The Temple of Madathak – The Dungeon: Part Ten

One hex = six miles

The campaign so far

Happy New Year readers! Here is the final instalment of Freblun’s adventures in the Temple of Madathak, although it is not the end of this solo Exemplars & Eidolons campaign. I’m now going to focus on my creative writing and will return to Freblun’s adventures sometime in 2024.

In the previous adventure the warrior Freblun, having returned the four captive youths to the hamlet of Drothorn, used King Othtar’s Shield, which functions as a magical teleportation device, to return to the Temple of Madathak. He came to the underground chamber of Dratharg, the high priest of Madathak. Freblun found that he Dratharg was keeping the two women from Urkothan, who had been slaves of the cultist Kulsev, in his chamber. Another of his prisoners was Naran, the beautiful daughter of the sorceress Evendra of Bluestone Tower. Dratharg told Freblun that he also had Medron, a man from Bruld who accompanied Freblun on his previous adventure, kept prisoner to be sacrificed to Madathak.

After fighting and slaying Dratharg, Freblun set Medron free and told him to guard Naran while he used King Othtar’s Shield to return the two women from Urkothan to their home. Freblun and the two women appeared on Urkothan, the moon, near Arzek’s Rock which is sacred to Droithara tribe of Urkothan. The two women came from the Droithara tribe and were named Altheela and Teshana. They left Freblun to return to their village in Thonoom, the forest of giant mushrooms that grows near Arzek’s Rock. Before they could reach Thonoom, Altheela was attacked and killed by a grodgath, a huge lizard-like monster. Freblun killed the grodgath, and handed King Othtar’s Shield to Teshana so that she could use its power to return the two of them, along with Altheela’s corpse, to her village of Tholzon.

In Tholzon, a village of stone cottages, Freblun gave Altheela’s corpse to the chief. Teshana went with some other women of the Droithara to tend to the corpse in a mortuary hut. Freblun was approached by Dabentha, a woman whom he had rescued from the cultists’ banqueting hall in the Temple of Madathak in an earlier adventure. Noticing his loneliness, she took him back to her hut to treat his wounds and provide him with a night of pleasure.

Freblun is a sixth level warrior with eight Facts and six Gifts.

Solo gaming tools

During previous sessions I used Schweig’s Themed Dungeon Generator to randomly generate the Temple of Madathak during play, but Freblun’s exploration of this dungeon is now complete. In this session I used the following tools:

• Scarlet Heroes (the weather generation table from the solo gaming section was used for weather on Urkothan).
• Sophia Brandt’s Miso game, a minimalist solo roleplaying game available for free on her blog.
• Weird and Wild: A Travel Generator (for the weather in Bruld).

Tholzon

What’s the weather like? I use the table for wet season weather from the Scarlet Heroes rulebook to determine what the weather is like on Urkothan today. It is raining heavily.

Freblun wakes up in Dabentha’s stone hut in the village of Tholzon. There is no sign of the beautiful Dabentha, with whom he spent a night of ecstasy. He stretches luxuriously on the mattress and hears rain pounding down on the slate roof. He has recovered from the wounds that he received from the evil Dratharg and from the grodgath.

Hit points: 40

He gets up and finds that Dabentha has provided him with breakfast; a flagon of mushroom wine has been placed next to a clay cup and a bowl of hot mushrooms. He puts on his shirt and trousers and has breakfast. Then he goes to the doorway of the hut. Outside it is raining heavily, although the downpour is not so intense as it was yesterday. Through the rain he can hear the beautiful sound of the Droithara women singing, coming from the other side of the village. He remembers Teshana telling him yesterday that the funeral rites of Altheela, the woman who was killed by the grodgath, would begin on the next day. Suddenly he remembers Medron and Naran, whom he left in the Dratharg’s chamber in the Temple of Madathak. He quickly puts on his magical chain hauberk of Ease and has King Othtar’s Shield return him to Dratharg’s chamber (50).

50: Dratharg’s chamber

He appears in Dratharg’s chamber. Medron is seated at the table, still dressed in the hauberk of scale mail that he took from Brenara’s chamber and still with his sword at his side. He rubs his eyes, which are red with lack of sleep, when Freblun appears. He looks very afraid and has obviously been kept awake by his task of guarding Naran in this dangerous place. Naran is asleep on the bed by the south wall of the chamber. Dratharg’s corpse lies on the floor next to the table. Freblun nearly beheaded the evil high priest when he slew him, but now he sees that Dratharg’s head has been entirely severed. Medron says that he did that as a precaution lest Dratharg come back to life.

Freblun apologises for his long absence, explaining that he had to fight a monster when he returned the two slave women to Urkothan. He gently wakes Naran, who looks up at him fearfully. Clearly, she is still traumatised from being Dratharg’s slave for so long. Freblun briefly considers searching Dratharg’s rooms for treasure, but then he hears something large and breathing heavily, and approaching the east door to the chamber on clawed feet. Freblun grasps Naran by one of her wrists and tells Medron to take hold of his other arm. He tells King Othtar’s Shield to return them to the minor shrine within the temple of Dronlan in Bruld, the chamber that is reserved for his use.

King Othtar’s Shield may malfunction if it is used twice within a short space of time. I use Miso: D12: Freblun and his companions are teleported to the temple of Dronlan in Bruld. D10: they are teleported into the Labyrinth of Arbdus. They are teleported to the temple of Dronlan in Bruld.

The Temple of Dronlan

Freblun and his companions appear within the chamber, a small shrine where a man-sized stone statue of Dronlan, the god of merchants and adventurers, stands behind an altar between two small arched windows of stained glass.

What’s the weather like in Bruld? This time I use the table from Weird and Wild: A Travel Generator. It is clear and hot.

Brilliant summer sunlight shines through the windows, forming shapes of bright colour on the floor of the chamber. Freblun leads Medron and Naran out of the chamber and down a corridor to the altar hall of Dronlan, where a 10-foot-tall bronze statue of Dronlan stands behind an altar. A young cleric goes to fetch Medornae, the high priestess. When she arrives Freblun tells her that Naran’s mind appears to have been affected by her enslavement by Dratharg, the evil high priest of Madathak whom he slew. Naran is still silent and fearful. Medornae directs two clerics to take Naran to the guest chamber of the temple. She tells Freblun that Dorsunda, the high priestess of Athaya the goddess of healing, knows more powerful healing spells than she does and may be able to cure Naran’s madness.

Freblun and Medron have lunch with Medornae. Afterwards Medron thanks Freblun for rescuing him from the terrible Temple of Madathak. He heads back to his workshop, telling Freblun that he is happy to return to his humble occupation of coopering. As Naran is now occupying the guest chamber of the temple of Dronlan, Freblun goes to The Wizard’s Garden inn where he pays for a good room for the night.

The Wizard’s Garden

Money: 39 gp, 1 sp and 5 cp

He sits down at a table in the common room of the inn and buys a pint of ale. For a while he relaxes and congratulates himself on having conquered his enemies in the Temple of Madathak.

Money: 39 gp and 5 cp

Then he pays 22 silver pieces for a good bottle of wine and goes up to his room to soak in the wooden bathing tub and drink some wine.

Money: 36 gp, 8 sp and 5 cp

The Tome of Adzargith

Afterwards he sits down at the table in his room and reads The Tome of Adzargith, the strange book that he took from Dratharg’s chamber. The book is written in Common. The text identifies Madathak as a mighty demon lord from the plane of chaos. In ancient times Arzek, a mad wizard of the Tarlthus people of Urkothan, summoned him to Arzek’s Rock on Urkothan. Madathak has remained on Urkothan ever since, gradually expanding his rule over the moon. He dwells with his minions in his great citadel of Ivurk Yath; the name of this place remains untranslated in the text but Freblun, who is wearing his Ring of Tongues, understands it to mean “evil castle.”

The text describes Madathak as the mightiest being in all Keorden (the planet where the Drenroth Wilds are situated) and all Urkothan. A hundred years ago Madathak’s great army destroyed the army of the Tarlthus at the Battle of Arzek’s Rock, and then enslaved the surviving Tarlthus. The book features woodcut illustrations depicting Madathak and Izgruvoth, a powerful demon who is his servitor. Izgruvoth has a vaguely human torso but the head and legs of a boar and small feathered wings.

Evening is now falling over Bruld and shadows are growing within the room. Freblun is fearful to read more of the book when Urkothan, which is now almost full, is hanging in the sky. He shuts the book and goes down to the common room of the inn, which is now full of drunken merriment. He pays for dinner and another pint of ale.

Money: 36 gp, 2 sp and 5 cp

Most of the patrons know of his heroic find of the Jewel of Athaya in the Temple of Madathak, and of how he brought the powerful healing artifact to Bruld to save the town from an outbreak of the plague. But Freblun provides only a brief account of his adventurers, saying that he will tell the complete story another time. He has decided that tomorrow he will return to the Temple of Madathak to take the rubies that form the eyes of Madathak’s idol in the altar hall. He goes back to his room and to bed.

Return to the Temple of Madathak

In the morning he goes down to the common room to pay for breakfast and a pint of beer. He also pays for another night’s stay in his room.

Money: 34 gp and 2 sp

Then he goes back to his room and uses King Othtar’s Shield to teleport to the altar hall (8) in the Temple of Madathak.

8: Altar hall of Madathak

The columned altar hall is empty and silent. Normally it is only used when Urkothan is full and when sacrifices to Madathak are made. But also, Freblun is now certain that he has freed all of the captives of the cultists and slain all of the cultists except for Brenara, who has no doubt returned to Madathak’s citadel of Ivurk Yath on Urkothan.

At the far end of the altar hall is a stone altar with stone statues on either side, statues of muscular men nine feet tall. But Freblun knows that these are no ordinary statues; they are the animated guardians of the altar hall and the last time he was here he had to use King Othtar’s Shield to escape from certain death from their mighty fists. But then he was only armed with a magical dagger and now he has a magical sword.

Beyond the altar is a dais upon which stands the idol of Madathak. It is fifteen feet tall and carved from grey alabaster. Madathak wears a hooded robe and holds a sword in his right hand, while his left arm terminates in three tentacles with hooks at the end of each one. His three eyes are represented by the rubies that Freblun has come for, huge gems the size of a man’s fist.

Stone guardians

Freblun draws his magical sword and strides towards the altar. The two stone guardians advance to attack.

The stone guardians are based on the stone guardian of Monster Manual II (1st Edition). They are 5 HD monsters and take only one quarter damage from edged weapons, whether magical or not. Freblun’s Fray die is ineffectual against them.

The ensuing combat is long and hard, and Freblun’s magic sword does not serve him as well as he thought it would against these magical monsters. Freblun is badly wounded before he reduces both the stone guardians to chunks of lifeless stone.

Freblun had to use his Titanic Blow Gift four times in this combat.

Hit points: 21

Exhausted, he leans against the altar and uses a salve from his healer’s bag to treat his wounds. He drinks some wine.

Hit points: 25

Idol of Madathak

Noticing that the altar has dried blood stains on it, he moves away from it. He sits on the lowest step of the dais for a while, resting to regain his strength. Then he walks up the dais and uses his magical sword to break the idol of Madathak into pieces. He takes the rubies from the eye sockets.

Each ruby is worth 5,000 gp.

On either side of the dais there is a wooden door, but Freblun is done with exploring the Temple of Madathak. No doubt orcs and other monsters will settle here, and adventurers will go down into their lairs to fight them for their treasure. But he will never return here. He goes through the secret door that he found previously in the southwest corner of the altar hall and enters the chamber where he destroyed the two zombie ogres (7). From there he goes through the empty chamber (6) to the stairs leading up to the cave shrine of Athaya (4), which is not far from the entrance to the Temple of Madathak.

4: Shrine of Athaya

For a short while he admires this beautiful cave where an underground pool is illuminated with soft blue light emanating from a submerged statue of Athaya, the goddess of healing. He thanks Athaya and Dronlan for helping him to succeed in his quest to retrieve the Jewel of Athaya and free the prisoners of the cultists of Madathak.

The healing waters of the pool heal all lost hit points, but only once. Freblun was healed by the waters during his first adventure in the Temple of Madathak.

Looking forward to a long rest, Freblun uses King Othtar’s Shield to return to his room in The Wizard’s Garden.

Does King Othtar’s Shield malfunction and teleport Freblun into the Labyrinth of Arbdus instead? I use Miso.D12: it doesn’t. D10: it does. King Othtar’s Shield doesn’t’ malfunction.

He returns to his room and goes down to the common room to have lunch and a pint of ale, and then goes back to his room to sleep.

Money: 33 gp and 6 sp

Hit points: 40

Naran

What’s the weather like? It is very hot.

The next morning heralds the beginning of a sweltering summer day. Freblun, who cannot feel the heat in his magical chain hauberk of Ease, decides to go to the temple of Dronlan to visit Naran. He has breakfast and a pint of ale, pays for another night’s stay, and then leaves The Wizard’s Garden.

Money: 32 gp and 5 sp

He finds Naran in the altar hall of the temple. She appears to be recovering and tells Freblun that the guest chamber was becoming unbearably hot on this summer day, and soon she will go outside to get some fresh air. Yesterday Dorsunda, the high priestess of the Athaya, came to the temple of Dronlan and used her healing magic to cure her madness. Freblun considers asking her if she knows what happened to her mother, Evendra, the sorceress of Bluestone Tower. But then he decides not to upset her with such a question while she is still recovering from her ordeal.

Freblun remembers that he still possesses the small statuette of Athaya, carved from blue spinel, that he found in the trolls’ lair near the entrance to the Temple of Madathak. He forgot to give it to Dorsunda to thank her for bringing Mulglonem, the gnome woman who was his former adventuring companion, back to life. Mulglonem was fatally injured by the trolls in the Temple of Madathak. Freblun retrieves the statuette from his Backpack of Holding and then goes to the temple of Athaya.

The Temple of Athaya

He finds Dorsunda in the altar hall of the temple and she gratefully accepts the statuette. She also tells him that in a few days’ time Borgus, the mayor of Bruld, will be holding a celebratory banquet in his honour at the town hall to thank him for saving Bruld from the plague. Freblun drops a generous donation of gold and silver pieces into the charity box of the temple.

Money: 20 gp

He asks Dorsunda about Mulglonem, who was recovering in the infirmary of the temple when he last met her. Dorsunda tells him that Mulglonem is still very weak but is now well enough to leave her bed and walk about for short periods of time. Freblun goes to the infirmary and finds the gnome woman sitting on the edge of her bed. They talk for a while and Freblun gives her an updated account of his adventures, telling of how he rescued the four youths from Drothorn, along with Naran and Medron, from the Temple of Madathak. Mulglonem congratulates him but says that she thinks her own adventuring days may be over. After she has recovered, she says, she will mostly likely settle in Lenthir where many gnomes live.

The Temple of Dronlan

Freblun returns to the temple of Dronlan, where he stores all the treasure that he acquired in the Temple of Madathak. He pays a 10% deposit fee of 100 electrum pieces to store 900 of the electrum pieces that he took from the corpse of Naestra the gorgon. He also withdraws 14 gold pieces.

Money: 34 gp

Treasure in the vault:

• 8,700 gp
• 900 ep
• 82 gemstones
• 20 pieces of jewellery
• Four silver goblets from the gorgons’ lair.

Then he returns to The Wizard’s Garden, where he tells the amazed patrons about his adventures. Very little happens over the next three days. Urkothan grows full again, but now no-one will be sacrificed to Madathak in his altar hall.

The banquet at the town hall

What’s the weather like?  It is pleasantly sunny.

On the morning of the day of the banquet Freblun pays for breakfast and a pint of ale and pays for another night’s stay in his comfortable room.

Money: 18 gp and 3 sp

He goes back to his room to bathe in the tub, and then dresses in his shirt and trousers which he has had washed. He puts on his magical chain hauberk of Ease which is comfortable to wear at dinner.

Then he leaves The Wizard’s Garden and walks through the streets of Bruld to the town hall, an imposing stone building. The day is pleasantly sunny, the intense heat of the previous days having lessened, and Freblun is in good spirits as he walks past shops, houses, and greens where birds sing on the boughs of oak trees.

Freblun enters the town hall and is greeted with jubilant cheers. He is seated between Medornae and Mulglonem, who is now well enough to attend the banquet. Dorsunda, Jevund the sage, Marthus the alchemist, and all the other prominent residents of the town are present. Borgus, the mayor of Bruld, makes a short speech praising Freblun for his heroism in finding the Jewel of Athaya and saving Bruld from the terrible plague. He presents Freblun with a small sack containing 200 gold pieces and then calls for food and drink to be served. Minstrels play as the banquet commences.

Afterwards Freblun accompanies Medornae back to the temple of Dronlan. She tells him that he can continue to use the minor shrine within the temple to teleport using King Othtar’s Shield. Freblun pays a 10% deposit fee to store 180 gold pieces in the vault.

Treasure in the vault:

• 8,880 gp
• 900 ep
• 82 gemstones
• 20 pieces of jewellery
• Four silver goblets from the gorgons’ lair.

Freblun then returns to The Wizard’s Garden where he has a simple dinner washed down with beer, and then goes to bed. As he is falling asleep his thoughts turn to Naran and her mother Evendra, the sorceress of Bluestone Tower. He decides that soon he will leave Bruld to explore that mysterious place.

Money: 17 gp, 9 sp and 5 cp

Freblun’s conquest of the Temple of Madathak counts as a remarkable achievement, according to the advancement rules of Exemplars & Eidolons, so Freblun gains eight experience points. He now has 31 experience points and is a seventh level warrior with 46 maximum hit points and eight Effort points.

As he has gained a level, he gains a new Gift. I give him the warrior Gift of Bloody Reaper, which increases the size of his Fray die by one step. His Fray die is now 1d10.

He also gains a new Fact; he is known as a hero to Madathak’s enemies on Urkothan. This Fact can be used when interacting with members of the Droithara tribe and anyone else on Urkothan who is not a servitor of Madathak.