Lair of the Vampire Queen

Pirate Kingdoms Adventure #2

A Pirate Kingdoms adventure set on Fibber Island for 1st and 2nd Level characters.

Note to all readers. This is an original adventure module designed for the Dungeons and Dragons game. This module is compliant with all Open Gaming License and D20 SRD regulations. If this sort of thing doesn’t interest you then you might want to click here.

This adventure is designed for game masters who run light hearted games, and is not intended for more serious campaigns, although it could be used a break in a normally serious campaign.

GM Background: This adventure begins at Alvin’s Hot Dog and Pie Haven, which is located on the beach at the tail end of high street on Fibber Island. The gamemaster may want to download a map of this location, which is available at http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x135/pjoliver/HotDogandPieHaven.jpg

Fibber Island is largely a resort and trading island, with a smattering of hotels, eating establishments, a boat harbor, several beaches, and other tourist type attractions. Think of it as similar to Hawaii. The island is officially owned and managed by the dwarves (who consider it part of their kingdom), but most of the population is human. The Elven Empire also claims this island as well, but they have no offices here, and elves are generally made to feel a bit unwelcome.

General Adventure Outline.

The general plot of this adventure is fairly simple, the characters venture into a set of purple worm tunnels in search of a missing man and possible vampires and encounter fake vampires of several kinds. If the players do not have existing characters then you may want to hand out some of the 2nd level sample characters from the Pirate Kingdoms rulebook, if you have it.

The Pirate Kingdoms rulebook and the Fibber Island sourcebook are not required to play this adventure, but it would be extremely useful if the game master has a copy of one or both, as those books detail many locations on the island that do not appear in this module, as well as providing campaign specific rules options

A few things are usually frowned upon in the Pirate Kingdoms; they include heavy armor, direct damage spells, and finishing off downed opponents. People wearing heavy armor either stick out as completely clueless, or people assume they are looking for a fight. While direct damage spells and finishing off downed opponents is seen as cheating like the dirty elves do.

Characters who are not native to the island should begin at encounter #1, while characters native to the island, (or at least familiar with it), should begin at encounter #2.

Text in bold is meant to be read aloud to the players.

Encounter 1. Landfall.

Ah, you are finally here, the world famous Fibber Island, you can't wait to relax on the beach with a fruity drink, perhaps eat at Alvin's World Famous Hot Dog and Pie Haven, and maybe, just maybe venture into the Safari Zone to hunt the really big game. As you make your way down the gangplank onto the beach you are greeted by native women (wearing nothing but gray body paint) waving at you, while several donkey carts await, each carrying a driver and bearing the sign of a different hotel. The drivers call out at you, listing their various amenities and asking you to climb aboard.

The native women themselves are not actual native women, they are simply locals who work for the various hotels, if the players interact with them they attempt to steer the players in onto the cart of the hotel they work for. The various hotels are detailed in the Fibber Island Sourcebook. Although they are all pretty much the same and the GM can feel free to make up their names if he doesn’t have the Fibber Island Sourcebook. Amenities they might have include hot springs piped in, bicycle track, full fruit bar, authentic native "massage", hairstylists, souvenir towels, and cat racing. The GM is responsible for handling any action that might go on at the hotel.

Encounter 2. Alvin's Hot Dog and Pie Haven.

Ah, some of you might have been waiting for this place, hot dogs and pies served in a large swimming pool where you swim up to your table and a beautiful waitress serves you hot dogs, pies, and fruity drinks. A man of about 30 years old with tan skin, dreadlocks and a large stain on his shirt waives you over and tells you to sit down, from what you have heard you would say that is Alvin.

Alvin’s Hot Dog and Pie Haven is one of the most popular restaurants on the island, it is located in the Southern Bay area. The entire seating area is located in a swimming pool. You swim up to your tables, where the waiters serve hot dogs, pie, and fruity drinks with little umbrellas in them. They open each evening at around 6 PM, and are usually open late into the night.

Most of the restaurant itself is absolutely ancient, the main pool area and tables were already present when the island was first developed 50 years ago. The restaurant building proper is a much more recent structure, built in standard Hawaiian style.

Alvin is a human in his mid 30s, his life dream was to own a hot dog and pie restaurant on Fibber island. Of course Alvin was never much of a worker, and wasn't particularly intelligent or motivated, but then he hit it big at the roulette table, and used his proceeds to open his restaurant.

Alvin has no important statistics as far as this adventure is concerned. He is of mixed African and European heritage. Alvin is mostly a slob, but is very personable. He spends much of his time eating pie and hot dogs with his customers. Hot dogs and pie are his passion though, and he gets up at the crack of noon every day in order to start baking pies. His favorite subject is jousting and he tends to talk about it all the time, although on Fibber Island most jousting tends to be done by small characters riding donkeys and dogs and not by humans on horses.

The price is one gold piece, and everyone pays before anything is served. Alvin himself prepares the food, and his waitress Katie does most of the serving. You don't actually select anything from the menu; Katie (or Alvin) will just carry trays of hot dogs and pies to each table. Beverages consist of fruity drinks with umbrellas. They are all basically the same drink (rum and water), but they look quite different and have different kinds of fruit in them.

Katie is an attentive server, she keeps the pie trays full, the hot dog plates full, and makes sure everyone has a drink in their hand at all times. She deftly dodges unwanted attention from the assorted drunk patrons, and his pretty much what keeps the place running. She is unrelated to Alvin, having run away from home at a very young age, she is currently 16 and has been Alvin's only waitress for 3 years. Alvin thinks of her as a daughter, but that doesn't stop him from making lots of suggestive comments to her.

Who is here?

The current set of patrons are a mix of island residents, sailors and tourists. If using the Fibber Island Sourcebook the following characters are present. The Vaughn Family (minus Alberto), “Brackish, the black hand of Bordeaux”, Iuliia with a random boyfriend (Tailor shop), Daria from the Pet Shop, 6 male sailors, and a tourist family. There is a cat juggler performing at the entryway, and another group of 4 sailors watching the juggler and making bets on the cats.

Allow the characters a bit of time to enjoy themselves and interact with the nonplayer characters before moving on to the next encounter.

Encounter 3. Runaway Cart

You hear a clattering sound up the road that gets louder and louder over a period of a few seconds. You manage to look up just in time to hear someone yell “runaway cart” and watch a halfling sailor dive out of the way just in time to miss a donkey cart going full tilt down the hill and into the pool, striking a sailor and throwing an old man from the seat onto your table. You can almost swear you could hear the old man yelling “bad donkey” on his way through the air.

The old man, (one 83 year old Jeremiah Finch), got into his donkey cart at the top of the hill and started off, unfortunately he had trouble remembering how to drive the thing and kept whipping his donkey trying to get it to slow down, which of course made it go faster. The donkey does not survive the crash, it was nearly dead from exhaustion and whipping when it crashed into the pool.

Jeremiah himself comes through the crash relatively uninjured, although the same cannot be said for the sailor that the cart hit, who is at -6 hit points, and pinned underneath the remains of the donkey under the water.

It will take a DC 16 strength check to pull the sailor out from under the donkey. If the sailor dies then his shipmates will be out for blood and will try to kill the old man, even going so far as to toss him a weapon before attacking him. If the sailor is healed then he will also attempt to duel the old man, albeit by himself. The old man will attempt to fight and will not flee.

If the sailor is merely stabilized then his buddies will carry him off and the old man will sit down to eat like nothing happened.

The sailors are not pirates and none of them have any allies on the island. There will be no repercussions if the players fight them, provided they fight fair.

After the cart crash Alvin will ask for help in pulling the cart out of the water and he will stash the cart behind his building, he absolutely refuses to give it back to the old man for fear the old man will crash it again.

Once the action dies down the locals will start telling stories about crazy things that old people have done recently.

Why I remember about 5 years ago when old Captain Harding crashed his ship full speed into the dock. Most of the ship is still down there, although divers have recovered everything of value from it.” The sailor then produces a jeweled dagger with the word “Harding” engraved upon the blade, and smiles revealing a few gold teeth that don’t seem to quite fit correctly.

A half-orc (Brackish the Black) begins another story. 3 days ago crazy old man come to Brackish Meat shop. He ask for lots of meat. He say he go to worm tunnels to hunt vampires and wanted to bring lots of steaks. Brackish not see old man since then.

If asked Brackish can remember that the old man’s name was Marcus and that he used to come to the shop every day, but he hasn’t been seen since then, not by Brackish, or by anyone else present.

Other people around are mixed in their opinions about the worm tunnels, some of them insist that it is perfectly safe, while others insist that there are vampires down there. Almost any of the locals can give directions to the tunnels. One local (A Farmer Lister) is particularly insistent that the tunnels are safe, one comes out near his field, and he travels in them on almost a daily basis.

You can use the following statistics for the sailors. There are as many or as few as you wish to use.

Sailors CR1

Male Human Fighter 1

N Medium Humanoid

Init 1 (+1 Dex); Senses Listen +0, Spot +0

Languages Common, Orc

AC 11, touch 11, flat-footed 10

hp 12 (1HD)

Fort +4 Ref +1 Will +0

Speed 30 ft. (6 squares)

Melee mwk rapier +4 (1d6+2/18-20)

Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.

Base Atk +1; Grp +3

Abilities Str 15, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 8

Feats Blind-Fight, Dodge, Improved Unarmed Strike

Skills Climb +6 (+4 ranks, +2 str), Handle Animal +3 (+4 ranks, -1 cha), Intimidate +3 (+4 ranks, -1 cha), Swim +6 (+4 ranks, +2 str).

Possessions mwk rapier, 13 gp, 15 sp, 16 cp.

Jeremiah CR1

Male Human Commoner 1

N Medium Humanoid

Init -2 (-2 Dex); Senses Listen -2, Spot -2

Languages Common

AC 8, touch 8, flat-footed 8

hp 5 (1HD)

Fort -2 Ref -2 Will -2

Speed 30 ft. (6 squares)

Melee mwk rapier -1 (1d6-2/18-20), whip -5 (1 hp damage).

Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.

Base Atk +0; Grp -2

Abilities Str 6, Dex 6, Con 6, Int 10, Wis 6, Cha 10

Feats Endurance, Toughness

Skills Disguise +2 (+2 ranks), Jump +2 (+4 ranks, -2 str), Use Rope +2 (+4 ranks, -2 dex).

Possessions mwk rapier, whip (non proficient) 13 gp, crashed donkey cart, dead donkey. He doesn’t actually own a rapier, it is included in his stats because it is highly likely that someone will throw him one to defend himself with.

Personal Info: Background: Sailor, Ht: 5' 9", Wt: 164lbs, Hair: bald, Eyes: Brown, Age: 83.

Encounter 4. The Worm Tunnels

The Purple Worm tunnels are a huge complex of tunnels that start north of town and lead to many different places on the island. The worm that dug them was killed about 10 years ago and may have been the last purple worm on the island, as no one has seen one since then. Some of the tunnels are used rather extensively and are easy to follow due to all the footprints. Those tunnels all lead to various other places on the island, most of them coming out by various plantations, farmhouses and fields. Other tunnels lead further underground and do not appear to have many footprints at all.

There is no map for the tunnel complex, as the characters will have to wander around quite a bit if they hope to find anything. The encounters below can happen in any order the GM wishes, although running them in the order presented is just fine.

It will begin raining lightly before the characters enter the tunnels.

4a. Arr’

This should happen in one of the commonly used tunnels.

You spy a light in the tunnel ahead, it appears to be moving towards you, and you can hear whistling. Coming towards you is a man in a black cloak, carrying a torch; you see that he is wearing a pair of pistols.

This is farmer Lister. The characters probably spoke to him the previous day at the Hot Dog and Pie Haven. If this happens to be the same day then he went home to change before going back out to a different bar.

He is all dressed up because he is going out drinking, and is going through the tunnels to minimize the distance he has to walk in the rain. If the characters do nothing he will tip an imaginary hat as he passes by and say “Arr’”.

Farmer Lister CR1

Male Human Commoner 1

LN Medium Humanoid

Init 0; Senses Listen +0, Spot +0

Languages Common

AC 10, touch 10, flat-footed 10

hp 8 (1HD)

Fort +1 Ref +0 Will +0

Speed 30 ft. (6 squares)

Melee none)

Ranged mwk pistol +1 (1d6/18-20)

Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.

Base Atk +0; Grp +1

Abilities Str 12, Dex 10, Con 13, Int 9, Wis 11, Cha 8

Feats Endurance, Toughness

Skills Handle Animal +3 (+4 ranks, -1 cha), Intimidate +1 (+2 ranks, -1 cha).

Possessions mwk pistol with 28 bullets, 9 gp, 10 sp, 16 cp.

Personal Info: Background: Farmer, Ht: 5' 5", Wt: 134lbs, Hair: Red, Eyes: Grey, Age: 42.

If the characters talk to farmer Lister they will find out he is a sheep farmer and one of the tunnels comes out at the edge of his field. He has recently lost about a half dozen sheep. He has been finding them in the mornings with bite marks on them. He thinks it must be some sort of animal.

4b. Old Man

Up ahead at the far range of your light source you can see what appears to be a man laying on the ground, as you come closer you can see that he is obviously dead, his neck has been ripped open and dried blood covers the ground near his body.

This is the old man who went into the tunnels several days ago to look for vampires. His backpack full of steak attracted a passing dog who killed him and dragged his backpack off. He still has 3 copper pieces in his pocket.

Characters may attempt to track to find out some information here. The track check to find the tracks of the wild dog is DC 18 +1 for every day the characters let pass since hearing about the old man. Those tracks will eventually lead out of the tunnels and into the woods, where they will be lost in a stream. The remains of a ripped up bloody backpack lay beside the stream. A DC 10 track check will find another set of tracks, a group of barefooted humanoids, who seem to be fairly lightweight, perhaps elves or goblins? Those tracks are fresher, they approach the body, stop about 5 feet away, and then turn around and head back out to the main tunnels, where the tracks get mixed up with all the other ones that are already there. Track checks made at all the rest of the keyed encounters in the tunnels can find those same tracks.

4c. River

The tunnel appears to have intersected an underground river. The slow moving water appears to be very deep, but only about 10’ wide. There looks to be a crude raft tied up to a rock on the other side. The raft strangely enough has a small sail that has been decorated with a holy symbol of Blocky. A single paddle lies on the shore near the raft.

If characters search around here they can find the evidence that people regularly eat here, specifically crumbs of food and the remains of a small fire. Several of the rocks have been carved upon. They are mostly crude drawings of fanged humans wearing capes, but there is also a picture of a man with a whip, and several messages.

The messages include the following, “Beware, Vampires past this point”, “Kim loves Donald”, and a series of scratches keeping track of something that adds up to 254, surrounding a carving of some sort of 4 legged creature that is too crude to identify.

4d. Hideout

Someone appears to be living at the end of this short tunnel. There is a small chair, a blanket, a pile of torches and a wooden box here. It looks like a fire is lit here on a regular basis.

The box contains a half empty bottle of brandy and several rather dull wooden stakes. Underneath the box is message written neatly in pencil on a sandwich wrapper. The I’s are all dotted with neat circles instead of dots.

I fear that I do not have long to live. The dreaded vampire queen has bitten me and I fear that I will soon be one of the undead. If only the vampire hunter Donald had came sooner.

The last sentence is crossed out and the entire sandwich wrapper has been crumpled up.

4e. The Lair of the Vampire Queen

You can see the flicker of torchlight around the bend. Before you can come any close you hear several voices. “You will never get away with this Vampire Queen, Lady Katarina will be here any second.” a softer voice says, “Ah, poor deluded fool, Lady Katarina has already been turned!” “You evil fiend, you will never take me alive”.

The characters come around the corner to see several short figures in the dim light, which comes from a single torch and about a dozen candles. The tunnel contains an ornate wooden chair and a crude coffin.

One of the figures is young, male and wearing and adventurers costume, he is holding a short female vampire at bay with a comically large holy symbol of Blocky. The “vampire” is wearing a long black cloak over a dirty white dress. Rising out of the coffin is a slightly taller female “vampire” dressed identically and holding a candle. Another “vampire” girl in a black velvet dress jumps out from behind a wooden throne at the party, but then she stops short and just sort of stares at the party.

The rest of the vampires (all children 10-13 years old), quickly drop out of character and stare at the party waiting for them to say something.

There are 4 children here. Their complete statistics are in the Fibber Island Sourcebook, (they probably won’t be needed, so they are not listed here). None of these children are real vampires. They did not kill the old man, although they did find his body the previous day, they left it because they didn’t want to get in trouble. They are not responsible for the dead sheep either. In fact the only thing they are really guilty of is going further into the tunnels than their parents would like. If the players appear to be carrying any of the things they left behind in the tunnels then they will ask for them back.

Donald is 12 and lives at the Bottle Shop with his father and sister Katarina. He is wearing an adventurer’s outfit, carrying a short whip, several rather blunt stakes and a very large holy symbol of Blocky. He is very protective of the girls, and everything they have here.

Katarina is a blond girl of about 11. She is wearing a black velvet dress in poor condition and is the one who jumped out at the party, she assumed that they were more of their friends. She is likely to quiz the party on what they are doing and write it all down in her notebook (which contains mostly fanciful vampire stories and listings of things that many random townspeople were seen doing). She has several blunt stakes and a large holy symbol of Blocky sitting on the ground.

Ally is a rather plain brown haired girl of about 13, she will be rather quiet and prefers to let everyone else do the talking. She is dressed in a dirty white dress with a black cloak and is carrying a candle. Ally and her sister Kim live on Port Street.

Kim is a blond girl of about 10. She was playing the vampire queen. After the initial shock of encountering the party wears off she will start fooling with her dress and her hair and will try to apologize for appearing in such a messy condition. She will also try to subtly kick a doll underneath the coffin before anyone sees it.

4f. Exit, stage left.

On your way back out of the tunnels you see the crumpled form of a black-cloaked man lying upon the ground. He doesn’t appear to be moving.

The dead body is that of Farmer Lister. He has two puncture wounds in his neck and has been completely drained of blood. He is in a well-traveled tunnel with so many tracks that tracking is impossible. He is still wearing his pair of masterwork pistols.

The end.

The real vampire (if there indeed is one) does not appear in this adventure.

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