The Speaker in Dreams

Okay, better late than never, I suppose. This is the third 'official' adventure released for 3rd edition in the old module style, and it's for 5th-level characters with the expectation that they will get up to 7th by the end of the adventure. On the front cover we have an elf and a monk getting ready to fight what looks like a combination of a purple worm and a hydra with Lidda the rogue in serious trouble in the hydra-worm's clutches. And this isn't in a dungeon; this is in a city.

The city is called Brindinford, and it's the setting for the entire adventure; no dungeon crawling here. The premise is that there's a mind flayer who intends to recreate the ancient illithid empire and make himself a god in the process. Well, even mind flayers can have big dreams...and mental illness. This mind flayer, named Ghaerleth Axom, is an outcast after an incident with a beholder mage and a gelugon devil. So, he's decided to start building his godly empire on the surface in Brindinford.

To that end, he's gathered allies and thralls in and underneath the city, including some grimlocks and a cabal of sorcerers called Those Who Hear. There are also some wererats, just because. Axom's plan now requires him to deal with the baron and his keep, the last bastion of resistance to his control of the city.

Sounds like quite the cool place, doesn't it? There's going to be a lot of intrigue here, and it starts when the party arrives in the middle of a street festival which is attacked by the wererats. Investigating the wererats might lead the PCs to Those Who Hear. If they defeat the sorcerers, they might think the adventure is over; they babble about an alien master who speaks in their dreams (hence the title), but there doesn't appear to be one. Then someone tries to assassinate the PCs, and the baron declares martial law and begins a rule of fear and mistrust. So, the PCs are now going up against the law, which should give the paladins in the party some fun angsty roleplaying. Through finding alternate allies, the party can eventually find and face Ghaerleth Axom and free the baron from the mind flayer's influence, restoring sanity to the town and making themselves heroes. Yay!

Thanks to the Web Enhancement, we already know the neighborhoods of Brindinford. Here we only get a single page of town info before jumping into the adventure; the web enhancement is great for expanding that page.

So, this adventure is not like the previous ones where the party is just exploring a semi-static location; this one is more like the story-based adventures that began with Dragonlance way back in the day, where events happen on a schedule rather than waiting for the PCs to arrive to set them off. The first thing that happens is the players arrive at the town gates and are met by the guards. Since the baron is lawful good and wants to ensure everyone's safety and adherence to the law, peace-bonds are required in town, and wizards and sorcerers are expected to 'peace-bond' their fingers and spell component pouches. Clerics who serve neutral or evil deities must do the same with their holy symbols, and druids and rangers are to hide their divine foci. Who's missing from this list? Paladins and bards. Paladins are understandable; they're practically law enforcement wherever they go, and bards...well, bards are special.

There are guidelines for what to do if the PCs decide they don't want to obey the laws of the town; enforce these as much as possible, especially for newer players. They need to learn that being part of civilization means obeying the laws in towns that aren't evil. And Brindinford isn't evil. Yet.

Next is the fair where the wererats attack. This is another teachable moment for PCs, since area of effect spells will not only hurt the rats, but the bystanders as well. A wizard or sorcerer launching his brand-new fireball into the fray will not be considered a hero. The wererat combat can lead to the Bell tower, which is where the wererats hang out; this is where the party is likely to learn of Those Who Hear. Oh, and don't forget to check to see if PCs catch some lycanthropy when fighting the wererats.

Once the party has found and dealt with the sorcerous cabal, they can celebrate with the townsfolk who think the danger has past. Yay! This is a good spot to put some of the additional web enhancement material, too.

After the PCs have their guard down, it's time to try to assassinate them coming out of the celebration. And it's not a casual, street-level assassination attempt, either; there's an ogre mage, a grimlock assassin, two more assassins, two rogues, a cleric of Hextor with a pet lemure, and a low-level sorcerer from the cabal who survived the party's efforts. That is a serious encounter (Encounter Level 12) that might very well result in the death of one or more party members; these guys are not fooling around.

Assuming they do survive, the PCs now discover that the sorcerers babbling about 'the Speaker in Dreams' weren't kidding; Axom starts invading their dreams. Nothing serious at this point, but it lets the party know that things aren't resolved quite yet.

The next day, the baron makes his announcement. Not only does he institute martial law, he also closes the gates of the city (no one in or out), prohibits anyone from carrying weapons, shuts down the temple of Pelor and puts a bounty on the head of all of its clergy, enlists all able-bodied citizens into the new militia, and mandates that disobedience is punishable by death.

Boy...that escalated quickly.

If the PCs are alert, they might notice a gaunt, humanoid figure behind the baron as he ends his speech. This is an osyluth devil which will not start a fight but definitely will enjoy finishing one. Did I mention that the baron is known to be lawful good? The players' ears should be perking up at all of this sudden change. I'm not sure that it's a good idea to do that speech in its entirety, though. It's really heavy-handed. Maybe a gradual building up of these new edicts would have been a better idea. Start with closing the gates, then ban weapons, then the temple, etc. This gives the players less upfront warning that things are going off the rails. On the other hand, it just might be that the mind flayer is such an arrogant twit that he figures he can just dump all of this at once without issues.

If the party isn't present for the announcement and waits for the town criers, they are in for another surprise: The criers aren't human. They are, in fact, barghests. So, there's not going to be any subtlety here; the town is being patrolled not by human militia, but by infernal creatures. Things are getting worse fast. The citizens are terrified, and the temple of Pelor has been placed under new management: The devils and their allies. So much for the sorcerers being the real problem.

If the party manages to leave town, they're still going to have problems in the form of a pack of hell hounds that are looking for fugitives. However, the party can find allies outside of town, including a druidic circle who are basically neutral but are aware of what's happening in Brindinford, and a halfling encampment that is under attack by a fiendish elasmosaurus that is a stray from the infernal summonings in town. These groups can't do much in the way of fighting alongside the party, but they can provide safe havens and, in the case of the druid grove, healing.

Eventually, the party is going to have to deal with the temple of Pelor and its new management. Needless to say, this won't be easy. But that's why the PCs are there. Assuming the party can find a way to get in and actually beat the inhabitants, they can shut down the portal that is allowing the infernal creatures to enter the town.

Once that's done, the party can finally confront both the baron and the mind flayer in the baron's keep. It should be pretty clear that the baron isn't acting of his own free will, especially if they see the mind flayer hovering in the background. If Axom escapes, he can be a recurring villain later on to plague the PCs. Otherwise, they can just kill him. However, killing the baron will have repercussions; he wasn't beloved, but he was always recognized as a benevolent and wise ruler, and once the truth comes out that he was under the mind flayer's control, the townspeople will absolve him of all responsibility, and his killers will not be welcome anymore.

Oh, that creature on the front cover? It's a new creature called a Wyste. It's a Huge Aberration with 5 HD and a CR of 5, no eyes but seven tentacle attacks, as well as being immune to acid attacks. Specimens of up to 15 HD have been known to exist. It's an underground creature of alien origin, so perfect for a mind flayer pet.

So, what do I think of this adventure? It's a nice change of pace, and it would definitely be a challenge for less-experienced players (not PCs) who are used to dungeon crawling. Urban adventuring has all those pesky civilians around that can get in the way or can be of great help, depending on the circumstances. There's a handy adventure flowchart on the last page that helps the DM keep things on track depending on what the players want to do; this is most definitely not a linear adventure, at least not in the first part; the second part is very close to a railroad, I must admit.

Overall, I like this adventure and would be happy to run it for a group. Especially with the Web Enhancement, it's a fleshed-out town that could serve as a base of operations for a party after the mind flayer is dealt with, leading to other adventures in the surrounding regions. So, good work.

That's it for the month's stuff except for one more online piece that I'll deal with in a couple of days. After that, we jump into February, and there's plenty of stuff going on there. See you next time.