Part One of Making a Dungeon: Setting the Scene for the Adventure

 SETTING THE SCENE:

    The narrow road that has led the adventurers through the forest takes a turn to the right and within moments, brook can be heard. It is the only sound that anyone can hear at this moment. A mile previously, the adventurers had notice that there were no sounds of wildlife and as the day was still, no wind in the branches could be heard. 

    As they continue along the road, they will notice that it gets wider. Along the way, they will see roads start to come off of the one they are walking. The first road goes to the left, away from the brook. The adventurers will feel a distinct desire to quickly pass by due to an almost suffocating sense of dread. The road disappears into the foliage and darkness made by thorns and gnarled trees that seem to block sunlight. The adventurers will only be able to see about 60' down the road before it fades into the lack of light. 

 (DM's Note: the magical effect automatically makes the party move on as the effect increases in intensity as it grows darker and then when night takes into effect)

    

    The time that the adventurers come across this road is shortly before nightfall. They are very close to a hamlet and two farms where they can spend the night. As the road continues, they will come across two others: each a small farm where they can spend the night in the barn and be given a simple dinner of mead and cheese for one copper piece. The head of each household will inform the party that the town is just ahead on the main road if they do not wish to pay for the night. 

    The head of the household will respond to any questions about the dark road with, "Death is down that road...and death comes from the road only at night, but a horrible death it would be. Stay here and stay safe behind the locked doors, or hurry on to Sar Es-Salaam!"

     The adventurers will be safe at the farms or will make it to Sar Es-Salaam about 30 minutes before twilight. Either way, as the party makes it way to the hamlet, the road becomes wider with several wagons tracks and runs parallel to the brook, on the right. The forest gives way to an open plain where they can see Sar Es-Salaam.

    Sar Es-Salaam is one of a handful of hamlets that are close to the northern frontier border of the kingdom of Salatine. The hamlets are each connected by east-west roads with one road going south. And no roads going further north. To the north are the wilds where no human kingdoms exist, but the are the lands of fantastical creatures and lands of other races.

    Sar Es-Salaam has two reasons for existing like the other hamlets. First, they are trading posts with some of the more friendlier races to the north. Races like the dwarves and the little folks known also as halflings. Elves are also known to trade and appear in these small villages. Most of the time, the elves are mostly half-elves. Every few decades, a trade delegation from the Grey Elves may pass through. The Wood Elves deal with the humans as little as possible...but are reliable in passing on warnings to the hamlets of any evil afoot. 

    The second reason is that they are starting points for most adventurers. Each hamlet has an inn, a stable and a small store to equip adventurers with in addition to three or four huts that house the main families. Given the size of these hamlets, there are no forces from the Salatine army to protect them. Often adventurers are hired for special missions or to help guard the hamlet for a time. 

    The road will enter into the middle of Sar Es-Salaam. However, the brook will continue to go to the right of the town and then go north into the tree-line just 100 yards beyond the hamlet. The east-west road cuts straight through the hamlet to take travelers to the other hamlets. 

    The first thing the party will see is a recently destroyed, wooden structure. There is only one, charred wall standing. The party will see as they move on, black and fallen wooden beams laying in great mounds of ash. It looks as if the building could have held the entire population of Sar Es-Salaam easily. The ground around the burnt down structure is black. The last thing the party will see is a graveyard just to the right of the ruin...with six newly made and filled in graves. 

    As the party enters the hamlet, the sky darkens and they head towards the Blacktree Inn. There is no one outside and the hamlet appears dark except for lights from the inn and a couple of the other structures. The inn is on the left side of the road, with a stable attached to it. Next door is the hamlet forge and a small building that serves as the trading post for the hamlet. Across from the Blacktree Inn are five family dwellings. While Sar Es-Salaam is a small hamlet, it services several area farms. Or did. 

(DM's Note: Use equipment and tavern item price lists as provided in D&D source materials.) 

    The inn is fairly large and has room for the party to secure lodging for the night. The mood is subdued inside the large tavern room, which is only a quarter full. Everyone is looking down, not really eating much, but drinking somewhat heavily. As the party enters, no one looks up and there is no greeting from the bar. 

    Once the party goes to the bar to secure lodging, the bartender and owner of the Blacktree Inn, Silus Sareni will inform the party that a funeral service has just been held and that some of those present are family members of the deceased and apologizes for the lack of festivities and barmaids. If asked what happened, Silus will shake his head and politely change the subject by seating them at a table and have a meal served. 

    As the party eats, the door to the inn opens and this time, the patrons look up briefly before looking back into their cup of mead. A large man with a scar along his left check steps in and surveys the inn. He is wearing a dark cloak, the hilt of a sword and a dagger sticking out from underneath. 

(DM's Note: hidden underneath the tunic he is wearing is a chain mail shirt, giving him an AC of 14)

    The man sees the party and immediately walks up to them, pulling back his cloak so that they can see his weapons. He is dark-haired and of serious demeanor. He speaks in a deep voice of authority and reveals himself to be the Sarif, the leader of the hamlet, and says his name is Cavadal Pherenti. He is a 4th level fighter (St:15, Dex:13, Con:13, Int:16, Wis:11, Cha:11) and is well-regarded.

    He tells the party he saw them entering the hamlet. He will pause for a moment...and then offer the party a job....

(let me know what kind of monsters that a 1-3 level character can handle you would like to see in the comments!)

    

The Quest for the Mini-Bottles of Cinnamon Fireball Liquor, Part Two: The Rise of Car

 The Quest for the Mini-Bottles of Cinnamon Fireball Liquor, Part Two: 

The Rise of Car

by Steve Gearhart

Car sipped at his cup of two-day-old black coffee. He winced. It was more acidic than he wanted it to be. It needed a little bit more of a tasty kick. It wasn't that he couldn't handle the sharp taste of the acid reflux to come. After all, if he could handle the ulcers that had been festering in stomach for the past thirty years, he could certainly handle the oily, black liquid in his unwashed mug. That wasn't the problem... 

It was just that Car wanted to down his hate coffee of acid with some kind of taste that was remotely enjoyable. He wasn't a total heathen...just a white-trash version of a horseman of the redneck apocalypse. And as such, he wanted a little bit of pleasure with his very, very angry cup of coffee. 

Car shuffled around his dirty kitchen. He set down his gray coffee mug that he hadn't washed in five years. Once upon a time it was white and brand new. And much like many of the things in Car's life...it simply gave up and gave in. Another victim of Car's neglect. 

He looked at the small counter next to the sink. The sink had little flies flitting around. Car grunted. He supposed he would have to set off another bug bomb and then rinse off the dishes. His rheumy, yellow eyes scanned the bottle-strewn counter. Nothing but miniature bottles of Moss Eisley's Cinnamon Fireball Liquor. All of them empty.

Car grunted in disapproval. It was the only thing he liked to drink with his coffee. The coffee on its own wasn't enough to get him going...artificial anger could get him going only so far. He needed something to get him from anger to the energy of hate...the true thing that got him going. The cheap cinnamon flavored liquor was what did the trick. 

Now, Car was going to have to leave his redneck apocalyptic paradise and go down to the liquor store off of Mill Swamp Road. A small shack of a store with the imaginative name of 404 Liquors. No one knew what the 404 was supposed to mean. 

Car hated leaving his property. Car hated having to travel to 404 Liquors where that idiot boy with the greasy hair and pervy beard stood by the cash register. Car hated that kid. Car hated having to go into 404 and spend his hard-earned Social Security money on the only, small pleasure he had in life. He hated how that boy smiled smugly, knowing Car couldn't really afford more than ten miniatures of Moss Eisley's Cinnamon Fireball Liquor. Car hated his predicament. 

Car shook his head at the sad state of his world. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Just then his body reminded him of the three packs he had been smoking since age sixteen and doubled him over in a fit of violent coughing. 

After a minute, Car stood up and glanced at the sink and the small cloud of tiny flies swarming. He hawked up a huge loogey and spat at the sink. He tracked the ball of bio-goo and hoped that it hit some of the tiny flies, smothering them to death in his own phlegm.

Car scratched at his stomach as the blob of mucus splattered on a dirty plate, agitating the swarm. He turned and shuffled through the kitchen, through the living room filled with the odds and ends of a detestable life. 

Once reaching the bedroom, he followed the path he made that wound its way through the debris. The path branching off one way to the yellowed, sad mattress that was on the floor, he took the opposite path to the open closet. 

Car looked at himself in the closet door mirror. He looked at himself and knew instantly that if he was going to be remotely successful today, he was going to have to wear a shirt over his wife beater that was covered in mysterious stains.Not that the wife beater was the problem.

All that was remaining of his left arm was a short nub protruding from his shoulder. Car wiggled it and he let out a cackle. It was such an alien, little nub. Scarred and useless. Well, Car thought, not completely useless. When he wanted to make small children cry, he would wiggle the nub at them.

Car reached in and got the least offensive smelling plaid, button down shirt. With years of practice, he got it on quickly. When he first lost that arm twenty arms ago it took him forever to get his clothes on. Even so, he still blamed that raven-haired beauty of so long ago for what happened. It was her fault that he lost the arm. He woke up every day since, blaming her. 

With his shirt on and the left sleeve properly pinned in place, he looked at his hair. A dirty gray now. Sickly thin on top. Spiked up here and there. He slammed his greasy and cheap, dark green cap over his head. Wash day was in three days. He would handle his hair then. 

He walked out to his tiny foyer and snatched his key ring off the small table near the door. He undid the bolts one at a time. Finally, he opened the door and blinked his old eyes in the light. It was actually overcast that day, the sun was not in sight. However, Car lived in the gloom of his home for so long, any amount of light caused him to squint. 

He stamped down the steps and surveyed his front lawn. It really wasn't a lawn, but more of a junkyard of dead dreams. He had multiple trucks and cars on blocks. Companion pieces next to each murdered vehicle. Whenever a gearhead or mechanic would drive by, they would choke back a tear. They would recognize the total abuse of what were once proud and valuable wheels that had the potential of power and speed. But were now nothing but rust.

As Car walked by the hulks, he cursed. He was sixty-eight now. Back when these hulks were things of potential. Back when he was a talented mechanic. Back when he could make cars better, faster and beautiful...and get paid handsomely. Back when he had both arms. Back then...he had a future. She took it away. That raven-haired beauty of destruction. 

Car closed his eyes and pushed her out of his mind. He had a mission. He had to get his Moss Eisley's Cinnamon Fireball Liquor for his hate coffee. 

He shook his head as he got to his only mode of transportation. The state of Maryland had decided that he had no business driving a car again. Or a truck. Or a motorcycle. Not even a scooter. He had crashed the last car he would ever drive into the side of bank.

The courts took pity on him, thinking that the one beer he had that night had gotten him drunk, causing him to loose control of his car and go careening into the bank. Car let them think that. He was too embarrassed to admit he was trying to smash the ATM to rob it of its cash and failed. 

Car let out a deep and heavy sigh. He stepped up on the foot deck, swung one leg over the seat and plopped down. He found the small key on the chain and reached down. With practiced ease, he stuck the key into the ignition and turned. The engine coughed a few times, caught and started to run. Car took the parking break off and hit the gas.

He turned right onto Mill Swamp Road. It would take him about thirty minutes to get to 404 Liquors. He kept himself on the side of the road. The last time he drove on the actual pavement, he got a ticket from a state trooper for creating a traffic jam that went back three miles. 

The Sears Suburban Tecumesh Garden Tractor was pushing out vile and noxious smoke as it maxed out its twelve horsepower engine to its limited limits. The only consolation that Car had as he rode it was that the noise his riding lawnmower made would ruin the morning of anyone he passed by.

As Car puttered along on his lawnmower of impending doom, a lawyer from Washington DC who supposed to be on his way to Bay Bridge somehow got off of Route 50 and wound up lost on this back road. He pulled up alongside Car's ancient riding mower. 

The lawyer pressed the button to lower the window of his Lexus to ask Car for directions. Car, looking irritated, parked his mower and turned his head. The lawyer opened his mouth to ask how to get back to Route 50 when Car smiled.

The lawyer saw that Car was missing all but four of his teeth. The lawyer gaped and then slowly looked up into Car's almost dead and black eyes and saw nothing but malice. Wisely, the lawyer peeled out and opted to ask for directions in Edgewater instead.

Meanwhile, Car started chugging down the side of the road, cackling his mad and hateful laugh...getting closer and closer to his Moss Eisley's Cinnamon Fireball Liquor......

The theme song for this part:

(Author's Note: this is NOT an entirely fictional story)