D&D Adventures 14: Death Tyrant
In a mountainous region, one can find Five-Towns. Literally five towns that equal the population of a city, each surrounded by small villages and hamlets. In a hard-to-reach area, they forage and hunt what they can and trade for the rest of their requirements or simply for profit.
Unfortunately for them, a Death Tyrant has devised a terrible strategy targeting them.
It attacks vulnerable villages surrounding a town, easily turning all the villagers into zombies. Once all villages are turned, it uses them to overwhelm the towns and turn the whole town into zombies.
It has allies making sure no one runs away to ask for help.
The roads have been blocked by somewhat unusual amounts of snow, plus the politics with their trading partners have been sour in the last few years, so no one attempts to visit them.
They are completely isolated.
What’s more, an altar is being raised in the middle of the towns.
And that’s the hook. How many towns have already fallen? How did the players learn? How fast is the Death Tyrant moving?
What about the altar? Maybe the Tyrant wants to sacrifice the army of zombies for power? A portal to Negative Plane? Deification? What about the Lords of Death? How does Orcus or Myrkul feel about this? Are they rivals?Are they in on it? Will they benefit from it? If gods of light send their champions, will the dark ones send theirs or support them?
This is definitely more than a simple quest and while possible to be expanded, probably not a full-fledged campaign either. It could create a terrible villain and presents a lot of dramatic opportunities too.
