a second there, the creature got the better of me, biting down hard and drawing blood. That was where things got hazy. I admit, I thought I was dying...when some unseen force yanked me to my feet and filled my body with new life.

The party on the beach jumped into the fight. The halfling seemed keen on getting himself a kidney; I hadn’t the heart to tell him it was already smeared across my foot. Regardless, he did well for himself. The eladrin threw globes of acid at the beast, though more seemed to strike the rocks than his target. Eventually, the tall yellow one, a half-orc like myself, joined the melee. Slowly but surely, the tide turned. When the corpse realized it was outnumbered, it scampered up the side of the rock. I leapt atop the stone head to cut off its escape. Before the corpse could get any further, the other half-orc threw a spear of holy light straight through its heart. It dropped without a sound into the rising tide.

First we made sure the thing was dead, and then we made our introductions. My new companions had all sailed on the Manticore together, undertaking the same quest as I. They shipwrecked here shortly before I awoke, just a short ways west of where I landed. They say they were investigating a section of ruined wall stretching into the jungle when they saw me and came to help.

The halfling calls himself Bartholomew and dresses like a broadsheet housebreaker. He got right down to business, pulled an evil-looking black orb out of the creature's eye socket and pocketed it. Nobody seemed to know what the orb was or what it did, but that didn’t deter him. He’s welcome to it.

My fellow half-orc introduced herself as Elody. She said she was a cleric for the goddess Avandra, leading me to think she—or the divinity she serves—was the one to heal me during that fight. Seeing my robes and my tonsure, she clearly knew I was a monk, and said she herself had received some training in the abbey. I didn’t get a chance to ask which one. She said she’d lost her hat in the shipwreck. She seemed upset about it.

The eladrin, an effeminate looking type, introduced himself as Edrathior with some fanfare. Everyone calls him Edra or Ed. He explained that he was not a wizard, nor a warlock, but a sorcerer. He also explained at the first chance, and every chance thereafter, that if he ever stubbed his toe, banged his knee, fumbled his weapon, or otherwise made a clown of himself, a magical force would seize everyone around him and toss them to the ground. I don’t know that I believe him, but I won’t be walking next to him.

They also told me of their friend Gruff—he being a shifter, a ranger, and an archer. They said he was to the northwest, preparing a camp for them and any other survivors they found. They joked he might have to build a new wing before the day was out.

While the undead thing at our feet was no threat, we were concerned there might be more of its kind hiding in the giant stone head. After a short rest, we started planning how to evaluate and deal with the threat. We decided that the best course was to climb over the top of the head, and lower ourselves down to the eyes, but for that we would need ropes of some kind. We decided to gather vines from the jungle to use as rope. My new companions stated their friend Gruff would be able to make ropes from vine easily.

As we approached, a massive, long-necked, reptilian behemoth thrust its head above the treetops nearby. My new companions told me it was strictly an herbivore. I wanted to ask, “How do you know that?” but decided to keep quiet until we were out of the jungle. We went slowly north searching for strong-looking vines. Just then, a small humanoid creature, like a monkey, or a raccoon, and yet like a man as well, gestured to us from the underbrush, as if beckoning for help. It pointed off to the east, spoke something akin to Elvish in a shrill voice, and then vanished as quickly as he had appeared. My companions seemed immediately inclined to follow. 

I wanted to know why we should trust this creature. Ed explained that shortly after he had landed, a scarcely-clad savage—a human native of this island?—had emerged from the jungle, thrown a javelin at him, and then run away. This little monkey man was the first thing on the island that hadn’t tried to kill him, so Ed was inclined to trust him. While planning our next move, we saw a plume of smoke rising somewhere to the east. We all suspected this had some connection with the monkey man’s request, and thought it worth checking out. We decided to head back to Gruff’s camp and get his help before continuing.

Castaways from the Known World

The PCs in this campaign come from the central continent of the Known World, a realm of empires, city-states, feudal societies, autocracies, and many wild frontiers. Where the nonhuman races might hail from the isolated forests of Alfheim, the mountains of Rockhome, or the hills of the Five Shires, human-dominated lands stretch across the map, ranging from the Principalities of Glantri in the northwest to the Empire of Thyatis in the southeast.

It's not a peaceable realm, but it is wondrous...and worth saving when the powers of evil arise.

Yet this campaign takes place almost wholly on the Isle of Dread, somewhere far to the south of the Known World.

Here are the PCs, categorized by the ships each set out on (and thereby shipwrecked in).

From the Manticore:

• Bartholomew - Male halfling rogue with sinister skills and more sinister trappings. He strives to keep all valuables, curiosities, and mystic treasures where they truly belong—in his pocket.
• Edrathior - Male eladrin sorcerer from the high elven cities of Alfheim. Purveyor of wild magic and bearer of perfect hair unmarred by weather or misfortune.
• Elody Skullgrinder - Female half-orc cleric with a sunny disposition. She serves Avandra, the goddess of travel, adventure, and freedom. Hailing from a village of other half-orcs at the edge of the Five Shires, she is blissfully unaware of the reputation half-orcs possess, and is awfully fond of halflings.
• Grüff - Male shifter ranger, a master tracker and scout from the Atruaghin clans. He is a peerless marksman and an expert woodsman (and camp-setter). When asked his name, he merely says, "Some call me gruff."

From the White Countess:

• Gregor(ius) - Male half-orc monk from a remote island-monastery at the edge of the Minrothad Guilds. With nothing more than a ki focus and his own bare fists (and feet, and elbow, and feet, and...), he can bring most enemies down. It is from his point of view that [some?] of the following recaps are told.

From the Sea Sceptre:

• Ecaris - Male human fighter (knight) from the Empire of Thyatia, he a plate-armored man of honor, straightforwardness, and a thirst for adventure.
• Penitence - Female tiefling avenger from the Malpheggi Swamp. She is a soft-spoken, falchion-wielding adventuress and a servant of the Raven Queen.

Setting the Stage

So this is the set-up for this campaign. Which, incidentally, started with 5th-level characters.

About two weeks ago (as far as the Player Characters know), heroes from across the land set out on a voyage on a dire mission. Their homelands—indeed, all homelands—were in peril.

Everything had been fine. Then, quite suddenly, prophets and soothsayers across the Known World began to foretell the coming of a new dark age, a time of great despair that would begin with the arrival of something known only as the Harbinger. The signs and omens were consistent. Sages and priests were consulted in every land, and most agreed: this "Harbinger" would take the form of a colossal beast that would rampage across the lands, devouring all in its path. If the legends were true, it would be larger and more powerful than any living dragon—and far deadlier.

And according to the prophecies, the Harbinger would awaken from its deep slumber in a year's time.

So a call went out for heroes. It was believed there was yet a way to collapse the prophecy and forestall the coming darkness. A summit was held in the southern Kingdom of Ierendi and many were invited; leaders, emissaries, and ambassadors arrived on behalf of their kingdoms or organizations, each wanting to know more about the prophecy.

And many so-called heroes answered the call. It looked as though every city, town, and village across the continent had sent its strongest warrior, its wisest priest, its most cunning rogue—or at least its bravest soul. Some were glory seekers, some treasure hunters, some courageous opportunists, and some might even have just wanted to help save the people they cared for.

In Ierendi an oracle spoke of solution! Of the existence of an artifact which could only be found in the Thanegioth Archipelago, a cluster of islands many leagues across the sea. What form the artifact would take was not yet known; presumably, it would reveal itself if one drew close to it. On this the prophets were certain. High priests communed with their own celestial agencies—from the templars of Bahamut and the loremasters of Avandra to the grim clerics of the Raven Queen—and all came to the same relative conclusion. The answer lay in the direction of the Thanegioth islands!

So a small fleet of ships set out to find it, crewed by the bravest of mariners and captained by the best of the best (or at least the most well paid). It was to be a long and dangerous voyage across the sea, and in fact it proved perilous from the start. In the southern gulf most of the ships were attacked by opportunistic pirates and nihilistic, demon-worshiping cultists who seemed bent on welcoming the coming apocalypse.

While treacherous, these cultists were wild, undisciplined, and could barely even crew the galleons they'd pirated. But for a few unfortunate casualties, the cultists were defeated or slain, and most of the heroes' ships reached the open sea, where it was smoother sailing.

At least for a time. After three weeks of travel, an unidentified trace of land appeared on the southwestern horizon. Could it be Thanegioth? So soon? No, not likely. According to all maps and charts, the Archipeligo was still a week or more away.

So what land was this? Something uncharted....

That night a powerful storm blew the whole fleet off course. It was all the crews could do to keep their vessels from capsizing. North and south seemed in flux. The skies unleashed a torrent of rain and lightning. Large, dark shapes in the water surged by the ships and jostled them about. Sailors and even some would-be heroes fell overboard.

All was chaos and fear. Just when the dawn approached and the captains began to steady their ships, each ship was struck with grave misfortune. Some hulls struck a razor sharp coral reef which seemed to appear out of nowhere. Others were lashes with lightning or splintered by mysterious tendrils. Sea water began rushing into the holds and even the passengers were summoned to the deck for help. The air filled with deafening shrieks from unseen creatures in the churning water. Magic was conjured for succor, prayers made for salvation.

But the gods seemed far and hope seemed gone. There was only terror. Then darkness.

But there were some survivors....

Dread Beginnings

Okay, first a bit of background.


Against all reason, I've started up yet another D&D campaign at the Brooklyn Strategist. Technically, it's only the second real campaign hosted there—the first being a weekly Eberron game (for which I keep a blog here).

Circa 1981. That's crazy, yo!

So what's this new one all about? Dungeon Module X1:  The Isle of Dread. All right, so what's that all about?

The Isle of Dread is a beloved and infamous adventure module published in 1981 for the D&D Expert set of rules. I was little more than a dumb little kid at the time, and I didn't own it (or any other D&D books) until the late 80s when it was already an oldschool product. It's just one of the many battered adventure modules I adored, but never actually ran because I didn't know many people who played D&D. So it was mostly my brother and I fidgeting around with the rules and making up our own stuff based on the artwork.

Fast forward to 2012. I've grown up, published a bunch of fantasy and sci-fi stuff (like this novel and this anthology) and even some RPG design. (The unequivocal proof is that I made myself an author page of Facebook—you can't be more legit than that, can you?)


Wizards of the Coast has already announced that the next "iteration" of Dungeons & Dragons is in development and is even gathering community feedback on the playtest materials so far...so it seems to me that the 4th Edition of the game is in the swan song phase of its official existence. The books are still out there, DDI—D&D Insider, the online incarnation of Dragon and Dungeon magazines—is still churning out 4E articles. (Heck, I write some of 'em.) And plenty of people obviously still seem to like it. I think actual 4E gameplay is a bit sluggish, but the battlefield strategies involved are pretty engaging. Enough people asked me about the possibility of running a 4E game that I caved in and just decided to do it.


And...D&D is D&D. It's all more or less the same game to me, regardless of the rules, and I'm just happy to being playing it.

For example, this happens in all editions.
Bugbears are jerks.

This campaign is going to be a 4E incarnation of the Isle of Dread with plenty of new ideas and twists of my own. Someone familiar with the original module is likely to find only so much familiar ground in these adventures—which is good, because I've got at least one player who knows it. And this blog, with help from my players, will be some sort of chronicle of the saga.

So what's the deal with the Isle of Dread, anyway, you might ask? The Isle is essentially D&D's own spin on Skull Island from King Kong (and its literary predecessor The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle's ): a mysterious tropical island in the remote corner of the world full of dinosaurs and other primeval beasties. And since this is D&D, it's got even more monsters and nefarious villains and magic and traps. Given the fact that each of the PCs has been shipwrecked on the Isle, there might even be a little bit of Lost in all this. With fewer loose strings and tangled knots.


A few years ago, the good folks at Paizo Publishing did a Greyhawk-oriented update of the Isle of Dread for Dungeon magazine, as part of their Savage Tide adventure path. There were some cool maps and ideas peppered among those. My intent is to mine these, the original module, and plenty of other books for some more ideas.


Then there's page 43 of Manual of the Planes....but never mind that for now.


I'm looking forward to some 4E-style battles and some serious high fantasy smackdown, but with decidedly oldschool wilderness and dungeon exploration sensibilities. Anyway, it should be fun. Feel free to tag along.

This book doesn't exist. It's a Photoshop mash-up, duh.

My next post: The set-up and the characters.