It is told that for centuries, nearby hillfolk have brought their dead to the Tomb of the Iron God, a largely-forgotten minor deity of the underworld who guards the spirits and bodies of the dead. A community of monks has maintained an ancient temple above the god's sacred underground catacombs since before recorded history, performing funeral rites and bringing bodies below to rest in the Iron God's protection. However, the monks of the temple became corrupt and venal, and under the leadership of one monk, Ardarus, they began accumulating treasure and secretly raising an army of undead to take control of the villages in the surrounding area. About a month before the adventure begins, the High Priest, who remained loyal to the Iron God's true commands, denounced the renegade monks and ordered them to bring Ardarus before the statue of the Iron God for judgment. Furious, Ardarus took and imprisoned him, seizing control of the temple to declare himself high priest. But On the very night the high priest died of starvation, it is said that the Iron God visited a terrible vengeance upon these disloyal servitors. Lightning struck from the heavens, lighting the dark skies for hours as every building of the temple complex was blasted from existence. The renegade monks were transformed into statues of living iron, still conscious but trapped in their almost-immobile bodies for all eternity. The subterranean catacombs under the temple still remain, filled with the treasures accumulated by the avaricious monks. In sooth it is also said that the god, also, remains living within his great Idol in the Sacred Catacombs where he guards the dead entrusted to him. One other being remains as well, an immortal evil imprisoned a thousand years ago by the god himself - the @Eater of the Dead (Full strength).
The adventure begins when the characters arrive in the @Hamlet of Hillvale for the first time. Unless you choose otherwise, the situation is brought to the characters’ attention by the priests of Anubis, a jackal-headed god and aspect of Yug who protects the souls of the dead, who saw their coming in an omen. Whatever the connection between the characters and the fane, they are summoned to the fane for a meeting. Very few people would ignore such a summons from the sect of the death god, even if they had no intention of obliging the temple in whatever it might be requesting. Read or paraphrase the following — The temple of Anubis is hushed and curtained with shadow –a place dedicated to the repose of the dead. The stone walls of the entrance chamber are painted with images of the jackal-headed god, various patterns of funeral processions, and a pictorial script that is presumably the secret language of the priesthood. A large, realistically-painted statue of the god stands in the place of honour, with a sacrificial altar before it. The altar is covered in flowers, bowls of grain, and an earthenware bowl holding coins of various denominations – all sacrifices made to the deity by worshippers who wander in and out of the temple’s public area. One of the priests, dark-robed and wearing a face-mask of silver and lapis lazuli is obviously waiting for someone, and when you enter he – or perhaps she, since the mask obscures the face - gestures you over. The Sect of Anubis in Hamlet of Highvale maintains a friendly relationship with the Sect of the Iron God, a lesser divine entity that, like Anubis, protects the dead. They have received dire omens about this allied temple and believe that Anubis wants them to find out, and possibly fix, whatever may have happened there. The priest does not disclose a name, because they are acting in a particular official capacity here as the temple’s public voice — while serving in this role, the priest has no personal name until the weekly rotation of assignments “We, the priesthood of Anubis, have a request for you. We have heard from travellers and omens that the sect of a lesser death god, located in the Hills of Lug on the borer of the Blackwood Forest and closer to the village of @Ironroot Bastion , has been destroyed by some unknown force. This is an allied sect, to a being called the Iron God, and our high priests want to find out what happened there. It is only 30 odd kilometres travel to the temple from Ironroot Bastion, and you will, of course, be well paid for your efforts. The basic mission to read or paraphrase changes. The priest tells the characters to call them “Final Breath,” or just “Breath” if the characters prefer.
The first two days of travel take the characters 4.5 kilometres down an existing road that leads north east toward @The Verdant Hearth and @Connach Farming Estate then 6.5 kilometres to Ironroot Bastion beyond, skirting the edge of foothills, it is then18 miles via the road south then northeast via the road into the borderlands of @The Hills of Lug and @Blackwood Forest. They will be covering ground quickly in this phase of the journey, managing a pace of 8 miles each day. They should stay in The Red Horse Inn in @Ironroot Bastion on the first night. It is a convenient place to rest for the night and also, probably, to gather some information about the temple of the Iron God (@Tomb of the Iron God (Quest)) since it is the closest big settlement to the temple. No doubt whatever story is being told by the hillfolk will have reached this far. The Red Horse Inn is a sturdy-looking courtyard of buildings, made of brick covered with a heavy coating of whitewashed plaster. It looks well-kept, with a few wall-paintings decorating the outer perimeter and a small blue dome on the roof of the main building. Rooms are available for 2gp per room per night, horses are accommodated in the stable as part of the price, and a basic meal is provided in the inn’s common room at no additional charge. Most of the inn’s patrons are in the common room, which is well-lit by candles and shines a welcoming yellow light from its windows into the courtyard. If the characters ask around, read them the following result of general gossip. You hear several rumours and some definite information about the Iron God’s temple in the hills. About two months ago, lightning filled the skies over the remote monastery. According to the rural hill-people who live near the area, all the buildings of the temple were destroyed in one night by hundreds of bolts of lightning. They believe the Iron God destroyed his own monks as a punishment for their greed. All of them agree that heretical monks had been accumulating great treasures in the underground catacombs instead of maintaining the spartan life they used to follow. So far, no one has dared to explore the catacombs, so the monks' ill-gotten treasures must still be there, ripe for the taking.
After an exhausting final day of travel, you reach the location of the Iron God’s temple @Tomb of the Iron God (Quest) . It is marked only by the iron statue of a warrior, 10 feet tall, standing at the edge of a shattered field of ruined buildings, blackened and strewn with rubble. Apparently this is all that remains of the aboveground temple buildings. All the aboveground temple buildings are reduced to ruins by divine lightning, unless you choose to map a few surviving structures. The statue is not magical and does nothing - it is not one of the “changed” priests that the characters will encounter in the temple’s subterranean complex. If the characters approach the statue, they will see that it guards the stairs leading down to the tombs, a broad staircase 10 ft wide, descending into the darkness below. There are three sections of the Tombs. First is the outer halls of the first level, where the monks lived, studied, conducted last rites for deceased villagers, and ceremonially embalmed the bodies of the dead. The second area is the inner temple — the Sacred Catacombs on the first level. These catacombs are highly sacred to the Iron God, for they contain the idol in which the god dwells, and the chamber where he imprisoned his enemy, the Eater of the Dead, in stone. The third area of the Tomb is the Sacred Catacombs of the second level. These are the serpentine passageways of the actual tombs, where dead bodies have been interred for centuries. In any of the Sacred Catacombs, on both the first and second levels, it is important for the adventurers to wear a sacred garment, the "hoods of reverence," or the characters suffer hallucinations — and even eventually die — if they remain too long without this protection. The Iron Priests: all the renegade priests in the Tombs wer