7Hex Dragons: Current Campaign

7 Hex Dragon: The Voice of the Dragons

The Voice of the Dragons is designed for four or five 38-42 point characters and is a continuance of Crosshaven: The Troll Raids, Delpan, To the Wizard's Mansion and The Road to Naroth and the Vampire's Cave. Each character should be fairly well armed and have 2-3 magic items a few of which might have some good force behind them (Dead Hammer, Circlet of Darkness, Dragon Staff), but most will be standard Enchanted Arms, Blur/StoneFlesh rings, all not self-powered, etc. At least one Wizard is helpful and most of this adventure is outdoors, so some level of horsemanship, naturalist, tracking, etc is very useful. By now the adventurers have been through three longish adventures that focused on: 1. The basic combat system and how to travel and keep watch. 2. Confronting opponents more powerful than you and how to retreat with dignity, 3. Role playing and keeping in character. This adventure focuses on giving more background and metaphysics of this part of Cidri and starts to introduce the main players in the "Conflict in the South" in some detail. There will be a few chances to fight early on, but the latter part is mostly role playing. The adventurers will be granted one really powerful magic item or 2 good ones as they see fit from the Arch-Duke of Bronar. Plus they will get training at Bronar and a good bar fight or two if that is their temper.

What the player can know: See the previous three adventures:
Crosshaven: The Troll Raids
Delpan: To the Wizard's Mansion
Naroth and the Vampire's Cave
plus the political geography and main campaign page. In very brief summary (note, if the players folow some of the links below there are spoilers for the campaign, so you may just want to read it to them or print it out):
Squeezed between the Imperial Sorcerers a.k.a. IS), the The Duchy of Mt. Bronar and the Wild Lands, the Borderlands have come under a series of seemingly unrelated, yet erily coordinated attackes by Vampires, Hymenopterans, and Orcs. The Rangers at the edge of the Wild Wood have reported a great increase in the number of undead, giant spiders/rats/scorpians and Demons trying to come out of the Wood. The seemingly random attacks are increasing in size and frequency and the baronies of the Borderlands are banding together or allying with on or the other of the Duchy or IS. It has been treated as an unrealated series of bandit raids and hymenopteran running out of food, but the revelations in Delpan and Lord Dranyon's Caves indicate there may be one or more controlling intelligences coordinating these attacks and there is a demonic element reaching back at least 400 years if not further into the ruins of the Kirean Kingdom. Our adventurers have been asked by Talryne to deliver a sealed letter to the Arch-Duke of Mt. Bronar and instructions that the Arch-Duke should send aid to the town of Crosshaven to further investigate the happenings at the wizard's mansion in Delpan. Talryne has discovered that very old and powerful Vampire Lord, Dranyon, is in control of much of the area south of the Wildwood and has outposts and orc and undead allies dotted through the eastern Borderlands. Lord Dranyon is known as Prince of Insects, though we don't know why. That may be enough of a clue to tie Dranyon into the Hymenopterans behaving erratically.

The adventurers have taken on the quest to deliver Talryne's message to Arch-Duke Bronar. They have rested up from their sacking of Dranyon's old caves and are enjoying some training with the Knights, ha'Jass, Talryne and the scholar when word comes to Talryne that the elves are being routed by giant spiders coordinated by a Lesser Demon and some Demon Drivers and a pack of Drones. He takes off East and urges the adventurers West to Mt. Bronar. On the way back the adventurers are attacked by a Vampire Prince, Spawn and Night Gaunts as revenge for the caves. I usually make them pretty powerful and hope the adventurers retreat (remembering the lessons from Delpan that knowing when to retreat is a noble thing). They will be harried by the Prince and spawn most of their way back to Naroth, they will try to ambush and will send wolves and spiders (giant and Leaping to ambush them. I do reward the adventurers if they come up with a clever way to reverse ambush the Vampires.

Wandering Monsters (in addition to the Prince): Twice per Day Light time: 7 in 12

Twice per Night: 9 in 12

Orc Ambush: replace one wandering monster encounter with an orc ambush. I throw this in to make the adventurers feel good about themselves.

At Naroth they are again welcomed in the Captain's Mansion and are given decent quarters (especially since boarding is tight with all the troops passing through) due to their Order of the Fox. The Captain is there and asks questions about their encounter in the caves and is generally impressed. He reports that things are worse in the West. There seem to be 2 or 3 orc tribes who are organzing under a new leader and are terrorizing the population. At least they feel they have a coherent enemy to fight now. The Captain is disturbed to hear that they may be fighting two powerful enemies (the orc tribes and the Vampire Lord). That would explain the undead activity, but not the activity in the Wildwood or why these two forces are striring now after centuries of quiescence. On the road from Naroth they will encounter a few delegations.

1. IS diplomats.
2. Dwarves
3. Barbarians