Tales of the Table: Madness in Mire-March

Greetings, travellers.  Welcome to yet another Tales of the Table. These past few days have been good on the old idea-machine thanks to the creative stimulation powers of absorbing content from contest entries, YouTubers, and blogs which are much better designed than my own.  In particular, I've been itching to bust out a one-page dungeon, with the added challenge of seeing how little time it would take me from start to finish.  This is no new challenge, as it's something that I periodically saddle myself with just for fun.  The dungeon from my first Tales of the Table, Palace of the Pincered Prince, actually started out as one such endeavor to fit an entire dungeon on a 3x5 index card.

Of course, today's dungeon started out as a one-page dungeon, but I wasn't exactly successful.  While it only took me about an hour of work to come up with the core concepts and map it out (on one small notebook page), I did end up going off of just that page with the room descriptions, mostly just so as not to subject you to more of my awful handwriting than absolutely necessary.  This dungeon also, as the bulk of the inspiration came straight out of Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (what a wonderful fantasy name, Mordenkainen), will be the first of mine to be designed specifically with 5th edition D&D in mind.  For you GMs out there it shouldn't be too hard to make work in whatever system you so choose, but the (somewhat limited) stats provided are based in 5e.

So, with all that talking out of the way, here we go with the adventure, a tale of classic-styled D&D adventuring, ideal for a party of 3-5 characters of 3rd to 5th level, with a bit of a Lovecraftian twist.  It is a tale known as...

Madness in Mire-March

Background: South of Hollow-vale, North of the Murky Rills, there lies the tiny border region of Miremarch.  Barely a barony, one can ride its entire breadth in about half a day, yet for some reason or another, most caravans tend to languish among its misty moors, fog-cloaked hummocks, and stinking bogs for weeks or more.  Most locals who choose to remain in Miremarch's small handful of villages, whether through loyalty to their homeland or merely being too poor to leave, claim that visitors are often beset with what they call the "marsh madness."  It all started, they say, when the Marchioness went mad...

Marchioness Myrsenna "Marnie" Tervie used to be the very image of loveliness.  Though always slightly reclusive, she was a generous ruler, opening her own granaries to the public in times of need, and distilling a special variety of schnapps on her castle's grounds which were beloved by all.  She was the last to bear the name of her branch of House Tervie, the descendants of Dunstan, who slew the Dragon known as Aldenric's Bane back in the days of the Second Kingdom.  It was Marchioness Marnie's charge to keep the Wolfstone Sword, with which that noble deed was done.

The change that came over her was slow, at first barely noticeable as she spent most of her time in her tower room anyway.  As the months went by though, her transformation became more and more apparent.  The locals all said she was cursed, her hair had gone white and was falling out in clumps, her smile, once radiant, was now toothless and crooked, almost pained, as if she knew some horrible truth.  She grew bitter and spiteful, often banishing entire families of those farmers who came to her for alms when crop yields were low.  The last straw came when children started disappearing from the villages.  It didn't take long for her own footmen to leak the information to the masses.  She had been kidnapping children, murdering them, and bathing in their blood.  "It was the only way to stave off the curse," she said, "and now shall you all be damned to the deepest pits of Drondh..."

In her ravings, the townsfolk couldn't help but hear a faint glimmer of what she had been, now trapped within a shell of still-worsening madness.  After much careful deliberation, it was decided that they still loved their once-noble lady, and that she should not be executed, but rather imprisoned so that she could never again bring them or their children harm.

So it was that she came to be immured in her tower, a tiny hole in the brick-work barring her door the only link between her and the outside world.  What became of her after that few know for sure.  Most agree that her madness drove her to suicide, and that she suffered to the end.  Some, however, say that instead she conquered the curse, refusing food until she starved and allowing what possessed her to perish with her.  Still others claim that she is somehow still alive and still up there, though it has been nearly eighty years since any have set foot in that old castle.  Whatever the truth of the matter, you have been contracted by the local constabulary to go up there and search the place.  The Wolfstone Sword has been called for by the King himself, and it is up to you to find it if indeed it can still be found...

The Whole Truth:  Marchioness Marnie Tervie was tormented for years by a strange humming sound that only she could hear.  Eventually, it possessed her to begin excavating beneath the castle.  What she found was something she never expected.  A fragment of "The Spark" that created all magic in the world, was lying in a pit beneath her estate.  Merely viewing the object was enough to drive her temporarily insane and render her blind and paralyzed for several days.  Despite this, an overwhelming sense of curiosity came over her, causing her to visit it again and again, until eventually the maddening effects of communing with a field of energy beyond the scope of Human understanding proved too much for her, and the madness became permanent.  After she was immured, her madness did indeed drive her to suicide, but even as she rent her clothing, plunged the blade of her family's sword into her belly, and turned it upward to pierce her heart, the madness continued.  It prevented her from truly expiring even as her life-blood bathed the floor.  Instead, she rose as an Allip, a being of pure, tormented madness, an ethereal, nebulous form somehow suspending a sword within its vaguely-humanoid shaped mass.  Since that day, the thing that once was the Marchioness has escaped and has returned to the pit beneath her castle, where it whines and shudders, blabbering in maddening incoherence, longing only to expose others to the horrors of what one might see if one peers over the edge of one of the great boundless chasms of reality beyond what one can safely comprehend.  It is from here that she has steadily released yet more horrors unto the world, causing the diffusion of her madness, slowly allowing it to steep its way into the very soil of the Miremarch moors, just waiting for someone to wander close enough to the castle as to be compelled to investigate what lay within, and to find it.  The constable was the first, will your adventurers be next?

The Manor

First Floor:

1-1:  First to catch the eye upon entering the main hall is the old banquet table.  Once a masterpiece of well-weathered oak, polished smooth, inlaid with shell, and sitting proudly atop carved Dragon's feet, it now sits broken and rotting.  The only banquets it now serves are to wood-worms.  (Reward any high rolls on checks to look around the room, especially at the ceiling, with a brief description of the hole above, mentioned in entry 2-1).

1-2:  The great hearth, now long-cold, is flanked by statues of knights in old-styled greathelms and liveried tabards bearing the arms of house Tervie, a golden griffon holding a torch upon a blue field, as well as the arms of this particular cadet branch to which the Marchioness once belonged, two black torches on a silver fess upon a field of forest green.  There is a strange seam in the stones at the back...

1-3: An old throne of granite masoned to the wall against which it sits.  The faint residual remnants of what were once fine silk and linen cushions cling to the stone in a few places.  It was once richly adorned with cloth and paint in vibrant shades of green, white, and black, and likely liveried with House Tervie heraldry.  Upon it, beneath a small pile of cobweb-clad cloth, lies a small socketed sphere of copper-trimmed steel, set with a number of knobs.  It seems like it could be the head of a small mace or the pommel of a sword perhaps... (this is part of the Anti-Magic Axe detailed in 2-3)

1-4:  The old kitchens are empty and cold.  On the table are a few cracked horn mugs and splintered wooden plates that weren't pilfered by looters.  All the silver has been long-since stolen, the grain ark ransacked and left askew, and no fire has burned in the cooking hearth for a generation or more.  Nevertheless, there is a rusty iron pot hanging above the cold white ash.  Inside appears to be some strange, black residue.  Did it just move?...

Second Floor:

2-1:  A grand rug, elaborately embroidered with strange patterns and glyphs that seem magical in nature.  It is startlingly well preserved for being so old... (Any adventurer stepping on the rug will have to save versus falling, as there is a hole in the floor 20ft. below)

2-2:  An old hearth, smaller than that on the first floor, though still capable of holding a sizable fire.  The corners are sculpted with motifs of Fey creatures dancing.  Leaning against the wall next to it is what seems to be an old walking stick consisting of a wooden haft encased in bronze tubing. (This is part of the Anti-Magic Axe detailed in 2-3)

2-3:  A small study, separated from the dancing hall by a low archway.  Upon the table is a single book, bound in a strange type of leather, and written in some completely incomprehensible script that surely cannot be an actual language, yet seems too regular to be purely scribbles.  Next to it lies what appears to be an axe head of copper-trimmed steel, aged yet still sharp. (This is the head of the Anti-Magic Axe detailed below)

Anti-Magic Axe

Magic +1 Battleaxe, Rare (requires attunement)

-Attacks and damage with this gain a +1 bonus, which increases to +2 against ethereal foes

-This axe allows the user to cast counterspell once per long rest

"This Dwarven-styled axe of gleaming, copper-trimmed steel does not seem to have tarnished at all despite clearly being very old.  In the light, the metal seems to take on an almost purple hue, and it is engraved with various Dwarven designs, including archaic runes which were replaced sometime in the previous millennium by the modern Dwarven runic script.  It hisses with energy in the presence of magical effects, as some unknowable arcane dweomer within roils with force against it..."  

2-4:  A garderobe built into one corner of the tower which overlooks the marshy ground beneath.  Within the central hole of the old wooden "throne," there sits a small, blue pebble, seemingly suspended in a void of boundless darkness. (Closer inspection reveals this to be a sphere of lapis lazuli, but touching it will provoke an attack from the creatures generating the force.  A strange, invisible form of hanging fungus with lashing tendrils will attempt to end the fight as quickly as possible by grappling the adventurers and dragging them into the privy, where a symbiotic fungus sits as a web of hyphae which project an area of magical darkness.)

Third Floor (Tower Room):

3-1: In each corner of the room stands a truly horrid statue.  Perhaps they were originally of guardian spirits, placed there by her captors as an act of mercy and a last, futile attempt to try to cure the Marchioness of her dreadful affliction.  Whatever the case, it seems in the years she spent languishing in the darkness, the eldritch driving force of whatever controlled her has forced her to claw and chew at them as a rabid rat would at wooden cage bars.  Whatever humanoid form they once took, they all now have been gruesomely whittled into new, grotesque forms.  Each one holds a small font which may once have been filled with holy water, but now only contains the remnants of long-dried vomit or feces.  The statues themselves are heavily caked with dried blood from the Marchioness' attempts to modify them while her human form yet lived...

3-2:  In the center of the room lies a pile of bones, old cloth, wood shavings, and whatever other cast-off trash remains from when the imprisoned Marchioness once made her bed here.  Any attempts to sift through the junk will reveal that neither she, nor her bodily remains, are to be found, however the last vestiges of her darkest human emotions still linger in this place, and have collected a pile of cloth rags, wood scraps, and the bones of birds, mice, and any other small creatures unfortunate enough to be able to climb in through the window, and animated it into a being of concentrated madness and sorrow.  If it can be defeated, some minor treasures or salvageable remnants of the Marchioness' personal effects may be found among the piles of moldering material (one roll per party member on the table below).  Additionally, any searching will also uncover an old brass key, which opens the secret door behind the first-floor fireplace.

All credit for this creature's mechanics and inspiration goes to the fine folks at Paizo Publishing, upon whose "Attic Whisperer" is is based, and YouTuber Dungeon Dad, whose 5th edition stat conversion I used as a template.

Discarded Treasures (1d12):

1	A small handful of local coins, as well as a few unrecognizable foreign ones.  All are badly dented and bent as if chewed on (10gp)
2	The pieces of a small comb made of imported ivory and inlaid with shell.  It broke long ago, and is half-buried in a pile of what look to be hardened feces, but a craftsman might be willing to pay for the pieces to use as materials in fine works of art. (25gp)
3	A finely worked tin handle for what was once an eating knife.  The blade seems to have broken off and rusted away to crumbling scale long ago, but the the patterns in the tin can still be seen under the grime.  They are of a group of women dancing the traditional spring dance among a copse of pine trees. (25gp)
4	A copper chalice with niello scrollwork resembling vines.  In its present state it is filled with dried blood and mouse droppings. (25gp)
5	A half palm-sized, irregular piece of polished sardonyx, wrapped in oily, foul-smelling rags. (75gp)
6	The fragmentary remnants of old earrings, scraps of silver and brass, several broken agate pieces, and a loose garnet, within the cloth-scrap remains of the Child of Bones and Sorrows. (100gp)
7	A silvered tin torch-shaped brooch with spiral-patterned niello and cabochoned with malachite. (250gp)
8	A pair of heavily patinated silver earrings.  Each one contains an emerald briolette and two teardrop-shaped freshwater pearls arranged to resemble an ermine spot when hanging from the wearer’s ear. (300gp)
9	A tiny pendant of apparent Dwarven make.  It is hidden inside the cranial cavity of a fox skull, and missing its chain, but it is made of an exceptionally solid, tarnish-resistant alloy (osmiridium), and is wrought in the shape of a simple hammer. (450gp)
10	A simple bronze circlet with three points spaced at equal distances from each other. Each one is cast to resemble the face of a Treant, Dryad, or other being of the forest.  All are smiling. This must have once been the Marchioness’ crown of authority. If all the dirt can be cleaned off and the bronze polished it may again be quite valuable. It is magically enchanted and contains one casting per day of the friends spell. (500gp)
11	A necklace with a golden chain.  The Pendant itself is engraved with arms of the main branch of House Tervie, a golden Griffon clutching a Torch.  It is set with topaz and sapphires. At the moment it is covered with so much dried blood that the entire thing appears a dull, rust brown color. (500gp)
12	The Marchioness’ signet ring, which she once used to seal documents.  It is made of silver and set with an onyx intaglio of her personal arms which functioned as the seal, as well as a pair of small pear-cut emeralds to either side of it.  It is magically enchanted and will grant an attuned wearer advantage on intelligence (history) checks that deal with local nobility, heraldry, and ancestry. (1000gp)

Secret Undercroft:

S-1:  A grand glyph, apparently some circle of summoning or binding, is scrawled upon the floor here in a ferric dust that may well be dried, powdered blood.  It hums with a faint energy, though does not seem to exert any obvious effect.  If the Anti-Magic Axe from areas 1-3, 2-2, and 2-3 is brought into close proximity of the glyph, there will be a violent reaction as the unstable magical forces of the glyph explode, dealing 4d10 force damage to any adventurers within 10ft. (DC 15 constitution save to halve).

S-2:  The Marchioness, or what's left of her, stands before you in front of a yawning void.  Her remains are ethereal and wraith-like, yet seem to be clutching a sword close to her chest.  Is this the Wolfstone Sword for which you have come here?  Before there is any time to consider this, the thing's eyes and mouth shoot open, and a maddening babble begins to fill the room to the point where your ears ring with the horrifying sound.  As this happens, so to the sword seems to animate, and suddenly flies toward you, blade-first...

If the Marchioness and the animated sword are both defeated, the only remains they will leave behind is that of the sword, which will fall to the ground and can be recovered after 10 minutes once thr remainder of the fell energies that once possessed it have dissipated.  It is detailed below.

The "Wolfstone" Sword

Sword of the Sacred Font

Magic +1 Longsword, Rare (requires attunement)

-All attacks and damage rolls with this weapon are made with a +1 bonus

-This weapon contains a pool of energy which can heal up to 30 hit points.  The bearer may use an action to touch the engravings on the blade and release this energy.  All creatures that end their turn within 10 feet of this sword will feel a wave of calming, healing energy wash over them.  This energy heals 5 hit points per round.  Spent points may be recovered by taking a long rest, which replenishes 1d6 hit points of the pool.

"This is truly an exquisite marvel of craftsmanship.  It is an expertly made longsword of the popular current style, which is strange for an object supposedly so old..."

"This is, in fact, not the real Wolfstone Sword as born by the the first-of-his-name Dunstan Tervie back in King Aldenric's day.  It is, however, magically enchanted, and was no doubt born with honor and pride by its original possessor, whoever that may have been."

S-3:  Ahead lies a great void, a pit of seemingly infinite depth, yet you can see that deep within lies a massive, glowing object.  Some ancient scholarly accounts suggest that this is what a fragment of "The Spark," the object responsible for all magic in the world, looks like.  At any rate, the longer you stare at it, the stronger and stronger is your desire to spend more time here and learn its secrets.  For every hour an adventurer spends in the presence of this object, they must succeed on a DC 14 Wisdom saving throw or lose track of time for an additional hour. Each hour, the saving throw must be repeated, and the third successive failure will result in the adventurer going insane until cured by unique magical means.


So, there you have it, the conclusion to the goings-on in the manor, and the source of the Madness in Mire-March.  How did your adventurers fare?  Either way I hope you enjoyed this fun little one-shot adventure with stats for 5th edition D&D.  I'll definitely go back to mostly system-agnostic content from here on, but if any of you enjoyed this one and want to see more with 5e stats, I'll definitely do at least one other one this way soon.

May your road lead you ever onward to adventure,

-Armstrong