Sword of Serpents Campaign

The early stages of this campaign started with Second Edition, which was later switched over to Third Edition towards the end. The following is a general recap of the major events that occurred in the old campaign that I ran and then notes for the campaign’s sequel that I’m preparing to run in Fourth Edition.

Capmaign Location:
Tarn Solvaney, a land ruled by the Von Zarovich family and a renown group of paladins known as The Circle that operated out of the city / town of Avonleigh.

History:
Story began seven years prior to the first adventure using the non-player characters from the following sources A Light in the Belfry and Roots of Evil.

Player character, Sir Stewart Whiteheart, a warrior and King’s champion who was known in Tarn Solvaney for being the one King Barov and Queen Kristianna would call on because of his ability to do the work of large militia.

Player character, Blais, belonged to a large smuggling business in the small port city of Drebden about a seven day trek West of Barovia. A large portion of her business was in the transportation of illegal and dangerous creatures that were stored in stasis in small magical boxes that became known as a Blais box.

Player character, Lord Corwin Blackhawk, wasn’t really an official lord, but in his own mind he thought of himself as one. With his evil ways he really wouldn’t be caught dead with the two characters mentioned above, but circumstances unfolded around him that made him tolerate them to certain extent. He wanted to be the boogieman of the region and didn’t like anyone but himself being the one the people of the realm feared. Blackhawk always kept his word, mostly because he was haunted by tortured dreams, sleepless nights, etc. whenever he didn’t.

Campaign Story:
King Barov Von Zarovich calls Sir Stewart from his home to the East of Barovia. He sends Sir Stewart on a mission to find Queen Kristianna’s sister Aurora Shadowborn who has gone missing along with the paladins of The Circle and the Queen’s brother Ferran Shadowborn.A group known as the Cult of the Serpent pulls Blais aside and tells her that they haven’t received a delivery of an important package that was supposedly under her supervision so they threatened her to go out and find it. Investigation into the shipping records placed the package coming from Morgoroth who was located in Avonleigh, so Blais personally took it upon herself to ride out and get the parcel.

Blais and Sir Stewart run into one another at Morgoroth’s estate where they both find that the house is gone along with Morgoroth, Aurora, and Ferran.

Lord Blackhawk has been struggling with troubled dreams and has a feeling that something terribly wrong has occurred but doesn’t know what it is until Sir Stewart and Blais show up at his house one evening and mention that they’re looking for Aurora Shadowborn and were told that the locals mentioned a Lord Blackhawk. Corwin’s past intertwined with Aurora Shadowborn many years ago when he had found Aurora and her mother traveling on an isolated road and he imprisoned them belkow his mansion. Later he would kill the mother but found that he for some reason couldn’t kill Aurora and let her go, giving his word that no harm would ever come to her. An old promise he now had to complete.

Earlier… Morgoroth came to Avonleigh to escape the evils of his ways in a distant land, he met with Ferran and told him of history and the paladin granted him a piece of land and offered to help him repent his ways. Morgoroth and Aurora were attracted to each other but never spoke of their feelings. Years went by and Morgoroth became Ferran’s advisor and was changing his ways until one day a knight of his distant homeland arrived and told Ferran he was searching for an evil mage and Morgoroth knew it was only a matter of time before the paladin’s knew it was Morgorth that the knight was looking for.

The knight caught Morgoroth and the mage killed him with deadly evil magic. Ferran set out to talk to Morgoroth and council him but he was never seen again. Soon afterwards Morgoroth teleported into the church, grabbed Aurora, and then teleported back home. The paladins quickly responded and rode off to drag Morgoroth from his home. That night a storm raged across the land and in the morning a mob of people went the wizard’s estate to find that the paladins, Aurora, Morgoroth, and the wizard’s home were gone. Morgorth was now imprisoned in Ravenloft and Aurora held in stasis in a glass coffin that Morgoroth could not break.

Sir Stewart and his group were soon transported to Ravenloft to rescue Aurora from Morgoroth. A previous fortune telling and a new dream made Sir Stewart realize that the Queen would die if he saved Aurora. Sir Stewart tried to kill Aurora but Corwin wouldn’t allow it and then they were all transported out of Ravenloft where Stewart didn’t arrive in time to save the queen.

A year had gone by while the group was in Ravenloft rescuing Aurora, only a day or two had gone by for the adventurers. They came back to find that the Serpent Cult had gained access to a magical artifact called the Sword of Serpents that had increased their power greatly.

The Serpent Army’s main leader was a woman called Rowan and her brother Linoth was her first in command. The heroes ran into Linoth a few times during the adventure and would usually allow him to escape. He became the comical villain, always in the wrong place at the wrong time and usually lucky enough to get away when he surely should have been killed or imprisoned.

The heroes traveled all over in search of an artifact that was said could destroy the Sword of Serpents. At one point while searching out motives of the Serpent Army a portal was found and the group was able to steal the Sword of Serpents from the evil army, but it was a little too late since the Serpent Army was preparing to invade many cities from the inside using magical portals while Rowan used a similar portal to travel to Castle Ravenloft and establish herself as ruler of Tarn Solvaney.

Lord Blackhawk went to a city to the south called Talor and used the Sword of Serpents to stop time and use a creature he found in his travels to infect the whole town and create his own army in which to defend the Castle and the lands of Tarn Solvaney. (The creature was a facehugger from aliens and with it Corwin made warriors out the city of Talor)

The story ended with the characters in a final battle in the chapel of Castle Ravenloft, both artifacts animated into large animals that began tearing the chapel apart while Sir Stewart, now a Black Guard because of his constant closeness with Lord Blachawk, battle with the Serpent Army’s leader Rowan.

We never finished the last combat, but Rowan was pretty much outnumbered and would eventually fall or driven away.

I want to continue the campaign and convert it over to Fourth Edition having the same players using new characters in the fight against the invading Seprent Army, with Barovia and Castle Ravenloft overridden with alien creatures and their controller Lord Blackhawk and his companions vanished during a storm assaulted the castle in the midst of the last battle.

Linoth is secretly a chief advisor to the new Lord of Avonleigh and no one except Sir Stewart and Corwin know of him as anything different leaves him with a place to lay low while he gives the Serpent Army his commands from their invasions all over Tarn Solvaney.

The adventure is starting with the characters arriving in the town of Avonleigh after dealing with a group of Sepernt Army warriors invading a town to the south. Linoth will personally greet the arriving group and show them to their quarters. What the players won’t know is that Linoth had hoped the group would take one of the Serpent Forces large war wagons (a wagon that was encountered in a previous battle with the old characters) and return to Avonleigh with it. Hidden inside the wagon are multiple Blais Boxes (as described above) and within those are hidden two groups of Serpent Army forces that intend to invade the Lord’s home, killing him and taking control of Avonleigh.

Additional Sub-Plots:
A few of these are possibly going to resurface in the following campaign sequel.

An old Dungeon Magazine adventure had a group of evil mercenaries in it known as the Doom Brigade, I took the group and modified it a little to fit the story. The Doom Brigade worked for Rowan of the Serpent Army in finding anything useful to aid in making her Army more powerful. The Doom Brigade was led by a death knight, named Gauntlet, in which I worked into the story as being Count Strahd’s right hand man back when Strahd was a retired admiral and ruler of Tarn Solvaney. Gauntlet’s ultimate goal was to slay Strahd and Rowan promised him that once she was ruler of Tarn Solvaney she would grant him that wish.

If I remember correctly, the players heard rumors around the land of the Doom Brigade early in the campaign and they ran into them two or three times later in the campaign. Gauntlet had a helm of teleportation that had a contingency built in that would teleport him away from combat when his hit points reached a certain point. He was tied closely with his weapon and in the last combat the players had with the Doom Brigade, Sir Stewart disarmed Gauntlet of his sword and the next blow caused Gauntlet to teleport away. Gauntlet became a loose end, he’s now looking for his weapon that Sir Stewart began wielding once his alignment shifted towards evil and he became a Black Guard.

The most memorable battle was with a group of Serpent Cultists led by Linoth as they were transporting a young platinum dragon out of Talor inside a large war wagon pulled by four large undead beasts. These beasts had the ability to hit an enemy with such power that they flew through the air many feet away. Sir Stewart wasn’t familiar with the ability until after he charged onto a big a bridge the wagon was traveling over and was hit by the beast, flying back over the rest of the party and into the trees some distance away. The group rescued the platinum dragon who flew off to join his mother back in Talor, she was one of the rulers until she became part of the plot and Corwin gave her a Necklace of Strangulation as a gift.

Corwin used parts of the platinum dragons to construct large abominations that he entered in an illegal underground fighting tournament of creatures where the prize was a an item called the Key of Finding that could find and person, creature, or object in the world and then vanish once it had shown the location to the person. The key actually would show a large portion of the world, like map, and then zoom down until the thing requested was shown to the user. This key was used by the players to find the artifact that was rumored could destroy the Sword of Serpents and now the key has moved on to another location in the world.

The illegal tournament of creature against creature took place in the underground city of Skullport (from Forgotten Realms) located below a coastal city to the north called Gorak. Lord Blackhawk transported his creatures to the tournament using the magical Blais Boxes.

The characters left Skullport using a long winding passageway that exited some distance from Gorak. The characters then traveled to Gorak and found Linoth and a group of Serpent Cultists causing trouble. They quickly dispersed the cultists and captured Linoth who, after being promised he’d be allowed to live if he provided some useful information, told Corwin everything he knew about an impending invasion that was going to occur using a portal hidden below the main government spire at the center of the city. Corwin then promised that the next time he saw Linoth would be the last time.

The portal below Gorak was destroyed but not before Corwin used it to steal the Sword of Serpents out from under the Army’s nose. The portal’s destruction caused many troops to be killed that were gathered in a large cavern preparing for the invasion. Unknown to the characters, the portal’s explosion also took out other portals close by that were tuned to other cities, one of them being Avonleigh.