Chasing a Memory

Khara Sulwood is the only surviving descendant of the original members of the Knights of Myth Drannor. She holds her grandfather's diary of the Haunted Halls and Whisper's Crypt. Gaspar wishes for the party to buy that diary from Sulwood and track down the lost rings of Mzhentul. He will repair Surek's staff in exchange for information concerning the location of the rings and the diary.

Plot points/Scenes

The party can find Khara at the Ocean's Wake, drinking away her sorrows and regrets in her retirement. He is an older human female with great hair tied back into a thick braid, wearing plain trousers with travel stained boots and rough doublet and shirt. If the party approach her, she will fix her coal black eyes under a mass of careworn wrinkles and ask them gruffly what they want. Khara would give the diary for free. She is retired and would like someone to finish what her father started. Yet, she does not know where it is. Shortly after her arrival on Dragonrock to retire where no one could force responsibility on her again, a mind flayer named Sadram took her some of her memories in a card game. She needs them back to know where she hid the diary. The party can gather information about Sadram's location by talking to locals in the Docks District. They will learn that Sadram frequents a seedy tavern in the area called The Black Pearl. Everyone swears he cheats at cards. Khara says she has never lost a game of Three Dragon Ante and is consider the best player in history. She lost to Sadram. Upon arriving at The Black Pearl, the party will need to use their skills to navigate the dangerous crowd and find Sadram. The Mind Flayer will be sitting at a table, surrounded by several rough-looking patrons. He is wearing a black kaftan with a small silver X embroidered on the sleeve. He will be derisive towards Dalvanak and mention to Grewarum that there is a hefty reward for him in the right circles. But he will be amused and listen to what the party want. Sadram will initially refuse to give up Khara's memories, but will agree to a game of Three Dragon Ante with the party. The game will involve a deck of enchanted cards, which will require the players to make skill checks in order to prevent Sadram from cheating. The cards allow Sadram to move cards he needs into his hand without opponents noticing. The trigger has verbal and somatic components: clicking his tough and saying, "Tough one." Arcana: DC 20 sees the enchantment on any cards Sadram has in his hand. Slight of Hand: DC 18 sees when Sadram performs the triggers of the enchantment. DC 15 notices after a hand is played what the triggers are, lowering the skill check to DC 5 for next round. Insight: DC 17 sees when Sadram realizes he needs a new card for his hand to be good. Perception: DC 15 sees when Sadram plays a card that the other player already has and knows there are no duplicates. Three Dragon Ante Rules Step 1: Drawing "cards" Each player rolls 5d20. These are the "cards" in their hand. The other players shouldn't see the results, but the DM might want to see them to make sure no one is cheating. Step 2: Ante Each player chooses one card in their hand as their ante card. Follow rules as per usual, where the highest value determines the amount everyone has to ante for the gambit. Ignore the rules referring to the "leader". Since we don't care about the leader and have a fixed number of cards, ignore the rule that states you need to throw out the ante cards if several are equal. Step 3: Play Cards Each player chooses 3 cards to play from their hand. A Color Flight occurs when the 3 values form a sequence (e.g. 9-10-11 or 4-5-6), and a Strength Flight occurs when the 3 values are the same. For the color flight, follow the regular rules. For the strength flight, the player can steal gold from the stakes as per usual, but adds only one ante "card" to their hand. This is because we handwave away the other card conservation and drawing rules, which changes the card economy of the game. Step 4: Determine gambit winner Each player adds the values they played together, then add their INT modifier if it is positive, and their proficiency bonus if they specifically have proficiency with the game of 3DA. The winner of the gambit is the player who comes up with the highest total score. Of course, the winner takes the Ante and adds it to their hoard. Step 5: Running out of gold and ending the game The rule here is pretty much the same as the usual game. If at any point during the previous steps a player runs out of gold, they pay whatever they can and keep track of the gold they could not pay. This is the gold they owe to "the hole". Once the gambit winner has been decided, the players pay whatever they can to the hole. If any player runs out of gold at this step, the game is over. If the party wins the game, Sadram will begrudgingly return Khara's memories, but will attempt to steal them back in the ensuing chaos. The party will need to fight off Sadram and his allies to retrieve the diary. If the party loses, Sadram will taunt them and tell them to get out, his thugs moving to extricate the party. Once they have the diary, the party can return it to Khara, who will be overjoyed at its safe return. She will reward the party with a magical item and a sum of gold.

Parent Plot

The Lost Rings and Runes of Mzhentul

Related Locations