New product–The Fiddler’s Lament by Greg Vaughan

This entry was posted in Uncategorized on August 2, 2011 by Jason

Just finished my edit on the text of a new mini-adventure called the Fiddler’s Lament by none other than Greg Vaughan. It fits with the recent Gothic Adventure path at the lower levels. Greg is amazing and his story is so cool, creepy and compelling. Oh, and I just sent the files off to Robert Lazzaretti to do the maps. You might have heard of him…

Check out some of Greg’s amazing work:

The Fiddler’s Lament is a short adventure designed to be set in any small gothic town where low (1st-2nd) level PCs may find themselves investigating the haunted ruins of a nearby prison. The adventure does not provide enough experience in and of itself for the PCs to increase in level substantially, but it provides several challenges and rewards, including gaining Trust within the town.

Adventure Background

…

Alhindri waited, known only as the Raven Patient, passed from hospital to prison to asylum, silent and alone for 85 years…until today. In the darkest hour of the early morning, Alhindri opened her eyes to discover a dark-cloaked figure standing in her cell with her. He called her by name and told her it was time for her to return to her lost kin and dance for them once more. She was fascinated, as he spoke, by the pair of cloven hooves that peeked out from beneath his cloak but became even more astonished when he handed her a meticulously cared for viol that in her mind’s eye she recognized at once as being that which had belonged to Lothiaro, made whole once more.

Immediately the color returned to Alhindri’s face and her life as she took the beloved instrument in her hands. She didn’t even notice when the Dark Stranger wrapped his cowl around her and she found herself no longer in her lonely cell but standing upon a hill covered in tombs, surrounded by ancient unmarked graves. In the pre-light of dawn she gave no more thought to her surroundings than to a gnat as she touched bow to fiddle and began to play. The fiddle had never been her instrument, but she had been around it enough to pick up a bit, and as she played upon Lothiaro’s beloved violin she found that it practically played itself. She soon lost herself to the music and began to dance as of old…and she did not dance alone as her long-lost gypsy kin rose from the ground to join her.

The Fiddler’s Lament takes place in the town near the haunted prison described in the Adventure Path. The enigmatic Dark Stranger, for reasons of his own, has brought Alhindri back to the region where he slaughtered her adopted kin and has provided her not with the beloved fiddle of her former protector but an infernal instrument called the Rebec Malevolenti, crafted in the pits of Hell with the sole purpose to bring ruin upon mortals. With this instrument Alhindri heedlessly summons forth the dead from their rest and causes them to descend like a plague upon the unsuspecting town nearby. Only with the destruction of the fiddle can the plague of zombies and worse be stopped.