Suzereigna Adventure
The Star of Prizendorff!

Our Beloved Suzereigna

The Wicked Sultan

Mitzi Grimwald

Age: 15
Class: 3rd level Mage
Alignment: Neutral Good
Description: A pretty girl with brown hair and a flowered dress, a sewing basket, and a beautiful Siamese kitten she's not supposed to have.
Secondary Skills: Seamstress, Spellcraft, Witch Lore (knowledge of classic witchcraft, including the methods to break many common spells)

Equipment: Sewing basket--needles, thread, cloth, embroidery floss, yarn, string, scissors, knitting needles, crochet hook, stitch ripper, chalk, pattern marker, tape measure, pins, beeswax

Weapon: Knitting needles or shears. (Dagger for all intents and purposes) 1d4

Keys: Access to the Silver Lady and other Wizard's speak-easies

STR: 8

INT: 16

WIS: 10

CON: 14

DEX: 18

CHA: 15

COM: 19

Hit Points: 14 (10 + 4 from familiar)

AC: 10 (6 w/dex)

Wealth: 35 silverpieces to her name

Character History: You're a witch, from a long and infamous line of witches. Unfortunately, there are so damn many Grimwald witches that your name alone is cause for suspicion--especially since you're one of the country Grimwalds, who are known to be more powerful.

You thought it a stroke of luck to be sent to Valkynburg to help your aunt at her dressmaking shop, as opposed to staying in the forest and being expected to marry one of your pig-nosed cousins. You thought it an even better stroke of luck when the Contessa von Hartzenhald, one of the Suzereigna's ladies in waiting, hired you on as one of her attendants, giving you lots of work doing alterations (which can be done in no time with a stitch cantrip) leaving you time to wander the palace. And it was an even better stroke of luck, when between the royal herb garden and the Suzereigna's potpourri dishes, you managed to pinch all the ingredients needed for the Find Familiar ritual.

You thought the worst thing that could happen was getting a toad. You were wrong. You got a beautiful, lovely, intelligent Siamese kitten--one from the Suzereigna's first litter, from her gift from the Princess of Cathay, meant to be a gift to the Duchess of Karzille. Mei Ling, your kitten, doesn't understand why she shouldn't follow you all over the palace, or that serving girls are not meant to have royal Siamese cats, and because of this, you were caught. Your crime? Bewitching one of the priceless kittens. Or stealing one. It really doesn't matter. The Suzereigna wants her kitten back so she can use it to bribe the duchess, and the old harridan is anything but clueless. She knows that if she kills you, the kitten will be free, and she can do with it as she pleases.

Of course, while the Suzereigna may be without pity, she isn't without political sense, and she realizes that public execution of pretty young girls, especially for playing with kittens, would not be a popular move to make. She'd probably just poison you and have done with it. But she'll give you a chance--recover the crown jewels and you'll receive the imperial favor in front of the court. At which point she will grant you anything you ask, within reason. She suggests you ask for one of the imperial kittens, which will give you your familiar and your closet pardon at the same time, make for good politics, and give her a reason to keep the duchess waiting and kissing up to her until the next litter.

Just in case you decide to just flee the capital, also know that the Suzereigna has assassins and spies everywhere, and tracking down a young witch and a stolen kitten would be just the sort of thing to make a good training mission.

Then there's Walter, the young soldier who was guarding the jewels when the Star was stolen. He's so handsome. You'd worshipped him from afar in the palace, the most handsome of all the guards, and now you're right next to him. But he's so religious too. He'd revile you as a witch if he found out. Or would he? You don't know. You did a divination with an apple peel to find your True Love's first initial and it was a W. Is that for Walter? You don't know. But you have a hopeless crush on him anyway.

Mei Ling

Age: 2 Months
Class: 0 level Witch's Familiar
Alignment: Siamese Kitten
Description:Although she would never acknowledge the fact, Mei Ling is too young to be the deadly AD&D housecat with the claw-claw-bite routine, but she's clever and resourceful and the death of butterflies.
Keys: Access to Court of Cats

AC: 0

INT: 15

WIS: 7 (only a kitten)

DEX: 19

Hit Points: 4

Mitzi's Spellbook

Cantrips

All cantrips

1st Level

Affect Normal Fires

Charm Person

Comprehend Languages

Detect Magic

Enlarge

Erase

Find Familiar

Friends

Lesser Divination (an apple paring, a question regarding a name, a one-letter clue)

Magic Missile

Mending

Protection from Evil

Sleep

Unseen Servant

2nd Level

Bind

Deeppockets

Detect Evil

Fools Gold

Know Alignment

Pyrotechnics

Rope Trick

Strength

Web

Wizard Lock

Zephyr

Count Parsival Von Hohenheim

Age: 17
Class: 3rd level fighter
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Description: A big, beefy blond kid in ruffly clothes that look really stupid on him. He'd be a natural in chainmail, or for that matter, a loincloth. But at least he has a greatsword.
Secondary Skill: Riding, Court Dancing

Weapons: Greatsword 1d10, dagger 1d4

Keys: Welcome at most noble's houses and all bravos' pubs

STR: 18-00

INT: 7

WIS: 13

CON: 18

DEX: 10

CHA: 14

COM: 11

Hit Points: 31

Wealth: 20 gold allowance per week, from Imperial purse

You know everything about swordplay, at least that you can learn in the fencing studio, but have never been field tested. Which is really too bad, since you know that you'd make a great warrior, if everyone weren't always deferring to you. Or maybe that's just getting out of your way. You're pretty big, and you have an unfortunate habit of breaking swords, and for that matter, fencing masters. Your only repeat swordplay partner is your friend, Maxie (Lord Maximilian Von Kirkegaard), who's a skinny little guy, but has always been able to take his licks. You've been afraid you killed him a few times, but he always wakes up sooner or later. You don't know what you'd do without Maxie, and you're glad to have him back now that you're at court, even though he's technically a student at the University.

You also don't know what it is with all this new passion about pistols--you refuse to carry one, preferring your strong sword arm and an old-fashioned greatsword. You just shattered your latest one, and since you didn't have time to go buy a new one (the swordsmiths just love you), so you went down to the palace armory and found this great old sword that some idiot had wedged in a rock. Morons! Didn't anyone know how to treat weaponry? You swore up a blue streak trying to get it out of that rock. But once you did, you took some steel wool and oil to it, it polished up a treat. Plus it feels like an extension to your arm, and you really don't want to give it up.

Except Max (who's a lot sharper than you) noticed that your new sword looks an awful lot like the one used by Baron Gorkiz, "The Ogre," back in the Suzereigna's grandfather's day, at least to judge from the tapestries in the great hall. Even though it's obvious romantic hyperbole--barons are not nine-feet-tall killing machines. Most are just fat old men with gout, like your father.

You'd also be a much better fighter if you hadn't led such a sheltered life. You don't know jack about magic, or politics, or much of anything except swordfighting and horses and a little bit of court dancing. Your main trouble is that you're a hopeless romantic. You wish you were back in the age of Baron Gorkiz, instead of this confusing modern age, where there are no dragons, very few marvels, and witch trials seem to be done as a mere political expedient. After all, you've never seen any actual witchcraft or magic, and if you haven't seen it, it must not exist, right?

The Sword of Gorkiz the Ogre

(Artifact Sword of Sharpness +1)

Minor powers

+1 strength

+2 protection

Sheild when held or worn, 3x a day

Major powers

Giant Strength twice a day

Minor curse

Weight gain of 10-40 lbs

Major curse

User Grows 1/4' taller every time primary power is used

Primary Power

Tenser's Transformation 2x a day

The Sword is also sentient, with a 14 INT and a 20 EGO, but is NEUTRAL CROTCHETY. It's an old sword, it's seen far too many battles, and it's not going to stir itself to possess any young fool to go out and slay dragons. Been there, done that. It was very content to keep itself wedged in the stone in the armory until young Parsival came in and honored it with a string of curses it hadn't heard since it was forged by... who was it? The dwarves? The trolls? It was a long time ago anyway, but after that, it seemed only right to reward the young one for making it remember. It may reward him a few more times if he continues to honor it the same way.

Parsival doesn't know any of this, except that he's packed on some extra weight since he found it, which is nothing unusual with the way he eats.

Lord Maximilian Von Kirkegaard

Age: 19
Class: 2nd level mage/2nd level fighter
Alignment: Lawful Good (though not necessarily law-abiding)
Description: A skinny, pale, nervous young lord with markedly sharp teeth and eyebrows that meet in the middle, as well as little round glasses.
Secondary Skill: herbalism, natural philosophy, political philosophy

Special Note: Lycanthrope. Touching silver is like touching poison oak, leaving nasty blisters. Drinking from it is worse. But on the plus side, you can't be killed by anything save silver, fire, or beheading. Anything else and your bones knit back together and you wake up with a fearful headache. This includes magical weapons, since you're a true werewolf, and any real magician would recognize the signs and know to use silver anyway.

Weapons: rapier 1d8, dagger 1d4

Keys: Access to the University Halls

STR: 8 (chronic poisoning)

INT: 16

WIS: 14

CON: 6 (chronic poisoning)

DEX: 17

CHA: 14

COM: 13

Hit Points: 22

Wealth: 10 gold savings, 1 gold allowance

Well, poisoning you for your own good. You see, you were born a werewolf. Probably because it both runs in your family, and because you were born at the midwinter feast, the darkest night of the year, in a dark castle far from the fashionable city. But instead of killing you, as they might have, your parents procured a tincture of wolfsbane from the old herbwife who delivered you (and paid her a hefty ransom for her silence), and have been giving you your "medicine" every day since.

When you were fostered out to another court, to act as page, you still took your "medicine" religiously, like your parents told you to. Until you went on a hunting trip, lost yourself in the wilderness, lost your medicine, then found yourself running on all fours through the wood. You ran on instinct, back to what smelled like home, then whined outside the gates of your parent's dilapidated castle until you snuck in, people taking you for some skinny dog instead of a poisoned wolf, and your mother figured out the truth and told you, once you'd been dosed with more wolfsbane to return you to human form.

Of course, you're not stupid, and it suddenly made sense why even though you were frail and sickly (or really, chronically poisoned by wolfsbane), every time the other pages beat you up, you got over it so quickly. Even when you were sure they'd killed you. Regeneration will do that for you. Likewise, those horrible blisters you got from silver were also explained. You've also discovered, after talking with Gerta the old herbwife (who your parents are still paying protection money to), that while wolfsbane will subdue your transformations, a tincture of lupine blossoms will have the opposite effect. Not that it's too useful to be a wolf, but it might, so you carry that too.

With what you picked up from her, and from a few other sources, you've taught yourself a bit of witchcraft. Forbidden, of course, but then again, if you're going to get burned as a werewolf, you might as well get burned as a witch while you're at it.

Now that you're studying at the University, you've been able to pick up with your old friend and protector, Parsival. When you were a page at his father's castle, he protected you from the other boys, even though he was younger than you. In the past couple years, he's grown into an absolute moose. Not that he wasn't to begin with. You wish you could tell him your secrets, but of course you can't.

There of course is one other problem. After so many years of poisoning, you're becoming one of the world's first wolfsbane-resistant werewolves, and in Valkynberg, the flower is rather hard to find. The Suzereigna had questions about why a minor lord and university student would be found naked in her herb garden on the night of a full moon. Worse yet, one of the gardener's saw you when you transformed, but he didn't run away or scream or anything. You begged him not to tell anyone, and when he promised not to, you realized he was touched in the head. Worse luck, but better too. If he does tell, people will disregard it. You hope. But you've been told that he talks to rocks.

Of course, the Suzereigna is smart, and you know enough to know that she has plenty of witches and everyone else working for her. With her help--and maybe the gift of a secluded hunting lodge--you might be able to kick the wolfsbane habit, get control of your faculties, and become just a regular werewolf. If there is such a thing.

Maxie's Spellbook

Cantrips

All Cantrips

1st level

Burning Hands

Comprehend Languages

Erase

Identify

Light

Mount

Nystul's Magic Aura

Protection from Evil

Spider Climb

Wizard Mark

Peter, the Gardener's Son

Age: 18
Class: 3rd level Druid
Alignment: True Neutral
Description: A plain young man with a stout walking stick and permanent grass stains.
Secondary Skills: Gardening
Weapon: Staff 1d6

Spells: 3/2/1 + Wisdom for 2/2/1/1 = total 5/4/2/1

Pray for whatever you want

Keys: Access to the Courts of Animals

STR: 14

INT: 14

WIS: 18

CON: 15

DEX: 12

CHA: 10

COM: 8

Hit Points: 17

Wealth: 12 copper pieces

Luckily for you, it's natural for gardeners to talk to plants, so nobody pays it any mind. Likewise with animals and winds. Around the palace, most people think that you're touched. Which is just fine by you, since, well, honestly enough, you are. You're autistic. Very functionally autistic, but autistic all the same. Plus illiterate, but that sort of goes along with it.

You've also noticed another who's been touched by the gods, a wolf who can take the shape of a man. You saw him in your garden, and you must serve him and worship him, since you know that he is one of the sacred children of the Lord of Wild things. Of course, he's calling himself Lord Maxie, and begged you not to tell anyone, and since he's one of the Divine Ones, of course you can't. The Lord of Wild Things would be very angry if you did.

Plus there's the kitten, one of the sacred children of the Lady of Cats. You asked pretty Mei Ling why she was crying, and found that it was because the Lady of Cats had been honored with the proper prayers and incense and had asked her to honor the request and take the worshipper as her Mistress. Which Mei Ling did, but now the old Suzereigna wants to take her away and give her to another woman who never saw fit to honor the Lady of Cats, which Mei Ling won't stand for. But the kitten also knows that if Mitzi, her Mistress, can find the Suzereigna's lost plaything, then the old Queen won't bother her Mistress anymore and all will be wonderful.

Your duty to the Old Gods is very clear: Protect their children and chosen ones. And keep the kitten from getting in a fight with the wolf.

Elissa Pritz

Age: 16
Class: 3rd level Thief
Alignment: Neutral
Description: A perfectly ordinary urchin girl, wearing boy's clothes, a muffin cap, and a large satchel.
Secondary Skill: Scrounging
Equipment: Satchel, Thieves pick and tools, rope, grappling hook, soft moccassins, candles, tinderbox

Keys: Access to the Rookery (with sufficient bribes)

STR: 14

INT: 14

WIS: 12

CON: 10

DEX: 17

CHA: 10

COM: 10

Hit Points: 16

Wealth: 12 silver

AC: 10 (7 w/dex)

Well, really, you didn't get caught, but your little brother Franki did, and worse yet, with a bag filled with Frau Kasterman's silverware. You, along with the other bag and the silver coffee pot, disappeared over the next roof, but it was no good: You weren't a member of the Rookery, and they weren't going to help you.

That, of course, is the nature of the Rooks. Stupid outsiders come up with silly ideas like calling it the Thieves Guild, with thieves running around breaking each other's legs for stealing without giving a cut and so on. This is hardly the case. Amateur talent is free to do whatever they want, and unless it's a really big heist, or their money, the Rooks don't care. The Rookery is just the club of the old and more professional thieves, including a number who've gotten old and fat and gone on to more prosperous professions, such as politicians and bailiffs and district judges. Who are of course corrupt, but follow the practice of standard nepotism--leniency for those they know and like, executions to "make an example" for those they don't.

By the time you found out where to turn, the sentence had already been handed down, and all your silverware and the coffee pot was able to buy you was a stay of execution for a month, mostly due to the fact that the monthly hangings are good business, and if you put nine people on the scaffold instead of the regular eight, people will come to expect it every month. Franki is now at the top of next month's list, and rotting in prison until then.

You had one last avenue of recourse--the Suzereigna. The Empress could pardon anything she damn well felt like, and the old lady makes a big show of listening to the peasants complaints once a month. You showed up with the big crowd, watched her pick out a couple of old women arguing over the placement of a fence and a laundry line, and after a few things just as stupid, it was over, your hopes were dashed, and then as everyone was filing out, a courtier asked you to one side, then led you into a small room, where the Suzereigna gave you a private audience.

The Empress made it perfectly clear--someone had pinched the big diamond from the top of her scepter and slipped in a piece of paste. She didn't want anyone to know until she could be certain she was getting it back, then could make a big show of the recovery, rewarding the rescuers and hanging the thieves.

The old bat is also sharp. She knows you're a thief, and doesn't care, so long as you get her diamond back. Plus there's also the matter of her grandnephew, Parsival, who looks like an ox, is almost as dumb, and is very, very green. He's going off on this adventure too, and she wants you to make sure that he isn't killed, since you know the streets that much better.

Get her diamond and keep Parsival alive (it's okay if he gets beat up, and in fact, she'd prefer if he did) and you've got a pardon for your brother, plus a nice bit of loot for yourself. Fail and he dies. Easy as that.

Very little difference between the Empress and the Rooks when you come right down to it.

Hilda Kerstner

Age: 19
Class: 3rd level Ranger
Alignment: Chaotic Feminist
Description: A freckled strawberry blonde with charcoal stains on her dress, a powder horn, and a grey cloak that does a poor job of concealing a small collection of pistols and crossbows.
Secondary Skills: firearms, demolitions, black powder

Equipment: matches, tinderbox, fuses, powderhorn, paper wadding, musket balls, crossbow quarrels, oil, rags

Keys: Access to the Guild Halls

STR: 16

INT: 13

WIS: 10

CON: 14

DEX: 16

CHA: 8

COM: 14

Hit Points: 28

Wealth: 5 gold, plus credit through her father

AC: 10 (8 w/dex)

There's an unfortunate bit of old Valkynburg law regarding ladies baring any blade longer than an eating knife, and while you can carry surprisingly big table knives (It's to carve the roast! Really!), there's really no future for a lady sword-fighter. Crossbows, on the other hand, have been used by noblewomen for hunting for centuries, and as such, it's perfectly appropriate for you to carry them for deliveries and to provide demonstrations. (Never run out of your father's business cards).

Firearms really don't have much legal precedent, but after getting into an argument with a stupid yahoo at the Coffee Gardens about whether or not women could be any good with weapons, he said he'd challenge you to a duel if you weren't a girl. You didn't care. He did. So you came back in drag, challenged him for impugning a lady's honor, then happily blew the fool's head off behind the university.

Unfortunately for you, the Suzereigna was looking for someone to arrest to stop the new fad of pistol dueling. Fortunately, your father's lawyer was able to plead self defense, since you're a helpless woman. (Yeah, right.) It's a nasty mess, but at least the Suzereigna is sympathetic to your plight. She's also given you an ultimatum: You've got one month to prove that not only are firearms a service to the Crown, but also that women with firearms are also A GOOD THING. If you do, you get your pardon and a large order for the shop. Fail, you get sent to a convent and your father gets fined out the wazoo.

On a personal note, you think that Parsival is a stupid oaf, and a big target too, but his skinny little friend Maxie is kind of cute, plus has a killer's instinct if he'd just figure it out. You know him since your father's shop is near the university, and you've seen him at the Coffee Gardens many times. Walter the guard is a religious fruitcake, who thinks women need protecting. Even if he is a fairly good shot.

Contessa Cecilia Von Krissendorfen

Age: 18
Class: 3rd level Assassin
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Description: A petite raven-haired beauty wearing beautiful dresses, all in black. Out of mourning for her recently deceased husband, of course.
Secondary Skills: poisons, forensic medicine, dancing, court etiquette

Weapon: Sabbot. Yes. The lady knows kickboxing. Well, really just ballet with a few offensive moves, but it does the same damage. 1d6. With bonuses for backstabbing, etc. Dagger 1d4. (Actually a ladies table knife, but same thing.)

Keys: Access to all noblewomen and gentlewomen

STR: 12

INT: 16

WIS: 15

CON: 10

DEX: 18

CHA: 17

COM: 22

Hit Points: 16

Wealth: Very Wealthy. At least so long as your son is alive.

Oh well, there's no use crying over split blood. Or poison. Or whatever it happens to be.

You were married of to Count Krissendorfen two years ago. All sixty years and three hundred pounds of him. He nearly smothered you, so it's only fair, after all, that you turned it around and smothered him. Nothing the chirurgeon had been able trace, and you'd even had a child, so what was everyone bitching about?

Well, the bitching was private. From the Suzereigna. Count Krissendorfen was the last of an old and magical bloodline. And not only did you kill him, but she figured out that your child is actually the bastard of one of his guards. Absolutely useless for her purposes. Well, how the hell were you supposed to know that? Regardless, your pleas haven't fallen on completely deaf ears, particularly your lie that he couldn't get it up, so you had to provide an heir somehow, didn't you?

Whatever. The Suzereigna won't challenge your son's inheritance--and your regency in the time being--so long as you prove yourself useful. If you're useful, your son's useful. If not, you're both so much unwanted baggage, and if she gets rid of you, she'll have a castle and a small fortune to do with as she sees fit, since she's the nearest heir. But you have a little time to prove yourself. Spies are always useful, and you may ingratiate yourself with that, but you understand a kindred spirit when you see it, and you know that your son's life is safe only so long as the Suzereigna decides she doesn't want the castle or the fortune, or doesn't find someone she thinks might deserve it more.

Those are the rules of the game. But now that you've got a little breathing space--before your father attempts to arrange another marriage for you, or the Suzereigna does it herself--you'd better do what you can. If you help the Suzereigna retrieve her lost jewel, you'll prove yourself useful, and maybe get to keep what you have. Better yet, if you can catch the eye of her grandnephew, Parsival, you may just be able to step up into the royal family. And then once the Suzereigna dies, there's only--what is it, five?--people between you and the Imperial throne.

But this time you play it safe and wait. Parsival Von Hohenheim looks fun, strong and dumb--desirable qualities in any husband--and once you have a half-dozen potential legitimate heirs waiting, you can go about whittling out the competition.

Walter Prinkanza

Age: 18
Class: 3rd level Paladin
Alignment: Lawful Good
Description: Tall, blond, painfully handsome and clean-cut, wearing the livery of the Suzereigna's personal guard.
Secondary Skills: firearms, military lore, theology
Weapon: Longsword 1d8, rifle 2d10 (armor piercing), bayonet 1d4+1

Note: A paladin's detect evil is defined as supernatural evil. An imp will show up, but an evil Wazir will not, unless he's also a closet demonologist.

The Pigheaded Paladin rule: Paladins have a +2 to disbelieve illusions. However, if you try to disbelieve something that is actually there, and you roll a 19 or 20, you succeed in deluding yourself into not believing it exists. Have fun.

Keys: Access to the Gnostic Temple's inner sanctums

STR: 18-57

INT: 10

WIS: 16

CON: 15

DEX: 16

CHA: 18

COM: 23

Hit Points: 30

Wealth: 20 silver, savings. Suspended pay.

You were excellent in your training after your monastic discipline and quickly made the grade, being posted to the Suzereigna's personal honor guard due to your noble blood (despite how you got it). Of course, being disowned by your noble (and now dead) father, you were penniless, excepting what little pay you were given to provide for your uniform. Your fellow guardsmen give you a wide berth, partially because you're a bastard, but mostly because you don't have any money to go out and party on your day off, plus you're also a teetotaling religious fanatic, so no fun anyway.

And so you were left alone in your uniform, with no one to talk to. There haven't been any wars, or even any trouble to speak of, and your job was almost painfully boring. You prayed to the divine Sophia for something to test your mettle, to prove your worth in the eyes of the Suzereigna, to be able to do something other than stand around and look pretty. Yet nothing happened, apart from falling asleep at your post and getting a reprimand and a flogging from the captain of your regiment, who called you a lazy bastard. Which you were, though you didn't know how you fell asleep, and it wasn't really your fault that your parents had no morals.

The next day you were brought in to see the Suzereigna. She pointed to the jewel in her scepter and told you it was made of paste. You were shocked. She then said it hadn't been made of paste the day before. You were even more shocked as you figured out what had happened, and realized that a penniless guardsman and a missing jewel made a very suspicious combination.

You had a choice, she said. Either you recovered the jewel and were then decorated with appropriate honors, or, in the event of the Star of Prizendorff not coming to light, you would be tried for theft, treason, or at very least dereliction of duty, and your head would decorate the front gate of the palace. If the gem is recovered, but not by you, then you will merely be tried, imprisoned, flogged and exiled, depending on what strikes her fancy at the moment.

You are not being placed on the official search team, since there isn't one (mum's the word on this) or even on the unofficial official search team. You don't warrant that. Instead, the Suzereigna has assigned you to shepherd an assorted crew of ne'er-do-wells, including her own hulking grandnephew, out on whatever investigation you see fit. And what a crew they make: a seamstress who's also a member of the infamous Grimwald clan, a nervous young lordling, the aforementioned hulking grandnephew, the babbling gardener's boy, a street waif, the bloodthirsty daughter of Valkynberg's foremost weaponsmith, and a recently widowed contessa who should be tending to her infant son. All of whom have doubtless either incurred the Suzereigna's wrath, or desperately wish to curry favor.

Mitzi Grimwald also seems so sweet and frightened that you can't imagine what she might have done to upset the Suzereigna, unless she maybe broke something. But even then, you know what it is to make a simple mistake. You should probably comfort her and protect her. After all, what can a poor seamstress do against thieves, or worse yet, necromancers? She shouldn't have come, but if it's the only noble thing you ever do, you should protect such a sweet young girl. Or are the rumors true, and are all the Grimwald's demon-conjuring witches? But you know all too well that a person can't help the circumstance of his birth. Pray to the divine Sophia for guidance. Maybe she can sort it out.

Note on Magic: I use a mana system. Spells are slots and may be picked at will or precast. Precast spells are like standard AD&D spells--you spend the hour doing the ritual, then cast the last bit when you need it. Picked spells take as long to cast as they would to memorize, but may be chosen from whatever spells you know.

Components: Magic is underground, so there is no rampant inflation for the wizard trade, and likewise substitutions are possible. Without the demand, a pinch of diamond dust does not cost 50 gp. and likewise, rural witches would usually substitute moonwort gathered on the night of the full moon.

Mages wish to make substitutions for the components in any given spell may make a spellcraft roll (assuming they have this ability), and, if they succeed, will be able to devise an appropriate substitution, ie. moonwort gathered on the night of the full moon works just as well as diamond dust (and vice versa). Failures merely indicate that the mage is unsure whether a given component will prove useful and will have to resort to trial-and-error to see whether or not it works. A minor botch on such a spellcraft roll means that the mage is certain that a given substitution will work, when in actual fact the spell will fizzle, while a major botch means that the mage is still equally certain, while the true fact of the matter is that the mage has actually discovered a completely different spell. Most such "discoveries" are either useless or outright dangerous to the spellcaster, but on rare occassions, the mage will have discovered a spell that other mages would actually like to know. In this case, it will take a second spellcraft roll for the mage to figure out what he actually did right, ie. Was it the moonwort, the full moon, or the fact that a werewolf had recently pissed on the bush, and the secret ingredient is actually dried werewolf urine and not moonwort at all?

The popular versions of many spells--in particular Identify with its "If I can't figure this out, I'll swallow a goldfish" component--is a product of the sophomoric humor of many older mages. If you're pestered by an apprentice who wants you to teach him a spell, which would you rather see--the boy having a nice cup of tea and reading the leaves, or watching him gag down a live goldfish?

Trading down: The 2nd level spell slot may be used for two 1st level spells, or for one double-strength 1st level spell. 1st level spells can be burnt to make one mega-strength cantrip.

The Graphics Ensemble used for this Web Page
is the Royalty Set graciously provided by



For maximum viewing pleasure,
please also download & load the font
Snell Black BT
from Christopher Baker's Homepage
and the free webfont Divona from the