An adventure for Age of Legends in which four shades, each sent to Tartarus for the sins of avarice, hubris, heresy, and mundanity, have escaped back into the world.
In the depths of the temple of Hades, the priest Podarge has troubling words for this party of heroes. They have received word from the most adamantine of the gods that the dead are escaping from the underworld and have entered the city of Thebes. This cannot be tolerated and is against the natural order. Hades directs the heroes to find these escaped spirits and shades and send them back to him for judgement. Podarge gives the party four white pearls with which to trap the spirits of the dead. The pearls will turn ink black when they have been filled. A spirit can enter a pearl voluntarily or it can be trapped on redeath. Once all four pearls are filled, they can be used to find the breach from which these dead escaped. Seek throughout the polis for those that do not belong here.
Nicanor – The Company Master: All organised crime in Thebes was once controlled by one person, Nicanor. Their greed and their arrogance led to them not seeing the ambition in the eyes of Timoleon until it was too late. Though Timoleon rapidly consolidated their power, they now find themselves involved in a brutal street war with an unknown adversary. The shade of Nicanor has returned to Thebes seeking both revenge on Timoleon and to retake their place as the shadow master of Thebes. The criminal companies of Thebes are split in two, with Timoleon leading the New Men who wear blue against Nicanor’s Restorians who wear red. There is nightly fighting all across Thebes that the city guard are having no effect on.
Arethusa – The Warrior: The last words of Arethusa were heard as they charged at a mass of Persian mercenaries. They declared that they were the greatest Greek warrior to have ever gone into battle. Such hubris was met with the disdaining sharp points of the Persians spears and then the judgement of Hades. Arethusa has learnt no lessons from their painful demise and is seeking with both determination and desperation to prove that they are a great warrior. They can be found in the gymnasium of Thebes where they are taking on all comers in one on one combat. They say they will yield to the warrior that can honourably defeat them else their opponents are no better than the cowardly Persians.
Egeria – The Heretic Priest: It is orthodoxy that the gods have incredible power and mortals do not. Egeria declares that the divine power of the gods can be wielded by mortal hands. Their first attempt at claiming such power ended with them and their followers being devoured by volcanic lava as the Oread they were attempting to bind fought back. Now returned from Tartarus, they have found a grove near Thebes of a minor Meliae, Asettia. They have bound the nymph and taken her powers. Egeria has created four fungus creatures to aid them and is intent on creating more to spread their power further. This has greatly upset the balance of the forest around the grove. Trees and plants now grow in distorted ways and the animals are maddened with grief and hunger. The grove itself has become a place of rot and decay around bronze clad remains of Asettia’s ash tree. Removing the bronze will free Asettia and restore her usurp powers, but she is too weak to help and will need months to recover.
Kardiamvlys- The Dullard: Nothing of interest ever happened to Kardiamvlys when they were alive, their time spent dead was uneventful, and anything of interest continues to not happen now that they have returned to Thebes. Their old home was exactly as had been the day they died peacefully in their sleep. It seems Kardiamvlys’s passing went completely unnoticed beyond someone removing their corpse from the bed. They’ve even been able to resume their previous job as a Moirologist, though apparently no-one missed the job not being done in the year or so that Kardiamvlys was dead. Observing Kardiamvlys for any length of time will reveal that interesting things continually almost but not quite happen to them, as if there’s some kind of magic protecting them from the diverting, the engaging, or the dangerous. This magic will work strongly against any attempts dramatic, comedic, or tragic to return Kardiamvlys to the underworld.
Once all four of the pearls are full, the priest of Hades can use them in a ritual to find the opening these shades used to escape the underworld. The priest places the pearls on a pedestal and pours the blood of goat over them whilst chanting for guidance for Hades. The blood bursts into flames and amongst the flames are images of a sea cave. As the fire dies down the pearls are revealed to be unharmed. Podgarge tells the party that the sea cave seen in the vision is a two day trip to the coast. The party must travel to the cave and throw the pearls into a pool to be found at the back of the cave.
Even at low tide, the entrance to the cave is partially submerged, forcing anyone who wishes to enter to wade through the sea. The cave is cramped and straight where the sea has found a crack amongst the rock to force open. It is a three hundred metre scramble to reach the pool at the back of the cave. Ripples fade instantly on the pool’s surface and the water is bitterly cold. The bottom of the pool is not visible. As soon as the pearls are dropped into the water, the entire cave begins to shake and collapse. Getting out of the cave alive requires overcoming three tests – a shifting floor, falling rocks, and rushing water. Each test is 1d6 in difficulty. A character successfully escapes from the cave if the total of their margins of success for the three tests is greater than 30.
Image Credits: Theben by Carl Rottmann (Public Domain), Mallorca_075 by gravitat-OFF CC-BY-2.0