The Hidden Kingdom – A Preview

Last year our third “publication cycle” was focused on a villain, Brother Ptolomy, and his Hidden Kingdom. Those articles remain some of our most popular posts, so we decided to push the content to the next level by producing an adventure setting based on it. Coming soon, we will be releasing The Hidden Kingdom, a 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons eBook that is much in the same stylish vein as The Desire. One notable big difference though is that it will also include a fully developed stand-alone adventure by Wyatt Salazar.

You can read more previews about The Hidden Kingdom over at Wyatt’s blog – The Spirits of Eden – by following the links below:

• The Hidden Kingdom “Adventure Setting” For D&D 4e
• The Hidden Kingdom Devblog: Encounter Design
• The Hidden Kingdom Devblog: Your Ptolemy Is In Another Castle
• The Hidden Kingdom Devblog: Companionship

So, jump over there and dig in! Let us know what you think and what you want. There’s still time to make some tweaks – so if there a burning desire for something you believe might be missing — by all means speak up!

You’ll also be happy to find cartography by Paul King (the original creator of Brother Ptolomy) and Liz Courts. We have also added a few new artists to Nevermet Press’s content developers team – so it should shape up to be a high-quality product.

As for a release date, we don’t have an exact release date for you at the moment (925JOB priorities seem to keep getting in the way) – but we are working to have this eBook available for you in June. Stay tuned!

Azania Toysmith, Dwarven Clockworker

Written by: Sean Holland Edited by: Cassey Toi

Don’t wind it too tight, you’ll break the spring.

Background

The Toysmith family has been associated with clockworking, gearsmithing and golem making for generations, but they primarily stick to working in the Dwarven freeholds. Azania, a talented student, quickly moved from apprentice to journeyman. Her talents lay in creating more delicate toys and flights of fancy, things not usually found among dwarves, but immensely popular with other races. After much discussion, it was decided to send Azania to work outside the freeholds where her talents could bloom.

Working at a market Azania found a book referencing Forgegrinder’s works. Curious, she wrote to her family for more information, they passed on little information other than a family connection; Forgegrinder was her grand-uncle. This only made her more curious as his early work on toy soldiers and clockwork dragons excited her. Wherever she travels, she looks for early examples of his works and design notes for them. She has not missed the fact that information on his later work has been removed from the public eye, but she assumes it is the usual actions of those who wish to use the designs for war, some thing she has no interest in.

Description

Azania is slender a dwarf, which distress her, she would like to be a bit more solid. She wears her waist length black hair pinned up, usually in a bun. Her eyes are a pure sapphire blue. Her hands bear testament to her work, there are a multitude of small scars on them. She prefers practical clothing with lots of pockets, but will dress according to the local fashion when required to attend a social function.

Azania is not your typical dwarf, as well as being a skilled craftswoman she is an excellent salesperson. Open and cheerful, she loves to demonstrate the toys she builds and enjoys the challenge of building new ones to the specifications of buyers.

She is an innovative inventor and very curious about anything to do with clockwork, gears and other complex mechanisms -magical and mundane. This often leads to her talking about and debating the best ways to build things for hours.

What Can She Do?

If you want a toy or fancy made of clockwork, there is no finer craftswoman. She prefers working with metals and semiprecious stones, but she can make a gem-encrusted gold songbird – that sings when struck by the first ray of the sun – with the best of them. When not working on commissioned work, Azania likes to build simple toys like soldiers and horses from tin and scrap metal. She has a small amount of magical talent which she uses to enhance her craft work.

Azania’s mastery of clockwork, gears and toy design has, inadvertently, created an expertise in locks and traps. Others may realize this, but she will not, until she is put into a situation that requires the use of those skills.

Who Might Know Her and Why

Azania usually sells to the upper levels of society, those who can afford her most exotic and beautiful toys. Anyone of that group may have seen her work , received or bought something of hers as a gift.

Members of a clockworking or toymaking guild would certainly know of her and her work. Just as any dwarf in the area is likely to know of her by reputation at the very least. Dwarven culture dictates that the local dwarves keep an eye on her and protect her if needed.

Azania is constantly on the lookout for interesting toys and trinkets to incorporate into her creations. Merchants who sell those items are likely to know and at times do business with her.

Plot Hooks

• Azania’s existence and line of questioning has put Sentinel 5 in a position it does not know how to resolve. Her inquiries into what became of Forgegrinder may, potentially, lead her to find and try to and locate the Hidden Vale. It senses that Azania embodies the purity of what its maker wanted from life, to make things that made people’s lives better. Sentinel 5 seeks to deny Azania access to information that could lead her to the Vale, but it has managed -so far- to avoid acting directly against her, a situation it wants to avoid.Azania hires the characters to track down some of her grand-uncle’s early notebooks, putting them on the fast track to conflict with Sentinel 5. Which, while it trusts Azania’s motives it does not trust what others may learn and can act again them with impunity. Sentinel 5 does not wish to reveal itself, so it will lay traps for the party, such as herding wild animals into attacking them and so forth. It feels compelled to avoid showing itself to anyone who might report on its existence back to Azania.
• Worried that Azania may decide to try and locate her grand-uncle’s resting place at some point, Sentinel 5 decides to drive her far away from the Vale. It does this by economic warfare. It starts killing her patrons and customers. Azania notices the pattern before anyone else does and hires the characters to protect her patrons, though she does not know from what or why.
• A damaged Sentinel 5 approaches Azania, one of the few people who could repair it. She would take pity on such a being and repair it. Upon learning of the true nature of Sentinel 5, her guilt that her action in helping it led to further bloodshed, compels her to hunt it down. To do so she would need help.

Azania Toysmith by Nevermet Press is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.nevermetpress.com/contact.

Red Harvest

Written by Sean Holland Illustrated by Rob Torno Edited by Jonathan Jacobs

The fields should be golden with tall rows of ripe grain, but the stalks droop and the tips are a dull red. They are the rust color of dried blood.

The farm houses are abandoned. Everything that could be moved has been taken.

The next field is the same; and the one after it.

What has happened here?

In nearby cities are rumors of curses or punishments from the gods, but none know the source of this blight or what it portends. Diviners, priests and wizards all seek answers but thus far none have revealed any. Fear and worry is spreading.

At least the Red Monks bring comfort, if not answers, to the people.

The Stage is Set

The Red Monks of the Hidden Kingdom entered the lands from the east. The rust blight entered the lands from the west. The weather was good and pests were minimal, but what should have been a record harvest of grain fell to the blight. Prayer would not turn it away, nor would magical charms. The red blight spread quickly and made the fields look like seas of dried blood.

The Red Monks came and offered aid, buying blighted grain for fair prices only to destroy it, and trade what untainted grain they brought with them to feed the hungry. The local nobility searched for a remedy, magical or otherwise, but worried about the growing influence of the cult as well as their people. Agents of the King were dispatched to find the origin of the blight, and now the peasants gather to seek answers, seek hope.

Conflict does not seem far off…

Behind the Curtain

There are several options as to what is really going on here, depending on the needs of the campaign, and various ways for adventurers to get involved. The following is a list of potential adventure hooks that might be used to include the Red Harvest as a means to introduce Brother Ptolemy and his Red Monks into your existing campaign.

• The nobility believe the cult is spreading the blight to increase dependency upon them, they would be happy to hire investigators to prove this. This may be true, after all the monks do not need to eat.
• The cult is secretly harvesting the blighted grain because, when dried and baked, it has mystical properties, spurring visions and flashes of prophecies before a slow death. The recruitment possibilities the blight causes among the farmers and townsfolk is simply an unexpected benefit. The characters may stumble across elements of the cult harvesting the grain before burning the stalks or sacks of blighted grain being transported.
• Brother Ptolemy believes the blight has been spread by those wishing to discredit and has hired the characters to investigate the source. This may be so, perhaps a minor death god has released the blight to strike against the cult which is stealing his due. Perhaps it is a gift to those who oppose the cult, as ingesting the blighted grain makes one immune to the effect of Ptolemy’s ritual.
• An unscrupulous group of merchants wants the Red Monks out of the way so that they can make a huge profit off the misfortune of the common people. So the merchants want Ptolemy’s operation out of the way, be it by defaming the cult or by destroying or stealing the supplies the cult is bringing in or both. The characters could be hired to guard the supply caravans or to raid them.

Note that several of these ideas are not mutually exclusive. For example, the characters could be hired to guard a Red Monk supply caravan, only to find that the monks are shipping out blighted grain.

Additional Notes

The blight is resistant, but not immune, to magical curing so counteracting the blight is not as simple as casting a spell. Something will resist the magic for somehow the blight is magical in nature. Detecting magic on the blighted grain will detect a very faint magic that is difficult to identify. The exact nature of this magic will depend on what options the Games Master chooses.

Sequels

Whatever caused the blight may cause another blight, if the characters stopped it once they will almost certainly be expected to do so again. Or they may find themselves dealing with a totally different problem.

Red Harvest by Nevermet Press is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.nevermetpress.com/contact.

False Charity

Written by Jerall Toi Illustrated by Matt Lichtenwalner To many, the arrival of the Red Monks is considered a good thing, as their work leads to a reduction in obvious poverty, petty crime and the presence of undesirables. There are, however, a few individuals that know that there is no such thing as real charity. A charitable act not only benefits the receiver, but also the giver. The Red Monks do not appear to benefit from their charitable work and it is for this very reason that some view the group with suspicion.

The Merchant Prince

Nalan, first-born son of a powerful merchant family, after managing several successful business ventures, seemed set to take over from his father. These days, however, one no longer finds Nalan in his port-side office, or abroad conducting business. Instead, he dedicates his time to improving the lives of the poor of his home town.

After the death of his wife, the young merchant seemed to withdraw from the rest of his family and the family business. Nalan’s younger brother did not seem to mind the situation, as it allowed him to step in and take control of the business.

Now, Nalan spends his days, and the moderate allowance allowed to him by his brother, amongst the dirty slums and shanty houses of the city’s poor. He dedicates his time to providing meaningful help to the poor, by buying out small plots of land and converting them to vegetable gardens. He then teaches, those that would learn and work, how to tend to the land, which in turn will provide them with both food and a source of income.

The arrival of the Red Monks has Nalan worried. He is concerned that those who accept the Monks’ food parcels will soon learn to depend on them, rather than seek out their own escape from poverty. Unsure that the Monks have the best intentions for the poor, some of whom he now calls friends, Nalan has now turned his attention and family fortune towards finding somebody that could help investigate the Monks and hopefully allay his suspicions.

The Rat King

Zal knows that the power and position held by the nobles and the rich over the poor is nothing more than an illusion. Without the poor, the nobles could not exist. The nobles rely on the poor. The poor hold the real power, but they just don’t see it, and it’s Zal’s job to make sure that they never do.

Zal has been tasked with uncovering ‘problem individuals’ within the poor neighborhoods. The well-oiled manufacturing machines of his employers can never halt production. It is with this in mind that he offers minor trinkets and food parcels to countless underprivileged children – his eyes and ears – for information relating to any ‘problem workers’ that jeopardise the livelihoods of ‘their parents’.

Zal equates the arrival of the first of the Red Monks to nothing less than the appearance of the harbingers of the apocalypse. Their ‘do-gooder’ deeds are threatening both his and his employer’s financial security, as more and more laborers begin defecting. In response, now authorized to offer monetary reward, Zal has ordered the children, those still loyal to him, to find somebody that would help him uncover the sinister plots the masked monks have in store for their parents. It doesn’t hurt that some of the children know how to act or have the ability to force out a tear or two. In fact, those skills might just help in finding the perfect sap for the job.

The Black Market Wizard

Moss, a purveyor of fine magical goods, currently finds himself facing, what he calls, a supply chain collapse. Moss owns and runs a small store in the city’s merchant district, catering for wizards and others that would appreciate a magically enchanted sword or shield. However, despite the look and layout of the store, his dress and mannerisms, Moss is, in fact, not a wizard.

Moss is nothing more than a reseller of wizardly goods, acting as a middle man for real arcane practitioners that would otherwise be too busy to seek out their own funding and supplies. He rarely needs to trade coin for goods from his wizard suppliers, as they more readily accept arcane components and other goods required by their experiments.

Recently, Moss has developed a successful business relationship with a small cabal that seems to prefer components of a more macabre nature. Moss does not question the orders he receives, but does his best to fulfill them. What does it matter if the blood of a human virgin he supplies just happens to be the blood of a human street child? Unfortunately, with the arrival of the Red Monks though, Moss now finds his supply of eyeballs, kidneys and tongues dwindling.

Moss now seeks out somebody that would help investigate the Red Monks and their true motives. He is quite willing to allow access to his store’s supply rooms in payment for services rendered.

False Charity by Nevermet Press is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.nevermetpress.com/contact.