Casting Shadows

This week’s seed is for Palladium Fantasy, in honor of the company’s 30^th Birthday this month. The Palladium Fantasy RPG (the real PFRPG) has given me great adventures and great memories over the years, and taught me a lot about what it really means to run a campaign.

The Seed

Near a small community of your choice, in a heavily wooded valley which the locals say was once the lair of a fearsome Nightstalker Dragon, a fat stone tower now stands. This five-storey tower is the private dwelling of a reclusive man of magic, who is believed to have last visited the town more than 10 years ago. His servant, a loud and loquacious man at arms renowned for his skill with a bow, has been making monthly trips to the community for supplies for more than a decade, but has not been seen for the last two months. The tower is reputed to be stocked full of treasures, wonders, knowledge, and fine ale. It is even said that the wizard long ago learned a way to create all the wealth he would ever need.

This silence from the tower is strange and disconcerting.

People are beginning to talk

Details

The wizard, once famed as an explorer and mentor, retired to the Vale an old and pain-ridden man, tired of the road, and looking to find the peace of familiar surroundings in which to end his days. While his first years in the area were not so peaceful, as former enemies, and the encroachment of foul beasts interrupted his rest, eventually, things slowed down. Not interested in the whirl and rush of humanity, he stopped visiting the markets and festivals not long after.

His aide, the bowman, on the other hand, loves that whirling rush, particularly if it is feminine and will drink with him. He loved to visit the markets and his absence, is causing his friends some concern.

It also causes some fear.

While it is possible that one or both of the men have simply succumbed to old age, it is also possible that something terrible has happened. Curiosity is getting out of hand.

Planting the seed

To use this seed to best effect, I would suggest having the players lay aside their regular characters for a night, and let them play a small group of teen-aged children from the local farms who have worked up the courage to enter the mysterious and dangerous Vale, and seek out the tower of the wizard to ascertain his fate. Remind them of dreams of glory, and fear of wild beasts.

Perhaps they will find the wizard alive, but in need of help. Perhaps they will find no sign of anything but an empty tower and a cold trail in the woods leading on to… who knows? Perhaps they will find signs of battle, and a deep hole coming up into the tower from caverns below.

Perhaps these young stalwarts will investigate for themselves, or perhaps they will return to town, and share their tale, sparking the rumors which draw the heroes of your regular sessions to the area to investigate.

It’s up to you

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