TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of Contents............................................................................. 1
Ch. 4.8: Deathly Demons...................................................................1
Combat Encounter: Deathly Demons.............................................................1
CH. 4.3.8: WEIRD WATERS & the 20-foot channel of water that runs through the center, Iarleth waits in meditation, keeping
her senses open to unique disturbances in the water that would indicate the massive bug’s
arrival. On the left walkway, Winston has been studying the magical conduits, feeling the

ELEMENTAL HEARTS pulses of energy running to and through, and discovers that these conduits have to run
underneath the entirety of Daggerford, or a large chunk of it.
Finishing your set up, all you can do is wait, so you wait.
The water rushes, bubbles and steams. The pipes hiss and groan. And then Winston realizes
Poking their heads around in the growing town of Daggerford has led our Spice that everything is wrong. Realizing too late that it was in fact you that was being hunted, he
Traders into a few scenarios. Half the party is currently underneath the town turns his attention back towards the room to feel not for the sound of a creature, but the
chasing down a wild “heat bug”, and the other half has been spirited away to an silence of a predator, and to his horror, he finds it. Looking through the steam, visibility is
Earthic Demiplane in pursuit of an Earth Elemental’s heart. With time running dropping rapidly, but before it is gone completely, he looks up to see the soft orange glow of
down on Madam Cross’s good graces, the party is preparing for the worst while still two large eyes set in the silhouette of a massive, elongated form.~
having a little fun where they can.
Have everyone roll initiative. The Remorhaz has a 27 Initiative.It
LIST OF OBJECTIVES :
C AMP OF THE CULT OF ORCUS
 Capture the “Heat Bug” with Renn’s magical trap.
At the top of one of the barren, rocky hills near Triel are three weather-worn
 Retrieve the Heart of a “pure” Earth Elemental. standing stones. These monuments were once a shrine to the Triad, the three
 Expedite the enchantment of Saraphena’s magical whip allied gods known as Torm, Tyr, and Ilmater. These stones were forgotten after
 Plan and prepare for the trek to the Forlorn Hills. some ancient war, and their once-hallowed ground has been desecrated by a cult
venerating the Demon Lord Orcus. The three stones are each twenty feet tall and
form a triangle fifty feet on each side. In the center of this triangle is a stone slab,
just large enough to fit an adult human.
COMBAT ENCOUNTER: WEIRD WATERS II The two cult fanatics, their four cultists, and their two mastiffs stand within the
After a skirmish with weird water elementals, the half of the party consisting of triangle. The knight known as Sir Emarkos is unconscious, stripped of armor,
Aster, Iarleth, and Winston find themselves in a service tunnel. Here, they come up bound, and gagged, and has been laid upon the stone slab. His screams drew the
with a plan and set up a trap for the Heat Bug. party to this location; he has had horrible, profane sigils carved into his chest by
Gasthyr’s ritual dagger. When the characters arrive, Gasthyr stands over Emarkos,
ENCOUNTER SUMMARY his dagger raised high. If they do not interfere immediately, the cult leader plunges
Going off the information they have learned about the behaviors of the Heat Bug, the knife into the knight’s chest, killing him instantly and sacrificing him to Orcus.
the party plans to flush out the Remorhaz using sound and then keep it within the Gasthyr or Heelon flees the ritual site if the other is defeated, and hides in the
area of effect of Renn the Beastmaster’s magical trap. Unfortunately, the creature wilderness until nightfall, whereupon he returns to Triel in secret.
is more intelligent than Renn anticipated, and the creature manages to sneak up If Emarkos is killed upon the slab, a crackling gateway to the Abyss rends itself
on the adventurers and launch an attack first! open in the air between the stones, and a wispy, jellyfish-like demon called a
Now the party must come back together and keep their plans intact while dybbuk drifts through. The four cultists collapse to the ground as their spirits are
keeping the creature from taking one of them and fleeing. While killing the wrenched from their bodies, and drift into the portal. Finally, tenebrous energy
creature is the much more feasible option, the rewards and potential for containing crackles around the two mastiffs, and they whine and bellow as they are painfully
it are much higher. transformed into shadow mastiffs. The dybbuk then possesses the knight’s corpse,
and the surviving cult leaders point it towards Triel, where it can cause unfettered
ENCOUNTER START chaos.
As the PCs prepare in the tunnel, read the following: If Emarkos is saved, none of the terrible things described above come to pass,
and he thanks the characters for their heroism. He urges them to avoid Triel, as
~Your brief battle with the strange-acting waters drew you from the grounded, clustered it’s where these cultists came from. As for him, he casts find steed and calls his
pipelines, to what appears to be a service tunnel. Studying the new space, you find that it faithful warhorse Luxio to his side. He smiles upon the characters and says that he
stretches out to about 60-feet long, and 20-feet wide, with a 20-foot-high ceiling that arches will find a way to help them if they ever find him in Elturel.
overhead an additional 5 or so feet. There are pipes that carry both foul and fresh water in
opposing directions overhead, as well as along the walls. Speaking of the walls, scattered
TROUBLE IN T RIEL
amongst them are several control panels connected to gently pulsating conduit cables, which It’s okay if the characters ignored the hook. They arrive in Triel late that night
thrum with power. You quickly realize that these are the power cables and controls that direct without trouble. However, while they rest for the night in the village, the knight
the flow of water throughout all of Daggerford. returns. The knight’s corpse staggers into the streets, puppeteered by the dybbuk
Along the right ride of the two 10-foot wide walkways, Renn sets up his magical containment
summoned by the cultists of Orcus that assembled north of town. The demon is
field; a 2-foot leather scroll laid down and drawn on by special inks, forming a 10-foot in
dimensions arcane installation, with Aster assisting where she can in this hour long process. In accompanied by two faithful shadow mastiffs that have been ordered to wait to kill
until the dybbuk itself starts to kill. The shadow mastiffs quickly leave the center of
town to hunt fleeing villagers, but one of them returns to the dybbuk’s side if its DC 10 Survival.
demonic master is attacked, returning at the start of the second round of combat.
The characters are awakened in the night when the dybbuk breaks into a local 1 Tattered Leather Armor
weaver’s house and terrorizes the family within by throwing up gouts of blood,
excreting piles of squirming maggots, and contorting its host’s limbs in impossible
ways as it scuttles across the ground.
A crowd of at least ten horrified villagers gathered outside the house in about
five minutes. Once this crowd has assembled, the dybbuk stops playing with its
food and starts to kill. It draws the knight’s dagger and starts hacking through the
clustered commoners. The still night rings with manic laughter and the blood
curdling screams of the dead. If the characters wish to help, just remember that
they’ve probably been sleeping—and if they take the time to don their armor, two
dozen people will have already died. If left unchecked for ten minutes (the time it
takes to don a suit of heavy armor), the dybbuk will have ravaged Triel, killing
dozens while any survivors flee to outlying farmhouses and hide in their cellars.

CONCLUSION
If the characters defeated the cultists and rested in Triel that night, the villagers
enjoy their story of defeating a cult of Orcus-worshipers but laugh it off as mere
fiction. Demon cults? In Elturgard? What a ridiculous story. If one of the cult
leaders escaped in the encounter atop the ritual hill, a character with a passive
Wisdom (Perception) score of 18 or higher notices a figure quietly slip out through
the front door of the inn as the crowd laughs. This clandestine cultist is either
Heelon or Gasthyr, depending on who escaped. Let the characters deal with him as
they see fit. Note that Gasthyr still wears the brooch of shielding as described
above, and he offers it to the characters in exchange for his life if he is threatened.

TREASURE
C ULTIST (4) M ASTIFF (2) G ASTHYR (1)
DC 10 Survival. DC 10 Survival DC 10 Survival
1 Tattered Leather Armor 1 Tattered Heavy Club 1 Tattered Leather Armor
1 Tattered Scimitar 1d4 Javelin 1 Bible of Orcus
1 Pamplet of Orcus 1 Tattered Spiked Shield 1 Spellcasting Component
1 Lizardfolk Hide Pouch
1 Brooch of Shielding

HEELON (1) SIR EMARKOS (1) ZOMBIE (X)

DC 10 Survival DC 10 Survival DC 10 Survival
1 Tattered Leather Armor 1 Dagger of the Companion, 1 Zombified Hand
1 Bible of Orcus Deolysis
1 Spellcasting Component
Pouch

SHADOW MASTIFF (2)